With the holidays just around the corner, many of us are preparing to board a plane and spend a few days under the roof of a loved one. To make your stay a good one, the Frugal Law Student Weblog suggests 10 ways to be an excellent house guest this year. For example:

To show your appreciation for the free room and board, bring a gift. It doesn't have to be big or expensive. Baked goods are always appreciated.

Some of the tips are a bit presumptuous (strip the bed before you leave?), but anyone who's housed guests knows that a considerate house guest is a real pleasure to board—and if you show up with food or a gift, consider yourself a hall-of-famer. Think you're the perfect house guest? Give us your secrets in the comments.

Collis Taed at the North x East blog has posted a list of suggestions about what to do when the domain name you want is gone.

Increasingly, people who are really wedded to the word or idea they have for their domain name are starting to use alternative extensions like .net. While .com has been the net standard for a while, obviously we have .com.au - but the rules are much more strictly enforced in Australia and the domain name must reflect your business name very closely. While there can be challenges with non-typical extensions, Collis suggests overcoming the tendency for people to assume your site has a.com assumption by continually marketing your site with the extension, for example writing Flashden.net rather than Flashden.

Playing with spelling is another one to be careful of. I've had trouble locating Australian social news aggregator Kwoff on a few occasions because I default to the correct spelling, Quaff, which is actually a wine website. I thought it was just me having the memory of a leaky seize but I noticed a couple of weeks ago on the Kwoff blog that after a mention on Radio National (where people only heard the name, rather than seeing it spelled out) a lot of people tried to visit the site by typing www.quaff.com.au. Kwoff responded by buying a Google Adword so that if people googled looking for it, they'd see a sponsored link saying "Looking for Kwoff?" with a link to their site.

The Kwoff story is a good reminder that you need to pick your domain name carefully, and consider the kinds of spelling or navigational mistakes people may make when looking for your site.

What to do when the domain name you want is gone [North x East]

Windows/Mac only: Tag your iTunes music by mood with the freeware, colour-based tagging utility Moody. While your music is playing, just pick a colour for the song with Moody's 16-color scale (sad to happy, calm to intense). Once tagged, Moody writes the mood to the comments of your song's metadata (it'll look something like MoodyC3). You can either use that metadata to create mood-based smart playlists or just use Moody to fire up a playlist based on your mood. It may sound a bit tedious, but if you put Moody in quick tag mode, you can tag a lot of music pretty quickly. Moody is freeware, Windows (with .NET) and Mac OS X only.

Users of the Better Gmail Firefox extension (written by our own Lifehacker US ed Gina) please note that the old version can interfere with functions in the new version of Gmail, as noted in Google's official help centre here.
If you strike a problem, you'll get a message in Gmail that reads: "Certain Greasemonkey scripts may interfere with Gmail". I've updated our original post about the new Better Gmail 2 to include the instructions on how to uninstall Better Gmail and install Better Gmail 2, so check it out if you've had issues, or just want to try out how the new improved Gmail works with the new improved Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension.

If you're a quiet PC obsessive, then you may like to try this hack, which uses a little bit of soldering to de-click your mouse. Check out the full instructions at abcLinuxu - and note that it's a hack for "most" mouse styles - you'll want to check against the photos he's posted to see if yours is similar.
I personally have such a noisy, clicky old keyboard (hilariously named the "Dell Quiet Key" by the way) that my mouse noise wouldn't even rate -  your mileage may vary.

Silent Mouse - the Second Encounter [via Hack a Day]

Mac OS X Leopard only: You already know about Leopard's useful Quick Look feature, which previews any kind of document with a tap of the Spacebar. (Go ahead, select a file in Finder and hit the Spacebar to see its contents immediately, no application launching required.) Well, you can also preview several files at once with Quick Look. Just select multiple documents in Finder and hit that Spacebar. You'll get an "Index Sheet" button when you mouse over the Quick Look popup—click on that to see a grid of files. You can also go full screen with Quick Look previews, play videos, read PDF's, see the contents of Office files, and use the arrow keys to see the next and previous files in the list with Quick Look.

A free Mac version of remote PC access software LogMeIn has just been released. LogMeIn Free for Mac can be downloaded here. You'll need to create a (free) account. Once installed on your Mac, the software will let you connect  to and control your Mac from a browser via a Windows, Mac or Linux PC as well as the Apple iPhone and other handheld devices.
LogMeIn Free for Mac runs on OS X v10.4 (Tiger) and v10.5 (Leopard).
I haven't tried out the Mac version of LogMeIn, but we previously reviewed LogMeIn for Windows here and told you how to use LogMeIn to provide remote tech support here.

The New York Times takes a look at the culture of perfectionism, suggesting that the tenets of the perfectionist—when applied to things like personal relationships or when taken too far at the workplace—can take a serious toll on your happiness. As part of a study at U.C. Davis, employee assistance counselor Alice Provost forced perfectionists to:

Leave work on time. Don't arrive early. Take all the breaks allowed. Leave the desk a mess. Allow yourself a set number of tries to finish a job; then turn in what you have.

The results? Much to the surprise of the perfectionists, everything continued to function as usual, and much of their perfection-motivated worries weren't all that important. If you've got similar perfectionist inclinations—or you're just in the spirit of the holidays—give yourself a break and give this exercise a go. While you're at it, here are 10 other ways to defeat brain drain. Photo by ewitch.

Google has updated their mobile homepage for iPhone users for quick and easy access to all of your Google apps with a simple, fast, and attractive tabbed interface. The tabs link to the straight- up Google Mobile homepage (which offers dynamic as-you-type suggestions) along with iPhone-optimised interfaces for Gmail, Gcal, GReader, and a More tab that provides access to Docs, SMS, GOOG-411, News, Picasa web albums, Blogger, and Notebook. The recent addition of IMAP in Gmail has made it that much easier to access and sync your Gmail online and off, but with the simple access to Gmail and other Google apps through the new and improved homepage, it may be just as simple if not more so to use their online portal—especially if you're a Google apps junkie.

Windows only: Wish your mouse pointer was easier to see? Try installing the smart and colourful XsX alpha blended package of mouse cursors. These cursors change colour depending on the possible action (like clicking a link or resizing a window), and blogger Aaron Tiensivu's put together a convenient installer for both Windows XP and Vista. Especially good for laptop screens, be sure to follow Tiensivu's installation instructions to get these going (it's not a regular installation wizard.) Having become a bit of an interface design snob (yes, the Mac's ruined me), I like the idea of these cursors; just wish they were better-looking. The XsX cursor installation package is a free download for Windows only.

OpenOffice.org has identified a highly critical security vulnerability in its open source word processing package OpenOffice 2.3 and prior versions.

In the security advisory OpenOffice.org warned of a security vulnerability in HSQLDB, the default database engine shipped with OpenOffice.org 2 (all versions) which could allow attackers to execute arbitrary static Java code by manipulating database documents to be opened by a user.

OpenOffice.org has asked users to update to version 2.3.1 which is unaffected by the security vulnerability in the previous versions. You can download OpenOffice 2.3.1 here.

It's been a year since the Wii was first released in the U.S. and you're still trying to secure the elusive game console for your living room? Wired's got the inside scoop on how to score a Wii for under your tree this Christmas. For example:

The best time for Wii hunting is early Sunday mornings, because that's when retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart release their weekly advertisements. And if they advertise Wii in the paper, they'll hold some systems for the day the ad hits.

The also suggest one tip that I can vouch for as tried and true, because it's exactly how I acquired Rock Band a few days after its release and my Wii last Winter and (having not pre-ordered it).

Talk to the guys behind the registers at your local retailers, and find out when they get Wii shipments. Even if they end up holding some for Sunday, chances are they'll put out at least some of their stock the minute it arrives.

For me it was as simple as calling up my local big box, asking if they had any Wiis/bundles of Rock Band available, and then asking if they knew when they'd get the next shipment. They've always been more than happy to supply this information, and when that day comes, just call them up as soon as possible (or just head to the store if you're feeling more ambitious) and find out if they've got any in.

If all goes well, you'll end up with the coveted gadget and you won't have to hand over an extra $200 to an eBay or Craigslist carpetbagger to do it. If you've had luck getting that coveted gadget in similar situations, let's hear how you did it in the comments. Photo by isdky.

Facebook's copped a bit of flack lately over introducing Beacon, a feature which monitored your activities with certain Facebook partner advertiser/retail sites such as Amazon, in order to update Facebook when you do something like buy a book. Annoyingly, they did not provide a way to opt out of Beacon. The other day we told you how to disable Beacon yourself, but Facebook has now added the ability to switch off Beacon.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerman has apologised about the mistakes they made in implementing Beacon, and highlighted what the company has done to fix things:

"Last week we changed Beacon to be an opt-in system, and today we're releasing a privacy control to turn off Beacon completely. You can find it here. If you select that you don't want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won't store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook."

If you want to turn off Beacon, hit the Privacy link on the top right hand corner of the Facebook page, then choose the "External Websites" option. Tick "Don't allow any sites to send stories to my profile" and hit save.

If you've got keyboard shortcuts enabled in Gmail (turn 'em on in the Settings), you can now hit the question mark (?) to see an in-Gmail quick reference to what keys do what. The new addition to Gmail's interface looks wildly similar to the Greasemonkey Gmail Macros reference pop-up, transparency and all. What's great about this is that you can look up a shortcut easily; what sucks is that it overrides the Macros help shortcut which comes in Better Gmail 2. (The rest of the Macros work, just not the help pop-up.) There's a Gmail development arms race underway, Greasemonkeyers vs Googlers! Who wins? We all do, eventually. Hit the (?) key in Gmail to check out the shortcuts guide. (And give our favourite Gmail keyboard shortcut a try.)

Windows only: Monitor any folder on your PC and automatically add new music to iTunes with freeware application iTunes Folder Watch. Just point it to the folder you'd like to watch for new music and let it work its magic. iTunes Folder Watch monitors the folder (or folders) for new music (i.e., music that doesn't already exist in iTunes) and can add music either automatically or queue it for you to selectively choose songs you'd like to add to iTunes. I once described a command line method for the same thing, but iTunes Folder Watch is a much simpler and full-featured solution. iTunes Folder Watch is freeware, Windows only, requires .NET; it's currently in beta, so expect a few bugs. Thanks Galley!

You spend a whole lot of time each day moving, copying, trashing, browsing, and otherwise fiddling with all the files stored on your PC, and you should have the most efficient power tools to get those jobs done. Windows Explorer and its weak army of file manipulation functions just doesn't cut the mustard for people with lots of data and only a little time, but several free utilities can help out. So today we present our top 10 free Windows file manipulation utilities for managing your important data.

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Now that Gmail's got AIM support baked into the web interface, Gmailer Steve Rubel commented how nice it will be to have SmarterChild along with your email. Nearly three years ago we first posted about SmarterChild, an AIM bot that can do all sorts of interesting command line-y things, like look up the weather, store notes, trigger timed IM reminders, calculate and convert, and generally answer any kind of question, like "What's the population of Indonesia?" or "What movies are playing near me tonight?" This morning I chatted with SmarterChild about all the stuff it can do, inside Gmail and out.

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Personal finance writer J.D. Roth is walkin' the walk over at his site Get Rich Slowly, where he just celebrated eliminating $35,000 worth of debt. That's 35 THOUSAND DOLLARS, people. It took him 20 three years of being committed to new habits, like setting goals, tracking every penny he spent, lowering expenses, and bringing in extra income. Check out his full post for the way becoming debt-free changed his career, too. Congratulations, J.D.! What an incredible accomplishment.

MSNBC runs down a list of nine fees charged by at least a few airlines for things you might think are standard transactions, such as booking flights over the phone, checking luggage, and seating small children on your lap. One thing in particular to keep in mind when you make a last-minute reservation:

3. Cashing in frequent flier miles without sufficient advance notice

Fee: $0-100 ... Some airlines will let you book a frequent-flier seat even up to the day of travel with no fee. These include Airtran, JetBlue, Northwest and Southwest. But others (Continental, Delta, and United) charge $75 if you book without enough notice (defined as three days on Continental but an unreasonable 22 days on Delta); and American charges an insane $100 if you book six days or fewer before departure.

You may not be able to avoid all of these not-so-obvious fees (checking luggage is kind of essential), but knowing they exist can help you reason out whether it's worth asking for certain accommodations next time you fly. Photo by wili_hybrid.

Ubuntu/Mint Linux only: The HowToForge posts a helpful guide to installing and using command-line utility remastersys to create a live CD or DVD of your Ubuntu or Linux Mint system. We've previously featured the graphical tool Reconstructor as a fine way to choose programs and options for your system, but remastersys offers a total system backup, including files and settings, from one terminal command. Remastersys is a free download for Ubuntu and Mint Linux that requires adding a third-party source to your repositories, and using it may require having your installation CD or DVD handy.

Linux only: Free, open source program and file launcher GNOME Do looks a lot like its KDE-based counterpart Katapult and Launchy for Windows (and, of course, the Spotlight and Quicksilver features that inspired them) but has its own unique functions to recommend it. GNOME Do instantly had access to Firefox favourites, applications and configuration tools on my Ubuntu system, and two quick plugin installations added IM and music playing capabilities to the Windows-Spacebar launcher. I could only ask for a Thunderbird plugin to make email composing just as handy. GNOME Do is a free download for GNOME-based Linux systems, although it may run on KDE environments as well. Installation instructions can be found at the link below.

If you're familiar with putting your PC in Standby or Hibernate mode (and hopefully you know the difference), you probably know that both are anything but a sure bet. Dennis O'Reilly, blogger at CNET, runs through a few checks any Windows user should go through to make sure their computer slumbers when they want it to. Among the fixes are disabling the "Wake on LAN" setting in BIOS, pruning down scheduled tasks and modifying the properties of your mouse and keyboard. Not all of these tweaks are feasible for every system, especially business machines, but the post is worth a read for anyone struggling with their machine's sleep disorders. Photo by Goldring.

Readers at the Freakonomics blog recently interviewed security expert Bruce Schneier, touching on issues like phishing, encryption, and online storage, to name a few. On the topic of passwords, Schneier said there are too many for anyone to remember, so he relies on a fairly low-tech solution:

I write my passwords down. There's this rampant myth that you shouldn't write your passwords down. My advice is exactly the opposite. We already know how to secure small bits of paper. Write your passwords down on a small bit of paper, and put it with all of your other valuable small bits of paper: in your wallet.

Schneier's not the first to defy the conventional IT wisdom, but his particular method makes good sense. Of course, he also chooses strong passwords and uses his own Password Safe program to create and store them, in addition to his back pocket. Photo by Saad.

Custom search site Swicki, just out of beta, combines cherry-picking site searches with social moderation features to make a theoretically smarter personalised search box. Like Yahoo's search builder or personal search granddaddy Rollyo, Swicki lets you pick topics and sites you want to look through, but has a few more tricks up its sleeve.

The main difference is that a Swicki uses the clicks, keywords and searches from other Swickis with similar interests to rank and sort results, rather than any Google-like system. It also relies on users' voting results up and down and removing them to train the widget on what to look for. Lastly, Swickis can display RSS, video, and multimedia content, and be embedded in blogs or web sites. Building a Swicki is free, but requires clicking through a few pages to complete the process. For you longtime search tweakers out there, do Swicki's results seem worth the overall effort? Share your experience with the site (and others like it) in the comments.