Everything available in my KolleXon !!!: [Lifehacker] 25 New Entries: Most Popular Free Windows Downloads of 2008 [Best Of 2008]

Most Popular Free Windows Downloads of 2008 [Best 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.

Keep in mind that this list is based on the popularity of posts we've published in 2008 only, regardless of the original release date of the app. Many were brand new this year, while others were solid updates to popular software. Here's the full run-down of the 12 most popular Windows downloads of 2008:

Firefox 3 Is Released, We Download

Firefox 3 was easily one of the biggest events in software in 2008 regardless of what platform you run. We may be well on the way to Firefox 3.1 now, but if you're looking to brush up on your Firefox 3 chops, be sure to check out the top 10 Firefox 3 features and our power user's guide to Firefox 3.

Mojo Downloads Music from Your Friends' iTunes Libraries Over the Internet

Mojo makes it easy to download music from your friends' iTunes libraries over the internet. Mojo comes in both free and premium flavors, but the free version offers plenty of functionality for the money. If you're just getting started with Mojo, check out our guide to using Mojo.

Free PDF to Word Doc Converter Does What It Sounds Like

It's easy to convert or print Microsoft Word documents to PDF, but what about when you want to go the other way around? The aptly named Free PDF to Word Doc Converter does exactly that. (Original post)

OurTunes Grabs Music from Shared iTunes Libraries

If the limitations on Mojo aren't for you, the open-source classic ourTunes—which downloads music from any shared iTunes library on your network—made a comeback earlier this year, as a new developer took up the reigns and continues to release updates. (Original post)

CCleaner Clears the Crap from Your PC

The popular PC colonic CCleaner (the first 'C' stands for Crap) pushed out a 2.0 release earlier this year and you were quick to update and enjoy the crap cleaning goodies. (Original post)

AVG Free Anti-Virus 2008

AVG Free Anti-Virus 2008 hit the streets in May, and the application that you voted the best antivirus applications for Windows was unsurprisingly popular. (Original post)

Windows Vista Service Pack 1

Microsoft released the first major service pack for Vista, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (x64 version), in March, and you were eager to download and update to the latest and greatest from Redmond. (Original post)

Hotspot Shield Gets Around US-Only Blocks and Content Filtering

Looking to protect your browsing privacy or access US-only content from outside the US? HotSpot Shield received a lot of attention in '08 from users looking to do that and more. (Original post)

Quick Media Converter Easily Converts Media to Any Format

Quick Media Converter converts virtually any media file (audio or video) from one format to another. The application has an emphasis on simplicity: Just drag and drop a file you want to convert onto the app, click the icon of the device you're converting for, and let Quick Media Converter take care of the rest. (Original post)

DExposE2 Brings OS X's Expose to Windows

Freeware application DExposE2 is a clone of Mac OS X's Expose feature for Windows XP and Vista, providing an attractive, innovative interface for switching and managing windows in Windows. Check out the original post to see a video DExposE2 in action.

Dropbox Instantly Syncs Files Across the Internet

Instantaneous file syncing was huge in 2008, with free, cross-platform application Dropbox leading the pack. Dropbox boasts web-based version control, fast and instant syncs, and a dead-simple setup. Among other things, Dropbox makes for the perfect password syncer. (Original post)

Executor Challenges Launchy, Impresses

Open-source application Launchy has long been a favorite of savvy keyboarders looking for quick app launching in Windows, but a saucy newcomer called Executor hit the ground running when it was released earlier this year. Check out our original post for a more detailed rundown of what makes Executor so impressive.

Sharepod Frees Your iPod from iTunes

Want to free yourself from the shackles of iTunes but still want full functionality from your iPod? Sharepod is a lightweight iTunes alternative that runs directly from your iPod, so it's with you whenever and wherever you plug in your player. (Original post)

Whether or not your favorite Windows download of '08 won out in the popularity contest, let's hear more about your favorite download of the year in the comments.

Yahoo Mail to Get Third-Party Applications [Yahoo]

The beta version of Yahoo Mail is getting third-party applications like Xoopit, WordPress, Flixster, and Flickr—and other Yahoo products are also seeing upgrades, TechCrunch reports.

In what at first appears to be an answer to Gmail Labs, Yahoo Mail is getting third-party apps that let you do things like attach one of your Flickr images to a new messages easily. More interestingly, the new "social" Yahoo Mail will be able to prioritize your incoming email by the people with whom you have an established relationship. TechCrunch writes:

When you view your inbox, you can choose to view messages from just your "connections", letting you filter out all of the email that ostensibly means less to you. Contacts (which includes everyone in your address book) are different than connections, which are suggested by Yahoo's algorithm and explicitly identified by users. Invitations to connect are either generated by Yahoo's algorithm or sent manually by your contacts. Connections appear to be like "friendships" on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, but Yahoo is insisting that the relationships will be used in a variety of ways not found on traditional social networks (such as this mail filtering).

Sounds pretty saucy. While I'm not yet seeing the updates, reportedly they are rolling out today on the new version of Y! Mail. The Yahoo homepage, Toolbar, My Yahoo, and Yahoo TV and Music are also seeing revamps, getting open API's for third-party developers, and social features.

AllOff Shuts Down Your Computer When It's Inactive [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: Ever wish you could save energy by not just sleeping, but automatically shutting down your PC when you're not using it and it's not doing anything? With free utility AllOff, you can.

AllOff monitors your mouse and keyboard usage in addition to CPU load. If you haven't used your mouse or keyboard and the CPU load is below a user-specified threshold for a certain amount of time, AllOff automatically initiates a system shutdown. The CPU monitoring functionality is perfect for those times you want to keep your computer on to finishing ripping or burning a DVD, for example, but don't want to keep your PC running all night once the process completes. Granted, this app does mirror some features already built into Windows, but if you'd like more control over automated shut down, it does the job nicely.

AllOff is a free download for non-commercial use, Windows only, requires a free registration. If you like the idea but you'd like a few more options for how the shut down handled or scheduled, check out previously mentioned WinOFF.

Mind.Depositor Is a DIY GTD Super-Notebook [GTD]

Getting Things Done enthusiast and Lifehacker reader Patrick Ng was inspired by Merlin Mann's hipster PDA but wanted to create a more comprehensive and personalized GTD tool. The result: mind.Depositor.

The small and attractive mind.Depositor is a GTD machine, complete with custom 4x6 index card templates with boxes for Next Actions, Projects, Wait for, and Someday/maybe tasks and a ton of additional custom tweaks. Be sure to check the bottom of the post for the full list of materials or head to the mind.Depositor Flickr set to get a closer look at the finished product.

Ask MetaFilter Roundup [Hive Mind]

StandaloneStack Brings Leopard-like Stacks to Windows [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: Like the look of OS X Leopard's Stacks feature—which provides attractive, quick shortcuts of any folder on your desktop—but you're on a Windows PC? Free application StandaloneStack brings Leopard-like stacks to your quick launch toolbar.

Since StandaloneStack only runs when you launch the shortcut (which can be launched from anywhere), it doesn't have to run in the background and doesn't waste any resources unless you're using it. On my computer, the stack only consumed about 5MB when open. The stacks themselves are animated and can display in both fan and grid views (as illustrated in the two screenshots here). Be sure to read the documentation on the home page for details on how to set up stacks for different folders.

StandaloneStack is a free download, Windows only. If you prefer dock launchers like RocketDock or ObjectDock, StandaloneStacks is a standalone version of the Stacks Docklet that works in either app.

David Allen's Making It All Work a New Look at GTD [Book Excerpt]

Author David Allen's follow-up to his best-selling productivity bible Getting Things Done is called Making It All Work. Due out this month, it's all about how to become a better self-manager.

In a series of excerpts published by tech site BNET, Allen discusses the two axes of self-management—control and perspective—and asks you to place yourself in the matrix. (Of course any personal productivity book is nothing without at least one matrix.) Are you a visionary/crazy-maker? Victim/responder? Micromanager/implementer? If things are going well, you've got the right mix of control and perspective, which puts you in the Captain and Commander seat. Allen writes:

Control and perspective are closely intertwined dynamics, but achieving each one involves different approaches, whether the matter at hand is your teenager doing homework, your soccer team's practice, your next vacation, or your product launch. If your kitchen is a mess, for example, cleaning it up and placing all the tools and equipment where they belong will be a very different exercise from deciding what to cook and how to present it. But the two activities remain very connected, in that without an organized kitchen, it will be very challenging to stay focused on the dinner itself; likewise, an insufficient focus on the recipes, the various components of the dinner event itself, and the plan for deploying them will allow the situation to quickly get out of control again.

As usual, Allen's approach appears to be a combination of business-speak and Zen enlightenment (with a sprinkling of sports metaphors about "winning your game"). The concept of self-management alone connotes the idea that you'd manage your monkey mind they way you would an unruly underling at the office. But once he's beyond the boardroom matrix, Allen dishes out his "mind like water" ideas, about paying attention to what's tugging at our subconscious selves and focusing on the big picture. While the executive or high-level manager approach might alienate creatives and cubicle workers, and the woo-woo spiritual stuff might put off business types, if Allen's able to temper it all with real-world scenarios the way he did in Getting Things Done, he may have something here. Then again, if Making It All Work is just a rehash of GTD ideas seven years later, new readers would be better off just buying the first book.

Here's the full list of excerpts (I particularly like the last one on attention):

Are you a GTD disciple ready to pick up Making It All Work the moment it's available? Or is GTD just so 2004? Take a look at the book excerpts and let us know what you think.

Firefox 3.1 Gets Sounds in Windows [Firefox]

According to the MozillaLinks weblog, the latest development release of Firefox 3.1 now includes support for system sounds in Windows for menu pop-up and selections. If you want more control and more sounds, check out previously mentioned experimental extension Noise.

Makers of Popular Ad-Aware Release New Antivirus App [Antivirus]

Lavasoft—makers of the popular spyware/adware detection and removal tool Ad-Aware—have just released a new antivirus app called Helix. You can try it for 30 days free, costs $24 for a year. If you're not satisfied with the five best antivirus apps already available and you're a fan of Ad-Aware, Helix could be worth a test-run. We haven't put it through the gamut, so check CNET's positive review for more details.

Mac OS X 10.5.6 Update Now Out [Featured Mac Download]

Time to hit Software Update on your Mac: the OS X 10.5.6 update is now available, and promises improved reliability and stability throughout. Listed as a 190MB download (on my MacBook Pro at least), here's the full rundown of what you get in 10.5.6. Update: Several people (myself included) are having trouble with the 10.5.6 update; mind was stuck at "Configuring installation" for over an hour. If you're having trouble, try downloading and installing the Combo Update manually.

Wikipedia Officially Launches Mobile Version [Wikipedia]

Popular user-edited online encyclopedia Wikipedia has finally released a mobile-friendly version of the web site at mobile.wikipedia.org.

The site offers a trimmed down version of Wikipedia proper, supports 14 languages, and even has a mysterious Spoken Wikipedia setting that—though currently not enabled, may presumably one day read Wikipedia articles to you.

We've seen plenty of tools for making Wikipedia friendlier for your mobile device, including the previously mentioned Wikipanion iPhone app, Encyclopedia for jailbroken iPhones, Wikipedia-va-SMS app GoLive Mobile, and webapp SnapAsk, but a lot of people will be thrilled with the official offering. It's not a terribly advanced mobile webapp at this point, but it does break down Wikipedia articles into a nice, readable format for your small screen, which is plenty as a start. If you give it a go, let's hear your thoughts—including what else you'd like to see from Wikipedia Mobile—in the comments.

UPDATE: It looks like the mobile interface might not be as new as we thought, though this is the first time we've covered it.

Killer Add-ons Make Songbird So Much Better [Songbird]

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.

We considered the release candidate of the potential "iTunes killer"—Songbird a sloppy mess, then backed up a bit when it's 1.0 release was official. Now we're geeked to show you a few add-ons that make Songbird a great place to organize your MP3s, iTunes purchases, iPods, and whatever else you listen to.

The suggested pack

Songbird's developers chose wisely when it came to the extensions it recommends installing when you first load Songbird. iPod Device Support, QuickTime Playback and Windows Media Playback give owners of protected files, and iPods, access to their tunes with few hitches. Shoutcast Radio and Last.fm integrate nicely as streaming players, and Concerts tells you whenever an artist you dig in your library is swinging by town to play a live gig. Last, but certainly not least, mashTape gives you all kinds of web-driven contextual content on your played artist, putting artist info, news, photos, and videos from a wide variety of popular sources—Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, Digg, etc.—in your bottom tray. All worthy of installation, and, in some cases, hard to imagine music browsing without.

LyricMaster

LyricMaster smartly hunts down the lyrics for any song playing in Songbird, whether in the file's metadata or through Mashtape's search. If it gets a match, it puts them in a skinny right-hand window; if not, it offers a pre-formatted Google search for your song, which you can copy the results of and paste directly into the song file. Pretty straight-forward, but seriously helpful, too.

Seeqpod

Those familiar with Seeqpod's find-and-stream MP3 search engine can smile at its seamless Songbird integration. A search bar and results listing pops open in a new tab, and you can queue up over-the-net tracks or download them directly to your library or specific playlists. Downloads head into your standard Songbird downloads window, and, well, that's it—it just works, and it expands your library exponentially, assuming you're down with the kind of quasi-legality involved.

MediaFlow

If you're a fan of iTunes/OS X's CoverFlow style, with album art flipping by as you play and switch tracks, this is its Songbird near-equivalent. There's a few bugs and performance tweaks still to be worked out, but it basically delivers on the promise of big, flip-sliding pictures. If you're going to install this, it's best to also install the FocusTrack extension to get instant album art updates as you switch tracks.

Last.fm Album Art

If your library looks pretty barren in MediaFlow, let Last.fm's vast database do the heavy digital image lifting for you. This extension shows the album art that the music-sharing service has on file for whatever you're playing in the lower-left. It (unfortunately) doesn't let you grab and save that art for metadata implanting, but makes for a light-weight way to keep your visual field stocked in your media player.

The Exorcist

As a long-time iTunes user, this is the add-on your long-suffering editor is probably most excited about. The Exorcist adds two views to your media listing options, Ghost Tracks and Duplicate Tracks, that do exactly what you'd hope—list songs referenced in your library without a related media file, and list any songs that seem to be similar in file size or metadata. Better still, those views show you the full path of duplicate files, and offer buttons to just clear out all duplicates or find your missing tracks.

Pause/Play/Stop Buttons

If a single play/pause button just doesn't do it for you, you can add a stop button that looks built-in with this tiny, helpful extension. Not the sexiest of extensions, for sure, but a good indicator of the Firefox-like potential to customize Songbird to whatever shape you want it in—once more add-ons make the list and get updated.

What Sonbird add-ons are you enjoying alongside your music? What functionality would you love to see someone code up for a weekend project? Tell us your add-on ideas in the comments.

Fast Foward Adds "Most Visited Next" Button to Firefox [Featured Firefox Extension]

Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Rather than search or hit "Back" to find a related link, the Fast Forward button asks you to rely on what other people jumped to next in their own browsing.

The add-on adds a button to the right of your standard forward button (though it can be moved anywhere) which sends you to the most-visited page that other Fast Forward users headed to from the page you're looking at, or related pages if there's no exact match. The service doesn't require registration, but does ask for anonymized browsing data to do its thing. Currently, the app says it has 200,000 people contributing to its "most visited next" database.

Reading through stories related to the troubles of Illinois' governor, Fast Forward sent me through an interesting mix of New York Times and Chicago Tribune articles, as well as a related YouTube video or two. Your mileage will certainly vary, but it's an intriguing, lighter-weight alternative to StumbleUpon and similar social browsing/bookmarking sites.

Fast Forward is a free download for Firefox 3 and works wherever that browser does. Check out the questions and explanations it gives on installation below:

Make a Hidden Christmas Tree Watering System [DIY]

Many people are passionate about having a live Christmas tree, but topping off the tiny water dish in the stand is a pain. Avoid getting poked in the eye with this handy stealth watering system.

Over at the DIY site Instructables, user Ricky Spears got sick of wrestling with his tree every time he wanted to top off the quickly depleted reserve of water under his tree. His solution is both cheap and a great time saver. You'd never guess it by just the photo above, but the large gold present under the Christmas tree houses a gallon of water to help top off the pan under the tree. Every bit of water lost to the tree or evaporation is replenished by the reservoir. Essentially he found a bucket the same height at his tree stand, a box big enough to camouflage the bucket, and by combing the physics of siphoning with small feeder tube he has an automatic tree watering system. If the system needs to be topped off he doesn't have to risk getting his eye poked out trying to get to the pan at the bottom of the tree, he just lifts the lid of the present and pours more water in the bucket. For more details on his construction methods, check out the well written tutorial at Instructables. If watering in all aspects of plant care is something you thinks needs a little more automation, check out Grow a Green and Healthy Lawn with DIY Automatic Sprinklers, DIY Self Watering Planter, and DIY Self Watering Garden.

Seadragon Mobile Gives Deep Zooms on High-Res Images [Featured IPhone Download]

iPhone/iPod touch only: Microsoft has made a surprising leap into the iPhone app realm, releasing a mobile viewer for its super-high-resolution Photosynthservice.

Unless you're familiar enough with the previously mentioned Photosynth tool to create your own in-depth, virtual-tour-ish images, you'd likely use Seadragon as a kind of low-lag image viewer, which it seems to work quite well at.

Seadragon comes pre-loaded with some pretty eye-widening images from NASA, the Library of Congress, maps, and intriguing shots from Photosynth, but you can also add your own RSS image feeds—such as those from Flickr, and get similar super-zoom features, up to a point.

It's also worth noting that while Photosynth previously required a Windows-only plug-in, it's recently opened up a Silverlight-based viewer that should work for Mac clients as well.

Seadragon is a free download for iPhones and iPod touches running at least the 2.0 firmware.

Eighteen Tips on Smarter Used Clothing Buying [Clothes]

The Get Rich Slowly blog rounds up 18 tips for buying used clothing, something that's becoming increasingly palatable to many looking to stretch their monthly budgets. For more tips on scoring slick clothing on scrimped funds, try our Sarah-Palin-inspired clothing buying guide.

Photo by brooklyn.

Mahalo Answers Offers Cash "Tips" for Best Answers [Search]

Human-powered search site Mahalo launches a familiar-seeming group Q&A forum, Mahalo Answers, with a Google-like twist—having the best answer might just earn you a few bucks from the question-asker.

In other words, it's intended to be a cross between the pay-for-answers seriousness of Google's now-shuttered Answers tool, which tilted toward researchers and super-specific questions, and Yahoo's own wide-open Answers. Mahalo is seeding a few hundred thousand "Mahalo Bucks" (worth $0.75 in real dollars, cash-able after accumulating $40) to current Mahalo members and testers for spending on answers. And to prevent fraud and cheap-skating, askers will have four days to pick an answer before other users choose it for them, and rating systems are intended to kill off spammers and griefers. If Yahoo just isn't cutting it for you, or you're looking for a semi-serious answer to a question you're willing to spend a few on, Mahalo Answers might be the place to sound off.

Labs Go Live in Google Apps Accounts [Google Apps]

Maybe it was the recent roll-out of Gmail's task manager or a huge full moon, but Google Apps developers have finally opened up "Labs" features to domain-based Google Mail users.

It should be noted that, as with most Google releases, it might be a gradual roll-out, but readers tipped us to Labs showing up on Sunday night. I count the same number of lab items in our Lifehacker Google Apps account as a standard Gmail account, which means Apps users have access to all the productivity-boosting tweaks in Labs, like Superstars and Quick Links, Signature Tweaks, Advanced IMAP Controls, and many more. Oh, and SMS functionality as well. For a quick list of what's worth checking out, check out our readers' list of Gmail Labs features they enabled.

IndexYourFiles Helps You Search Your Files on the Go [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: IndexYourFiles is a lightweight and completely portable file-indexer that leaves behind no trace and requires nothing more than the executable.

After unzipping the application, all you need to do is run it and give a folder, local drive, or network drive to begin indexing. You can save profiles from within the program allowing you to keep a separate index for home, work, or even individual drives to limit your searches to drives you use for the task at hand. Indexing is snappy, as is the search engine itself. During my test run it indexed 110GB of data in a matter of seconds. If you're in a position where you can't install a desktop search engine at work but would benefit from using one, IndexYourFiles is a stealthy option. For another portable-friendly file indexer, check out Locate32. Thanks Joelena!

Avoid Looking Like a Tourist [How To]

Blending in while visiting a new locale is a great way to increase your safety and improve your sight seeing experience.

Nothing screams "Abduct me! I have an American family who will wire you money!" like wandering the streets of a foreign city with your face buried in a map while wearing a Yankees ball cap. Over at wikiHow, they've compiled a list of ways to avoid standing making yourself stand out while touring the world. While several items on the list are almost humorous in their observations— that Americans love to sport white sneakers everywhere they go for instance— others are definitely worth noting.

Try to speak the language. Why not try to make an effort to speak the local language? It's a sign of respect and appreciation of the local culture. Learn a few basic words like "Hello", "Please" and "Thank you". Nobody will mind if your accent is not perfect; the fact that you've been willing to speak their language, even when you could well have spoken yours, is a thing that many people appreciate in tourists.

I've traveled abroad with more than my fair share of fellow Americans who have decided that the proper way to speak to a non-English speaker was to simply speak significantly louder. Everything translates better when shouted! If you have some handy travel tips of your own, share them in the comments below. Photo by joguldi.

Ask the Commenters Roundup [Hive Mind]

KidZui is a Kid Friendly Web Interface [Parent Hacks]

KidZui is a child-safe internet front end that calls upon an enormous whitelist of websites, pictures, videos, and games that have all been reviewed by a group of volunteers composed of parents and educators.

The KidZui experience is available in two forms: a stand alone browser on Windows based machines or as a Firefox extension on any system that can run Firefox. The experience with both is very similar. The installation process is kid friendly, with children able to directly participate in the process if the parents desire. Kids can create an avatar for the social network side of KidZui, which is like a slightly more detailed incarnation of the Mii avatars found on the Nintendo Wii video game console. Interaction between the child's avatar however is very limited, from a safety standpoint. No personal information is ever or can be shared, children are limited to exchanging information already approved within the KidZui network. For instance a child could send a link to a funny Sponge Bob video or article on trains to a friend, but couldn't send them their home address.

Once an account is set up for the child an email is sent to the email address the parents provide. From there you activate the account and set up a parent account to be linked to your child's account. The parent control panel for KidZui is polished, even in the free version—there is a pay version of the service that adds some bells and whistled but the free version is entirely functional. From within the control panel parents can get all sorts of feedback. What has their child been searching for? What have they been spending their time doing in the KidZui system? Lists of search terms, games played, time spent on various tasks and on browsing in general broken right down to the minute, are all available. While the the content of KidZui is really air tight when it comes to kid friendly content, it's enlightening to know that your 8 year old is already scouring the interwebs for boobs, even if he isn't finding anything.

The principle difference between the stand alone installation and the Firefox plugin, cross platform compatibility aside, is the level of security available on the computer itself. When using the stand alone browser, the child can close the browser out and return to the desktop of the computer they are using. The Firefox plugin essentially locks the web browser to full screen and it cannot be taken out of KidZui-mode without a parent keying in a password. Essentially the entire computer is locked to the KidZui network and has become a kid-friendly internet station. ~~Note: if there is anyway to lock the stand alone browser in full screen mode, please share how in the comments! I wasn't able to find a way to do so in my test run with the browser.~~ Thanks helpful readers! You can enable the same level of password locking in the stand alone as the extension, by going into the parental controls menu of the stand alone browser and enabling it under the KidZui Settings.

A nice touch is the ability to add to the white list on a case by case basis. If your child wants or needs to access their school's website or another safe website that has not yet been reviewed, you have the ability to add it to the list of sites your child can access. You'll be warned when you do so, once a website is added to your child's personal white list any link on that site becomes fair game. Add http://www.google.com as a white list site, and anything Google can find so can your child.

While there isn't any real substitution for direct supervision and parent interaction, KidZui is a really helpful tool for introducing your child to the amazing amount of information and interesting things that can be found online— minus the therapy-inducing moments of stumbling down the dark alleys of the internet. KidZui is freeware, available as both a stand alone Windows based browser and a cross-platform Firefox extension.

Where Do You Find Multi-Monitor Wallpaper? [Ask The Readers]

Where are thou perfectly enormous desktop wallpapers? Our inbox is frequently stuffed with demands for beautiful high-res multi-monitor wallpaper, but the multi-monitor segment of users seems largely ignored. Where can we send our readers?

We've covered sites over the years that offer beautiful high resolution wallpaper, and even some that have pretty good spreads of multi-monitor wallpapers. When confronted with spiffing up a spread of 3000+ pixels however, there seems to be very little love to go around. Where do you find your multi-monitor wallpaper? No matter how well known or obscure your sources, we want to hear how you put a sparkle on your enormous bank of screen space!

Edge-Lit Holiday Cards Let You Flaunt Your Extreme Geekdom [Weekend Project]

If you have a friend for which a regular holiday card would be far too analog, flaunt your geek street-cred by sending them an edge-lit holiday card.

Creating a glowing holiday card may not be the most economical for a mailing list of hundreds of people, but as a one of a kind creation it's a remarkably cool and cheap DIY holiday creation. By taking advantage of the properties of etched glass— in this case acrylic— tinkers at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories were able to craft greeting cards with glowing emblems on them. The cards are made from LEDs, scraps of acrylic, cardstock, black electrical tape, and coin cell batteries. Many of the items are things that a self-respecting tinkerer would have on hand. If you think that LEDs and holiday cards are a match made in heaven, you'll definately want to check out the super cool 3-D LED christmas card in our DIY Christmas Card Roundup.

MorphThing Creates Celebrity Face Mashups [Fun]

If you're looking for something fun to goof off with this weekend, look no further than MorphThing. Finally you'll know what the love child of Hillary Swank and Jack Nicholson would look like.

Or for that matter you can find out what you and any other celebrity or uploaded portrait would look like as a morphed image. The lead image for this post was an unholy mashup of my face and that of Heather Graham's, which shall hence forth insist on being called by it's stage name: Jasather.

MorphThing is a bit more precise than other simple image morphers online. Instead of simply using a basic image blend to layer one photo over the other, you actually go through a process after uploading each image to identify important features. Using a dot system, you assign place markers to prominent features like the edges of the eyes, lips, and face. The image at right is an example of how you would place the dots on lips to mark the center and boundaries. The dot system is actually pretty accurate, when I purpose messed with the placement of the eyes on my test image— putting the dots for the upper lid above the eye brow for instance— the results were rather horrific. If you don't want to upload your own images, there are thousands of predefined images in the database allowing you to morph celebrities to your hearts content. Never again will you wonder what a Brangilina actually looks like! MorphThing is free to play with, but requires a basic login (no email verification required) for uploading personal images.

You received this email because you are subscribed to the real_time feed for http://feeds.gawker.com/lifehacker/full. To change your subscription settings, please log into RSSFWD.