This Week's Best Posts [Highlights]
Too busy forcing holiday cheer this week to catch our best posts? Here, have a rundown.
- Most Popular Free Windows Downloads of 2008
"In the past year we've highlighted hundreds of Windows apps aimed at making your life easier, boosting your computer productivity, and powering up your PC.For those of you who weren't able to keep up, here's a look back at the most popular Windows downloads of 2008." - Most Popular Free Mac Downloads of 2008
"We've featured gobs of great Mac freeware over the course of the year—now it's time to check out the best." - Five Best Sites for Finding Deals Online
"Did your holiday gift budget shrink considerably this year? Your friends and family need never be the wiser: You just need to know where to find the best deals." - Top 10 DIY Photography Tools
"Getting better at photography can be a long-haul test of willpower and humility. It doesn't have to be expensive, though." - Lessons Learned from a Hacked Gmail Account
"Around my house, hacked email accounts were something that happened to other people—relatives with weak passwords, generally, or Dateline story subjects." - KickYouTubes Lets You Download Videos Without Extra Software or Hassle
"KickYouTube is one of the simplest solutions for downloading YouTube videos we've reviewed at Lifehacker." - Killer Add-ons Make Songbird So Much Better
"Like Firefox, the open source media player Songbird is a pretty neat alternative to a big-name competitor on its own, but the ability to extend it through add-ons is what really makes it boss." - How to Avoid Looking Like a Tourist
"Blending in while visiting a new locale is a great way to increase your safety and improve your sightseeing experience." - Most Popular Linux Downloads of 2008
"Along with Windows and Mac downloads, this year was chock-full of free software for Linux users. Read on to see what our readers were eager to grab and install on their free desktops."
Make Your Own Glass Whiteboard for Under $70 [Weekend Project]
Purchasing a large commercial whiteboard can get expensive, but if you've got a home office or dorm room with a big white or dark solid wall, you can build your own glass whiteboard.
Instructables user johnpombrio did just that in his son's dorm room. The result could be a lot more finished, and you need a white or dark background behind the glass to see the writing on it, but at $65, the price is right. He writes:
Does it work? Yes. Is it the best whiteboard my son has ever used? No. It's the contrast. A white whiteboard with a black marker is, by far, the easiest to see and use. Unless there is a dark background or a white background, the writing is harder to see on a clear whiteboard.
Have you opted to built your own whiteboard instead of buying one? Did you use showerboard, glass, whiteboard paint, or another material? Share your secret in the comments.
Google Image Search Adds Search-by-Style Options [Search Techniques]
Today Google adds clip art and line drawings to their image search criteria, in addition to photos and faces.
To restrict your search to either line drawings, clip art, photos, or faces, choose the style criteria from the drop-down on an image results page. (Alternately you can add the right parameter to your search URL to set up a keyword quick search; for line drawings, for example, it's &imgtype=lineart.) Check out a cool example search for Celtic art line drawings. For more Google search fun, check out our top 10 obscure Google search tricks.
Make Your Own Homemade Butter [Weekend Project]
You already know that butter's the key to good holiday cookies, but a homemade jar makes a good gift in and of itself, and Slashfood details how to make some.
The process doesn't look that difficult, either. The finished product might be even more fun and delicious if you threw in some cinnamon sugar, garlic salt, sun dried tomato, or any other of your favorite sweet or savory butter-spicer-upper. Everyone loves butter. Go forth and make some. Photo by Marusula.
Video Demonstration of Butler in Action [Mac Tip]
Quicksilver isn't the only Mac launcher on the block: in this eight minute video, Macworld's Rob Griffiths does a nice demonstration of what's possible with the free Butler.
Quicksilver isn't the only Mac launcher on the block: in this eight minute video, Macworld's Rob Griffiths does a nice demonstration of what's possible with the free The Holidaze Open Thread [Open Thread]
The holiday party's over, the gift exchange done, and your co-workers are slipping out early today to hit the road home for the holidays. Time to yak it up in the comments.
Post up your holiday hacks, creative uses of the office copier while no one's looking, gift-wrapping brilliance, and oh yeah, productivity questions and tools in the comments. Respond to a specific comment by hitting the arrow on the bottom right of it. Anything goes in the open thread—photos and video clips encouraged!—so go on and get to spreading holiday cheer. Photo by iluvcocacola.
TrayProdder Adds Vista-Style Checkboxes and Selection to XP [Featured Windows Download]
Windows XP only: Free system utility TrayProdder adds of Windows Vista's handier file-handling tools, checkbox selection and full-row highlighting, to Windows XP.
The small app doesn't require installation, so you can try out selecting multiple items by checking them off, rather than praying you don't slip off the Control key, without burdening your system. All properties of each file are also highlighted while in "Details" view, which is great for shuffling music, movies, and big files around. One quirk of TrayProdder, though, is that you use the actual app's utility window to select, copy, or otherwise handle the files you've checked, though it can be convenient, too, depending on what you're doing.
If you like how TrayProdder's features work and want to keep it running in your system, the How-To Geek details how to auto-start the app with relevant options enabled at the "via" link below.
TrayProdder is a free download for Windows XP systems, requires the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
LifeTango Tracks and Shares Your Goals [Goals]
Webapp LifeTango hosts a community of people setting life goals, sharing them with each other, and tracking progress and milestones along the way.
Fill out the brainstorming wizard to set goals in various areas of your life, from places you want to travel or live to career, financial, and fitness goals. Along the way choose from goals others have set that make you go "oh yeah!" (like "ride in a hot air balloon" or "drink more water.") Designate your goals as daily or weekly or just assign a due date to get email nudges about your progress. Compared to previously mentioned Lifetick, LifeTango appears to be more social but offer less of a clean interface.
Reliable and Affordable Web Hosting? [Call For Help]
Reader Stephanie is ready to plunk down some cash for a web hosting provider, but wants to know which are the most reliable and affordable. She writes in:
Finally I'm taking the leap into setting up my own domain name and blogging software to start my own web site. I'll need a host that supports PHP and MySQL and lets me install something like WordPress pretty easily. I looked for recommendations on good web hosting providers, but this thread is over three years old and I figured things have changed. What are the top web hosting providers for individual web sites these days?
Help Stephanie out in the comments and let us know who you've had a great (or terrible) experience with hosting your web property. (Note: If you work for a web hosting service, please tell us that in your comment, which may otherwise look like spamming. Thanks!)
Dailymile Brings Your Friends and Neighbors into Your Workouts [Exercise]
Free workout tracker Dailymile works fine as a logging and analysis tool for your running, cycling, or other cardio-oriented training, but its highlights are the ways it uses friends and locality to motivate.
It's a fairly new webapp, so don't expect to see many friends or fellow runners in your neck of the woods up just yet. But you can use Dailymile to connect your workout notes to Twitter (and, eventually, Facebook and other apps), and keep track of races and other events near you. If disappointing your exercise-focused friend is motivation enough to get you out the door, Dailymile is worth checking out. The site is a little AJAX-heavy, though, and left my Firefox browser chugging to keep up at some points, so don't expect a quick visit from a low-speed or mobile connection.
Dailymile is free to use, requires a sign-up.
MAKE Magazine gift subscriptions and gift certificates [Advertisement]
It's not too late to give the gift of making! MAKE Magazine has gift subscriptions and gift certificates to the Maker Shed store available with downloadable cards you can make yourself!
MAKE Magazine is the first magazine devoted entirely to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) technology projects. MAKE Magazine unites, inspires, informs, and entertains a growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements, and garages.
Give the gift of making, a full year of MAKE - with each subscription you get the print version AND the digital edition. MAKE Digital Edition is a vivid replica of the print edition of MAKE, it offers an experience very much like the print magazine plus many additional benefits, such as online searching, embedded multimedia and printing. MAKE Digital Edition can be viewed from any web browser (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc.) and requires NO DOWNLOADING of software, no DRM! - it gives you instant access to your entire MAKE collection!
Here's what folks are saying about MAKE!
If you're the type who views the warnings not to pry open your computer as more a challenge than admonition, MAKE is for you.
- Rolling Stone
"MAKE magazine, one of the bibles of the do-it-yourself movement"
-Julia Moskin, The New York Times
"In here are more than articles bound together, more than the vision of its creators even: it's a possibility engine. A passel of new ways of thinking, and thus, new ways of looking at the world. This is, without a doubt, my favorite magazine ever, and my only beef with them is that I don't have enough free time to try everything I'd like to.
-Adam Savage, MythBusters
"...the crew at Make Magazine/Maker Faire/Makezine are leading the way with a great energy and a spirit of adventure. They've made open source/DIY hardware seem as cool and subversive as the punk movement of the early 80s. Soldering irons are the new electric guitars!"
- Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine
"This is a magazine for people who, in real life, are like Matthew Broderick from 'War Games.' Everything children would like to be able to do with technology, you do."
- Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report
"There's a magazine I like, Make magazine……it's all about how to build little robots out of Altoid tins, and how to make sea monkeys into giant blood-sucking rats. It's pretty cool and it's a lot of fun"
- Jimmy Kimmel, The Jimmy Kimmel show
"If I read one more article or hear one more speech about how this country is losing its edge because not enough people are getting into science and technology, I'll become officially depressed. In that light, it's especially satisfiying to know that, if the pages of Make are any indication, the spirit of experimentation and geekiness-for-its-own-sake are thriving in the basements and backyards of America."
-David Pogue, The New York Times
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