Saturday, September 13, 2008
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This Week’s Best Posts
10:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | This week’s most popular posts include: The Power User’s Guide to Google Chrome“Now that you’ve been enjoying Google Chrome’s headliner features and speed for almost a week now, it’s time to dig into the less obvious functionality and options you don’t already know about.” Next G train torture test no problem for YouTube“After a quick change of cabin necessitated by a non-functioning power outlet, the Next G train torture test is fully underway. The most surprising result so far? The ease of using YouTube.” Digital radio for Australia even further away “The Australian radio industry has been talking up the potential of digital radio — better signal, multiple channels, on-screen information such as who’s talking or what track is playing — for years, but never seems to progress much beyond limited trials.” A First Look at OpenOffice.org 3.0“Free, alternative office suite OpenOffice.org’s latest version 3.0 is now available for download by testers.” Lifehacker Readers’ Free Replacements for Paid Tools“We highlighted a few of our favourite free replacements for paid tools about two weeks ago, and boy, did you respond. From Adobe replacments to Windows utilities, niche graphics apps to virtualisation, our readers had a wealth of no-cost alternatives to recommend.” iTunes 8 First Look“iTunes 8 is not jam-packed with new functionality, but the new Genius feature–which boasts smart, automatic playlist creation–has us madly refreshing the iTunes download page.” Top 10 Up-and-Coming Products“More than 100 companies are strutting their stuff at the Demofall ‘08 and TechCrunch50 conferences out on the West coast this week.” Rip Full DVDs to your Hard Drive without the Nasty DRM“The obsolete dinosaur of proprietary media players, RealNetworks, introduces a new DVD-copying tool today called RealDVD…” Eight Best KeePass Plug-Ins to Master Your Passwords“A good password management application makes your life easier and your identity monumentally more secure, and free application KeePass–the most popular password manager among Lifehacker readers–is the perfect place to start.” Five Best Calendar Applications“Nothing’s more important to your productivity arsenal than a solid scheduling tool, and considering so much of what we do happens at the computer, a good calendar application is just the thing to bring order to your agenda.” More »
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Speed.io Measures Your Bandwidth and More
9:00AM Adam Pash | Web site Speed.io is a web-based speed-testing tool for measuring your upload and download bandwidth. Speed tests like this aren’t really new—for example, I’ve always been partial to Speakeasy’s Speed Test—but Speed.io rounds out its test with a few other cool measurements, including number of connections per minute and average ping time. It’s always useful to have a bandwidth test like this in your bookmarks when you’re troubleshooting your connection (and making sure your ISP is giving you what you’re paying for), and Speed.io certainly looks bookmarkable. Don’t like it? Share your favourite bandwidth test in the comments. Speed.io More »
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OnionMap Maps Interactive Guides of Popular Destinations
8:00AM Adam Pash | Web site OnionMap hosts interactive, high-resolution tourist maps of popular destination cities across the globe. From New York to Tokyo and San Francisco to London, OnionMap brings the look and feel common to tourist maps to a Google Maps-like drag-and-drop interface. You can browse popular attractions, find your hotel, pick out a restaurant, and in general just find your way around. It’s probably not what you want to use to map out your entire trip, but if you’re in search of tourist traps and trappings, OnionMap might be worth a look. OnionMap [via Digital Inspiration] More »
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StopForwarding.Us Requests a Contact Does Just That
7:00AM Adam Pash | Web site StopForwarding.Us sends a polite, anonymous email to a contact asking them to stop spamming your inbox with forwards. Explaining to a contact—especially one you don’t know all that well—that you’re not keen on their forwarding habit can be a touchy situation. StopForwarding.Us makes it easy: Just submit the spammer’s name and email address, and the site will send them an email asking them to please stop their forwarding habit. For example: Please do not forward chain letters, urban myths presented as truth, potentially offensive jokes, videos or photos without being asked or first receiving permission. If your contacts don’t have great email etiquette, StopForwarding.Us is a nice site to have on hand. StopForwarding.Us [via Download Squad] More »
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OpenTarget Mimics Vista’s Open File Location Feature
6:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: If you’ve got a shortcut on your desktop and—rather than opening the file it’s pointing to—you want to find the actual file on your hard drive, Windows Vista has a handy Open file location entry in its context menu. The OpenTarget shell extension brings the same functionality to XP, adding an entry to your context menu when you right-click a shortcut to Open Target Folder. Clicking it takes you directly to the folder containing the file. This handy little extension may not be for everyone, but if you spend much time chasing down shortcuts, it’s a nice tool to bring XP up to speed with Vista. Add Open Target Folder Option To Windows Explorer Context Menu [via FreewareGenius] More »
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Single Email Interruption Recovery Time Over a Minute
5:30AM Gina Trapani | Yet another reason to shut down your email client (or close your Gmail tab) and process messages in batches: a study shows that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by email. That’s more than a minute per email, and could easily add up to hours over a given workweek for those of you with particularly active inboxes. [SMH via CNet] More »
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Microsoft Phone Data Manager Syncs Your Phone Wirelessly
4:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Microsoft’s free Phone Data Manager syncs contacts, music, pictures, and videos between your phone and your desktop and the web. More specifically, the contacts are synced to the internet with Windows Live (meaning you’ll need a Windows Live login), and the media is synced with any folder you choose on your desktop. Microsoft Phone Data Manager syncs over USB or Bluetooth, and Microsoft has published a list of supported and unsupported phones. The list only includes phones they’ve actually tested, meaning if yours isn’t on either list, you may still be in luck. The Windows-only application is currently in beta and is free to download. We don’t have a supported phone on hand, so let’s hear how it works for you in the comments. Microsoft Phone Data Manager Beta [via Life Rocks 2.0] More »
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Make Your Linux Desktop More Productive
2:00AM Kevin Purdy | Apple has convinced millions that they can make the switch from Windows to OS X, but those curious about Linux have to see for themselves if they can work or play on a free desktop. The short answer is that, for most halfway tech-savvy people who aren’t hardcore gamers, yes, you can. There are positively addictive productivity apps available for Linux, along with tools to make switching between Linux and other systems easy, or just running Windows programs themselves if you need to. Today we’re detailing a Linux desktop that helps you move quickly, work with Windows, and just get things done; read on for a few suggestions on setting it up. More »
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iPhone 2.1 Update Available from iTunes
1:59AM Adam Pash | The latest iPhone software update is now available from iTunes, so plug in that phone and click Update for the numerous smashed bugs, improved signal strength, better battery life, and Genius playlist creation. If you’ve updated, let’s hear what improvements you’ve noticed in the comments. More »
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