Click to viewWhen it comes to saving time and money, sometimes the best approach means rolling up your sleeves and doing it yourself. Check out the best DIY projects featured here in 2008 and beyond. Note on our definition of "most popular": These are the posts that were viewed the most by readers, a number which is often skewed by Google or Digg or links by other popular sites. As such one could

Author of the controversial book The 4 Hour Workweek Tim Ferriss says his "not to do" list—instead of his todo list—defines what he can accomplish. So he lists nine things that he does NOT do, including: 1. Do not answer unrecognized phone calls 2. Do not e-mail first thing in the morning or last thing at night 3. Do not agree to meetings or calls with no clear agenda or end time 4. Do not let peo

You can use a run-of-the-mill digital camera to check if your remote is on the fritz. Your remote emits infrared light that your eyes cannot detect, but a digital camera can see this light quite easily. As you can see in the picture above, I checked my television remote's batteries with a simple Sony Cyber-shot camera. Obviously, if the batteries were dead, or if the remote was busted, you wouldn'

Click to viewGmail's huge success owes itself in large part to the wide range of applications, browser add-ons, styles, scripts and bookmarklets that work with it. From the get-go Google's stayed out of developers' way and turned a blind eye to unofficial Gmail add-ons, even ones that may very well violate its terms of service. Smart move: Google's high tolerance for third-party apps have only hel

Click to viewIt's not always the full-blown software applications that make the biggest difference on your computer; often it's the small do-one-thing-well utilities that enhance our computing experience that much more. Today's top 10 covers the system utilities that add extra polish and convenience to your Mac's working environment. Most (but not all) of these little suckers are free, many live i

Firefox only with Greasemonkey: The Gmail Super Clean user script beautifies and customizes Gmail's interface. Heavy on the white and light blue fades, this user script really makes Gmail gorgeous. There are even some script variables you can set (using the Greasemonkey icon on your status bar) that can turn ads off, customize the Gmail logo, choose your font face, and turn off the Google links ac

Click to viewGmail's good, but it could be better. We've featured several Greasemonkey scripts that enhance Gmail in lots of different ways - like adding saved searches, attachment icons, label colors, keyboard macros, a filter assistant and right-click conversation previews. But not everyone wants to install Greasemonkey and hunt down all those scripts. To save you the time, I've compiled the bes

Click to viewSometimes web sites don't work or look the way you want them to - but if you're using the Firefox web browser with the Greasemonkey extension, you can do something about it. What the heck is Greasemonkey and why are we always on about it? Greasemonkey assigns user-created scripts (like bookmarklets) to run on certain web pages automatically, scripts that enhance and customize the way

Hack Attack: Advanced Quicksilver guide - slashes, appends, and proxies, oh my! by Adam Pash Click to viewLast week we checked out the basics of our favorite Mac productivity application, Quicksilver. Then we took a close look under the hood at Quicksilver's preferences. Now it's time to dive a little deeper into advanced Quicksilver power-usin'. With just a few keystrokes, you can use Quicksilver

Click to viewOn Monday we took a beginner's look at Quicksilver. We covered a lot of territory, but I didn't address Quicksilver's extensive and somewhat confusing preference pane - which actually contains a lot more than preferences. In fact, what lies inside the preferences box is all your options for assigning powerful global triggers, tweaking your Quicksilver catalog, adding new plug-ins, and

by Adam Pash Click to viewQuicksilver is bar-none the best productivity application on the market today. Whether we're talking Mac, Windows, or Linux, freeware or shareware, this Mac-only, freeware application launcher-and-then-some is the best productivity booster I have on my computer. Quicksilver can be used to launch files and applications, manipulate data, and seamlessly plug into almost any

by Adam Pash Click to viewIf you use iTunes on the Mac, you should know about Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes, a repository of scripts that add tons of useful functionality to Apple's music player. Doug's AppleScripts not only plug obvious holes in iTunes' feature set; they also add functionality to iTunes you never knew you wanted. Today I'm rounding up my 13 favorite iTunes AppleScripts, from sim

Click to viewAll platforms running Firefox: The About This Site Bookmarks add-on uses page-specific variables in a list of bookmarks. Variables can specify the current page's title, domain name, full URL, and selected text in your About This Site bookmarks. These dynamic bookmarks come in handy when posting to an blog, social bookmarks site, emailing a link via webmail or looking up information ab

The results from our New Year's resolution poll are in: almost one third of you are looking to lose weight and get more fit in '07. Since it's January 2nd and we're all sadly munching on our carrot sticks after a week of holiday gluttony, today's a good time to run down some of the best weight loss tricks we've gathered here at Lifehacker. Step into my office - and bring your carrot sticks - for a

by Gina Trapani Click to view2006 was another wild and wacky year in software and web development. While Google launched or acquired a new product every week, Intel Macs made the unholy marriage of Windows and OS X possible, Joe Schmoe's became the self-made video stars of the web on YouTube, Internet Explorer got tabs and Microsoft finally ponied up the new version of Windows they've been promisi

by Gina Trapani Click to viewApple's free digital music software iTunes has been through three major versions since Lifehacker launched, and each new release just gets better. At this point iTunes is much more than just a music manager. While no piece of software is perfect - and iTunes could certainly stand a few more revisions - more than once I've wished my file manager handled all the data on

by Adam Pash Click to viewNot only do keyboard shortcuts boost my productivity, the mouse is also one of the biggest causes of RSI in my right hand. So I hate leaving the keyboard to grab for my mouse. In my mission to abandon the mouse forever, this week I've put together a small freeware application called Mouser that operates your mouse from the comfort of your keyboard. Read on to see how it w