Forget a store-bought mask for Halloween: put that photo printer to good use and make a custom mask of your dog, your boss or your favourite celebrity. Microsoft offers instructions on how to print out a handheld mask glued to a piece of balsa wood (or tied around your head with ribbon) with the right photograph. We shameless nerds can download some Star Wars character mask templates for free in the, ahem, kids section of the site. (Totally printing out Chewbacca this weekend and cutting out the eye holes.)

Linux only: Automate frequent tasks and avoid unnecessary program hunting with Nautilus-actions, a free extension that adds file-specific options to the right-click menu. Those with a little script know-how can easily hack together their own automators, but some of the freely available actions include resizing and emailing pictures, file conversion and renaming and even a helpful "shredder"—the kind that erases and overwrites a file 10 times to make it unrecoverable.

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Mac OS X only: The latest version 2.0 of typing utility TextExpander adds some useful new features and on what was already a solid time-saving foundation. We rarely feature software that isn't free here at Lifehacker, but like Quicksilver, TextExpander has become one of my must-have Mac apps (just like our own homegrown Texter on Windows.) The latest version 2.0.3 of TextExpander adds Leopard support, .Mac synchronisation, AppleScript access, and a few other handy doodads that deserve screenshots of their own. Step into my office to check out some more advanced uses of TextExpander 2.0.

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Slowly you've been moving the work you used to do in desktop applications online, and you've got two major choices to do that: Google Apps or Zoho's Office Suite. Both the big G and the little Z offer completely browser-based office applications like a word processor and spreadsheet, as well as communication tools like chat and email, as well as collaboration tools like project managers and wiki's. But the business-oriented Zoho and the consumer-oriented Google applications differ a little bit in offerings, and probably a whole lot when it comes to active users. After the jump, we compare Zoho and Google's current webapp offerings and you get the chance to pick your poison.

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Here's a challenge for the weekend ahead - make someone's day. The "I will change your life" blog has a list of 21 things you can do to make someone's day. A few of them were predictable (give chocolates, cook them a meal) but to me what stood out where the little things you can do to let someone know you're thinking of them.

For example - make a mixed CD for a friend and mail it to them out of the blue. Here's another one I reallly liked:

"Did you just think of a funny event that happened to you and a friend? Or do you have some photos from a recent outing? If so, send a quick email to your friend so that they can relive the memory."

Another one I'm partial to is making a mental note when a friend or loved one mentions something they'd really like to buy for themselves. Buy it secretly and give it to them months later - they'll be bowled over that you remembered.

Good luck bringing a smile to someone's face this weekend. :)

21 ways to make someone's day [I will change your life]

Like it or loathe it, many of us use Microsoft Word, particularly in the workplace. Like Excel, it's a fairly feature packed program which many people never delve into. Web Worker Daily wrote up a list of tips for making your Word documents look better.

Some of the tips are pretty basic (view formatting marks, use symbols from the Insert menu) but there were a couple there which even this long-time Word user didn't know. The article assumes that you are already using the Styles (from the Format Menu, at the Styles and Formatting option).

Here's one which I know I'll use:

"Do you often grab text from web sites and drop it into Word documents? The result can end up looking like a ransom note. A quick way to drop the text in without all the formatting from the site is to go to the Edit menu and select Paste Special. Then select Unformatted Text."

I didn't know that nuking bad formatting was just a Ctrl-Spacebar away either:

"To get a quick view of how the paragraph is formatted, put your cursor over text within the paragraph and hit Shift-F1. This will bring up Word’s Reveal Codes pane, which will tell you about the formatting. Do you want to go back to default formatting settings? If so, select the paragraph and hit Ctrl-Spacebar to go back to the defaults."

Making Documents Look Much Better in MS Word [Web Worker Daily]

I won't go on at length, since we don't have the iPhone here yet anyway, but productivity geeks might be interested to know that Apple seems to have removed iPhone note synching from its new OS, Leopard. Ars Technica pointed out that Apple's Leopard features website had dropped the section detailing how Notes would sync from the iPhone into Mail.app's Notes and Gizmodo's live blogging review of Leopard confirmed that feature isn't in the new OS.

Leopard backpedals again: No more iPhone note synching [Ars Technica]

The other day I was waxing lyrical about the ASUS EEE PC and how I'd love to take this mini-Linux laptop for a spin. Well as our mates at Gizmodo have pointed out, someone's beaten me to it. Laptopmag.com gave the little lappy 4/5 saying:

"It's ten times simpler to use than any Windows machine, starts up twice as fast (no crapware!), and is only about the fifth of the cost of other systems in its weight class."

First Review of ASUS' EEE [via Gizmodo]

Yesterday the big news for Gmail users was that Google is rolling out IMAP support for its email program. We told you what Gmail IMAP means for you (and your iPhone) and today there are even more tips for optimising your new improved Gmail.

While Google brought in folder support as part of its GMail IMAP implementation, the Google Operating System blog had a tip for a better visual representation of nested folders in Gmail by using the Folders4Gmail Greasemonkey extension:

"Many people want folders or hierarchical labels in Gmail, but this is as close as you can get. Those who really want support for folders will feel more comfortable using an email client instead of Gmail's web interface: you can easily create new folders and use drag&drop to move messages to a folder, even if the folder is actually a label in Gmail's internal representation."

I'm still waiting for IMAP to be rolled out to my Gmail account. If you've gotten it, let us know how you're finding it in comments.

A couple of weeks ago Wendy posted a number of ideas on how to save a life with your computer. It was a great idea and a great list of ways you can use your computer or the net to make a difference in someone's life. It inspired me to throw in my $0.02 worth on the topic, and mention some worthwhile Aussie ventures you can support online as well.

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The Pelican Micro Case holds your cell phone, MP3 player, or whatever else you need to protect in an indestructible, water-tight container. Perfect for the active traveler (be you a camper or beach-goer), the case isn't actually indestructible, but it does supposedly withstand the weight of a 5,000-pound truck (that's over 2,700 kilos!), so chances are you aren't likely to break it. The Pelican Micro Cases can be purchased at Amazon starting at around $US9.

Multitasking is a tempting way to get more things done in less time, but web site WebMD says that multitasking often comes at the detriment of some tasks, especially learning:

"Results are always worse when you multitask, but in some areas they're especially compromised," says Russell Poldrack, PhD, associate professor of psychology at UCLA. Learning takes a big hit, for instance. "Our research shows that if you try to master something while splitting your attention, brain activity switches regions; from memory building to short-term habit making," he says.

A good rule of thumb is to multitask what you want to execute, rather than absorb, and choose jobs where mistakes won't matter.

The article suggests that you can also more successfully multitask if your tasks are of different types. Counterintuitive as it may seem, the less two activities have in common, the better multitask partners they are. Then again, everyone's talking about how multitasking makes you less productive, so if you do decide to multitask, choose your tasks wisely.

Calling all crafty DIYers with just a naughty twist of scary! Next Wednesday is Halloween, and we want to spotlight your best DIY Halloween costumes so we can rip them off for our own party. Anything from cute to somewhat disturbing is fair game, as long as it's homemade. The more clever, easy and cool it is, the better. Impress us! Email your high res costume digital photo to tips@lifehacker.com with the subject line DIY Halloween Costume. Ideally, your photo will be 600 pixels wide so we can admire the details of your handiwork, and you'll include information on how you made it, with a materials list and construction details. We'll publish the best submissions this weekend in preparation for the big day. Have fun and get to digging up those great costume pics!

• How do I run a cable under my floor?
• Is there a way to build an installation package that would set up a wireless access point with WEP enabled using Windows XP?
• Is it possible to spoof caller ID?
• Without "pro" software, how can I trim pages from large pdf files?
• Can I make the side panel of Windows dialogs more like OS X?

Mac OS X only: Freeware flash card application Genius helps you memorise information by testing your knowledge using what it calls a "spaced repetition" method, which adjusts how often a card is repeated based on your performance over time. The application has a strong following, meaning you can download tonnes of user-submitted flash card sets covering everything from language to marine biology. Genius is freeware, Mac OS X only. If you plan on making your own flash cards for Genius, be sure you read about how to make effective flash cards first.

If your foray into the world of traditional wetshaving left you with a little razor burn, weblog Gomestic says applying a tea bag to the inflamed skin can reduce the pain. In fact, the post offers 15 unusual uses for tea bags, the majority of which involve pain relief in one form or another. I've only been a tea drinker for health reasons (oh, and for "aging" paper for middle school projects), but if you're hip to alternate uses for tea, let's hear how it worked out for you in the comments.

Outlook users: Instantly turn your Outlook 2007 tasks into appointments by dragging and dropping tasks to your To-Do Bar calendar. Doing so creates a new appointment with most of the important information—including date—already filled out. You've been able to generate new appointments by dragging and dropping emails or tasks to the Outlook calendar for quite some time (an extremely handy shortcut if you weren't already aware of it), but the new To-Do Bar streamlines the process even more by allowing users to drag the appointment straight to a day. It's not much of a change from the norm, but we've never highlighted drag and drop appointment creation in Outlook, and for those of you hooked (or chained, as it may be) to Outlook, it's one of the program's most convenient features.

Windows only: The recently released Winamp 5.5 brings a new interface, album art, remote music sharing, and more to the classic media player—meaning it's come a long way since the heyday of Napster. New Winamp features you may be unaware of and impressed by include:

• Winamp Remote: Stream your music over the internet through your browser and to game consoles, including the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360.
• Syncing with iPods and other portable media devices: Winamp can (and has been able to for a while) sync your music to iPods and almost any portable media device you can throw at it, and the new version syncs album art, as well.
• Winamp Toolbar: Control your music playback from the comfort of your browser, similar to previously mentioned FoxyTunes.
• Auto-Tag files: Winamps Auto-Tagger automatically updates your music metadata.

It's no surprise that Winamp had such a presence in today's Media Player Show and Tell. Since, admittedly, I've been out of the Winamp game for a while, I'd love to hear what features keep the die-hard Winamp fans coming back for more, so let's hear your Winamp raves in the comments.

For some people, desktop media player applications are a very personal thing. Rather than living life in the vanilla world of iTunes and Windows Media Player, these music lovers prefer media players they can tweak, customise, and personalise to their heart's content. Today we're taking a look a look at user-submitted pictures of their always impressive and often enviable desktop media players. Hit the jump to take a look, and if you see one you like, find out how they did it.

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Students banging out their final papers this semester with Microsoft Word 2007 will be interested in this tutorial on creating and managing references, courtesy of Microsoft. The references tab on Word 2007's new ribbon offers a slick way to enter your sources and choose a style to display them, from APA to Chicago to MLA.

As I write my paper, all of the citations that I have been inputting are stored in this awesome tool called the source manager, which can be accessed by clicking "Manage Sources." This means that instead of my list of books I have been poring over going into the ether I call index cards, all of my work is stored in one little handy database. Enter incredible time savings.

From the Bibliography drop-down, choose whether you want a bibliography or works cited section and Word automatically generates and formats it for you. Handy.

Blogger Gretchen Rubin lists seven topics of conversation to avoid if you don't want to be a bore. She writes:

Unless you get a truly enthusiastic response from your interlocutor—which is possible—be very wary of recounting...

1. A dream.

2. The recent changes in your child's nap schedule.

3. The route you took to get here.

4. An excellent meal you once had at a restaurant.

5. The latest additions to your wine cellar.

6. An account of your last golf game.

7. The plot of a movie, play, or movie—in particular, the funny parts.

Couldn't pass this one up because it is spot on, if aimed at wine cellar-owning, golf-playing types. Any other topics of conversations that make you want to nod off? Let's educate the bores! Post 'em up in the comments.

All platforms: The Opera web browser's new Link function synchronises users' bookmarks, "Speed Dials" sites and customises toolbars across desktop and mobile browsers. The del.icio.us-like function is built into the just-released betas of Opera 9.5 for the desktop and Opera Mini 4, but users of the non-Java Opera Mobile—or any browser, for that matter—can head to link.opera.com to store their favorites. Opera Link requires a free sign-up, while the new Opera betas are a free download for Windows, Mac, Linux and cell phones.