Tester invites started going out to the dramatically-overhauled new Yahoo Calendar beta, and we were one of the lucky ones to give it a spin. The new look and feel brings YCal into 2008 (finally!) with a dynamic interface including drag and drop events, Flickr integration, multiple calendar subscriptions and—gasp!—a built-in to-do list. For too long, YCal has looked like it was stuck in 1998, even though it launched way earlier than Google Calendar or other flashy web-based calendar tools, so we're thrilled to see it get back in the game. Let's take a look at the new YCal beta in action; a full screenshot and a quick screencast are yours below.

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Windows only: Small utility KallOut integrates into popular desktop programs such as Outlook, Adobe Acrobat, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer and Firefox and lets you search the web for text found there. Simply highlight text inside the application (like PowerPoint) and right click to choose your search engine. Here's a video demonstration of the integration:

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Photoshop funny-man Donnie Hoyle tackles displacement in the most recent tutorial of his "You Suck at Photoshop" series, explaining how to insert new layers on top of photos without making them look out of place. The video demonstrates the method by inserting a new name on top of a jersey and blending it in with both the shadows and texture of the cloth behind it. The method is simple enough and the results are impressive. Like all of Hoyle's guides, this one's borderline NSFW depending on whether or not you're wearing headphones.

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Windows/Mac OS X only: Free screenshot and screencast sharing application Jing—which we first mentioned a year ago—turned one this week, and to celebrate they've significantly upgraded their free storage and transfer offerings. You now get up to 2GB of screenshot and screencast storage and 2GB of transfer per month on Screencast.com, which is 10 times the space and double the bandwidth. I'm a huge fan of Jing as the easiest cross-platform tool I've used to quickly share screenshots or screencasts (it's great for offering quick tech support). Anything you make with Jing can automatically be saved to Screencast.com, a local folder or network drive, an FTP server, or even Flickr (new since we first covered it) for quick sharing. Jing is freeware, Windows and Mac OS X only.

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Hilarious (in the dark humor way) Photoshop tutorial guy Donnie Hoyle is back with another installment of "You Suck at Photoshop"—this one showing you the ins and outs of Smart Objects. See the previously posted episodes: Touch Up Your Pics in Photoshop, Master Photoshop's "Select Colour Range", Paths and Masks, and Distort, Warp, and Layer Effects plus Covering Your Mistakes and Manual and Clone Stamp.

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Mozilla user experience guru Mike Beltzner demonstrates some of Firefox 3's best features in this detailed screencast. [via]

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New Flickr photo browser TagGalaxy explores the Flickr tag-o-verse using a planet metaphor. Type in a tag you're interested in, and TagGalaxy will instantly assemble a system of planets that represent those tags. Click on a planet to browse and zoom photos. Words don't do TagGalaxy's beautiful visualisation justice, so check out the screencast above for a quick demo if you're too lazy to head on over there yourself. (Sorry for the herky-jerkiness of the video, in reality it's smooth as silk on-page.)

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We love screencasts because they can teach you how to get things done on your computer, but one creative filmmaker went beyond the howto and choreographed a full music video to Mac application actions. The result is the mesmerising video above, which will hopefully add a little fun (if not productivity) to your day. To find out more about the video, hit the link below for an interview with the creator. There's also a shortened Windows XP version. Got a screencast you want to share? Our system automatically embeds YouTube videos, so just drop 'em into the comments below.

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Windows only: Freeware application Debut records video from any source—like your computer's webcam or your desktop—to a number of popular file formats. Once you've recorded a video, Debut makes it easy to automatically share the results over the internet via email or by uploading them to an FTP server. I'm still a big fan of previously mentioned Jing for quickly recording and sharing screencasts, but Debut's added webcam abilities add a useful new element, and it's got an impressive toolbox of features to boot. Debut is lightweight freeware, Windows only.

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Readers are submitting their best life hack for a chance to win an autographed copy of our new book, Upgrade Your Life. Here's our latest winner.
Reader CK uses neat automation trick when there's heavy-duty copy and pasting to be done:

I have one very simple AutoHotkey script which I use when I need to do some massive copying and pasting work, which simplifies the task into just one keystroke: Win+C.

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