What do you get when you have space for a custom office setup, a good amount of cash, and the vision to make it all happen? Dozens of monitors and the need for your own personal power plant.
We've been watching Steve's office since he first posted the construction pictures into the Lifehacker Workspace pool. Slowly, we've watched his office take shape from a spackled room with naked monitor mounts into the jaw dropping display of computing power you see above.
Steve just finished the project and posted some pictures to update us, writing:
Originally there was to be 60 monitors, a mix of 19s and 24s however, it changed a bit and there is now 40 24" monitors and another 20 monitors offsite for development.
There is six computers running all the monitors, each computer has a core i7 975, 24 gb of DDR 3 memory, two SLC SSDs in raid 0 and a large amount of nvidia NVS 420s as well as Nvidia 9800 GTs.
This office is used for intraday trading and development.
And by "intraday trading and development" he means displaying the world's largest line chart screensaver when he isn't using it to build a better bomb and issue demands of monetary compensation to world governments—or something like that we'd imagine. Check out more pictures of his awesome setup below:
You can check out more pictures of Steve's office by visiting the various photo sets he shared during construction: Office construction, Office, and New Office Done.
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.
The Day Trader's Paradise [Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool]
Windows only: Free utility Disk Space Fan analyzes your hard drive usage to help you determine what's taking up space on your hard drive, representing it all with fancy visualization eye candy.
This month we highlighted 10 Google settings you should know, detailed how to set up a fully automated media center, stopped Google Buzz from showing the world your contacts and cluttering your inbox, and a whole lot more. Here's a look back.
We love the 
The internet has revolutionized nearly every form of media, and music is no exception. This week we look at the five most popular music streaming services to see how people are getting their music fix.
If you were impressed by the interesting results and novelty of a plain old pinhole camera, you'll want to check out these crazy pinhole cameras and their month long exposures.
If you're ever on the lookout for ways to reuse and recycle—or perhaps just to drink a lot of wine—this wine-bottle garden border is a clever and attractive repurposing project.
Google quickly launched a 
According to Android fan site Android and Me, every Android phone in the U.S. will eventually receive an update to Android 2.1. That's great news for Android users (like our own Kevin Purdy) who've been 
Smart Move Tape clearly identifies what room a box belongs in with color-coding and unmissable text so it's easy to get all your stuff in the right place when you're moving.
Android's been around for more than a year, and in that time developers have whipped up some great apps. Whether you're a new Android owner or a pro looking for new tools, these 10 great and free apps belong in your arsenal.
In some ways, this is a vote for the potential of 
Until the latest upgrade, we couldn't have really called Listen a king among podcast apps—it had a few irksome bugs, one of them being the loss of episodes and, sometimes, subscriptions. Now, however, Google's own app does a great job not only of finding audio content, but it exports your subscriptions to be managed in Google Reader, ensuring a full feed backup and easier retrieval of past episodes you want to head back and hear. If you need more fine-grained podcast control, try 
You can drop a lot of neat things on your Android home screen, but you can't quite get one-click access to everything in your phone's settings and extras. 
There's no browser syncing on the Android—yet (c'mon, Mozilla, get on that Firefox Mobile!). In the meantime, there's 
You use your Android smartphone differently than your desktop computer. You don't work with files and shortcuts, so much as you check in on the streams of data you care about—email, text messages, Facebook and Twitter, chat, and the like. 
Okay, at first we were 
PDANet is the easiest way to use your phone's cellular net connection as a makeshift internet access point, for those hard-up situations when you just need to get online somehow, anyhow. The free version always offers basic internet access, but restricts secure site connections after a trial period. The paid version isn't cheap ($30), but it is the easiest of the 
Like your regular computer, your Android phone runs more slowly and bogs down more often if it has a multitude of apps running constantly in the background. Few apps provide a direct, easy "Quit" option, though, and the phone's own process manager is a pain. Enter 
This one's only free until March 31, so be sure to jump on it if you think there's even a remote chance you'll want some killer security tools available to you. 
This is one of those apps you hope gets some attention, if only to be bought by Google or otherwise integrated into the basic phone software. 
Whether you want to make fully organic granola bars, you can't find bars without ingredients you're allergic to, or you can't find granola bars anywhere with dried mango in them, making your own granola bars lets you get it just right.
Sometimes the best way to make a tough decision is the tried-and-true pros and cons list. Web site ProConLists does the same pro versus con listing, but with item weighting based on rational and emotional considerations.
One of the most powerful features in Firefox is also one too few people know about: the ability to create and use more than one profile at the same time. Here's how to streamline and reap the benefits of multiple browsing profiles.
Creating a new profile is a lot easier than you might think, but there's no default menu item that allows you to open the profile manager easily. If you install the ProfileSwitcher extension in the "Switching Profiles the Easy Way" section below, you can use it to create new profiles via a menu item; if you want to go that route, skip down to that section; either way, here's how to do it without the extension:
If you'd rather not mess with command line arguments and new shortcuts, you can switch between profiles or launch the profile manager the easy way with the 
The biggest problem with maintaining multiple profiles is utilizing the same passwords, bookmarks, and settings across the various profiles, and 
This Sunday is the last day users still running Windows 7 RC will be able to go about their everyday computing before Windows 
If you're looking for a clever way to reuse portions of books before sending them off to be recycled, turning the covers into postcards is a novel way to give them one last send off.
All of her kits are "open source hardware", meaning she gives away all the designs. You don't need to buy anything—you can make your own kits and even start a business selling them if you wanted (some have!). If you check the Maker Faire site you can see if and when a 
Phil Torrone is Senior Editor of MAKE magazine, contributing editor to Popular Science, and creative director of 
Buying life insurance can be a pretty confusing affair, what with all the different options and plans available. Finance blog Get Rich Slowly helps sort it all out and explains what to look for in a policy.
iPhone: We've always been big fans of 
Earlier this week we discussed 
Google has added a new Location feature to their Options sidebar, allowing you to filter search results to find things near you. To access it, click the Show options link near the top of the search results page, then click the Nearby link. (You can also customize the location if your default isn't right and tweak the search depth based on city, region, or state.) It's interesting to watch as more and more web services incorporate location; part of the original importance of the web was its ability to make location irrelevant, but clearly location is an important part of the web's future. [
With our 
I pointed out to them that this was going to be inordinately restrictive. I could pull out maybe 4, 5 episodes, but if the guy had to go travel somewhere in every episode, you know, we were kind of in trouble, logic-wise (laughs). They said, well, we're not going to un-sell it, so you have to come up with something else that works. That's where the process began, and the end result was MacGyver.
Zlotoff: The trick with those, I rely on a circle of friends to both come up with them and judge them. But you want to come up with something that isn't completely far-fetched, that could really happen to someone some day, so that it might have some useful value some day. ... It shouldn't be so difficult that there isn't any of solving it, so you want to have at least a vague idea of a solution. You give a number of elements of what you have there, some of which are red herrings, some of which you might really need.
Zlotoff: Well, I believe they've made a MacGruber movie, and are planning to release it sometime in the next couple months; there are trailers out there. When I discovered this project was in the works, we basically informed them we thought they were infringing on our copyright. They basically said, well, we don't think we are. Now it's kind of in the hands of the lawyers, and I've been advised, sort of, not to discuss this. But it's one thing to do a skit on Saturday Night Live, it's another thing to enter the exact same marketplace, with a feature-length movie, while we're in the process of trying to put together a real MacGyver movie.
Another Friday means another week under your belt, and hopefully the end of this month means another paycheck in your pocket. Take a hard-earned break inside this week's open thread.
We're huge fans of the DIY ethos here at Lifehacker, and we've shared guides over the years covering everything from 
You might have assumed we'd start off talking about money, but time is an even more limiting factor in many instances. You may not have the time or the money to fix a plumbing problem in your house, but you have to suck it up and put the house call from the plumber on a credit card to avoid having a leak in the basement destroy your house and fill it with mold. You may want to insulate and drywall your unfinished basement, and you might even have the skills to do so, but if you're working 80 hours a week when exactly is that going to happen?
Many DIYers want to do everything themselves because they enjoy the very act of DIYing a project and the learning experience that comes with it. Not every DIY opportunity is a cost-effective one however. You can for instance, teach yourself all about pouring and shaping concrete when it's time to replace your driveway, but that's a back-breaking, messy, and time-consuming task to add to your weekend projects list. Hiring out the pouring of a new driveway is obviously cost efficient for someone with no experience or access to the necessary tools and supplies.
Last summer I had a new roof put on my house. When the numbers were crunched and things like buying or renting roofing supplies and tools were factored in, it was cheaper—although not by as much as you'd think—to roof my own house than to hire it out. While on paper it made sense to do the roof myself with the help of a few friends, the reality of the situation off the paper was much different. I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the roof quickly—it's a big roof!—so there was a risk that I'd get caught in a huge summer storm before the roof was put back on.
The 
It's no secret that most people hate meetings—and with good reason. Meetings are often terribly ineffective and a huge waste of everyone's time. Reclaim a meeting with a good argument.
A solid kitchen knife paired with some knife-handling know how goes a long way towards making cooking a more enjoyable experience. Check out this video and accompanying guide to get the basics down.
Earlier this week the credit industry was changed by new consumer protection laws. They're hardly taking the cut in profiteering laying down, however, and it's up to consumers to protect themselves from new money-grabbing tactics.
Windows: Some sound card software packages provide it and some laptop hardware vendors include it, but for the majority of Windows users the only on screen volume display they see is the tiny speaker icon in the system tray.
While the personal music collection will never go away completely, more and more people get a significant portion of their daily dose of tunes from streaming services. Which service is best?
If you're good at something and your friends know it, it can get boring—and time consuming—to answer the same question over and over again. Blogger Brett Kelly suggests creating a web page that answers the questions you get asked most.
Ed. note: Gever Tully, DIYer and author of 
In a series of blind taste tests performed by The Atlantic's Corby Kummer, he found, to his surprise, that much of Walmart's new locally-grown fruits and vegetables taste just as good as (and sometimes better than) what you'll find at higher end stores like Whole Foods, but at a far better price. Kummer bought a bunch of fresh eggs, cheese, spinach, pears, and other locally-produced food from both Walmart and Whole Foods, cooked up a meal, and invited a bunch of friends over for a blind taste test. Here's what they discovered:
A well-stocked toolbox is indispensable for DIY projects and home repairs. Use this guide to select versatile and dependable tools that will help you with a lifetime of projects.
Windows only: If you've got an application with a really ugly icon, or you just want to get some hard-core nerdy action with your desktop customization, Resource Hacker is the tool for the job.
Ed. note: Despite our love for technology, we know how temperamental it can be—Reader Alex writes in with a tip to avoid letting tech problems ruin your next presentation, and keep you on top of the information to boot.
Windows: Back in November we 
The very definition of frustration: You and your significant other or roommate arrive home after work and discover you each remembered to stop for milk—but neither of you bought cat food. ZipList puts an end to uncoordinated shopping trips.
I live in an actual electronics factory and let me tell you, what Jeri made was really, really incredible. She reverse engineered and designed the entire Commodore 64 audio and video system on a 
The chassis picture to the left is from Jeri's late teens and early 20's when she hand-built a race car chassis from piles of tubular steel.
Pictured above: Jeri Ellsworth showing her homemade (working) Nintendo purse at a semiconductor show the same day as a roller derby event she skated in.
HDTVs, laptops, hard drives, crazy dual-screen cameras, and discounted e-book readers await in today's Dealhacker roundup. As always we've got free loot to share. Like to score deep discounts on random stuff? You'll want to check out the in-progress Woot Off!
At the kick-off of our 
Reader Phil emailed in to direct us to this 
Reader Chirag submitted a simple but problem-solving fix he uses for semi-securing luggage in a way that deters would-be thieves with a lazy streak, but doesn't require the TSA to bust open a $10 lock on every flight:
Dave submitted a tale that saved him around $40, restored his tried and tested car, and cost him literally one cent, along with some elbow grease:
Reader Timothy wrote in with a tale of both geeky necessity and on-the-spot electro-engineering:
Edward wrote us to point out a 
Commenter 
Finally, commenter 
It was said to be coming, and now it's arrived: 
Netbooks and ultra-portable laptops may be convenient, but they don't always have the horsepower to get done what you need. Mobile-obsessed blogger James Kendrick suggests using 
Firefox: If you hate having to search through your folders every time you change the type of file or directory you're saving to—and we certainly do!—Save File To helps you make custom context menus for file saving bliss.
Adam Baker, blogger at 
Windows/Mac: It also adds improvements for the opera:config page and local storage, but the newest beta of the 
Gmail has officially integrated several of our favorite Labs-only features into Gmail proper, including previously mentioned features like 
Steve Jobs puts on his birthday hat, Yelp gets sued, Twitter and Yahoo team up, and Internet Explorer 6 loses one more link to life support.
Dear Lifehacker,
Some people have an extra $1,000 just lying around to buy a digital projector. Unfortunately, most of the people that I know, myself included, do not. Here's how you can build your own digital projector on the cheap.
1. Case It
2. Remove the Backlight
3. Higher Ground
4. Cool It
Randy Sarafan is a new-media artist who is currently a Virtual Fellow with the cutting-edge F.A.T. (Free Art and Technology) Lab; is a top project contributor and community manager at Instructables.com, the leading user-generated how-to website; and has contributed to Make magazine. His new book, 
Many hotels have coffee makers right in the room, but dumping some grounds in and flipping the switch rarely makes a good cup of Joe. The Atlantic's Jerry Baldwin offers useful tips for improving the brew you make in your hotel room.
Last month we showed you how an 
Windows only: Portable utility Mute on Lock turns off your system speakers whenever you walk away and lock your workstation, but it also provides a quick shortcut key for toggling your speakers on or off.
If you don't have a knife sharpening kit and you're in between taking knives down to the cutlery store to get sharpened, you can put a little bite back into your knife with a coffee mug.
It's easy to mindlessly pay off your monthly credit card bill without giving much attention to what you were charged for (especially if you've 
They just had a super cute kid recently, I'm predicting their little brainiac will be featured on Lifehacker quite a bit, likely starting in a few weeks with some type of 3D fabbed infant innovation. For now, this happy mutant is having fun in a 
And lastly, a quick and clever hack: 
Most of us are more than happy to forget a screwup at work, a project that didn't pan out, or even a bad experience at a restaurant. Remembering your mistakes, screwups, and bad experiences, however, can keep future ones at bay.
If the DIY community had a universal symbol, it most certainly would be a roll of duct tape. Inexpensive, abundant, strong, and ready to stick to nearly anything, this versatile DIY companion is a must in your DIY toolkit.
Today we're launching a new site feature designed to help readers (re)discover some of the best content we've posted over the years, tentatively called 
Ed. note: When we saw that Wichita-based coder Chad Smith had 
If you're looking to set up an elegant portal for your online identity that brings together social networks and other aspects of your online presence, Flavors.me is as simple and easy to use as it gets.
Your start page is the first thing you see when you open your browser or load a new tab—your gateway to the rest of the web. Get the most from your start page with one of these five favorites.
Reader Charles Kim has tried every 
If you'd like to expand your beer repertoire without paying top-shelf premiums, it's time to capitalize on the revival of the growler and head over to your local micro brewery.
According to the New York Times, education and well-being trends in the U.S. seem to demonstrate a strong correlation between happiness and education. As the NYT author is quick to point out, correlation does not equal causation, but hey—we could all use an excuse to do a little more learning, and what's a better pay-off than happiness? Photo by 
Next time you inadvertently ding or bruise a piece of beloved wooden furniture, head to your pantry. According to all-things-home blog Apartment Therapy, all you need to cover up that ding is a single walnut.
Want a little stronger security lock-down for your iPhone than what the 4-digit PIN offers? Weblog 9 to 5 Mac details how to enable a more secure alpha-numeric passcode on your device with a few tweaks.
Microsoft's powerful home theater centerpiece, Windows Media Center, is easily one of the best applications that ships for free with Windows. But you can still make it better—and take it into new realms—with these plug-ins, helper apps, and tweaks.
It's a small little hack, but 
Vista only: Windows 7 sports 
The Xbox 360 makes for a pretty killer Windows Media Center extender, allowing televisions not directly hooked to a computer to still deliver the Media Center experience. While the 
The nation's television entities have spent a lot of time and money making sure you recognize their corporate branding. You may as well put that subconscious recognition to use when browsing your TV listings from afar. 
If you were to ask us what's missing from Windows Media Center, we'd say, mainly, streaming media like Hulu and YouTube, and killer local file handling. One smart and generous hacker has solved those deficiencies by making it easy to switch over to 
If you wanted commercials, you'd watch live TV. If you want them gone from your media center experience, and you don't mind the subtle karmic shift in doing so, there's apps to tackle that, both inside and outside WMC. 
We're really glad 
If all you're looking for is a way to see metadata and fancy graphics around your movies, 
Windows Media Center is built for the at-home experience, but why shouldn't you be able to tell it what to record, watch what it's already recorded, and otherwise manage your media from anywhere? 
As Lisa put it, this is pretty much a required add-on. 
If you're impressed with "string shades" that have been appearing in trendy décor magazines of late—but not impressed enough to spend $$$$ on one!—this simple DIY project will help you make your own lampshade with a modern flair.
Windows/Mac: VoxOx is a snazzy chat and social networking app for keeping in touch with your friends. 
Google Voice may have its 
You normally access a shortcut's properties through the right-click menu, but when you're dealing with a Windows 7 pinned taskbar button, that's just going to pull up the 
Photoshop stepped onto the scene 20 years ago today, changing the face of photoediting, altering the way we weight the truthfulness of images, and introducing "'Shopped!" into the language of internet pundits everywhere. Check out our most popular Photoshop tutorials inside.
If you've taken the leap and 
It should come as no surprise that money is a pretty powerful motivator for workers, but an article by researchers at Harvard Business School says it takes more than cash to keep employees happy and productive.
This clever hack is dependent on you living in a sub-freezing locale with an abundance of snow, but if you meet those requirements you can give your rugs a thorough deep cleaning using nothing more than snow.
Mac OS X: If you want to be able to select your "default" browser on a link-by-link basis, directing some links to Firefox, others to Chrome, and so on, Choose Wisely allows you to do so.
Close that 
Firstly we need to install two plugins to EventGhost. ‘Directory Watcher' and ‘XBMC', you can find these in the ‘Plugins' menu (see the small image to the left). To ensure that your movies are scraped automatically as well, install two copies of ‘Directory Watcher'
You can fine-tune who can see virtually every aspect of what you do on Facebook, except what you share via Facebook applications—until now, that is. The Facebook Blog 
MEETorDIE takes a humorous approach to a serious issue—how much money is wasted by large staff meetings.
Tech-savvy chefs pull off amazing dishes with sous vide, or cooking vacuum-sealed food in temperature-controlled water tanks. If you've got an instant-read thermometer and a vacuum sealer, you can produce similarly paradigm-shifting steaks with a DIY sous vide setup.
The last thing you want in the present economy is for a simple oversight or cliché on your resume to send it to the trash can. This list of resume-killers can help keep your resume out of the trash.
The newest generation netbooks sport a strong enough CPU/GPU combo to handle HD content, but millions of netbooks have a much lighter pairing that needs a little help. This guide will help get you stutter-free HD content on your netbook.
If you're looking to buy tickets to a sporting or music event, pay a visit to SeatGeek before you hit Buy at your regular vendor.
Android: Google's 
In a test on a few objects this morning, Shopper was pretty impressive when it came to books and CDs. It was fast and efficient, too, over a (T-Mobile) 3G connection, bringing back results almost instantly. In the example pictured up top, the result was slightly askew—an audiobook CD instead of a paper book—but the results included the right product. Those results arrive in the form of a simple item-store-price list, though, and could be a bit more helpful. For our money, 
It's the first thing you see when you open your browser every morning or fire up a new tab; it's your blank page, dashboard, or gateway to the web. This week we want to hear about your favorite start page.
iPhone/iPod touch: We've been 
If you want to be financially successful, it's important to clamp down on your spending. On the other hand, allowing yourself to budget money for a single regular indulgence might be an effective way to keep your overall spending on track.
If you'd like to discovery some new music and do it in a visually appealing way, TuneGlue lets you explore the relationship between artists and bands in a connection-based web.
Windows only: Replacement file manager Double Explorer adds tabbed browsing and a dual-pane view for navigating your files, but unlike a full replacement application, it embeds a normal Windows Explorer screen into each pane.
Two years ago we predicted that 
This week we helped protect you from the big bad Buzz, showed you a few tools for finding cool stuff nearby, and rolled up our sleeves to clean up your PC.
Nothing says "I'm thinking of you" better than a box of chocolate truffles. Unless of course they're homemade chocolate truffles, and then, well, that's just too cool for words. These yummy Valentine's Day candies come together with only three ingredients.
iPhone only: 
Windows only: Panda USB Vaccine disables autorun on your PC to protect you from being infected, but also protects your USB drives from spreading viruses when you use them in another PC.
On Wednesday we asked you to 
Dear Lifehacker,
The first thing to check out is a schedule of events so you know exactly when your favorite events are taking place. The event's official website, 
If you want a little local Canadian flair added to your viewing, watch the Olympics via 
Giving a presentation is a nerve-wracking experience for most people, so delivering a smooth, end-right-on-time presentation is a tall order for a lot of us. Take a cue or two from popular author and speaker Malcolm Gladwell to give a stronger presentation.
Grab your box of waxy chocolate and chalky candy hearts, then step inside; your weekly open thread starts now.
Start pages are a dime a dozen, but considering how many times you open a new tab every day, it's nice to have something attractive to look at. Web site Fav4.org is a minimal start page that'seasy on the eyes.
Last week Lifehacker reader 
Socking away money for a rainy—or flat out life-altering—day is sound advice. Rather than simply stuff money away and forget about it, establishing an emergency plan can help your money do more than wait.
Firefox: Every new version of Firefox offers enticing new features, but the real question is whether or not your beloved Firefox extensions are ready for the jump. Is It Compatible? puts the compatibility information right in your add-ons window.
More and more you'll find yourself not being the only photographer at an event. Divvyshot offers a simple way to not only share your own pictures, but to create open albums others can contribute their event photos to.
Android: Got an Android phone? Got contacts on AOL Instant Messenger, or chatty friends on Facebook? AIM now has an official chat client in the Android Market, one that can run in the background and connect to Facebook and Twitter too.
Aviary Phoenix, a really powerful and 
That's certainly a help for anyone getting into Buzz just now. Then again, Google touts in the same post the "tens of millions of people" who have logged into Buzz in some way, creating 9 million posts and comments, and those folks have to discover the non-public option on their own. The post also explains that blocking new followers is one of the two options you'll see when you jump into Buzz, and that followers without a public profile won't be seen in your profile until they create one.
Just because your netbook came with an operating system pre-installed doesn't mean you're stuck with it. If you've swapped out your OS—or stuck with it because it rocks on the netbook!—now's your chance to rave about your netbook-friendly operating system.
Windows/Mac: Unfortunately the iPhone and iPod touch lack the ability older iPods had to run in Disk Mode. That's where iPhone Explorer steps in, allowing you manually manage files on your device, or just use it as a flash drive, without jailbreaking.
We recently showed you how to 
Yesterday we 
If you fold like an orgami swan at the idea of making a birthday toast in front of a group of people or going to a party by yourself, then you might like self-improvement blog Dumb Little Man's tips for overcoming shyness.
Facebook may have 
Computers, monitors, and all manner of peripherals that print, shoot video, and incrementally increase your power bill await in today's Dealhacker roundup. Freebies abound for you to indulge your inner-freeloader with: music, games, and goodies of various sort.
If your workplace or school's extra-restrictive internet filter has you pulling your hair out during the occasional browsing break, there's hope! Here's a quick look at how to get around heavy-handed browser restrictions with the open-source 
Once you've downloaded WAMP, go ahead and run through the installer. It's a pretty basic install, and when you're done, launch the WAMP system tray application. After you do, you'll notice a new icon in your system tray (it's the one that looks like a speedometer). WAMP's running, but it's still not turned on. To put WAMP online, left-click the system tray icon and click Put Online.
Above, Windows users installed a web server bundle called WAMP—in which the 'W' stood for Windows. Mac users, appropriately, have 
Now it's time to fire up MAMP. Open the MAMP folder you dragged to your Applications folder, then double-click MAMP.app to launch it. On this first run, click the Preferences button in MAMP, click Ports, and then click the Set to default Apache and MySQL ports button. Hit OK (enter your password to confirm), then point your browser to 
Now we want to install PHProxy on your server. I'm using "install" pretty loosely here; assuming you've already 
To find your server's root directory on Windows, just click the WAMP system tray icon and click www directory (which, on my Windows 7 installation, is located at 
By assigning a domain name to your home server, you can create an easy-to-remember URL like mycrazyproxy.selfip.com, rather than typing in 76.189.XX.XXX every time you want to access your home server.
If you need a quick and dirty light tent but you don't want to shell out for a commercial model or spend time building a DIY version, this light tent can be built in a matter of minutes from office supplies.
While it's true that sometimes nothing beats the atmosphere and personal attention of dinner at a fine restaurant, it can also set you back $100 or more. Try re-creating the experience at home for less than half that amount.
Wise budgeting, spending, and saving will help you build a retirement fund and meet your other financial goals, but what happens then? Finance blog Get Rich Slowly takes a look at what to do once you've feathered your financial nest.
Google Chrome: Lightbox is a widely adopted image-preview script—if you've ever clicked on an image and had it fade the background and enlarge the image, that's Lightbox. Image Preview is a Chrome extension that brings Lightbox-style previews to all sites.
Windows only: If you've ever wanted to assign a shortcut key directly to your favorite applications, you can do so easily with this simple AutoHotkey script.
When the Apple iPad launched, only 15% of Lifehacker readers 
When exercise companies started designing exercise bikes with televisions built into them, they were certainly onto something. Mount your laptop on your exercise bike or elliptical machine with this rock-solid build.
Windows: Ever download a movie from—oh, I don't know—some far-reaching nether-region of the internet, and when your download finishes realize the video is split into multiple parts? AVI Joiner quickly combines those split videos in just a few clicks.
Ugly cords are the obvious villain in your gadget-charging clutter, but even if you put together a nice charging station, you've still got to sacrifice some counterspace to your charging station's footprint. This clean, wall-mounted charging station tackles both problems.
Windows: Desktop Eye is a small sidebar gadget that puts security camera monitoring in an unobstrusive widget and saves you from running a bulky separate application that may not always be in focus where you can see it.
E-book readers are popular for reading digital books, but they've got their limitations. If you have a netbook, you already have a powerful and virtually unrestricted portable e-book reader on your hands. You just need to know how to set it up.
I'm highlighting the Kindle for PC software first for only one reason. If you want to semi-recreate the experience of having a Kindle without actually buying a dedicated Kindle, you can install Kindle for PC on your netbook. Unless you absolutely want that experience we can see no reason at all to install Kindle for PC. You cannot manage your personal library of e-books and documents with Kindle for PC, so you're essentially importing the experience of having a DRM-locked down Kindle onto your netbook. If you have a lot of e-books already and don't have a relationship with Amazon as your e-book provider, Kindle for PC was a no-go right out of the gate for me.
Calibre is an open-source solution for not just reading e-books and other portable document formats but also organizing them in a meticulous fashion. Calibre isn't just a great option for viewing e-books in a vertical oriention on your netbook; it's a great option for organizing your collection, downloading news to read on your netbook-turned-e-book reader, and even syncing your collection to actual e-book readers if decide to invest in one later on. Calibre supports nearly every portable document format out there, although less common formats like the CBR comic book container format require conversion—Calibre handles all the conversion in-program.
Mobipocket Reader has a similar layout to iTunes and gives you a more Kindle-like experience on the Netbook than the actual Kindle for PC software can provide. Where the Kindle for PC software falls flat and Calibre shines with organization, Mobipocket Reader stands out for having all the neat annotation, bookmarking, and interface tweaking aspects you find in the Kindle Reader but brought to Windows without all the DRM-hassle. If you've been pining for a Kindle but find the Kindle of PC experience to be lacking, it's worth checking out Mobipocket Reader for a bells-and-whistles portable reader. If you fall in love with Mobipocket Reader Desktop on your netbook you'll be pleased to know you can get versions for your Blackberry, Windows Mobile phone, Symbian phones, Palm, and several dedicated e-book devices.
If you don't like seeing NSFW or kid-inappropriate videos popping up in your search results and suggested videos, YouTube now has a Safety Mode to do the heavy-lifting for content filtering for you.
Having a very sharp knife goes a long way toward preventing disastrous knife slips, but there are oh-so-many ways of cutting yourself with any kind of knife. Tom Mylan, a Brooklyn butcher, shares his hard-earned tips on avoiding bad blade slips.
Ubuntu has a unified notification system that posts to your desktop's upper-right corner (unless you 
Windows: If you want to print a large image off your home printer and be able to reassemble it, it takes some enormous photo editing cut 'n crop patience—or a copy of Easy Poster Printer.
Not to be left out of the 
Browser maker Opera plans to unveil an iPhone version of its 
We've all got the best of intentions when it comes to recycling, but your home's recycling spot can quickly become cluttered and underutilized. The Re-Nest blog offers advice and inspiration on crafting a recycling station that really works, and actually fits.
It's often said that the best organization and filing systems are the ones you use. If you need help figuring out what to do with an avalanche of paper scraps and jotted notes, then here's a simple solution.
Last week we 
To save time and gas money while running errands or long trips, it makes sense to map out the best route so you can hit all the places you need to go without doubling back. Have Route4Me do the planning for you.
The free web-based service is pretty slick, but its iPhone app really shines. It uses Google Maps to plot out your stops for you and is a great way to access Route4Me when you don't have an internet connection (like in the car).
Windows/Mac/Linux: If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the coders of Pinta love the heck out of the Windows-only image editor 
Note taking—whether in classrooms or boardrooms—is a highly personalized style of recording information for later review. Despite the proliferation of cheap and portable computers many people remain loyal to handwritten notes. Where do you fall on the spectrum?
Windows only: Explorer's integrated search is fine for most things, but more powerful searches or sorting through long lists of similar files isn't exactly easy—Listary gives you hotkeys, wildcards, and commands to help you quickly find anything in a folder.
In the age of email, it's not often we send mail through the regular postal service. Next time you're mailing a letter the old-fashioned way, do it up right with Google Maps and a color printer.
Google today announced a new service, 
Ed. note: If you've tried moving the Windows Users directory to a location other than the default, you know it can be quite an undertaking. Reader 
Whether you're looking for a new HDTV, laptop, camcorder or even a boot dryer, we've got you covered with today's Dealhacker roundup. If you're here for the freebies we didn't neglect you, you'll find free music, games, and more.
Imagine typing the same few keystrokes from any browser to email or clip a page, or start any kind of search. 
One thing Quix doesn't mention, though, is Chrome's "Edit Search Engines" trick, which, while intended for creating search-able shortcuts—"w iPad" to search Wikipedia for Apple's new device—can be used to create Firefox-like keyword shortcuts to any URL, including the Quix bookmarklet. Add Quix to your bookmark bar or any other bookmark spot, then right-click on it and choose "Copy" to grab a really long line of JavaScript. Now right-click on Chrome's address bar, choose "Edit Search Engines," hit "Add," and then fill out the three fields with a name, a single-letter shortcut (most likely "q", no?), and paste that lengthy JavaScript into the URL field. Now you can hit Alt+D (Apple+D on a Mac) to access Chrome's OmniBar, then type q and Enter to bring up the Quix prompt.
Open your bookmarks and hit up Quix. You'll get a prompt, where you can type in "imdb manhunter" to pull up that movie's full page.
Boom, there's the page. Want to skip right to the answer? Hit Quix again to do an on-page search, which isn't offered by default in the iPhone browser.
Typing in "Find" by itself would bring up another prompt to find items on the page, which is better if you're performing multiple text searches. In this case, we're just looking for the people-eater himself—and, hey, the iPhone happens to be a Thomas Harris fan!
After a quick refresh, Quix tells you how many instances of your word were found, highlights them all in yellow on the page, and jumps you down to the first occurrence. Turns out it's that dude who played Julia Roberts' boss in Erin Brockovich.
But we want our PDFmyURL functionality included, so we'll create our own little text file—which, of course, you could copy Merlin's or anybody's commands into. Grab the PDFmyURL bookmarklet from 
And, after a second or two, a PDF of that page is delivered straight to me. As you can see, you can mix and match Quix commands to create your ultimate command file, save it somewhere on the web, and have all your Quix bookmarklets point to it, so you've always got the same commands on hand. Found something new and cool? Update your file, and you don't need to re-install a thing.
If your grilled-cheese sandwiches never achieve that perfect diner-style golden grill but instead end up a shade too far into burnt-marshmallow territory, a simple tweak or two can make your sandwich perfect.
If it's time for a self-assessment of where your workday time or cash go, 1DayLater can help. If you're a freelancer looking for lightweight client tracking, 1DayLater's also got game. It's a really lightweight, web-based tool for watching where everything goes.
Whether you're putting together a portfolio web site or just slapping together some slides, knowing how colors affect the minds of your audience makes your message more appealing. Smashing magazine offers a post that serves as Color Psychology 101 for would-be designers.
Google Chrome: If you're a frequent Chrome and Dropbox user, this unofficial Dropbox extension 
