AOL users share stories on how they got out of a traffic ticket after being pulled over on the road. Not surprisingly, honesty and respect for the cop worked wonders. One reader says she was pulled over after she knew she'd made an illegal turn twice:

The officer asked if I realised I was admitting to having done the illegal turn twice. I said yes. He said they weren't giving out warnings; they were ticketing people. I said I realised that and knew I deserved the ticket. He reiterated the point about not giving out warnings. I said I understood. He stared at me for a long time, and then told me no one ever tells them the truth. And because of that he was giving me a warning.

Flickr users: Want to automatically include all your most "interesting" Flickr photos in a set? Using the web-based Flickr Set Manager, create a new photo set based on certain criteria, like most interesting, least interesting, earliest photo first, most recent or random, and the set manager will update the set photos on a regular basis. Sort of like Smart Playlists for iTunes, Flickr would do well to include this feature inside Flickr itself. Here are Lifehacker's most interesting Flickr photos.

The popular eBay auction site is now accessible from a desktop application. With eBay Desktop, you can interact with the auction site normally with the added benefit of having powerful tools on hand in a very lightweight application. Most significantly, eBay Desktop updates listing data and the time remaining for auctions in real time. After the jump, let's take a look at some of the new features of eBay Desktop.

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Windows Mobile: Open web pages in tabs, remember closed tabs and URLs and get full-screen browsing with Web View, a free add-on for Internet Explorer Mobile (formerly Pocket IE). In addition to standard tab functions, Web View also adds common navigation buttons (back, forward, refresh and stop) and allows for page source viewing. For those not willing to part with their hard-earned cash for Opera Mobile, this plus pRSS Reader can make browsing in Windows Mobile more tolerable. Web View is a free download that requires Windows Mobile 5.0 and Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 2.0.

Before there was iTunes, there was Winamp. A lot of people still prefer to use this freeware music player (and a lot of people still have opinions on when Winamp jumped the shark into bloatville, but don't let's get started on that).
Wired's just written up a detailed review of Winamp's 10th anniversary edition, AOL Winamp 5.5, which boasts a revamped interface, iPod syncing, remote music access and other advanced features:

"Best of all, Winamp makes it far easier than iTunes or Windows Media Player to discover new music online and incorporate it into your library without having to download MP3s through a browser and import them into your media player manually."

After I stop feeling really, really old, I think I'll download it and give it another whirl.

Winamp Packs on Features for 10th-Anniversary Edition [Wired]

Often city-dwellers forget just how much gardening and food growing options we have, even without a proper garden. Even if you just have a courtyard or balcony, you can save some money and enjoy having your own fresh foods on tap. I once grew lettuce and tomatoes in a large pot plant on my balcony!

Pot planters with mini-herb gardens are a nice idea, as is this one from The Age's foodie blog - growing your own salad sprouts. I haven't done this in years! You can start from seeds, or buy freshly sprouted seeds and beans from your local nursery or organic shop, or sometimes even your supermarket.

Now all we need are some recipes for delicious sandwiches and meals to use our home grown sprouts!

Photo credit: Princess_of_llyr under Creative Commons

Live from the kitchen - DIY salad sprouts [Chew on This]

Speech recognition software can be a great solution for people with keyboard-related RSI, or those who like to capture their thoughts with a voice recorder. As Lifehack.org points out, commercial software (like Dragon Natually Speaking) can be expensive. But he offers a free solution -  Windows Vista has in-built speech recognition software.

This post runs you through how to set up Vista's SR program and train it to accurately transcribe your voice into text. He also includes some general tips for using speech recognition.

How to Use Windows Vista Speech Recognition [Lifehack.org]

Via Pia Waugh - yet another reason to ditch that PowerPoint addiction. Long-time OpenOffice user Chih-Hao Tsai created a range of templates for its Impress presentation software, including the one to the left, which uses a NASA photo of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.

 "... unlike Microsoft PowerPoint, OpenOffice.org Impress does not come with a set of good templates. Even the ones coming with StarOffice are not polished enough... Therefore, I decided to design my own Impress templates and make them available to the public."

 OpenOffice.org Impress Templates [Chih-Hao Tsai]

[via Make] The creator of this hack says you can use it to 3g-enable an iPod Touch or an iPhone. Given that we don't yet have the option of an iPhone in Australia, it looks particularly appealing - if you have a Windows Mobile phone to act as a "bridge" for the Touch to use.

He recommends using a  phone or PDA with Windows Mobile 5 or 6 to act as the mobile access point. You also need a SIM card and the (free) PHM Registry Editor program.

Cute hack which requires no hacking of the iPhone and just a registry edit of the Windows Mobile device. Without a microphone, of course, the Touch can't be used for voice calls. But then, you have the spare Windows Mobile phone for that anyway. :)

Turn your iPod Touch into a 3G iPhone  [Pyrofer's Projects] 

We got all up in your personal space a few weeks back in our Go Bag Show and Tell Parts one, two, and three, but in case you missed any of the submissions or wanted to take a second look at what your fellow Lifehacker readers carry around with them when they need to get things done on the go, we're rounding up every submission into one master gallery for your browsing pleasure. Hit the jump to take a look.

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Weblog Pick the Brain suggests that you overcome your bashful obstacles by focusing on your assets as a contributing member of society. The author reminds the shy set that most people, after all, are not very different than you are.

By and large, people are friendly and interested in connecting with others. They'll respond favourably to your attempts at communicating. In most cases, people will be thrilled that you took the initiative to break the ice.

What's more, the post emphasises that you should not let negative criticism get you down and let go of bad experiences that may have contributed to your shyness to begin with. Share how you've overcome your shyness in the comments.

Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Organise your tabs by domain or origin, manage their layout, and more with the powerful Tab Kit Firefox extension. As you can see in the video from CyberNet, Tab Kit's most notable features incorporate advanced tab bar positioning (including a widescreen-optimised left or right-aligned tab bar) and tab grouping and collapsing based on either the domain (e.g., all lifehacker.com tabs will be grouped together) or by origin (e.g., all tabs you open from Lifehacker, whether on or off-site, will be grouped together). This extension is currently available in the Mozilla Sandbox, which means you have to log into the site to download it (ahem, *BugMeNot*), and the developer seems unclear as to how well it works with Macs.

With just a couple yards of cloth, a staple gun, a wrench, and a screwdriver, you can give your bland office chairs a fast makeover. The decor nerds over at Design*Sponge have a quick tutorial on how to make a typical computer desk chair into something pretty snazzy. They say:

With no need for new foam or batting (we upholstered right over the old stuff), this turned out to be a super simple, super cheap way to dramatically improve our office decor.

Office Chair Upgrade [via Design*Sponge]

Track your spending via SMS, email, IM, or voice (via Jott) with web application Xpenser. After you sign up, you'll need to set up your account with your IM and SMS information and set up Jott to use with Xpenser (if you want to do voice tracking). After you're all set up, adding expenses to a report (you can create any number of reports and set a default for new additions) is as simple as, for example, texting something like "exp lunch 35.4 with Jack, Jill" to Xpenser. If you've ever had trouble keeping up with your expenses for the month, especially if you need to track your business expenses, Xpenser aims to be a simple, universally accessible solution for getting your expenses recorded as soon as they happen (it's like a super-charged version of my BudgetBot).

Address and send traditional snail mail via email on the cheap with web site Postful. In contrast to a similar service called eSnailer, which sends snail mail for free but requires you to sign up for a "special offer," Postful asks for a relatively low fee of $.99 for the first page and $.25 for each additional page. (AU - more to send outside the US - see their FAQ.)Whether it's to keep in contact with a Luddite lacking an email address or you just really hate buying stamps and finding a mailbox, Postful is a potentially worthwhile tool. You can even set up unique Postful email addresses for frequent contacts so that, for example, you can include your email-less grandparents in an email you're sending.

If your Google Talk contact list looks anything like the never-ending list in the video above, you probably haven't set Gmail and Gtalk not to automatically add people you communicate with using Gmail to your Friends list. Weblog Digital Inspiration explains how to tweak this setting and then clean up your already littered Gtalk contact list. You can either manually remove every contact you don't want by hand or go the Gtalk bankruptcy route by exporting all of your Gmail contacts, deleting every Gmail contact, and then re-importing them (details in the post). If your unwieldy contact list has made it impossible to find a contact you actually want to chat with, Digital Inspiration's bankruptcy method could be the ticket.

Windows only: Carry any application with you on your thumb drive with freeware virtual PC software MojoPac Freedom. Back when we showed you how to build your own PC-on-a-stick with MojoPac, the application had a $30 price tag, but it has since launched several versions, and MojoPac Freedom is the freeware version. Even better, MojoPac Freedom supports all the data and application support of the rest, lacking really only customer support (aside from other premium features most regular users will never need). It still supports taking Microsoft Office, iTunes, video games, and virtually any other app portable. MojoPac Freedom is freeware, Windows only.

Nothing kills your ability to get things done faster than a bad night's sleep. Studies show that sleep deprivation costs Americans significant work productivity; yawning employees can't stay alert, make good decisions, focus on tasks or even manage a friendly mood at the office. There are lots of ways to beat insomnia, increase the quality of your sleep, and master the power nap. Today we've got our top 10 favourite sleep techniques, tips and facts. Photo by dkaz.

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It might sound obvious to anyone who's toiled under a despotic supervisor, but researchers at Florida State University have quantified the ways employees quietly fight back:

• 30 percent slowed down or purposely made errors, compared with 6 percent of those not reporting abuse.
• 27 percent purposely hid from the boss, compared with 4 percent of those not abused.
• 33 percent confessed to not putting in maximum effort, compared with 9 percent of those not abused.

Create an address bar/tab icon for your web site instantly with Favicon.cc, a web-based paint application and image converter that creates favicons. Draw your icon and preview the results in actual size while you work. Publish the finished image for personal use or licence it for reuse under Creative Commons. Favicon.cc's interface is sleek, fast, and extremely fun. Don't forget about previously mentioned Favicon from Pics where you can also import an image to favicon, but Favicon.cc offers the same functionality and more.

Have trouble remembering the difference between lay and lie? When to use affect versus effect? Would you say it's confusing? (Or should that be "its confusing?") Web site Confusing Words comes to the rescue with a list of commonly confused words complete with definitions and usage examples for each. What words confuse you? Got any good tricks for remembering their proper usage? Let us know in the comments. Ed: Thanks to our stalwart volunteer copy editor Dustin L. for writing this post for us and helping us unconfuse words every day. (Wait, is "unconfuse" a word?)

Macworld follows up yesterday's post on securing your Mac with more advanced common sense, this time on passwords. Here's a tip non-Mac users (especially Firefox and Linux fans) can appreciate:

For maximum security, memorise your login password and your keychain password (plus the password to your third-party password vault, if you use one). As long as you have those two or three passwords committed to memory, you can let your computer remember all your others for you.

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