Amidst all the hype around cloud computing, The New York Times points out that if Google locks down your Gmail login for whatever reason (like someone tried the wrong password too many times), you're basically screwed. If you're worried, set up an automated email backup using POP.

iPhone 2.0 only: Free application Fring puts popular chat applications on your iPhone, including Skype—and the ability to make Skype voice over IP calls when your phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network. Fring puts all your chat buddies from AIM, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo, ICQ, Twitter, and Skype on your iPhone, and lets you know who's online when. Chat your buddies whether you're connected via data or Wi-Fi, and make Skype calls (or Skype Out calls) when you're on a local network. Fring is a free download for iPhones running the 2.0 software.

The tech-savvy Barack Obama campaign offers a free iPhone application that prioritises your contacts list by "key battleground states" (so you can call your pals and do some persuasion), and offers local campaign event information, and news about Obama/Biden.

Don't fancy taking that work trip next week? Push the benefits of video conferencing by calculating how much you'll save in carbon emissions using Telstra's new telecommunications ready reckoner. The calculator is part of Telstra's Now We Are Talking blog, and thus not entirely neutral, but it's still a useful tool for stimulating workplace discussion. For a more flight-specific carbon calculator, check out previously mentioned Carbon Planet.

A lot of the discussion around here about accessing online television focuses on US options like Hulu, but many people (your Lifehacker editor included) would prefer to catch UK programming. Blogger Charlie rounds up the options for catching UK shows in Australia, from free-to-air to P2P. The solutions offered for accessing online services like the BBC's iPlayer aren't entirely free, but if you haven't got proxy-based methods to work, this is another option to consider. Thanks Chris A!

If you're looking to buy a house, it's always good to know what it (and others in the neighbourhood) sold for last time. Traditionally, that's required paying a commercial provider for information, but Home Price History inverts that approach by providing a web application where you can store and share the results of your own real estate search. Currently, there's around 4000 properties listed on the site: not yet enough to make it possible to abandon all other sources of information, but a useful extra resource. For another approach to neighbourhood investigation, check out previously mentioned StreetAdvisor.

The Digital Inspiration blog points out that one can get ulimited access to the Video Training Company, a site with more than 70,000 video tutorials focused on software, programming, and other technology, with a three-letter promotional code. If you're determined not to have to bother anyone in accounting for advanced Excel tricks (or learn any software package or OS, really), enter rtm as a promotional code at the sign-up page below. The offer goes for one week, and may not last, so now's your chance to grab Quicktime or Flash-based how-to videos. Found an instructional vid worth sharing? Tell us about it in the comments.

YouTube videos tend to be brief (even with the newly-relaxed upload limit), but even so people often stop watching partway through if they get bored. Hot Spots, a new feature on YouTube, helps you identify when the audience is getting turned off by showing how likely people are to watch at any given time, based on viewing statistics from YouTube's Insight tracking feature. To access the Hot Spots graph, select the Hot Spots tab from the Insights dashboard. (Like many Google features, it seems to be rolling out gradually; I couldn't see it on my own YouTube account).

While any judgement on your work might need to be taken with a grain of salt if the video has only been viewed a handful of times, spotting a common exit point could suggest ways to re-edit your video for improved impact. If you want to share someone else's YouTube video and cut out the dull bits, check out recently-mentioned Splicd.

Windows only (for now): When Skype rolled out its first beta 4.0 release back in June, its enhanced video chat and managed conversation features came at a cost: a screen-filling app which wasn't necessarily helpful on ultra-portable devices and in which it was easy to lose notifications of chat messages. The newer beta, out this week, addresses those concerns by adding an optional 'compact view' that's more akin to classic Skype, and incorporating pop-up notifications on the taskbar (which you can switch off, fortunately). Those changes aside, the 4.0 release is still a little buggy (my install required a reboot and didn't accurately reflect available people to chat to). The current beta is still Windows only, but a Mac version is in the works.

iPhone/iPod touch users whose offices rely on Lotus Notes for email, calendar, and contacts can now access their information through a customised Safari Mobile interface created by IBM. CNET reports that IBM and Apple are working on a full-fledged Lotus Notes Traveler app or interface for true push access, but in the meantime, iNotes looks like a pretty graceful way to fit your Apple phone into an IBM network. Your network administrator needs to have installed Lotus Domino Web Access 8.0.2 to grant you iNotes access; Notes users who've tried out this webapp, let us know what you think in the comments.

Google Translate has increased its range with the recent addition of 11 new languages. Of particular note for Australian travellers are three widely-used languages from this corner of the world: Filipino, Indonesian and Vietnamese. While this kind of machine translation is still fairly rough, it can help get the gist of text when you're checking out (say) the site for an unfamiliar hotel.

I was at a friend's wedding recently, and during the after-dinner speeches it emerged that the couple had first met online. That didn't strike me as at all remarkable, and it seems I'm not alone. A Galaxy Poll conducted on behalf of online dating service meetmyfriend.com.au found that 83% of single people aged between 25-39 favoured using an Internet service to meet for potential partners. Even allowing for the not-exactly-unbiased source, that's a remarkably high number. After all, it wasn't that long ago that dating someone you'd met online -- whether casually through a common interest, or in a more organised way via a dating service -- was frequently viewed as desperate, risky or second-best. Why have attitudes changed so fast? Does that data match your own experience? Share your take in the comments.

Pay TV provider Foxtel is changing its prices from November 1. While the entry-level service is going up (from $37.95 to $40), many of the additional channel options are dropping in price (adding extra entertainment bundles is $0.95 cheaper, for example), and pay-per-view movies are also marginally less expensive. It seems that Foxtel wants to encourage people to spend up more on extra content by offering minor discounts, so for people (like me) who just get the basic service, it's a nuisance, though not a dramatic one. Check out the link for full details on what's changed (all prices are now in round dollar amounts, which is sensible). Would rising prices put you off pay TV? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The power of persuasion can get you far in this world, even if you're not in sales, and a few simple communication techniques can go a long way to get someone to agree with you. Tutorial site wikiHow runs down "subconscious" actions for persuading others, like framing, mirroring, timing, or even touching the person on the arm or shoulder. This list is similar to our previously posted (and controversial!) top 10 conversation hacks. How do you convince someone to come on over to your side in conversation? Let us know in the comments. Photo by jurvetson.

Google Labs launches an addictive little webapp called In Quotes, which searches and compares things politicians have said in the news by keyword. So you can see what Obama and McCain have said recently about Iraq, health care, or energy. Hit the "Spin" button to get another quote (with a link to the source news story), or hit the politician drop-down to get quotes from the vice presidential candidates and others, from Hillary Clinton to Ron Paul.

Last night Twitter launched its Election 2008 site, which is a live-updating stream of commentary by Twitter users who mention any of the U.S. Presidential candidates' names in them. The stream moves pretty fast—literally, down the page as you watch—but if you want to pause on a tweet, just hover your mouse over it. You can also filter updates by candidate by clicking on the Obama, McCain, Biden, and Palin tabs on the right side.

A new study out of Lehigh University shows that workers lie 50% more of the time via email than in handwritten communication.

"There is a growing concern in the workplace over email communications, and it comes down to trust," says Belkin, an assistant professor of management in the College of Business and Economics. "You're not afforded the luxury of seeing non-verbal and behavioral cues over email. And in an organizational context, that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and, as we saw in our study, intentional deception."

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Social networks are supposed to be friendly places, but sometimes the devil enters into you and causing a little mayhem seems like much more fun. Enter Anti-Social Networking, a Facebook application (albeit also a movie promo) which you can use to "send crap gifts, cheat at Scrabble and insult so-called friends". The core of the application is an insult creation engine, where you can choose from lists to create the ultimate put-down -- or at least amuse actual friends with a sense of humour. Other options include removing friends you haven't spoken to in ages and (of course) a Scrabble-cheat lookup.

Telstra's BigPond Internet division has added a support channel on Twitter, allowing you to raise problems through the popular social network. Though most of the responses to date seem to effectively devolve to "a BigPond consultant will email U back", it's another weapon to keep in the support arsenal.

If you're holding a meeting and only have time to answer your audience's most important questions, Google's free Moderator tool might be a wise solution. The simple tool, originally built for putting together question lists at tech conferences, lets anyone with a Google account create a "topic," like "Questions for the boss," throw a few sample questions up, then submit a group of emails to take part in question voting and suggesting. Given the simplicity of Moderator, there are likely other helpful group polling uses it can be put to. Moderator is a free service, requires a Google account to create question lists.

Having recently complained about the haphazard approach being taken to Australia's proposed digital TV switchover, it's good to learn that Australia will be emulating the UK by adopting a region by region switching model, rather than the more drastic US approach of just switching off the analog signal and dealing with the chaos afterwards. There's also a research project underway to ensure that digital reception works well in units and apartment blocks, reflecting the reality that we can't all live in a freestanding dwelling these days. Switchover is still scheduled to be finished by 2013, by which time hopefully the ABC won't be the only free-to-air broadcaster with a decent range of digital channels.

Windows only: Up-and-coming instant messaging application Digsby has released a new update with significant performance improvements and added support for business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn. Performance improvements include optimised RAM usage (the fruits of the last test release), a snappier interface, better connectivity with IM networks, and bug fixes galore. Beyond that, the IM application that made its name by integrating with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter continues to improve by adding social network LinkedIn to the fold. Digsby has quickly established itself as a killer tool for managing and staying up to date with IM, email, and social networking, and right now the biggest question is: When will we see the promised Mac and Linux flavours? Digsby is a free download, Windows only.

3 today announced that when it next updates its prepaid capped phone plans, they will include not only the usual fixed amount of voice calls and texts, but also an Internet browsing component. That makes it, in my estimation, the first Australian telco to make browsing on a regular mobile part of its standard set of consumer prepaid cap plans. Several iPhone plans have included a built-in download cap, but not all, and it's rarely a feature on most other mobile plans, with data access being sold either casually or in blocks. The 3 plans aren't uber-generous -- the entry $29 plan includes 150MB of browsing, the top-level $99 plan includes 2GB -- but it at least suggests that mobile browsing may become more common for non-iPhone users, unlike the present reality.
Strangely, while the new 3 caps go on sale September 28 (hence no full link yet), no date for when the Internet browsing component will become available has been announced. A spokesperson confirmed they won't be included initially but will be added "late this year", so if that sounds like a tempting offer, you might as well hang onto your current phone and wait until it's a concrete reality.

iPhone only: Considering that voice dialing has been a standard feature of even the cheapest phones for several years, the lack of any sort of hands-free voice dialing on the iPhone is frustrating. Cactus Voice Dialer is a free voice-dialing application based on an open-source speech recognition engine called PocketSphinx. Since it's speech recognition, there's no set up required. Just call a number by saying the contact's name and—if necessary—which number to call (e.g., "Adam Pash's mobile"). Cactus isn't the only voice dialing app available in the App Store, but it is currently the only free voice dialer as far as we can tell (VoiceDial, for example, is a whopping $US15). For as young as it is (and the lack of price tag), I'd say Cactus has a lot of promise. If only Apple would allow apps to tie to special buttons, like double-click home.

Today marked the launch of the first phone that runs Android, an open-source, Google-designed operating system that runs web-savvy applications on a touchscreen-based phone. We didn't have an agent at today's launch of T-Mobile's G1, but luckily our brothers-in-arms Gizmodo are all over it. We had some pretty high expectations for Android, and it seems to deliver on most of them, with a few caveats. Let's take a look at what Android can do, and what it might mean for your phone when (or if) it arrives down under.

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