This Week's Most Popular Posts [Highlights]
When there's too much Lifehacker and too little time, switch to our trimmed-down top stories feed to skip the extras and get right to the good stuff. Don't care about Windows-only downloads or the iPhone? Customize our URLs to see only the posts you want. This week's most popular posts include:
- Customize Your Own Killer "Enigma" Desktop
"Windows desktop tweaker extraordinaire and Lifehacker reader Kaelri—who brought us the gorgeous Lightning at Sunset desktop and then showed us how to do it ourselves—is back, this time with a fresh new desktop he calls "Enigma."" - Gmail Updates Its Look, Adds Themes
"Google's beloved web-based email client has always been ripe for third-party design customization (we've always been partial to the Gmail Redesigned skin in Better Gmail, for example), but now Gmail is officially riding the interface customization train by offering 30-some new themes to spice up your inbox." - Thirty Cliches You Should Avoid (Going Forward)
"Using a data analysis tool that monitors new books, research papers, broadcast transcripts and news sources, Oxford University came up with a list of the top 10 most irritating phrases." - Top 10 Ways to Speed Up Your Web Browsing
"Even in a world where high-speed internet is just a tall house blend away, anyone can get stuck with a slow or uncertain connection at home, in the office, or at the worst possible time while traveling." - Five Best Video Chat Applications
"When you really want to stay in touch over a long distance, a simple phone call or voice chat pales in comparison to a face-to-face video chat." - Liberate Yourself from Old Email Addresses
"If you've been on the internet for any substantial amount of time you've likely accumulated your fair share of email addresses..."
Create Holiday Art at Google Docs [Friday Fun]
Four Googlers show off their artistic skills as well as Google Docs' collaboration capabilities in the time-lapse video above of a spreadsheet holiday art project. Hit the play button to watch them fill in an 100 row by 186 column spreadsheet with 18 colors to make a detailed holiday snowflake pattern. (The eagle-eyed will notice that at least one of the authors was not using Google's own browser, Chrome—it looks like Firefox on the Mac.) Hit the link below to grab the template and make your own.
LittleShoot Adds P2P File-Sharing to the Browser [File Sharing]
Is Beta Culture a Bad Thing? [Snap Judgment]
We have surrendered in the name of progress and marketing and product cycles and consumerism. Maybe those are good reasons, I don't know, but looking at the past, it feels like we are being conned. Deceived because the manufacturers of electronic products have taken our desire to progress faster and even embrace the web beta culture as an excuse to rush things to market, to blatantly admit bugs and the rushed features sets and sell the patches as upgrades.
While I see where he's coming from—especially in regards to hardware you spend your hard-earned cash on—we're fans of testing beta software (the key word being "testing") because it's often where the best new features are. What about you?
Tell us more in the comments.
QuoteURLText Copies Highlighted Text and Source URL [Featured Firefox Extension]
Tap the Hive in Today's Open Thread [Open Thread]
Sponsor Shout-out [Thanks Sponsors]
Happy People Watch Less TV, Study Shows [Happiness]
"We looked at 8 to 10 activities that happy people engage in, and for each one, the people who did the activities more — visiting others, going to church, all those things — were more happy," Dr. [John] Robinson said. "TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and happy people did it less."
The study doesn't indicate whether TV-watching is a symptom or a cause of unhappiness, so turning off the TV won't necessarily make you happier. Have unhappier times in your life involved more TV-watching, less, or the same as happy times? Let us know in the comments.
Mmm Free Declutters Busy Context Menus [Featured Windows Download]
Before:
After:
Recently, the How-To Geek explained how to clean up your right-click menu by editing the Windows registry—a fine option for super-savvy users who don't want to run yet another utility to achieve the same end. If messing with your registry isn't your bag, previously mentioned FileMenu Tools and ShellExView also get the job done. Mmm Free is a free download for Windows XP only; Mmm+ offers more options for $9.99. Thanks, gravi_t!
You received this email because you are subscribed to the real_time feed for http://feeds.gawker.com/lifehacker/full. To change your subscription settings, please log into RSSFWD.
No comments:
Post a Comment