[Lifehacker] 40 New Entries: Retrovo's Exchange Puts Your Unused Converter Coupons to Good Use [Coupons]

Retrovo's Exchange Puts Your Unused Converter Coupons to Good Use [Coupons]

If you have an extra converter box coupon, or you're on the very long waiting list for one, search engine Retrovo has a "Good Neighbor Coupon Exchange" that can hook you up.

Since the government program's "coupons" (actually magnetic cards) are only good for 90 days, Retrovo matches up those with spare coupons that haven't reached their 90-day expiration date with anyone looking to get one in the closest ZIP code, so the card can be picked up or mailed quickly, if need be. The needers, as you might imagine, outweight the providers at this point, but due to the ZIP code matching, it couldn't hurt to seek one out on Retrovo's site. The link also provides a handy PDF "DTV Survivial Guide" to hand out to your neighbors or relatives with unanswered questions.

Good Neighbor Coupon Exchange Program [Retrovo]


JPEG & PNG Stripper Removes the Metadata from Your Images [Downloads]

Windows only: JPEG & PNG Stripper an extremely small portable application that strips the metadata out of JPEG and PNG image files.

Why would you want to strip down an image file? Ask former TechTV host Cat Schwartz, who in 2003 received a rather embarrassing lesson in the power of metadata. In short, a cropped headshot posted on her blog contained an embedded, full-pic thumbnail with, well, a lot more than just a head and shoulders. Even if you're not cropping your mug out of a nude composition, there are others reasons you'd want to remove the metadata from an image. All sorts of information—like exposure time, aperture settings, camera used, and GPS coordinates—can potentially be embedded into an image.

JPEG & PNG Stripper removes every bit of metadata, leaving just the unaltered image behind. Whatever your motivation for sanitizing your image, you'll know that only the image itself remains. The screenshot at right shows a read of some of the metadata for an image I scrubbed in testing and, as promised, the application ripped all the metadata out without altering the appearance of the image itself. JPEG & PNG Stripper is freeware, Windows only.

JPEG & PNH Stripper [via gHacks]


Thinner Amazon Kindle Re-Launches Today (with Stephen King) [Amazon]

The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon's perpetually popular (and out of stock) Kindle e-book reader will re-launch in a new version today, with an exclusive Stephen King story.

No details on what new features the new version will bring, yet, but Gizmodo has a gallery of leaked pictures and hints the price will stay at $350, despite the device getting slimmer. The real, confirmed news will be let out by Amazon at a press event today, and Giz is, of course, covering it all live. Oh, and the horror-master's exclusive (at least for a period after launch) actually involves a "Kindle-like device," according to the Journal.

PC World suggests five improvements they'd like to see to the revamped Kindle. What would have to change for you to consider buying a Kindle? Or, if you own one already, what's lacking on it and could be improved? Tell us your take in the comments.



Gmail Adds Easier Email Switching Tools [Email]

Gmail users will soon notice a new tool in their settings that makes switching from Yahoo, Hotmail, and many other email services a good bit easier than tinkering with IMAP and POP importing.

Screenshot from Google Operating System.

The new import tool arrives as a partnership with the email-changing service TrueSwitch, which is normally free only for switchers to its selected ISP partners. In Gmail, though, the switch tool can automatically handle the transfer of contacts, old mail and 30 days of mail into the future (until your contacts get up to speed), and adding a label to all mail picked up from your old account. If you or someone you know is looking to make the switch to Gmail, check the list of supported email hosts and give it a go.

Of course, if an email host isn't supported by this new-fangled import, you can always switch using IMAP or follow the official POP guide. Tools like the previously mentioned Gmail Loader can help move things along, as well.

As Google Operating System's tipster points out, Gmail users will eventually see the new import options in their settings tab that gets renamed as "Accounts and Import."

Import Contacts and Mail to Gmail [Google Operating System]



Avoid the Three Most Common Bank Fees [Banking]

The Consumerist blog lets the Bargaineering blogger step in and talk bank fee strategies—specifically, the three most common little-by-little drains on your cash, and how to avoid them.

Photo by Betsssssy.

The list of culprits is familiar: overdraft charges, minimum balance requirements, and non-network ATM fees. The solutions vary from maintaining an actual paper balance book (shocking!) to finding accounts that can waive ATM fees if you satisfy certain criteria, like direct deposits. But the root of what blogger Jim is suggesting is something we've covered before—the power of getting more by just asking.

What's your own best tactic for fighting bank fees and charges? Which bank has given you the most fair and square deal? Tell us all in the comments.

Battle Bank Fees [Consumerist]



Ask the Commenters Roundup [Hive Mind]



DIY Fiber Optic Ring Flash [Camera Hacks]

Ring flashes fit around the barrel of a camera lens to provide an even and diffused light—and they often cost upwards of $200. Spare yourself the expense with a DIY model.

Ring flashes are great for macro photography, as the light comes from all sides of the lens and provides extremely even illumination on your subject—see the photo at right. They can also be used for interesting effects in portrait photography. Unfortunately the high price point makes it entirely uneconomical to pick one up just to mess around with photographing ants or casual portraits. Over the the website Fring—short for Fiber Optic Ring—there's a detailed tutorial for taking about $5 worth of parts from your local dollar store and turning them into a tool that channels your on-board flash's light onto the rim of your lens. If you're dabbling in macro shooting, it's a great way to try out ring-flash style lighting without breaking the bank.

Fring - DIY Fiber Optic Ring Light [via Hacked Gadgets]



Add-Art Replaces Advertisements with Artwork [Firefox]

Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Add-Art is a unique advertisement-blocking solution for Firefox. Instead of simply deleting ads from the page, it replaces them with art by featured artists.

The open-source project was inspired by the popularity of ad-blocking Firefox extensions—Adblock Plus, the perennial Lifehacker favorite, is downloaded over 250,000 times a week—and a desire to put all those blocked pitches to good use. Artists are selected by a team of curators to have their work displayed, and the roster is rotated every two weeks. An interesting twist to the project is that the artists themselves can target sites with their artwork—it'll be up to you to decide why there are photographs of unicorns wearing party hats during your daily reading of the New York Times. Add-Art won't be too tempting to those who ad-block to streamline for speed or memory use, but for those tired of seeing "ONE WEIGHT LOSS RULE" and the like might just enjoy the web a bit more. Add-Art is free, works wherever Firefox does.

Add-Art [via Download Squad]



Turn a Scrabble Board into a Picture Frame [DIY]

If you have a copy of Scrabble that is past its prime—perhaps missing a few pieces here or there—turn the board into a unique picture frame.

Over at the photo tips and tricks blog Photojojo, they have a tutorial on turning old game boards into picture frames—which will certainly mesh nicely with your I-can't-stop-recycling motif of Etch-a-Sketch and can frames. The tutorial has step by step instructions for converting a Scrabble board for picture mounting, but includes photo samples of other boards.

What makes Scrabble boards so suitable for this repurposing, aside from their near-ubiquity in closet shelves, is the framing possibilities with the word tiles. Photojojo's project requires some thin cork backing, a utility knife, ruler, tape, velcro tabs, thumbtacks, and glue, along with the game itself. Not a particularly outlandish supply list, and many of the steps can be tweaked if you're missing just one item.

Turn a Scrabble Board into a Picture Frame [Photojojo]



Octopus Indexes Your Removable Media [Archiving]

Windows only: Octopus is a lightweight media indexer that sorts and searches your data across flash drives, burned discs, and other removable gear.

If you back up your data to an external drive, you've got half the equation down; when it comes time to use and restore it, though, the free Octopus takes only a few seconds per disc (or drive) to create a quickly searched index. Like the similar multi-indexer Virtual Volumes, Octopus lets you locate needed files by folders, file names, file sizes, creation dates and attributes. Better still, you can tag individual files and entire indexes with keywords, and search using wild cards and narrow results by file size, modification date, and other factors. Octopus supports floppy disks, CD/DVDs, and removable flash based media like thumb drives and SD cards. The big drawback is that it treats external hard disks as fixed disks and won't index them. Octopus is freeware, Windows only.

Octopus [via gHacks]


Five Best Lifehacker Code Apps and Extensions [Hive Five]

Over the last few years we've had the privilege of releasing exclusive applications, scripts, and extensions that have hopefully boosted your productivity. We've gathered up your favorites here.

Earlier this week we asked you to choose your favorite homegrown Lifehacker tool. After reviewing the fruits of our in-house coders' labor, you nominated your favorites. We've compiled the top five contenders here.

Texter (Windows)

Texter is a robust text replacement tool. At its most basic Texter allows you to assign abbreviations for longer snippets of text you normally use. You can easily set up Texter to turn sig1, sig2, and sig3 into various email signatures or any other block of text that you use with frequency. You can also assign a trigger key, so that the replacement only occurs after you hit the tab key, for example. That way if your trigger for your email signature is sig, it will only activate after you type sig+TAB, but not when you start typing the word significant. Additionally Texter has support for scripting beyond basic text replacement, allowing you assign keyboard commands to your trigger, like tabbing to another cell in a form. For a detailed tutorial on setting up Texter, including scripting, check out the Texter homepage.

Better GReader (Firefox)

If the outpouring of votes for it during our Hive Five Best RSS Newsreaders is any indication, Lifehacker readers love Google Reader. Better GReader is a collection of scripts compiled into a Firefox extension that make life with Google Reader even sweeter. The improvements are numerous, including: maximizing the article display pane, automatically adding new feeds to Google Reader (instead of asking if you'd like iGoogle or Reader); colorization of item headers; the ability to remove unread counts; mark all entries up to the current one as read; enhanced preview, and more. If you love using Google Reader but have a few gripes, make sure to check out the full list of tools in Better GReader to see if it solves your RSS woes.

Belvedere (Windows)

Belvedere is an automated file-management tool. Using Belvedere, you can assign sets of rules to monitored folders for handling the files found there. You can assign rules to move, copy, delete, rename, or even open files based on their name, extension, size, and creation date and more. If you find yourself doing repetitive things on your computer that don't really require your input beyond being the one steering the mouse, it might be time to turn over the house keeping to Belvedere. Everything from cleaning out temporary directories and keeping your download folder from bloating up to organizing your incoming files by type can be accomplished with a few simple rules that will free up a big chunk of your time. Automation is your friend!

Better GMail 2 (Firefox)

Like Better GReader, Better Gmail 2 takes an already awesome service and adds even more features to it. Supercharge your Gmail experience with the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension and add these handy features: forced encryption (https), modified keyboard macros, inbox count beside favicon, better integration of Google Calendar and Reader with the Gmail interface, attachment icons that represent the actual file type, assistant for easy filter creation, folder style hierarchy on the sidebar, and more. Like all of our "Better XYZ" extensions the large list of features can be toggled on and off on a feature by feature basis so you get only the tweaks you need.

Better YouTube (Firefox)

Better YouTube is a Firefox extension that combines several great YouTube Greasemonkey scripts into one package. With Better YouTube you can enlarge videos, hide user comments, declutter the YouTube viewing page, disable autoplay, and quickly download video itself. Add it to your installation of Firefox to take control of your viewing at the mega-popular video sharing site.


Now that you've see the top five Lifehacker tools that have brought a touch of productivity to the lives of you fellow readers, it's time to vote on which one is the must-have-tool from the Lifehacker stable.



Sound off in the comments below about everything from your unholy love of Belevedere—the automation tool and the charming butler!—to what kind of tool you'd like to see us tackle in the future.



IYHY Strips Websites Down for Fast Text Browsing [Web Utilities]

IYHY is a web-based service that acts as a text-only proxy, stripping down websites for faster load times.

Like previously reviewed page minimizersBareSite and Finch, IYHY returns just the basic text of the site you plug into it. With Lifehacker.com and and news.google.com as our test sites, though, IYHY beat the two previous sites hands down for clarity and condensation. Formatting is cleaner, no images were mistakenly thrown back into the mix, comments were still visible, and with IYHY there were no annoying [IMAGE] tags scattered throughout the stripped content. For mobile browsing or surreptitious reading at the office, IYHY does a suberb job stripping all non-text elements from a site. There is no login required for the basic proxy service, but with a free account you can save your most frequently accessed sites to save some time—and your thumbs.

IYHY [via MakeUseOf]


This Week's Top Downloads [Hive Mind]



Friendbar Makes Twitter and Facebook Updates Easy in Firefox [Firefox]

Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Friendbar is a toolbar add-on for Firefox that can rapidly update your Facebook or Twitter statuses, and show a ticker-style stream of your friends' own text and photos.

Friendbar continuously updates you on the status of people in your Facebook and Twitter networks, though both the text and the photos can be toggled on and off. To avoid running afoul of Twitter's access restrictions, Friendbar lets you dial down its update frequency, tweak how many messages it displays, and set how often it shows you new stuff. When posting updates, you've got instant TinyURL creation for the page you're looking at. If you can't pretend not to need a quick Facebook or Twitter fix while you're browsing other things, Friendbar makes it easy and fast to get your social data fix. Friendbar is free and works wherever Firefox does.

Friendbar


Create a Chemical-Free Dryer Satchel [DIY]

If you're wary of the chemicals in commercial dryer-sheets but would still like your laundry to come out smelling fresh and static-free, try a small satchel that does the same thing.

Photo by Limbo Poet.

The design blog Re-Nest offers the following guide to making your own anti-static dryer satchel:

1. Get a small cloth bag. Ones with a drawstring work best, but if you don't have one, you can always just loop a string around it a couple of times to seal it off.

2. Fill the bag with dried herbs such as lavender.

3. You can also put a couple of drops of essential oil and vinegar on a clean cloth or piece of scrap fabric.

4. Toss in the dryer with the wet clothes!

The smell-good side of things is covered by your scent choice—minty smelling sheets, here I come!—and vinegar is a natural static diffuser. While you're in the laundry room, vinegar can also be used for freshening up towels and giving your blankets some extra fluff.

DIY Dryer Sheets [Re-Nest]



Increase Productivity by Marking the End of the Day [Productivity]

When you work outside a nine-to-five office, it's harder convince your mind that you are, in fact, done with work. One home-based web worker offers tips time-dividing tips both subtle and serious.

Photo by zoutedrop.

Simon Mackie, writing over at the productivity blog Web Worker Daily, laments his struggles ending his work day and getting back to the business of living. He offers several strategies including having a clearly defined ending time:

This is an important one for me because if I don't, I'll tend to find myself working later and later. Having a goal end time also means that I try to get all my tasks done for the day by that time which makes my afternoon more productive. Of course, sometimes an emergency will pop up that needs dealing with there and then, but I try to make sure that I only extend my working time for emergencies.

Mackie also suggests preventing yourself from opening work email when you're night-time web browsing, and more serious strategies like working from a fold-up table you put away at the end of the work day. What strategies do you use to define your work and play space?

Mark the End of the Day and Finish on Time [Web Worker Daily]



The Upside Down Fire Method Creates Long-Lasting Flames [Household]

Standard fire-building lore would have you believe a great fire starts with a tipi of wood and pile of tinder under it. Turning things upside down, it turns out, yields longer and hotter flames.

Tim Ferriss, of Four-Hour Work Week fame, was tired of how ineffective the tepee method was. That method—a pile of wood is arranged in an inverted cone, smaller sticks and tinder fill it in, and the fire catches dry wood at the top—sometimes produces an impressive, roaring fire. Other times, constant attendance is needed for even a modest, sputtering flame. At the suggestion of an associate, Ferriss turned the whole thing upside down:

1) Put the largest logs at the bottom, ensuring there is no space at all between them.
2) Put a second layer of smaller logs on top of the largest, again ensuring there are no spaces between them.
3) Repeat until you get to the top, where you will have strips of crumpled paper and - at the very top - 3-5 fire-starter squares (my preference) or fire-starter oil sticks. My favorite sequence from bottom to top is large logs (unsplit), split logs, sapling wood, cedar shingle wood, then paper and fire-starting squares.

This inversion ensures that the embers created by the lighter kindling-wood fall directly onto the heavier wood, and the entire fire burns more efficiently with minimal fussing.

While I can't vouch for his exact method, I have been using a similar technique for years, with a small variation of building a bed of the heavy split-logs, then building a Lincoln-log-style fort of kindling atop that to achieve the same effect of dumping the hot embers onto the wood. One inexpensive addition to a home fireplace that will greatly extend the burn time and warmth of your fires a mesh fire screen, placed across the fireplace grate to keep the embers from falling through prematurely. I've used the spark screen off an old fireplace insert for years in this manner, but any sturdy metal screening should do the trick.

If you're a devotee of inverted tipi, or you're a devotee of another technique, gather round and share your story in the comments.

How to Build an Upside-Down Fire: The Only Fireplace Method You'll Ever Need [Four Hour Work Week]



GTDInbox Creates At-A-Glance Contexts with Multiple Inboxes [GTD]

Earlier this month we showed you Gmail's new multiple label-based inboxes. Those turn out to be a perfect match for previously mentioned GTDInbox, the label-based Gmail system for getting things done in your inbox.

While GTDInbox was pretty handy for using GTD contexts and lists from within your Gmail account before, with the introduction of multiple inboxes, you can now put all your contexts on the screen at once. GTD practitioner and avid Lifehacker reader Jim sent us a screenshot of his Gmail inbox—a cropped, privacy-padded portion shown here—showing off just how great it is to have the color coded context labels and lists that GTDInbox creates, show in an at-a-glance style. Thanks Jim!

GTDInbox


Top 10 Cheap or Free Home Theater Upgrades [Lifehacker Top 10]

You've got a mind-blowing picture, surround sound, and streaming content set up, but it wasn't cheap. Heal your wallet with ten upgrades, fixes, and setup tips that take your system to 11 on the cheap.

Photo by chunkysalsa.

10. Hide away your discs in style

Not everybody wants their CD or DVD collection to be a proud, visible part of their living room. And a lot of people have had old-school, giant-box speakers shoved in their garages, or offered up constantly by parents, aunts, uncles, or anyone else with a formerly hi-fi system. One Instructables user put some old gear to good use by converting it to media cabinets made from broken speakers. If you're still feeling like you've got too many DVDs to fit into any sized container, consider clearing out your DVD clutter.

9. Make your own speaker mounts

Once you start buying home theater components, the little high-margin items add up real quick, and speaker mounts are no different. For $2 in materials and an hour's work, you can get your 5.1 components off the ground for better sound by hoisting them on your DIY speaker wall mounts. Because, seriously, you're paying at least $20 for a set of brackets that don't have to hold much, and doing it yourself also gives you more flexibility in placement and spacing.

8. Childproof your setup

This is definitely the cheapest hardware hack we whole-heartedly recommend. We know the smell of stretched plastic wrap and the thrill of getting your new gear set up, but the safety anchors that come with most every TV stand are definitely worth revisiting, or buying if you've already tossed them. Even if there are no tykes in the house, you never know who's coming to visit, or which dark and tired night sends your screen crashing to its doom. Hit up the Wired How-To Wiki for more child-proofing suggestions.

7. Get the right antenna (or build your own)

You've probably seen more rabbit ears in electronics stores recently than since the Cosby Show was still airing (new episodes, at least). That's because stores, and manufacturers, are anticipating a consumer scramble for antennas to pick up the the soon-to-be-all-digital signals. Before you join the herds, find the best antenna type for getting the strongest reception at your home with AntennaWeb, which gets down to street level to explain which direction and sizes you'll need to grab your over-the-air channels. Looking for a weekend project? Try building your own antenna to feel like you're truly getting something for nothing.

6. Calibrate your HD TV for free

You paid for those deep blacks, the contrast with real pop, and all those hundreds of vertical and horizontal pixels, but you might not be seeing them. You could pay a professional (or, uh, the Geek Squad) to swing by and stare at your set, but you may get better results by following Popular Mechanics' step-by-step troubleshooting guide or by taking the New York Times' advice with the DVD route. Many films come with a setup feature, and tinted glasses, dubbed the THX Optimizer—here's the full list of discs—that can get your screen crisp and bright-looking with just a little eye-exam-style testing.

5. Create a multi-room wireless system for one-tenth the price

Controlling all the music playing across your house isn't reserved for people living in the near-futuristic movies or those willing to shell out a grand or more for the Sonos Bundle or other one-brand solutions. If you've got a wireless router, and already own an iPhone or iPod touch, it's just a (relatively) small purchase and some iTunes tweaking to turn your iPhone or iPod touch into a master music remote. Plus, you're getting a lot more control over your tunes than you would with a single-provider setup, and you get control over your multi-room system from your computer as well. And there are a lot of good reasons to invest in an iPod touch, anyways.

4. Turn Your Xbox (or Wii) Into a Media Center

Anyone reading Lifehacker for a while would know we're huge fans of the Xbox Media Center, a free, open-source project that turns your old, first-gen Xbox into a killer media center. That alone puts streaming music, downloaded videos, feed-fed media, and other goodies into your TV and speakers, and there's always plenty of add-ons and goodies to grab. But what if—for the kids, for the fitness aspect, for just the bowling—you own a Wii? Using the free Orb streaming media server from a Windows PC, you can use your Wii as a media center, giving you access to video, music, pictures, and lots more. You can even go a step further and hack your Wii for homebrew applications and DVD playback. Just want some remote music playing? Use a similar browser-based tweak to streaming your iTunes library to your Wii.

3. Set up your optimal theater space

You want everyone in your viewing room to be able to see and hear the show, but you don't want feet near heads, direct window glare, covered heating vents—sometimes, in other words, you need a plan. You could take one of our clever reader's tips and template your furniture to get a clear-eyed look at what should go where. For those with better eyes for computer layouts than floor plans, try one of the Charles & Hudson blog's 10 virtual room planning tools. If it's all about the screen—and, let's face it, it probably is—than make sure you're getting the best viewing distance for your investment with CNET's size/distance guide for HD TVs.

2. Skip the DVR fees, roll your own

All it takes is a sub-$100 TV tuner—in plug-in card or USB form—to turn pretty much any PC into a DVR box. Whether that's a computer you've already got, or a new box you grab for that express purpose, it's truly within anyone's reach to build their own DVR. Which app you pick to record and manage your TV is up to you—but our readers, and editor, all prefer Windows' built-in Media Center. It gets the job done, costs nothing (more than a Windows install, anyways), and looks pretty slick sliding around the biggest of screens.

1. Wire your living room over Wi-Fi (wherever your router is)

Most of us get our internet from a cable or DSL connection, and have to put our wireless routers wherever that pipeline happens to be hooked up. But what if you've got devices that want (or benefit from) a hard cable connection—Apple TVs, media center PCs, TiVos, certain Xbox models, and the like? Skip buying the proprietary, huge-margin Wi-Fi adaptors and wire your living room over a Wi-Fi bridge. A bridge is less than $100, but you can also turn a standard $50-ish Wi-Fi router into a bridge with the super-charged DD-WRT or Tomato firmware upgrades. Now you've brought the net into your living room without a 100-foot cable, and the world's your broadband oyster. Just need a fix for your Xbox, old or new? Consider using your laptop as a free Xbox Wi-Fi adapter.

What's the best thing you've done for your home theater with a cheap purchase, or at no cost at all? What makes your living room the ultimate viewing room (other than the 60" plasma, of course)? Swap some shop talk in the comments.



Attach Files to Google Apps Calendar Events [Google]

Google Apps users can now add attach Google Documents and Picasa Web Album pictures to their Google Calendar appointments, helping to explain or illustrate shared events.

The attachment option, which might not be enabled for all Apps users, appears just below the description box. Perhaps that's an intentional suggestion that if that box is looking stuffed, a doc or picture with directions, meeting details, and other important details might be a more sensible and courteous route. For those already keen on Google's Docs and Picasa services, or those who really dislike Evite, this is a handy way of sending all-details-included party invitations—whenever it arrives on personal, non-App accounts, that is.

Attaching a Google Document to a Google Calendar Item [via Google Operating System]



This Week's Most Popular Posts [Highlights]

Can't keep your eyes on the monitor long enough to absorb all the productivity we're throwing at you? It's nothing to be ashamed of, but maybe it's time you slow things down a bit with our top stoies feed. If our Top tag doesn't completely satisfy your life hacking needs, a customized feed might be more up your alley. Feeling better? Good. Let's take a look back at this week's most popular posts:

  • YourFonts Turns Your Handwriting Into a Personlized Font
    YourFonts is a web-based service that turns your handwriting into a TrueType font for free. If you have a printer and scanner, nothing can stand between you and the awesomeness of your own script.
  • Five Best System Tray Applications
    The Windows system tray can be so much more than a parking lot for programs you don't want cluttering up your task bar.
  • Brew the Best Possible Coffee Without Breaking the Bank
    Whether you're the kind of coffee drinker that slugs back the swill in the break-room coffee pot at work or savors exotic coffee on sleepy Sundays, there is always room for enhancing your java.
  • Happy Birthday, Lifehacker: Our Best Posts from 2005 to 2009
    The first Lifehacker post hit the tubes four years ago today. Since then, we've published thousands of tips, tricks, guides, and tools to streamline your life.
  • Avoid These 20 Worst Supermarket Foods
    Editor-in-chief of Men's Health and author of the bestselling book Eat This, Not That has just released a new supermarket survival guide. Here's a quick look at what it says you should avoid putting in your cart.
  • Dynastree Maps Your Last Name
    Web site Dynastree's surname map lays out how people with your last name are distributed across the US.
  • Get Acronis True Image 10 Free
    Acronis is giving away copies of Acronis True Image 10 Personal Edition because its got a new version out. That means you (or backup-needing friends) get whole disk image backups from a friendly interface.
  • Google Earth 5.0 Beta Released, Looks Incredible
    Windows/Mac/Linux: Google's 3D mapping application Google Earth has just released version 5.0, adding historical imagery, maps of the ocean's floor, and even better features for touring the world from your desktop.
  • Lifehacker's Weirdest and Most Controversial Posts
    Everybody gets a little ribbing at their birthday party, and we're no different. As part of Lifehacker's fourth birthday, let's take an awkward, yet light-hearted, stroll through the strangest and most controversial stuff we've posted.
  • GNOME Do's Smart Dock Takes App Launching to Another Level
    A new version of the quick-firing Linux keyboard launcher GNOME Do landed last week, bringing with it a "theme" that acts as a whole new desktop interface.
  • Windows 7 Gets Customized
    We've featured a desktop that makes XP look like Windows 7, but today we get a look at our first Windows 7 desktop customized to the hilt courtesy of reader SJRNWT.



Ten Gmail Labs Features You Should Enable [Gmail Labs]

Gmail has been slowly but surely rolling out cool new features ever since they started Gmail Labs. If you haven't taken advantage of the fruits of Labs, here's a look at 10 Labs features you should enable.

Offline Gmail

Probably the most significant feature you can get out of Labs, Offline Gmail takes advantage of Google Gears to turn Gmail into an offline email client. You can search most of your messages, draft new messages, and do pretty much everything you can do with Gmail while you're connected to the internet. Gmail automatically detects whether you're connected or not to keep your offline and online Gmail in sync. (Read more)

Multiple Inboxes

Got a widescreen monitor and a lot of filters and labels you want to keep an eye on? When enabled, Multiple Inboxes displays up to eight different searches or labels next to your inbox for a king-sized dashboard of your email activity. (Read more)

Tasks

Google has taken a lot of guff for not creating a to-do list app to round out their productivity suite of apps. Tasks may not be a full-fledged app (yet), but it's a great start. You can even turn an email into a task with a simple Shift+t keyboard shortcut. Once set up, you can add tasks to your Firefox sidebar and access it from your cell phone and iGoogle. (Read more)

Go to label

Gmail has all kinds of great keyboard shortcuts, including combo keys that take you to your inbox ('g' then 'i'), starred mail ('g' then 's'), and more. With Go to label enabled, you can quickly navigate between labels from your keyboard in a similar manner. Simply type 'g' (Go), 'l' (Label), and then start typing the name of the label you want to go to. Go to label will autocomplete the label, so chances are you'll be there in a couple of keystrokes. Go to label also works with the next Labs feature, Quick Links.

Quick Links

Quick Links adds a new sidebar to Gmail just below your labels. When enabled, Quick Links can be used to bookmark anything in Gmail, from a common search to a specific email. It's an incredible way to set up quick access to common searches without setting up a filter and label.

Superstars

By default, Gmail ships with one yellow star to help you better keep track of and call out important emails. With Superstars enabled, you've got a whopping 12 different icons to choose from. You can even search for different superstar types specifically—especially handy if you want to set up some Quick Links with your Superstars!

Canned Responses

Do a lot of repetitive typing, do you? With Canned Responses, you can set up canned replies so you can quickly and easily fire off that same old reply without succumbing to the pains of RSI. Your hands will thank you. (If you're really serious about canned responses, check out Texter [Windows], TextExpander [Mac], or Snippits [Linux]).

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

Love keyboard shortcuts but never quite got the hang of the layout of Gmail's keyboard shortcuts? With Custom Keyboard Shortcuts enabled, you can customize any of Gmail's default shortcuts to your liking. Handy!

Forgotten Attachment Detector

Save yourself the embarrassment of the second whoops-I-forgot! email with the Forgotten Attachment Detector. It scans your email to determine whether or not you had meant to attach a file and alerts you if an attachment is missing.

Pictures in Chat

The Pictures in Chat feature does exactly what it sounds like: adds user icons to your Gmail Chat window. This one won't boost your productivity all that much, but it's a nice little tweak.

Gmail has tons more great labs features not mentioned here, so if we didn't cover a favorite of yours, give it the airtime it deserves in the comments.



Flipside Wallet Is a Durable, Streamlined Wallet [Stuff We Like]

We're big fans of all-things-wallet around here, which is why the Flipside Wallet caught our eye. This interesting new wallet organizes your credit cards and cash in a gadgety, durable hard-shelled case.

The wallet itself has separate compartments for everything, including eight credit card slots and RFID shielding to prevent RFID theft. The video should give you a pretty good idea of how the Flipside works, so give it a play for a closer look.

The biggest catch: a Flipside Wallet will set you back a whopping $45—which seems like a lot for what you're getting. The Flipside is also a little thicker than we'd like (4 1/4" x 2 3/4" x 11/16"), especially since we're so keen on slimmed down wallets. If the price and size is a little too much for you but you'd like a hard-case wallet, check out the previously mentioned Jimi wallet, which retails for a slim $15.

Flipside Wallet [via Unclutterer]


Microsoft "Fix it" Automatically Takes the Steps to Fix Problems for You [Good Intentions]

Microsoft's online troubleshooting and support documents can be useful, but even if you find a help doc, it can still be a pain to follow along with their steps, right? Not anymore.

CNET reports that Microsoft has started adding a new Fix it button to a few thousand Microsoft help and support docs that—when clicked—downloads a script that will run through the steps for you, like this support doc for enabling the DVD library on your Vista PC. It seems like a good idea, but as far as we can tell, the Fix it feature is weighed down by some serious cons.

Pros:

  • You may not be required to do quite as much tech support for your friends and family for trivial fixes.

Cons:

  • The "scripts" come in MSI packages that you have to execute on your desktop. God knows how soon we'll start seeing Fix it icons everywhere offering to fix your common Windows problem with a boatload of malware.
  • I tried the script to restore the IE icon on your desktop script, and it required a restart!

That's the short list, but I'm sure you can think of a few more. Let's hear what you think of this new feature in the comments.

[via CNET]


Sponsor Shout-out [Advertiser Thanks]

Thanks to this week's sponsors: Allstate, Audible, ESET, Fellowes, Honda, IE8, ING Direct, HP Mediasmart Server, Mophie, New Egg, T-Mobile, Virgin Atlantic. Click here to advertise on Lifehacker.



Zemanta Helps Write Rich Emails in Gmail and Yahoo Mail [Downloads]

Windows/Mac/Linux: If you're a fan of inline photos and links connecting the content of your emails to the rest of the web, new browser plug-in Zemanta adds a rich email composition tool to Firefox and Internet Explorer.

As the video demonstrates, Zemanta reads your email (okay, a little weird) and suggests images, related links, and inline links to Wikipedia. If you sign up for an account with Zemanta, you can finely tune Zemanta to search for images in your Flickr account or search for and add your friends' content when available.

Originally Zemanta was just a blogging tool (it supports Blogger, WordPress, and most other popular blogging services). Now the unobtrusive extension works with both Gmail and Yahoo mail. Using Zemanta is both fun and a little annoying. It's really cool to quickly and easily add images and links to your email, but it's also a little irritating to see the Zemanta branding show up next to everything you add. (Maybe it's just me? I don't like looking like a shill.) Still, if you're a rich email junkie, Zemanta is a great tool. Zemanta is a free download, works on all platforms with Firefox and with Internet Explorer.

Zemanta for Gmail and Yahoo Mail [Zemanta via CNET]


Create CoverSearch Fills in the Gaps in Your Cover Art Collection [Downloads]

Windows only: Create CoverSearch searches Amazon, Yahoo, and other sources for cover art to automagically fill the visual gaps in your collection.

Point Create CoverSearch to your music directory and it will return all sub-directories that have no cover art. For each folder, the app displays available cover art in a variety of sizes for you to select from. Create CoverSearch performs exactly as advertised, but will work best for those with consistently organized music collections. You need to give the application a regular expression to use for searching—the default is \$artist\$album\, meaning it expects all your music to be organized like \Black Sabbath\Paranoid\. You can select from two other preset expressions, or input your own variation such as \$artist - $album\, or any combination of the variables $artist, $album, and [$ignore].

So if your music collection is all over the map, Create CoverSearch might be a bit of a fussy pain, lacking any kind of fuzzy search to crawl your loosely-named tunes. But there is at least one work-around—use only the $artist tag and cherry-pick the album covers you want from the discography it returns. For those with uniform naming conventions, the application will speed up album art plugging considerably. Create CoverSearch is freeware, Windows only.

Create CoverSearch


TimeEdition is a Simple and Stylish Time Tracker [Downloads]

Windows/Mac OS X only: Time tracking application TimeEdition tracks your time in a dead-simple and attractive interface that saves your progress to Google Calendar for accessible-from-anywhere results.

Using the application is as simple as entering in customer, project, and task details using the drop-down controls and clicking the Start recording button. Your data is tracked across all projects and can be exported in Excel or iCal format—but the real beauty is found in the options panel, where you can choose to sync your activity with Outlook, iCal, or even Google Calendar.

Unlike the previously mentioned gCalTasks gadget that only runs in the Vista sidebar, this application lives in your system tray—with an easy-access context menu that can switch between projects on the fly.

TimeEdition is free and open source, works on Windows or Mac. Thanks, Tim Stiffler-Dean!

TimeEdition


OMG, It's This Week's Open Thread! [Open Thread]

Can you believe that Super Bowl finish?! Weren't those commercials wacky? And wow, Google went nuts this weekend, then put out a lot of new stuff this week. It's open thread time. Photo by Teecycle Tim.

You know the story. Every week, we open up the comments to whatever questions, comments, or hot topics you feel like discussing with your fellow readers. Not a commenter yet? Anyone can join in the fun as long as you earn the privilege. Get yourself verified using either your email address or your Facebook account. Happy Friday!



Taekwindow adds Linux-Style Window Handling to Windows [Downloads]

Windows only: Taekwindow adds several key features found in the X-Windows based interfaces common to several popular Linux distros. Resize, move, and manipulate with this portable application.

After running Taekwindow you will be able to move windows from anywhere within the window, instead of having to grab the title bar. By holding ALT+left mouse button anywhere on a window you can move it; if you have multiple monitors, you can grab maximized windows to move without re-sizing. ALT+right mouse button allows you to drag the mouse to resize the window, and middle-clicking the title bar of an application pushes it to the background. Like previously reviewed WizMouse and KatMouse, Taekwindow enables the use of the scroll wheel on whatever window the mouse cursor is over, not just the window in focus. All in all, it's a nice package of mouse tools for anyone disgruntled by window herding. Taekwindow is freeware, Windows only and requires .NET Framework 2.0 and above. Thanks LethAL!

Taekwindow



Windows 7 Pricing Starts at $200? Update: Probably Not [Rumor Mill]

According to tech site Ars Technica, Windows 7 pricing may start off at $200 with the OEM-only Windows 7 Starter and grow from there.

As we reported earlier this week, the Windows 7 version lineup was simplified to three for most users in developed country. The one exception is Windows 7 Starter, but it's only available to manufacturers, so despite the fact that it starts off the pricing, it doesn't exactly count as a price tag you would be looking at. From there, Ars reports the following:

  • Windows 7 Home Premium: $259
  • Windows 7 Professional: $299
  • Windows 7 Ultimate: $319

Right now these are little more than rumors, but $259 seems awfully high for the entry level version for most consumers. Are you willing to shell out $259 to get your Windows 7 on? Let's hear it in the comments.

Update: Ars has retracted the post, with this to say: "Upon further reflection, we regret posting this rumor. The source was anonymous and not one of our usual, trusted tipsters."

Rumor: pricing for the Windows 7 editions [Ars Technica via Gizmodo]


DesktopGaming has Killer Retro Gaming Wallpapers [Friday Fun]

The DesktopGaming web site has created hundreds of retro gaming wallpapers by ripping screenshots from emulated games—and then spicing them up with some photoshop goodness to fit today's giant monitor sizes.

If you've been reading Lifehacker over the last month, you've probably seen these wallpapers show up in screenshots, and after many requests, we're sharing our favorite retro wallpaper from the DesktopGaming site—starting with this one from Super Mario Bros 3 All-Stars edition.


Donkey Kong Country makes for a nice wallpaper.


Some of the wallpapers are designed to fit across multiple monitors, like this one from Super Mario 2.


A little Earthworm Jim action for you?


Chrono Trigger is one of my all-time favorite games. How many endings did you beat?


Yoshi's Island, not my personal favorite but a nice wallpaper.


Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! was difficult—could you beat it without a cheat code?


Final Fantasy 3 is another favorite.


Duck Hunt is about as classic as it gets. That dog was seriously annoying.

The DesktopGaming site has plenty of other freely downloadable wallpaper images to choose from, organized by game system and resolution—so you can look for your own nostalgic gaming wallpaper. For more images, check out the list of best places to find multi-monitor wallpaper, submitted by Lifehacker readers.

DesktopGaming


iDrive Lite Backs Up Your iPhone Contacts for Free [Downloads]

iPhone only: A bad sync, or a few clumsy finger swipes, can leave you with missing, duplicate, or otherwise messed-up iPhone contacts. iDrive Lite is a free app that stores contacts in the cloud.

It's a simple app that exports your contacts to a space at the previously reviews iDrive, a web-based file storage site. Hit "backup" to upload, "Restore" to download, and "Share" to share a contact or two via SMS. It doesn't seem to actually require an account with iDrive to backup, and I had a hard time finding details of what format the backups take. Still, for skipping the bill from MobileMe or anyone lacking an Exchange server link, iDrive Lite might provide free peace of mind. It's free to download, requires an iPhone running at least 2.0 software, and doesn't require a sign-up.

iDrive Lite [iTunes Store via TechCrunch]



Use Aluminum Foil to Better Iron Delicate Clothes [Clever Uses]

Got a rayon, silk, or otherwise delicate garment that can't take ironing but gets seriously wrinkled? A sheet of aluminum foil can help straighten out, and do a few other neat tricks.

Photo by tanakawho.

Grab your tube of Reynolds or store-brand foil, set up the ironing board, and set up an indirect ironing station:

To get wrinkles out of silk, wool, and rayon clothes that can't take direct heat, place a piece of foil on your ironing board, then lay the garment flat over it. With the steam button down, pass the iron three to four inches over the fabric several times. Wet heat radiating from the foil helps smooth out wrinkles.

Beyond ironing, Real Simple points out that the thin shiny stuff can also reduce TV interference, scrub the heck out of glassware. Hit the link below for more clever uses of a pretty great material.

New Uses for Aluminum Foil Real Simple]



EmailThis Adds Instant Email Bookmarklet to Your Toolbar [Bookmarklets]

EmailThis is a simple bookmarklet that opens a window to email anybody a link to the page you're looking at, with no email access or login required.

Clicking on the EmailThis bookmarklet summons up a basic email dialogue box, familiar to anyone who's clicked an "Email this" link on a newspaper or magazine site. In fact, the bookmarklet comes from the folks at Clickability, an emailing service that powers many of the web's mail-this-page links. Fill in your email, the recipient's email, and a not, and your link and notes are sent out.

The no-login feature is convenient when you just want to zip a link out to someone without having to log into your webmail or fire up Outlook. Although it isn't necessary, you can get an account with Clickability that allows you to save frequent contacts and basic settings between sessions. If you're a Gmail user—and would like to route all your emailed snippets through your regular mail server instead of a third party—make sure to check out our very own Supercharged Gmail Bookmarklet to gain the same functionality of EmailThis, plus some Google-fied extras. EmailThis is a free tool and should work with any browser that supports JavaScript.

EmailThis [via Freeware Genius]



Google Puts Free Books on iPhones, Androids [Books]

Google has opened up its entire archive of 1.5 million books to mobile iPhone and Android browsers, and converted all their page scans to text for much easier reading.

The works, almost all in the public domain realm, can be accessed by heading to books.google.com/m in an Android or iPhone/iPod touch browser. Those outside the U.S. get access to just over half a million books, for various copyright reasons. Every page went through Google's specialized Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scan, the same type of process your scanner uses to create Word documents. If you discover a bit of gobbledy-gook in extracted text, tap the text and the original page image will load for source checking. If offline ebooks on your iPhone or touch are more your speed, try the Stanza ebook reader we dig.

1.5 million books in your pocket [Inside Google Book Search]



Color Study Suggests Red Aids Recall, Blue Boosts Creativity [Color]

If you're in the market for a new desktop look or office paint, consider red or blue—they might just give a background boost to your creativity or attention to detail.

A New York Times piece looks at the most recent study on "color effects," which try to determine whether performance is helped, hurt, or unaffected by colors—primarily red and blue, as those two shades have shown up again and again in previous studies. Take it with a grain of salt, but University of British Columbia researchers found that, in cognitive tests of 600 people:

Red groups did better on tests of recall and attention to detail, like remembering words or checking spelling and punctuation. Blue groups did better on tests requiring imagination, like inventing creative uses for a brick or creating toys from shapes.

The article goes on to list a number of studies in which blue and red have made people appear more attractive, dominant, work more creatively, and so on. Inspired to pick out a new wallpaper or computer desktop? Try our most popular desktops of 2008, or drop a link to your favorite blue or red-toned theme in the comments.

Reinvent Wheel? Blue Room. Defusing a Bomb? Red Room. [New York Times]


Google Redesigned Updates, Adds GReader Redesigned [Downloads]

The crafty skinners at Globex Designs have officially released Google Redesigned 0.2, a Firefox extension that gives a whole-cloth new look to Gmail, Google Calendar, and, new to this release, Google Reader.

Here's a look at each of the sites that gets skinned under the Redesigned extension (click for the even-bigger view):

Google Reader Redesigned:

Gmail Redesigned:

Google Calendar Redesigned:

Here's what the folks at Globex, possibly headquartered in Cypress Creek, have to say about what's new in 0.2:

  • NEW STYLE! GReader Redesigned
  • Support for Mozilla Prism
  • Extension options dialog support
  • Support For Status Bar Icon Hide (activated in the add-on options dialog)
  • Optimized update system
  • Localization support for Bosnian, Czech, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish languages
  • Code optimization

Users with Google Redesigned already installed should see an update ping the next time they launch, but can also manually grab the newest skins by right-clicking the Google Redesigned tray icon and choosing "Check for Style Updates."

Wish another Google Product got the Redesigned treatment? Tell us about it in the comments, or at Globex Designs' forums. Thanks Hanchen!

Google Redesigned [Globex Designs]


Gmail Labs Adds Multiple Inboxes [Gmail Labs]

Gmail Labs adds a new Multiple Inboxes feature today that allows you to keep an eye on multiple buckets at once while you're viewing your inbox.

Just head to the Labs tab in your Gmail account to enable the new feature. Once enabled, you'll get a new Multiple inboxes tab in your Gmail settings. From there, you can choose up to five different panes to display to the right of your Gmail inbox, above your inbox, or below it. For label and filter junkies, the Multiple Inboxes feature is a must. When setting up your multiple inboxes, you can use any of Gmail's supported search operators to create any sort of search you want. For example, good choices for your multiple inboxes might include searches like:

is:starred
is:unread
has:attachment

Let's hear which labels or search operators you're keeping an eye on in the comments.

New in Labs: Multiple Inboxes [Official Gmail Blog]


Losing Weight the Flexitarian Way (No Wheatgrass Required) [Dieting]

I've dropped about 10 pounds so far, and a little more falls off every day. The fix hasn't been running, lifting, or anything trendy—I'm just eating less meat, and enjoying what I eat more.

What I'm doing isn't exactly new or original. You could call it flexitarianism, or a more regimented form of semi-vegetarianism. You could accuse me of jumping all over the latest thing foodie guru Mark Bittman said or wrote, and, given how often he shows up in my food-focused posts, you'd have good reason to bust out the fanboy flag.

However I came to it, I'm avoiding meat for all but one meal of the day. This plan has worked where a lot of other plans and diets haven't.

First, a quick step back. I carried, in December, about 205 pounds on my 6-foot-1-inch frame. By all accounts, I've got a lucky metabolism, but I also love food—all of it, everywhere, in any amount—and dark, regional beers. And I've spent most of my career sitting down to write or edit words. So an excess of physique-softening, energy-reducing weight gradually accumulated on me, and it was defeating to think about. I'd read most of Michael Pollan's popular eat-better-or-else books, and my family history is full of diabetes and obesity. Still, fast food drive-thru visits were written off with excuses about a tight schedule, vegetables were given the same respect as salt packets, and my sedendary life left me feeling pretty unfit.

Most diets seem to be based around broad concepts (Don't eat carbohydrates!), ridiculously strict regiments (any crash diet focused on one type of food), or lists of "good" and "bad" foods so varied and long that scanning a restaurant menu feels like a course in advanced database queries (next stop: South Beach).

The diet suggested, or at least discussed at length, in Mark Bittman's new book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating, is simple, and centered around a rule a four-year-old can understand: Don't eat meat before dinner. It might sound like sacrilege to those who truly relish a good meal, or foolishly restrictive to anyone raised on bacon with their breakfast, meat in their sandwiches, and a dinner plate with starch, vegetable, and entree. But for this Lifehacker editor, it's an easily defined, sensible challenge, and one that's paying off the more I rise to it. It doesn't punish you for dreaming of applewood-smoked pork ribs, it shouldn't turn you into a waiter's worst nightmare, and it makes it harder for you to overeat.

Bittman's diet suggestions stem from a wider-focused concern about the earth's ecology, the food production demands of our modern diet, and other pressing topics of the day. If vegan, organic, or locally-sourced foods are what you're into, a daytime vegetarian diet can certainly accommodate. But the weight loss that's worked for me and the New York Times food writer is more due to how scaling back on meat—dense with calories, a great hider of fat, and easily eaten too quickly—tricks you into consuming less. It almost goes without saying that avoiding the processed, mass-produced meats in burgers, re-heated chain restaurant meals, and packaged entrees is better for you in any situation. But avoiding \any kind of meat forces you, or at least me, to get creative with your daytime diet, and makes the evening meal something you really want to enjoy, not just scarf down.

Here's how I've made a flexitarian/daytime-vegetarian/Bittmanist diet work for me as a day-to-day reality:

  • Broaden your food base: Hide these from your friends with the "Meat is murder—tasty, delicious murder" T-shirts, if you must, but there are tons of great cookbooks, websites, and idea wells to grab meat-less meals or snacks from. The Meat Lite recipe series from the foodie blog Serious Eats, and a cookbook from the authors of that series, Almost Meatless, are just what they sound like—scaled-back quantities of meat that use it for good flavor. Sites like VegKitchen, 101 Cookbooks, and others have creative takes on meals that work great at breakfast, mid-day, or dinner. My personal source for endless inspiration? Asian cookbooks—any cuisine, any recipe. You can swap in tofu, if you dig it, or beans, fresh vegetables, or pretty much anything for most dishes, and you'll find a few that work great with any ingredients.
  • Don't get held hostage at restaurants: If you're sitting down for breakfast or lunch and the vegetarian offerings are unappealing, consider getting a salad and an appetizer, two appetizers, two salads, or asking the waiter for a plate with a few of the menu's appealing sides. Last resort? Ask the waiter (gasp!) if the chef recommends any vegetarian substitutions. In a lot of cases, you'll pay less than if you grabbed a full-fledged meal, and if you end up eating less, well ...
  • Re-think your hunger: As Bittman notes in Food Matters, most of us can't (or, at least, don't) have sex every single time we think about it—we'll wait for you to finish up whatever wisecrack you got going with there. But hunger, real or routine, is something many of us satisfy with an unnatural level of urgency. You can fight off some of those pangs with a slow, steady stream of healthier stuff, like popcorn, almonds, or snacks that don't come in thin foil, but it's easier to engage in something, anything time-consuming when your body feels hungry and you can't remind it that dinner's only an hour away. There's a reason critics always swipe at artists by referring to the work of their "young and hungry" days—being a little hungry is far from a bad thing.
  • It's a guideline, not a religion: Your buddy's in town, and wants to meet at Texas Jack's House of Steak for lunch. Go for it, try to eat just a reasonable amount—about the size of a deck of cards, and switch to vegetarian fare for dinner. But your spouse planned a great chicken dish! Okay, eat a healthy amount of that too, tell her you're stuffed from lunch, and eat as many veggies as you can. This plan isn't about quick results, or proudly waving a trendy diet flag in everyone's face. Eat as realistically vegetarian as you can in the day, eat small amounts of (really good!) meat at night, and you'll eventually adapt to eating smaller portions. You could eat nothing but Snickers bars all day and technically be eating vegetarian, but that's not the point—use your meatless day to inspire your diet, not constrain it.
Photo by moriza.

This is, of course, just one man's plan for losing weight, and anyone picking it up has to do a bit of research into what kind of meat-less meals are nutritious and relatively painless to cook and eat. It should be accompanied with real exercise; I'm just putting it off that part until spring because, well, it's 12 degrees here on days like today. And results will vary, based on a lot of factors. But feeling good about what you're putting in your body, and having a simple rule to manage it all, has worked out great so far.

Anybody in the crowd made a switch to lower-meat diets? Got any suggestions for staving off hunger and replacing those big hunks o' flesh? Gather 'round the kitchen and offer some tips in the comments.



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