While themes aren't exactly all about productivity, strictly speaking, it never hurts to spice things up a little bit and make your workspace a little friendlier. To that end, Google Chrome's new Theme gallery adds a little spice to your Chrome installation.
You'll need to be using Google Chrome 3 to install any of the themes, and doing so is as simple as clicking the Apply theme button for any of the visible themes. We've verified the themes as working on both Windows and OS X, and presumably they should be working just fine on Linux, as well. Take a closer look at some of the themes in the gallery below, or just hit up the new gallery and try them out yourself.
Apple may have made some poor decisions about Google Voice on the iPhone, but if you still want a bit of handy integration between your iPhone and Google Voice, the Google Voice Speed Dial Bookmarklet generator is worth a look.
Just point your phone to http://www.ironicsans.com/gv/, follow the instructions there (you have to do a little digging in your Voice account to get the proper credentials for the bookmarklet to work), then enter in your Google Voice code (obtained above), your iPhone number, and the number of the person you'd like to call.
At that point you'll hit Generate, then the tool will dish out a few more instructions you'll need to follow. Once all's said and done, you'll have a quick-dial bookmark in mobile Safari that you can hit to speed dial specific contacts (faster than going through the mobile GV site as it is at the moment).
Slate suggests Obama is a Getting Things Done president, rumors stir of a Netflix app for the iPhone, and Google Voice is open to any of our armed service's women and men in uniform.
The Getting-Things-Done President Slate thinks that maybe, just maybe, Obama's agenda chugs along with the power of the cult of GTD. [Slate]
Fake Rocks, Salami Commanders, and Just Enough to Start Productivity luminary Merlin Mann sets to doing what he does best—talking candidly and with a healthy dose of humor about getting things done in your life. [43 Folders]
Whether work-related or on personal time, most of us send multiple emails daily, which is why learning how to properly close the correspondence is essential because, as the Washington Post notes, you can pay the price for a "careless closing."
Peter Post, author of Essential Manners for Men says that "Sincerely" is an all-purpose and safe way to close an e-mail message. "Yours truly" and "Regards" are also safe bets, but according to Peter, using "Best" is less than ideal—something we'd heard mentioned a while back.
I think it's more important with 'Best' that you know the person," Post says. "I think it would be very awkward to do that to a person that you only knew very slightly or hadn't yet met."
Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better authors Will Schwalbe and David Shipley, offer a different perspective, claiming that you can warm up an otherwise "frigid and humorless" closing such as the above-mentioned "Best" by adding an exclamation point. Humor is another option. Georgetown University Professor Rev. James Schall says that he closes all his informal correspondence with "Pray for me." Also included in the humor mix: "Seacrest out."
As for other potential sign-offs and their related meanings? Apparently, "Sincerely" could signal that "There's a problem here," while "Cheers" might be too "mock-Brit." And according to the article, "Cordially" could signal to the recipient that your "hostility is only thinly veiled."
Browse the full post for more advice on how to close an email well, then let us know what you use to sign off in the comments. While you're furthering your email skills, check out our guide to the essentials of email etiquette.
Web site ezRSS is yet another web site designed to help you "subscribe" to your favorite TV shows via BitTorrent so your download automatically starts as soon as a new episode is available (known as broadcatching).
We've seen a couple of similar offerings in the past, including previously mentioned FeedMyTorrents (now dead) and tvRSS (which is also defunct and now actually redirects to ezRSS), but ezRSS comes from the folks at EZTV, probably the most popular TV torrent release group.
Need a little help setting up broadcatching with your BitTorrent client? Check out ezRSS's guide to using the RSS feed with uTorrent, or follow our previous instructions on how to get your TV season pass (substitute ezRSS for tvRSS in that post and you should be good to go). In the meantime, let's hear how you automate your downloads in the comments.
Taking home more than half the votes and cementing a very solid lead, PDF-XChange garnered a lot of praise for speedy load times, tabbed files, and a variety of small but handy features—like its ability to place text outside of forms. Following PDF-XChange's strong lead was Foxit and the original itself, Adobe Reader.
For more information on the winners check out the full Hive Five.
Every year as we prepare to send our students back to school, 16 states around the country offer a little incentive for back-to-school shoppers with a sales tax holiday. Find the tax-free holidays near you with our sales tax holiday map.
View Sales Tax Holidays in a larger map We've rounded up all these states on the Google Map (above) to help you quickly and easily find the closest tax-free state near you (using information from the excellent Dealnews post). Keep in mind that in many of the states, the sales tax holiday only applies to certain types of purchases (for example, Iowa's tax-free holiday applies only to clothing and footwear under $100 per item).
If you're lucky, your state does offer a little incentive, but if not, maybe a close bordering state does. (We wouldn't recommend driving across the country just to take advantage of a little sales tax break, of course.) You'll notice a complete lack of states with tax-free holidays in the west/northwest, but then again, there are those lucky, unlisted states (like Oregon, for example) with no state sales tax to begin with. If you're planning to take advantage of a tax-free holiday near you, let's hear about it in the comments.
Our very own Gina Trapani has just launched a podcast called This Week in Google (or TWiG) with tech guy Leo Laporte and journalist Jeff Jarvis. The weekly episodes promise to deliver intelligent discussion about cloud computing and general Google-focused tips, tricks, and news. You can find the links to each episode on the TWiG homepage, or just subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
My favorite way to find photos (especially for publication in blog posts and use in presentations) saw a big upgrade today: Flickr's search results page is now a whole lot easier to browse.
(Click the image above for a closer look.)
When you search for photos by keyword on Flickr, you get a grid of thumbnails, each of which pops up full-sized versions in-page. (No more having to click to a new page to see what the image looks like close up and other stats.) You can set how big the thumbnails should be, and also sort results by Flickr's magical (and very useful) "Interestingness" rank.
To find Creative Commons-licensed photos only you still have to click on the "Advanced Search" link; but you can bypass that step with a little URL hacking. Append &l=cc to your search keyword shortcut to limit Flickr results to re-publishable images. Firefox keyword bookmark users: the full Flickr CC image search bookmark URL should be http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=%s&l=cc. (Use &l=commderiv for images licensed for commercial use and derivative works.)
When I need to find quality photos that are licensed for reuse in my own work, I hit up EveryStockPhoto (which includes Flickr photos) and Flickr itself—and almost always find what I need without even touching Google Images.
If you've been keeping up with Windows 7 news, you know one of the selling points is a less annoying UAC system—so the 7 Tutorials blog set out to illustrate what was actually changed.
The biggest change in Windows 7 is the new User Account Control "slider" setting, where you can choose your own balance between annoyance and security—but behind the scenes, Microsoft reduced the amount of actions that will prompt you. The 7 Tutorials blog ran down a list of common actions that triggered a UAC prompt in Windows Vista, but don't in Windows 7, concluding that:
...in Windows 7 you will not encounter UAC prompts in at least 11 of the scenarios where Windows Vista triggered one.
Save money on your monthly bill with tips from the cable guy, then bask in more helpful tips from a painter, bartender, lumber yard worker, airline pilot, and stand-up comedian.
Tricks of the Trade is a post series in which we ask you, our readers, to share specific expertise you've learned from years on the job that may apply to or help just about anyone. See more specifics here, and submit your own tricks to tips at lifehacker.com with "Tricks of the Trade" in the subject line to participate. Thanks to Glenn, Jens, Rick, Matthew, Lucas, and Drew.
Not a fan of the galleries? View all of the tips on one page here.
The Cable Guy
For those of you trying to get a new cable discount in existing accounts follow these steps:
General rule of thumb: The idea of this process is to make it seem as if the cable service is on the fritz. If you are not good at acting this is not for you. Your ideal customer service agent would be a middle aged woman with 20 children, or maybe a young ditzy blonde. No disrespect intended, but a woman will usually be easier to work with.
1. Call and complain about cable/phone/internet problems, have a technician come out to check it (even if it is false, you have to establish a history in the system, and hell it might even get you a day out of work).
2. The day after the technician comes, call customer service to disconnect your cable. Greet them politely, ask how they are, NEVER start the conversation off with your problem—we customer service agents will mock you and laugh about it later. Act frustrated, but be polite. When they ask you why you are disconnecting the service (they are supposed to ask, if they don't just tell them anyways), explain the situation to them, stating you have had a technician come out already and the service keeps going out. Try and be funny but frustrated. My buddy told me he said, "I missed the Phillies game the other day and almost broke down in tears." Humor will go a long way, it will make you appear genuine and human.
3. This is the key part: They should at this point ask you if you'd like to have another technician come out. If they don't, just ask if maybe another technician could help.
Now you can say something along the lines of "Well I'm not too sure, this has been happening for awhile now." If they don't offer you a discount then you can say, "I would like to keep this cable, but I hear that (some other cable company) is offering a cheaper deal." Don't use that last line unless your arsenal of immense cable pity has not been working for you.
They should then offer you a discount and schedule another technician to come out. You can then reply, "Well I guess I will give this another chance."
If they don't offer a discount, ask them politely if you can speak to a manager and 9 times out of 10 a manager will give you a discount if you run through steps 2-3 again.
I have had 3 friends do this and it has worked for all of them. No failures so far and none of them ever had to ask for a manager.
When you have to paint walls, invest in the following: a bucket, a metal grid, a roller with extender pole, tape, a one and a half inch brush, and a drop cloth.
Do not invest in painting trays or pans because these are unwieldy and inefficient.
To save a little money, masking tape can be used instead of painter's tape (I personally prefer masking tape as well) and the drop cloth can just be an old blanket.
The extender pole is highly suggested because it allows you to reach greater heights and roll the wall more smoothly.
Use a "sheep skin" (wool) roller instead of the artificial stuff to avoid spraying paint all over the place.
For best paint coverage, while rolling, make a V and then move up and down back to the place you started.
"Cut" in the wall first with the paint brush, then roll in order to minimize brush strokes
Another way to minimize brush strokes is to make long, light, and even strokes with your paintbrush (but don't sweat it too much because multiple coats will cover any brush strokes).
If you are painting an entire room, start with the ceiling (make sure you have a drop cloth over anything you don't want splashed with paint) then move to the walls.
If you are painting an entire room, by the time you come back to the first wall you painted (depending on the size of the room and how much paint was put on the wall) the paint should be dry enough to apply the second coat.
A tool that is very useful for a multitude of things (and can save you money) is a "6 in 1" or "7 in 1" depending on if you want the mediocre nail remover.
Need to open a bottle of wine fast? Rather than cutting the foil around the top of the wine bottle, wrap your hand around the mouth of the bottle with your middle finger going around the spout, and pull away and twist with your wrist to remove the foil in one swift motion to expose the cork. Angle the point of your manual corkscrew at a 45 degree angle and place the sharp point into the middle of the cork. First, twist enough to get the corkscrew partly into the bottle, then you can bring the corkscrew directly above the bottle and twist it all the way in. When trying to pull the cork out, keep the bottle straight and use the handle of the corkscrew as leverage to pull the cork out. With practice you can do all of this in under 10 seconds—preferably in about 5. Note: ripping the foil away from the bottle completely is not considered the correct etiquette if you are opening in front of guests, you can however practice using the sharp pointed end of the corkscrew to cut the foil rather than taking the time to cut with the retractable knife in the handle.
I have worked in a lumber yard for the past three years to pay for college in the second busiest shipping department out of 250 stores preparing deliveries .
In my experience, the way to get the best quality materials will generally cost you the same as a soda. By simply tipping a lumber yard employee $2 to load your truck, open a new bunk of lumber or stack a pallet of bricks, you can ensure that you will be getting the best the yard has in stock. Keep in mind the employees in the yard don't control the quality of the materials presented to you. But, if you're nice enough (read: $) they can help you find the better/fresher product.
If you are scheduling a delivery for a weekend home improvement project such as a deck, landscaping material, or a shed, schedule early (at least two days) so you can ensure that your delivery will arrive in the early morning of the day you plan to start the project. Or if you don't want to have to have the possibility of waiting to get started, schedule your delivery the day before so the hauler can place it where you want (draw a picture for them or put a sign in the ground) while you're still at work.
When getting a delivery for material you will be picky about (most likely a deck) schedule your delivery a week early. Ask the person setting up the delivery who the best person is who prepares deliveries and if they are working and get a copy of the materials being delivered. Then, find the person the scheduler recommended. Explain to them that you will be getting a delivery in X number of days and you want them to pull it whenever they have time then slip them $5. This will ensure that the person pulling your delivery pulls you quality merchandise and does it with care because it will not be on a busy day and they really do appreciate and need the money. $5 is worth having a beautiful deck for only what you would otherwise have paid for an additional deck board.
Other tips:
Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday are the best days to get a load delivered since they are the usually the slowest, which allows the person preparing your delivery more time to prepare it the night before. No rush and grab to get done before close.
The more agreeable you are, the more likely someone is to actually offer you top notch assistance. A smile and a friendly hello go a long way when you deal with pissed off contractors all day.
Also, if you see large stacks of lumber in the middle of nowhere with different dimensions all stacked on top of each other and they all are banded up, do not, I repeat DO NOT open them. This is an area where overstock lumber is stored and it really pisses off nearly everyone working at the store. It is a huge safety hazard as well for both you and the guy who has to clean up after you when you leave. I have actually seen someone climb up 20 feet into the air on a shaky stack of treated lumber to open a lift of 16' deck boards and hand them down to people. It's just idiotic and dangerous.
I've found that using a simple trick from the stand-up world can help you keep people from going over their allotted time in meetings.
It's simple, you let each speaker know that you will give them a signal when they only have 10-minutes, 5-minutes, and 1-minute left before you must move on. You can use any signal you agree on before hand, but a flashlight is a non-distracting signal that most comedy clubs use.
The only thing today's featured office shares with your average office is the fact that it has a roof and a floor. Beyond that it's quite a different space than most of us spend our days in.
Lifehacker reader Peter Frazier has the kind of home office and accompanying views that fill the daydreams of cubicle dwellers across the land. His office is glass on three sides with a cantilevered deck that looks over the densely forested shores of Chuckanut Bay. Peter describes his motivation for using the space as he does:
Like many in the computer industry, I graduated from college thin and fit, but since then, through years of all-nighters, sitting in front of my screen for long hours, and a rich diet I became overweight. I went from 190 to 242 pounds as I grew into each role: graphic designer, user interface designer, customer experience researcher, businessperson, husband, father, and community member. Last Fall I said, "Enough already!"
Recently I decided that working standing up would help me live a more active life. It's worked. Along with meditating, running, hiking, and kayaking, working standing up (with hourly interludes of pushups, situps or yoga) I've dropped 30 pounds. My thinking is clearer for longer and you're more likely to find me with things in perspective.
I'm fortunate enough to work at home above Chuckanut Bay in Bellingham, Washington.
This stand up desk is a piece of cedar with its live edge intact. On it I have room for a Dell 24" monitor as well as my MacBook Pro, and my good old Monsoon sound system. The hard drive holds the documentary I am working on called "Stumblebum".
Check out the photos below to see his office from different angles and make sure to visit the link below to his Flickr gallery for additional notes on each image.
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.
Flies, mosquitos, and even ants are easy to get rid of in comparison to the dreaded, disgusting household annoyance that is the roach. Fortunately this DIY method aims to not only kill this pest, but prevent its relatives from coming to the funeral.
Instructables' user Ninzerbean shares her story of dealing with roach infestation after roach infestation until she figured out how to create a substance similar to what a successful pest control guy used. The recipe for the peanut butter like mixture requires:
Boric acid powder
Karo syrup - you may substitute honey or maple syrup or pancake syrup
Rice flour - you may substitute any flour you have on hand
1 Popsicle stick
1 Mixing bowl
Amounts as follows:
2 parts Boric acid
1 part rice flour
enough Karo syrup to make a peanut butter like consistency mixture
For the best effect, this goop needs to be dabbed in the spots frequented by those nasty roaches (under sinks, by washers, and in any places where you don't want to see them really). According to Ninzerbean, her home has been roach-free for 10 months since using this anti-roach concoction.
Check out the Instructables guide for the full details and be sure to share your favorite cockroach jokes pest control methods in the comments.
Windows only: System monitoring utility Yet Another Process Monitor is not just a powerful way to see what's going on under the hood—it's also portable.
Once you've downloaded and extracted the no-installation-required software, you can put it on a flash drive or take it anywhere you'd like—so long as the target system has .NET Framework 2.0 installed. The utility can do everything you'd expect from a process manager, including a nice option to right-click a process and search the internet for more information.
There are plenty of more powerful features for the more tech-savvy, like detecting hidden processes, monitoring remote machines, and even viewing the memory of a process in a hex editor. Yet Another Process Monitor is free and open source, available for 32-bit Windows systems only.
We've already shown you where and how to safely hide cash in your home, but if you really want to learn how, why not ask the expert? The following are some dos and don'ts of money storage courtesy of a former burglar.
Money weblog SavingAdvice spoke with a former burglar about how best to avoid getting swindled. Said burglar noted that "If I can't find money and valuables in the normal places I usually find them, I would continue to tear the house apart until I found something," which is why the post advises that, in addition to your hiding spots, it's best to leave some money out in obvious places if, say, you're heading on a vacation and are concerned about would-be thieves.
This can not only save your other stash of money, but may actually keep the burglar from destroying your place as he looks for where you have hidden your money. If they believe they may have found the cash that you have in the house, they are much less likely to keep looking (remember, they want to get out asap). In the end, if you hide all your money well, you may win a moral victory in not letting the burglar find the money, but you'll likely have much more damage done to your place that will end up costing you more in the long run.
The post also outlines some default places where burglars often look for goods. These include toilet tanks, cereal boxes, refrigerators and freezers, medicine cabinets, and your bed, so try not to leave valuables there. And if you prefer to carry your cash with you, look into the previously mentioned cash can to keep your emergency bills safe.
Got a list of things you think need fixin' on our sites? Well so do we, actually! And we're looking for a little help with it. Gawker Media is currently seeking a QA Analyst to join our Tech team.
Job responsibilities include monitoring site performance, managing bug reporting and resolution, and conducting both manual and automated site testing.
Do those activities sound oddly satisfying to you? If so, please email techjobs@gawker.com with a brief description of yourself and your relevant work experience. This job is located in New York City.
Reader Gilles writes in with an interesting tip: You can use a keyword bookmark to quickly post something to Twitter from the address bar in any browser.
This trick works by simply passing the message as a keyword to a specially formatted URL. Once you've hit Enter to run the search, the Twitter submit page will be automatically filled with your tweet, ready to hit the update button.
To create this for yourself, add a new bookmark with a name and keyword of your choice and set the URL to the following—the %s will be replaced with whatever you type after the keyword in the address bar.
http://twitter.com/?status=%s
You can create the same thing for Google Chrome by right-clicking the location bar, choosing Edit Search Engines, and adding a new search engine with the same parameters. Thanks, Gilles!
iPhone/BlackBerry/Android/Palm Pre: If you're in a new location and looking for the low-down on local haunts, mobile application Where may just come to your rescue.
Whether you're using m.where.com or one of the native phone applications, finding a place to eat is as easy as setting your location and searching. Offering local information from Eventful, Yelp, GasBuddy, Zipcar, ShopLocal, Starbucks, Buddy Beacon, Topix, and more, there's no need to stop someone to ask where you can grab a good cup of coffee or fill up with cheap gas.
The results are listed in order, closest to farthest, and include additional information such as star ratings (where available), address, directions, and map. You're also able to save places for future reference.
Downloading the app gives you the benefit of additional widgets, such as State Parks, Winery Finder, Fore, and World's Largest—for the roadside attraction lovers out there. Widget availability depends upon which cell phone provider you use, unfortunately.
Web/social bookmarking app Delicious is making it easier to find and share bookmarks, adding timelines and tag filtering to search and quick email and Twitter links to each bookmark.
When searching through Delicious bookmarks, users should see (at some point today) inline YouTube and Flickr thumbs and Yelp reviews and data on their bookmarks. More helpfully, you can now search through a given date range using date numbers or a timeline, and switch combinations of tags on or off in the results.
Delicious also added a new "Fresh Bookmarks" tab to its home page that shows the bookmarks and URLs receiving the most attention on Twitter of late, mashing up the two social services while keeping the mostly spare and less noisy interface of Delicious. Individual bookmarks now allow for emailing or tweeting their URLs directly from the link, once you add recipients to the "send" field in the form of email addresses or your Twitter account.
The search upgrades in particular are a welcome update to a service many long-time web users have stuffed full of interesting links. What additional features would make Delicious more useful? What services have replaced Delicious in your web habits, if you're no longer actively bookmarking? Tell us your take in the comments.
We've been fairly impressed with TinyChat, the instant multimedia chat service that offers video and audio connections for a dozen people at once. Now the video resolution and frame rates are better, and room creators have better controls.
Tinychat's blog claims a 4x improvement to free account video quality, while ReadWriteWeb states that video resolutions and frame rates have doubled—though that might be the same improvement stated different ways. What's really helpful are the new controls for room creators. Room owners can force a "push to talk" mode, where those signing on without headphones only talk when they press a screen button, eliminating endless echo effects. Owners can also get specific enabling of certain chatters' audio and video feeds, force users to sign in with Twitter handles to verify identities, and ban users based on IP address for 24 hours.
A bunch more bug fixes and minor features went into Tinychat recently, detailed at the blog link below.
At the financial blog FiveCentNickel, they've put together a guide to saving money on your car insurance which includes tips like increasing your deductible and dropping unnecessary coverage—both tips will work for home insurance too. The easiest tip by far though is simply asking what you can do to save:
You might qualify for discounts for being accident-free, renewing your policy, driving relatively few miles each year, taking a defensive driving course, etc. Be sure to talk to your agent and get what you have coming to you.
The last time I talked to my home insurance agent, for example, I asked her if there were any discounts I was unaware of. She checked my policy and said the only discount available that I wasn't already taking advantage of was the discount for having a home alarm system. The discount for having a monitored alarm was a whopping $400 a year, more than the actual cost of having a monitored alarm system. Simply by asking I essentially got a "free" monitored home alarm with no change in my yearly expenses.
If you've had a similar experience uncovering savings by taking advantage of insurance discounts, let's hear about it in the comments below.
Scientists say there's an optimal temperature range for inducing your brain to get sleepy. If your own body is the temperature problem, a hot water bottle might help fix it.
A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the optimal temperature range for good sleep is between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit. In those temperatures, the core body temperature lowers, and one's body usually begins to fall into a sleepy state. If you've just eaten a big meal, though, or have regular problems with insomnia or feeling generally restless, it may be that your own core temperature hasn't gotten there.
In that case, the Times and a study by the journal Nature (direct PDF link) suggest putting a bottle of hot water near one's feet. Sounds strange, indeed, but as blood vessels dilate in the feet, it can help lower one's internal temperature to a more sleep-ready state. For other tips on staying cool at night, try the previously mentioned "Egyptian Method".
Living a life without cable just got a bit more feasible, at least if you're a fan of ABC's sci-fi castaways, angst-y doctors, or medieval heroes, and have a Netflix streaming account.
As of Monday, the first four seasons of Lost and "select seasons" of Desperate Housewives and Legend of the Seeker are available through any device that can stream Netflix offerings. Next month, the fifth seasons of Grey's Anatomy, Lost, and Desperate Housewives arrive on the streaming scene.
Combined with ABC's recent entry into the Hulu scene, there's now a wider variety of ways for anyone near a computer or media center to get television shows straight from the net, with or without commercials. But we're wondering—what shows, or entire networks, still lack a viable online presence? Which series would tempt you into giving up more live television browsing for a more net-focused entertainment life? Tell us your tipping point in the comments.
Instant oatmeal is good for quick fixes, but it's not the same as a real bowl of oats, cooked the proper way. With this cooking method, you won't have to wait an hour for true oatmeal in the morning.
Digging into its food magazine collection for usable recipes, The Bitten Word blog finds a recipe for making steel-cut oats, also known as Irish oats, with the cooking time seriously reduced and split between morning and night. Bring six cups of water to a boil the night before, add in 1 1/2 cups of steel-cut oats and boil for one minute, then cover and turn the heat off. The next morning, bring that pot of oats and water to a boil for 7-10 minutes, then serve.
The oatmeal will be just a bit chewy, but soft and filling, and you can top it with whatever fruits, nuts, spices, and sweeteners you'd like. The recipe calls for chopped almonds and dried cranberries; the Bitten Word folks enjoy sliced bananas and chopped walnuts, while the Lifehacker Northeast cafeteria has served its oats with chopped walnuts, pumpkin pie spice, and a dash of sea salt on recent mornings. By all means, though, tell us how you prep your own morning meals with half the effort, oats or otherwise, in the comments.
Apple may have made some 
Slate suggests Obama is a Getting Things Done president, rumors stir of a Netflix app for the iPhone, and Google Voice is open to any of our armed service's women and men in uniform.
Whether work-related or on personal time, most of us send multiple emails daily, which is why learning how to properly close the correspondence is essential because, as the Washington Post notes, you can pay the price for a "careless closing."
Web site ezRSS is yet another web site designed to help you "subscribe" to your favorite TV shows via BitTorrent so your download automatically starts as soon as a new episode is available (known as 
Our very own Gina Trapani has just launched a podcast called This Week in Google (or TWiG) with tech guy Leo Laporte and journalist Jeff Jarvis. The weekly episodes promise to deliver intelligent discussion about cloud computing and general Google-focused tips, tricks, and news. You can find the links to each episode on the 
We've already shown you 
Laptops, TVs, and discounted earbuds are but a few of the deals in today's deal roundup. Keeping a tight budget? Check out the free samples and MP3s.
Got a list of things you think need fixin' on our sites? Well so do we, actually! And we're looking for a little help with it. Gawker Media is currently seeking a QA Analyst to join our Tech team.
We're big fans of 
Scientists say there's an optimal temperature range for inducing your brain to get sleepy. If your own body is the temperature problem, a hot water bottle might help fix it.
Living a life without cable just got a bit more feasible, at least if you're a fan of ABC's sci-fi castaways, angst-y doctors, or medieval heroes, and have a Netflix streaming account.
Instant oatmeal is good for quick fixes, but it's not the same as a real bowl of oats, cooked the proper way. With this cooking method, you won't have to wait an hour for true oatmeal in the morning.
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