Computers make us more productive. Yeah, right. Lifehacker recommends the software downloads and web sites that actually save time. Don't live to geek; geek to live.
Mac OS X only: If you prefer to open certain links in certain browsers, or are testing web sites for cross-browser compatibility, or you're just finnicky, Choosy will help you manage multiple browsers. Developed by George Brocklehurst, it's available as a free, public beta (and beta testers will get a significant discount on the full release). Set up a few preferences, and clicking on a link will bring up a choice of browsers in a system dialog familiar to users of Command+Tab to switch applications. Choosy is a free download for Mac only.
Windows/Mac only: Instant JPEG from RAW allows you to browse RAW photo files from a number of high-end digital cameras directly in Windows File Explorer and Mac OS X Finder. The software extracts the JPEG thumbnail usually embedded in a RAW file and makes it the file's system icon—which makes editing large batches of pictures much quicker and easier. Instant JPEG from RAW is a free download for Mac or Windows after registration (license key arrives via email).
Free webapp Scrumy helps teams manage and complete projects that will feel familiar to anyone who's used Scrum collaboration techniques developing software. Frustrated when cheap sticky notes refused to stay stuck to the wall, the folks from Knockout Apps decided to develop a digital solution. A free version is available, but to go pro it'll cost you $7 a month or $60 a year and you'll get extra features like automatically generated burndown charts to track your progress from day to day. Plus, you won't randomly get a clip from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air instead of your project. Check out the demo, and if you're not convinced, check out the team's "Professional Infomercial" after the jump.
With the popularity of micro-blogging tools like Twitter taking over the web, every character counts. There was a time when one service was the go-to option for shrinking URLs, but today you've got countless options for trimming an unwieldy URL—you can even tracking how many clicks your compacted URL has received. So, for this week's Hive Five, we want you to share your favorite URL shrinker. Keep reading for more details, then nominate the URL compactor you love and let us know why it's so great.
Hive Five nominations take place in the comments, where you post your favorite tool for the job. We get hundreds of comments, so to make your nomination clear, please include it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: URL Shrinker Goes Here. NEW RULE: Please don't include your vote in a reply to another commenter. Instead, make your vote and reply separate comments. If you don't follow this format, we may not count your vote. To prevent tampering with the results, votes from first-time commenters may not be counted. After you've made your nomination, let us know what makes it stand out from the competition.
About the Hive Five: The Hive Five feature series asks readers to answer the most frequently asked question we get?"Which tool is the best?" Once a week we'll put out a call for contenders looking for the best solution to a certain problem, then YOU tell us your favorite tools to get the job done. Every weekend, we'll report back with the top five recommendations and give you a chance to vote on which is best. For an example, check out last week's Hive Five Best Compression Tools.
Dear Lifehacker, Windows Media Player hijacked my MP3 files and converted them all to WMA. I want to change them back easily in one sweep—but am not the most savvy user. Help? Signed, Gimme My Beats Back Original photo by Mark Kobayashi-Hillary
Dear Gimme,
Microsoft has made some, ahem, interesting decisions over the years regarding the Windows Media Player user experience (and Apple is no saint in this regard, either). First, we'll take a look at how you can keep this from happening in the first place, and then we'll explain how you can fix the problem as cheaply and easily as possible.
Friends Don't Let Friends Use Default Settings Open Windows Media Player. Click the Library tab at the top, then click on the Layout Options drop-down menu and select Show Classic Menus. Now click Tools > Options... The first Options tab to note is Player. You might want to deselect "Add media files to library when played" — it will save you disk space (and format headaches) in the long run. Click the Apply button to save your changes. Rip Music is the most important tab. Under Rip settings, the default format is WMA, which is how our reader got messed up in the first place. At least you can select mp3 now — in version 9, only WMA was supported. Even more insidious is that Copy protect music is also checked by default.
Why someone would want to add DRM to music they already own on a CD is beyond me, especially since it means that the files won't play back on non-approved devices and any machine you copy the files to will have to be online to download permissions. Switching to mp3 will automatically turn this off. Finally, to get Windows Media Player out of your life, go to the File Types tab. De-select everything except for Windows Media File (ASF), Windows Media Audio file (WMA) and Windows Media Video file (WMV). That way double-clicking an MP3 file won't automatically open in Windows Media Player (which, if you didn't turn off the add media to library option, would also create a duplicate copy on your hard drive).
What's frustrating about this is that in writing this post, I turned off the file type associations once in the initial Windows Media Player setup wizard. But when I opened Options to make the above changes, all the file types had been re-selected — because unless you've installed another program to handle those file types (such as iTunes or Winamp), the Windows operating system will restore the defaults to Windows Media Player.
Format Conversion is Your Library's Salvation
Now at least you can use Windows Media Player to rip CDs without having to worry about your library being trapped in Windows Media Audio format with DRM. But your existing library is still trapped. What do to? If your WMA files aren't copy protected, iTunes will allow you to import your Windows Media Player library. However, by default it will convert them into Apple's proprietary AAC format. So after installing iTunes, don't choose to convert your existing library during the setup wizard.
Instead, go to Edit > Preferences. On the General tab, click the Import Settings button. Now select MP3 as your preferred format.
To import your Windows Media Player library, to to File > Library > Import Folder. Select the My Documents > My Music folder, and click OK. If you have a large library, this could take a while.
Open source music player Songbird will also import and convert your non-DRM Windows Media Player library into MP3 files. Or you can batch convert files with WinFF, a graphical interface for open source conversion tool FFMPEG — Jake Ludington has a guide, with video, on using WinFF. Once iTunes, Songbird or WinFF has converted your library, you can play, copy and share files any way you like — even with Windows Media Player
If you have a small library, or there are a few files that just refuse to cooperate with the above DRM-removal and format conversion tools, you could burn the tracks to CD and then re-rip as MP3s. Or try AnalogWhole — it's slow because it basically plays back the protected file, records the output, and then converts that to MP3. But it's free and it will defeat DRM on anything that plays back in Windows Media Player. You'll lose a little bit of quality in the conversion, but you'll gain back the freedom to play your music when, where and how you like.
The most important thing to remember is that you're not alone. Any readers out there care to commiserate in the comments and share some experiences and tips? In the meantime, we hope this helps.
DIY website Instructables demonstrates how to make an impressive and—dare I say—elegant vertical laptop stand with nothing but a coat hanger and a little ingenuity. You'd definitely want to find a thick, sturdy coat hanger before proceeding, and a few test runs may be necessary before you get it perfect. That said, the author's setup looks great, the stand seems easy to make, and the laptop stand concept is always useful if you want to work more ergonomically with your laptop.
Most of the time a BitTorrent download gets stuck, it's because the tracker can no longer find seeders who have the entire file available for download. Website btReAnnouncR resurrects dead BitTorrent downloads by scouring the internet for all torrent trackers following the same torrent. Once it finds alternate torrents, you can create and download a custom .torrent download file in which you select the primary and alternate trackers yourself. In doing so, you'll (hopefully) find several more peers that are seeding the same download. If you've ever spent hours downloading a file using BitTorrent just to find yourself stuck at 98% complete and desperately adding "Seed please!" comments to the tracker, btReAnnounceR might be just what you need. Still a BitTorrent novice? Our beginner and intermediate guides can help.
Gmail Mobile 2.0 adds basic offline email capability, performance improvements, and improved keyboard shortcuts for BlackBerry and J2ME-supported cellphones. This is a huge update, especially considering offline access is something that everyone is waiting for from a Google-built Gmail client (your IMAP or POP email client doesn't count). The update even adds quick switching between different Gmail and Google app accounts, along with all the rest of the great features that were already built into Gmail Mobile (like threaded conversations and search). Gmail Mobile is a free download, works with the BlackBerry and other J2ME-supported phones. (Raise your hand if you're waiting for Google to release a Gmail app for the iPhone/iPod touch.) We don't have a supported phone on hand, so if you give it a try, let's hear how the new features work for you in the comments.
When it comes to computers, you want it all: the portability of a laptop, the extensibility of a desktop, as well as the sleekness of Mac OS X and the wide selection of software for Windows. After virtualizing and dual-booting Windows on my MacBook Pro for well over a year, I'm done—done with slow virtual machines and "your hard drive is low on space" messages, done with having to switch gears to move from one OS to another. There's software and hardware I'm invested in that simply works better on a PC over a Mac (and vice versa) and I want it all at my fingertips every day. When you want to move between the two operating systems fluidly and get the full benefit of both a laptop and a desktop, a few techniques can marry your Mac notebook and PC desktop to live and work in harmony. Here's my current setup.
Share a Single Keyboard and Mouse Between Two Computers with Synergy
Adam's already run down how to control multiple computers using the Synergy KVM software, which is a fabulous way to save space on your physical desktop by only using one keyboard and mouse for your notebook and desktop. With Synergy you can also share your clipboard between machines, and seamlessly move your pointer from one screen to the other. One update to that article: The SynergyKM download for Mac is now here (the original host is MIA). In the Mac notebook/PC desktop scenario, you also only need one computer monitor, because your laptop screen serves as the second monitor.
Share Your Speakers Between Computers
Once you're committed to having two computers up and running, you've got to decide which gets your speaker hookup, right? Not necessarily. With a $5 audio splitter and a male to female stero cable, you can hear the sound from both your Mac and PC out of the same speakers. I've got the splitter plugging into my Mac's audio out jack, and my speakers plugged into one input, with the stereo cable plugged into the other—and into my PC's sound card.
Set Up a Fast IP-Over-FireWire Network Connection
Since you're going to be sharing your mouse and keyboard—as well as your data—over the network between your computers, you want the fastest connection possible. If your Mac and PC both have FireWire ports and you're running Windows XP, you can set up a fast, one-wire IP over FireWire network between them. This is totally optional, of course, because most likely both machines are on the same local network. But IP over FireWire will offer a much more stable, wired, and speedy connection for working with files on the other computer than a wireless connection.
Decide Where Your Data Lives—Then Map Your Drives
The tricky part about running two machines at once is figuring out where your data should live (unless you have a NAS or central server, but that's beyond the scope of this setup, which is simply one tower and one notebook). Much of this has to do with how much hard drive space you have where, and what files you want to be able to take with you when you go. The big space hoggers for me are my music collection and my photo collection. My music I want to take with me when I travel, so that stays on the Mac notebook. My photo archive can stay at home, under my desk, so that's going on my PC tower's hard drive. (I also greatly prefer Picasa for photo management than anything I've seen on OS X.) It should go without saying that both machines should have automated local and remote backups going on. (I'm using Time Machine on the Mac, SyncBack on Windows, and Mozy Home on both).
What's Better on OS X versus Windows and Vice Versa
One can't make a holy-war-starting, controversial statement like "some software and hardware is better on the PC or Mac" without backing it up. The following is just my opinion, plus a few software licenses and gadgets I invested money in on either platform. Your reasons for wanting both Mac and Windows may differ from mine, but here's what I'm using on each.
On the Mac: NetNewsWire, Quicken (purchased a license), Quicksilver, Time Machine, GeekTool, and DevonThink (purchased a license) are all superior pieces of software to their Windows counterparts, as far as I'm concerned. My Fujitsu ScanSnap for Mac and the built-in iSight are also two peripherals I'll only use with the Mac.
On Windows: I greatly prefer Digsby, Picasa, Chrome, SnagIt (purchased a license), and EditPlus (purchased a license) to their counterparts on my Mac. Preferences aside, there are also scads of Windows-only software you see day in and day out on these pages, including Windows-only portable apps (like the Firefox 3.1 beta portable version) that makes having Windows access a must.
On both Mac and Windows: Obviously Synergy is required to share the keyboard and mouse between systems, so it's installed on each. I'm also using the same KeePass database (stored on the Mac, accessed on the PC), and todo.txt file from both systems.
With a notebook/tower setup like this, you can travel and have all your files with you, but still get the horsepower and extensibility you need at your desk. If your job requires that you use Windows (like mine), but you still want your Mac, this alliance is also a great option.
How do you marry your Mac and PC? Any tips for dual-computer users? Shout 'em out in the comments.
The election is less than two weeks away, and Google's 2008 US Voter Info Map has just updated with a new map layer that shows you where to vote on November 4th (just give it your address). One of our top 10 web tools for this election season, the site still offers other useful information, like how many days you have left to request an absentee ballot (5 in California). [via]
Windows/Mac only: Instant JPEG from RAW allows you to browse RAW photo files from a number of high-end digital cameras directly in Windows File Explorer and Mac OS X Finder. The software extracts the JPEG thumbnail usually embedded in a RAW file and makes it the file's system icon—which makes editing large batches of pictures much quicker and easier. Instant JPEG from RAW is a free download for Mac or Windows after registration (license key arrives via email). 
Free webapp Scrumy helps teams manage and complete projects that will feel familiar to anyone who's used 
With the popularity of micro-blogging tools like Twitter taking over the web, every character counts. There was a time when 
The first Options tab to note is Player. You might want to deselect "Add media files to library when played" — it will save you disk space (and format headaches) in the long run. Click the Apply button to save your changes.
Rip Music is the most important tab. Under Rip settings, the default format is WMA, which is how our reader got messed up in the first place. At least you can select mp3 now — in version 9, only WMA was supported. Even more insidious is that Copy protect music is also checked by default.
Finally, to get Windows Media Player out of your life, go to the File Types tab. De-select everything except for Windows Media File (ASF), Windows Media Audio file (WMA) and Windows Media Video file (WMV). That way double-clicking an MP3 file won't automatically open in Windows Media Player (which, if you didn't turn off the add media to library option, would also create a duplicate copy on your hard drive).
If your WMA files aren't copy protected, 
Instead, go to Edit > Preferences. On the General tab, click the Import Settings button. Now select MP3 as your preferred format.
To import your Windows Media Player library, to to File > Library > Import Folder. Select the My Documents > My Music folder, and click OK. If you have a large library, this could take a while.
DIY website Instructables demonstrates how to make an impressive and—dare I say—elegant vertical laptop stand with nothing but a coat hanger and a little ingenuity. You'd definitely want to find a thick, sturdy coat hanger before proceeding, and a few test runs may be necessary before you get it perfect. That said, the author's setup looks great, the stand seems easy to make, and the laptop stand concept is always useful if you want to work more ergonomically with your laptop. 
Most of the time a BitTorrent download gets stuck, it's because the tracker can no longer find seeders who have the entire file available for download. Website btReAnnouncR resurrects dead BitTorrent downloads by scouring the internet for all torrent trackers following the same torrent. Once it finds alternate torrents, you can create and download a custom .torrent download file in which you select the primary and alternate trackers yourself. In doing so, you'll (hopefully) find several more peers that are seeding the same download. If you've ever spent hours downloading a file using BitTorrent just to find yourself stuck at 98% complete and desperately adding "Seed please!" comments to the tracker, btReAnnounceR might be just what you need. Still a BitTorrent novice? Our 
Adam's already run down 
Once you're committed to having two computers up and running, you've got to decide which gets your speaker hookup, right? Not necessarily. With a $5 audio splitter and a male to female stero cable, you can hear the sound from both your Mac and PC out of the same speakers. I've got the splitter plugging into my Mac's audio out jack, and my speakers plugged into one input, with the stereo cable plugged into the other—and into my PC's sound card.
Since you're going to be sharing your mouse and keyboard—as well as your data—over the network between your computers, you want the fastest connection possible. If your Mac and PC both have FireWire ports and you're running Windows XP, you can set up a 
The tricky part about running two machines at once is figuring out where your data should live (unless you have a NAS or central server, but that's beyond the scope of this setup, which is simply one tower and one notebook). Much of this has to do with how much hard drive space you have where, and what files you want to be able to take with you when you go. The big space hoggers for me are my music collection and my photo collection. My music I want to take with me when I travel, so that stays on the Mac notebook. My photo archive can stay at home, under my desk, so that's going on my PC tower's hard drive. (I also greatly prefer Picasa for photo management than anything I've seen on OS X.) It should go without saying that both machines should have automated local and remote backups going on. (I'm using 
The election is less than two weeks away, and .JPG)
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