How To Find And Get Involved With A Hackerspace 
What Are The Hourly Rates For IT Contractors? 
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) Del.icio.us user Tim Bonnemann puts the bookmarking service to clever use: to save words, slang, and phrases he wants to remember. Whenever he comes across words or an idiom or slang he doesn’t know, Bonnemann looks it up on Urban Dictionary, Wikipedia, or a German-to-English dictionary and tags the look-up page “dictionary” in his bookmark list. Fabulously clever way to increase your vocabulary and help yourself retain new words without too much effort. Here’s Bonnemann’s bookmarks tagged dictionary. Thanks, Marshall!
The Geek Tonic weblog details how to use a remote control with your Netflix Watch Now videos. The tutorial takes advantage of several tools, most notably a shareware app called Girder. This method will work if you’re desperate to add some remote control functionality to Watch Now videos, but it’s also a nice introduction to adding remote capabilities to any program. If you’re already using Windows Media Center on your Vista machine, this previously mentioned plug-in will give you the same Netflix remote functionality and more. Control Netflix Watch Now Playback with Your Remote Control [Geek Tonic]
Live from the 2008 Weblog Awards: I’m so very pleased to announce that Lifehacker was just awarded the title of Best Computer or Technology Weblog! Adam, Tamar, and Gina are here at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, where some incredible web writers and designers were honored in over 30 categories in the Bloggies. Big congratulations to our sister site Jezebel for taking home two Bloggies. As for us, we’re grinning with pride to even get nominated next to such big names like Wired, Gizmodo, Engadget, and Geekologie. Thanks again for all your votes, comments, time, and support this year. Rock!
Firefox with Greasemonkey: Google Reader Filter is a free Greasemonkey user script that takes a list of user-defined keywords and automatically highlights any items in Google Reader whose contents match any word in your matchlist. The script’s filtering does not remove posts from Reader, so you won’t miss any content—you’ll just have your attention drawn more closely to the matching items with the highlighting (though clearly a toggle option to truly filter matches would be useful). Google Reader Filter is free to install, requires Firefox with the Greasemonkey extension. I had mixed results with it, so let’s hear how it works for you in the comments. Google Reader Filter [Userscripts via Google Operating System]
Business-focused online apps suite Zoho adds yet another product to the mix: Zoho People launches today with the aim to help your company’s HR department keep track of the org chart, recruit candidates, and quickly fill out expense and vacation forms. Here are some screenshots.
Two years ago on Lifehacker, you pimped out your Mac Mini, used AutoHotKey to reduce repetitive typing, and gobbled up to-do’s like Pacman pellets. One year ago, you learned some nifty cell phone tricks and how to monitor your Mac with GeekTool.
Even if you do all your banking online, there’s still one ugly time of year when you’ve got to deal with a pile of financial paperwork, and that’s tax time. If your accountant accepts forms via email, or you just want to save tax documents on your computer, you want a quick and easy way to do it. While most scanner workflows require several steps to digitise documents, the Fujitsu ScanSnap transforms paper into PDF with a single button press. No one wants to spend more time than they have to on receipts, 1099′s and W-2′s. Let’s take a look at how to instantly capture tax-related and other important paperwork to your hard drive on April 15th and throughout the year with the ScanSnap.
Linux/Gnome application launcher Gnome-Do is turning into one mighty powerful app/data organiser, due in no small part to the wealth of plug-ins cobbled together by an eager fan base. To extend Gnome-Do’s powers to music management, Gmail, system functions, and other tasks, Ubuntu Tutorials has put together a simple guide to installing plug-ins for the launcher, a trick that’s not readily apparent for first-time users. There’s also links to some of the neater plug-ins available, such as those found at the Ubuntu wiki. Found yourself using and digging Gnome-Do’s functions? Have your own must-use plug-in? Share the alt-space wisdom in the comments. How To Install Gnome-Do Plugins [Ubuntu Tutorials]
Windows only: If there’s only a few things most Microsoft Vista upgraders and naysayers can agree upon, one likely talking point is that Vista’s fonts are generally clean, smooth, and a step up from XP. Getting the newer fonts in XP doesn’t have to involve illegal downloads and system tweaking, however—as the gHacks tech blog points out, simply installing Microsoft’s PowerPoint Viewer 2007 installs a bundle of Vista fonts in XP that you can use as your system defaults. Once installed, head to your display properties, then hit the Appearance tab to select a system-wide font. You’ll also want to enable ClearType, which, luckily, we’ve covered before. PowerPoint Viewer 2007 is a free download for Windows only. PowerPoint Viewer 2007 [Microsoft via gHacks]
The School of Fibre Science & Technology at the University of New South Wales has a simply-formatted chart that compiles some of the best stain-fighting wisdom around. Some of these ideas we’ve covered before, but here’s a few no-purchase-necessary treatments from a source I’m inclined to trust:IRON RUST—Soak stain in lemon juice. Rinse and wash. TEA—Rinse immediately with cold water and wash according to fabric. For dried stain, damp with cold water and sprinkle with borax. Pour hot water through the stain. Rinse well and wash according to fabric. BLOOD—Soak in cold salted water (1 teaspoonful to 1 pint) for at least an hour. Wash in warm soapy water.
