FeedReader » Lifehacker » July 11, 2008

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This Week's Best Posts [Highlights]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 8:00pm EDT
Happy Friday y'all! Before you head out into your weekend, make sure you didn't miss any of the good stuff published here this week:
- Do More Than Just Game on Your Xbox 360
  "With some free tools and a little elbow grease, that compact, networked PC sitting under your television can offer a whole lot of useful media functionality."
- Top 10 Modern Life Survival Skills
  "Avoid everyday problems and modern mini-calamities by arming yourself with the right know-how before you head out into the world."
- What's Good (and Free!) in the iTunes App Store
  "More than 550 new applications arrived for the iPhone and iPod touch this morning in iTunes' brand new App Store and more than 130 of them are available for free."
- "Better" Firefox Extension Updates Now Available
  "Spent the long weekend posting a rash of 'Better' extension updates that add features, fix bugs, and offer full Firefox 3 compatibility."
- iTunes 7.7 Now Available For Download
  "Apple just made the latest version of iTunes 7.7 available for download and it includes the newly-opened iTunes App Store, which is available for iPhone users who have the iPhone 2.0 Software Update."
- iPhone 2.0 Update to Add Polish (and Apps)
  "If you've already got an iPhone or an iPod touch and you aren't planning to buy the new iPhone 3G, you've still got goodies coming your way from Apple this week."
- Kid-Proof Your PC with SteadyState
  "When you've got your Windows XP or Vista setup running perfectly, you don't want to lose all your painstaking customizations to a reckless tot, an experiment-minded friend or spouse, or a rogue system-lousing program."
- Are You a Productivity Hobbyist?
  "Let's face it: if you've spent much time in the productivity blogosphere, then 100 more motivation hacks, 50 more Firefox plug-ins, and additional GTD system tweaks probably aren't going to make you that much more productive."
- Better Amazon Firefox Extension Upgrades Amazon.com
  "Save time shopping at Amazon.com with the new Better Amazon Firefox extension, which adds helpful tweaks and features to Amazon's pages."
- How Priorities Make Things Happen
  "Prioritization is always more emotional than intellectual, despite what people say."
- Get Productive with Social Media (and Stay Sane)
  "Social media is the equivalent of digital food. It's nourishing, tasty and, for many of us, necessary. However, consume too much and you can get sidetracked and create larger consequences."
DIY Moleskine Wallet Hack [Moleskine]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 7:00pm EDT by Adam Pash

Moleskine enthusiast Richard Bryan details how he replaced his wallet with his treasured Moleskine by sewing together an elastic book cover capable of holding his credit cards, cash, and business cards. The end result is certainly bigger than your average wallet, but if you carry your notebook with you wherever you go, why not take the route to convergence? Bryan's photostream provides a lot of great photos and details for pulling off the Moleskine wallet.
Moleskine Wallet Hack [Flickr via MAKE]
Snacks that Heal What Ails You [Health]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 6:00pm EDT by Adam Pash

Yahoo and Men's Health round up seven snacks that heal, claiming that your best route to many common ailments lies in a well chosen snack from your supermarket. For example, rather than reaching for a can of soda when you're stressed, the article suggests a cup of low-fat yogurt or a couple tablespoons of mixed nuts.
Scientists in Slovakia gave people 3 grams each of two amino acids — lysine and arginine — or a placebo and asked them to deliver a speech. Blood measurements of stress hormones revealed that the amino acid-fortified public speakers were half as anxious during and after the speech as those who took the placebo. Yogurt is one of the best food sources of lysine; nuts pack tons of arginine.
The remaining six snacks cover your metabolism, energy and brain boosts, your immune system, alertness, and your—ahem—bedroom impulses.
7 Super Snacks That Heal [Yahoo Health]
Turn Your Photos into a Small Planet [Digital Photography]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 5:00pm EDT by Adam Pash

Blogger Tom Hole details an image editing technique for turning a digital photo landscape into a tiny planet. To start off you'll need to create a 360-degree panoramic photo. The author uses a shareware app called PTGui to create the panorama, but we've covered how to create panoramic photos with free software already. Once you're there, the author describes how to process the panoramic pic with either GIMP (the free, open-source photo editor) or Photoshop (the not free one) to end up with the very cool small planet effect. If you've made your own little planet in the past, let's see how it worked out for you in the comments.
An Idiots Guide to Creating Small Planets [tjhole via Hack a Day]
GrabUp Makes Screenshot Sharing Effortless [Featured Mac Download]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 4:00pm EDT by Adam Pash

Mac OS X only: Freeware application GrabUp automatically uploads screenshots to the internet and pastes the URL in your clipboard for quick and easy sharing. The application installs as a preference pane in your System Preferences and integrates with your Mac's default screenshot shortcuts. So if you hit Cmd-Shift-3 and select an area for a screenshot, it's automatically uploaded to the GrabUp servers and the URL is copied to your clipboard. You can enable or disable GrabUp through the preference pane, and if you enable GrabUp for your menu bar you can go through the history of your screenshot upload URLs. GrabUp is freeware, Mac OS X only. For more robust alternatives, check out previously mentioned Skitch and Jing.
GrabUp
Calendar+ Enhances Your PocketPC Calendar [Featured Windows Mobile Download]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 3:00pm EDT by Jason Fitzpatrick

Windows only: Free PocketPC app Calendar+ sorts the Today screen calendar to your liking. Set Calendar+ to only display X number of days ahead or to ignore certain days altogether or to show only relevant appointments. Calendar+ versions are available for Windows Mobile 6/5/2003 and earlier PocketPCs. Thanks, Myrddin-Wyllt! Calendar+ [MohairSofa]
How to Run Windows on Your Mac for Free [How To]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 2:00pm EDT by Adam Pash

Weblog MakeUseOf details how to install Windows on your Mac with freeware virtual machine software VirtualBox. We've already shown you how to run Windows apps seamlessly in Linux with VirtualBox, but the MakeUseOf guide takes on the new OS X beta version of VirtualBox with a nice step-by-step for getting started. It sounds like VirtualBox isn't as robust as other Windows-on-Mac alternatives, but it is the only no-cost app. If you've always wanted to ride the Windows-on-Mac train but didn't feel like shelling out for VMware Fusion or Parallels, VirtualBox looks to be a viable alternative. If you've tried running Windows on the latest version of VirtualBox for Mac, let's hear how it's worked for you in the comments.
1 Free Program to Run Windows on your Mac [MakeUseOf]
Five Best Windows Backup Tools [Hive Five]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 12:00pm EDT by Adam Pash

Your data is your life, and if you're not backing it up regularly, you're flirting with disaster. On Tuesday we put out a call for your favorite Windows backup tools, and today we're back with the five most popular answers. Read on for a closer look at the five best Windows backup tools, then give your vote to the application you like best.
MozyHome (Freeware and Shareware) MozyHome does unlimited online backup for just $5 a month. Mozy is a set-it-and-forget-it solution, and the setting up part is incredibly simple. If you're just looking to give it a test run or you don't need unlimited backup, sign up for MozyHome Free, which gives you 2GB of backup space for gratis. (original post)

Cobian Backup (Donationware)

Cobian Backup is free backup software that supports scheduled local and remote backups. Users love its rich feature set, as Cobian supports nearly every feature of its shareware alternatives. All current versions of Cobian are freeware, but the latest (version 9) is no longer open source. (original post)

SyncBack (Freeware and Shareware)

SyncBack is full-featured backup software available in both freeware and shareware versions. The freeware SyncBack has a few limitations that the shareware version doesn't, like inability to backup open files, but both versions offer extensive features—including backup profiles and options for local and remote backups. The shareware version of SyncBack will set you back $30. (original post)

Acronis True Image (Shareware)

Acronis True Image creates full live disk images of your PC so that when the time comes that you need to restore a backup, you're not just restoring files—you're restoring an exact copy of your PC as it was. The latest version of Acronis supports excluding individual files and folders from your image or you can set criteria for the data that you want to back up (in case you don't actually want to include everything in your disk image). Acronis True Image costs $50 and a 15 day trial version is available.

Carbonite (Shareware)

Carbonite is an online backup solution similar to MozyHome. For $50 a year, Carbonite provides unlimited online backup and is another set-it-and-forget-it solution which offers off-site backup to remote servers. The biggest difference between Carbonite and Mozy is the price: Carbonite is $50 per year upfront compared to MozyHome's $5 per month, which adds up to $60 a year but doesn't lock you into a year. Carbonite does not offer a free version like MozyHome Free's 2GBs, but there is a 15-day trial. For more user comparisons, check out our Carbonite vs. Mozy faceoff.
Now that you've seen the best, it's time to vote up your favorite.

Which Is the Best Windows Backup Tool?
( surveys)

This week's honorable mentions go out to DriveImage XML (original post), Jungle Disk (original post), SyncToy (original post), and Windows built-in backup.

What's your choice of backup tool for Windows? Cheer on your favorite in the comments.
Find Makes You More Productive at the Command Line [Command Line]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 11:30am EDT by Gina Trapani

Programmer Eric Wendelin says you can get a lot more done with sets of files at the command line once you've mastered the basics of find, an old school search tool. Find in and of itself gives you the same functionality as Google Desktop or Spotlight, but because it's at the command line, you can pipe results into other tools like grep or sed and really get things done in a flash—like do a global search and replace. If all this is making you go "huh?" but you've dabbled at the command line before, hit up Eric's post, which is a nice intro to what you can do with find. Here's another helpful introduction to the command line.
Find is a beautiful tool [Eric Wendelin's Blog]
AideRSS Add-On Filters Feeds by Popularity in Google Reader [Featured Firefox Extension]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 11:09am EDT by Kevin Purdy

Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): AideRSS, an RSS feed popularity filter that Adam had a few bones to pick with, has released a free Firefox extension that integrates its popularity rankings into Google Reader. AideRSS says it uses the number of comments, Google backlinks, bookmarks on social sites like Digg, reddit, and del.icio.us, and more data to determine a PostRank, which it plugs next to each feed item and offers as a drop-down filter. While it's obviously going to bias your reading against fresher posts that haven't had time to make their mark, it might be helpful to anyone trying to cut down on RSS clutter. For their next version, let's hope for an options dialogue to remove that PostRank number from every single post, as the filtering bar may be more useful to most users. AideRSS is a free download, works wherever Firefox does.
AideRSS + Google Reader Firefox Extension [via Google Operating System]
FruitfulTime Manages Your To-Do List [Featured Windows Download]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 10:30am EDT by Jason Fitzpatrick

Windows only: Free desktop task manager FruitfulTime is a lightweight portable to-do list application. Split tasks into sub tasks, assign priority, mark incremental completion of tasks, set reminders and due dates, and tag tasks with keywords. Within each task there is a tab for taking notes, adding contacts to the project, setting reminders, and including references to files and web sites. While FruitfulTime TaskManager 2 will set you back $30, the Free Edition (for single computer, personal use) is a free, no-strings download for Windows only.
FruitfulTime Task Manager Free Edition [via Life Rocks 2.0]
Favthumbs Visualizes Your Del.icio.us Bookmarks [Bookmarks]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 10:00am EDT by Kevin Purdy

Mac users of Del.icio.us' social bookmarking service already have a crisp and slick visualization tool in Delish; for the rest of us, Favthumbs might just be the next best thing. Type in a del.icio.us username (and password, if you want to see non-shared items), and the site whips up screenshot thumbs of your links in a surprisingly short time. There are two view modes, a grid layout and CoverFlow-like turnstile, and you can hit "Sync" to update your bookmarks. That's about it—and that's all that's needed for most users. Favthumbs is a free application, no sign-up required.
Favthumbs [via TechCrunch]
Love and Money [Sponsors]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 9:30am EDT

Thanks to this week's sponsors for helping keep ~~Adblock in active development~~ us in business: Chevy Fuel Solutions, Glyde, HP TouchSmart, Mighty Leaf Tea, and T-Mobile. Get your product onto the widescreens of a few thousand smartass nerds and advertise on Lifehacker.
Defrost Outlook Fixes Outlook 2007's Post-SP1 Freezing Bug [Featured Windows Download]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 8:46am EDT by Kevin Purdy

Windows only: If installing Service Pack 1 for Outlook 2007 has caused your personal data manager to freeze and stall, Defrost Outlook is definitely worth the small download. The plugin, developed by one programmer's study of post-SP1 problems, fixes at least one lockup-causing issue with receiving HTML-formatted meetings and appointments by slightly re-formatting them. There are, of course, other bugs that cause freezes, and the author aims to incorporate them in future releases. For now, though, this app can't hurt to try. Defrost Outlook is a free download for Windows systems only.
Defrost Outlook [via gHacks]
Turn Vista Home Premium into Ultimate with Free Software [How To]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 8:16am EDT by Kevin Purdy

The Mysticgeek blog at the How-To Geek's site has a clever series of posts up that use free software tools to give Windows Vista Home Premium—the version that most often ships with standard laptops—the same kind of super-user powers you get with a copy of Ultimate. Mysticgeek uses FileHamster to replicate Ultimate's "Shadow Copy" function, installing a DreamScene power toy to get moving backgrounds, and DriveIMage XML to create sturdy backups (as Gina once detailed). Hit the link below for the FileHamster tutelage; and check out part 1 and part 2 for the other tweaks. What other tweaks do you use to add Ultimate-like features to your copy of Vista? Share them in the comments.
Turn Vista Home Premium into Ultimate - (Part 3) Shadow-Copy [Mysticgeek | The How-To Geek]
iPhone 2.0 Gets You Laid (and More) [Friday Fun]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 7:00am EDT by Gina Trapani
Forget finding calamari or listening to Coldplay: You want an iPhone because it can help you get things done—like that cutie over there. Here are a few ways you can use new iPhone apps to help yourself get busy (in more ways than one):
- Flick on the mood music without getting off the couch.
- Ask the bodega clerk in perfect Spanish what aisle the condoms are in.
- Get her number without a pen.
- Flirt over IM on the go. ;)
- Find the nearest hotel room.
If all that does't work, face it—you're a hopeless case. But even when no one's willing to get naked with you, the new iPhone still lets you:
Check out our full list of best free iPhone apps available for download to your new or upgraded device today through iTunes 7.7's newly-opened App Store.