Australia is to get its third connection to the international internet backbone with the announcement of a $200 million fibre optic project by PIPE Networks, according to a report by Dan Warne at APC.  The project will build an undersea  cable between Australia and Guam, which will have a maximum speed of 1.92 terabytes per second.
The pipeline is slated to be operational in 2009.
The APC story quotes PIPE's executive director as saying the new pipe will greatly increase Australia's international data capacity and give ISPs another option apart from dealing with Telstra and Optus. He suggests the increased capacity and independence from legacy players Telstra and Optus could open the door to cheaper and unmetered broadband. We can but hope.

Windows only: Freeware, lightweight anti-spyware application ThreatFire monitors your computer for malware and blocks new threats in real time. There are a lot of freeware anti-spyware apps out there, but the difference between most of them and ThreatFire is the always-on, real-time protection—as opposed to on-demand scanning. The catch is, ThreatFire does not do on-demand scans in the free version. All that really means is that you can download one of the many other freeware options (like AVG Free and Ad-Aware, for example) for on-demand scans and run ThreatFire to cover any immediate threats in real-time. ThreatFire is freeware, Windows only. Everybody's got their favorite anti-virus and anti-malware apps, so let's hear yours in the comments.

Hot on the heels of the announcement that previously shareware newsreader apps FeedDemon (Windows) and NetNewsWire (Mac) have gone freeware, weblog Ode to Apple delves into NetNewsWire to detail how to get the most from the powerful desktop-based newsreader. The guide covers everything from smart lists (like iTunes Smart Playlists) to application preferences. If NetNewsWire's new freeware status has motivated you to see what RSS life is like outside the world of Google Reader, Ode to Apple's guide is a good place to get started tweaking your new reader. While you're at it, don't forget to download the keyboard shortcuts cheatsheet.

If your hard drive vibrates against the inside of your PC's case, it can make for one noisy computer. To quiet things down, Instructables user liknus added rubber "shocks" (so to speak) to the sides of the drive mount to absorb the vibration. For anyone who's installed a hard drive before, this looks like an easy project.

You may not want everything to be the same everywhere you've installed Firefox, but if you've settled on the perfect set of about:config tweaks, chances are you don't want to go through the hassle of setting up the same... Read More »

Mac OS X Leopard only: On the heels of our Leopard power tweaks feature earlier today, desktop utility LeopardMOD offers a graphical interface to several Terminal settings. Customise Finder, the Dock, Menu Bar, Dashboard, Safari, and more using LeopardMOD's kinda ugly but serviceable tabbed interface. My favorite mods include turning off Dashboard, making the menu bar opaque, and displaying the full folder path in Finder windows. Check out all of LeopardMOD's settings in the gallery below. LeopardMOD is a free download for Macs running Leopard only.

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There have been a few diet plans published for geeks over the years – we told you about a few of them previously, including the famous Hacker's Diet. This latest one, The Geek Diet, is a 51 page ebook by Mark Faithfull, who describes himself as a typical geek who wanted to tackle his weight in a sensible and easy to manage way.
He has clearly approached his subject with the scientific curiousity of a geek – in fact he says he got the idea for the Geek Diet from a Scientific American podcast. He's sprinkled the book with quotes from various studies on eating, food and weight loss. I have to admire the honesty of a diet book which begins by quoting a UCLA study which found that 83% of people who go on diets end up weighing more than when they started.

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The iTransmogrify bookmarklet for the iPhone or iPod touch converts embedded Flash content to mobile Safari-supported formats so that Flash media—like embedded YouTube videos and streaming MP3s—will play from Safari with the click of a bookmark. Obviously your iPhone or iPod touch has YouTube built in, but if, for example, you're reading Lifehacker and we've embedded a YouTube video, Safari won't recognise that and take you directly to the YouTube app. One click of your new iTransmorgrify bookmarklet, though, and it will. The bookmarklet also supports several Flash-based MP3 players.

While we often write about the productivity killer that is information overload, here at Lifehacker we publish up to (and sometimes over) 20 posts a day. Yes, we're aware of the irony. But in case you didn't know: we've got several category pages and feeds that you can use to filter Lifehacker posts down to just the topics you want to see.

First, we offer two versions of our "all posts" feed: the Full content feed includes the full text of posts with images and advertising. The second is post excerpts without advertising. If you want all of Lifehacker every day, take your pick between those two.

If those two feeds serve up too much content for your taste, we've also recently created the "aus" feed - which as the name suggests, bundles up all the Oz-centric posts from Lifehacker (around 6 posts a day).

Mac OS X only: Freeware Mac application Disctop Pro displays the currently inserted CD or DVD on your Mac desktop, complete with album artwork. The app animates your disc insert and ejection and gets great marks in the looks department, but it also has its useful features, too. When you're playing back a CD, you can skip or pause tracks from the floating CD, and the app customises its behaviour for the Mac you're using, from iMacs to MacBooks to Mac Pros. Disctop Pro is freeware, Mac OS X only.

If tracking your calorie intake is part of your New Year's resolution and you already use Twitter, create and maintain a food diary using the Twitter-enabled Tweetwhatyoueat service. Here's how it works: on Twitter, friend the Tweetwhatyoueat bot (named twye) and direct message it your meals and snacks throughout the day from the web, your phone, instant messenger, or your Twitter client of choice. Tweetwhatyoueat creates a food diary based on your direct messages, calculating your calorie totals as you go. (Your food intake isn't public, so your friends won't know about those Twinkies.) Being a closet Twitter fan, I love this new way to make the service actually productive. After the jump, check out Tweetwhatyoueat in action.

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You already know you can turn that old t-shirt into underwear yourself—but if sewing's not your thing, hip undie company Solojones will do the recycling for you. Ship them your concert, race, techie schwag or any other tee to reincarnate, and they'll turn it into a pair of bottoms—a neat gift for the ladies. The transformation works best with stretchy shirts, and it'll set you back $30 (or $45 for two right now).

US-centric: You no longer have to pay to opt out of annoying unsolicited snail mail: the Direct Marketing Association has dropped their dollar fee to get your name on their mailing preferences list. The DMA's member companies honor this... Read More »

US-centric: Video rental service Netflix is lifting the limits on its "Watch Now" feature, allowing subscribers to watch as many hours of streaming video as they can handle. The service requires Windows with Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player... Read More »

Now that Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard's been out almost three months, several apps, tweaks, and plug-ins have emerged that can customise (and sometimes re-Tigerise) your Mac. Now that you're comfortable with Leopard's new features, like Stacks, Quick Look, Time Machine, and Spaces, it's time to roll up your sleeves and make your Mac look, feel, and behave just how you like. Personalize Leopard's great new features, revert the annoying ones, or just get a taste of the things you didn't know your Mac could do with our favorite Leopard tweaks.

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Linux only: We've seen how visualizing your hard drive usage can help you clear the biggest space-eaters and make room for more useful information, and KDE-based Linux users have a great tool to do that. Free download Filelight scans your hard drive and displays space usage on a colored radial, with details that pop up as you mouse over each segment. Directories closest to the system root are show on the inside, and Filelight seems to have few problems analysing mounted non-Linux-format partitions, such as Windows. For those who liked the looks of Baobob but try to operate in a clean KDE environment, Filelight is an attractive space-making tool. Filelight is a free download for Linux systems only.

News feed aggregator tiinker aims to help those feeling overwhelmed by their news portals and their own feed readers chop down their lists. Using Digg-style "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" controls, tiinker "learns" what types of news and sources you find relevant and interesting and mixes its content for you accordingly. Tiinker's technology page reshaped itself pretty quickly to a little test-voting with an eye for Linux items, but what's missing right now (and used to be offered) is a way to bring in RSS feeds not offered by the tiinker mix. Still, for those seeking out a decent, customised news portal, Tiinker might be a good way to keep on top of what's happening.

If you've ever bought an item on the premise that it eventually will be a bargain after all the rebates come back, you know the process is far from simple and streamlined. About.com has a handy guide to getting all the rebate cash you deserve. Along with linking helpful rebate-tracking sites, the guide recommends skipping any re-sending of receipts if a company claims a problem with your rebate:

f the rebate check never arrives or arrives late, file a complaint with the FTC, the state Attorney General, or the local Better Business Bureau.
Also write to the corporate headquarters of the company where you made your purchase and include copies of your correspondence with the above organizations.

Internet radio offers a lot of great music and programming for free, but not all of it can be downloaded whenever you're ready to listen. Lifehacker reader Luke points us to a quick tutorial on setting up your Linux system to record radio or music while you're away using the free kcron, Mplayer, and Lame tools. It's fairly simple guide that leaves you with an MP3 of the program you were trying to catch. Windows recording enthusiasts can check out a similar guide for Windows Luke pointed us to, which requires a bit more command line work and tinkering. Thanks Luke!

Over at 43 Folders, writer Brian Oberkirch looks at how one of his favorite artists beats his worst tendencies to be intimidated by the hugeness of the work in front of him. By dividing his work into a grid and breaking it into smaller incremental tasks—like knitting a sweater—he sidesteps his anxiety.

What I found that one of the nice things [about] working incrementally is that I don't have to reinvent the wheel every single day. Today I did what I did. You can pick it up and put it down. I don't have to wait for inspiration. There are no good days or bad days. Every day essentially builds positively on what I did the day before.

There are many benefits to setting up an automated personal finance system, as Gina has previously shown us, and with the new year still fresh, it's a good time to get your own system set up. The Get Rich Slowly finance blog offers one guest writer's solution—set up two checking and two savings accounts, to get the most interest out of savings and keep bills and expenses in separate compartments. One benefit of his system:

... If there are billers who need to (draw from) a checking/savings account, I can completely isolate what they have access to. I can also make sure that the money is sitting in savings until the last possible moment but gets automatically transferred over in time to pay the bill without incurring a late fee.