Popularity always comes at a price. BBC News reports that hackers are increasingly looking to Facebook as a means of harvesting information, with five separate “viral” applications seeking to gather user information under false pretences in the last week. Lifehacker regulars are probably already well-versed in treating any requests from anywhere with suspicion, but with Facebook now numbering more than 175 million active users, that’s a lot of less-clued-up noobs waiting to be victimised. Do you think Facebook is at risk from the wave of hacking attacks, or is its bigger problem maintaining interest levels among more jaded users? Share your thoughts in the comments. Facebook users suffer viral surge
Corporate coffee chains often strike Wi-Fi deals with a particular provider, but if you want genuinely free Wi-Fi, you’re going to need to stick to independent cafés. (Of course, you’ll also get better coffee.) Laptopfriendlycafes.com simplifies that task by listing cafés complete with details of whether they supply free Wi-Fi, power outlets and what their 3G reception is like (though the latter isn’t broken down by provider). The listings are currently limited to just four major cities — Sydney, Melbourne, London and New York — and they’re not yet comprehensive, but given time and some user support this could turn into a really useful resource for workers on the go. Laptopfriendlycafes.com
Lifehacker reader haute negro took advantage of Gmail’s new user-defined custom themes to create an attractive, easy-on-the-eyes Gmail Dark theme. Apart from the custom theme, haute negro’s customised Gmail inbox also takes advantage of the new multiple inbox feature in Gmail Labs to keep an eye on several different Gmail buckets at once. We like it. Custom Gmail Theme – Dark [Flickr]
Mac OS X only: Free application AddressBookSync pulls contact photos and birthdays from your Facebook account and syncs them with Address Book, so you’ll always nice photos assigned to your contacts (and hopefully never miss another birthday). Once upon a time we covered a very cool app called FacebookSync that could sync all of your Facebook friends’ profile info—including address and phone number—into your Address Book. The folks at Facebook killed that app for violating their Terms of Service, but apparently AddressBookSync’s limited photo-and-birthday information pull is within the bounds of acceptable use. Since nearly everyone you know is on Facebook these days, AddressBookSync’s photo synchronisation alone is a fun and worthwhile feature.I was looking at an iPhone app earlier today called Photo Phonebook (iTunes link) that offers another seemingly smooth solution to this problem (it syncs Facebook profile pics with your iPhone contacts), but unfortunately it requires way more hoop jumping than it’s worth. AddressBookSync on the other hand is a simple, free download, Mac OS X only. Got your own, perhaps better method of getting pics assigned to your contacts? Let’s hear it in the comments.
AddressBookSync [via Download Squad]Web application Icon Grabber takes a Favicon, the little icon in the address bar, and saves it to PNG, GIF or JPG format from any web site.Using the web application couldn’t be simpler—just paste in the URL, select the output format, click the Grab It button, and then right-click and save the grabbed icon from the page. Once you’ve saved the icon you can use it in a dock or launcher application that supports regular image files. Note that even without using this application, you can download the favicon as an ICO file from almost any website by simply appending /favicon.ico to the end of the URL, and using the right-click menu to save to a file—but converting icons to image format takes another step. Icon Grabber is free, simple, and easy to use. To create your own Favicons, use previously mentioned Favicon Generator, then assign them to any Firefox bookmark with the Favicon Picker extension, or you can just block distracting animated favicons.
Icon Grabber [via Of Zen and Computing]Windows only: If you like to keep a close eye on what changes new software installations make to your system, SpyMe Tools provides step-by-step snapshots of your registry and shows you what’s changed. The in-depth review of your system registry that SpyMe Tools provides may be overkill for some people, but if you need to track changes or troubleshoot problems after certain installations, it can be invaluable. It’s simple to use: after you install the program, you run a system sweep with SpyMe Tools and save the results. After installing new applications or making system changes, you can compare the previous system state to the current one, and SpyMe Tools will show you all the changes. In addition to doing a before and after comparison of system snapshots, you can even run it in real time while installing software to see the changes as they happen. If you’re interested in a more automated solution, check out previously reviewed Revo Uninstaller, a thorough application remover that our commenters frequently compare just about every system tool to (and that’s why we love you). SpyMe Tools is freeware, Windows only.
SpyMe Tools [via gHacks]Fancy yourself an aficionado of online video? Curate your own long-playing video playlists with Embedr, a new site that links together online videos from popular video sites (including YouTube) into one embeddable video extravaganza. The service is a breeze to use: You’ll need to create an account to make your own playlists, or just head to the site and enjoy some compilations (like the “Best Moments from Lost” video embedded here). Creating playlists is as simple as pasting the URL or embed code from any of the many supported sites. Like the idea? If you give it a go, share your video compilations in the comments.
Embedr [via TechCrunch]Reader LuckyRoller’s Mac desktop blends system monitoring functions with a photograph wallpaper for a unique, three-dimensional look similar to the previously featured Sleek Wood Desktop.
Windows only: Shutdown Suite is a series of tiny executables you can use to immediately shut down, reboot, or log off Windows—great for desktops, keyboard shortcuts, and app launchers. With these tiny little utilities hanging around, you won’t have to mess around with command line variables or editing your registry to make a quick exit from Windows. The ZIP file for Shutdown Suite contains both an installer, which will place a shortcut menu in your system tray, and the stand-alone executables. Extracting just the stand alone executables is a bit more practical, as you get a set of six .EXE files, one for each “instant” and “safe” version of LogOff, Reboot, and Shut Down as seen in the screenshot above, with none of the extra menu and system tray clutter that comes with the full installation. Shutdown Suite is freeware, Windows only.
Shutdown Suite [via Elite Freeware]Windows only: Portable file search utility SearchMyFiles finds files with a comprehensive set of search options accessible from a single screen—making powerful search easy without remembering complicated keywords. Using the application is as simple as launching the single executable, entering in your search criteria and looking through the list of results. SearchMyFiles easily does searches that simply aren’t available or require a complicated set of search criteria in the Windows default search engine, from searching for hidden, encrypted, compressed, read only files, or files in a specific date range—making this a powerful addition to your flash drive toolkit. SearchMyFiles is a free download for Windows only. For a similar portable application with built-in preview, check out previously mentioned IndexYourFiles, or take a look at our five best desktop search applications.
SearchMyFiles [via Life Rocks 2.0]
