Lifehacker

You Don't Need to Regularly Reinstall Windows; Here's Why [Windows]

The How-To Geek — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:00:00 -0800

One of the most persistent myths about Windows is that you need to reinstall the operating system regularly to keep it running at top performance. Let's take a look at the real problem and how to fix it.

Today we're talking about the myth that Windows slows down over time, and how to solve the problem. The reality is that Windows doesn't slow down if you just take care of your PC a little more. Follow these procedures, and you won't have to wonder if spending hours backing up data, installing from disc, and re-installing your essential applications is really necessary.

What Does Slow Windows Down Over Time?

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that your Windows PC will never slow down—because for many people, they almost always do. What actually slows your PC down are too many poorly written applications that stay resident in memory and waste CPU cycles, having too many badly written low-level applications that hook into Windows, or running more than one antivirus application at a time. And of course, if you've run your PC's hard drive out of space, you can hardly blame Windows for that.

If you aren't getting the picture, the problem is usually the person behind the keyboard that installed too many junk applications in the first place. More gently put, it's often that (very well-meaning) person's gradual easing of their safeguards and cleaning regimens as time goes by.

Stop Installing Junk Applications

Installing software should be thought of like feeding your PC. If you constantly feed your PC garbage apps, it's going to get sick and won't be able to run fast anymore. These poorly written applications clutter your drive with unnecessary DLL files, add always-resident Windows services when they don't need to, bloat up your registry, and add useless icons to your system tray that waste even more memory and CPU cycles. Usually you can get away with using a few terrible applications, but as you continue to install more and more of them, your PC will slow down to a crawl.

Be Smarter About What You Do Install

We feature and recommend a lot of software applications around here, but you should keep in mind that we aren't trying to tell you to install every single one of them at the same time-just install the applications that you actually need and you'll generally prevent the dreaded format and reinstall.

Here's a few tips to help you know what applications you should be careful with:

Apps that function as an Explorer plug-in, because they directly hook into the shell and any problem will make your entire PC slow or in the worst case, crash repeatedly.
Antivirus applications are notorious for slowing your PC down, and you should never, ever, ever use more than one real-time antivirus application at a time. We recommend Microsoft Security Essentials as a free, fast, and awesome antivirus tool.
Anything that says it will "Speed Up Your PC" or "Optimize Your RAM" will most likely slow it down, or best case, do nothing at all. Avoid these like the plague.
Make sure to install official system drivers from the manufacturer website. Drivers have a huge impact on performance, and you want to have stable, updated drivers.
Registry cleaners are a mixed bag, and really aren't going to speed up your PC in most cases. The biggest problem, however, is that too many of the commercial registry cleaners set themselves to run at startup in the system tray, wasting your memory and CPU cycles.
You should strongly consider the idea of using portable applications wherever possible, since their self-contained nature means they won't clutter up the rest of your PC with things you don't need.

Keep Your Computer Clean and Trim

Once you've rid yourself of your junk application habit and resolved to only use healthy, useful applications, you'll want to make sure to keep your PC clean of any remaining clutter that doesn't need to be there. You can set up a shortcut to manually run CCleaner silently with the push of a button, but your best bet is to set up CCleaner to run automatically on a schedule, so you don't have to remember to do it.

Since CCleaner is only going to clean up temporary files, you'll still need a good solution for keeping the rest of your PC clean-and Lifehacker's own Belvedere can help you automate your self-cleaning PC or automatically clean up your download folder.

With all of this automated file deletion going on, your hard drive is likely to get a bit fragmented. If you're already running Windows 7 or Vista, automatic defrag comes out of the box and probably shouldn't be messed with, but Windows XP users will need to use Windows Tasks to setup a schedule and automatically defrag their drives.

Use a Virtual Machine or Sandbox to Test Software

If you still want to test out all of the latest software, including apps that look a bit rough around the edges, your best bet is to use a virtual machine to test out anything before putting it onto your primary operating system. You can install all of your software in an XP or Windows 7 VM just like it was a real PC, and with the latest VMWare player releases, you can even enable Windows Aero in a guest VM. If you are new to the idea and need some more help, you should check out our beginner's guide to creating virtual machines in VirtualBox, or Windows 7 users can check out our guide to using XP Mode. If you don't want to go the virtual machine route, Windows XP and Vista users can alternatively use Windows SteadyState to protect their PC and roll back all of the changes on a reboot.

So what about you? Do you always take the reinstall route, or have you devised your own best maintenance practices? Share your experience in the comments.

The How-To Geek reinstalls Windows only every few years and has no speed problems at all. His geeky articles can be found daily here on Lifehacker, How-To Geek, and Twitter.

Run Snow Leopard on Windows with VMware [VMWare]

Whitson Gordon — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:30:00 -0800

VMware is a great tool for running Windows and Linux anywhere, but OS X clients are not supported. Snow Leopard can be made to run on Windows, and Mac-hacking blog iHackintosh has the nitty-gritty on getting it working.

In order to get Snow Leopard working in VMware, you'll need to be on an Intel-based Windows machine (AMD currently isn't supported) with a retail copy of Snow Leopard, as well as a Snow Leopard VMware disk file, downloadable from many sources (iHackintosh lists a few). The process requires tweaking a lot of settings in VMware, as well as some disk switching and fast finger work, but overall the process isn't too difficult. We talk a lot about using VMware to run Windows on a Mac, which is often the more necessary case, but this is certainly a nice option if, say, you're thinking about making the Mac switch but want to extensively test drive the OS first. Hit the link for instructions on how to get set up.

Testimonial: Rice Resurrects Even the Most Soaked of Gadgets [Tip Testers]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:00:00 -0800

Nobody wants to lose their favorite new electronic gadget to a dunk in the drink. One Lifehacker reader saved his phone after an astounding 30 minute soak by sending in to the dry-rice spa.

Two years ago we shared a handy trick for saving your gadgets after an unfortunate run in with water—using rice to soak up the moisture. Lifehacker reader Dietrich recently put that tip to use with impressive results:

For the last 2 days it has been a monsoon in my city. Today, during a rushed last minute shopping spree, I dropped my phone in a puddle. I didn't realize I had dropped it until I got back to my car 30 minutes later.

I remembered articles on Lifehacker about what to do so I immediately popped the battery out and dried the phone. When I got home I put my Palm Pre in a bag of rice for 10 hours. Adding insult to injury, I forgot to take the phone battery out of my pocket and put it through the washing machine. 10 hours later I'm typing this on my Pre. Good job Palm on making an excellent phone.

Revival after 30 minutes is a really impressive feat. Our own Lisa Hoover saved her son's phone from a water-logged fate after it took a dunk in a swimming pool by using a container of rice, but it definitely wasn't at the bottom of the pool for a half hour. Check out the original article for the how-to on using rice to dry out your electronics and if you've used the trick yourself, successful or not, let's hear about it in the comments.

Firefox 3.6 Set for First Quarter 2010, 4.0 Beta for Summer [Firefox 3.6]

Kevin Purdy — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 08:00:00 -0800

Mozilla has slightly pushed back its self-imposed deadlines for releasing a final version of Firefox 3.6 and the first beta of Firefox 4.0. Firefox 3.6, currently available as a fifth beta, is set as a first quarter goal for 2010, while Firefox 4, once considered a possibility for 2010, could arrive as a beta in the summer in 2010 and in final form "in late 2010 or early 2011," according to Mozilla's wiki. There's also a Firefox 3.7 in the mix, which will improve Windows start-up time and inclusion of the Jetpack add-on system that you can already preview. [CNET News]

Akira Remotely Controls Computers Using Dropbox [Downloads]

Kevin Purdy — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Windows: You can do a lot more with the free cross-platform utility Dropbox than sync files. In fact, with the free command line tool Akira, you can administer, and grab non-Dropbox files from, any computer linked to your Dropbox account.

Akira is a bit of a geek tool that requires two Windows computers—one running a server process (Latte) and another issuing commands through a command line client (Akira). That's not all that new, but the Akira tool sets up the connection through a single, stand-alone folder inside you Dropbox folder, and doesn't require installation. With Akira's text commands, you can do a lot of really neat stuff. You can list, navigate to, and grab files from anywhere on the remote computer, grab a screenshot of what's going on and save it in your Dropbox folder, and, perhaps most helpfully, start and kill remote processes and run applications, or even launch a web site in the default browser.

Akira's Readme offers a number of ways to set up the Latte/Akira combo, with access to other people's computers through Dropbox folder sharing, and jumping onto your remotely-controlled computer from anywhere with the previously mentioned app DropboxPortable.

I tested out the Akira/Latte remote control between Windows 7 systems linked to the same Dropbox account, and while there was a notable bit of lag—something to be expected when waiting for a file change to be noticed and synced—it worked as advertised. You'd likely want to set up Latte as an auto-starting, Administer-level process on a system you always keep on, and make sure you've got a really good password on that Dropbox account if you were interested in using this. As a convenient remote access trick for those not quite up on setting up a virtual private network with Hamachi or remote control with VNC, however, Akira might just be the ticket.

Akira is a free, no-install-needed application for Windows systems with a Dropbox account. Tell us how Akira could be useful for your own systems, and offer up usage advice, in the comments.

Sprixi Helps You Find Relevant and Free Images [Photos]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:30:00 -0800

If you've been having trouble finding free or Creative Common-licensed photos for use in your projects, Sprixi filters out the fluff to help you find the images you really want.

One of the frustrations of searching for anything on the internet, let alone images, is imprecise search results. If you've ever searched for something and found something completely different—usually because the file name or the associated keywords were strangely or inappropriately applied—then you know what we're talking about.

Sprixi helps circumvent the strangeness of file names and misapplied keywords by letting users vote on whether or not an image is really what they were looking for. Search for "school bus", for example, and get some images of a micro-processor bus and you can flag them as not helpful to your search. Because thousands of users have come before you, analyzing the images, you won't often find misplaced images. Search results are divided into sorted and unsorted images, with the sorted images on top—sorted in this case means that users have verified that the images do in fact contain the thing you are looking for.

Sprixi currently pulls images from Flickr, OpenClipart.org, and from user uploads. Sprixi is a free service and requires no registration or login to use. Have your own favorite tool or service for finding free images to use on your projects, let's hear about it in the comments.

Access Facebook Updates from a Feed Reader [Facebook Tip]

Kevin Purdy — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:05:00 -0800

Want a cleaner, less Farmville-filled Facebook experience? Try loading your friends' and fan pages' status updates, links, notes, and other material into an RSS reader. Facebook doesn't make it easy, but it can be done with some clever URL copying.

LiveJournal user Jamie Zawinski details the steps needed to pull the vast majority of Facebook material you'd (theoretically) want to see into an RSS reader like Google Reader or NetNewsWire. In most cases, it involves heading to the right page for your friends' Posts, Notes, and Notifications, looking in the right-hand sidebar box, and grabbing the feed URL for "My Friends' [Whatever]." In the case of status updates, which is what you really would want to grab from Facebook, it requires a little URL tweaking of one of the above feeds, explained at Jamie's post.

The real benefit to using Facebook in a feed reader? You avoid exposure to Mafia Wars, Farmville, and all that other application cruft, and get just the raw details on what your contacts are up to. You also, unfortunately, miss out on updates about your friends' photo album updates, for reasons unknown to anyone but Facebook's coders, but it might well be worth it for those who find visiting the social networking site's actual page a cluttered experience.

The New Flight Security Rules, So Far [Air Travel]

Kevin Purdy — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:30:00 -0800

After an attempted explosive attack Friday on a U.S.-bound flight, air travel security tightened and rules were changed. No official procedures have been announced, but here's what fliers and news agencies are reporting as the seemingly new rules of flying.

Photo by Joshua Davis.

The first thing anyone flying needs to know is that there are no hard and fast rules put into place at this time, and what you read or hear about at one airport may not be the case at another. The Transportation Security Administration wrote in a press release that "These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same thing everywhere."

Most sources are reporting that the most stringent measures are implemented on flights entering the U.S. from foreign lands, including Canada. Air Canada posted on its web site that, during the last hour of a flight, travelers headed to the U.S. will have to remain seated, will not have access to their carry-on baggage, and cannot have anything on their laps.

American Airlines posted on its own site that anyone flying into the U.S. should allow three hours for the entire boarding process. Passengers and carry-on items would be screened both at security checkpoints and at airline gates, according to the airline.

What about domestic flights? As stated, the only predictable element is unpredictability. Gizmodo has posted audio recorded from a Jet Blue pre-flight announcement, indicating that the airline's notable seat-by-seat in-flight entertainment system would be shut down for a recent flight, along with in-flight Wi-Fi, presumably. In that post, and others, gadget-savvy readers and Twitter users have reported a range of restrictions and rules.

Some flights have banned electronic usage during the first and final 30 minutes of a flight, not including takeoff and landing periods, and others have restricted usage for up to an hour before ascent and descent. Some fliers have experienced pat-down searches and more thorough bag checks, and most flights seem to require passengers to stay seated during the final portion of a flight, regardless of bathroom needs. The Times reports (at the link below) that while blankets and pillows were being banned from passengers' laps just before landing, that rule seems to have been softened and left up to each airline.

Update: Gizmodo has posted the full text of a leaked TSA security directive, courtesy of the Boarding Area blog, that makes firm the ban on in-flight Wi-Fi, entertainment systems, and access to any and all carry-on luggage or devices one hour before landing.

Have you flown since Friday's in-flight incident? What was your experience, and how much more time did your flight experience take? Help fill in the blanks for everybody in the comments.

Low-Hassle Plant Projects for Your Home or Office [Household]

Kevin Purdy — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:30:00 -0800

Your garden or office could probably use some more green, and we're not talking about eco-friendly printer paper. If you're not quite the gardening type, Apartment Therapy has a round-up of 15 planting projects that require very little afterthought.

Some of these projects, like the lightbulb terrarium, have seen individual attention on Lifehacker before, but they're all worth a peek. Culled from the space-savvy, home-improving Apartment Therapy blog, the projects don't require constant maintenance, landscaping weekends to make room, or monitoring of soil consistency and all that jazz. Most don't even require access to ground-level dirt—the shoe pocket garden, for instance, makes clever use of the classic vertical footwear organizer.

Looking to improve your indoor space with more traditional planting? Check out our own gallery of five hard-to-kill houseplants, and a previous post pointing to three plants that give you better indoor air.

The Organized Designer's Office [Featured Workspace]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:00:00 -0800

Many of our featured workspaces focus on hiding stuff away. Today's featured workspace doesn't hide much, but it does have storage space for everything the owner needs.

Lifehacker reader Dellaccount13 is a graphic designer who works out of an 11'x13' office. The office is lined floor-to-ceiling with shelving, has dual workstations, and a huge light table in the center. Dellaccount13 writes:

This is my home office. It is an 11' x 13' bedroom. Yes, I still use CRTs. I won't replace them with flat screens until they fail. I have a setup for a PC and one for a Mac. The table is a 4' x 5' light table that I bought used about 10 years ago. I work on both sides of the table and just move the chair, although I am thinking about buying a duplicate chair.

Check out additional photos of the office below:

If you have a workspace of your own to show off, throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.

Save Money on Next Christmas by Stocking up Now [Holidays]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:00:00 -0800

It might seem a bit premature to be thinking about Christmas 2010 when Christmas 2009 is only a few days behind us, but now is a great time to save on supplies and gifts for next year.

Photo by Reitveld.

Over at the frugality-centered blog The Simple Dollar, they've put together a list of items you can pick up immediately after Christmas for a steal.

Among obvious are things like wrapping paper and Christmas cards, but they share an idea you may not have thought of:

Non-perishable gift baskets: Unsold gift baskets often go at a tremendous discount and if you can find ones that are non-perishable (like bath supplies and such), they can easily be stored for a year and given the following December. Many people often exchange such gift baskets with professional acquaintances and such, so this can be a tremendous savings. If you know you'll be giving gift baskets of this kind for Christmas 2010, get them now and save yourself some cash.

For more ideas on saving money on next Christmas by shopping now, check out the full article. Have a trick of your own for scoring post-holiday deals and saving money on future holidays? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Ask the Commenters Roundup [Hive Mind]

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:30:00 -0800

Hack a Magic 8-Ball [Games]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:00:00 -0800

Why limit your Magic 8 Ball's answers to things like "Yes", "No", "Maybe", when you could hack it to say anything you wanted?

Photo by greeblie.

If you've never taken a Magic 8-Ball apart before, you might be surprised to see the inside is mostly hollow with a simple cylinder that holds the murky blue ink and the answer die. Every time you turn the Magic 8-Ball over the die tumbles and then floats to the surface, one of the faces of the die presenting you with an answer to your pressing questions—Will Susan make fun of my Hello Kitty collection?

Modifying the Magic 8-Ball is a simple hack. You'll need to open the ball and remove the die from the cylinder, then it's only a matter of lightly sanding the die with a fine-grit sandpaper to smooth it and adding in your own text with a fine tip permanent marker—if you were really industrious you could even get your hands on some old printing dies and stamp the text right into the plastic.

Check out the tutorial at the link below for tips and tricks on getting into the Magic 8-Ball and reassembling it. Have a technique for hacking an old toy or game? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Create Realistic HDR Photos [Photoshop]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 13:00:00 -0800

High Dynamic Range photoraphy is a revolutionary tool in the photographer's toolkit, but it can be over done and done poorly. Take more realistic photos with these tips.

For the unfamiliar, HDR photography is where you take a series of exposures of a given scene and use software to combine them together. When used properly an HDR photo creates a more dynamic image which displays the scene more closely to the way the human eye sees it—richer detail in the shadows and less loss of detail in the bright areas. It can be very easily overdone however. The images below show HDR done in an unrealistic fashion:

Photo by mescon.
Photo by extranoise.

Note that we're not judging the quality of the photos, both are interesting and well composed. Neither one looks realistic though and the HDR-processing is obvious. If you're going for that surrealistic look that's fine, but most people want to use HDR to create better images while maintaining a more natural look.

Flickr user Leviathor has put together a simple guide to using HDR to enhance photos without turning them into unrealistic and plastic-looking images. The goal, as he outlines it, is to enhance the image to be closer to the way the eye sees the scene in real life and not to increase the tonal range of the image beyond that which the eye would normally perceive. Check out his tutorial at the link below to see how to merge exposures in Photoshop to increase detail without making your photo look like computer-rendered version of itself.

Have a favorite technique or tool for creating realistic HDR photography? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Star Wars Weather Delivers the Weather Report via Star Wars Locales [Weather]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:00:00 -0800

You'll find dozens of weather reporting services online, but all of them give you the weather in the traditional old sunny/cloudy/raining kind of way. None of them, however, will tell you if today will be as pleasant as Naboo.

Star Wars weather isn't a revolutionary way to check the weather report, but it's a nice diversion from a lifetime of "partly cloudy with a chance of rain". Rather than simply reporting the weather and forecast, Star Wars Weather gives you the conditions based on the climates and conditions of locales in the Star Wars universe like Hoth, Naboo, and Endor.

If you know of a fun site for sharing information in an unconventional way—stock quotes via Shakespeare perhaps, like "True is it that we have seen better days."—let's hear about it in the comments.

Five Best Wallpaper Sites [Hive Five]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:00:00 -0800

Nobody likes staring at a boring desktop when they fire up their computer every morning. Keep your wallpaper fresh with the five most popular sites Lifehacker readers use to satisfy their wallpaper needs.

Photo by goincase. Wallpaper on monitor available here.

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite wallpaper site. We quickly learned that—while not everyone has a strong opinion about Linux distributions or encryption software—everyone has a favorite wallpaper site; readers logged nearly 500 votes for their favorite wallpaper sites. Now we're back to share the five most popular sites used by Lifehacker readers to dress up their monitors with fresh wallpaper.

VladStudio

Vlad Studio features the work of Russian wallpaper artist Vlad Gerasimov. He cranks out hundreds of great wallpapers, ranging from holiday themes to abstract art. Vlad Studio has wallpaper in a wide range of sizes suited for everything from your mobile phone to a multi-monitor setup. Mobile wallpaper and desktop resolutions at 1600x1200 and below are available for free. Images larger than that are available only to registered users. If you want access to the larger resolutions, now is a great time to pick up a subscription. Vlad is running a Christmas-special where the $30 lifetime membership is available for $20.

4Chan Wallpapers/General/

4Chan is an image-based forum where anyone can anonymously post and share images and comments. It's divided into sub-boards devoted to all sorts of topics like Anime, video games, etc., but has gained notoriety for some of its more unsavory sub-boards. The /Wallpaper/ board, nonetheless, is bustling and updated nearly 24/7 with images from around the web. Since the 4Chan boards are a bit kludgy to use if you're not trying to comment and just looking for images, a variety of scrapers have sprung up to help you pick through all the images in /Wallpaper/. You can visit 4Chan directly at the link above or you can use services like Nik.Bot and 4Walled to browse through the wallpapers available through 4Chan. Be strongly forewarned, however: although the /Wallpaper/ forum is much tamer than other areas of 4Chan, you'll still find a large number of Maxim-level NSFW wallpaper images and the occasional Playboy-level NSFW images when you're browsing. If you're not prepared to explain some really awkward internet memes to your boss, you'd better save 4Chan /Wallpaper/ for home.

Social Wallpapering

Social Wallpapering borrows the vote up/down model used by many social aggregators (Reddit, Digg, etc.) and applies it to desktop wallpaper. Users vote up their favorite, vote down their least favorites, and upload their own images to be ranked by other users. You can browse by rank, category, view random images, and sort by screen size to help you drill down through the huge collection to find the wallpaper you want. Prefer to grab everything and sort it out later? Social Wallpaper makes their entire wallpaper collection available for download via BitTorrent. If you're looking for a site where you can not only find fresh wallpaper but participate in helping your fellow wallpaper lovers find the best images, Social Wallpapering is a solid choice.

Interfacelift

Interfacelift is an enormous repository of wallpaper images. Thanks to the button-based layout at the top of the screen, you can easily drill down through wallpapers using factors like rating, number of comments, screen type, and so on. Once you select your screen type—widescreen, full screen, dual monitors, etc.—you can pick from available resolutions so you never end up clicking on an image and finding out it's not available in the resolution you want. Every search result gives you information about the image plus a drop down menu for size selection and a quick download. Interfacelift has recently added a feature called "The Loupe" which allows users to vote on incoming submissions to accelerator the process of new materials being added to the database.

DeviantART Wallpaper

If you've visited your fair share of wallpaper sites and gotten tired of the endless stream of glowing line-art and video-game wallpapers, then you'll enjoy browsing the wallpaper archives of DeviantART—a subdivision of the artist-centric site. You'll find everything at DeviantART from the more common to glow-lines variety of abstract wallpaper to quirky paintings, photographs, and computer-rendered images. Most of the users at DeviantART are prolific contributors, so if you find a wallpaper you really like, make sure to check out the user's gallery to see if they have any other gems to share. DeviantART doesn't have the advanced wallpaper-oriented search features that many of the other wallpaper sites have, but you can still search by image size and sort by popularity.

Now that you've had a chance to look over Lifehacker readers' favorite wallpaper sites, it's time to cast a vote for your favorite:

We have two honorary mentions to hand out this week to extremely deserving sites that have contributed a multitude of awesome wallpapers over the years: Digital Blasphemy and Mandolux. Got more to say about your favorite (or a favorite that didn't make the list)? Let's hear it in the comments.

Use Hidden Rope Lights for Subdued Accent Lighting [Lighting]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 08:00:00 -0800

If you're looking for a way to add soft ambient lighting to an area of your home or office, rope lights are a great way to provide accent lighting without the harshness of focused spotlights or lamps.

We've showed you how to set up home and office lighting with rope lights before, but it's a technique that's cheap and flexible enough to be worth revisiting.

In the above photo Melinda, an Apartment Therapy reader, put rope lights behind her headboard to cast a warm glow up the wall and provide subdued bedroom lighting. While rope lights have a pleasant warm color to them to begin with, the deep red color of the walls certainly doesn't hurt.

Rope lights can also be placed above cabinets for soft down-lighting or beneath furniture for a diffused floor-level light. If you're looking for interesting new lighting ideas, take a stroll through our Featured Workspaces to find quite a variety of novel ways for using subtle—and not so subtle!—lighting.

Have your own favorite way for varying and enhancing the lighting in your home or office? Let's hear about it in the comments.

This Week's Top Downloads [Hive Mind]

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:00:00 -0800

XBMC Updates to 9.11 Camelot, Brings Awesome New Look, Improved Features (Windows/Mac/Linux)
XBMC is a killer open-source, cross-platform media center, and today they've released XBMC 9.11, introducing a whole new default look and feel, and it's very friendly on the eyes.
Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha is All About Speed (and Private Browsing) (Windows/Mac)
Opera's developers have released a very unstable but promising version of their web browser into the open. What does Opera 10.5 have to offer? If a quick test is any indication, faster JavaScript speed than any browser out there.
Songbird 1.4.2 Released, Brings New Look, CD Ripping, and Device Support (Windows/Mac/Linux)
Previously mentioned Songbird, the open source, Mozilla-powered, supposedly iTunes-killing media player has updated to 1.4.2, bringing a host of new features, including AAC metadata support, a new feather (skin), CD ripping, and support for many mass storage devices.
LogMeIn Express Makes Screensharing Simple (Windows)
LogMeIn Express is a screensharing tool from the makers of the popular remote-desktop software, LogMeIn. With this new offering, sharing your desktop is as simple as sending your friend or associate a URL.
Speed Dial Beefs Up Chrome's New Tab Page (Chrome)
The oft-imitated New Tab button on Google's Chrome browser isn't bad, but it's not the most customizable either. Soup it up—and access your favorite bookmarked web sites quickly—with Speed Dial.
Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 Available, Faster, and Less Buggy (Windows/Mac/Linux)
If you've been riding the Firefox 3.6 beta train, Mozilla just pushed out the whopping fifth beta of Firefox 3.6—with over a hundred bug fixes to improve performance, stability, and security, along with several all-around improvements.
Bodega Is a One-Stop Shop for New Apps for Your Mac (Mac)
Trying out new software is fun. Digging around all over the internet to find cool stuff—not so much. Bodega is a download that does makes quick work of finding new apps for your Mac.
Get the Classic Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7 (Windows 7)
If you miss having a network activity icon that actually indicates if your network is active or not, this handy little hack will swap the static Windows 7 icon for the classic version.
Googsystray Notifies You of New Activity Across Google Services in One System Tray App (Windows/Linux)
Google has so many different services these days that installing a notification app for each one gets cumbersome quickly. Free system tray utility Googsystray watches Gmail, Google Voice, Calendar, Reader, and Wave so you can set it and forget it.
Droplr Offers Simple Drag and Drop File Sharing for Mac OS X (Mac)
Feeling left out because of all the neat file-sharing applications for Windows? Droplr adds drag and drop support to OS X for sharing just about everything.

Turn Light Art into an Animated Movie [Animation]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:00:00 -0800

You might remember when we shared a cool way to make light-based art with an LED flashlight and a long camera exposure. Take it a step further by creating not just a light art picture, but an animated movie.

The process is simple in concept, but pretty ambitious in what you can create. How ambitious?

"Lucky" by All India Radio, is the viewable blood, sweat and tears of Australian based animation company ‘Dee Pee Studios'.

It involves a painstaking animation technique, whereby the team paints in the air with glow sticks, frame after to frame to create entire sequences of animation, usually taking a whole night to shoot.

Check out the video below to see their light-art masterpiece:

Once you've shot your hundreds of light-art pictures, you'll need a way to animate them. You'll find plenty of simple animation tools online like previously reviewed PhotoLapse, more than adequate for turning your SD card's bounty into a glowing animated movie.

Turn an Inexpensive IKEA Shelf into a Kitchen Bar [DIY]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 15:00:00 -0800

Apartment kitchen design often leaves a lot to be desired. If you want to make your kitchen floor plan more efficient, this IKEA shelf turned kitchen bar will expand your counter space without much hassle or expense.

IKEA-centric site IKEAHacker posts a how-to story from reader Solangie, who had a kitchen that lacked for counter space and storage. A kitchen peninsula would have been added a huge amount of both to his kitchen but landlords frown on structural changes. His solution? Remix some cheap IKEA components in a novel way:

I bought the Expedit shelving unit and placed it horizontally. Then went to Home Depot and bought two peace of lumber 2x4 and made a base to bring it up by 7". Also I got a plywood, cut it to fit the shelving unit (I wanted to hide it and not leave open on both sides) and spray painted the plywood black. I used the Lagan countertop which only cost $40 dollars for 8'.

The irregular shape of the Expedit shelving makes for varied heights and storage spots for equally as irregular kitchen appliances, pots, and pans. Check out the full site for additional pictures of the project in progress. If you're inspired to turn a bookcase into something new, check out how to turn an IKEA bookcase into a window seat. If you have a kitchen hack of your own to share, let's hear about it in the comments.

Build a Color-Aware Backlight for Your HDTV Setup [Media Center]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 14:00:00 -0800

If you're looking to add some polish to your home theater setup, this guide to creating a DIY clone of the Philips Ambilight technology will give your videos a backlight that changes colors to match the on-screen action.

If you're unfamiliar with the Ambilight technology, it's a backlight system in some Phillips televisions where the color of the screen is transmitted to LEDs behind the television set, so that the background lighting matches the color on the screen. Fans of the technology claim it reduces eyes strain and enhances the theater experience.

DIYer Fun3 wanted to recreate the effect on his television. His solution was to wire an Arduino to a series of LED strips and and control the color by a USB cable hooked up to his HTPC. Check out the video below to see it in action.

Check out his site for schematics, code, and a ton of tips and tricks for calibrating your LEDs to your home theater. If you've experimented with back lighting your home theater—color changing or otherwise—let's hear about it in the comments.

Conceal Speaker Wires with Wood Trim [DIY]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 13:00:00 -0800

Hiding cabling is a perpetual struggle for the home theater builder. Save yourself the headache of punching holes in the walls or stretching cables with this simple hack.

If you're not running your speaker wires through the wall—not really an option, anyways, if you're living in an apartment—then you've got to deal with wires hanging down under your speakers. Fortunately speaker wires are small and easily concealed within the channel of pre-channeled wood trim. As seen in the photo above, the speaker wire is tucked neatly within the tiny channel of the trim. While they left the wood unpainted because it matched their speakers, you could easily stain or paint the wood to match your speakers or your walls depending on what look you're going for.

Check out the article at the link below for additional pictures and a look around their home theater. Have a home theater hack of your own? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Top 10 End-of-Year Office Upgrades (You Can Probably Write Off) [Lifehacker Top 10]

Kevin Purdy — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:00:00 -0800

By this time next week, it'll be next year—and too late to turn a great investment in your work life into a lower tax burden in April. Splurge wisely on yourself with these write-off-friendly wishlist items.

Photo by jnyemb.

We have to point out that none of the Lifehacker editors are tax preparers, accountants, or financial advisors. Most of us pay taxes as freelancers, and have grown used to the idea of deducting everything we use to get our jobs done from our independent income. If you've got a sideline or freelance business, or itemized business deductions, shopping for some of these purchases—if you need them—could make a lot of sense before the year is up, but consult with a professional before dropping any serious cash in the hopes of a big tax move.

For another take on end-of-year tax moves, check out Gina's list of essentials for 2009.

10. Plants, lights, and other soft touches

It's easy to think that the only way to upgrade an office is to come home with a box from OffiStapleDepot. Grab some plants that produce better air or are hard to kill. Give your office some ambient rope lighting, or better sunlight coverage with a mirror. Buy some paint, tarps, and rollers and clear up a Saturday afternoon. You can do a lot for your office without breaking out a single screwdriver or USB cable.

9. A better keyboard and mouse

Your keyboard and mouse still work, but do they actually feel good to use? Do they just function, or do they manage to get entirely out of your way and reduce friction between thought and computer action? Enough said—check out the best mouse and keyboards our readers have used, and invest not only in your tax liability, but your wrists, fingers, forearms, and long-term comfort.

8. Second (or third) monitor

ZDNet columnist and writer of all-things-Microsoft Ed Bott recently tweeted that the loss of his second monitor saw "productivity plummet," and he wondered how anyone worked with one monitor. It sounds ridiculous—unless you've gotten used to the ease of having more than one screen. The easy example is when you're writing or chatting about something: you keep it open, full-size, on one screen, and use the other to type. You can monitor inboxes and browse on one monitor while injecting thoughts into documents on another, keep files and windows from two different projects separate but within arm's reach, and, of course, rock much cooler wallpaper. Need more convincing? Check out Gina's guide to making the most of your dual monitors for how-to inspiration.

7. USB car adapter

This one's not much in the way of cost, unless your family's got a fleet. Then again, you'll be glad you can charge any gadget that accepts any kind of USB connection as a power source, all for the price of two fancy coffee drinks. Want the sleeker solution? This iLuv model goes for $15, and almost fits flush with your car charging port, so it looks like your car was just made to power everyone's phones, cameras, iPods, and other devices. (Original post)

6. Label maker

Why do label makers capture the hearts of geeks and make organizing actually, sometimes, enjoyable? Because handwriting is often awful and looks unprofessional, and because cutting Post-It notes into little strips is monotonous. Gina has shown us how her Brother changed her life, and many of our readers can vouch for other models, as well.

5. Filing cabinet makeover supplies

If you don't have a filing cabinet, buy one. If you have one that's just acting as a side table for your papers and coffee mugs, you need to whip it into shape. That involves folders, labels (and maybe a label maker), and supplemental storage, such as airtight bins, for the files you still need to keep around. After the initial purge, you'll also need a shredder to start getting a filing system workflow down. Among the safest items you can claim as a home office expense, a filing cabinet is a decidedly un-sexy, but necessary, purchase.

4. Serious, extra battery for a laptop or smartphone

It's the smartest thing I've ever done for myself, at least as far as computers are concerned. My ThinkPad came with a standard six-cell battery, that held a decent charge, at first. But since it's my main work computer, it sat with a charge constantly connected, and didn't age that well when consistently exposed to the system's own heat, or some other abuse I leveled upon it. So I bought a bigger nine-cell battery, wrote it off, but kept it in my laptop bag, not the computer. I keep it charged at about 80 percent, use it only when I'm going to be away from a power plug for some time, and it continues to be my steady backup. If you've got a laptop or smartphone with a kind of "meh" battery, you should do the same.

3. External hard drives and online storage

If you've got a Time Machine capsule or a big enough USB drive, and you remember to back it up constantly, then you've got your data security training wheels on. If you don't have a storage space in a separate physical location, you're still just practice pedaling. There are lots of free options, and for most home users, Mozy or Carbonite should fit the bill just fine. Then again, if you don't have all that much to back up, or it's not super-private stuff, a simple Dropbox upgrade can be very liberating.

2. A really nice office chair

You and your office chair are probably pretty close. Find a chair that's not an expense-account-draining special, like certain brands fronted with a particular gentleman's name (what is it, German Ziller?), but does more for your back than just stand behind it. You can find chairs that offer the same kind of lumbar support and breathe-able fabric, as we once did, and consult our readers' office chair show-and-tell session for some great ideas. Image from commenter unleashed.

1. Pay for apps you've put off buying

We've always felt that great software can, and should, be free, but some great software can be made better with a premium edition or subscription. Among the apps we've paid for, or reviewed in spite of costing (gasp!) actual money, are virtualization solutions like Parallels 5 and VMware Fusion 3, both of which make Windows a smooth, easy part of the Mac life. Universal capture tool Evernote offers faster transcription and more storage to premium users (along with new offline capabilities on iPhones), while Remember the Milk offers access to its very cool iPhone and Android apps. Speaking of mobile apps, there are quite a few worth considering, including many Pro/Premium versions of our most popular iPhone apps. Point is, if there's a premium app you've put off buying that might actually make a significant impact on your ability to get things done, consider taking the plunge.

What business or office purchases have you previously made with the end of the year in sight? How are you spending your no-time-left funds next week? Give us your game plan in the comments.

Repurpose a Storage Bin as a Mess-Free Litter Box [Pets]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:00:00 -0800

If you're tired of litter being tracked out of your cat's litter box, you could buy a pricey top-entry litter box to help contain the mess. You could, alternately, assemble this inexpensive DIY version.

The commercial litterbox in question is the Clevercat, which looks like a RubberMaid tote with a hole in the lid. The premise is that the cat jumps down into the litter box and then back out again, leaving all the litter behind instead of kicked over the edge. The commercial version retailed for $30+ which put a clever DIYer on Flickr off. Her solution was to make her own out of some plastic filing boxes:

My little dudes are overenthusiastic litterbox diggers. I originally had a Booda Dome plus a smaller open box for them, but both boxes led to litter (and turds) all over the place. The top-loading boxes are crazy expensive for what they are (a bin with a hole in the lid) so I decided to make my own.

I took two filing bins and removed one lid-flap each. Filled with litter, and whooo! They're awesome. Rock & Roll happily dig away without covering my closet in litter. All I need now is to rig up some small mats on top to cut down on tracking.

There are dryer sheets there to help with the litter smell, though honestly, the boxes barely smell since I switched the kittens to Wellness.

Her solution is a great one for small spaces where litter and the associated smell needs to be disguised more heavily than if the box is tucked away in the far corner of the basement laundry room. If you're looking for a great way to squeeze a litter box into a small living space, make sure to check out how to disguise your litter box, how to hide your cat litter box with a hidden entryway, and how to stash a litter box under the sink.

Have a clever pet-centric DIY solution? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Set Up and Get to Know Your New Windows, Mac, or Linux Computer [Merry Christmahanukwanzaakkah]

Adam Pash — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 08:00:00 -0800

Good news! You woke up to find a shiny new computer waiting for you under the tree this year. Whether it's a Windows PC, Mac, or Linux box, here's a quick starter guide to getting it running on all cylinders.

Photo remixed with help from Shandi-lee.

We've separated this little get-up-and-running guide into sections depending on whether the machine you got is Windows-, Mac-, or Linux-based, so just find the section that makes sense for you and get going.

So You Just Got a New Windows Machine

Get to know Windows 7: Chances are pretty good that this is the first time a lot of people will be using Windows 7—and even if it's not, take this opportunity to get to know Microsoft's solid new offering with our Complete Guide to Windows 7. While you're schooling yourself on Win7, you'll at the very least want to check out:

The Master List of New Windows 7 Shortcuts:
Windows 7 adds loads of great shortcuts for switching between apps, moving windows around your screen, moving them to another monitor altogether, and much more. Here's a quick-reference master list of the best new Windows 7 shortcuts.
Windows 7's Best Underhyped Features:
It's these less sexy, but very useful features, that make me think the more I use Windows 7, the less chance I'll ever use Vista or XP again.
Set Up and Use XP Mode in Windows 7:
Windows 7's new XP Mode lets you seamlessly run virtualized applications alongside your regular Windows 7 applications—so your outdated software will continue to work.
Turn Your Windows 7 PC Into a Wireless Hotspot:
Everybody's got a wireless network at home, but if you've ever wanted to get your iPod touch, iPhone, or other wireless device connected, but all you've got is a wired network at work, school, or elsewhere, Windows 7 makes this process trivial.
Master Windows 7 Jump Lists to Boost Your Win7 Productivity:
For those of you that haven't yet tried out Windows 7, when you right-click on a taskbar button in Windows 7, a menu slides out with recent documents and application tasks. You can even access it with the left mouse button if you choose. Here's a rundown of our favorite Jump List boosters.
Dual-Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu in Perfect Harmony:
Windows 7 and Ubuntu, despite their opposing missions, can get along like best pals on a single computer. Here's how to set up a dual boot system that lets you enjoy the best of both worlds in perfect harmony.

Get rid of the bloat: There's nothing like a fresh machine. It's free from an overloaded system tray, bloated application installs, and disorganized file structures, right?

Unfortunately that's not always the case. A lot of machines ship with a whole lot of pre-installed software that you didn't ask for and surely don't want. Our suggestion: Before you go nuts installing the software you really want, download Revo Uninstaller (a tool for getting rid of apps that's superior to Windows' default Add or Remove Programs tool) and get rid of all of the software that shipped with your machine that you don't want or need.

Install your favorite apps in a snap: Now that you've cleared out the crap, it's time to install the applications you really want. We're huge fans of previously mentioned Ninite, a simple utility that lets you tick off checkboxes of your favorite apps, then downloads them and installs them in the background. That means no more hunting all over the internet to find and download the apps, and no more mindless Next -> Next -> Finish clicking. If you'd like a little help finding the best apps around to fill up your Programs folder, check out the following:

Lifehacker Pack 2009: Our List of Essential Free Windows Downloads:
We feature downloads of all kinds every day at Lifehacker. Here, we've bundled all the best free downloads for new computer owners, re-installers, would-be geeks, or anyone who wants to save time installing the best stuff out there. This is our 2009 Lifehacker Pack for Windows computers.
Top 10 Tiny & Awesome Windows Utilities:
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.
61 Free Apps We're Most Thankful For:
As we prepared to stuff our faces with a bountiful Thanksgiving feast, we turned our Thanksgiving spirit to the gobs of free software we love to say thank you to the developers, and to give our computers a feast of their own.
Top 10 Windows 7 Booster Apps
Windows 7 is a big improvement over Vista, and a pretty convenient OS in general—but it's by no means perfect. These 10 downloads improve Windows 7's looks, functions, and make it easier, safer, and more convenient to upgrade to.

So It's a Mac, Is It?

Dive into your Mac: Whether this is your first Mac or your first time in Snow Leopard, we've got you covered:

Hack Attack: A guide for switching to a Mac:
If you're new to the Mac platform—fresh off the Windows world—this guide to switching explains how to make sense out of all the differences between Windows and OS X, highlighting how to accomplish the same things in OS X you're already completely familiar with doing in Windows.
Snow Leopard's Four Best Improvements (for Civilians):
Most of Mac OS 10.6's changes are deep in its underpinnings for developers to put to good use. But what do the rest of us get out of Snow Leopard? Modest, but nice, improvements to the everyday Mac workflow.

Install some killer apps, make a few useful tweaks: Once you've got a better understanding of what's going on with your new computer, you're ready to go on an application installation binge and do a little tweaking.

Lifehacker Pack 2009: Our List of Essential Free Mac Downloads
We've featured countless apps of all sorts over the years, but if you just want a quick look at the best free downloads for your Mac, this post's for you. This is the 2009 Lifehacker Pack for Mac OS X.
Secrets Updates for Snow Leopard, Still Tweaks Every Dark Corner of OS X:
If you're not a big fan of using the Terminal but love hidden features in OS X, Secrets is the preference pane for you. Secrets provides a list of hidden features (and descriptions of each) that can be easily toggled on and off with a simple click of a checkbox.
Get More Precise Font Smoothing in Snow Leopard
Among the many changes in OS X 10.6 was a simplification of the font smoothing options to a yes or no toggle. If your monitor text isn't quite right, here's a quick Terminal tip to get nitty-gritty control.
SnowChecker Determines If Your Applications Are Snow-Leopard Compatible
Free application SnowChecker runs a scan of your installed applications and tells you which may have problems running in Snow Leopard.

Linux-Lovers, This One's for You

An overview and a few handy Linux tweaks:

First Look at Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Beta
Take a look at the new features in the latest major point release of Ubuntu.
Make Compiz Run More Smoothly on Linux Desktops
If you're running the Compiz window manager on your Linux system—known as "Desktop Effects" in Ubuntu—you might notice it doesn't slide windows around smoothly, and causes occasional video tearing. Here's the fix.
Dual-Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu in Perfect Harmony
Windows 7 and Ubuntu, despite their opposing missions, can get along like best pals on a single computer. Here's how to set up a dual boot system that lets you enjoy the best of both worlds in perfect harmony.

Now let's get downloading: If you're a Linux person, you can rest assured that your system is likely running lean and mean right out of the box. (That is, without the bloat of pre-installed crapware some Windows systems start off with.) So let's get right to the downloading!

Top 10 Ubuntu Downloads
From Ubuntu tweaking to desktop customization and productivity boosting launchers, these apps promise to seriously enhance your machine.
Allmyapps Bulk-Installs Your Favorite Apps, Makes System Rebuilding Less Painful
One of the most irritating things about reinstalling your operating system is installing all the non-OS applications you love. Allmyapps lets you select all your favorite apps and roll them into a bulk installer to make rebuilding easy.
Top 10 Cross-Platform Apps that Run on Windows, OS X, Linux, and More
Whether your important data lives in the cloud, on your laptop, or on a different operating system, you shouldn't have to use sub-par tools to get at it. These cross-platform apps run on your Linux machine, but will also work when you've got to move to a Windows machine for work or wherever you may end up.

Happy holidays to everybody, whatever it is you may or may not be celebrating. Enjoy that new gear, and let us know what else has helped you get up and running in the comments.

Best Wallpaper Site? [Hive Five Call For Contenders]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:00:00 -0800

Nobody ever died from a lack of funky-fresh desktop wallpaper, but if you're going to stare at a box all day, it might as well be a personalized box.

Photo by Mauren Veras.

This week we want to hear all about your favorite site for finding great desktop wallpaper, including what makes it your go-to-site for freshening up your virtual workspace. Whether it's the wide range of sizes they provide, the easy to use interface, or the constant updates, we want to hear about the features that keep you coming back.

Hive Five nominations take place in the comments, where you post your favorite tool for the job. We get hundreds of comments, so to make your nomination clear, please include it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: Favorite Wallpaper Site. Please don't include your vote in a reply to another commenter. Instead, make your vote and reply separate comments. If you don't follow this format, we may not count your vote. To prevent tampering with the results, votes from first-time commenters may not be counted. After you've made your nomination, let us know what makes it stand out from the competition.

About the Hive Five: The Hive Five feature series asks readers to answer the most frequently asked question we get: "Which tool is the best?" Once a week we'll put out a call for contenders looking for the best solution to a certain problem, then YOU tell us your favorite tools to get the job done. Every weekend, we'll report back with the top five recommendations and give you a chance to vote on which is best. For an example, check out last week's Five Best Collaboration Tools.

Make a Swanky Bookcase from Old Drawers [DIY]

Lisa Hoover — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:30:00 -0800

The next time you're getting ready to kick a beat-up clothes dresser to the curb, take a minute to remove the drawers. With a little paint and decorative paper, you'll have yourself a brand-new modular bookcase.

Home crafting blog Crafty Nest came up with a smart way to repurpose a group of drawers, especially ones that are oddly-sized or mismatched. All it took was a few coats of paint to prettify the outsides and some nice-looking paper to lay down on the bottoms of the drawers (which will become the back of the bookcase once it's assembled).

Take a few minutes to sand down any rough edges, take off the drawer pulls, fill the in holes with wood putty, and slap on a couple layers of paint. Measuring and fitting the paper into the bottom of the each drawer is the trickiest part, and even that's no big deal.

Paint a layer of glue onto the wood, then place the paper on top. I found it easier if I poured a thin line of glue onto the surface, then spread it with my paintbrush. Flatten the paper with a brayer or your hands. Smooth out the air bubbles before the glue sets. Let dry.

This bookcase would make a great addition to a home office or children's playroom, but surely it's not the only way to repurpose an old drawer. What kinds of ideas can you come up with? Brainstorm in the comments.

A Bit Better RTM Enhances Remember The Milk for Google Chrome [Downloads]

The How-To Geek — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:00:00 -0800

Google Chrome extension A Bit Better RTM is one of our favorite ways to tweak the popular Remember the Milk online to-do list web app, and now it's been ported as a native Google Chrome extension.

We've mentioned the A Bit Better RTM Greasemonkey script twice before as one of our favorite user scripts for Greasemonkey in Firefox, and the the native Chrome version works much the same way—the most noticeable feature moves the tabs over to the left, saving precious vertical space for widescreen laptop users, and making them more readable in general.

In addition, you can rearrange the lists, hide the lists you don't use, use keyboard shortcuts to switch between them, and even move an item to a folder from the keyboard. It's an extremely helpful extension, and this author, at least, is thrilled to finally have it on Chrome. A Bit Better RTM is a free download, works wherever Chrome does. Thanks, CookingCat!

Hang a Two-Hook Picture with Wax Paper [Weekend Project]

Lisa Hoover — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:00:00 -0800

Trying to hang a heavy picture with two anchors and make sure it's level is enough to drive a person mad. Instead of peppering your walls with 3,000 holes trying to get it right, whip out the wax paper.

Photo by justinbaeder.

How-to-do-everything web site eHow has a pretty slick trick for getting pictures hung just so without a lot of trial and error. Once you've marked the wall where you want to hang your frame, put your picture face down on a table and tear off a strip of wax paper a few inches longer than the frame itself.

Tape the paper to the top of the frame, right over the mounting brackets, then mark the location of the bracket by piercing a hole in the paper. Pull the wax paper off the frame, line up the two holes, and fold the wax paper in half. Now you've got a perfect template of your frame and its mounting brackets.

Tape the wax paper on the wall exactly where you want to hang the picture, drive nails through the holes you pierced in the paper, and there you have it. Slap your frame on the wall and you're done. Check out the post for details on how to hang a picture with wax paper, then hit up our info on hanging perfectly centered artwork for more tips.

What's your secret to hanging pictures without tearing out half your wall in the process? Let us know in the comments.

Evernote for iPhone Update Adds Offline Notebooks, Better Search Functions [Downloads]

Lisa Hoover — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:00:00 -0800

iPhone/iPod touch only: Evernote's iPhone App just got beefed up with some new features that will make Evernote lovers swoon, including features like offline access to notebooks and the ability to search notes during a sync.

A new feature available to everyone is the ability to create notes on your iPhone and cache them for later access. New local search capabilities mean you can access your cached notes when you're offline, which is awesome if you're in a bad coverage area or can't get a Wi-Fi signal.

Now users can also search during a sync instead of getting an error message telling you to wait. In fact, sync has been given its own button now, so you've got more control over just when the deed gets done. Are you a fan of Audio Notes? Then you'll be thrilled to know you can yap twice as long now—up to 20 minutes.

Premium users get the option to download all your notebooks onto your device so you can access, edit, and search them, no matter where you are and whether you have coverage or not. Evernote also added an option to upgrade to the Premium version from right within the app (hello, impulse purchasing for the impatient).

Check out what Evernote's developers have to say about all the changes in this version in their blog post—including speed boosts and more languages. Then, let us know what dream feature you're waiting for in the comments.

Access Password-Protected Feeds with Google Reader [Google Reader]

Whitson Gordon — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:30:00 -0800

Google Reader is easily the most popular web-based RSS reader, but if you've ever tried subscribing to an RSS feed that required password authentication, you're out of luck in Reader. Weblog Digital Inspiration demonstrates a clever trick to circumvent this problem.

Even though Google Reader doesn't support password protected feeds, Google's FeedBurner does—and what's more, it can turn it into a private(ish) feed that you can then subscribe to in Reader. Check out the video and the link for more details.

The only caveat is that the necessary username and password will be in the feed's url—which, with FeedBurner's NoIndex option, shouldn't be indexed in search engines, but many still may not feel comfortable having, say, their Gmail or Twitter password in a public feed URL (and rightfully so). This workaround is still pretty useful for, say, private blogs and other such things.

Lifehacker Labs: Wine Bottle Ambiance [Lifehacker Labs]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:00:00 -0800

Have some Christmas lights you just didn't get around to hanging? Turn them into some ambient lighting with a wine bottle and some tinkering.

Lifehacker Labs is a chance for us to show you how we've used tips and tricks from Lifehacker, revisited old ones, and even improved upon them in the process. We promise we wore safety glasses the whole time and everyone signed a waiver.

Last month we shared a clever DIY project: filling a bottle with Christmas lights to create a novel source of ambient light.

It seemed like a simple enough project so we donned our safety glasses and gave it a shot. We tested out two different bottle colors and two different types of lights. Our first test bottle was a dark brown bottle that we filled with LED Christmas lights. Our second bottle was a cobalt blue bottle that we filled with white incandescent lights.

After the experiment, we have several observations to share. The first one is that drilling holes in glass isn't as big a pain as you'd think. The drill bit was $19 and the process only took about 30 seconds per bottle. Second, we were surprised at how cool the bottles remained once they were strung with lights—the heat issue had been a concern in the comments of the original post.

We ran both bottles, the LED and the incandescent, for 6 hours with the opening of the bottles blocked by a meat thermometer dangling down inside. The LED bottle didn't get hotter inside than 80F and the incandescent bottle didn't get hotter than 120F. The latter temperature isn't what anyone would call cool but it's far from dangerous.

Our final observation is that LED lights, while a good choice for energy efficiency and cool operating temperature, didn't look that great. They were too bright, so bright in fact that we ended up frosting the bottles using the spray we had leftover from our DIY Sun Jar project. We frosted both bottles which was a nice touch—the light and the wires inside made interesting patterns on the glass. Check out the photo below to see the blue bottle after the frosting.

One thing to consider if you opt to use LED lights. Most LED Christmas lights have a transformer on the line itself, which is too big to fit through the 1/2" hole you'll be drilling in the bottle. We ended up having to cut the line and feed it through the mouth of the bottle and rewire the socket. You can avoid that hassle by using incandescent lights.

That's it for this week's Lifehacker Lab, but don't let us have all the fun. We have a Lifehacker Tips Tester pool on Flickr for you to show off your your favorite Lifehacker tips, tricks, and hacks in action. If you've used a tip from Lifehacker, we'd love to see photos of your results in the tester pool!

XBMC Updates to 9.11 Camelot, Brings Awesome New Look, Improved Features [Downloads]

Adam Pash — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:30:00 -0800

Windows/Mac/Linux/and more: XBMC is a killer open-source, cross-platform media center, and today they've released XBMC 9.11, introducing a whole new default look and feel, and it's very friendly on the eyes.

Called Confluence, the new look blends some of the best features of XBMC's previous default skin (PM3.HD) with several other popular skins for pretty impressive results. It's definitely a different look from what we've seen in the Boxee beta, but the two media centers continue to deliver really impressive (and most importantly free) offerings.

(See all the images on one page here.)

You can read the condensed changelog on their blog, but some highlights include:

Better support for multi-monitor setups
High Definition, Surround Sound, and Subtitle Flagging and Filtering in Video Library
Speed up RAW image loading and handle more file extensions
Performance improvements to SQLite (database) queries (help is always wanted here)
Ability to scrape and scan TV Shows into the video library by air-date via TheTVDB.com

If you're an XBMC user, it's an update well worth grabbing. XBMC is a free download for Windows, Mac, Linux, Apple TV, and pretty much anywhere else you want to put it. Also, good news for people who followed our guide to building a silent, standalone XBMC media center on the cheap: The latest release of the Live version looks like it supports our machines out-of-the-box without custom third-party builds.

The Clever Cube Office [Featured Workspace]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:00:00 -0800

Today's featured workspace has several clever DIY solutions to a variety of office ailments like USB hub placement, cord management, and easy access to frequently used ports.

Lifehacker reader Jason Devilla tweaked and tinkered with his workspace until, with a healthy dose of DIY action, he found a setup that worked for him. He made his own monitor stand with a cable-management chamber built into the base. He turned a metal holder designed for cutting boards into a laptop stand with the addition of a swatch of fabric.

To help with the cables he has to use on a daily basis he positioned them where they were accessible but unobtrusive. Check out the photos below to see how he hid his USB hub inside his pencil cup and made a little stand for his audio jack out of a binder clip so he could easily plug his headphones in.

Take Your Break a Bit Early in This Week's Open Thread [Open Thread]

Adam Pash — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:30:00 -0800

Before you get all caught up in the whirlwind of the holidays (assuming you haven't already), take a moment to decompress a little bit in this week's open thread.

Photo by sunsets_for_you.

Sure it's a day early, but considering that most of you have the day off tomorrow, we figure a lot of folks won't be around to chat anyway. So, the day is different, the drill is the same: The open thread is your weekly place have a good talk with your fellow Lifehacker readers. (You can continue the conversation any day of the week at #openthread.) Share egg nog recipes, offer tips for fixing the family computer, and just unwind a bit. You'll need a commenter account to join, so if you haven't already, you'll need to audition to get one. Happy Thursday!

SkyDrive Explorer Mounts Your SkyDrive in Windows Explorer [Downloads]

Jason Fitzpatrick — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:00:00 -0800

Windows: If you're looking for tighter integration between SkyDrive and your regular file storage, SkyDrive Explorer, as its name would imply, integrates Microsoft SkyDrive into Windows.

Once installed you won't find much flash to SkyDrive Explorer, it simply does what it promises. Provide your login credentials for your SkyDrive account and the drive that appears in My Computer—seen above—is linked to your online storage. You can interact with it like any other drive.

If you need to access a wider variety of online storage you'll want to check out previously reviewed Gladinet which can connect to SkyDrive along with other storage sites like Amazon S3.

Have a favorite tool for integrating your online applications and storage with your computer? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Cygwin 1.7 Adds Windows 7 Support and Many Improvements [Updates]

Kevin Purdy — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Windows: Cygwin, the utility that opens Windows up to Linux/Unix/Mac-style command line powers, has updated to support Windows 7, accept more filenames with special characters, and do a whole lot more nitty-gritty terminal stuff a whole lot better.

Photo by WikiMedia Commons.

There's a whole lot of detail to the What's New section of Cygwin's 1.7 release, but the big bullet points for users wondering if they should upgrade are support for multiple installations, new and better authentication methods, IPv6 configuration, and the aforementioned support for Windows 7 (and Windows Server 2008 R2).

Need a primer on getting started with Cygwin, or grasping what it can do? Gina got all kinds of geeky with it in three detailed walkthroughs, along with detailing how to set up a personal SSH server for powerful remote access to a home PC.

Cygwin is a free download for Windows systems only.

Learn Online Retail Psychology Tricks to Avoid Them [Psychology]

Kevin Purdy — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:00:00 -0800

One day after explaining the psychology of restaurant menus, the New York Times opens our minds' eyes to online retailers' manipulation of colors, price points, and time distortion to get us buying—and how we can avoid such trickery.

Online shopping may seem like the uncluttered, no-distraction way to single in on a deal and grab it, but shopping sites have long since adapted to consumer behavior, and the subconscious thinking behind it. Ludicrously over-priced Items are put up on inventory pages that the company has little to no expectation of selling, just to make the mid-range options seem more appealing than the bargain choices. And when it comes to product shots, your mind's color associations can betray you:

Looking at a couch on a furniture retailer's Web site, you probably take no conscious notice of the green-patterned wallpaper behind the couch. Yet, Deborah Mitchell, a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said one study showed that green is associated with money, and got subjects' neurons firing in a way that made them sensitive to the cost of the item.

In the same study, a blue-patterned wallpaper behind the couch was associated with comfort, and got subjects' neurons firing in a way that made them sensitive to the comfort of the item.

So your mind plays tricks on you, even when there's no salesperson around to distract you. Now what? The Times breaks down the best, if somewhat basic, advice:

Determine what you are going to buy online, and stick to it.

Determine the amount of time you are going to shop online, and stick to it.

Determine your online shopping budget, and stick to it.

These resistance maneuvers, and the psychology angle, are all detailed more vividly at the link. If you have your own experiences and war stories about online retailers' mind games, we'd love to hear about them in the comments—mostly because our shopping is finally, thankfully over.

Get Your Camera Returned with a Great Photo Message [Clever Uses]

Kevin Purdy — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:00:00 -0800

Want a better shot at getting a lost digital camera back? If your finder has any heart at all, a multi-frame photo message will give both motivation and instructions. Check out Andrew McDonald's smirk-inducing series as an example.

Children's author and blogger Andrew McDonald never deletes 25 photos on his camera's memory card—presumably kept in a separate folder from the standard image outputs. Flipped through on a camera viewfinder, they offer a pretty amazing personal story about the importance of that camera, the unique humanness of the owner, and, most importantly, an email address for coordinating a camera return.

Andrew's posted all the pics at his blog, but you can get the viewfinder-flip effect by checking out the animated GIF version, courtesy of Your Daily GIF Blog. Oh, and while you're adding permanent camera card fixtures, tossing in a helpful TXT file couldn't hurt, either.

Thanks to Zombie Ms. Skittles for leaving us that #tip, which anyone can do.

Help Mozilla Design Firefox 4's Home Tab [Design]

Kevin Purdy — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:00:00 -0800

When you close your eyes, do you see great new browser design concepts? Mozilla would like to borrow your talent for a few moments and ask for your help in designing the look, and purpose, of Firefox 4's "Home" tab.

Mozilla is looking to pull the home button out of the main toolbar and give it its own tab, and make it something more than just a single page to head to. It can't be just a slick-looking page full of iGoogle-like gadgets, or a grid of your most recently visited sites, though—that's specifically what Mozilla doesn't want. In their words:

This is not because we don't think this use case is valuable, but we're much more interested in what a browser start page can do with full access to the browser. An interesting example is something like the about:me extension (Ed. note: check it out here), which shows you trends in your browsing habits. Unlike mainstream portals like Yahoo and MSN, the locally hosted Firefox home tab can potentially offer users an experience that is innately personal, and tailored to each user's incredibly unique personalities and interests.

While we heartily encourage you to register your thoughts at the design challenge site, we're also open to hearing from our armchair conceptual artists about their home tab ideas in the comments.