Windows only: The Trinity Rescue Kit is a free Linux live CD designed to help with common Windows tasks. Among Trinity Rescue Kit’s many features, it can reset lost or forgotten Windows passwords, clone NTFS-formatted Windows drives, recover lost or deleted files, and recover lost partitions. TRK joins the ranks of other rescue-based live CDs, like previously mentioned BartPE or the Knoppix boot CD. If you’re using TRK to reset passwords, you may want to try cracking that password with the OphCrack Live CD method rather than hazarding with a password reset. Trinity Rescue Kit [via gHacks]
PicLens is a browser addon for Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari which lets you view images from a number of popular sites including Flickr and Google Images, in a full screen, 3D environment.
Apart from being a pretty way to browse images, it’s also practical – it lets you view large number of images very quickly.
The way it works is when you’re on a page which supports PicLens (and it’s a lot of the major ones, including Google Images and Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace and Deviant Art) or any site which supports Media RSS, you can mouse over any image and click the PicLens button that appears. This will bring up a 3D gallery called “The Wall” which stretches into the distance. You can rapidly scroll through it, then click on an image to see it in full size.
I get the feeling my description is not doing it justice, and I know the screenshot doesn’t do it justice (hit the jump to see it). Check out the demo video to get a feel for just how beautiful it looks and how beautifully it navigates.
Yesterday I had the great pleasure of being a guest on G4′s Attack of the Show, where I got to talk about what the heck life hacking is and the new Lifehacker book, Upgrade Your Life. As promised, a video clip of the interview with my pal Chris Hardwick is after the jump.
Windows only: Freeware plug-in Call Graph integrates with the popular VoIP application Skype to record your Skype as MP3s and organize those recordings with a simple interface. Once installed, you can set Call Graph to automatically record all of your Skype calls, or you can choose to start and stop recording manually during a call. After you record a call, you can rename and add relevant information to the call data—which comes in handy when you use Call Graph to search your index of recorded calls. There are many Skype recording tools out there, but most come with a price or limitations. The freeware, Windows-only Call Graph has no limitations, and while its current interface is spare, it’s simple to use and does the job. Call Graph [via Online Tech Tips]
If you’ve finally succumbed to the email tractor beam that is Gmail but still have email sitting around in other accounts, it’s not hard to suck in those old messages into your Gmail archive. The Official Gmail blog runs down how. In short, you’re setting up Gmail’s POP mail fetcher to grab messages from your old accounts, with a little automatic label-and-archive action thrown in for good measure. Tips for importing old email to Gmail [Official Gmail Blog]
Web site NSFW.in is a URL-shrinking web application à la TinyURL with a twist, allowing users to share Not Safe For Work (NSFW) links without fear of compromising your poor, unsuspecting friend. When you follow a NSFW.in link (like this one, which actually is safe), you’ve got to confirm that you are indeed ready to view a web page that’s potentially not safe for a work environment. Confirm, and you’re through, reveling in the work-unfriendly filth of the dirty, dirty link. Now disperse, and share NSFW links across the internet with impunity!
Auto-complete is one of those features that gets more and more convenient the more you use it—so losing it completely on a new system, or just new Outlook installation, can be a shock. The Tech Recipes blog details the process for hunting down, copying, and pasting your .NK2 file from system to system, saving you the trouble of re-training your email mind. For most users, the file can be found in your “Application Data” (XP) or “App Data” (Vista) folders, nested inside “Microsoft->Outlook.” For help on actually editing and removing entries from Auto-Complete, check out NK2View. Outlook: Transfer AutoComplete Addresses to a New Computer [Tech-Recipes.com]
The Re-Nest blog gets its list on in a serious way, offering 27 uses for lemons and other citrus fruit around the house. We’ve gone there before, but one item stood out as a great idea: Whitening tennis shoes, or any white athletic shoe, by spraying them with lemon juice and placing them in the sun. For runners living in cold and often salty climates or wishing their kicks looked a bit less muddy, it’s worth a try. 27 Household Uses for Citrus Fruit [via TipNut]
Wondering why every single link from YouTube’s front page is going to *sigh* that Rick Astley video? It’s April Fools’, of course, and Google is all up on it. Here’s a handy guide to what’s real and what’s not today in the Google-verse. [Google Blogoscoped]
When you’re installing Windows in a virtual machine or on old, slow hardware, you want the leanest, meanest and fastest-running configuration possible. Most of the time, you want the best from your operating system, including all the bells and whistles. Other times, you don’t want the default, bloated Windows installation, with every single built-in feature slowing you down. Luckily, whether you want to put Windows on a diet in a virtual machine or you want to get Windows up and running all snappy-like on older hardware, you’ve got a handful of excellent and free options at your disposal. Let’s take a look at a few ways to trim down your Windows installation so that it takes up less space on your hard drive and eats less RAM while it’s running.
