A reader at frugal finance blog Get Rich Slowly suggests shredding your junk mail and using it to mulch your garden. To avoid killing your garden with inks and metals leeching off the shredded paper, the author uses the following guidelines:

• I only shred the non-glossy stuff, and try to avoid coloured ink as much as possible. Since I'm shredding to avoid identity theft in the first place, and credit applications these days contain coloured ink, I can't stay 100% black and white, but I can accept that.

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Before you finish your weekly review, clear off your desk, and pack up the old briefcase for the weekend, get a load of this week's most popular posts.

• Superior Alternatives to Crappy Windows Software
  "It may be the year 2008, but a whole lot of sucktacular software still rears its ugly head on PC's everywhere, even when better-behaved options are freely available."
• Top 10 Memory Hacks
  "Writing things down, on paper or on-screen, is the best way to make sure you remember important info and tasks, but sometimes you've got to rely on your plain old brain to keep essential data sorted and handy."
• Do You Run Antivirus Software?
  "From the looks of our recent thread on software you should never install, several Lifehacker readers have given up on running antivirus software."
• CCleaner 2.0 Decrapifies Your PC
  "Windows only: One of our favourite PC cleansers CCleaner (which stands for "Crap Cleaner") saw an upgrade this week."
• Field Guide to Windows XP SP3
  "Windows XP Service Pack 3 officially hit Microsoft servers this morning, and although it won't be available through Windows Update today, it should be sometime soon."
• Get Firefox's Best Features in Internet Explorer
  "You already know that Firefox is a superior web browser, but you still have to use Internet Explorer on a daily basis."
• Best Text Editors
  "From managing our to-do lists and writing code to jotting ideas and keeping a grocery list, nothing beats a solid plain text editor."
• Hardy Heron Makes Linux Worth Another Look
  "If you've flirted with the idea of switching your desktop operating system to Linux but never took the leap, the time is now. This week's release of Hardy Heron, an Ubuntu release that will be supported until 2011, offers a freer, more productive space for work and play than ever before."
• Have Your Mac and Windows Too with Boot Camp
  "You can have both a Mac and a PC on a single computer, using Apple's new Boot Camp software."

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Windows only: Popular freeware anti-virus application AVG Free recently updated to AVG Free 2008. Aside from a general interface overhaul and faster performance, the updated anti-virus scanner has added several new features with a focus on web security. AVG is always at the forefront of the freeware anti-virus category, so unless you don't run anti-virus software, it's a great alternative to crappy Windows software.

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If you run into a problem on a Windows computer, all you have to do is type a little description of the problem and Google takes care of the rest; Mac users, on the other hand, often need to include a little context in their search—instead of typing a query like text editor, you type text editor mac. Google's Mac-specific portal, found at http://google.com/mac/, now includes a Mac-specific search box. It's not groundbreaking, but the guaranteed Mac-specific results could come in handy next time you're looking for a specific application or you're troubleshooting your Mac.

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Blogger Steve Rubel discusses his methods for mitigating the Attention Crash caused by modern information overload while remaining well-informed. In the midst of all the demands new technology and information place on our lives, Steve keeps up by making unusable time usable.

I read a ton. However, I have mastered how to stuff it into pockets of time that are normally "unusable." I get through about one business book a week by listening to them when I commute, travel and run errands. In addition, I use Instapaper.com (more) to bookmark articles I want to read.

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Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Firefox extension Next Tab adds an option to the right-click context menu to open a link in a new tab directly next to the current tab. If you're the sort who's still got 10 tabs open on a light day, you know how quickly your reading can get disorganised. Next Tab helps keep those tabs in context and next to the tabs from whence they were launched. Next Tab is free, works wherever Firefox does.

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Windows only: Instead of dropping cash on a new stick of RAM for that old computer, go grab a free licence for the normally $20 memory manager TweakRAM—today only. TweakRAM speeds up your machine by optimising Windows memory management, and when your computer slows to a crawl, you can use TweakRAM to manually free up memory. The developers say:

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Innovative file sharing service Drop.io now sends and receives faxes for free. To send a fax, just upload a document to Drop.io, enter the fax number, and click Fax. To receive a fax, Drop.io generates a cover sheet you email to the sender; as long as they use your cover page on the fax, it will end up in your Drop.io account as a PDF. Like most of Drop.io, faxing services are free and require no registration to use.

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Next time you wipe your PC's hard drive clean and reinstall Windows with that old installation disc, you don't want to connect your fresh, unpatched and vulnerable system to the internet only to download 176 new updates from Microsoft. If your XP installation CD is older than 2004, once your system is online, you'll have to wait for hefty service packs to download, chained to your mouse while pushing the Next button, watching progress bars, and rebooting multiple times. Wouldn't it be better to start your installation, head out to run errands or grab coffee, and come back to an up-to-date system before your system gets online? It's possible, using some free software and a blank disc. After the jump, I'll show you how to create an automated, customised XP installation CD or DVD, that includes Microsoft's official-but-not-released Service Pack 3 for Windows XP.

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All platforms with Firefox: If you're constantly typing "Thanks for writing" at the end of all your web email messages, the Paste Email Firefox extension can insert it—and any other repetitive text phrases—with the click of the context menu. Based on the same concept as our home-built Texter and Mac-only TextExpander, Paste Email saves you repetitive typing by offering a selection of pre-entered phrases (like your email address, a link to your web site FAQ, a signature). Unlike global text replacement applications, Paste Email is browser-specific; it also only does single lines instead of text boxes.

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Mac only: Online backup service Mozy has released the final, 1.0 version of their Mac client, which doesn't have all the options that the PC side does, but still gets the job done. Choose which folders you want to back up on Mozy's servers over an encrypted connection, or simply back up your entire home directory, or pre-suggested sets of files (like your Address Book, iCal, Application Preferences, etc). I've actually plunked down the $5 a month unlimited storage at Mozy costs, and I use it on both my Mac and PC. Overall the service helps me sleep better at night knowing I've got off-site backup and and doesn't slow down my computer or work too much. I've only got one complaint.

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If you're one of those folks who handwrites HTML, you know how laborious it can be to type out all the tags and descriptors for a simple but highly-efficient table. Kotatsu, a free AJAX utility, generates clean code for however many rows and columns you need, with optional class options thrown on the cells. The code is blog, personal site, and start page-friendly, and that's all there is to it (thankfully).

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Windows only: Free customisation utility XNeat adds a few unique functions to the rich library of tweaking utilities, and some might become must-installs for Windows power-users. The most notable are the additions to the standard "Save As" dialog: an option to create a numbered "clone" file when you're about to save over an existing document (i.e. "Paper(1).doc"), and a time-stamping utility that adds numbered dates to filenames automatically. XNeat also lets you enable drag-and-drop taskbar re-ordering, giving you your preference of left-to-right app layout, and a full set of windows management tools, including transparency and system tray docking. XNeat is a free download for Windows XP and Vista only.

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