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10 tips for finding rental accommodation easily

8:00AM Sarah Stokely | The newspapers are all atwitter about how competitive the rental property market is at the moment – particularly in Sydney. But even in a competitive market you can make househunting a lot easier for yourself by following a few simple steps. I just rented a lovely house in a popular inner city suburb of Sydney for less than I expected to pay – and it only took me two days of looking at houses. Here’s how I did it. More »

Easy Windows Networking with Leaf

12:40AM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: Need to grab files from your home computer or quickly set up a friend’s computer for file sharing? Leaf, a peer-to-peer application, creates quick and simple VPN connections between machines. Install and run the software, create a user account and click the “Share” tab to get started. As with most networking products that aren’t SSH or similarly encrypted, one shouldn’t share sensitive information over something like Leaf, but it could make for an easy way to share files, printers and even network drives. Leaf is a free download for Windows XP and Vista and requires Microsoft .NET framework. Leaf Networks [via Digital Inspiration] More »

Micromanage Your Widescreen Monitor with AutoSizer

6:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Freeware application AutoSizer automatically resizes and moves application windows to specific, user-defined sizes and screen locations as soon as they’re opened. That means that if you’ve got a widescreen monitor with the perfect window layout that packs every last pixel with useful information, you can save each window size and location with AutoSizer and restore the perfect layout automatically, day after day, as soon as you launch the applications. Alternately, if you’d prefer an application to open maximised or minimised, AutoSizer can take care of that, too. AutoSizer is freeware, Windows only. For similar but manual takes on screen real estate maximisation, check out Sizer and WinSplit Revolution. AutoSizer [via CyberNet] More »

Take Vim with You with GVim Portable

1:40AM Gina Trapani | Windows only: Love Vi and want it and all its settings with you on every Windows PC you use? Grab a copy of GVim Portable, a self-contained, thumb drive-friendly version of the GVim (GUI Vi Improved) text editor, which includes with a configurable .vimrc and GVimPortable.ini that customises and contains all your preferred settings. Reader Mike sent in a screengrab of his GVim Portable setup sportin’ a bitstream font (pictured above.) GVim Portable is a free download for Windows only. Thanks, Mike! GVim Portable Home Page [Sourceforge] More »

Organize MP3 Metadata with Ex Falso

1:00AM Kevin Purdy | Linux only: Tired of seeing your songs show up as “01.mp3″ in your music player? It’s due to bad metadata tags on your music files, a frequent side effect of music sharing services and hasty CD rips. Former editor Rick Broida showed us how to tame our music libraries into shape with Windows programs, but Linux users have a nice option as well. Desktop utility Ex Falso fixes MP3, Ogg Vorbis and other files manually or based on filenames, and includes a feature to quickly set track numbers. Ex Falso is a free download available in many Linux repositories (search for the package exfalso), requires the GStreamer 0.10, PyGTK, GTK+ 2.8, Mutagen 1.9, and Python 2.4 packages, and is also available as a source download. Ex Falso / Quod Libet [via FOSSwire] More »

Create A Backup Image of Your System with DriveImage

7:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Freeware application DriveImage XML creates and restores images of any drive or partition on your system. That means that next time you freshly install Windows on your computer (whether XP or Vista), you can back up that clean and sparkling system state with DriveImage XML. If things get messy down the road, you can just as easily restore that fresh system state with the program’s simple interface. We’ve given you the complete guide to system partition imaging and restoring from the open source perspective, but the freeware, Windows-only DriveImage XML offers a much more user-friendly alternative for the faint of heart. DriveImage XML [via FreewareGenius] More »

More Color Scheme Control with Agave

12:00AM Kevin Purdy | Linux only: Webapps like colr.org are great for exploring colour theme ideas, but some users might require a little more fine-tuning. Enter Agave, a program for GNOME-based Linux systems that gives you more than enough colour information to plan your web site, desktop theme or design projects. Choose from standard palettes, use a Photoshop-like selection tool to grab any colour on your screen or manually set color, saturation and brightness levels to save in a list of favorites. Agave is a free download for Linux systems only, available as a source download and in many standard repositories. Agave [via FOSSwire] More »

Back Up Your Boot Camp Partition with Winclone

6:45AM Gina Trapani | Mac OS X only: Afraid of screwing up your Boot Camp partition when you upgrade to Leopard? Free application WinClone images your Windows Boot Camp partition for easy restoration to the same or another partition, just in case. The Leopard upgrade shouldn’t disturb your Boot Camp setup, but a backup image is nice insurance, especially if you want to resize the partitions on your Mac’s drive. WinClone can image an XP or Vista Boot Camp install. As always, back up your important data before using WinClone, which is a free download for Mac only. Winclone [via Apple Discussions] More »

Keep Up with Your Unread Bookmarks with Readeroo

4:00AM Adam Pash | Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Firefox extension Readeroo integrates with your Del.icio.us bookmarks to make keeping up with your backlog of unread links a cinch. Let’s say you stumble onto a link on Lifehacker that you’re dying to read, but—weirdly enough—you’re at work and can’t get to it (damn boss looking over your shoulder). Rather than tossing it carelessly into your ever-expanding, unmanageable pile of unread bookmarks, add it to Del.icio.us by clicking your Readeroo Add button—which automatically bookmarks the link in Del.icio.us with a “toread” tag. When you finally get a spare minute or two, just click Readeroo’s Read button to cycle through your unread links and automatically tag the item “donereading” (the actual tags used are customisable if you don’t like the defaults). If you still prefer adding and tagging your Del.icio.us bookmarks using a more robust extension like Del.icio.us Complete, you can still do so—just tag the item with “toread” and Readeroo will pick up on it. You’ll need to provide the extension with your Del.icio.us username and password the first time you use it. If you’ve got an unwieldy mess of Del.icio.us bookmarks you’ve never gotten around to reading, this extension is a must-have. Readeroo is a free download, works wherever Firefox does. Readeroo [Monsur via the How-To Geek] More »