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HandBrake Updates to 0.9.4 with Over 1,000 Changes, 64-Bit Support

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:00:00 -0800

Windows/Mac/Linux: If you ever have to rip DVDs to your desktop or convert video, you know how awesome open-source encoder HandBrake is. Well, it's just been updated with over 1,000 changes since the last release, including 64-bit support.

The 64-bit support is probably the most notable change in this build, as it allows you to encode videos about 10% faster than the 32-bit builds—in a lot of cases, bringing encoding up to real-time or faster. And, note that Mac users don't need Snow Leopard to see this improvement, long as they have a 64-bit capable machine (Intel Core 2 Duo or later). Linux users will also be able to reap the benefits of the 64-bit build; unfortunately at this point there doesn't appear to be a 64-bit version for Windows users.

Other changes include soft subtitles (it rips subtitles that you can turn on or off), a live preview mode (so you don't waste your time encoding only to find you had a setting wrong), constant quality encoding (for better quality video and no need for 2-pass encoding), and some cleaning up of the settings. It looks like there are no more presets for PSP, PS3, or Xbox 360, just one "Normal" setting that, in theory, will work with anything that supports Main Profile H.264. Also, AVI, OGG/OGM and XviD encoding have been removed from the program—the HandBrake team has apparently decided to focus on H.264 encoding and get rid of old codecs.

HandBrake is a free, open source download.

Thunderbird 3 Release Candidate Available for Download

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:30:00 -0800

Windows/Mac/Linux: The "near-final" release of Thunderbird 3's release candidate has arrived, adding universal search, nearly automatic account setup, and better RSS and calendar management to Mozilla's desktop mail client. Grab a copy and see for yourself.

We've often recommended Thunderbird as a means of backing up your webmail and accessing Gmail when it's "down,", but, to be honest, most Lifehacker editors (and readers, we'd guess) are doing most of their email management in a browser these days. It'll be interesting to see if Thunderbird 3 can be an equal, or at least a complement, to full-fledged webmail services like Gmail.

Thunderbird 3 is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. If you're an Ubuntu user, grabbing Thunderbird from the Ubuntu Mozilla Daily PPA is likely easier than compiling from source code. Note that, on some builds, Thunderbird may install as "Shredder," a kind of in-joke about unstable code.

The Mega-Mouspad Office

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:00:00 -0800

Having a mouse pad that won't stay put is a pain. Today's featured workspace circumvents the problem of the too-small and slide-around mouse pad by making a custom pad big enough for the mouse, keyboard, cup of coffee and more.

Lifehacker reader 037 was sick of tiny mouse pads. The solution was to go a local rubber supply shop (Canal Rubber in NYC) and pick up a big sheet of the same rubber mouse pads are backed with. The entire workspace is coordinated with the damask-print fabric the mouse pad is covered in—the Chumby, pen cup, and even the computer desktop are all done in white and red damask. Say what you willl about the color or pattern, having a unifying element in an office really gives it a personality.

Check out the photos below for a closer look and hit 037's office set at the link below for more information on each picture.

If you have a workspace of your own to show off, throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.

GVNotifier.NET Puts Google Voice in Your Taskbar

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:30:00 -0800

Windows only: When the AIR-based site-specific browser just won't cut it, GVNotifier.NET brings Google Voice notifications, one-click calling, and SMS to your desktop.

Unlike most clients, GVNotifier.NET hides away in your Windows taskbar and only pulls up small windows when you need them. You can click on the icon to bring up your recent contacts, and click them to bring up a call/SMS window on top. Or, if the desired contact is not in the recent call list, you can right-click on the icon to bring up a separate window where you can dial their number. And, when someone text messages you, the SMS window pops up in the corner so you can text them back right away.

The ease of use of this app is great, but we'd love to see a bit more functionality—mostly some sort of integration with Google Contacts. As of right now, if you don't know your contact's number (and who does these days?), there's no way to call or text any of your contacts that aren't on the programs "recent" list (in fact, I can't even figure out how the list is populated—it doesn't seem to be my most recently texted or my most recently called, although it does contain some people on those lists). It's still great to have the notification and quick-call features of a taskbar client, we'd just like to see a bit more.

GVNotifier.NET is a free download, Windows only.

Make Your Extensions Work with Firefox 3.6

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0800

Firefox only: If you've already started using the Firefox 3.6 Beta release, you're going to need more than the old checkCompatibility trick to get your extensions working again.

To stop everyone from simply ignoring the compatibility checks and using problematic add-ons that haven't been updated in a while, Mozilla removed the ability to turn off extension compatibility checking entirely and now are forcing users to add a separate about:config entry for the specific version they are using.

So instead of adding a new entry called extensions.checkCompatibility, you'll need to add the Firefox version to the preference name, followed by "a" or "b" if you are using alpha or beta versions, respectively. For the current Firefox 3.6 Beta release, you will need to add a boolean key with the following name, and a value of false:

extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6b

If you aren't already an about:config expert or just want some hand-holding, hit the link for the full walk-through to make your extensions compatible. Readers will probably note that you can also use the Nightly Tester Tools extension, but for those of us that would rather not install another bulky extension, this tweak works perfectly.

Lifehacker's Guide to Making the Most of Black Friday

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800

Black Friday: It's a day when you can either score killer deals on gear or pay way too much for too little. The amount of planning and strategy you use is the biggest factor in whether or not you'll get burned.

Photo by mecredis.

Black Friday marks the traditional point in the year when retailers stop operating at a loss (in the red) and start turning a profit (in the black), and they manage to accelerate that shift by separating lots of people from their money with Thanksgiving sales. If you plan well, this separation can result in a fantastic deal for you. If you plan poorly, it'll result in not only a lack of a good deal but a day wasted out in the cold.

The following tips, tricks, and resources can help you avoid wasting a perfectly good day off and ensure you get what you're looking for at the price you want.

Is It Worth Your Time?

Before you even begin to contemplate running the Black Friday gauntlet, you need to ask yourself how much your time is worth. If you're throwing a wrench into plans to spend time with friends and family to save a couple hundred bucks on a laptop that isn't all that great to begin with—and the store only has 5 in stock—it's likely worth more just to enjoy your time with family and keep an eye on our Dealhacker posts here at Lifehacker. We pore over hundreds of deals a week and can say with authority that Black Friday-like deals happen all year long thanks to the magic of the internet.

The best way to decide if it is indeed worth your time is to take the next tip to heart.

Check Product Reviews and Prices Beforehand

Don't fall into the trap of buying something just because it's such a great deal. A $250 laptop that doesn't do half the stuff you really want it to do is not a bargain compared to a $500 laptop that does. Research relentlessly, take the stack of advertisements and your list of Black Friday sites, and get information about the purchases you want to make. Reading reviews by fellow consumers and consumer-friendly publications is invaluable. You want to buy a super awesome and cheap GPS-EleventyBillion+1 unit? Hit some of these sites to make sure it's not crap and that the price is right:

If you find reviews on both Amazon and Newegg from hundreds of customers talking about how bad the signal reception is on the GPS-EleventyBillion+1, you'll know it's not worth waiting in line for—even if it is dirt cheap. If you have a cellphone you can browse the web on, now would be a great time to bookmark the mobile versions—when available—of the sites above. When you're in the Black Friday trenches, you can pull out your cellphone and check the ratings and prices right in the store.

Check Online Availability

More and more retailers are trying to grab a slice of the online market while more and more consumers are opting not to brave Black Friday for deals. This works strongly in your favor. Check out sites focused on deal hunting like FatWallet, SlickDeals, and Black Friday-focused sites like BlackFriday.info, BlackFriday Ads, and TgiBlackFriday. Not only will you get info about regular in-store Black Friday deals, but you'll find out about online deals. We don't know about you, but staying up until midnight on Thursday night to score a few good deals online and then going to bed is way better than sitting on a sidewalk outside of Best Buy only to find out that you weren't early enough for the good stuff. Photo by mborowick.

Read The Fine Print

Not reading the fine print is a sure fire way to get burned on Black Friday. Whether you're looking at the fine print on the bottom of a newspaper circular or a web site, you need to check it closely on Black Friday deals. What time does the store open on Black Friday? Are some or all of the deals time sensitive? Often stores will run deals like 15% off all electronics until 10AM or some such variation. How many of the deep-sale and door-buster items will they have in stock? How do they handle door buster items? You don't want to go to a store where people have to stampede to get to the good items; you do want to go to a store that hands out door tickets to the early shoppers so nobody gets hurt trying to scramble for the good items.

Get There Early

How early? Real early. You think you're a serious Black Friday shopper, but you're not. Not by a long shot. Some people have been planning for Black Friday all year. They read deal sites like you read the news, make spreadsheets to compare prices over the year to Black Friday and argue with other deal hounds about the ethics of bribing your relatives to help get extra loot or just how evil it is to hide merchandise in washing machine at Sears.

You're not going to just stroll into the line at 7AM to get that $2,000 HDTV marked down to $999—you'll be standing behind deal hunters who have been camped out since the day before. You'll need to scope out your local stores on Thanksgiving day to see just how crazy the line build up is. Again, referring to the first tip in our list: How much is it worth to you? A grand off a high-end television might, for some, be worth spending the night huddled outside a Sears. Wear layers, bring something warm to drink, and be courteous to the people in line with you. Aside from just being an upstanding person, being courteous can pay off when someone holds your spot when you have to use the bathroom or offers to buy an additional item for you when there is a one-per-customer limit.

Black Friday shopping tips and tricks abound, and we certainly can't cover every one. Let's hear about your best tips, tricks, deal sites, and other Black Friday-related tales in the comments below.

Gorge Like a Pro to Maximize Your Holiday Feast

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:30:00 -0800

There's only few times a year where filling your belly until you're ready to bust is a good idea—or at least socially acceptable. Make the most of your Thanksgiving binge with food weblog Eating The Road's guide to gorging.

Photo by RealEstateZebra

Obviously eating your way through the Thanksgiving line could yield rather anti-social results later on, but just in case you want to pig out like a pro, Eating The Road's got plenty of tips to help expand your stomach and get your body ready for what's about to take place. Their guide is actually about getting the most from an all-you-can-eat buffet, but clearly your Thanksgiving feast isn't all that different:

Meals leading up to the buffet have been debated for ages. My recommendations are a large dinner the night before consisting mostly of light breads and vegetables to expand the stomach. It is also advantageous to drink plenty of liquids, preferably water. This also varies greatly on what time of day your buffet meal is going to be. For a breakfast buffet your larger meal should be the lunch prior with a small dinner. The morning of I would suggest a very small meal containing some sugar in order to get your metabolism up and running. Eat nothing more throughout the day. Liquids are advised, preferably water, as almost a mandatory health concern due to the high sodium content you are about to consume.

Hit up Eating The Road's full guide for more tips on eating your way through buffet lines (and Thanksgiving dinners) of all shapes and sizes. Do you consider yourself a pro at getting the most bang for your Thanksgiving dinner buck (without feeling sick afterward)? Sound off with your best tips for making the most of your meal in the comments.

Killer Music App Spotify Coming to the U.S. Early Next Year?

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0800

According to the LA Times, the streaming, cloud-based desktop music player Spotify expects to hit U.S. shores in the first few months of 2010. We've been in love with Spotify ever since we tried it, but the app has been working hard to kick down the gates to official U.S. support for a while now. The obstacle, obviously enough, has been working with record labels to garner full-on legal support. Fingers crossed that everything goes as planned. [LA Times]

Use Sand to Hold Awkward Objects During Repairs

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:30:00 -0800

Ever need to repair an awkwardly shaped object but have trouble keeping it steady while you work? The always-clever Martha Stewart suggests getting some assistance from sand, using it to hold odd-shaped objects at just the right angle while your glue dries.

Push the piece far enough into the sand so it no longer wobbles, then begin the repair. Keep a plastic storage bin filled halfway with sand in the garage to use for this purpose, whenever something breaks.

We can also see things like kitty litter or sugar working in this same instance—in case you don't have a bag of sand hanging around your garage. It's a quick fix that doesn't require any added assistance or time spent holding things together while drying.

Have a similarly quick household fix methodology of your own? Sound off in the comments.

WhitePages Adds Phone Number Search to Android App

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:00:00 -0800

Android: WhitePages' automatic Caller ID function was one of the earliest and most helpful of Android apps. Its newest version puts WhitePages.com's search powers on your phone, along with offering a seven-day preview of its caller ID service.

I couldn't quite pinpoint whether caller ID was previously free and has only recently required the $7 paid version in the Market. In any case, the free version offers a few neat features, besides breaking up personal, business, and reverse phone number searches into helpful tabs. If you do dig into the caller ID features, WhitePages can automatically turn on when your phone does and perform instant caller IDs when you get an unknown phone number calling, at least if you're on 3G or Wi-Fi. If you're on EDGE or similarly lower-bandwidth wireless data, WhitePages notifies you when it's found a match for the unknown caller.

Caller ID Lite by WhitePages is a free download for Android phones only. The paid Caller ID by WhitePages app is $7.

Google Adds Improved Movie Listings, Trailers for Mobile Search

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:30:00 -0800

When you're traveling around your own town or a distant city, Google's mobile search now offers you way more movie listing information and mobile-formatted trailers. Just search "movies" from your phone to check out Google's fuller, better movie results, complete with trailers, nearby theaters where it's playing, and showtimes. [Official Google Mobile Blog]

Make Any Pair of Gloves Work with a Touchscreen

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0800

It's getting cold outside in many regions, and gloves are becoming the norm. If you want to control your touchscreen phone without exposing your hands, or paying for specialty gloves, Instructables suggests grabbing a needle, and some conductive thread.

Conductive thread—no, we'd never heard of it, either. Instructables user Grathio points us to this explanation at Fashioning Technology, which also suggests where to grab some of it. You won't need to be skilled at sewing to pull off this glove modification, but you will need to take the time to test out what works with your screen. Grathio suggests leaving a wider, messier spread of thread on the inside of the glove to facilitate contact with your finger, but limiting the thread exposed on the outside to a tightly wound circle, about a quarter inch in diameter.

If you are good with a needle, you'll likely be able to make the end result look a little neater. And if you're really good and want to offer notes to anyone else looking to tackle this project, drop the advice (or link) in the comments here.

Screenr Shares Screencasts on Twitter, YouTube, and More

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:30:00 -0800

Screenr is a web-based screencasting application that makes sharing short screencasts painless. You can see Screenr in action as we demonstrate how to search Lifehacker.com with Google.

Screenr is Twitter-centric but sports a high-degree of functionality even if you don't actively use Twitter. You can easily tweet your screencasts from Screenr—the default, unless you specify otherwise is to share your screencasts on Twitter. If you opt to not share the screencast on Twitter you can download it as an MP4, upload it to YouTube, embed the screencast, or simply share the URL via email or IM.

When you start the Screenr recording tool you can specify which region of the screen you want to record—it uses a simple drag-to-resize box—and what audio input, if any, you'll be using. Hit the record button to start and the big green Done button to end your recording.

Below is a quick screencast we put together demonstrating how to search Lifehacker.com via Google instead of the built-in search tool here on the site:

If you're stuck on a computer where you can't watch flash video the secret sauce is to type: site:lifehacker.com your-search-terms-here in the Google query box.

Want a beefier screencasting tool? Check out the Hive Five on screencasting tools here. Screenr is free, requires a Twitter-account for login, and has a limit of 5 minutes per screencast. Know of another great web-based screencasting tool? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Buy a One-Day Lounge Pass for Better Airline Service

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

Leaving on a jet plane for the long holiday weekend? The Wall Street Journal suggests a few tips to overcome the stress of delayed flights, including a suggestion to cool your heels in the first class lounge.

Photo by joiseyshowaa.

Many airlines have changed their policies and fees on bag checking, security, and other protocols since 2008. Even if you're up to date, your fellow passengers may not be, and there's always the chance your flight won't leave on time, regardless. If you're facing down a delayed or missed flight, the Journal suggests a few tactics, including one that makes waiting out a serious delay a bit more palatable:

Use kiosks. Some airlines allow rebooking at kiosks, in addition to buying upgrades or better seating.

Know your rights. If a flight is canceled for an airline problem, such as a mechanical breakdown or crew-scheduling problem, the airline is responsible for your hotel and meals if you get stranded. If it's a weather problem, you're on your own. If you are involuntarily bumped from a flight, you are entitled to cash compensation, not airline vouchers. If the airline loses your bag, it has to provide reasonable temporary replacements for toiletries and clothing.

Use airline lounges or clubs if you run into trouble. Buy a day pass and escape the masses. Also, the staffers in clubs are usually the airline's most experienced agents and often the most helpful. It can be worth the cost of a day pass just to get someone to help you rebook.

Ever bought yourself a pass into the sky-high-roller's club? Tell us what it's like, and share your other air travel tips, in the comments.

Test Out Google's New Search Look

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:40:00 -0800

Google has, according to some Gizmodo readers, begun offering up a bolder but more condensed view of its home and search results pages to certain users. Take a full-size look, and try it out for yourself with some JavaScript magic.

Our own tips box isn't lit up with readers seeing this new, more Google-Wave-like interface, but Gizmodo reader Matt Karolian sent over these pics that look a little bit too polished and thought out to be a reader joke (we'd hope/think). Most notable is the permanent sidebar being shown, which breaks searches down into "News," "Maps," "Everything," and the more familiar drop-down "More" options.

Update: Google Blogoscoped already has a JavaScript tweak that gets anyone into Google's new look test. Head to Blogoscoped, copy the code, paste it into your address bar, and refresh Google's page. You may, like Phillip (and I), have to sign out and back in to get it to work, but it did eventually show up for me.

What do you think of Google's maybe-new look? Could the search giant use a new coat of paint after all these years?

Diagnose and Protect Your iPhone from Worms

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:00:00 -0800

There's been a lot of talk about malicious software on jailbroken iPhones lately, but if you haven't been paying close attention, tech site Network World has a breakdown of the worms running wild and how to eradicate them from your device.

As of right now, there are a total of three known iPhone worms, some more harmful than others. You're only vulnerable if you've jailbroken your iPhone and enabled SSH without changing the default password, though, so if you're still running on factory settings, fear not. If you do fall into the jailbreaker crowd, though, read on to make sure you're not infected, and then scroll to the bottom for steps on how to re-secure your device.

The first worm is the Ikee worm, which merely changes your wallpaper to a picture of Rick Astley (of Rickroll-meme fame). If you're familiar with Rickrolling, you may proceed to feel embarrassed. It's pretty easy to tell if you have this worm, unless your wallpaper was already a picture of Rick Astley, in which case check the top of the wallpaper, which, if installed by the worm, says "Ikee is never going to give you up."

The other two worms (the first called iPhone/Privacy.A and the second being unnamed at the moment) are more dangerous, as they collect personal information from your iPhone. If you have the second, unnamed worm, it will direct Dutch bank customers to a fake phishing site in hopes of collecting your bank information. An infection of the unnamed worm exhibits low battery life as a symptom, as it's running a background process to spread itself to other iPhones via WiFi. It also changes your default SSH password to keep you from easily deleting it.

The iPhone/Privacy.A worm is harder to detect, as it doesn't leave anything on the iPhone itself—it uses computers to steal information from iPhones connected to nearby wireless networks. You should, however, have no problem identifying if it's made its way to your computer as long as you have antivirus software (and yes, you're vulnerable even if you're running OS X or Linux, so pick up some antivirus software to make sure you aren't spreading this stuff around!).

If you think you may be infected, hit the link to get directions on how to remove them from your device. Also, whether you have a worm or not, make sure you protect yourself by changing your iPhone's default root password. It also might be a good idea to install SBSettings from Cydia so you can turn SSH off when you don't need it—no sense in having your iPhone more vulnerable than it needs to be.

Remains of the Day: The Declaration of Google Wave Edition

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:00:00 -0800

The Declaration of Independence hits Google Wave, Firefox CPU problems are causing some laptops heating issues, and a brilliant little application may someday turn your webcam into an impressive 3D scanner.

Declaration of Independence on Google Wave
Folks may or may not ever catch onto Google Wave for productive purposes, but it's been gangbusters for fun ideas like this Declaration of Independence wave. (You'll need a Wave account.) [Google Wave]
Thanksgiving themes for Firefox
Weblog Mozilla Links rounds up a few fun Thanksgiving-themed Firefox personas for your one-click skinning enjoyment. [Mozilla Links]
Firefox: Heat and the CPU usage problem
Firefox CPU usage problems are apparently causing some problems on laptops, particularly of the ultraportable variety. [CNET]
Amazing Software Turns Cheap Webcam Into Instant 3D Scanner
A very cool 3D-scanning software turns your regular old webcam into a saucy 3D scanner. [Wired]

Best Screencasting Tool: CamStudio

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:30:00 -0800

It was a tight race in last week's Hive Five with a mere 0.001% of the vote separating the first and second place winners.

Earlier last week we asked you to share your favorite screen casting tools. You responded with your favorite app for recording the action in your virtual workspace and we rounded up the five most popular options for a vote. The top two contenders were neck in neck. Both CamStudio and Camtasia Studio took in 28% of the vote, CamStudio coming out ahead by a mere 3 votes. While they might be close together when it comes to votes, they're miles apart when it comes to price—CamStudio is free and open-source and Camtasia Studio is $299.

Following behind CamStudio and Camtasia Studio, Screenflow and ScreenToaster with 12% and 11% of the vote respectively—not only do they share half their names like the first and second place winners but they too were separated by mere votes. Finishing off the Hive Five was Jing with 9% of the vote.

For more information about the contenders and reader comments on the race, check out the full Hive Five.

How to Safely Fry a Turkey, Avoid a Trip to the Emergency Room

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:00:00 -0800

Deep frying your Thanksgiving bird is all the rage, and for good reason: The results are delicious. Although that extra crispy skin is oh so tasty, frying without a little know-how is a recipe for trouble.

Instructables user Lextone looks like he's heeded the words of Alton Brown (see video below) when it comes to frying up the perfect turkey for his Thanksgiving feast. He has detailed each step of the process to keep things super safe keeping everyone free from harm or injury.

To get started you'll need the following: a fryer and its accessories, a metal or fiberglass ladder, a two-foot piece of dimensional lumber (1x2 or 2x4), a pulley, and a length of 3/8" rope. The extra gear is intended to let you start your turkey fry without injuring yourself using a simple pulley system, and that's the focus of the guide, but it's littered with other safety tips, as well.

If you haven't tried frying a turkey, it's worth the time—just make sure to keep things on a level, nonflammable surface and heed Lextone's advice and step-by-step instructions—which can be found in detail over at Instructables.

Have you tried your hand frying a turkey? Share your experience in the comments.

Amazon Offers Three Free MP3s of Your Choosing

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:45:00 -0800

Amazon is running a brief promotion (ends November 30th) offering $3 worth of MP3s from Amazon MP3 for free. Just head to this page, follow the directions, and enjoy your free credit. Jason mentioned this in today's deals of the day, but we all know how important music can be to getting work done, so take advantage. [Amazon via UneasySilence]

Device Doctor is a Free Driver Update Scanner with Promise

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:00:00 -0800

Windows only: Driver update utility Device Doctor finds outdated drivers on your PC, and helps you download the latest version—without charging you a dime.

Using the utility, which can be installed or used as a portable application, is about as easy as it gets—just click the Begin Scan button, wait a couple of seconds, and you will be shown a list of drivers that can be updated. The download button for each driver will take you to their web site, where you can download the drivers for free, without signing up for anything at all. Most of the drivers come with setup programs, but some of them are nothing more than zip files, and would need to be installed manually—hopefully something they can improve on in the future.

During our testing, we used the application on half a dozen PCs, and had varied results—on our XP test system, Device Doctor worked well and accurately found new drivers, but for Windows 7 we didn't have as much luck, with a few incorrect drivers being thrown at us. That said, Windows 7 was only released recently, so expect that support to improve in the future.

Device Doctor isn't perfect yet, but as a completely free, portable application that you can toss on your thumb drive, it's well worth a look. It might even save you some time searching for new drivers while you are fixing mom's PC.

Device Doctor is a free download for Windows only. Be sure to check out the full How-To Geek review for a more in-depth look, as well as instructions on installing drivers manually.

BitTorrent’s Future: DHT, PEX, and Magnet Links Explained

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:30:00 -0800

Last week The Pirate Bay confirmed it would shut down its tracker permanently, instead encouraging the use of DHT, PEX, and magnet links. This move confounded many BitTorrent enthusiasts, who were confronted with confusing new terminology and technology. Time for some explaining.

The Pirate Bay's recent confirmation that they had closed down their tracker since DHT and Peer Exchange have matured enough to take over, was coupled with the news that they had added Magnet links to the site. This news has achieved its aim of stimulating discussion, but has also revealed that there is much confusion over how these technologies work.

The key thing to understand is that nobody is being forced to use Magnet links or trackerless torrents. While these long-standing technologies may prove to be the future, they will co-exist with tracker-enabled torrenting for quite some time. For now, nobody will be forced to immediately change their existing downloading habits, although it may be wise to switch to a BitTorrent client that is compatible with these technologies.

In an attempt to clear some of the mystique surrounding DHT, PEX and Magnet links we will walk through all three briefly, hoping to assure those who've become confused earlier this week.

DHT and PEX in action

DHT

Using DHT instead of trackers is one of the things The Pirate Bay is now trying to encourage, and torrent downloads that rely solely on this technology are often referred to as "trackerless torrents." DHT is used to find the IP addresses of peers, mostly in addition to a tracker. It is enabled by default in clients such as uTorrent and Vuze and millions of people are already using it without knowing.

DHT's function is to find peers who are downloading the same files, but without communicating with a central BitTorrent tracker such as that previously operated by The Pirate Bay.

DHT is by no means a new technology. A version debuted in the BitTorrent client Azureus in May 2005 and an alternative but incompatible version was added to Mainline BitTorrent a month later. There is, however, a plugin available for Azureus Vuze which allows it access to the Mainline DHT network used by uTorrent and other clients.

Peer Exchange ("PEX")

Peer Exchange is yet another means of finding IP addresses. Rather than acting like a tracker, it leverages the knowledge of peers you are connected to, by asking them in turn for the addresses of peers they are connected to. Although it requires a "kick start", PEX will often uncover more genuine peers than DHT or a tracker.

Magnet links

Traditionally, .torrent files are downloaded from torrent sites. A torrent client then calculates a torrent hash (a kind of fingerprint) based on the files it relates to, and seeks the addresses of peers from a tracker (or the DHT network) before connecting to those peers and downloading the desired content.

Sites can save on bandwidth by calculating torrent hashes themselves and allowing them to be downloaded instead of .torrent files. Given the torrent hash – passed as a parameter within a Magnet link – clients immediately seek the addresses of peers and connect to them to download first the torrent file, and then the desired content.

It is worth noting that BitTorrent can not ditch the .torrent format entirely and rely solely on Magnet links. The .torrent files hold crucial information that is needed to start the downloading process, and this information has to be available in the swarm.

Pirate Bay links cf. Mininova links: When the Magnet link specification first came out, in January last year it called for a particular format ("base32 encoded"). The links that EZTV, Mininova and ShareReactor have displayed for some time all conform to that original specification. In May of last year the specification was changed, in favor of "hex encoding", and that is the format of the links being displayed by The Pirate Bay. Torrent clients should accept either format.

Compatible Clients

All the main torrent clients: uTorrent 1.8.5, Vuze 4.3.0.2, BitTorrent 6.3, BitComet 1.16, and Transmission 1.76 (and others) support Peer Exchange and DHT (via a plugin in the case of Vuze). Neither BitComet nor Transmission yet support Magnet links but Transmission is planning to include Magnet link support in the upcoming 1.8 release. Bearing in mind that no site, including The Pirate Bay, has yet abandoned support for traditional torrent files, there is plenty of time for support to be added.

We hope that this article has cleared some of the smoke that was generated by The Pirate Bay's announcements earlier this week. There is no need to panic, cry or be angry, and it's not a problem if you're still confused after reading this article. Torrents will still be available and aside from some extra downloading options thanks to sites that add Magnet links, nothing drastic will change in the near future.

TorrentFreak is a weblog devoted to all-things BitTorrent and file sharing. To get all of the latest from TorrentFreak, be sure to subscribe to the TorrentFreak RSS feed.

The Lightsaber and LEDs Workspace

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0800

What has three screens, a couple test servers, and a lightsaber? Possibly a remote rebel-sponsored code farm, but also today's featured workspace.

Lifehacker reader cGarst has put together a simple and uncluttered workspace for himself. A combination of dark colors—green on the walls and black for the work surface, chair, and file cabinet—combined with downlighting provided by some inexpensive IKEA LED pucks makes for a dramatic workspace.

You can click on the photo above or this one below to get a closer look. If you want additional information about things in the picture check out the photo notes on his Flickr stream at the link below.

Daisy Chain Knots Resize or Store Spare Cords Without Clutter

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:30:00 -0800

Whether you've got a 10-foot cord that only needs to stretch one foot or you simply want to store your cords without worrying about opening your closet to a knotted mess, daisy-chaining your cords solves your problems with aplomb.

Productivity weblog Silver Clipboard details how to daisy chain your computer cords and demonstrates how doing so can be extremely handy for decluttering your cords. Apart from tangle-free storage, daisy chaining your cords is, as mentioned above, a great way to use a long cord in a short space without worrying about eight feet of extra cord cluttering up the space behind your desk. This isn't quite the first time we've seen this idea, but it's a slightly different application, and certainly worth revisiting.

Google Reader Adds Favicon Support

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:25:00 -0800

Users of our very own Better GReader Firefox extension have been able to turn on favicon support for their feeds in the Reader sidebar for a while now (a favicon is, for example, the little 'lh' that displays next to the address bar when you're visiting Lifehacker); now the folks on the Reader team have caught up, adding favicon support for your subscriptions. It's not enabled by default, so you'll need to head to your Reader Settings page and tick the Show favicons for subscriptions checkbox to get it up and running. Good times. [Google Reader Blog]

Deals.Woot is a User-Run Bargain Site

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:00:00 -0800

Popular one-deal-a-day bargain finder website Woot has just launched a new section, deals.Woot, which instead of featuring one good deal chosen by Woot staffers, features a list of great deals found and voted on by Woot users.

TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid affectionately (and rather accurately) calls the portal the "Digg for bargains." The site features a list of user-submitted and voted-on deals from around the web, and, like the regular Woot site, is very tech- and gadget-heavy in its list of deals. There are still a few other things hiding inside the site, like coffee, t-shirts, and even bacon salt, but old fans of Woot and all technophiles will be happy with the plethora of deals available.

While most of the site is user-run, the deals on the top part of the page are all sponsored—that is, they are still deals, but they were submitted by retailers or manufacturers, not by users. The deals still need to be deemed worthy by Woot's staffers, but just keep in mind that they do not follow the Digg-style process that the rest of the site does.

Deals.Woot [via TechCrunch]

Gmail Now Lets You Add and Send Attachments Offline

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:30:00 -0800

Writing emails while offline can help keep you on top of things, especially while on the go. As of today, Offline Gmail allows you to add attachments to an email while you're offline, bringing essentially the full offline experience to Gmail.

No one likes sending out the "Oops! I forgot my attachment!" email following an incomplete draft. If you work offline with regularity, Offline Gmail's new offline attachment feature means less chance of forgetting. For those who have held off using offline access, here's how to get things started:

If you haven't tried offline access yet, visit the Labs tab and follow these instructions to get started:

Select Enable next to Offline Gmail.

Click Save Changes.

After your browser reloads, you'll see a new "Offline" link in the upper righthand corner of the Gmail page, next to your username. Click this link to start the offline set up process and download Gears if you don't already have it.

If you aren't using Offline Gmail just yet, take a closer look at what else it gets you.

Gadget and Gear Deals of the Day

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800

Heavily discounted noise-canceling headphones, HDTVs, hard drives, and even a NAS storage-unit with a built in Blu-ray burner are but a few of the things you'll find in today's deal roundup. Broke? Grab some free holiday tunes.

Hands-On Look at What's New in Office 2010

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0800

Now that we've had some time to play with the Office 2010 Professional Beta, we thought we'd share what's new and useful inside Microsoft's big suite. Take a gander at the pictorial evidence below.

Overall, Office 2010 is not the kind of leap forward that Windows 7 was from Vista (or, for most PC upgraders, from XP). It adds a lot of stuff that's previously been available only through plug-ins, makes performing the basic tasks of opening, printing, and sharing documents a good deal more convenient, and throws in a few new features that will expand the repertoire of those who really know their Office.

The free Office 2010 Professional Beta doesn't include access to Office's online component (ReadWriteWeb has taken a quick peek at them), and we'll mostly be sticking to Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint components on this tour. OneNote fans, you'll get your own peek soon enough! In the meantime, you can check out Microsoft's own video preview (Silverlight is, unfortunately, required).

For even more Office 2010 preview, with those new-fangled moving pictures, head over to Office 2010 in Videos, helpfully compiled into one place from YouTube by Adam.

On to the photos. Click any of them for a bigger (usually much bigger) view

Office as a whole

Many of Office 2010's best new features are present in every application across the suite.

In Windows 7, each app gets a taskbar integration that includes the very helpful "jump lists." Outlook makes the most use of jump lists, offering message templates and common actions. Other apps can have frequently-accessed documents pinned to their taskbar icons.

Backstage View: Hit the left-most tab ("File," usually) in any application, and you get the same sort of functionality as was available when you clicked the Office logo in Office 2007—just five times as helpful. The actions under each heading are broken up into clearly explained items with buttons that are easy to click—no more playing mouse cursor maze with sub-menus.

Under the "Share" tab is one of Office's most helpful features, an option to save to a SkyDrive account. That account, if you'll recall, offers 25GB of space in a nice web package. Saving to the SkyDrive does take a notable bit of time more than making a local save, and should be more automatic and integrated than hidden in the "Share" tab. Still, it's a nice security blanket for very important files.

There's also a "Publish as Blog Post" option in the "Backstage View" that works for most blogs that support remote publishing, although it's not quite a polished setup.

More useful to most users will be the fairly polished and customizable print options:

Editing and pasting text and images: "Paste Preview" gives you options right as you hit Ctrl+V, rather than making you root through menus to fix the garbled text you've just dropped in. From a tiny cursor menu, you can choose to keep or strip formatting and images, and see how it looks instantly:

Once the text is entered, you can apply some neat effects to it while keeping it able to be edited, and similarly see your changes in real time.

Office 2010's photo editing panel is much more powerful than its predecessors. A huge range of image effects can be instantly applied. Heck, if you want to give your images that Apple-like reflected-on-a-white-background look, that's one click. Alignment, re-sizing, cropping, and other tools are no longer sidebar-type actions, but front and center as tools.

Got an image stuck in the middle of a wonky background? Office 2010 can pull it out—sometimes auto-magically, sometimes after asking you to help define where that image actually is.

In Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote, there's a built-in screenshot tool that can grab the screen behind the Office window you currently have open, or allow you to switch to the window you're grabbing and then grab just a section of it. That's a nice option for putting together presentations with break-neck deadlines.

Excel

This editor is not an Excel wizard. In fact, he may or may not still be struggling with a COUNTIF() function to mark how many times he took a GPS-tracked walk in October.

Still, the Sparklines feature is instantly recognizable as a really helpful little widget. It turns single cells into mini-charts, which automatically update to reflect changes to the data they're tracking in whatever cells set you select:

Outlook

When you first start Outlook, you don't have to steel yourself for an intensive session with IMAP servers and SSL port numbers. In most cases, you can just point Outlook at your email address and password, and—even with a Gmail account—the app just reaches out and hooks into your email. This didn't work quite so well with our Google Apps-hosted Lifehacker mail, but likely would have worked fine with some manual configuration tweaks.

Here's the big view of Outlook's main screen:

Most intriguing of all is the inclusion of a "Quick Steps" toolbar. It's a killer feature that already caught our eyes, and it allows you to perform one-click, multi-step automated actions on any message:

PowerPoint

The most eye-opening feature in PowerPoint 2010 is its broadcasting capabilities. At the moment, it only works with Microsoft's own sharing service, but future plug-ins are promised for other screencasting services. Open the Slide Show tab, hit Broadcast Slide Show, and you'll get a link you can IM, email, or otherwise pass onto anybody with a web browser, and they can see your slide show, slide by slide, as you move through it.

Your guests are, of course, prompted to install SilverLight for a "better" viewing experience, but, as we noted, other services will be integrated for future slide show sharing.

The "Smart Art" clip art isn't exclusive to PowerPoint, but makes the most sense here, as it's meant to help you organize your thoughts visually, rather than find cute illustrations of cowboys and smiley faces:

Streaming video embedding, once a semi-tricky prospect, is now as easy as embedding on a web page. Paste in the embed code you get from just about any Flash-based video site, and it'll play in PowerPoint:

We're not professional-level Office users, but we did find a whole lot new and intriguing in Office 2010. The folks at I'm Just Being Manan and PC World have done their own digging and screen sharing, too.

What's your favorite feature from the Office 2010 beta? Share your finds, and paste screenshots, in the comments.

A Holiday Emergency Kit Keeps You Prepared for Anything

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:30:00 -0800

The holidays mean food, fun, and family—but they can also mean stress and frustration. Avoid small disasters by throwing together a holiday emergency kit to aid in rescuing your carpet, meal, or toilets from any unpleasant surprises.

Photo by xybermatthew

In holiday times such as Thanksgiving, the pressure and stress is on to create the best experience possible. It's also true that any problem that could arise often does, and being caught off guard can make it feel like the world is coming down around you. Home guru Bob Vila's weblog advises assembling a few household items that can save the day, or at least your sanity, when a few common holiday emergencies arrive. For example:

Hydrogen Peroxide. For wine stains on rugs or dresses. (It's Thanksgiving. Spills happen. Accept it and just be prepared to deal.) And this removal tip gets a five-star rating from readers.

CLR toilet and sink de-clogger. Let's face it, a mid-dinner toilet clog is worse than burning the turkey.

Check out the full list from BobVila.com which includes a few saviors when it comes to dull social interactions and alcohol. Do you have anything to add to the items above? What do you keep on hand—just in case? Sound off in the comments.

Chrome Extensions Gallery Open to Developers

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:00:00 -0800

The coming of Chrome's extension system has been teased in the browser's development releases, and their future web home now invites developers to submit their code for review and approval. If you're a developer, you can read up on the official Chrome Gallery policies. If you're a downloader like the rest of us, you can, well, hope your favorite add-on makers answer the call. [via Download Squad]

Hulu Adds Public Video Tagging

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0800

You're always pulling up that episode for friends—the one with the one-armed man, teaching lessons—and need to get to it quickly. With Hulu's new tagging, you can add up to 30 tags to a video for identification.

At the moment, the tags aren't working as part of Hulu's universal search bar, but we're presuming they'll get there eventually. In the meantime, the tags—which anyone can add to any video, and have "voted up" by other users—work as a kind of public catalog of what's happening in each video. Wondering if this is that Family Guy with the ridiculously long chicken suit fight sequence? It's safe to assume someone will have tagged it as such, and clicking the tag should bring up other videos with that same gag as well.

Windows 7 Migration Tool Transfers Profiles, Personalizations, Settings, and More

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:30:00 -0800

Windows XP: If you're thinking about moving to Windows 7 but dreading the migration, Windows 7 Migration Tool takes some of the hassle out of the process.

If you're upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 you don't need the Windows 7 Migration Tool, the built-in migration tool is fine and a Vista to Windows 7 upgrade doesn't require a wipe of the previous operating system. Moving from XP to Windows 7 is a little trickier thanks to the full system wipe that precedes the install of Windows 7.

Windows 7 Migration Tool comes in several flavors including a free basic edition. The free edition will check for compatibility issues, scan your XP installation for applications and save application settings as well as generate a list of applications you need to download—the basic edition doesn't automate the reinstall process for you unfortunately. It also transfers your desktop personalizations and the contents of My Documents.

Windows 7 Migration Tool Basic Edition is freeware, Windows only. Know of a tool for easy migration to Windows 7? Let's hear about it in the comments.

National Geographic Offers Stunning Natural Wallpaper

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

If you're a wallpaper junkie and nature lover, National Geographic's International Photography Contest is a great source for well-shot, fresh, decently high-resolution images to adorn your desktop with.

The long-running magazine has an extensive wallpaper-focused photography section, but as Web Worker Daily points out, those shots max out at 1280 pixels wide. That's fine for some monitors, but on most modern laptops and widescreen displays, that's pixel-stretching territory.

Over in National Geographic's photography contest section, however, the submitted shots can be downloaded at 1600 pixels wide, making for some fairly nice desktop wallpaper. Better still, the shots are numbered and formatted in fairly algorithmic fashion, so using the auto-download features of John's Background Switcher or another automatic wallpaper changer makes it very easy to get a fresh look on every boot-up.

Recipes for Brining a Better Thanksgiving Turkey

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:30:00 -0800

We've previously posted the "why" of brining your Thanksgiving turkey, with delicious scientific evidence. Looking for the "how"? Serious Eats offers up food science savant Alton Brown's brining recipe. Slashfood has also posted a choose your own spices brine mix, and L.A. Times food writer Russ Parsons previously shared a dry turkey brining technique that he claims gives the final result a less "sponge-y" texture than traditional salt solutions. Feel free to drop your own brine mixture in the comments, of course.

MediaMonkey 3.2 Syncs with More Devices, Adds Auto Folder Watching

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:30:00 -0800

Windows: We dig MediaMonkey for its album art and tag-fixing powers, but the free jukebox software can do so much more—like sync to nearly any smartphone or MP3 player, and automatically manage your music library.

The marquee feature in MediaMonkey 3.2 is expanded device support, including WebOS devices like the Palm Pre and Pixi, the latest iPods and iPhones, Android phones (as general USB storage devices), and many more. MediaMonkey's also added automatic folder watching to the free version, something previously available only in its paid Gold edition. And MediaMonkey also added in support for Windows 7's right-click taskbar feature, jump lists, showing recently played tracks, playlists, and other controls.

If you're toting a Palm, iPhone, Android, or other phone, MediaMonkey's worth checking out as an alternative to iTunes, and as its own seriously full-featured media player—and a spot to buy and manage MP3s from online stores like Amazon. MediaMonkey 3.2 is a free download for Windows systems only.

What Free Apps Are You Thankful For?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:00:00 -0800

We're a cheap lot around Lifehacker HQ, which is why we have a serious love affair with free software. As Americans get ready to give thanks over a big fat turkey dinner, we also want to remember the apps we're thankful for.

Photo by stevevoght.

In the spirit of the season, we want to hear about the free applications you're most thankful for on your computer. List a handful of your must-have freebies in the comments, and as we've done in the past, we'll round them up for Thursday in a cornucopia of downloading deliciousness.