Popular photo sharing web site Flickr has partnerted with online image editing web site Picnik to integrate photo editing directly in your Flickr account. To use it, just log into your Flickr account, click on a picture, and then click the new Edit Photo button. When you do, you'll be asked if you want to enable Picnik to open inside your account (see screenshot below). Once you accept, the Picnik editor will fire up in your browser and you can crop, rotate, resize, sharpen, correct red-eye, and tonnes more from the comfort of your Flickr account.

And that's just the Edit tab! Click the Create tab to add effects, text callouts, shapes, touch-ups, and frames to your pictures.

This editing tool won't replace Photoshop by any means, but if you're not a professional photo editor but you are a Flickr enthusiast, you can now upload your pictures straight to Flickr and then edit as you please in your browser. If nothing else you can get rid of the red-eye in those party photos you never got around to fixing and then re-uploading. Thumbs up!

Well, the longsuffering loved ones need suffer no more - Movember is over for another year, and the Mo's have been shaved off. Team Allure, ably captained by Seamus - formerly of Gizmodo AU - managed to raise $355 for Movember. The proceeds go towards men's charities helping fight prostate cancer and depression. A worthy cause indeed. And now back to our regularly scheduled, stubble free programming. :)

In his productivity bible Getting Things Done, David Allen says that you should minimise the number of collection buckets for all the information coming into in your life. (Collection buckets include a paper in-basket, email inbox, voicemail box, feed reader—anywhere new "stuff" channels into your day.)

You should have as many in-baskets as you need and as few as you can get by with... If you have too many collection zones, you won't be able to process them easily or consistently.

Single phone number with GrandCentral: Ever since I switched my main number over to a GrandCentral number, I never looked back. You can ring all or any subset of phone numbers you've already got on a per-contact basis with GrandCentral, or send calls to voicemail or screen them as messages are being left. Voicemail notifications come straight to your email box (if you work primarily in email, like I do, this is priceless), and you never have to worry about giving out your number. See more on how to consolidate your phone lines into a single number with GrandCentral.

Single email address with Gmail and Google Apps for Your Domain: This may be the fourth Gmail post of the day, but what the hell. Since Gmail can fetch and send mail from any POP-enabled existing address, it's a fabulous way to consolidate old addresses into a single place. Don't want to give up your custom domain gina@example.com address? Google Apps for Your Domain gives you Gmail without the @gmail.com domain in your address.

Send paper to your digital "inbox" with the ScanSnap: This one I haven't gotten set up for myself yet, but it sounds like the best instant, scan-paper-to-PDF solution on the block. Over at 43 Folders, blogger Ryan Norbauer describes his Fujitsu ScanSnap workflow for a paperless existence. Definitely giving this a try myself in '08 so I can ditch the paper in-basket and use the digital "inbox" folder on my computer exclusively.

Snail mail: Okay, so most people don't have the problem of multiple mailing addresses. But if you're a freelancer who moves around a lot—or you've got a small business you'd like to have its own address—I can't recommend getting a PMB (Private Mail Box) enough. Sure it'll cost you a couple hundred a year, but the freedom to give out your mailing address without worry and even move without having to change your address is awesome.

How do you minimize the inboxes in your life? Tell us about it in the comments.

AKA - fill out our survey, win stuff. :)

But seriously, we've put up a short survey to find out more about who's out there reading this. It should only take 5 minutes, and you'll go into the draw to win a $250 Coles/Myer, David Jones, Harvey Norman or Bunnings gift voucher.
For me it's cool because we get to find out what kind of stories you love to see on Lifehacker, what kind of stories you hate, and what kind of features you'd like to see us introduce to the site. So please do take the time to fill it out - I promise I'll be checking out the responses personally to get some feedback on the site. :)

2007 Lifehacker Reader Survey

Windows only: Freeware application CoolMon monitors your systems vitals with attractive desktop-embedded widgets. In very basic operation, CoolMon displays information like RAM usage, hard drive space, and CPU load, but with the right plugins you can embed just about anything on your desktop—like new email alerts, weather, the song you're currently listening to, and so on. If all you're looking for is more of a plain-text to-do list on your desktop, check out previously mentioned Samurize. Mac users should take a look at GeekTool. Setup for CoolMon is a little quirky, so check out Simplehelp's post guide if you're having trouble. CoolMon is freeware, Windows only.

Bless Lifehacker, I'm really enjoying planning how I'd like to work in 2008. Yesterday I asked you if you'll be using a digital or paper calendar next year, and told you I'll be working mainly from a paper diary, supplemented by Google Calendar.
Yesterday I bought myself one of the small black Moleskine 'day per day' diaries, as well as a matching reporter notebook, which will be my jot pad while on the road.
If, like me, you're looking for ideas on a productivity system which works for you, the Web Worker Daily blog today has a post rounding up some productivity tips for Outlook and Gmail/Gcal users, which is worth a look.
In the meantime, I'm curious to know if you have any "end of year" habits for tying up loose ends before launching into a fresh new year? Let me know in comments.

Quick steps towards working more efficiently in 2008 [Web Worker Daily]

Our national broadcaster has added another string to its multimedia bow with the release of desktop gadget ABC Now, which is essentially a media player which lets you get ABC news headlines, radio streams, podcasts and TV highlights on your PC. You can also get weather updates.
One nice feature is the ability to create a Favourites menu. When you're browsing content in the "Find" section, each item has a "heart" icon and a "+" sign, which you just need to click to add to your Favourites list.
Cricket fans should note that "technical difficulties" mean they can't broadcast the cricket through ABC Now yet.
You'll need to be using either Real Player or Windows Media Player. Right now ABC now is Windows only, but they've promised a Mac version soon.
I've raved before about our national broadcaster's efforts to do multimedia broadcasting well, and ABC Now is a nice addition to their offerings. I'll need to do some experimenting to see if this standalone gadget can be incorporated into iGoogle or something similar. If you experiment, let us know how you get on in comments.
This new feature was spotted at APC.
 

Winter means colds, and colds mean sore, scratchy throats and coughs. Wired reports that, according to a study by the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, the best remedy for that cough may not be your over-the-counter cough medicine, but the old folk favorite, honey. The study actually focused on children (for whom stronger cold medicines aren't recommended), and although I doubt honey can knock you out like a spoonful of NyQuil, the honey stood up very well in the tests, consistently outscoring cough medicine in parents' ratings of their children's symptoms. Plus, who wouldn't down a spoonful of tasty honey any day if it yields results and means you won't need to choke down NyQuil?

I haven't got my Christmas tree yet, but today I spotted a couple of very cute and geeky ideas for Christmas tree decorations. Pictured is an example of the range of decorations sold by Nigel's Eco Store out of the UK. They're made from recycled computer parts, if that's not obvious. :) If you're a DIY type with a lot of old computer bits lying around, I'm sure you could have some fun making something similar. (link courtesy of the Geek Dad blog).

And for the real DIYers out there, check out the Christmas tree and reindeer designs you can download and laser cut, courtesy of Ben Arendt. (link via the MAKE blog).

If you have kids, helping them make Christmas decorations can be a really fun thing to do. If you have any other DIY Christmas decoration ideas, please share in comments.

If you've been plagued with BitTorrent downloads that won't finish, unplaying videos, or—worse yet—videos that claim to require special players, weblog TorrentFreak has put together an excellent guide to avoid downloading fake and junk files over BitTorrent. Some of the tips are common sense, like reading the comments on a torrent before downloading, while others—like getting to know trusted BitTorrent users—might be entirely new to the BitTorrent neophyte. Still not sure how BitTorrent works? Check out our beginner and intermediate guides.

Not only did Google add coloured labels to Gmail today, they're rolling out AIM compatibility in chat, too. The new AOL Instant Messenger support lets you log into your AIM account to chat with your AIM buddies right inside Gmail. Not sure yet if your AIM chat history is stored in your Gmail account the way GTalk convo's are. Update: AIM chat history does indeed get stored in Gmail. Rock! We're not seeing it just yet, but being an AIM over GTalk user, I'll keep refreshing till I do. To try it out you've got to be using the new version of Gmail in IE7 or Firefox 2. Sign into Chat and hit the Options menu to see the "Sign into AIM" option. Any readers out there get AIM in Gmail yet? Let us know how you like it. Image via Zoorgloob.

• What do I need to know about writing off my home office?
• Which painkiller is best: Aspirin, Tylenol, or Ibuprofen?
• What camera should I buy myself for Christmas?
• How can I gracefully quit my job?
• Is it possible to quit smoking through hypnosis?

Microsoft released an update to the Xbox 360 today that introduces several feature updates to the Xbox, most notably support for DivX and XviD video playback without the need to transcode the video to WMV format. The good: You can now easily stream and playback those BitTorrent videos on your Xbox without running third party software like Transcode 360 or TVersity, and apparently the results are stellar—making this update extraordinarily exciting for video lovers. Unfortunately it's not yet as fully implemented as it should be.

If you're running your Xbox as a Media Center extender, DivX and XviD aren't natively supported. That means that if you like watching your downloaded videos with your Xbox Media Center extender instead of from the Xbox dashboard, you'll still have to use one of the third party transcoders mentioned above. Fingers crossed that the extender will support more video formats in the future, but in the meantime the dashboard video update is still pretty killer.

If you're looking to put your empty cigarette light to good use, the Spotlight LED flashlight fits snugly in your car's cigarette lighter outlet and recharges with the power of cigarettes. The clever little Spotlight costs $14.95, comes in 12 colors, and looks like an excellent stocking stuffer or Secret Santa gift. Let's hear other ways you put your cigarette lighter outlet to work for you in the comments.

With a new generation of iPods on the market this holiday season, your reliable old iPod may not seem as shiny as it once did. But with the help of third party applications and utilities, you can unlock tonnes of useful functionality you never knew was there and revive that aging iPod so it doesn't look quite so bad next to its successors. Whether new or old, the following 20 iPod utilities can help you get the most from your iPod.

Read More »

December is upon us, which means it's time to start getting 2007 tax paperwork in order. This year I tried out a very high-tech organisation system for deductible receipts (pictured.) Instead of just dropping an enormous pile of differently-shaped scraps of paper into a single folder, I broke them up into labelled envelopes, which is ok, but there's still room for improvement. What about you? How do you keep records of your charitable contributions, misc income and other work expenses to get all your write-offs? Let us know in the comments. (For more December money tasks, check out our year-end to-do list.)

College grad Jon Morrow busted his butt to get straight A's in college, but his 3.92 GPA didn't do much for him in the "real world." Now he regrets spending all that time worrying and working on his grades.

I was told that having a high GPA would open all kinds of doors for me. But you know what? I interviewed with lots of companies, received a total of 14 job offers after graduation, and none of them asked about it. They were much more impressed with stuff like serving as Chief of Staff for the student government and starting a radio station run by 200 volunteers.

Windows only: Free Windows application FastKake is an all-in-one tool that drops a whole lot of system-tweaking shortcuts into a folder on your desktop. A total of 69 shortcuts, some of them hard to seek out manually, are put down, including links to the "Safely Remove Hardware" prompt, the System Restore tool, the send-to folder, and more. FastKake is a small executable that you only run once and stash somewhere permanent, as some shortcuts unfortunately rely on the program to run. FastKake is a free download that works with Windows 98 and later, although I had to manually drop the shortcuts onto my Vista system's desktop. Remote Desktop power-users can also save time by creating shortcuts to frequently-accessed systems.

Colour-coded labels, a Gmail feature long available to users of our own Better Gmail and other Greasemonkey extensions, has been officially implemented and should be rolling out to users as of this morning. Coloured labels do more than look pretty, of course—a well-arranged variety enables your eye to jump quickly to important emails and know when certain types of messages are becoming clutter. The web interface has also been updated with "x" buttons available to quickly remove labels from individual messages. Finally, the Official Gmail Blog notes that the development team is working to add "folder-y-ish functionality." Time will tell how labels, folders and filters will mesh together.

Linux only: Linux users already have a powerful Gmail notification tool in Checkgmail, but the advanced functionality doesn't always fit the bill, or even just work, for some users (including yours truly). For those seeking a more streamlined notification window, or perhaps just the same kind of tool for non-Gmail POP or IMAP accounts, cGmail is a handy taskbar tool. Once you've installed and configured your account, it's just one click to have cGmail load on startup, and the app integrates nicely with the GNOME desktop's keyring manager. cGmail is a free download, available in .deb, .rpm and source downloads for Linux systems only.

Windows only: Freeware application Startup Delayer does exactly what it sounds like—it allows you to force programs that normally load at Windows login to wait a specific amount of time before starting. That means larger applications that drag down the boot process can wait until the system's a bit more responsive, and the wealth of utilities some folks use can be spaced out to help you start actually working faster. Startup Delayer also serves as a straight-ahead startup manager for those who dislike the built-in Windows version, giving you control over process priority and window sizes. Startup Delayer is a free download (with requests for donation on closing) for Windows 98 and later only.

Tech magazine PC Advisor rounds up 30 fairly standard "quick fixes" to fine-tune Windows XP and Vista systems, but one tip in particular caught my eye. Noting that all versions of Vista make "Previous Versions" or "Shadow Copies" of files when they change, but only the Enterprise, Business and Ultimate flavors can actually restore from them, the feature recommends moving your documents and personal files on a separate partition or drive and turning off "System Protection" on that portion. It might seem a bit excessive to save a few CPU cycles, but as the site points out, separating documents and programs also makes essential backups much easier to pull off.