[Lifehacker] 40 New Entries: Create Simple Wall Mounts for Your Speakers [Weekend Project]

Create Simple Wall Mounts for Your Speakers [Weekend Project]

Wall mount your speakers for cheap with this easy DIY project and spend your cash on something your ears can appreciate.

A cursory internet search shows that basic speaker mounts can start at $20 a piece for little more than a plastic bracket. Chris Job, a user at the DIY website Curbly, found it much more economical to create his own mounts.

Whether for your new 5.1 surround sound system, your cramped media room, or when just wiring your home to fill it with music, it's best to get speakers off the ground, furniture, and other resonant surfaces, and up to ear level. And since non-powered speakers are actually not heavy at all, with less than $2.00 in materials and an hour of work, it's surprisingly simple to create custom brackets for mounting them on walls and ceilings.

As long as you have some basic hand tools available like a drill and saw you too can whip up enough sturdy mounts for less than you'd spend on a single store-bought plastic mount. If you don't want wires dangling down your walls and you're not about to punch holes in the walls and fish speaker wires into the crawlspace, don't despair. We've covered several DIY speaker stand projects before like how to repurpose cheap floor lamps into speaker stands and DIY cinder block speaker stands. If you're in the DIY mood this weekend but you don't need new speaker stands, turn an old speaker into a swanky media cabinet.

DIY Speaker Wall Mounts [via Make]

Five Best Portable Applications [Hive Five]

Whether you got a shiny new flash drive over the holidays or your old thumb drive is looking for a new lease on life, pack it full of goodness with these five killer portable applications.

Earlier this week we asked you to share which programs you've stashed on your thumb drive that you can't live without. The votes have been tallied, and now we're back with the five most popular portable apps.

Portable Firefox

Lifehacker readers love their Firefox, and with Portable Firefox, you can take your web browsing experience and all of the accompanying tweaks and extensions you've come to know and love with you wherever you go. All of your customizations—including extensions, bookmarks, and configuration file edits—can be applied to the portable version. Minor changes under the hood of Portable Firefox make it more suitable for flash drive usage, such as the default disabling of read/write intensive disk caching. It also respects its boundaries as a portable application, forgoing the usual check to make sure it is the default browser. After you download a copy of Firefox portable, make sure to enable Flash support, customize your portable Firefox, and learn how to sync your Firefox installations.

KeePass

Using the same tired password for everything is a big security risk and so last century. KeePass is an excellent password-management tool—in fact, it topped the list of the five best password managers—and is naturally portable, requiring no modifications to live on your thumb drive. Beyond its primary function of securely organizing and storing your passwords, it also has a host of handy features, like secure password generation—even HAL wouldn't guess the password for your Match.com account is $s2k230!nE$g^8GD@gNygh(hFod0*2E. KeePass also supports great plugins that do everything from automatically filling in password fields for you to importing your login information from other applications like Firefox.

VLC Portable

VLC is an open-source and cross-platform media player packed with features. Even if you never used it for anything more than enjoying some media saved on your flash drive, you'd be quite pleased. Beyond basic media playback, VLC can play ripped DVDs, stream media, and fix desynchronized video and audio. If you're curious whether or not VLC will playback the media you throw at it, check out the sizable list of compatible formats it supports; you'll be hard pressed to find something you can't watch with VLC.

TrueCrypt

Although hindered by the pesky need for administrative privilege or a prior installation on the computer in question—TrueCrypt has to load a device driver for it's on-the-fly encryption and decryption—TrueCrypt remains a reader favorite for thumb drives. In areas where you control the computers or have a friendly local administrator, it's tough to beat the privacy benefits of TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt creates encrypted file containers that function as independent disk volumes. You could easily create a 2GB container on your 4GB flash drive and stash all your private data in it so that—in the event that you lost your thumb drive—no one could access your personal data. Programs and media can all be loaded from the container—once you supply the password and mount it of course—just like they can be from the unencrypted portion of the flash drive. For a more thorough overview of how TrueCrypt works and how to use it, check out Gina's previous guide to encrypting your data with TrueCrypt.

Portable Thunderbird

While many users get their email fix through of a combination of Firefox Portable and a web-based email service, many of you put in a passionate vote for Thunderbird as a portable email solution. Portable Thunderbird has all the features you'd expect from a standalone email client. It supports IMAP and POP3 servers, has tabbed message browsing, advanced folder management, and the kind of extensibility that everyone has come to love in its sibling Firefox. Short of having to comply with the whims of some mad corporate-IT-manager, most users will have a hard time finding reasons not to use Portable Thunderbird for their stand alone mail-application needs. After downloading Thunderbird, be sure to check out our roundup of eight killer Thunderbird extensions, how to embed a web page—such as a TiddlyWiki—in Thunderbird, and how to sync your Pocket PC with Thunderbird.

Now that you've seen the, interestingly enough, entirely open-source list of most loved applications it's time to vote for your favorite:

Whether or not your favorite program made the list this week, we'd love to hear about the portable programs that make your life easier. Sound off in the comments and share the portable app wealth with your fellow readers.

Find Vintage Calendars for Reuse [Calendars]

As a result of the rotation of months and days in a calendar year, you can use calendars from past years. Spice up your wall with a little vintage fun.

Paul, over at the financial blog WiseBread, was skimming over a magazine when he noticed a tiny little box with an interesting tip in it. There are only 14 combination—including leap years—of months and days on the Gregorian calendar. Calculating the matching years would be an arduous task, fortunately the web site Time & Date lets you check which years are identical to the one your plug in. If you're looking to grab a vintage calendar for 2009, the chart to the right shows a few of the compatible years. If you're extra motivated you can even create little charts for several years into the future to keep in your wallet and always be prepared to snatch up any cool vintage calendars you come across. Some places to keep your eye out for calendars: garage sales, flea markets, eBay, Craiglist, and of course the garages and attics of your pack-rat friends and relatives. Photo by Zawezome.

Old Calendars Never Really Go Out of Date [WiseBread]

This Week's Top Downloads [Download Roundup]

• Windows 7 Shortcuts Enables the Best Win7 Shortcuts in XP or Vista (Windows)
  "Windows 7 Shortcuts enables some of the best Win7 shortcuts for XP and Vista."
• ActionOutline is a Blazing Fast, Hierarchical Note Organizer (Windows)
  "Lightweight note-taking and outlining application ActionOutline Lite organizes your notes or projects in a hierarchical view with the notes on the right-hand side."
• Xinorbis Analyzes Your Disk Usage (Windows)
  "Xinorbis is a portable and quite powerful disk analyzer. Graphs, tables, trees, and report generation ensure you know what is going on with your data."
• Ubiquity Sees Major Update, New Look, Better Performance (Firefox)
  "Popular Firefox extension Ubiquity—which adds a natural language command line to Firefox—sees a significant update today."
• Windows 7 Beta's Many Free and Legit Themes (Windows)
  "Customizing the look and feel of Windows is a cinch with themes—problem is, Microsoft generally offers so few supported themes. That's changed in Windows 7 Beta: Microsoft is already offering 20 fresh themes."
• Google Quick Search Like Quicksilver from Google (Mac)
  "We've been crazy about Quicksilver—a free application launcher for Macs—for years now. Today Google is releasing a new search-and-launch application called Google Quick Search developed by Nicholas Jitkoff, the developer of Quicksilver."

Use Your Playstation Portable as an Additional Windows Monitor [PSP]

Windows only: If you're on the look out for a new trick to teach your PSP, using it as supplemental monitor for your Windows rig is pretty sweet trick indeed.

Like many of the other awesome PSP based projects we have suggested here at Lifehacker—like using your PSP as a universal remote and controlling iTunes with your PSP— this requires a little bit of homebrew magic. The results are quite impressive however. Once you install PSPDisp and tether your PSP to your computer with a USB cable, you can use it as an independent display. Update: several readers have reported that they can tether over WiFi. Thanks guys! Check out the video:

Widgets, instant messaging windows, etc. can all be placed on the tethered screen. Additionally you can reverse the video and have the display on the PSP appear on your computer monitor. If you've never messed around with homebrew PSP software before check out the wealth of information at PSP Homebrew to get your feet wet. We're short a PSP here at the Lifehacker office, but quite excited by the potential of this handy little hack. If you try it out, share in the comments below! Thanks Zee!

PSPdisp

Collagr Generates Collages from Flickr Photos [Flickr]

Collagr is a web based application that creates collages from photos uploaded to Flickr and Photobucket.

You can use your own photos by plugging in the URL for the directory into Collagr or use search terms—the sample here was generate from a searchfor red roses. Once Collagr has grabbed images from the URL you supply, you can tinker with settings like the background color, spacing between pictures, the resolution of the output, and you can apply a grayscale or inverted color filter to the image. Collagr hosts the image once it is generate, you can either download it or use link to the unique URL that is generated. For some more collage action check out Tabblo—another Flickr collage maker— or get more hands on with this tutorial.

Collagr [via MakeUseOf]

VisiPics Ferrets Out Your Duplicate Photos [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: Concerned you're wasting disk space with duplicate photos but too cautious to go about wantonly deleting pics? Fire up VisiPics and find those dupes.

VisiPics is an extremely thorough program. Many duplicate checkers are limited to comparing the file name, size, and date of creation to compare files and flag them as duplicates. VisiPics uses an algorithm to examine each picture and compare it to the rest, seeking out similarities based on the actual image not just the parameters of the file. VisiPics allows you to specify the degree of filtration. On the strictest setting it looks for tiny differences to consider the images distinct, the looser you set the restrictions to more liberal it becomes in comparing items. An example of this in application: on the strictest setting VisiPics considered two photographs of the same person taken milliseconds apart where their facial expression had changed only very slightly to be identical pictures. When adjusted to a more lax setting it allows for greater variations in photographs and still considered them duplicates.

VisiPic is not the kind of program that you want unleash unsupervised on your photo collection, it certainly can't tell if the difference between one photo and another is the difference between a genuine smile and a grimace. It is however an excellent tool for culling your collection, especially if you're an avid photographer with a preference for use the burst mode when you're shooting. Be forewarned, because Visipics actually compares the content of the photo instead of just the file metadata it is a CPU intensive process. Scanning 29,000 photographs during my test run of the software required approximately 2 hours of background processing while I used the computer for other tasks. For another photo comparison-engine check out Duplifinder. For a quicker, but less intensive method of scanning for duplicate files check out DoubleKiller.

Visipics [via MakeUseOf]

Extend Your Flash Cord with Network Cable [Camera Hacks]

Don't spend money on pricey flash extension cords, you can make a cheap and effective extension using CAT5 cable. Photo by pieterjanviaene.

Over at DIYPhotography.net, Udi found that his TTL—through the lens—Nikon flash extension-cable was a bit too short. He didn't want to shell out even more money for an only slightly longer cord, so he bit the bullet and sacrificed the cable he had to his experiment.

I cut the TTL cable in half, stripped back the rubber shielding and I used 2 Cat5e network wall jacks, 1 for each end. Cat5e cabling and jacks consist of 8 wires, so it was a perfect match for this. The other aspect of those cables is that they are shielded - after all, they transfer high amounts of traffic.

His gamble with the cable paid off, network cable was the perfect match to create an extension. He tested it with both 5ft and 50ft lengths of CAT5 cable with no apparent delays in the flash triggering. Given the small fortune he would have spent on a propriety extension cord of that length—if he could even find one 50ft long!—he saved a bundle with his cable modification. If you have ingenious money-saving camera hacks of your own, share the wealth in the comments below.

Extending Your TTL Flash Cord [DIYPhotography.net]

Remove Labels Without Tearing the Box [Recycling]

Stop shredding your cardboard boxes when removing labels. Peel them cleanly off with a razor and a steady hand.

If you reuse boxes with any frequency you know what a hassle having to remove or cover up old labels can be. Clean up the recycled boxes you use for your eBay empire with this simple trick. By tracing lightly around the label with a razor blade you create a score line that contains the tear created by peeling the label. When you peel up the corner of the label to remove it, it will remove some of the cardboard box but only the very top layer of box and only in the rectangle you've created. Now your legions of Pokémon-loving eBay bidders will never know that the boxes that their loot arrives in were originally from Mr. Winky's Wonder Emporium. Thanks Sandra!

How to Remove Shipping Labels From Boxes [Chica and Jo]

Automatically Name Zip Files in Windows XP [Windows Tip]

Create archives with significant names automatically by selecting the most important file in the group before creating your new archive.

When using the built in ZIP-file creator in Windows XP—accessible by right clicking on a file and clicking Send To -> Compressed (zipped) Folder—there is a handy trick for assigning a name to the resulting ZIP file. When selecting multiple files to insert into a new archive, after highlighting the files right click on the file that bears the name you want to apply to the new archive. When the new archive is created, it will be assigned the name of the file that the right click context menu was activated off of. In the screenshot at right selecting ThisFileHasThenameYouWant.txt yields a ZIP file with all the highlighted files named ThisFileHasTheNameYouWant.zip. If you're looking for a little more bang than the default Windows archive creator can provide, make sure to check out the Hive Five: Five Best Compression Tools. Thanks Jennifer!

Top 10 Ways to Save Money in a Recession [Lifehacker Top 10]

Times are tough, money's tight, and nobody should be spending more than they need. If you think you've exhausted all avenues for saving a buck, check out our ten suggestions for saving money in a recession.

Photo by Bob Jagendorf.

10. Get better at re-using your stuff

It's the kind of stuff that fueled your grandparents' stories about hard times: Stretching supposedly disposable, used items further than most consumer companies want you to; Using your mind—and your hands—to solve problems without jumping in the car and busting out the wallet. We suggest finding inspiration from how Lifehacker readers creatively reuse disposable items. Re-purposing isn't all about balled-up tinfoil and grimacing, of course. Our most popular re-purposing posts of 2008 show that a little thought and some creative tinkering usually pays off with a one-of-a-kind solution to household needs.

9. Cut your food costs

Other than shelter (rent) and water (also rent, or municipal bills), food is the one thing you have to spend money on every day. If you really want to hack down your bills, carnivores can save money by buying whole animals—a process that's easier than they might think. For a weekend kick, you can make your favorite chain restaurant recipe at home. Stay away from the high-fat cruft on dollar menus and switch to a cheaper, healthier Mediterranean diet or these twenty health foods for $1 or less. And for those nights when cooking a full, healthy meal just isn't in the cards, a "Microwave Diet" is a surprisingly nutritious fall-back.

8. Dress and look sharp with less cash

Let's not pretend you can look like a million bucks with $7 and change. What you can do is focus on taking a clean, elegant style and maintain and extend it without hitting the malls at all. The thrift-conscious J.D. at the Get Rich Slowly blog has 18 tips on smarter used clothing buys, whether as a staple or just a complement to your wardrobe. And, while the political hook is a bit, er, dated, we did consult with style-conscious types to help dress like a honcho with humble means. For everything else that isn't soap and a haircut, try taking on easy ways to look sharp, like de-cheap-ifying a suit, shaving with a straight razor, and using coat hangers to prove to yourself that, yes, you really do have something to wear. Photo by brooklyn.

7. Start working for yourself (crazy as it sounds)

Even if you've invested in your paid-by-someone-else career, the layoffs just keep happening, leaving hard workers looking for their next gig. Assuming one's money is locked down, it can be surprising how much cheaper it is to start working for yourself—if the conditions are right. The self-employed route is one of the most common suggestions from our readers in response to post-layoff confusion, and if you don't have to pay for a commute, parking, lunch-on-the-go, daycare, or many other costs, freelance work might help you stem the losses, at least until you can land back on your feet. Everyone's situation is different, of course, and self-secured healthcare isn't getting cheaper, but we happen to know at least one certain blogger/developer who's taking a chance on working totally off the grid for 2009.

6. Cut the cable and get your TV free

When the nation-wide transition to all-digital, over-the-air television happens (be it Feb. 17 or later), anyone with an antenna will get digital channels for free (in fact, you may even get more channels than you were before). If you don't get great reception, or you like your television a bit more on-demand, there's never been more free programming on the web. Start with our six ways to catch your favorite TV shows, which covers the free market in all its forms, from official sites to BitTorrent. Next, check out Lifehacker readers' five favorite sites to stream TV for more inspiration. Looking for something that doesn't tie up your computer? Our ooh-shiny-savvy sibling Gizmodo has posted a great tutorial on taking a relatively cheap Apple cast-off, the AppleTV, and using the free Boxee software to spin it into a TV-streaming, download-playing, multi-media powerhouse.

5. Trim your cell phone costs

The economy stinks for you, but it really stinks for providers of services that can easily be scaled back—like cell phone providers. On the one hand, they may fight harder to keep you paying for data plans, text messages, and other "value added" items, but they really, truly don't want to lose you as a customer. If you can't re-negotiate a better deal, though, take a tip from PC Magazine columnist Sascha Segan and cut your phone bill by actually jumping ship (to a pay-as-you-go phone), then let them come crawling back with a package pitch. Stuck in a contract with a huge cancellation fee? Check out contract-swapping sites like CellTradeUSA.com and CellSwapper.com, which make use of (legal!) trade clauses and might just help you escape your monthly vig.

4. Invest in your career

Financial guru Warren Buffett, as he so often does, said it best back in April, before the market fell: Unless you're going to make investment analysis a nearly full-time gig, you're better off spending your discretionary time in furthering your main career and honing your skills than surrounded by earnings reports and endlessly changing charts. It's the same reasoning SmartMoney's Jack Hough uses in explaining why renting might make more sense than buying, especially if you're not partial to putting work, time, and money into a place right now. Neither is a call to yank all your hard investments out and start a blacksmith shop (as appealing as some might find the idea), but they reason that the revenue-generating asset you might have the most control over is your career.

3. Trick yourself into spending less, saving more

Curbing spending, like cutting back on calories, is something any self-help-ish expert can and will tell you to do, with few details given. So you're left, just as with dieting, to come up with your tricks and techniques for teaching yourself to do and not do certain things. When it comes to tricking yourself into saving money, we like the kind that you don't need much to start out doing, like Merlin Mann's Crap I Just Don't Need.txt file, in which he captures all his do-wants and must-haves, as if it were a wish list, but ends up checking it every so often to see just how well he's gotten along without all those things. High-speed, low-drag spending psychology. Photo by Darren Hester.

2. Get serious about Craigslist

Craigslist is a website built for an economy that's scaling back to basics. People looking for extra cash divest themselves of stuff they don't really need, and those who need to spend less snatch up their stuff. If you're on either side, it helps to have the right tools. Get savvy with your selling by digesting Adam's seller's guide to Craigslist, and on the flip side with our Craigslist tips for power users. Hone down on exactly what you're looking for (time is money, after all) with the previously mentioned Craigslist Image Preview extension, or the image mashup MyWiseBunny.com (formerly CLHack.com). It can feel harsh grabbing up deals when you know times are tough, but to many sellers, the buyer who actually pays is worth more than some future ideal of better times.

1. Reduce your bills by simply asking

One of the most effective means of shaving money off your monthly costs doesn't involve a website, coupon code, or any kind of hack, unless you count working up the small courage required to just, well, ask. Our weekend editor Jason found deals on his internet package, gas bills, household insurance, and even trash disposal, just by being persistent and, in most cases, simply asking if there was a deal he didn't know about. Read his tips on reducing by asking, then down the last of your coffee and get on the horn. Photo by WoodleyWonderworks.

Where have you found unexpected savings or earnings in recent months? What's your plan for cutting back or cashing in if the downturn continues? Share your story in the comments.

Avoid Putting on "Recession Pounds" [Health]

Avoid the trap of "recession pounds", weight put on by eating less healthy food as a result of financial hardship.

Historically recessions and depressions meant less money to spend on food, so in many cases weight loss was inevitable. The advances in food manufacturing and packaging have changed the culinary landscape, now it is possible to buy a fairly large volume of food cheaply. Unfortunately you end up with lots of junk food and empty calories if you're not careful. What can you do to avoid putting on those recession pounds? Fred Lee of the financial blog Wise Bread writes:

Be inconsistent. Like losing weight, gaining weight doesn't happen by itself. In other words, you won't gain weight in your sleep, you have to consume. So don't eat junk food regularly, three times a day, everyday. Incorporate a healthy meal in there, with something nutritious that is high in fiber.

While his use of the term junk food conjures images of some guy sustaining himself entirely on Pringles and Dollar Menu Cheeseburgers, there are tons of junky low-nutrition value foods out there. If you can stand a simple diet and a little bit of cooking, there are lots of ways to stave off resorting to cheap and nutritionally-lacking foods. For ideas on how to keep eating healthy during a financial crunch check out how to prepare cheap and healthy food with minimal resources, reader responses to eating healthy on a small budget, and twenty healthy foods that cost a $1 or less. Photo by mandj28.

How to Avoid Putting on Recession Pounds [WiseBread]

This Week's Most Popular Posts [Highlights]

If your newsreader's inbox is crumbling under the weight of the Lifehacker productivity turnover, go on a Lifehacker diet with the slimmer, trimmer top stories feed. Avoid the Windows 7 buzz or other topics that don't appeal to you by customizing the feed URLs you subscribe to. Here's a recap of this week's most popular posts:

• How to Dual Boot Windows 7 with XP or Vista
  If you're dying to try out Windows 7 but aren't ready to give up your installation of XP or Vista, let's take a look at how to dual boot Windows 7 with XP or Vista.
• Six Best DVR Applications
  It's 2009—no one should still be a slave to their TV Guide. With one of these six excellent digital video recording tools set up with your TV or computer, you won't be.
• Windows 7 Beta's Many Free and Legit Themes
  Customizing the look and feel of Windows is a cinch with themes—problem is, Microsoft generally offers so few supported themes. That's changed in Windows 7 Beta.
• Microsoft Extends Windows 7 Beta Availability Until January 24th
  Microsoftie Brandon LeBlanc admits that the Windows 7 beta release scramble "was not ideal" and says the company will extend its availability beyond the 2.5M cap until January 24th.
• Wallpaper-Blended Desktop HUD
  Reader rprathap's impressive desktop integrates a seamless HUD with his desktop wallpaper, creating the illusion that the system information on his desktop actually belongs on the wallpaper.
• Make Your XP Desktop Look Like Windows 7
  If you've considered dual booting Windows 7 with XP or Vista but all you really want is some Windows 7 eye candy, reader Dato' Fazly's Windows 7-like XP desktop might be right up your alley.
• How to Get Your Windows 7 Beta Product Key
  Reader Digerati offers detailed instructions for getting your Windows 7 beta product key which worked for me (when another method did not).
• Windows 7 Beta Product Keys Now Available (For Real!)
  After a daylong rollercoaster drama during which Windows 7 Beta gave us a false-alarm release followed by a server smackdown, Microsoft is finally handing out honest to goodness product keys for the beta.
• Google Quick Search Like Quicksilver from Google
  Mac OS X only: We've been crazy about Quicksilver—a free application launcher for Macs—for years now. Today Google is releasing a new search-and-launch application called Google Quick Search developed by the developer of Quicksilver.
• Windows 7 Beta Followup: Are You a (Windows 7) PC?
  Did you take the plunge on the Windows 7 Beta?
• Use Best Buy's In-Store Pickup to Save Serious Cash
  Blogger Anastasia didn't want to pay $44.99 each for four seasons of Stargate Atlantis—she wanted the online price of $19.99. Using her phone's data connection, she managed to knock about $96 off her purchase.
• Fix "Corked" Wine with a Bowl and Plastic Wrap
  Dinner's cooked, the guests are arriving, so you pop open that nice bottle of red and—ugh, what is that? If you're stuck with a "corked" bottle, here's how you can minimize the dankness.

Import the Entirety of Your Google Notebook to UberNote [Note Taking]

Previously mentioned web-based note-taking tool UberNote has just released a Google Notebook Import tool to move your Google Notebook notes into an app with a future. It's a good bet that every note-taking tool looking to grab new users will create a similar tool (we're looking at you, Evernote) now that Google Notebook has stopped active development, but UberNote looks like the first. Not keen on UberNote? Check out our suggestions for where to go when Google Notebook goes down.

Deep Inside Windows 7 with Tech Guru Mark Russinovich [Windows 7]

If you've got 45 minutes and a real hankering to know all you can about the nitty gritty of Windows 7, Microsoft Technical fellow, software engineer, and developer of a number of excellent free Windows utilities (like previously mentioned Process Explorer) Mark Russinovich talks all about the intricacies of Windows 7. We're talking high geek quotient here (kernel constructs, threading, CPUs, oh my!), so it may not be for everyong. Thanks Samir! [via]

Ghoster Focuses the Active Window to Minimize Distractions [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: Ghoster darkens everything on the screen except the currently focused window, giving you a distraction-free environment to do your work.

Ghoster is similar to Adam's Dropcloth or Isolator for Mac, but it also dims the taskbar—arguably the biggest source of distraction with it's blinking buttons and system tray notifications. The application's settings are stored in a text file, which makes it a little less user friendly when you want to adjust the settings. There's also no hotkey to turn it on or off, but I've still found it invaluable for my concentration while working. To use, simply launch the application and start working. You can access the configuration file through the tray icon (changing the transparency number to a larger value darkens the screen).

If all you need is a simple, distraction-free text editor for your work, you can check out Writeroom for Mac or Darkroom for Windows. For more methods to keep you productive, check out our Top 10 Distraction Stoppers.

Ghoster is free and open source, written in AutoHotkey.

Ghoster

Sponsor Shout-out [Advertiser Thanks]

Thanks to this week's sponsors: Fox's 24: Day 7, Allstate, Audible, Honda, ING Direct, HP Mediasmart Server, Mophie, New Egg, Sharp, Toshiba, Vonage, Zune. Click here to advertise on Lifehacker.

Circuit City Liquidation Sale Starts Saturday, Grab Those Unused Gift Cards [Deals]

The bad news: Circuit City—the number two electronics dealer behind Best Buy—is shutting down all operations in the U.S. The silver lining: If you're looking to grab a good deal on electronics, Circuit City's liquidation sale starts this Saturday and runs through March 31 (pending court approval of their bankruptcy filing). The catch: According to Gizmodo, prices may go up to MSRP on Saturday, meaning the whole "sale" part of the liquidation sale isn't exactly accurate. Those prices may drop drastically between now and the March 31 close, so it'll be worth keeping an eye on.

If you've got a Circuit City gift card leftover from the holidays, now's the time to use it. Right now the Circuit City web site shows the updating message in the screenshot, so it's tough to tell what kind of deals you'll find through the site. [via]

LoadScout Opens Remote Archives [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: Why download a hefty ZIP file only to find out that the file you needed is only a tiny fraction of the bulky download? Grab only the files you want with LoadScout.

Plug in the address of the archive—a web or FTP address will do—and LoadScout remotely displays the contents. From there, you can browse the directories and files just like would if the archive was open on your computer. The option to cherry pick what you want to download is extremely helpful if all you need, for example, is a single driver file out of a bulky driver pack. In addition to remote archive browsing, LoadScout previews media like MP3 and AVI files by jumping to any location in the remote file and starting playback from there. Even if you intend to download the entire file, LoadScout lets you verify the contents before you waste time and bandwidth downloading it. LoadScout is freeware, Windows only.

LoadScout [via gHacks]

A Mediterranean Diet Means Better Health, Less Sacrifice [Health]

The New York Times suggests that the best way to a healthy heart isn't the same rigid diet and exercise routine you're used to hearing about. Instead, they recommend a Mediterranean diet in which "the food is tasty, easy to prepare and relatively inexpensive, and an exercise routine in which "you don't have to sweat for an hour a day to reap the benefits." The diet in question encourages more cold-water fish, red wine, olive oil, and plenty of fruits and vegetables to discourage CRP, a leading cause of heart attacks. Photo by VirtualErn.

Cook Timer Alerts You When Food is Done [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: Simple count-down timer application Cook Timer alerts you after a user-specified length of time, perfect for preventing burnt food while you're busy on the computer.

The tiny open-source application requires no installation and is only resident in memory while the timer is active. You can choose from one of the presets or set a custom time, and then minimize the application to the system tray until you hear the alarm, at which point the window should pop back up. The only drawback is that you can only set a single timer, so readers looking for multiple timers should check out previously mentioned Multi-Timer.

Cook Timer is a free download for Windows only. (Linux source code is available but it didn't work for me). Mac users can look at the Meditation Timer or the Cuppa tea timer.

Cook Timer

Today Only: Get Your Copy of the Lifehacker Book Signed [Lifehacker The Book]

It's my last day in the driver's seat here at Lifehacker so I want to offer a special thank-you to everyone who bought a copy of the Lifehacker book: a signing by snail mail.

If you have a copy of the first or second Lifehacker book, or you're willing to buy a copy of Upgrade Your Life today, I'll sign it for you. Here's how it will work:

Email me at gina at lifehacker.com today, Friday, with the subject line "Sign my book" and tell me who you want the book made out to. I'll reply with my P.O. box address, and you can mail me your book along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. (Sorry I can't cover everyone's shipping!) When it arrives, I'll sign it and drop it back in the mail pronto.

If you haven't bought the book, it's a compilation of the best posts published in the early days of Lifehacker's existence, and it makes a really great gift. It's available at Amazon for under 20 bucks. Even if you're not interested in a signature, thanks to everyone for supporting us through the book. It means a lot to me!

OpenWithView Edits Your Lengthy Open-With List [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: Is your Open With context menu overflowing with apps you never use? OpenWithView is a simple, portable utility for culling unneeded entries from the list of suggested programs in Windows' Open With dialog box.

OpenWithView lists every potential entry available as an Open With suggestion. From there you can enable and disable any item—although they can't be permanently deleted. The lack of deletion has no impact on the final result, however, which is a much cleaner Open With dialog box. You'll likely find entries for programs you've uninstalled and others that you'll likely never use. For more menu-cleaning goodness, check out how to declutter your Windows context menu and how to get rid of unused startup entries. OpenWithView is freeware, Windows only.

OpenWithView [via The Portable Freeware Collection]

Gather 'Round the Campfire, It's Open Thread Time [Open Thread]

Friday's finally here, so kick back, grab a warm drink, and let's have a chat. What's that? I can't hear you so far away. Why don't you huddle in closer to the fire.

It's our weekly open comment thread, where you can post your productivity tips, tech questions, images, videos, cold weather frustrations, and general musings on the meaning of life and beyond. Respond to your fellow readers' comments by clicking the reply button on the bottom-right of any post. Not a commenter? Get started here. If you live the Facebook life, you can also comment via your Facebook account. TGIF, baby! Photo by Grumpy Chris.

Windows 7 Shortcuts Enables the Best Win7 Shortcuts in XP or Vista [Windows 7]

Windows only: If you like the look of Windows 7's great new keyboard shortcuts but aren't planning to upgrade for a while, Windows 7 Shortcuts enables some of the best Win7 shortcuts for XP and Vista.

Windows 7 Shortcuts was submitted by Lifehacker reader Rupert and was written in one of our favorite scripting languages, AutoHotkey. Right now, Windows 7 Shortcuts supports the following keyboard shortcuts:

Included:
Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the window to each side of the monitor
Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window
Win+Down arrow: Minimize the window/Restore the window if it's maximized

Partially Included
Win+Space: Note from the developer: AHK won't allow multiple windows to be made transparent easily. Therefore, I've changed it to make the active window transparent until it is released.

If you're an AHK user, you can grab the source and paste it into the script you use daily. If not, download the EXE by clicking the Download link above.

Windows 7 Shortcuts is a free download, Windows only.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish [Letter From The Editor]

Today is my last day as site lead at Lifehacker, so I'm taking off my distanced reporter hat to get all mushy, personal, and behind-the-scenes on you. Come in and grab a seat.

(Note: This posts breaks two of our biggest editorial edicts, specifically, the "keep it short and sweet" rule and "it's not about you" rule. You've been warned!)

The idea to do Lifehacker hatched back in late 2004, a riff on the notion of "life hacks" that technologist Danny O'Brien cooked up earlier that year. Starting a web site about life hacks wasn't an original undertaking; Merlin Mann's 43 Folders was first. In fact, without Danny and Merlin, Lifehacker would have never happened. I owe both of these guys a huge debt of gratitude for their articulation of a concept that I literally launched a writing career upon.

But back to late 2004.

Throughout November and December, my colleagues at Gawker Media and I designed the personality behind Lifehacker, the person who would become the site's mascot. It would be a "she," of course, because I am. The female take on tech would define the voice of the site, but subtly, without any pink "you go girl" crap—just straight talk from someone helpful and knowledgeable but not pandering, someone focused not on the shiny but on the useful, someone brisk and futuristic. We imagined her as a spaceship flight attendant or pilot of sorts. (One of the first sketches of that early conception of our gal is on the right.) Our design team created the final Lifehacker mascot based on this persona. "What color should the site theme be?" our designers asked. I'd just read a book called Opening the Xbox, which described how Microsoft developed the popular console, including their color choices. "Green," I said. "People associate it with technology."

On January 31st of 2005 the site went public. My starting posts were stiff, mostly because I was nervous and scared. I'd been blogging since 2001, but my personal site got about 10 hits on a big day, and five of those would be from my brother. Having all the eyes that a Gawker blog launch drew on me was terrifying. That day, out of necessity, I started growing the thick skin anyone who has any exposure on the intertubes requires to stay sane. (In the beginning, that growth process didn't happen as quickly as I needed, and a troll could ruin my weekend. Today, I can chuckle in the face of the worst kind of online name-calling you can imagine.)

For the first eight months of Lifehacker's existence, there was no way for readers to comment on posts. I pumped out a dozen posts per weekday on my own. I personally responded to every single message in the mounting pile of email that accumulated in our inbox. No matter how many productivity tricks I used, that just didn't scale. When we finally brought on three more bloggers to join me that fall, Lifehacker shifted from being less of a solo blog and more of a magazine with an editorial staff. We turned on approval-only comments that October, and that's when the real fun began.

Here's what Lifehacker looked like back then. (Click to enlarge.)

My initial plan was to try this crazy "pro blogger thing" out for a year and then go back to being a web developer. But I fell in love with the brand, our readership, and my co-bloggers. I was high on that transcendent, effortless momentum that comes with work you love so much it feels like play, and it zipped me past the one, two, and three year marks. Four years and 20,000 posts later, I'm still pinching myself about the opportunities this place opened up for me.

Because of Lifehacker, I've published two editions of a best-selling tech book, which has been translated into two languages. I've been written about in books and magazines, and I've written for magazines and contributed to others' books. I released a series of Firefox extensions, one of which made it onto Mozilla's official recommended add-on list. I've done radio and newspaper interviews and TV appearances, spoken at conferences around the world, visited the campuses of Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, been asked for my autograph, gotten awards, been recognized by some of my idols, met some of the the smartest minds in tech, and built up an online audience of over one million unique daily readers.

For someone with no prior professional writing experience, that's just nuts. Behold the power of the internet.

It wasn't always an easy road, though. I learned many lessons the hard way, like how to handle irate netizens and how to extract the constructive bits out of painful criticism. I learned how much room for improvement there really is for me in the reading and writing department. I got schooled, publicly, by people smarter and more experienced. Those days were rough. There were tears. In my worst moments of self-doubt, I felt like I was in way over my head, that I was a fraud. I learned a whole lot about my strengths, and a whole lot more about my shortcomings. I was always comfortable pushing 1's and 0's around, but managing a staff of humans who were spread across the country was a huge challenge. (To all the bloggers, interns, and copy editors who have worked for me: thanks for putting up with my flailings.)

Still, on most days, I was having a ball.

During my tenure as site lead, Lifehacker started at 0 and grew to 33 million pageviews a month. Like most web sites, we measure our performance by our traffic charts. But that's not the true indicator of Lifehacker's success. What I'm most proud of at this site is the high level of goodwill and useful knowledge that passes between the people who read and write here. We editors have always tried to be positive and helpful to set an example for readers. It worked. Compare any comment thread at Lifehacker to a similar one at any other tech site, and you'll see the difference is the knowledge and the generosity of most of the discourse. It's the conversations that make Lifehacker magical. While lots of web site editorial tears stuff to pieces, my goal with Lifehacker was to help our readers out, make their day a little easier.

We didn't hit the mark on every post, but we were always trying.

As the years passed, Lifehacker became my online alter ego, my professional identity, my work and my play. I happily gave up time I'd normally spend on creative side projects to the site, because it was my primary outlet for the two things I love most: software and writing. But as our staff and audience grew, the news chase intensified, and management duties piled up. I started writing and coding less and air traffic-controlling, copy-editing, budgeting, doing PR, and assigning stories to my writers more. While that all has been great experience I am lucky to have under my belt, it's time for me to recalibrate how I'm spending my days. As someone put well, it's time to mitigate the urgent to focus on the important.

The bottom line is this: for someone who loves making things on the web, spending 100% of the time blogging about what other people are making is simply untenable.

So as of today, Adam is Lifehacker's new lead editor. He's going to do a kickass job. I'm not riding off into the sunset never to be seen again, either. While Adam will be running the show on a daily, I get to go back to making things, noodling with software, and writing about it. After I take a couple of weeks off, I'll be back here in February publishing a weekly feature series that will detail my latest coding projects, productivity revelations, and favorite life hacks and software tricks. I cannot wait.

But before I start my morph from daily lead editor to weekly feature writer, I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for reading this. Thank you for making Lifehacker such a special place. Thank you for giving me the coolest job on the internet. Thank you for putting up with our growing pains and missteps. I've loved reading and writing every word here, and I'll always feel so lucky to have been part of Lifehacker's beginnings.

Having your time and attention has always been, and continues to be, a privilege and an honor.

See you next month.

GNOME Do 0.8 Alpha Includes "Docky" theme [Linux]

Fans of GNOME Do, the previously mentioned application launcher rich with plug-ins and extensibility, can try out an alpha version that includes a strange little feature—a "Docky" theme that emulates, well, an application dock. Check out Peng Hardin's post for details on getting into the Do-testers repositories.

Federated Search Puts Flickr and Much More into Windows 7 Search [Screenshot Tour]

Federated Search, despite its wonky name, is a seriously cool feature of Windows 7. Download a few "connectors" and you can search Flickr photos, YouTube videos, and other web results straight from your desktop.

It's a natural extension of Vista's save-and-tag search functions, which could also be extended to grab parts of the web with some work-arounds. In Windows 7, however, adding a web site or database to your searching powers is simply a matter of installing a connector file—with a .osdx extension—by double-clicking it. Let's take a look at some of the cooler connectors already available for Windows 7 beta users (which, we presume, will still work when Win7 officially launches):

Flickr Search Connectr

Long Zheng's connector is a great hack on many fronts. From the download page, you can custom-roll a Flickr search connector by having it check everyone's photos on the sharing site or just one user's, and pre-set how they'll be sorted (interesting, relevant, date posted, or date taken, ascending or descending). What's ridiculously cool, though, is that the photos returned are basically there for you in Windows. Drag one onto your desktop, and you get the full-size download. Right-click a photo to set it as your wallpaper, edit it, copy it, anything you can do with normal photos.

Once you enter your first search, click the Preview Pane button in the upper-right (right next to the help button) to have each photo's Flickr page open in a right-hand pane. Definitely worth the download.

YouTube

(via Windows 7 Forums)

You'll want to change your folder view to large icons for this one, and close the Preview Pane if you've got it open, because, unfortunately/obviously, Windows Explorer doesn't load Flash natively. You can't grab the videos directly (how cool would that hack be?), but your details pane at the window bottom will give you direct links, a summary, and author name. The most helpful use, it seems, would be to keep multiple, slightly varied YouTube searches open on one desktop.

Twitter Search Connector

Like the Flickr connector, Chakkaradeep's Twitter Search Connector lets you pre-determine if your search is a one-person affair or global, and specify the number of results. It's better than Twitter's native search at compressing a lot of results into a small space (depending on your view settings), and offers twitter page previews.

Yahoo, MSN, Google News, Google Blogs

(via Windows 7 Forums)

All these connectors work in the same way, with results in one pane, a preview in another, and basic results information in the details. They're a nice and quick way of gunning through web pages, and dragging the result icons quickly creates web links.

Saving your searches

More federated search hook-ups are on their way, and probably exist out there already. Each of them operates in the same way. Once installed, your search connectors install themselves under your "Favorites" in nearly every explorer window you open, and you can delete or rename at will. If you want to keep tabs on something using these cool search tools, you just hit the "Save Search" button right under the address bar, and it goes into the Searches folder in your username folder:

If you've found another great search connector out there, or found a great hack that uses one, please—let everyone know in the comments!

Windows 7 Search Federation Providers [via Download Squad]

NFOPad is a NFO Friendly Notepad Clone [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: If you frequently open NFO files—those pesky little text files that often contain scrambled ANSI art—NFOPad is a small Windows Notepad clone designed to display them properly.

NFOPad selects the font style based on the file extension, so you can freely switch between basic text files and NFO files without the hassle of changing settings. In the screenshot above, the same file has been opened in both Notepad and NFOPad. The white text on the left is the ANSI text that Notepad is having trouble displaying. Even when the Terminal font is selected in Notepad to properly display the characters there is usually alignment and spacing issues that make any special formatting nearly unreadable.The same text when displayed in NFOPad reveals that the beginning of the file contains ANSI artwork. For more notepad alternatives check out the results of the Hive Five Best Text Editors. NFOPad is freeware, Windows only.

NFOPad [via Freeware Home]

AppTheater Compiles Video Previews of iPhone Games [Games]

Got some iTunes gift cash sitting in your account, waiting for the perfect iPhone/iPod game? AppTheater is a great place to search and sort video previews of your next airport time-killer. [via]

IceRocket Big Buzz Puts Web's Reaction on One Page [Aggregation]

Search site IceRocket gives near-real-time results from the web, blogs, Twitter, news sites, images, and videos (phew), but its Big Buzz feature conveniently mashes it all onto one page.

For those "What's going on?" moments—such as when, say, a plane crashes into the Hudson River—it's a great spot to get a quick scan of what's going on, and what's being said, on one page. IceRocket's advanced preferences open up some results-cropping tools. For those looking for a serious bathing in information, you can also grab an RSS feed from your search results. IceRocket is free to use.

IceRocket Big Buzz [via Micro Persuasion]

Google Profiles Adds Selectively Shared Contact Info [Contact Management]

You can fill out your "Google Profile" with all your contact information, but it's shared only with groups of selected people. In other words, your Google-savvy friends won't ever get an address-change blast-mail again.

It's an expansion of the Google Profile "contact without email option." As the Google Operating System points, it's odd that Google doesn't pre-fill certain sections like email and Google Talk, and it's eerily similar to the Windows Live People system of auto-updating information. Still, for Google-centric people with Google-aware contacts, it's a pretty convenient, and reasonably private, means of keeping yourself available. Here's a full look at what contact info Google can collect:

Create a Google Profile [via Google Operating System]

MED-V Virtualizes Non-Compatible XP/2000 Apps in Vista [Featured Windows Download]

Windows Vista only: Microsoft's Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) tool, offered as a free public beta, creates a low-profile virtual machine that runs XP/2000 apps in their own environment, right on your desktop.

It's not an app you can just install and fire away with, and you'll have to fill out a short survey at Microsoft's "Connect" area to get to the download (and, with a light sigh, install their File Transfer Manager to grab it), but once you're up and running, MED-V runs as a background app that launches XP/2000 applications from their own folder in your Start menu. It's a free beta right now, and the first full release is expected to drop in 1.0 form in the first half of 2009.

We tried running MED-V on the Windows 7 beta at Lifehacker East, but it's pretty strict on launching only from Vista with SP1 installed. To get a better feel for what MED-V does and runs like, check out Microsoft's introductory video or demonstration.

MED-V is a free download for Windows Vista systems with SP1 installed only. If you gave it a try with some of your Vista-resistant apps, tell us how it performed in the comments.

Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization V1 [via All About Microsoft]

The Best New Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts [Video Demonstration]

No matter what OS you use, keyboard shortcuts are a one-way ticket to enhanced productivity (plus you look awesome to friends and colleagues); Windows 7 has more cool new shortcuts than you can shake a stick at.

Windows 7 boasts a lot of great new shortcuts, but I'm focusing on several of my favorites. Check out the video above for a closer look. For those of you who prefer text to video, here are all of the shortcuts I highlighted:

• Win+Home: Clear all but the active window
• Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop
• Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window
• Win+Down arrow: Minimize the window/Restore the window if it's maximized
• Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the window to each side of the monitor (If you've got dual monitors, adding Shift to the mix (e.g., Win+Shift+Right arrow) will move the window to the adjacent monitor.)
• Win+T: Focus and scroll through items on the taskbar.
• Win+P: Adjust presentation settings for your display
• Win+(+/-): Zoom in/out
• Shift+Click a taskbar item: Open a new instance of that application

Got a favorite shortcut of your own now that you've installed the Windows 7 Beta? Let's hear about it in the comments. (Apologies for the poor video quality... tried something new, but clearly it didn't work out.)

Best Portable Applications? [Hive Five Call For Contenders]

With the proliferation of high-capacity but ever-shrinking USB thumb drives, it's downright practical to pack your life into a keychain-sized toolbox. So which portable apps should you carry in your pocket?

For this week's Hive Five, we want to hear which programs you've stashed on your portable drive that you just couldn't live without. Which application makes being away from your home terminal—or doing away with it all together—bearable?

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: Portable App Goes Here. 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 Hive Five Six Best DVR Applications. Photo by Nedko.

ActionOutline is a Blazing Fast, Hierarchical Note Organizer [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: Lightweight note-taking and outlining application ActionOutline Lite organizes your notes or projects in a hierarchical view with the notes on the right-hand side.

The free (Lite) version of ActionOutline restricts you to 7 sub-items for every parent item, but you can have an unlimited amount of total items. The tabbed interface lets you load multiple outlines so you can manage several different buckets at a time. The application itself is impressively responsive and low on resources, but unlike the more full-featured Evernote, it doesn't have integration with other applications or a mobile component.

This app has been a standard part of my daily routine for years because of the excellent keyboard navigation, and it restores almost instantly from the tray with the built-in Win+A keyboard shortcut (configurable), making it excellent for quickly taking notes. ActionOutline Lite is a free download; the upgrade will set you back $39.

ActionOutline Lite

YouTube Optimizes for Your Wii and PS3 [YouTube]

Video streaming web site YouTube announced a new beta service today called YouTube for TV (if you want to try it in your regular browser, here's how). To begin with, the service is available on Sony PS3s and Nintendo Wiis, offering a "10-foot television viewing experience through a streamlined interface that enables you to discover, watch, and share YouTube videos on any TV screen with just a few quick clicks of your remote control." Sounds good so far, but if you've got a Wii or PS3, let's hear what you think in the comments.

Create Your Own Myriad Desktop [How To]

Reader AlbinoAsian's Myriad desktop blends custom skins, carefully styled system stats, and some well-chosen wallpaper to create one of the most drastically transformed and impressive desktops we've seen in a while.

Not only is the desktop incredible, but AlbinoAsian went above and beyond, providing a detailed history and guide to the setup:

History
I ventured into the realm of desktop customization while I was on 98se and stumbled across the invaluable resource of WinT's forums. He was king of the smooth minimal look, and would hack everything that he could. Ever since them I've always tried to make my desktop look as least "default" as possible. I like change, and I can't resist a nice minimal, yet useable look. With Vista came a whole set of new challenges though as I myself haven't yet tried to make my own Visual Style. Thankfully there is some great work being done some very clever people. The artists that come to mind are invaderjohn, sweatyfish, nindijin, dimage, and MANNiEmedic.

Details
This theme came about when I was looking back at a previous screenshot of mine when I was on XP, I was using Mirev2 - a fantastic dark minimal opensource XP Visual Style. Not long after that I discovered the BASIC (non-aero) version of MANNiEmedic's Antar VS. It was fairly close to what I was looking for. It was the first Vista VS that effectively pulled off a dark explorer window background. Invaderjohn had featured several screenshots of WIP's but he was encountering a few color issues so they got out of beta. This however did the job, just needed a good dose of the 3dcc to fix up some of the colors.

Credits
All the skins details are below, but I would like to especially give credit to MANNiEmedic for his great work on the VS, and to pepijnnuland & asuraci for their work on the mirev2 suite. Lastly to WinT, possibly the father of windows desktop customization.

Borrowed Skins
Vista Visual Style // Antar Basic by MANNiEmedic
Wallpaper // minorkeyWS by ether
Icons // affel by bobbyperux

Modified Skins
Winamp // Myriad - my mod of Mire v2 Winamp by biftek.
CAD // Myriad - my mod of Pure Adium by Nevezen
Colorpad // Myriad by me (loosely based on Sonetto by eos)

Original Skins
Rocketdock + stacks docklet // Myriad by me
Rainmeter // Myriad by me
Skincalc // Myriad by me
Codepad // Myriad by me
Shutoff Myriad by me
Media Player Classic // Logo by me
Same Game // Myriad by me
3d Color Changer // Myriad by me
Resource hacker // changed program icons to blank icon, changed power and network status icons in the systray

Unseen
Other little apps running hidden to improve functionality & productivity
Hoekey // mapped winkey + (letter) to launch all my favourite little apps (skincalc, colorpad, codepad, notepad2, shutoff, console2)
Desktop Media // creates a shortcut on the desktop whenever a USB drive / cd is inserted.
Ditto // the best clipboard catcher I've used
Magic Mail Monitor // checks my Pop3 account
QTTabbar // adds tabs and a whole lot more to Explorer

Be sure to check the Flickr page for the notes on the image, which will give you a better idea of what you're seeing.

myriad [Flickr]

Memtest86+ Boot CD Checks System Memory [Featured Download]

All platforms: If you're experiencing frequent errors and crashes on your computer, a bad stick of RAM is often the culprit. Free diagnostic boot CD Memtest86+ checks system memory for errors without pressing a key.

After burning the tiny downloadable ISO image (less than 2mb) to a disc (we recommend ImgBurn for this task), you can use it to boot any computer directly into the standard memory test. More advanced tests can be run under the configuration screen, but the standard test should detect most memory errors. Armed with that information, you can replace or swap out the offending memory stick. Don't know how? No worries, Adam's guide on installing RAM—a simple walkthrough complete with pictures—can show you.

Memtest86+

Windows 7 Media Center's Music Player Is Hot Hot Hot [Windows Media Center]

Good news for music lovers excited for Windows 7: The new and improved music interface in Windows 7 Media Center is overflowing with eye candy and usability. The video above, from web site Missing Remote, demonstrates the main features and interface of WMC7's music playback (who doesn't love that turbo-scroll?). Windows Media Center is the most popular DVR and one of the most popular media center applications among Lifehacker readers, so it's great to see Microsoft continue to innovate on this front. [via]

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