Microsoft's launched a tech-oriented outsourcing marketplace called Task Market in Tech Preview (that is, beta). If you need a logo for your company letterhead, but lack the Illustrator chops, or you have a knack for writing compelling resumes, Task Market's worth checking out—outsource the first and advertise the second on the market. Jobs most suitable for Task Market cost between $0 and $US500, and the product must be something that can be delivered in a digital format. Logo creation, web design, photo editing, proof reading, and document translation are just a few potential items. Get paid or pay your freelancer via PayPal, and rate their work after it's complete. Looks like a good place to test-drive a side business freelancing. Have you ever outsourced work or freelanced using a Task Market-like open forum? Tell us your experience in the comments.

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Windows only: X-Mouse Button Control, a free Windows mouse utility, is a highly-configurable tool that you set your extra mouse buttons, or even your standard set of three, to do all kinds of helpful tasks. Like the less-configurable X-Mouse Gizmo, you can add copy/paste functionality to a button, but you can also have a right rocker button perform a Print Screen capture, or set the two buttons to act as back and forward buttons only when Firefox is open. For those looking for more control over their pointers, X-Mouse Button Control is a powerful tweaking tool. X-Mouse Button Control is a free download for Windows systems only.

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Windows only: Robust backup utility AceBackup offers a host of features missing in most freeware backup apps, like file versioning, secure FTP, file-specific encryption, Windows shell integration, and backup compression. To set up a secure backup job in AceBackup, create a new project, select the files, choose the level of security, tell AceBackup where to put the files—local hard disk, network disk, CD/DVD, remote FTP, etc—and how often, and bam! You get automated, secure, local and remote backup nirvana that rivals the current Lifehacker favourite, Syncback SE. Ace Backup is a free download for Windows only.

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As you probably already know, Channel Nine's drama Underbelly was banned from screening in Victoria because many of the central characters and incidents are the subject of ongoing trials in that state. The same prohibition also applied to selling the DVD version in Victoria, and the hassles involved in filtering those sales appears to have minimised its availability in online stores and advertising online. However, online retailer EzyDVD is claiming in its newsletter out today that "the embargo has been lifted" on selling the disc through online stores. Of course, the ban on selling it to Victorians remains; presumably some poor schmuck has to double-check every order to ensure it doesn't have a 3000-series postcode. While we can't help suspecting that the court ban, however well-meaning and legally correct, resulted in a boost of torrent activity, the fact remains that the DVD is the only legal option for getting hold of the series (plus you should support good Aussie drama, there's not exactly a surplus!).

Shell-lovers are going to flip for this one: Goosh.org, which bills itself "the unofficial google shell," puts a Unix-like command line interface to Google on a web page using the magic of Ajax. Head over to goosh.org and type any word to get Google search results back in a an ls-like listing. You can also search various other Google products and engines, like Google Images, News, Blogs, Video, Translate and the Wikipedia. Type help or h to get a full listing of possible goosh.org commands.

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The annual publication of the BRW Rich 200 ranking of Australia's wealthiest individuals gives us all a chance to bicker, make envious comments and reflect on the state of our own bank balance. However, while you might not have much chance of reaching the $200 million cut-off for entry into the list, that doesn't mean you can't pick up some useful tips from the people who have made it. Here's some hints direct from the mouths of the rich folks  themselves to the team at BRW that can help you organise your own money matters better.

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All platforms running Firefox (including version 3): Feedreader Firefox extension Sage is a popular favourite, but the original developers appeared to abandon the project leaving Firefox 3 users in the lurch. Luckily another group took it up, readied it for Firefox 3, and renamed it Sage-Too. Sage-Too does exactly what Sage did: integrates your feed subscriptions right into Firefox, and displays the subscription list in your browser sidebar, and the feed content in a browser window. A nice combination of offline reader that lives right in your browser, Sage (and now Sage-Too) can help you keep on top of feeds without leaving Firefox or depending on Google Reader or Bloglines. Sage Too is a free download for Firefox, and works with Firefox 3.

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ISP Internode has added a local mirror of SourceForge, the repository for much of the open source goodness the world has to offer. This is good news for pretty much anyone downloading open source software locally, as it's bound to make things faster. It's doubly good news for Internode's own customers, as downloads from the mirror site are unmetered -- handy if you're constantly downloading new widgets and patches.

While most major ISPs offer various unmetered options (gaming and entertainment are the most common) software-centric choices like this are a bit rarer, especially on the open source side. If there's any other Aussie peering or mirroring arrangements you find especially handy, let us know in the comments.

With the version count sitting at 3.8 for Windows, Internet telephony giant Skype isn't shy about rolling out the updates. That's great when they work, but my recent experiences trying to upgrade to 3.8 have been painful: no sound at all for a week, then -- just as technical support were starting to take me seriously -- basic sound returned, but with 10 seconds silence every minute or so. Not good enough.

The best solution in this case would seem to be rolling back to an earlier working package, but Skype doesn't make that easy: its installation routine comprehensively ditches the previous version, and only the latest release is ever available at its site. Thank goodness for Filehippo, which maintains a comprehensive archive of Skype releases. I wouldn't want to guarantee they'll all work with the current infrastructure, but if an upgrade starts playing nasty and stuff was working fine before, this is the first place to check in (after taking a deep breath, of course).

If you've been tempted by the thought of an Eee PC, here's a good local deal: Catch Of The Day is selling off the original 7.9in Xandros Linux model for $327 plus shipping. To our way of thinking, even at $499, the Eee is a killer buy; with this kind of saving, you'd want to get in quick. 

Avoid the hassle of scraping off parking stickers or decals with Sticker Shield, a plastic sheet that surrounds stickers and attaches them to your window through the power of static adhesion rather than sticky goo. As a result, not only can you easily remove the sticker when you no longer need it, but you can also reapply the sticker whenever you want. Check out the video demo for a better idea of how Sticker Shield works. A set of two 4" x 6" sheets will set you back $US5 from the manufacturer. If you've used Sticker Shield before, let's hear how it worked for you in the comments.

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Windows only: The free Picasa2Flickr plug-in uploads photos from image-editing application Picasa to photo-sharing web application Flickr at the press of a button. We've mentioned Picasa2Flickr once before, but when Picasa changed its plug-in structure a while back, it broke Picasa2Flickr. This new and improved version actually just sends your selected photos straight to Flickr Uploadr 3.0, Flickr's default tool for uploading photos. There were always good workarounds for perfecting your Picasa to Flickr workflow, but it doesn't get much better than Picasa2Flickr.

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Editor: Meet io9 contributor Lisa Katayama. When she's not blogging about robots and futurism, she's spreading the word about how to GTD in the most unexpected ways. Here's a sampling of a few clever tricks you'll find in her new book, Urawaza.
When it comes to life and getting things done, we like to do things a little differently in Japan. When I break a glass in the kitchen, I don't use my vacuum cleaner to clean it up; I use a slice of bread. When my socks become dirt-stained from running in a muddy ravine, I don't pour bleach on them; I stuff them with marbles. And to save space and money, I have never bought a document shredder. I just stuff incriminating documents in a stocking and toss them in the washing machine.

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In the olden times (last week), only stock prices 15 minutes old were available on the web—guess the carrier pigeons needed time to fly 'em into the data centre. No more. As of today, Google Finance, the Wall Street Journal, and CNBC now offer up-to-the-second NASDAQ stock prices online so you can obsess about your portfolio real-time. (NYSE quotes remain delayed while the pigeons negotiate their raise, and the Oz editor suggests you don't hold your breath waiting for the ASX to do this either.)

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Windows only: Test your LCD monitor for dead or stuck pixels with simple freeware application IsMyLcdOK. There's not much to the program: Just run it and then walk through the battery of onscreen tests designed to isolate dead or stuck pixels. Chances are you may already have an idea where you monitor's pixels have gone awry, but with IsMyLcdOK you can be sure to spot any bad pixel. Once you've done that, take a look at our previous guides to fixing dead pixels, repairing stuck pixels, or removing LCD image burn-in. IsMyLcdOK is freeware, Windows only.

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ACCESS DENIED. Those two bone-chilling words are the last thing you want to see when you're trying to log into a system or open a file, but they're not necessarily a dead end. Several free tools can help you find lost passwords you can't remember or that your computer has saved but obscured. Let's take a look at a few free remedies for lost password panic when you're trying to log onto a computer, network, or just figure out what's behind that string of asterisks.

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Reader Paul writes in with a handy Craiglist searching tip:

Contrary to popular belief, Craigslist does have an Boolean "OR" search method; it can be done by placing an apostrophe just before each search term. I discovered this by the trial and error method. By default, Craigslist uses a Boolean AND between search terms; for example, searching the Seattle Craigslist for an ad containing the words Blue AND Green AND Red AND Orange you would simply enter: Blue Green Red Orange in the search window, and get about 43 results, each containing all four words.

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Need empirical proof that you're listening to the same old artists over and over on music discovery site Last.fm? LastGraph, a slick little API app coded by Andrew Godwin, takes your Last.fm username and models it into revealing timeline graphs. Check out your overall listening frequency, and an eye-popping multi-colour artist history timeline. The big caveat is that LastGraph must, for now, institute hold queues for data-gathering and timeline rendering. If you can keep your browser open for a bit, however, it's a neat way to pull more useful data from your Last.fm profile.

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Right-clicking a folder in Nautilus, the default file browser in Ubuntu and other GNOME-based Linux distributions, gives you a "Permissions" tab that aims to be simplistic, but can be somewhat confusing for anyone trying to open up a folder. The Tombuntu blog points out a one-click tweak to enable an "advanced," straight-forward permissions dialog. Launch the gconf-editor (using Alt+F2) and browse to the following preference:

/apps/nautilus/preferences/show_advanced_permissions

Hit the checkbox, and you've got a more powerful permission-setting dialog. Hit the link below for a command line version and more details.

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