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Battle of the Lifehacker Readers' Big Ideas Last week we asked you for your big tech ideas—the software and products you don't have right now but would love to someday—and as usual, you didn't disappoint. Tons of interesting product proposals came out of the fantastic comment thread that ensued, as well as a few "somebody already thought of that, here it is" pointers. We've pared down the list to some of the most impressive standouts to highlight here today. Check out some of your fellow readers' tech brainstorming babies and vote on which one you want the most. MORE »

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Mozilla Crowns Best Firefox 3 Extensions
Mozilla Labs announces the winners of their official Extend Firefox 3 Contest, and they're an impressive crop of new and updated extensions for your favorite browser. I was honored to serve on the judging panel for this year's contest (alongside some huge names in the browser biz), and we rated the entries based on how easy they were to use, and how well they took advantage of new features in Firefox 3. Let's take a look at this year's best new and updated add-on grand prize winners. MORE »

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Lifehacker Redesigned You may have already noticed our hard-working tech elves pushed a new design onto the site this morning. Let us know if you're having any troubles with our new look in the comments. MORE »

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Better Gmail 2 Gets Agenda Script, Redesigned Update Just published an update to the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension, which adds the excellent GmailAgenda user script (in the General options tab) and updates the Gmail Redesigned style. Download the latest version 0.6.1 here. MORE »

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TagSifter Slices and Dices Your Bookmarks by Tag
All platforms with Firefox: If you like Delicious' ability to filter bookmarks by multiple tags (like "programming" and "tutorial"), you'll love the TagSifter extension for Firefox. Now that Firefox 3 supports bookmark tagging—and you've got keywords assigned to all your favorite URLs—TagSifter can help you navigate, search, and drill down to exactly the link you're looking for. Like Delicious, TagSifter adds related tag suggestions, and offers advanced search operators that can find exactly the bookmark you're looking for. For example, the expression:
muffins - (cookies + brownies) ?donuts
will show you all bookmarks (and related tags) that are tagged with muffins but not with either cookies or brownies and whose names or URLs contain the string "donuts". MORE »

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Jott Out of Beta, Offers Paid Plans Beloved voice-to-text transcription service Jott comes out of free beta and offers new paid plans for access to advanced service features. An ad-supported free but limited plan, Jott Basic, is available. Beta testers have a "grace period" until September 8th to choose their new plan. Here's more on getting things done with Jott. MORE »

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Ask MetaFilter Roundup MORE »

Explorer++ Improves On Windows Explorer
Windows only: Alpha file manager Explorer++ is a promising free alternative to Windows Explorer that offers features it sorely lacks, like tabbed browsing, secure file deletion, file merging and splitting, instant command line access, and keyboard shortcuts. Explorer++ is still in alpha and may not be ready for full-time use the way Xplorer 2 is, but it's still a simple, functional, and free app worth keeping an eye on. If you're sick of Windows Explorer's paucity of features, shareware TotalCommander is our readers' pick for best alternative file manager; you can also power up Windows Explorer itself with free add-ons. Explorer++ is a free download for Windows only.
Explorer++ [via gHacks]
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Declutter Your Schedule to Find More Free Time Blogger Leo Babauta found more free time in his days by decluttering his schedule and "designing" his life to include important stuff and exclude the rest. Lots of good, familiar advice here on managing distractions, your to-do list, and streamlining work to make more time for leisure. MORE »

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Google Minus Google Searches Everything But Knol, Blogger, YouTube When you don't want Google content cluttering up your search results, the Google minus Google custom search engine cuts out pages from Knol, Blogger, and YouTube. [via] MORE »

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iPhone 2.0.2 Update May Reduce Typing Lag, Connectivity Problems Apple releases their second iPhone 2.0 software update through iTunes today. The release notes only say it includes only "bug fixes" (any fixes at this point are welcome, but faster typing and better 3G connectivity are the high hopes), and AppleInsider reports no new settings appear on your phone. If you install it, be prepared for it to undo your jailbreak. [via] MORE »

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Email Innovations You Want in Your Inbox
The basics of how email works hasn't changed much since its invention, but even forty years later, there are still tiny features and enhancements that can make dealing with large volumes of email easier. Your email client already provides message attachments, filtering, HTML email, auto-fill contacts, spell-checking, folders or labels, keyboard shortcuts, search, and an advanced spam filter. What else do you need? Well, as people rely on email as a primary means of communication, and everyday users deal with a mounting level of new messages per day, even more advanced features can help all of us keep our inbox under control. In honor of Mozilla Thunderbird 3's latest alpha release, let's take a look at some email innovations—some concept, some already available in various clients and plug-ins—that you want in your inbox. MORE »

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Lifehacker's In for Blog Action Day 2008 Happy to announce that Lifehacker will be participating in Blog Action Day on October 15th, which focuses on the issue of poverty this year. Got ideas on how you'd like to harness the power of the LH community for the forces of good? Let us know in the comments. MORE »

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It's Ubuntu, Baby
Reader Don Lelek shows off his Linux desktop: It's Hardy Heron running Conky, Awn, Conduit, Transmission, the global menu applet, music applet, Pidgin with the Facebook plug-in, and gnome-do. The transparent system monitor laid over the wallpaper photo of his beautiful baby daughter Trini is especially geekdadtastic. Nice one, Don. Show off your desktop in the Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell Flickr group.
Screenshot.jpg [Flickr]
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GmailAgenda Puts GCal in Your Gmail
Firefox with Greasemonkey: The GmailAgenda user script puts your Google Calendar's upcoming events on the right hand side of your inbox. This script is pretty straightforward: Once you install GmailAgenda, a panel appears on the right side of every view inside Gmail which contains your GCal agenda (as pictured). On my Mac, the agenda panel did white out intermittently, but even with slight bugginess it's usefulness makes it a keeper. GmailAgenda is a free download for all platforms running Firefox with the Greasemonkey extension. (Better Gmail users: I've asked the script author's permission for inclusion in Better Gmail; if I get the green light it's in.)
GMailAgenda [Userscripts.org via Google Operating System]
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This Week's Top Downloads MORE »

This Week's Best Posts Lifehacker posts overwhelming your feed reader? Subscribe to our top stories feed for all the good stuff without the extras. This week's most popular posts include:
  • Top 10 How To Videos
    "Your crafty older relatives used to have to mail-order their video tutorials or wait for "This Old House" reruns to get their DIY on, but the age of streaming video has been good to those who like to tinker and try out neat tricks."
  • iPhone 2.0 Jailbreak Apps You Can't Find in the iTunes Store
    "The iTunes' App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users hundreds of applications to install on their devices, but power users who want functionality above and beyond what Apple's SDK allows still want to jailbreak their device."
  • Google Redesigned Facelifts Gmail and GCal
    "All platforms with Firefox: Globex Designs, makers of the popular Gmail Redesigned skin, have released a standalone Firefox extension which applies the style without Stylish (or Better Gmail and/or Better GCal)."
  • Turn Your iPhone or iPod Touch Into a Multi-Room Wireless Music Remote
    "For a cool $1000, you can buy the Sonos Bundle 150 and wirelessly play music from a single remote control in two separate rooms in your house. On the other hand, for about $100 or less if you've already got the right equipment, you can get the same functionality from your iPhone or iPod touch."
  • Battle of the Media Collection Managers
    "When you've accumulated shelves full of DVDs and you want to track what's what—and which one you've loaned out to your pals and how long ago—a media collection manager is just the ticket."
  • Miro is Your TiVo for Internet Video
    "In the dog days of summer when there's absolutely nothing new on television (except the Olympics), it's time to start watching the web—and you need the right tool to do just that."
  • IKEA Laptop Stand and Organizer
    "Reader moritzvd repurposed a $20 Mackis CD storage drawer from IKEA into a killer laptop stand, organizer, and desktop declutterer."
  • Linux Desktops Dressed Up as Macs
    "Several Linux users in the Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell Flickr group are showing off their Ubuntu Hardy Heron desktops—dressed up as a Mac."
  • Pwnage Tool 2.0.2 Jailbreaks iPhone 2.0.1 Software
    "Mac only: The iPhone 2.0 jailbreak utility for Mac, PwnageTool, has just been updated to accommodate the latest iPhone software update from Apple."
  • Five Best Desktop Search Applications
    "As hard drives grow ever cheaper and capacious, keeping track of every file single file is a job suited to no one."
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Zoho Sheet Adds Macro Recording and Playback
Online office suite Zoho continues to push the envelope with advanced features you never thought you'd find in a webapp—this time it's macro recording and playback in Zoho Sheet, their online spreadsheet product. Instead of composing Visual Basic code by hand, Zoho Sheet can record a set of actions and play them back over other sets of data. Hit the play button to see this huge time-saving trick in action.
Zoho Sheet—-Macros - Zoho Writer
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BusinessWeek on Getting Things Done BusinessWeek profiles Getting Things Done author David Allen and offers a crash course in the GTD personal productivity system. Has GTD changed your life or jumped the shark? Let us know what you think in the comments. [via] MORE »

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What Tech Do You Have to See to Believe? Tech blogger Gordon Haff says that users often don't adopt technology that offers serious benefits because it has a high barrier to entry. He says TiVo is an example: the DVR changes the way you watch television, but it's one of those "have to use it to believe it" services.
TiVo the company has always had a great deal of difficulty explaining that transformation of TV watching. Especially early on, a lot of people viewed TiVo as essentially an enhanced VCR—when, in fact, the experience is qualitatively different. TiVo has been a tough sell to consumers because it required them to invest in a pricey piece of electronics for benefits that were hard to understand in the abstract.
What other tech out there do you have to really see to believe? I'd add a widescreen monitor and Twitter to the list. (Twitter has a low barrier to entry, but takes some time to accumulate friends and make useful.) What about you? What are the rest of us missing out on because we haven't committed to the investment? Let us know in the comments.
Barriers: Twitter vs. TiVo [The Pervasive Datacenter]
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Love and Money Thanks to this week's sponsors for the extra file folders, binder clips, and duct tape: American Express, Chevy Fuel Solutions, Microsoft Windows, Puma, Sharp Aquos, Sprint, Starwood Hotels, T-Mobile, and Unscrew America. See your name in lights and advertise on Lifehacker.
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Reader Picks for Best Movie Collection Manager: Delicious Library and DVD Profiler Yesterday's battle of the media collection manager software ended up with Delicious Library ($40, Mac only) far and away the most popular choice. Windows users, DVD Profiler ($30) was readers' choice for PC. However, 18% of readers chose "Other" and listed their system for cataloging DVDs in the comments. Photo by clipeuh94. MORE »

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Make Meetings Suck Less Dysfunctional corporate behavior expert Steve Tobak runs down three simple things that can make meetings at work suck less. Sadly for meeting attendees who often don't have a say in who's running the show, the meeting leader has a lot to do with it. Tobak writes that an effective meeting:
...is run by someone who is responsible for every aspect of the meeting including agenda, attendance, punctuality, and documentation. That person keeps everyone on topic and moves the meeting along.
Moving the meeting along means cutting off long-winded chatter, and keeping a "parking lot" for shelving tangential issues that aren't the main crux of the discussion. What's one little thing that could make meetings you attend less painful? Let us know in the comments.
Meetings suck, but they don't have to [Train Wreck | CNET News.com]
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Amazon Green Stocks Environmentally-Friendly Products Online superstore Amazon adds an Amazon Green section, which lists products customers have selected as most environmentally-friendly, from cleaning supplies to computers to personal solar chargers. MORE »

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Help Wanted: Gawker Media Seeks Comments Intern Lifehacker's publisher, Gawker Media, is on the hunt for an intern to pitch in managing reader comments. The intern will work on behind-the-scenes administrative tasks, provide oversight and customer service to commenters and report directly to Gawker's comments czarina. Strong communication skills, familiarity with Gawker blogs and commenting communities, and excellent decision-making abilities a must. Applicants should have several hours per day to devote to these duties. Send email with a link to your commenter profile, bio, resume, and subject line 'Comments Intern' to kaila (at) gawker dot com. All Gawker Media internships are paid. MORE »

Fill Out Our Survey to Win a $300 Visa Gift Card Let's make a deal: You tell us a few little things about yourself, and we'll give you a chance to win a $300 Visa gift card. Fill out our survey and enter your email address at the very end for your chance to win. Your responses really help us know who you are and what you like and how Lifehacker can better suit you, so thanks for taking the time! Fill out the quick online survey now. MORE »

Linux Desktops Dressed Up as Macs
Several Linux users in the Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell Flickr group are showing off their Ubuntu Hardy Heron desktops—dressed up as a Mac. Reader Stefan Neagu says:
Isn't it beautiful? Imagine running a superior operating system on cheap hardware, enjoying the benefits of much more expensive hardware.
Let's take a look at a few Ubuntu desktops passing as Macs with the help of a few add-ons like Compiz Fusion. MORE »

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