Spam Flood Blog

Happy Friday, 'hackers! If you're drowning in LH information overload, grab our stripped-down daily top stories feed, or just get a once-weekly digest of the cream of the post crop. Speaking of,...

Mac OS X only: Freeware app SetAlphaValue lets you create transparent windows in Mac OS X. SetAlphaValue gives Mac users a taste of Beryl for Linux by allowing you to set the level of transparency...

Web site Cameroid lets you play photo booth with any webcam in the comfort of your browser. The web site is basically a web version of Mac's PhotoBooth program, offering you different effects for...

Windows only: UltraMon adds tons of useful functionality and tweaks to your multi-monitor desktop. Of UltraMon's slew of features, the one that stands out most for multi-monitor users is probably...

The USB dance is that annoying game you play for about 10 seconds every time you try to plug in your thumb drive. You spend a few seconds flipping your drive back and forth trying to figure out...

According to Men's Health, you can gauge how done your steaks are by comparing the elasticity of the steak to the way the meaty part of your thumb feels as it progressively flexes. It works like...

Windows only: Determine what programs are using a locked file with freeware utility, WhoLockMe. We recently covered how to delete locked files, but let's say—rather than using a brute force...

...Andrew Mitry's Cross Platform Workstation! Big congrats to Andrew, whose workspace won out in the hardest fought poll of the contest—pulling out ahead with just 11 votes over the...

Looking at the history of computing, anyone can see that it wasn't until some brilliant folks connected a couple of computers together that the real fun began. Countless tools let you do all sorts...

If the Windows button on your keyboard has gone cold, lonely and unpressed, this fun video shows you 8 reasons to put it to good use. I'm a big fan of Win+D and Win+L, myself. Thanks, Watt! Hidden...

Thanks to this week's sponsors for helping us polish the silver of personal productivity: AT&T, Canon, Casio, Don Julio, Ipevo, Nokia, Sprint, TiVo, Toyota, Verizon, and Windows Vista. Want to join...

Windows only: Network manager NetStumbler lists all the wifi networks in your area, their signal strength and whether or not they're passworded. The Windows equivalent of yesterday's featured Mac...

Mac OS X only: So you've got a PowerPoint presentation to give on your Macbook, and you're all excited to channel Al Gore and use your Mac's remote to switch slides, but it doesn't work with...

Brave-hearted testers dying to know what direction Firefox 3 is going in can download the early alpha code-named Gran Paradiso, which will probably not support your extensions and is more a preview...

Next week Apple previews the new version of OS X, dubbed Leopard, at the Worldwide Developer's Conference; for now Wired News breaks down what we know about Leopard's new features, including Time...

We don't often profess our love for commercial software around these parts, but Parallels Desktop for Mac - the application that runs Windows XP and Vista on your Mactel in a virtual machine - has...

The Psycho Cats weblog offers a script that automatically installs the open source media player Songbird 0.2.5 in Ubuntu. The script automatically downloads Songbird, installs it, and adds it to...

Hack Attack: Turn your $60 router into a $600 router "After a relatively simple firmware upgrade, you can boost your wireless signal, prioritize what programs get your precious bandwidth, and do lots...

Glenn Wosley's Top 10 Mac Setups With Dell Displays had several readers commenting that Apple Cinema Displays are no different than Dell displays -- except when it comes to price. What's the verdict...

Mac OS X only: Freeware app Image Upload Widget allows you to upload images to ImageShack using a drag and drop widget. Image Uploader Widget does more than just give you an easy to use interface to...

Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Search, translate, convert, email, print, post to your blog, and copy any text on a web page with the Hyperwords Firefox extension. When I first checked out Hyperwords,...

Reader Jared uses Google Calendar to keep track of past events more than he does for future events. For example: My brother's birthday was last month, and I bought him a digital camera. Not long...

Pixel Beat compiled a list of of commonly used terminal commands. Linux/Unix, Mac, and Cygwin users should take note since most of these commands are not platform specific. The guide covers many...

The Hack Addict weblog details how to stream your iTunes library to your Wii using the free Wii Opera browser and previously mentioned MyTunesRSS. The method requires a little bit of setup, but the...

Mac OS X only: Free, open-source application Seashore is a light-weight image editor based on the GIMP. Seashore is built using GIMP's framework and is streamlined specifically for Mac OS X. Unlike...

YouTube has upgraded their embedded video interface to offer better navigation of related videos, easy access to embed code through the menu, and the ability to jump ahead in a video even when that...

Using Quicksilver, you can set up a timer to sleep, log out, restart, or shutdown your Mac. Here's how: Invoke Quicksilver and start typing which you'd like to do (Sleep, Log Out, Restart, or...

If you've ever tried copying and pasting a multi-line address into Google Maps just to reat to realize that an input box will only take one line at a time—meaning that you have to copy and paste each...

The time has finally arrived. Today your votes will decide 2007's Coolest Workspace. The lucky winner has got a cool $500 in Amazon scratch and major Lifehacker bragging rights. We've got 5 great...

Mac OS X only: Menubar utility Check Off is a very simple list of items with checkboxes that you can - you guessed it - check off as you complete them. Check Off is a very simple application, but...

A user at the Neowin.net forums demonstrates a simple registry tweak that expands Vista's Recycle Bin's right-click menu: [The registry tweak] replaces the Delete command from the Recycle Bin with a...

Linux only: Free open-source app Kflickr gives Gnome and KDE users an easy way to upload images to Flickr. Assign the photo's title, tags, description, upload size, license, photoset, and whether...

The Get Rich Slowly blog covers how to start a Roth IRA and where to do It. We recommended ING Direct, but the catch there is no Quicken download.

Just in case those itty-bitty links get lost on the sidebar, check out some listings of interest at Lifehacker Jobs: E-Commerce Director - Confidential, North New Jersey Web Software Developer -...

Our recent guest editor Kyle Pott did such a bang-up job posting last week we asked him to stick around. Join me in welcoming Kyle as Lifehacker's newest Contributing Editor. Kyle will be helping...

Mac OS X only: Wireless manager iStumbler shows you everything you need to know about the wifi, Bluetooth and Bonjour networks in your area. Yesterday after I me d4f ntioned the not-free WiFind, ...

The 80/20 rule says that 80% of consequences stem from 20% of causes (in economics.) Productivity blogger Scott H. Young says you can apply that rule to your life to cut out inefficiencies, like...

Wired blogger Scott Gilbertson says the new Camino 1.5 release is closer than ever to being a viable Firefox 2 replacement on the Mac.

How to: Turn your staircase into a set of drawers Get that pill down Automatically change your dictionary language in Firefox Disable drag-and-drop text editing in Word Protect your photos...

Google releases a directory of public calendars, including Netflix DVD release dates, Google logos, Orbitz travel deals and scheduled appearances of politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary...

Formerly Windows-only service LogMeIn offers a free OS X preview of their next version, which will be able to remote control your Mac over the internet. [via jkOnTheRun]