If you've got a home server running, or just a computer that controls music and video playback, the Simple Help blog has a guide that might make your digital life a little more convenient. Using the free WWWinamp tool, the author details how to set up and control Winamp from any browser, iPod touch/iPhones included. Convenient for controlling movies streamed to your television, music playing during a party, or any other away-from-computer control.

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Windows XP/NT only: We've shown you how to trim Windows down to the bare essentials and setting up pre-fetching for faster booting, but how do you know if your painstaking changes are having any real effect? BootTimer, a free measurement utility, asks you to restart your computer, then uses system logs to measure the distance between your boot-up screen to Windows log-in. You'll need to enable the program to run without prompting (un-check the "Ask before running this file" option on double-clicking in XP), and there's a small bit of promotion/donation prompting after it's done, but it's much easier than digging through verbose logs with a calculator. BootTimer is a free download for Windows NT and XP systems only.

In 1988, if you'd told my Star Trek-loving 12-year-old self that someday I'd get to meet Wil Wheaton—and that he'd know my name—my preteen head would have exploded. Twenty years later, I did get to meet the actor-turned-writer who played Wesley Crusher on The Next Generation, and I still had to contain an embarrassing fit of public fangirldom. Wheaton came to San Diego this weekend to read from his newest book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, a memoir of growing up a geek in the '70s and '80s. Afterwards I got to chat briefly with Wil, who had mind-bogglingly nice things to say about Lifehacker, and who was kind enough to answer my default question for any admirable nerd: "What are your favourite software applications right now?" Here's what he told me.

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Windows only: Previously mentioned Microsoft Outlook plug-in Xobni (pronounced "zob-nee") is now available to the public for immediate download. Previously in invite-only beta, Xobni adds email analytics, better contact cards, fast search, threaded conversations, and more to your Outlook inbox. The NY Times explains one way Xobni makes your inbox more of a social network of connected contacts:

Xobni recognises that if an executive sends a copy to someone else on each message he or she sends, it might be to an assistant or another colleague. When someone using Xobni searches for that executive in Outlook, the second person is listed as well.

Huh-wha, you ask? Here, have a video demonstration of Xobni in action.

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Impulse buying can affect anyone, but if you're tech minded, the things we can be tempted to buy can be especially expensive.
Here's a tactic suggested by the No Credit Needed blog: a self-imposed cooling off period on impulse buying decisions, also known as the $100 a day rule.
Basically, for every $100 that tempting toy will cost you, wait one day. So, $1000 game console? Wait 10 days, then see if you still want to buy it.
The nice thing about this is you don't have to say "No" right away - you're saying "Maybe, I'm going to think about it". In my experience that's much easier to accept when you're impulse shopping than a flat out no.

The $100-a-Day Rule Prevents Impulse Buying [No Credit Needed via Get Rich Slowly]

Windows only: Freeware screencasting application Community Clips records screencasts of your Office software in action. Developed by Microsoft, Community Clips integrates with the quick access toolbars of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint so you can quickly record a quick demonstration or an audio/video version of a PowerPoint presentation with one click. We've featured several screencasting applications in the past, but Community Clips' Office integration makes it perfect for anyone needing to do a quick demonstration in your Office app of choice. Community Clips is freeware, Windows only.

The Wired How-To wiki offers a complete guide to staying plugged in while you globe-trot, pointing out this especially bookmark-worthy world electriciy guide, an index to plugs and voltages for dozens of countries around the world.

Mac OS X only: Make your own stop-motion animation videos using your iSight webcam or connected video camera with freeware application FrameByFrame. I showed you how to document your parties with a freeware time-lapse application, and now FrameByFrame is taking care of the stop-motion video angle. It's easy to use, and the results—Lego samples of which you can see on the download page—are very impressive. FrameByFrame is freeware, Mac OS X only.

It can take awhile to figure out all the shortcuts and features in the ever-growing list of Google web applications. The Google Operating System blog unearths a quick URL hack to display a Google app's entire help file—normally split up on cross-linked pages—in easily-saved and printable HTML. Head to the app's "support center," usually found at, for example, mail.google.com/support/, and add ?fulldump=1 to the end of the URL. Hit the Google Operating System link for direct, download-able links to the most popular apps' full help files.

We asked earlier this week what disposable items you had found creative re-uses for, and the answers are in. Not surprisingly, some of you have some pretty crafty uses for household goods that usually end up at the curb. From CD-R spindles to corks, twist-ties to tissue boxes, lots of supposedly one-use items can save you money, free up space, and be seriously handy when the need arises. After the jump, a roundup of our readers' waste-reducing reuses. Yogurt photo by Dan4th, all others by How can I recycle this.

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Tech site Ars Technica runs down the basics of securing your home wireless network with the most secure and up-to-date methods. The main takeaway is that when you enable encryption on your wireless router, use WPA encryption instead of WEP, because it's better and stronger.

Unlike WEP, WPA uses a 48-bit initialization vector and a 128-bit encryption key. More importantly, however, WPA uses what's called the Temporary Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). Whereas WEP recycles the same key for encrypting all the packets flowing across the network, WPA's TKIP changes the encryption key every single time a packet is transmitted. This, combined with the use of longer keys, prevents a hacker from compromising a router simply by passively observing a large enough set of packet transmissions.

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