Dear Lifehacker, Lately it seems like my high speed connection is bogged down, and I'm getting a creepy feeling that someone's stealing my bandwidth on my Wi-Fi network.

How can I find out if other people are leeching my Wi-Fi, and how do I stop them if they are?

WiFi is one of the most important developments in the evolution of the internet -- no one wants to be chained to a desktop -- but it's also one of the most frustrating. If you're plagued by slow speeds, bad reception, and other WiFi issues, here are 10 ways you can power up the WiFi in your home.

Whether you're headed out in support or dissent, you should know what you're getting into before you go and join a protest. Even if you think the event is purely peaceful, someone else, another protest group, or the police may all have different ideas. Here are some tips to prepare before you go out to have your voice heard.

Rainmeter is a powerful tool that lets you create a beautiful, information-rich heads-up display that keeps track of your system status, RSS feeds and a ton of other info. Here's how to use it to make an awesome, Iron Man-like HUD for your Windows desktop.

Lots of people have a little booze before bed to help them get to sleep -- but while a night cap may help in the dozing-off department, too much alcohol can actually do a number on the overall quality of your shuteye. Let's take a look at some of the important differences between drunk sleep and sober sleep, including why it's so damn hard to sleep in after a tipple-tastic night on the town.

Now that you have a better understanding of what goes into a computer, it's time to actually choose and buy the components you're going to use. In this lesson, we'll show you how to most effectively pick out your parts.

Apple has rolled out variable pricing in the Australian iTunes store, but you still have to look pretty hard to find tracks at anything other than the standard $1.69 price.

When he's not blowing things up, making models, or otherwise holding the job you wish you had, Adam Savage is serious about personal projects. We chatted with him about MythBusters, managing time, and other geeky stuff. Photo by ensceptico.

Australians might be more likely than anyone else in the Asia-Pacific region, but we're still making a few costly mistakes when it comes to booking online travel, recent research suggests.

Mind mapping is a great way to add structure to brainstorming sessions and visualise your ideas. Check out the applications your fellow readers use to do their best brainstorming.

Google search has been on a roll lately, and today brings yet another addition—an "options" panel that switches your results to reviews, forum posts, recent items and a timeline, and even a nifty "Wonder Wheel."

Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Close'n Forget, one of the runners-up for Mozilla's Best Firefox 3 Extensions, has updated to, well, actually work more often, erasing any site's cookie/history/AwesomeBar evidence from Firefox with one button click. We've never featured Close'n Forget as its own download 'round these parts, but, then again, back when it made an appearance in the awards round-up, a handful of commenters were saying it just wouldn't close a tab, or wasn't offering enough customisation. A few bug fixes and updates later, and Close'n Forget seems to really do its intended work. After installing, right-click your toolbar and hit "Customize" to add its tiny X icon to your button array, or right-click any page to get a "Close and erase cookies for current site" option. If you want to go deeper than just that page's cookies, check out Close'n Forgets privacy-plus options:

Windows/Mac/Linux: Vuze—one of the most popular BitTorrent clients around—has just added a killer feature that allows you to easily transcode any download so its playable on your iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, PS3, and Xbox 360. We've always been partial to uTorrent for its light footprint—and a little hard on Vuze for its relative bloat—but this update in Vuze is seriously cool, especially for people looking to watch their downloaded videos somewhere other than their desktop. Once a file is downloaded, you can simply drag and drop the download to the device you want to play it on. Smart and simple.

Vuze

It's probably the most important and debated piece of software on the modern computer. See how your fellow readers get around the net in this week's Hive Five. Picture background created with WEB2DNA Art Project.

It's the little things that make a Windows system great—like utilities that use less than 10MB of memory to make your life easier. Here are 10 apps that pack a lot of greatness into very little space.

Microsoft made a few quiet but great changes to its kid-proofing SteadyState tool for Windows 7, changing the name to Guest Mode and trimming it into a dead-simple way to protect your PC from anyone's error-prone fingers.

Apple's releasing some hot new features in iPhone 3.0 mid-year, but will it be better than Google's Android? Let's take a look.

The iPhone event just ended, and the upcoming iPhone 3.0 software update adds a ton of new functionality to the iPhone—claiming over 100 new features, including long-awaited copy and paste, MMS messaging, and more.

Microsoft recently announced POP3 support for all Hotmail users, finally freeing your email to be used anywhere—even from the vastly superior Gmail. Over at the How-To Geek site (my other home), the Mysticgeek blog walks through the process of setting up Hotmail access using Gmail's POP3 checking capability—including sending email using your Hotmail email address directly from Gmail. The setup process is fairly simple and nothing to new to most Lifehacker readers, but it's a great guide to send to your less tech-savvy friends and relatives to help them consolidate their email into a single inbox. Hit the link for the full walk-through, then check out how to use Gmail's multiple inboxes to manage multiple addresses, or you can always just use Gmail's email switching tools.

How to Send and Receive Hotmail from Your Gmail Account