February 2010
47 posts
Buzz Drops Auto-Following, Won't Automatically... →
After a week’s worth of complaints and confusion, Google is updating Buzz to address many of the privacy concerns and annoyances raised by the new social networking service. The update brings…
Fonolo Skips Automated Customer Service Phone... →
iPhone only: Fonolo is a clever webapp for bypassing automated calling trees when phoning corporate customer service lines. Now the service has an iPhone app with the same great features as the…
Turn Google into Your Personal Napster with a... →
Last week Lifehacker reader UnMicD offered a simple bookmarklet for searching Craigslist in our #openthread. Over at the Productive Geek forums, user Brady modified that bookmarklet to…
Despite Privacy Issues, People Are Willing to Give... →
On Wednesday we asked you to share your first impressions with Google Buzz, and despite all the privacy issues and a whole lot of new inbox clutter, Lifehacker readers are willing to…
Greek Mythology →
We almost choked on our coffee this morning when we saw this cartoon in the Economist:
Yes, it would seem that the venerable British magazine is not taking Greece’s economic recovery…
Online Image Editor Aviary Now Entirely Free... →
Aviary Phoenix, a really powerful and reader favorite online image editor, used to charge $25 per year for private online image saving and other select features. As of yesterday, though, the…
Divvyshot Offers Simple and Open Photo Sharing... →
More and more you’ll find yourself not being the only photographer at an event. Divvyshot offers a simple way to not only share your own pictures, but to create open albums others can contribute…
Full Screen Weather Is a Giant, No-Frills Weather... →
We’ve always liked Weather Underground for its no-nonsense, real-time weather info. Today they’ve released a new service called Full Screen Weather that mashes up Google Maps with weather…
Is It Compatible? Shows If Your Current Extensions... →
Firefox: Every new version of Firefox offers enticing new features, but the real question is whether or not your beloved Firefox extensions are ready for the jump. Is It Compatible? puts the…
LookInMyPC Is a Must-Have Tool for Computer... →
Windows only: LookInMyPC generates a complete report of what’s going on in a computer—from hardware to software, and everything in between. After playing around with it, this writer wouldn’t…
Image Preview Adds Lightbox-Style Preview to All... →
Google Chrome: Lightbox is a widely adopted image-preview script—if you’ve ever clicked on an image and had it fade the background and enlarge the image, that’s Lightbox. Image Preview is a…
AVI Joiner Combines Split Video Files into One... →
Windows: Ever download a movie from—oh, I don’t know—some far-reaching nether-region of the internet, and when your download finishes realize the video is split into multiple parts? AVI Joiner…
Pinta Brings Paint.NET's Just-Enough Image Editing... →
Windows/Mac/Linux: If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the coders of Pinta love the heck out of the Windows-only image editor Paint.NET. Luckily, they also want to make it available…
Data Crow is a Cross-Platform Manager of All Your... →
Windows/Mac/Linux (Java): Data Crow doesn’t just catalog your movies with IMDB look-ups, organize your MP3s and CDs with discographies, or handle pictures. It handles all three, plus contacts,…
FollowUpThen Automates Email Follow Ups [Follow... →
You’re pinging somebody over email right now, but they’ll probably need a reminder or follow-up in two days. CC twodays@followupthen.com, and if that person hasn’t responded yet, they’ll be…
Google Working on Speech-to-Speech Phone... →
Using its vast compendium of voice and translation data, Google appears to be working toward a semi-real-time, or “speech-to-speech,” translation technology for future phone models, according…
PwnageTool 3.1.5 Jailbreaks iPhone 3.1.3... →
Mac OS X: Last week Apple pushed out a minor update to the iPhone OS, and, naturally, the update re-jailed any jailbroken devices. Yet again, the iPhone dev-team is back with a new version…
Google Adding Social Feature to Gmail? [Rumors] →
Google may unveil a new social feature to Gmail as early as this week, according to the Wall Street Journal. The feature would closely mimic status updates like those popularized by Facebook and…
CinemaDrape Creates a Distraction-Free Zone for... →
Windows only: Distraction-eliminating application CinemaDrape covers your desktop with a black screen except for the application you’re currently working in, so you can eliminate background…
Did You Have Better Focus Before the Ubiquitous... →
PBS news show Frontline recently aired a great Digital Nation feature, in which attention spans and multi-tasking were a notable topic. One talker asks a valid question: Is your attention span…
BenderConverter Grabs Video From the Web [Video] →
Tools that help you download videos from YouTube and other video sharing services on the web are old hat, but BenderConverter is a simple-to-use web-based solution with a wide variety of download…
Boot Snooze Reboots and Hibernates Your Computer... →
Windows: Booting your computer up in the morning is one of the most tedious parts of starting your computer use for the day. What if you could gain the benefits of a reboot and still start…
Facebook to Launch a Full-On Email Client [Email] →
Facebook is revamping their messaging system into a full-fledged email client, according to tech news site TechCrunch. We can’t imagine ditching our beloved Gmail accounts for Facebook’s…
CreaWriter Is a Distraction-Free Writing Space... →
Windows: If you checked out the Mac-only Ommwriter and were disappointed that there wasn’t an equivalent tool for Windows, you’re in luck. CreaWriter is a distraction free writing tool that…
Skip the Raise, Ask Your Boss for These Perks... →
If your company is already tightening its belt, it might not do much good asking for a raise during your next performance review. Instead, consider asking for other perks that might be almost as…
Google Brings Face Morphing to Orkut →
Google has added an interesting face morphing app in Orkut. The app takes your profile image from Orkut and smoothly morphs it into your friend’s profile image while filling the path with…
Dummy Image Generator Is the Lorem Ipsum of Images... →
Lorem ipsum is a block of dummy text in Latin often used in design and publishing to fill space in a mockup. The brilliant Dummy Image Generator is like “lorem ipsum” for images.
Like “lorem…
uTorrent 2.0 Brings Performance Updates, Bandwidth... →
Windows only: uTorrent is far and away the most popular BitTorrent client among Windows users, and they’ve recently pushed out a shiny new 2.0 release, bringing with it bug fixes, performance…
TouchMouse Controls Your Computer's Mouse and... →
iPhone/iPod touch: TouchMouse is a free application for the iPhone/iPod touch that, when paired with its accompanying control software on your Mac or Windows computer, turns your touchscreen into…
Know How Likely You Are to Get Audited [Tax Time] →
You can’t know for certain that your tax returns will be audited, but you can be certain that you’re always a candidate. The IRS itself has laid out a few tips on what triggers their audit…
Google News Adds Stars for Topic Tracking [News... →
If a story pops up in Google News that you’d like to keep track of, you can now add a familiar “star” to it. That allows you to track multiple stories from a “Starred” menu, and get updates on…
Looking to Buy a Cameraphone or a Digital Camera?... →
Flickr offers a very useful camera finder tool to help you choose the right digital camera or a camera phone.
With the Flickr Camera tool, you can not only see the quality of shots…
Chrome OS Tablet Demo Offers a Peek at What a... →
Last week Apple announced their new tablet, the iPad, and whether or not you were keen on the device (46% of you were completely uninterested), you may still be interested in this concept…
Take a Second Shot at Understanding Math... →
Mathematics tends to bisect people into either fascination or annoyance. If you’re in the latter camp, or actually like math but can’t quite get a hold of it, a Cornell professor is blogging a…
BackOff Shortens Long iPhone and iPod touch Sync... →
iPhone/iPod touch: If you carry a ton of stuff around on your iPhone or iPod touch, you know syncing it can take forever. BackOff turns off iTunes’ automatic backup process so you can sync…
VerticalTabs Gives You Fine Tuned Control Over... →
Google Chrome: It’s easy to fill up the tab bar in Chrome to the point where you can’t read the tab titles or easily find what you’re looking for. VerticalTab lets you view tabs in a list and…
Lammer Context Menu Adds Handy Features to Windows... →
Windows only: Explorer extension Lammer Context Menu adds a number of very useful features to the right-click menu, from standard stuff like Copy Path all the way to wild cards, batch rename, and…
Best Public BitTorrent Tracker: The Pirate Bay... →
Last week we asked you to share your favorite BitTorrent tracker, then we rounded up the results so you could cast your vote on the top five contenders. We’re back with the results.
Before we…
Delete Your Account Shows You How to Remove or... →
Ever want to delete a rusty online account but don’t want navigating a maze of unfamiliar preferences to do so? If you’re drowning in social networking, blogging, and other sites, web site Delete…
Remove a Stripped Screw with a Rubber Band... →
The head of the screw you stripped while you were hanging that shelf may not have seemed like a big deal at the time—until you needed to unscrew it, that is. Next time you’re having trouble, try…
Chrome 4 Supports Greasemonkey Userscripts Without... →
The Greasemonkey extension has long been one of our favorite tools for Firefox, allowing us to bend the web to our will with light and simple scripts written in JavaScript. Now most…
After the Deadline Brings Better Grammar and... →
Firefox: As you make the rounds commenting at your favorite blog or composing a lengthy email, avoid misspellings or a bad turn of phrase with After the Deadline’s excellent grammar and…
Taskbar Eliminator Ditches Your Windows Taskbar... →
Windows: If you use a 3rd-party application dock in place of the Windows taskbar, you may have noticed that you can’t completely get rid of the taskbar. Taskbar Eliminator helps you turn it off…
Expertise Requires Time over Talent, So Get Busy... →
Career blogger Penelope Trunk carries a 2007 article from the Harvard Business Review with her everywhere she goes. The article, called The Making of an Expert, discusses the reality of…
Gmail Google Search Button Makes Link Pasting... →
The Google Search box in Gmail Labs makes it easy to quickly search and past results into an email without ever clicking away. If you don’t like sidebar clutter, a button on your email…
Trillian Alpha Brings Its Multi-Protocol IM to... →
Mac OS X: Trillian, the slick-looking multi-protocol IM client that kinda-sorta won our Hive Five for best IM app, has launched an early alpha for Mac OS X. It’s not close to feature-complete,…
PDFMyURL Saves Web Sites as PDF Files [PDF] →
Saving something as a PDF file is a great way to preserve it for future reference or for sharing with others, without risking the site changing before you look at it again. PDFMyURL makes it easy…