Windows Mobile/Windows CE/Palm OS: Although development has halted on the project, The Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP) remains a robust option for media playback on Windows and Palm-based mobile devices. TCPMP supports video streaming and a wide variety of video formats including AVI, MP4, ASF, MPEG 1 and 4, WMV, DivX and XviD, to name a few. TCPMP also plays back several digital audio file formats, including MP3, OGG, and WAV. TCPMP's interface is simple and clean with emphasis on ease of playback and a light memory footprint. TCPMP is a free download for Windows Mobile/CE and Palm OS.

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Having last week withdrawn any fixed date for making PayPal the sole acceptable payment method for Australian auctions, eBay has finally shown the white flag and officially killed off those plans. While users will still be required to offer PayPal to users who want it, other options such as cheques, money orders, bank deposits and rival services like PayMate will still be allowed. Good news for sellers and buyers everywhere, though it may take some time for the apparent decline in eBay usage by sellers and buyers annoyed by the proposed policy to reverse itself.

Food writer and uber-cook Mark Bittman keeps it timely with 101 picnic-friendly dishes that can be made, he claims, in 20 minutes or less. As with his other 101-item lists of 20-minute party appetisers and 10-minute meals, there's bound to be a few fudges on the timing (especially with anything involving boiling noodles), but the list is bound to inspire a great picnic idea. Photo by Miss Pupik.

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Linux.com writes up a helpful guide to creating your own custom system recovery boot disc using an Ubuntu 8.04 CD image, a little command line work, and a few recommended emergency tools, including the partition format/restore tool GParted, e2undel, a file recovery tool, and anything else you might need if your hard drive, RAM, or anything else on your system suddenly decides it doesn't want to work. The guide requires a good bit of command line work, but it also lets you add whatever programs you'd like to have when you come back from the brink, and helps you strip out programs you don't to boot faster. For a similar (but pre-compiled) hard drive-fixing tool, check out Gina's guide to using the System Rescue CD.

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Google just launched an iPhone-friendly interface for its web-based Google Talk client—point your mobile Safari to google.com/talk to see it in action. Firefox users, this also means, as the Digital Inspiration blog points out, you've got a friendly little GChat client you can keep loaded in your sidebar (create a bookmark, check "Load in sidebar"), but any browser can access the interface through talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/m.

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Firefox with Stylish or Greasemonkey: The talented designers who redesigned your Gmail are back with that similar look for Google Calendar. The Google Calendar Redesigned user style is now available for download as a public beta, and gives your GCal that slick look you've come to love in your inbox. After the jump, get a few full screenshots of what your GCal looks like wearing the Redesigned style.

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Just posted an update to the Better Gmail 2 Firefox Extension which updates the gorgeous Redesigned skin to its latest and greatest version. Download version 0.5.1 here.

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Optus is the first Australian iPhone vendor to reveal its full range of iPhone prices, ahead of the launch on July 11. We've analysed the plans to work out which options offer the best deals for typical users. (We'll repeat this exercise for the other carriers as their full details get released.) Click after the jump to pick the right plan for you if Optus is your chosen carrier.

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Windows/Mac only: Freeware application and web service Dropbox instantaneously backs up and syncs your files over the internet and to any computer. After you install the application, it will create a Dropbox folder on your hard drive. Any file you put inside that folder will automatically be synced and monitored for changes, and each time a change is saved, it backs up and syncs the file again. Even better, Dropbox does revision history, so if you accidentally saved a file and wanted to revert to an old version or deleted a file, Dropbox can recover any previous version. See the video above for a full demonstration.

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Mozilla officially announced today that Firefox 3 set the Guinness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours, totaling at an impressive 8,002,530 downloads. Now that it's official, don't forget to get your personalised Download Day certificate.

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If you don't fancy hand-coding the look of your MySpace profile, the newly-rolled-out Profile Themes editor can do the job for you. Currently in beta, the tool is basic but functional, offering you a choice of themes in eight pre-designed categories such as Arty, Tech and Sports. You can customise the themes by changing colours, borders and background images. Access the editor by selecting Edit Profile from the Profile menu and then Profile Editor. [MySpace]

Web site Swurl aggregates your online activity in a simple blog-like format. From del.icio.us bookmarks and favourite YouTube videos to Twitter posts and Flickr photos, Swurl pulls it all into a simple blog-like interface. On the surface Swurl sounds similar to previously mentioned FriendFeed, but it's actually got a much different feel and offers a lot of customisation. Swurl's timeline feature stands out most, placing your links, photos, and other activities on a calendar timeline. For a nice example, check out Swurl founder Ryan Sit's Swurl page; if you like what you see, starting your own Swurl is free.

Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The CyberSearch Firefox extension transforms Firefox 3's AwesomeBar into a dynamic search box capable of returning results from popular sites like Wikipedia, Google, and more. The extension is fully customisable, so you can define keyword shortcuts for just about any search you can think of. For example, you could create a Lifehacker-only Google site search so that typing something like lh gmail in your AwesomeBar would give you the first page of Google results directly in the AwesomeBar. Choosing a result will take you directly that page. Luckily you don't have to create the Lifehacker-only search if you don't want to, as the extension already includes a custom search using the keyword techy that searches only Lifehacker, CyberNet, and Download Squad. Hit the jump for a video of CyberSearch in action.

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Windows Mobile devices only: Free application TaskPlus is a Today screen plug-in that reorders the standard task list interface on Windows Mobile devices into a compartmentalised and more manageable one. TaskPlus divides to-do's into into personal and business categories, and automatically prunes completed tasks. TaskPlus will also display birthday and appointment reminders in the same simplified and streamlined way it displays tasks. TaskPlus is a free download for Windows Mobile devices.

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Mac OS X only: Freeware application AllBookmarks provides access to all of your browser bookmarks through a searchable menu bar item. AllBookmarks supports Safari, Firefox, and Flock, so regardless of your browser of choice, AllBookmarks will index your bookmarks. It also integrates with the developer's marquee application, the shareware password management tool 1Password. AllBookmarks's searchability is both its coolest and most lacking feature—lacking because it could really benefit from a keyboard shortcut and a few other small tweaks. AllBookmarks is freeware, Mac OS X only.

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All platforms with Firefox: Just posted an update to the Better Flickr Firefox extension, a long-neglected compilation of Flickr Greasemonkey user scripts. The new version 0.3 adds Firefox 3 support, and two user scripts, including Jason Rhyley's Photo Page Enhancer and Thumbnail Page Enhancer. It's also got a shiny new icon, and now runs the latest and greatest Better code. Go grab the free download for all systems running Firefox.

Looks like Apple's getting your Mac ready for the new iPhone software due out next week; Just got a Software Update prompt to install a Mac OS X 10.5.4 update, which includes bug fixes and security patches for iCal, Safari, Spaces, and Expose.

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A project to port the KDE Linux Desktop's apps to Windows has been slowly gathering steam for some time now, but installing some of the more noteworthy apps, including the Kopete messenger, Amarok media manager, and Konqueror browser, can be a bit wonky. The Simple Help blog has a helpful screen-by-screen explanation of how to install KDE's backend in Windows and get your favourite apps installed and running. Not every project ports perfectly—Amarok, for example, requires some tweaking to get sound working—but some work just fine. For a fuller virtualization of KDE (or GNOME) apps in Windows, check out Adam's guide to running Linux apps seamlessly in Windows.

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Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): The makers of the previously-posted PDF Download extension have released a 2.0 beta that adds some key features, including a full web-to-PDF converter that retains CSS styling, web links, and layout details. The extension has also beefed up its PDF-to-HTML rendering, and works in Firefox 2 & 3, Flock, and other Mozilla-based projects. The developers have made 10,000 beta sign-ups available, with more to come. Hit the link below for more details on what's new in PDF Download 2.0.

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