Windows only: Save money on ink and paper while helping the environment with GreenPrint World Edition. The freeware version of the otherwise shareware GreenPrint offerings, GreenPrint World Edition identifies and removes unnecessary pages or space—like images you don't need to waste ink on or pages with lone URLs—from your print jobs. GreenPrint also keeps track of just how much money, paper, and greenhouse gases you're saving by using it. The freeware world version includes most of the best features of its shareware siblings, so give it a try and start saving both white and green ($) paper today. GreenPrint is freeware, Windows only. For a closer look at how it works, check out their screencast.

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Of course you know all about Time Machine's marquee feature—the ability to browse your files back in time—but Blogger James Duncan Davidson details Time machine's equally-excellent-in-its-simplicity feature: restoring an entire system after a hard drive crash. The process is painless. Simply boot from the Leopard install disc with a fresh hard drive in place of your crashed drive; instead of continuing with the install process, go to Utilities -> Restore System from Backup. Then select your backup source (your Time Machine drive), choose which backup you want to restore (most likely you'll want the most recent), then pick the destination drive (your new drive). Then it's simply a matter of kicking back and waiting for Time Machine to do its magic. When all's said and done, your entire system (with a few small exceptions) should be back in the exact same state you left it. I've already done this a couple of times myself, and frankly, it feels good. The simplicity of Time Machine really does compel you.

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Linux.conf.au 2008 has kicked off in Melbourne, and there are a number of sessions which look like they'll make interesting stories for Lifehacker. Tutorial on how to make your own open source DDR mat anyone? :)
I'll be cherry picking the most Lifehacker relevant stuff and posting it here - but if you're interested in Open Source in general, you can read my updates at The Open Source Report.
I'm also very pleased to report that I'll be posting a Lifehacker interview with Linus Torvalds this week as part of my LCA coverage. Permit me a small squee. :)
Ok, I'm off to a session on the OLPC now.

Web site Associated Content lists several clever uses for paper clips, like clipping bags shut, resetting electronics, unlocking doors, replacing zipper pulls, and one we've never heard of: pitting cherries.

Grab the clip and "unfold" it so it looks like a square "S." Then, push it down into the middle of the cherry until you feel it hit the pit. Hook the curve of the paper clip under the pit, then pull it up and out.

Sadly I'm cherry-less this afternoon so I didn't get to give this technique a try myself. What other neat stuff do you do with paper clips? Give it up in the comments.

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The Simple Dollar weblog rounds up six wallet hacks intended to minimise your spending and maximise your time. For example:

Take that one credit card and wrap a picture of your personal finance goal or your inspiration around it. Wrap that picture around your card and tape one edge of that picture to the other picture, creating a pocket or a sleeve for the card to live in. Then, when you feel the urge to pull out that card, you'll pull out that picture, too, and it will serve as an immediate reminder of the big dreams you're postponing to make this little trivial purchase.

Granted, a trivial purchase every now and then can be just what the doctor ordered, but the credit card sleeve is a great way to help stay the course when sticking to your budget gets difficult. Got your own favorite wallet hacks? Let's hear them in the comments.

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The Unclutterer blog points out a gorgeous, wall-mounted, fold-up gadget charging station that had us gripped with lust until we saw the price tag: a whopping $US400. A commenter there pointed out that over at Ikea Hacker, a reader put together a wall-mounted gadget holder and charger by modifying a $50 wall cabinet. The DIY job isn't quite as pretty as the $450 product, but folded up it looks just fine. Which do you prefer? Tell us in the comments. (For a hint at our vote, see how we modded a small nightstand to be a gadget charging station).

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Blogger Vinayaka CA details how he uses Google's excellent photo management application Picasa to manage multiple photo libraries. His solution: Create a Picasa library under another user account (e.g., PicasaUser) on your Windows PC, then put a shortcut to Picasa on your main desktop. Whenever you want to use your alternate Picasa library, right-click the shortcut and select Run as ->PicasaUser. You'll have to provide the other username and password every time you do it, and this isn't as clean as if Picasa actually supported multiple libraries (like iPhoto and iTunes do), but it's a good workaround if you want to separate your pics into multiple libraries. I gave it a try and it seemed to work, but if you've got a better method, let's hear it in the comments.

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If your car CD player or media centre can play and navigate MP3 CDs by folder, using iTunes you can burn your tracks in album-specific folders automatically. (MP3 CDs have the songs burned on them as files, not audio, and as such can fit a whole lot more music than a regular audio CD.) The Internet Duct Tape blog explains the iTunes tip: the trick is to sort the playlist by album first before you burn.

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Weblog Carlito's Contraptions posts a simple, clever alternative to the traditional noisy keychain, and all you need is three small washers and a rivet. When you finish with the quick two-step project (where step two asks you to admire your creation), you've got a slim, noiseless, and elegant keychain that's sure to feel good in your pockets.

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Writer Joel Johnson says that when he's fallen into a rut of doing nothing, forgiving himself (and others) is the best way to move through it.

Instead of trying to browbeat myself back to productivity--You're so far behind that you must do double the work!--I just let go. [...] I know. It's not a good tactic for wresting yourself out of a doldrum and sailing around the Cape of Todo. But whatever! It's okay to go off course sometimes. We are imperfect. And loathing yourself or bemoaning your lack of work ethic isn't actually doing anything, either.

We all have those self-loathing days when everything feels crappy and nothing's getting done, and that's the most crucial time to let ourselves off the hook. How do you pick yourself up out of the quicksand of productivity paralysis? Tell us in the comments.

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The Simple Dollar personal finance blog posts a helpful primer for those thinking about getting started with stocks, or even just mutual funds and other market investments. Getting debt under control and keeping a reserve fund is the first priority, of course, but once you're comfortable in your financial skin, Trent recommends performing a risk inventory on yourself before even looking at a stock chart:

Spend some time thinking about this. Would you not worry if you woke up and found out that you had lost 5% of your investment if you knew in the long run it would build up in value? How about 20%? If you had $10,000 in stocks, and then over a very bearish month, $2,000 of that vanished, how would you honestly react? Would you take your money out?

Sage advice, and the rest of the post should be familiar to those who have met with financial counsellors before. For more beginners' guidance, check out Moolanamy's 35 common sense rules for investing.

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Last week I detailed how to jailbreak your iPhone to the 1.1.3 firmware using Windows- or Mac-based applications and walking through a fairly long process. If that process was a bit too daunting for you, the Jailbreak Dev Team has released a one-click solution that you simply install through Installer.app. To use it, you need to have a jailbroken 1.1.2 iPhone (here's how to do that), then it's simply a matter of tapping the install package and waiting about 20 minutes for the entire process to complete. Before installing, make sure you've set your Auto-Lock feature to Never, are connected to a Wi-Fi network (it downloads a 200MB image), and you've got at least 300MB of free space on your iPhone. Finally, check to make sure you've got the latest version of Installer.app before proceeding.

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Reprogramming your personal workflow with a productivity system is a lot like programming computer software: given a stream of incoming information and tasks, you set up holding spaces and logical rules for turning it all into action. Like software that automates activities, good productivity systems take the thinking out of what to do with incoming data, and make it a no-brainer to turn those bits into an accomplishment. While I'm at best a novice student of Unix philosophy and its rules for designing great software, several tenets are worth thinking about when you're designing your productivity system. Many of the rules that apply to writing great code also apply to writing down tasks and projects that you'll actually carry out instead of put off. Let's look at a few of the basic rules of Unix philosophy and how they apply to your personal productivity system. Photo by naotakem.

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Finally got around to dusting off the Better GReader Firefox extension this weekend and jazzed it up with three new skins and features. My favourite skin is the beautiful Mac OS X skin, but the handy Reader Minimized skin and the updated Optimized options are useful, too. There are also two new Preview Item scripts in the mix, which loads a post's originating web page in a frame right inside Reader. You can now also bypass that annoying "iGoogle or Reader?" prompt page with the Auto Add to Reader feature. Go grab the download at Better GReader's homepage, or if you have it installed already, just update from Firefox's Add-ons dialog box.

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Reader Mike just got a "yes" from his girlfriend in reply to The Big Question, and now he's looking ahead to The Big Event. Being a regular reader, a frugal guy, and an "addictive planner," he writes seeking help:

Do you have any suggestions for software (I use Windows, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile platforms) that I can use to keep track of vendors, quotes, and other sundry details?

Having tied the knot less than a year ago, I found some success using Google Docs for multi-user planning, but also spent a lot of time explaining its features to everybody—and ended up losing a few invitations to accidental deletions.

So I turn to our wise readers and ask: What software or organizational tools would you/did you use to plan a wedding, covering as many aspects as possible? How would you keep on top of your tasks, decisions, and deadlines? Give Mike an early gift of advice in the comments.

There's still no getting around the fact that text-to-speech conversion doesn't sound quite, well, human. VozMe, a free text-to-speech web app, sounds better than you'd expect for a free web service, and is pretty convenient to use. Simply paste text into a web form from any source, hit the "Create MP3" button, and you can then listen through a Flash-based player or download an MP3 for later listening. VozMe can also be embedded in web sites or used through an iGoogle gadget, and while you still won't mistake VozMe for a friendly voice, it gets the job done with decent pronunciation, and without any two-program hacks.

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Windows only: Free clipboard utility Clipdiary doesn't have all the bells and whistles (like cross-computer syncing) of managers like Ditto, but for simply keeping a list of all your Ctrl+C action, it's a handy, lightweight application to keep in your taskbar. Clipdiary tracks the images, rich text, and even pictures placed in the Windows clipboard, tells you where they came from, and can easily "attach" and "detach" itself from monitoring for privacy concerns. By default, Clipdiary tracks up to the 3000 last items you've copied, so you'll likely want to change that in the options dialogue. For those handy with databases, Clipdiary keeps its records in an SQL file, possibly offering some cross-platform productivity potentials. Clipdiary is a free download for Windows systems only. For more clipboard ninja training, take a look through our Top 10 clipboard tricks.

Windows/Mac/Linux: For those who have migrated their day-to-day documents to Google Docs, or those just looking for a good reason to do so, gDocs Sidebar might be the time-saving, access-enabling tool you're looking for. The free extension for Firefox adds a full-featured sidebar view of your uploaded documents, allowing you to search them, sort by document type, date or author, and narrow your view to specific folders (although sub-folders aren't supported yet). Better still, those who despaired to see last week's release of a drag-and-drop uploader released only for Windows get the same functionality in gDocs. My only complaint at this point is with its keyboard shortcut, which I had to re-assign from Ctrl-Shift+G to prevent the "Find" dialogue from popping up with. All in all, however, it's a Google Docs fan's best friend and time-saver. gDocs Sidebar is a free download and works wherever Firefox does.

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