FragExt Defrags Individual Files [Featured Windows Download]
Windows only: Free application FragExt adds an entry to your right-click context menu so you can defragment individual files on demand. To use it, just right-click the file you want to defrag, then select FragExt -> Defragment. You can also run reports on the fragmentation of individual files and copy it to your clipboard, a file, or just view it in a newly minted tab in the file properties. If defragmentation is a major issue for you, your best bet is to find a good defrag app and set up automated runs. If you just need to defrag a large file every now and then, FragExt or the previously mentioned Defraggler will do the job nicely.
Tiny Prints Turns Flickr Photos Into Stationery [Photos]
If you're looking to turn a favorite Flickr photo into a holiday greeting, then check out Tiny Prints. Recently added to Flickr's catalog of "Do More" partners, the custom stationery printer will allow you to use photos from your account to create greetings, invitations, announcements and thank you notes. As a bonus, orders of $99 or more placed by Flickr users qualify for $20 off using the code FLICKRTP20. Tiny Prints will also accept photos from Picasa, SmugMug or uploaded directly to the site. Looking for help organizing your holiday bulk mail? Try our tips for using Google Spreadsheets to organize your address book. If you're more the e-mail type, you can create e-greetings from Flickr photos, too.
Comprehensive Firefox 3 Add-on Compatibility Report [Firefox 3]
The next time you upgrade Firefox—which will be to version 3.1—you don't want to find out that your favorite extension isn't yet compatible with the new version, and Mozilla's going out of their way to make sure that doesn't happen. They've published an eye-popping list of Firefox add-ons which make up 95% of known add-on usage, and show what level of compatibility each extension offers. This report will update as Firefox 3.1 nears release; in the meantime, it's very interesting to browse the list, which is ordered by usage frequency to compare it to your favorite extensions.
SoftMaker Office Is a Fast and Lightweight Office Suite [Featured Windows Download]
Windows only: SoftMaker Office is a free, lightweight office suite consisting of two fast, simple applications. The fist, TextMaker, is a Microsoft Word-compatible word processor that runs lean (using around 12MB of RAM on my system) and is surprisingly feature rich. The second, called PlanMaker, is an Excel-compatible spreadsheet app that likewise offers impressive functionality, speed, and an equally light footprint. As if all that wasn't good enough, SoftMaker Office can run off your thumb drive, so it's a no-brainer when you need to open a Word or Excel document on someone else's computer. If you need an occasional word processor or spreadsheet app but don't need all the extra bloat of Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, or even previously mentioned Go-oo, this one's worth a try. SoftMaker Office is a free download, Windows only. Thanks johnsmith1234!
Spoonflower Prints Custom Fabric to From Your Images [DIY]
Whether you're a Project Runway hopeful or a home crafter, you can have your own graphics and designs printed onto mercerized cotton fabric thanks to Spoonflower. After registering with the site and confirming via email, simply upload a JPG or TIF image set to 150 DPI and up to 25 megabytes. Designs can be centered or repeated across the fabric. You can start with a swatch for five dollars or order up to three yards for $54. Spendy if you want a full-sized flat sheet with a repeating pattern depicting the prime cuts from a hog (which will run you $90 for five yards plus shipping), but falling asleep in your meat sheets dreaming of barbecue somehow seems worth it. While the company eventually wants to print and ship orders within a day (and expand the range of available fabrics), you'll currently have to wait up to three weeks.
XBMC 8.10 Atlantis Leaves Beta [Featured Download]
Ladies and gentlemen, start your downloads. XBMC 8.10 Atlantis—the release that's bringing the popular media center to all platforms and integrating XBMC with Mac apps like iTunes and iPhoto—is officially available. For a closer look at what you can expect, check out our screenshot tour of XBMC Atlantis.
Soocial Syncs Gmail, Outlook, Your Cellphone, and More [Contact Management]
Web application Soocial promises hassle-free contact management, seamlessly syncing contacts between a handful of potential buckets including Gmail, Outlook, the OS X Address Book, Highrise, and over 400 phones (including your BlackBerry). To get started, just sign up with Soocial and start adding accounts and apps using their simple setup wizards. Some syncing will require you to download a utility (Outlook and Address Book, for example), while others simple require that you enter in a password (e.g., Gmail). The site is currently in beta, and though it's gotten a lot of positive feedback from users, keep in mind that you could run into a bug or two. If you're concerned with the privacy implications, Soocial makes it clear that if you decide to cancel your account, all of your data will be permanently deleted from their servers. Keep reading to get a clearer picture of how Soocial makes contact syncing a "hassle-free" process from their demo video.
Soocial is free to use and is currently in public beta. If you've been using it since the private beta period, let's hear how it's worked for you in the comments.
Sponsor Shout-out [Thanks Sponsors]
Thanks to this week's sponsors: Chevy Fuel Solutions, Cingular, Energizer, Gyration Air Mouse, HP MediaSmart Server, HTC Diamond, IGN, The Last Remnant, Livescribe, The New Museum, The New York Times Magazine, Nokia E71, Pernod, Rovio, Samsung, Toshiba, Zune. Click here to advertise on Lifehacker.
The Complete Guide to Speeding Up Your PC's Startup [Step By Step]
You just hit the power button your PC, and now you've got enough time to brew a fresh pot of coffee for the entire office—because that's how long it takes for your computer to go from "on" to "ready to work." If your PC's bogged down by a bunch of programs that automatically start up when it does, it can take forever to get started every morning. Without a major hardware upgrade, there's not much you can do to cut the time it takes for Windows to actually boot—but you can trim and tweak the amount of time it takes for your desktop to get to a working state. Let's take a look at a few ways you can cut your Windows' desktop's loading times using built-in utilities and third-party tools.
When you install a new piece of software on your computer these days, more often than not it will set a little bit of itself to start up automatically when your PC does, either to check for updates, make it seem faster, or just remind you that it's there at all with a little icon in your system tray. Problem is, when you install lots of software but don't use it all, these little startup entries can suck away CPU cycles, memory, and time. Reclaim them by removing the ones you don't need.
Remove Startup Items Without Downloading a Thing
While many programs promise to clean up your startup for you, you can make quite a few adjustments in Windows itself, without using any kind of extra tools.
The best, safest, and most basic place to start is in your Windows Start menu's Startup program group. Navigate to it and see what programs appear there. Right-click on any one and choose Delete if you don't need it starting up on its own.
Once you've done that, it's time to bring out the big guns. Windows can also start up items planted in your registry automatically. To see what those are, from the Windows Start menu, choose Run..., and type msconfig then hit Enter to start the Windows System Configuration Utility. Switch to the Startup tab to see a more comprehensive list of what's starting up automatically. Here's what it looks like.
Now, this list can seem opaque and confusing. What is ctfmon or RTHDCPL? The command column, which sometimes lists a full path to the item's location, can sometimes give you a clue as to what the heck an item actually is. As always, Google is also your friend in these situations. From here you can uncheck items to stop them from starting up. Don't uncheck stuff just because you don't know what it is; uncheck stuff you know you don't need. For instance, if you're not a big iTunes or Quicktime user but you've got the installed for occasional use, uncheck QTTask and iTunesHelper.Once you've unchecked items in this utility, when you restart your computer, Windows will prompt you, saying that it's using "selective startup." That's ok—you can always renable items by typing the msconfig command in the Run box again.
Messing with msconfig takes somewhat of a brave and savvy Windows user, but a few third-party Windows tweaking and cleaning tools offer startup managers that are more user-friendly.
Download and Run a Startup Cleaner Utility
There are literally a gazillion Windows tweaking utilities that include startup management capabilities, but lets take a look at two good ones.
CCleaner (which stands for "Crap Cleaner", see our original review) can scan your system for all sorts of extras and get rid of them, but you're interested in the Startup manager. Hit the Tools button, then the Startup button to get there. Here's what your list will look like. As you can see, it offers a little more information than msconfig above (in the Program and File column), and that may help you decipher what's program is what. You can disable and delete items from your Startup using those respective buttons.
If you don't want to install more software in order to clean up your system (which makes sense), System Explorer (see our original review) offers a portable version, and its startup manager is beefy, with hooks into the registry, an online virus checker, and even Google searches for file names. In the System tab, hit the Startup tab to take a look at what's auto-starting on your PC. Here's what it looks like.
As you can see, using the right-click context menu you can go straight to the registry editor, or do a search on ProcessLibrary.com or Google for the item. Also, the program's publisher and file path are included, which offer more information about what's what and what you can afford to disable.
Besides CCleaner and SystemExplorer, Lifehacker readers also like MZ Ultimate Tweaker and RegToy.
Delay Item Start to Get to Work Faster
Of course, it's not that one program that's starting up automatically and slowing down your whole PC—it's all of them in aggregate. You may audit your startup list and realize that yes, you do want all these programs to start. But maybe you don't need them to start up at the exact moment you're dying to get into Outlook and read your email, or work on that urgent report. The Startup Delayer utility (our review) does just that—it delays items from starting up from anywhere from 20 seconds to several minutes to hours so you can start working sooner. For instance, if your printer driver pre-loads but you're not printing the moment you log on, you can delay it for a minute or two. Similarly, I really don't need the Java Updater process starting its work before I do, so it is a good candidate for delaying. Here's what Startup Delayer looks like.
Don't Fall for the Myths
There are a lot of myths and misconceptions and misguided "secrets" to speeding up your PC published out there. Don't fall for them. If you delve deep enough into Windows optimization tips online you'll find tips about deleting page files, cleaning out your registry, setting your PC to use multiple cores manually, and lots of other authoritative-sounding tweaks. Before you do any of that, check out the How-To Geek's awesome guide to debunking Windows performance-tweaking myths.
Have you had any startup editing revelations? What's your favorite PC startup speed-up utility? Post it in the comments.
How to Wrap Large Cords and Hoses [Cord Management]
DIY home web site FineHomebuilding has a nice guide demonstrating how to wrap large cords and hoses for clutter-free storage while avoiding twists and kinks. With a medium-gauge cord, for example:
I drape the line back and forth over my hand until I have a few feet left. Then I tie off the bundle with the remaining cord and create a loop to hang it with.
The post itself has more detailed instructions for medium- and heavy-gauge cords, along with air hoses. If you've got a preferred method you stick to when wrapping your large extension cords or hoses, let's hear it in the comments. On the other hand, if you're more concerned with smaller cords, try one of our many different headphone wrapping techniques.
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