This week's most popular posts include:

• What to do when Windows XP Service Pack 3 won't install
  "Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been out since April, but it's only now being widely pushed out onto Australian desktops via Windows Update. But what if the service pack doesn't install?"


• Beta Browser Speed Tests: Which Is Fastest?
  "We've previously put the major browser releases to the speed test, but today we're measuring Chrome against the second beta of Internet Explorer 8, as well as the beta of Firefox 3's next iteration, 3.1."


• Why aren't we excited by Blu-ray?
  "The disappearance of HD DVD from the market was expected to give a boost to Blu-ray, but so far it seems we're are quite happy to stick with DVD and skip any hi-def alternative."


• How to shake hands properly
  "You might not think shaking hands is a vital business skill, but communications consultant Mark Jeffries used it as the basis for an entire book"


• Enable Chrome's Best Features in Firefox
  "Apart from a few specific issues (namely process management), many of Chrome's best features are already available in Firefox 3, proving yet again the power of extensibility."


• Google Chrome First Look
  "New beta web browser Google Chrome officially hit the streets just a few minutes ago, and we've rolled up our sleeves and taken a quick look at everything the newest browser on the block has to offer."


• Google Chrome's Full List of Special about: Pages
  "You already saw Google Chrome's humorous about:internets Easter egg, but Chrome's got several special about: pages that reveal all sorts of interesting information about what's going on behind the scenes."


• How to Set Up a Laptop Security System
  "The safety and security of our laptops--and all of the important and sensitive information they hold--are of the utmost importance."

Read More »

Firefox with Greasemonkey: The LabelLinks4Gmail Greasemonkey scripts creates nested labels in your Gmail sidebar. If the idea sounds familiar, that's probably because the previously mentioned Folders4Gmail script has been included with Better Gmail for quite some time. The main difference is that LabelLinks4Gmail soups up the sidebar so that clicking on a top level folder will reveal the contents of every label inside that folder—a feature missing from Folders4Gmail. Unfortunately the script doesn't use the same label naming structure as Folders4Gmail, so making the change isn't as smooth as it could be (in fact, it's more confusing all-around). However, if you've been dying for fuller features from the Folders4Gmail script, the LabelLinks4Gmail script is worth a look. Thanks Benjamin!

Read More »

Surely you come across web pages during the workday that are completely unrelated to actual work, but that you'd love to save for later—and the previously mentioned (and award winning) Firefox extension ReadItLater does just that really well. Once ReadItLater is part of your everyday workflow, it's super-easy to park long articles or interesting tidbits you want to look at over lunch or at home in a "staging area" that's available as an RSS feed, in your regular bookmarks, and even on other computers. ReadItLater may appear unnecessary to power bookmarkers who keep a "later" folder or tag, but on closer inspection it does offer features that make hitting the snooze button on a link much easier.

Read More »

Windows/Mac: Free application Docstoc Sync automatically synchronises files between your desktop computer and previously mentioned document sharing web site Docstoc. Once installed, the application monitors your documents folders and automatically syncs any changes you make. Documents can be uploaded as either public or private (any file in your My Documents folder defaults to private), which means you can use the app to either share docs on the web or back them up privately. Docstop Sync is freeware, Windows and Mac only.

Read More »

Windows only: Desktop app iRinger converts any video or music file into an iPhone ringtone, including YouTube videos. You already saw how to make a ringtone using only iTunes, but iRinger brings audio effects (like fade in and out, flanger, and delay) and video support to its single, simple interface. You can download any YouTube clip, for example, and import it into iRinger to create a tone. iRinger does nag you with a pop-up sponsor window that you can't close unless you donate to the project; otherwise it's a handy all-in-one iPhone ringtone utility. iRinger is a free download for Windows only. Thanks, nyifan!

Want to share music playlists Muxtape style but don't want to muck around with PHP and host it yourself using Opentape? New service Tumbltape creates playlists of songs hosted on our favourite blogging tool, Tumblr. The ReadWriteWeb blog runs down how Tumbltape works.

Read More »

Medic and Mac enthusiast DrCris blogs at Applequack about how to streamline your interaction with Internet applications. One of the techniques she recommends involves using previously discussed Fluid (rather then the your main browser) for common online applications like Gmail:

Site specific browsers keep an independent window for the site of your choice. The advantage is that Fluid is independent to your usual browser, so if you get frequent crashes, it won't be affected.

Though the tips are Mac-specific, the same concepts apply whatever your preferred platform. Have you changed the way you work to make better use of Internet applications? Tell us about it in the comments.
[Applequack

Calculating the amount of carbon you need to offset for a flight can be complicated if your airline doesn't already offer a built-in facility to pay for this when you buy the ticket. Carbon Planet's Flight Emissions Calculator can help out, calculating the emissions involved in any sequence of flights and optionally letting you purchase a carbon credit for them. The airport entry system is a bit fiddly, but seems to cover most Australian cities with airports. The calculated impact in dollar terms also seems a tad high -- it's about ten times more than Qantas charges on its site for similar flights -- but it's still an interesting investigative tool. Thanks Martin!

[Flight Emissions Calculator]

Previously mentioned goal-setting application Lifetick has added an iPhone-application which allows basic access to your list of goals and tasks. Lifetick has also incorporated iCalendar support for integration with your preferred desktop calendar. Lifetick is free to test, costs $20 for a full annual subscription.

Windows/Mac: Cross-platform application Salling Media Sync synchronises music from your iTunes library to a number of popular mobile phones that don't begin with a little 'i.' The app syncs music by playlist or—if you're phone's got room for it—it can sync your entire library. The interface is clean and helpful, and the list of supported devices is large (though it currently supports mostly Nokia, Sony, and Sony Ericsson phones). Media Sync is available in both free and pay ($US22) versions, the difference supposedly limited to "faster sync" for the price tag. We don't have a supported phone at Lifehacker HQ, so if you give it a try let's hear how it works for you in the comments.

CNET's Beyond Binary weblog says everything you type in Google's omnibox will end up in Google's hands—a scary thought for the tinfoil-hat crowd. Disable autosuggest to drape a cloth over Big Brother's surveillance camera. You'll lose the helpful autosuggest results, but you'll have gained more privacy from Google.

Read More »

You download hundreds of files to your computer on a weekly—and sometimes daily—basis, a practice that can take forever and has the potential to turn your organised filesystem into a cluttered nightmare. Here's the five most popular tools our readers use to manage, organise, and speed up their downloads.

Read More »

If you're looking for the latest cool alternative tee, instead of checking Threadless, Busted Tees, and other specialty vendors, search them all at once at new T-shirt search engine PleaseDressMe. Simply search for a shirt by keywords (like fail whale or Obama), or browse by colour, price, or tag. Current tags range from things like "typography" to "american apparel," depending on what you're looking for. PleaseDressMe's selection is decent for now, but hopefully it will expand over time. What are your favourite online T-shirt vendors? Shout 'em out in the comments and help out PleaseDressMe with some ideas for expansion.

Read More »

Mac OS X only: Free iTunes add-on GimmeSomeTune automatically fetches missing album artwork, lyrics, and automatically embeds them in your music library. GimmeSomeTune runs in the background, and in addition to the metadata tools, it also supports scrobbling your music to Last.fm, universal hotkeys, iChat status updates, and even Apple Remote control. Apart from all that, GimmeSomeTune is also an excellent iTunes desktop remote, complete with a fully customisable song notification window. The donationware GimmeSomeTune is a must-have for the iTunes lover, Mac OS X only.

Windows only: Desktop application College Alarm Clock wakes you up on time for class (or an irregular work schedule) seven days a week. Set a custom alarm time on a per day basis, Sunday through Saturday, and set the sound to just a plain beep, or choose a song from your computer's digital music library. College Alarm Clock can skip any day of the week, and you can save an alarm schedule to easily switch between holiday break and the new semester of wakeup times. College Alarm Clock is a free download for Windows only.

Windows only: Encryption tool Rohos Mini Drive secures the files on your flash drive—but unlike our favourite encryption utility TrueCrypt, it creates partitions you can access even without administrative access on the computer in question (like a coffee shop workstation). Creating a drive is simple: Install Rohos Mini Drive on your primary workstation, plug in the USB drive you wish to secure and the wizard walks you through the rest. The only hiccup you may experience is if you have multiple USB drives plugged in when you run the wizard; just make sure you specify which drive if the auto detection picks your camera's SD card instead of your USB drive. Rohos Mini Drive has an autorun feature which can launch applications when it opens the partition, and a virtual keyboard for an added layer of security. The application uses AES 256 bit encryption and currently has a partition size limit of 1GB. Rohos Mini Drive is a free download for Windows only. Thanks, Pavv!

While the recent cut in interest rates is a welcome relief to mortgage holders, that hasn't stopped a flurry of newspaper coverage on how we still like to spend too much, save too little and whine about our super. But are things really that bad?
Long-term surveys of Australians by Quantum Market Research suggests that despite the apparently inexorable rise of consumerism, most of us are quite confident that we've got it right. As analyst David Chalke put it at a recent conference I attended in Canberra while discussing the viewpoint of "average Australians":

They are not going to hell in a credit-fuelled handbasket as they stuff their McMansions with plasma screens in their increasingly unhappy lives. We've actually got a lot smarter at managing money.

In particular, Chalke noted that the majority of us have learnt to make intelligent use of credit cards, paying them off before any interest falls due.
Do you feel that you've get money management under control? Educate us with your experiences, good or bad, in the comments.

Google's Picasa is seeing updates on both the web- and desktop-based versions of the popular photo management application. The biggest new feature is coming to Picasa Web Albums in the form of people tagging, a Facebook-style tool that lets you tag faces in your photos by name and then view pictures of that person by simply searching. The difference between this and Facebook is that Google identifies all of the faces in your pictures automatically and groups together the faces that it thinks are the same, making people tagging extremely quick and easy to do. According to technology web site CNET, Google will also be releasing a new beta version of Picasa for the desktop today, the main improvements to which include a movie maker and online synchronisation of every edit of a photo. The download isn't showing up for me yet, but people tagging is live, so give it a try and let's hear what you think in the comments.

Mac OS X only: Free application Tune Instructor adds advanced ID3 tag editing for your iTunes library through a smart third-party utility. The iTunes helper boasts features like search and replace for your tags, or it can set ID3 tags from a filename or set filenames from ID3 tags. It can automatically search and embed album art or lyrics—though I ran into issues with German-language lyrics sometimes showing up rather than English. The application has a lot of potential, and works well overall. I did run into a few peculiarities when testing it, but overall it offers advanced, worthwhile ID3 editing beyond what iTunes offers by default. Tune Instructor is freeware, Mac OS X only.

Read More »

For a quick rundown of how to overhaul your work habits Lifehacker-style, check out my most recent PC World story, 20 Tech Habits to Improve Your Life. Most of the items on the list will be old hat to longtime readers, but it's a good overview for newer folks looking for better ways to telecommute, back up, use keyboard shortcuts, and get email under control.

Read More »

Free web service BackType aggregates all the comments you make on various blogs and web sites. The site uses the URLs entered in commenter forms or in the posts themselves to track a person's musings, or can combine URLs under a single account URL. It's a great tool for those who want to catch up on discussions they left behind, but the site also provides a search engine of its indexed comments and links to see another social-browser's comments. This type of URL tracking would normally leave the door open for comment impersonators, so BackType offers a moderation option to have you approve any comments posted under your name. BackType is a free service, requires a sign-up to use.

Read More »

There's plenty of baby naming resources on the Internet, but the majority have a US-centric focus and thus discuss names like Liondrae that with any luck we won't see on Australian shores for a while. One useful exception is the Baby Names Explorer, which lets you see how popular a given name was in each decade over the past 100 years, using data from the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. My own name (Angus) has enjoyed a steady surge in popularity, and I'm pleased to see no Liondraes in sight. If you want to work out whether your future offspring will be the only child in their class with that name, this is a good place to start (though I implore you to resist the other trend of mindlessly mangling spelling to make a name "unique"). Thanks Sean!

The government-funded GROCERYchoice supermarket comparison site has survived its controversial first month and has been refreshed with a new set of data. The latest calculations suggest that Coles is the cheapest supermarket chain in 40 of the 61 regions assessed, reducing its dominance from the first survey. However, the fundamental issue remains: with no knowledge of the contents of the test baskets used, it's hard to meaningfully relate this information to your own weekly shopping habits. As money-saving tactics go, eating a cheap meal every week or taking up minimal cooking would probably help you out more.

Mac only: XBMC for Mac—the open source media centre software that offers a more flexible alternative to Front Row—has been renamed Plex, rebranded, and redesigned. Plex's most recent release sports a new logo, a new skin, and a slew of bug fixes. You've already seen how to turn your Mac into the ultimate media centre with Plex (and the old, default, Project Mayhem skin). Now, take a look what the rebranded XBMC fork looks like sporting its new name and new skin.

Read More »

Our recent discussion of innovations that should be added to email included the notion of "snoozing" individual emails. Microsoft's Office Labs research division has come up with a different "snooze" concept in its experimental Email Prioritizer add-on prototype, which lets you specify a time period when you don't want to deal with incoming mail, and doesn't deliver it until after that point. There's also an auto-rating system to identify high-priority mails when you do get back to your inbox. Sadly, the software only works with Exchange-enabled Outlook, so home office warriors can't test it out, but it's an indication of how future versions of Microsoft's mail client might evolve.