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What Do You Do With Your Gadgets When You Move Overseas? 
The Lifehacker Total Security Guide 
Spotify And Its Rivals: Subscription Music Services In Australia Compared 
The Stupid Things You Do On Facebook (And How To Fix Them) 
How To Kill Time Productively On Your Phone Two years ago on Lifehacker, you decided that it was time to keep—or toss—that old PC and beta tested your goals. One year ago, you used IMAP to sync your address book, copied DVDs to your portable media player, supercharged your Firefox downloads with the DownThemAll extension, tried out Adam’s top 13 iTunes AppleScripts, and downloaded Lifehacker’s Ly Detector Greasemonkey script which highlights words that end with -ly.
For those among us who just can’t seem to keep on top of their plants’ watering schedules, web site Botanicalls details how to create a piece of equipment that will send Twitter status updates to let you know whenever your plant needs water. Making the gadget in this very detailed tutorial won’t cost you much, but it does require the odd bit of soldering skills every now and then, which is a showstopper for some (unless you wanted to learn how). If you prefer automation to this somewhat convoluted (but fun) solution, check out this DIY automated drip system. Botanicalls Twitter DIY [via Make]
US-centric: If you’ve been dying to try out the one-number-to-rule-them-all phone service GrandCentral, but have been stymied by their move to a closed, invite-only beta following Google’s acquisition of the service, you’ll be glad to know that GrandCentral has opened up to users of Google’s Blogger. If you’re still undecided about whether or not GrandCentral is for you, check out our extensive review and gallery of GrandCentral. If you’ve been a user of GrandCentral since we first posted about it, let’s hear how you’re liking it in the comments. Thanks Jason! GrandCentral Signup through Blogger Invite [GrandCentral]
Are you happy with the results people get back when they Google your name? If not, there are easy ways to monitor and guide what information is published about you online. Two years ago we covered how to have a say in what Google says about you, and more recently, and how to track down anyone online. But a rash of social media sites have arisen that give you more tools to help you manage your online reputation and become more findable. Let’s take a look.
Want an easy way to share DRM-free music from your iTunes library to your friends? Twist me!, a Facebook app developed alongside the DRM-stripping DoubleTwist application, offers a fairly convenient way to do just that. You and anyone you share with have to have the desktop client installed, unfortunately, but files up to 10 MB in size can be passed back and forth from the Facebook app, or even from inside iTunes itself. Luckily, Wired’s How-To Wiki has just posted a helpful guide for getting started with both the desktop client and Facebook sharing. Both DoubleTwist and Twist me! are free, but still Windows only at this point. Share MP3s With Your Facebook Friends Using DoubleTwist [Wired How-To Wiki]
Does waking up in the morning always feel like lining up for a race you’ll never finish? If so, Trent at The Simple Dollar finance blog has a suggestion for both your mood and your daily tasks. First off, make a list of every goal you’re trying to reach, ranging from “Clean the fridge” to “Start long-term investment plan.” Then … Go through that list and eliminate a lot of them. Eliminate the ones that don’t leave you yearning to achieve them. Keep them only if you absolutely must do them. Try really hard to winnow the list down as small as you can.
Windows only: Ryan at the CyberNet blog has posted up a shortcut written in AutoHotKey but running on any system, that lets you make a “roll click”—or holding down the left mouse button, then hitting the right—to activate Windows window-switching interface, usually accessed through the Alt+Tab key combination. Actually, Ryan’s script uses the Ctrl+Alt+Tab combo, which keeps the window options open until you click one to switch. We’re usually more fond of keeping our hands on the keys here at Lifehacker, but for those comfortable with their laptop trackpads or just handier with a mouse, this script—and others like it found at CyberNet—are nice tweaks. The basic AltTab Mouse Shortcut program requires Windows Vista, since XP and earlier lack the Ctrl+Alt+Tab function, but XP-friendly versions are available at the link below. AltTab Mouse Shortcut [CyberNet]
Windows only: Get a find-as-you-type page search function in Internet Explorer that’s almost identical to Firefox’s long-touted feature with a free download from programmer Sven Groot. The IE add-on doesn’t have much in the way of configuration options, but it adds an inline search bar in-between your address bar and tabs, jumping to words and phrases as you find them and turning red if it can’t find the next letter. We’ve previously featured a similar add-on, but Groot’s tool is updated for Vista support, as well as 64-bit downloaders. Find As You Type is a free download for Windows systems only. Find As You Type for Internet Explorer [via gHacks]
US-centric: Tired of getting phone calls from the same 800-type phone number, but have no idea who’s calling? 800Notes, a free user-submitted reverse phone directory, lets you see who might be ringing, whether it’s a sales firm, debt collection agency, or other cloaked caller. Whether or not you find a match depends on if anybody else has reported the identity of the caller, but many of the matches have useful information, like a caller’s experience in trying to get the other end to stop calling. For those who’ve recently changed numbers or seem to attract false debt collection calls, it’s definitely worth a bookmark for when Google searching fails. 800Notes [via MakeUseOf.com]
The built-in Google Talk client in Gmail has added an “Invisible” option to the status dialog, letting you appear offline or unavailable to other Gchat users, but able to see who’s online and start a conversation under the radar. The feature doesn’t appear to be available in Google Talk’s standalone client, and, in fact, signing into Talk will nix your stealthy status if you’ve got Gmail open simultaneously. Seems like a good way to keep distractions at bay (or at least be distracted only when you choose). The “Invisible” feature is only available to users of the new Gmail interface. For more chat-when-you-want-to control, check out a tool to auto-set your status to idle when busy. Invisible Mode in Gmail Chat [Google Operating System]
