Reader Kaelri—famous for the beautiful and functional Enigma desktop—has packaged and released version 1.1 of the customization files.

What's changed? Kaelri explains:

I've added:

• RSS reader.
• Gmail notifier.
• Calendar by ~limpet.
• System/battery graphics using ecqlipse 2 icons.
• Tray clock replacement.
• Quick-edit button for Notes.
• Application launcher. Useless to anyone with Launchy or StandaloneStack, but it's pretty, and way too much fun to play with. (You can see what it looks like in the deviantArt screenshot.)
• Assorted doodads and revisions.
• Fixed the Location bug plaguing Enigma and HUD.Vision.

The Enigma 1.1 ZIP archive includes config files for Samurize and Rainmeter, fonts, a Windows theme, and more. Unzip it to get the full installation instructions. Nice work, Kaelri! The Enigma 1.1 customization package is a free download for Windows only.

Apple's moving iWork onto the web with iWork.com, a web-based version of their desktop office suite which will offer "transparent integration" into the desktop app.

The new release of GarageBand '09 includes "Learn to Play"—piano and guitar lessons from artists like Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, and Sting, Gizmodo reports from their live-blog of the Macworld keynote.

Our brothers in gadgetry are live-blogging the Macworld 2009 keynote, and report that iPhoto in iLife '09 will have facial recognition that automatically groups photos by who's in them.

Yesterday Mac users here said they prefer the all-new Picasa for Mac over iPhoto. But do the new iPhoto features—like facial recognition, Facebook, and Flickr integration, and geo-tagging—change your mind?

Keep reading about new stuff getting unveiled at Macworld over at Gizmodo's liveblog.

Hewlett-Packard launches a new buyback program that will give you money in exchange for your old, working gadgets and gear—any brand of PC, monitor, printer, digital camera, or smartphone that still has some value.

HP's Buyback program offers a quote web site where you enter what you've got and find out how much they'll pay you for it. CNET reports:

If you find the quote worth your time, mail them your stuff (at your expense) and HP will mail you a check. Alternatively, you can opt for a "Premium Service" in which FedEx picks up the item or items at your house. The cost of that service is taken out of your final check from HP.

If your old stuff isn't worth any cash, you can still mail it to HP for recycling if it's an HP or Compaq brand item. Photo by Extra Ketchup.

HP's Buyback program offers a quote web site where you enter what you've got and find out how much they'll pay you for it. CNET reports:

If you find the quote worth your time, mail them your stuff (at your expense) and HP will mail you a check. Alternatively, you can opt for a "Premium Service" in which FedEx picks up the item or items at your house. The cost of that service is taken out of your final check from HP.

If your old stuff isn't worth any cash, you can still mail it to HP for recycling if it's an HP or Compaq brand item. Photo by Extra Ketchup.

It's tucked away, but bookmarking site Del.icio.us now offers bulk tag editing (in, of course, beta) for group tagging/un-tagging and sharing/un-sharing. Helpful stuff, especially for pesky tag typos. Thanks Gergo!

Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Mr. Uptime, friend to anyone who's ever waited for the Digg/Slashdot/Lifehacker Effect to abate before reaching a cool new web site, has recently updated to be Firefox 3 compatible.

Not much seems entirely new with Mr. Uptime, available both at its Mozilla home and official page, but that's probably a good thing. As we noted when we last checked it out, the Firefox add-on can also monitor sites and alert you when specific text appears or disappears from a site, making it more than just a monitor of web hosting power. But next time a big, time-sensitive promotional give-away happens and you can't grab it in the first few tries, you'll be glad Mr. Uptime also does its basic function so well.

Mr. Uptime is a free download, works wherever Firefox does. Thanks, ScaryMike!

Windows only: CrazyLittleFingers is a keyboard locking application. Unlike some of the previous keyboard lockers we've covered, CrazyLittleFingers corresponds the keystroke to a picture and sound related to the key.

Press L and you see a picture of a lion. Press R and you see a movie of a rooster. Keys that have no symbolic link for children like the page up and page down keys produce rising and falling guitar sounds. Numbers show the number on the screen. The only caveat is that it doesn't lock the mouse. This is fine on a single monitor setup, because you can't click through the images or access the start menu so clicking wouldn't accomplish anything. On a multiple monitor setup however it only locks the primary screen, the mouse is still effective on the other screens. It would be nice if the program did a simple poll to see if other monitors were active and darkened/disabled them. Still if your toddler isn't a proficient mouse user it should work fine. CrazyLittleFingers is freeware, Windows Only. Photo by John A. Ward.

Tech evangelist and Microsoft consultant Blake Handler hosts an impressively completist list of free Windows programs offered by Microsoft, dug from the trenches of Del.icio.us tags. It's a handy bookmark for Control+F hunting. [via]

Update: Gizmodo confirms the announcement. The good news: CNET has sources saying the three largest music labels will allow Apple to offer music downloads free of copy-protection. And the bad news might not be that bad.

In exchange for the DRM-free tracks, Apple will reportedly allow labels to push three tiers of pricing. Older songs from the archives will likely get cheaper than 99 cents, songs that are newer and "midline" (i.e. not big hits) will inhabit the familiar 99 cent mark, and newer, bigger hits will fetch higher, unnamed dollar amounts.

If announced at the Macworld conference today—which our gadget-obsessed cousins at Gizmodo are, of course, covering live—there could also be over-the-air 3G downloads coming to iPhone owners, and DRM dropped from everything in the iTunes store on launch. As Greg Sandoval at CNET points out, though, that leaves a question mark on tracks already purchased through iTunes.

Will variable, DRM-free pricing make you a (new or returning) iTunes customer? Tell us your take in the comments.

Windows only: Free app Install-It puts a small auto-starting application on any removable drive that makes installing applications a double-click affair.

After downloading the Install-It package, you'll want to extract its files to somewhere you can reach, like your desktop, and open up the Install.ini file in your favorite text editor. This file is simply a list of program descriptions and the locations of their installer files. If you're creating a disc full of useful installers, just replace the default examples with your chosen verbiage for each app and the location/names of the setup files. You separate those two items with a comma, using slashes where necessary, and end each line with a semi-colon.

Here's an example Install.ini I made for a supposed Windows XP re-installation:

Copy all your installer files and Install-It's files into a CD-burning app, such as CDBurnerXP, and fire away.

Now you've got a CD that, on most computers, will pop up with a list of programs that can be installed without anyone having to guess which icon or cryptic filename means. If a computer isn't set to auto-start when it detects an autorun.inf file, though, you'll have to point the computer to install.exe—not a problem, though, if you've put each application in its own directory.

Install-It is a free download for Windows systems only.

The New York Times takes a revealing look at self-handicapping excuses—like "I barely slept the night before the test"—and why we create them, as well as the extremely unlikely chance that anyone else buys them.

The short version of the research and studies cited is that we all do it, in varying amounts, to protect our fragile egos. It's a two-way victory: If you ace a project, you did great despite your car having trouble, your cat dying, being sick, and not having hardly heard the initial presentation. If not, well, hey, you know why.

If you're a regular self-handicapper, though, you can grow too attached to whatever you use without knowing it, whether it's alcohol, rule-defying, sleep deprivation, or whatever convenience you cling to. Those who study self-handicapping, though, offer a seemingly devious way to go at it another way and benefit—namely, get someone else to deliver your excuses:

In a recent study, James C. McElroy of Iowa State University and J. Michael Crant of Notre Dame had 246 adults evaluate the behavior of characters in several workplace anecdotes. The participants? impressions of a character began to sour after the second time the person cited a handicap.

?What happens here is that if you do it often, observers attribute your performance to you, but begin to view it as part of your disposition, i.e., you?re a whiner,? Dr. McElroy wrote in an e-mail message. ?But you can avoid this happening if someone else does the handicapping for you, and surprisingly enough, even if they do it often.?

Which cliched excuses and handicapping preambles do you wish you could banish, whether in yourself or co-workers? Let's hear your take on preemptive defeat in the comments. Photo by pattista.

Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The Flickr Gallery Plus Firefox extension or Greasemonkey script make browsing galleries faster and easier in Flickr.

Once installed and set up, Flickr Gallery Plus automatically grabs larger versions of each image in a set so you can view each picture waiting for another page to load. It even turns sets into nice slideshows that fade between photos. Like to navigate photos from the keyboard? You can advance between images with the right and left keys.

If you're a Flickr junkie, Flickr Gallery Plus is a great add-on to view Flickr sets. For more spicy Flickr improvements, check out our very own Better Flickr Firefox extension. Flickr Gallery Plus is available in both Greasemonkey script form and as an experimental Firefox extension (that means it hasn't been vetted by the folks at Mozilla yet and you need to log in to download it), works wherever Firefox does. Photos by Qole Pejorian.

Google has officially released their popular photo management application Picasa for Macs, after years of offering Picasa as a free Windows download.

It's an exciting announcement for anyone who's looking for a good photo management app on OS X that isn't iPhoto or for anyone who's used and fallen in love with Picasa on Windows or Linux. This release still sports the beta tag, so you can expect a bug here or there, but overall it appears to boast most of the same features as its counterparts. That includes:

Photo Management

Picasa scans your entire computer for new photos and keeps them neatly organized, with great timeline features, tagging, and folder organization.

Image Editing

Picasa sports simple but impressive editing capabilities, including non-destructive editing of photos. The Mac version offers a few smart options for users looking to run both iPhoto and Picasa so that neither application stps on the other's toes.

Integration with Web Albums

Just like Picasa for Windows and Linux, Picasa for Mac offers seamless integration with Picasa Web Albums, Google's online photo sharing site.

Let's hear more specific thoughts in the comments.

• Are there any free services where I can store my passwords online? Is this a good idea?
• Any suggestions for a cheaper alternative to my current internet provider?
• Is there a program that will display my keystrokes on the screen as I type?
• How can I achieve Gmail zen across my desktop and iPhone?
• Is it possible to burn M4V files to a DVD?

iPhone/iPod touch only: Free application Craigsphone puts the popular online classifieds site Craigslist on your iPhone, complete with click-to-call, history, and mobile posting.

At first blush it may not seem like a Craigslist-focused app could offer much beyond what Craigslist on mobile Safari does, but you may be surprised. Craigsphone can post directly from your phone, including photo uploads and location sharing (instant missed connections, anyone?) and a Nearby feature that uses your iPhone's location awareness to find classifieds nearby (San Francisco Bay area and Manhattan only for now).

Craigsphone is distributed for free by the same people who develop the very cool Dial Zero app (which helps you skip directly to an operator when you dial a customer service line), works on the iPhone and iPod touch only.

Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The Tabhunter Firefox extension adds quick keyboard-based tab switching to Firefox—sort of like Launchy for Firefox tabs. Just invoke Tabhunter, start typing, and Tabhunter searches for a match through all your tabs.

Tabhunter searches only the titles of your open pages, but the search is very fast and works as advertised. You can invoke Tabhunter from the keyboard (Ctrl+Alt+T by default), start typing, and find the tab you want more quickly than you can likely switch over to your mouse and back.

Granted, Tabhunter is decidedly for keyboard shortcut lovers, but if you fall in that group and you regularly have a browser full o' tabs, it's a great extension. Tabhunter is a free download, works wherever Firefox does. If you're not quite into the idea, I've always liked previously mentioned LastTab for boosting my tab-switching skills. Unfortunately it's been buggy for me ever since Firefox 3, so Tabhunter is a welcome entry. Either way, your mileage may vary. Let's hear what you prefer in the comments.

When your toilet's got rings and lime scale stains and you've got no cleaning gear on hand, grab a can of Coke out of the fridge.

According to wikiHow, you can pour Coke into a dirty toilet and the carbonic, citric, and phosphoric acids in it will break down stains, especially if you can leave it overnight to do the work. (Soda water will work too, without all the sugary residue.) Be warned though: this technique won't save you from the dreaded brushing of the bowl itself.

Windows only: Free application Disable Startup keeps just any old app from adding itself to your list of startup applications, keeping your boot time snappy and RAM happy.

At its core, Disable Startup is a startup manager similar to the built-in Windows System Configuration Utility. It does the trick if you just want to use it for that, but it's really nothing special strictly as a startup manager. If you're willing to run Disable Startup in your system tray (which will cost you about 4MB), it'll closely monitor your startup applications for new additions. The app gives you the option to disable all new startup entries, warn you when new startup apps are added, or allow any new additions. Likewise, Disable Startup can prevent new software installations from changing your IE start page. It may not be worth the added system tray app for some, but if you install a lot of software that ends up sneaking entry after entry into your list of startup apps, this simple utility is perfect. Disable Startup is a free download, Windows only.

So you're back at work after the holidays and planning out your big projects of the year—time to print out Dave Seah's excellent compact calendar for 2009.

This good-looking and useful spreadsheet template lays out the year in a continuous block of time with U.S. holidays marked (international versions are available as well). Use it to block off spans of time for certain projects, or to check off days you've gotten to the gym, skipped a cigarette, or any other habit you're trying to form. The spreadsheet should work on any platform, and it's a free download. (We mentioned the 2009 edition back in September, but thought it would be most useful today).

BitTorrent weblog TorrentFreak reports on a new piece of malware with a strange bent: If it infects your computer, this trojan will prevent you from accessing popular BitTorrent sites The Pirate Bay and Mininova. It does so by modifying the hosts file on your computer. We've shown you how to use the power of the hosts file for good by banning time-wasting web sites or setting up universal ad blocking through your router, but this novel new trojan adds the unfriendly blocks to your hosts file. If by chance you've been affected, check out the TorrentFreak post for more details.

It's a new year and we've got some new changes happening around here: Mr. Adam Pash will take over as lead editor of Lifehacker on January 16th.

After a wild and woolly four years at the helm, I'm stepping down from the site lead position to work on Some New Stuff on a day-to-day basis in 2009. To be clear, my decision has nothing to do with the big bad economy or any kind of scandalous company blow-up—it's just time for me to move onto new projects. It's tough letting go of something I love so dearly, but it's easier knowing it will be in very capable hands.

No one knows the ins and outs of this site and its community as well as Adam, who's been posting away at my side for over three years now. Adam has authored some of the most popular articles that have appeared on these pages, and he's always had a keen sense of what makes a cool and exciting project or time-saving trick. I can't wait to see where he takes things this year and beyond.

As for me, well, you haven't seen the last of me yet. I'll be contributing a weekly feature and some fun new coding projects to the site starting in February. Freed up from the grind of daily news editing, I'll be able to dedicate more time and research into these posts and projects, so I promise they'll be good.

I'll be around publishing posts, passing torches, dabbing tears, and tying up loose ends until January 15th. Get in touch if you need me on Lifehacker business till then (gina at lifehacker.com), and prepare yourself for an even mushier goodbye post in two weeks. Photo by Nenyaki.

iPhone/iPod touch only: Free online sharing service Soonr has launched an iPhone/desktop app combo that gives you 500MB of space to keep your Windows or Mac documents synced to your device.

After signing up at Soonr's site, installing the desktop software from an emailed link, and installing the free iPhone app, you're pretty much on your way. Soonr's "Desktop Agent" software lets you choose what folders or types of files get synchronized to your device and how much bandwidth gets used doing it. Soonr's app lets you preview Microsoft Office, PDF, text, and image files, and even lets you print to networked printers if your iPhone/touch is connected to a Wi-Fi network.

Check out screenshots of Soonr's desktop application (on Windows XP) and iPhone capabilities below:

Soonr is a free download and sign-up, requires a PC or Mac computer and an iPhone or iPod touch. Looking for a less cloud-based, controllable solution? Try the previously mentioned (and previously free) Air Sharing.

If the upcoming switch to HD digital broadcasting has you considering dropping cable for the free stuff, the AntennaWeb site can help find the receiver that will net the most channels at your address.

The free-to-use site only requires your street address or ZIP code and asks whether you've got any tall buildings or trees nearby. Based on your location (which it sometimes details down to the street level), it lays out how far each local broadcaster is from your house, what channel and signal type they're offering, and what kind of antenna will net you the best reception for the most digital channels. You can even get a map showing which direction each station will come to your house from, for those who need to point a directional unit (or plan to stick with a strategically-placed indoor antenna).

AntennaWeb leaves the purchasing of your outdoor model to your own preference and Google abilities, but the site does explain the whys and hows of antennas pretty decently for those who haven't worked at a RadioShack. Confused in a more general sense about the Feb. 17 transition and what it means? Try the official DTV 2009 site.

Windows only: Porta'Menu is a tiny (175k!) application launcher for your portable drives. It is extremely spartan, but effective.

Add your applications, it remember the relative path and from there on you only have to launch the application launcher when you insert your flash drive instead of digging through the application directories. The interface is very reminiscent of earlier lower resolution versions of windows, and if you read the readme.txt you'll find out why. The author found that an ancient program he'd written to launch applications back in the days before start menus worked perfectly as a relative-path application manager for portable drives. For another application launder that is a little less spartan and has a scratch pad for notes, check out PStart—the first piece of software I recommended to Lifehacker when I was a new reader! Porta'menu is freeware, Windows only.

A simple URL edit can open attached Office docs from Gmail in a sleek viewer, rather than the sometimes funky HTML option.

The Google Operating System blog points out that Google's viewer—powered by Google Docs, but not requiring a sign-up at that service or a cluttered dashboard for existing users—works with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files just as easily as the PDF files Gmail already tells you it can handle. Simply replace the segment view=att with view=gvatt in the URL after you hit "View as HTML," and you'll launch a scalable, zoom-able, easier-to-manage viewer for your attachment.

Most anyone using Ubuntu Linux has to install Adobe Flash, Java, DVD playback, and other plug-ins to actually enjoy it. Super Ubuntu packs all that essential in from the get-go.

It's basically just a re-compiled version of the official Ubuntu distribution, but with a whole bunch of features included that save you the time of grabbing them yourself. File-sharing apps, multimedia codecs, Windows compatibility tools (including WINE and support for PortableApps installations), and lots updates that haven't hit the official repositories are included, but you'll still get official security and application updates through Ubuntu. The creators seem pretty intent on keeping Super Ubuntu up to date, and offer a constantly-seeded ISO torrent and live USB creation tools for anyone looking to try it out.

Super Ubuntu is a free download for most any computer running on x86-based processors. It appears to be a 32-bit-only affair at this point.

Windows only: A small background app can give XP and Vista users part of the functionality of "Aero Peek," a smart way of previewing windows and showing the desktop in Windows 7.

Unfortunately, that part is just the desktop showing aspect, available from a tray icon installed by the Aero Peek app—though it likely won't be long before we see the windows previews, whether from this developer or elsewhere. In the meantime, it's an intriguingly different way for users of desktop gadgets, or those who have to head back to their desktop often for files, to minimize their active windows. Unlike hitting the Windows Key+D combo, restoring your windows from Aero Peek always keeps whatever windows you had active in the front, and shows what windows you have open in shaded outlines.

Not for everyone, especially those inclined toward keyboard shortcuts, but an intriguing attempt at getting yet another one of Windows 7's features into your Windows desktop. Aero Peek is a free download for Windows systems only.

Wondering if your cell carrier can support your jailbroken iPhone 3G after unlocking it? PC World rounds up a great collection of unlocking tips, and points to a extensive list of carrier results.

The White Balance Lens Cap is a replacement for your standard plastic lens cap with the added benefit of helping you easily set a custom white balance.

The center of the cap has a white plastic dome like you find on light meters. Before you start photographing, you set a custom white balance from within the settings menu of your camera. The camera sets the white balance based on the reading through the white light diffusion dome and bam! Perfect custom white balance for your set of shots. Prices range from $45-65. If it's after the fact and you need to do some white balance correcting, check out Fix Your Photos' White Balance.

VortexBox is an open-source CD ripping and media server solution. Based on Fedora 10, VortexBox is capable of streaming in multiple formats allowing you to hear your music on your other computers, iTunes, media centers, slim devices like squeezeboxes and other media devices. Installation is straight forward, download the ISO file, burn it to a disc, pop the disc in the unused computer you want to turn into a jukebox and you're on your way. Once the installation is complete you can access the box remotely with the build in web server. Ripping is completely automated, just pop in the disk you want it to rip and it rips, tags, and gets the cover art. VortexBox is an open-source linux-based media server.

MyOpenBar is a web site that catalogs where you can drink for free in major cities across the United States. Drink on the alcohol companies dime!

Alcohol companies and bars list promotions on MyOpenBar to attract patrons and increase exposure for their products. You just have to scan over the listings to see who is running a promotion in your area. There are listings for New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chcago, Miami, and Honolulu with plans for more metropolitan areas in the future. Locations are ranked and events can be sorted by days. All listings include contact information and directions. Photo by Saquan Stimpson.

Windows only: WindowsPager is a free and light-weight application for managing virtual desktops. The application is just over 300k and uses around 5MB of system memory.

Windows Pager requires no installation or administrative rights to run. After running the executable a small bank of four screens—see the screenshot at left— is placed on the Windows taskbar. Clicking on one of the four panes in takes you to one of the four virtual desktops. On a multiple monitor setup, WindowsPager treats all of the monitors as one enormous desktop and cycling through the virtual desktops will fresh all of the multiple monitors accordingly. WindowsPager was quick to respond to changes and bring up the new windows for each virtual desktop. WindowsPager is a free portable-application, Windows only.

• What are some good high-end headphones for a cheapskate?
• Any tips for dual booting Windows 7 and Windows Vista?
• I have a Windows 98 CD and a Windows XP Upgrade Disc, can I use them to install XP on a new machine?
• How can I throttle bandwidth by individual computer on my network?

Windows only: Productivity Meter is a time tracking tool from Fruitful Time, makers of the task manager we reviewed earlier this year.

Once installed the software sits in the background and keeps tabs on your activity. Productivity Meter tracks the active versus idle time, how your active time is split among applications, which applications were used the most, and which websites you browsed and for how long. You can review the stats for the last day, week, month or a user defined block of time. One of the most useful features is the ability to tag programs, windows, and domains. It would be entirely useless to many users—myself included— if the program simply told you when you'd been using a web browser and time spent on certain domains. I use a web browser for nearly all the work I do on my computer. By using the tag function I can tell Productivity Meter which domains I access for certain tasks and jobs. It's tracking for how much time I spend doing Lifehacker related work became significantly more accurate when I tagged all the domains I use. Another concern was that with a triple monitor setup and a huge number of windows open at any given time it wouldn't accurately track what I was really focusing my time and attention on. After testing it for the better part of a day it does a fantastic job tracking what I'm actually working on. The program is free for personal use, with the small caveat that after 30 days the ability to generate time cards is removed. If you don't need to generate time cards to show a boss or client how your time was spent on a give project it shouldn't matter much. All the graphs and information in the main dashboard is available even after the 30 days window. Productivity Meter is freeware, Windows only.

Kallow is a web-based consumer suggestion service. Think of Kallow as a simplified Consumer Reports. They take enormous tasks like shopping for a new HDTV and reduce it down to the best value.

From the about section on their site:

We love technology, we love reading about it, we love playing with new toys, we love debating which new LCD is the best. Let us do the heavy lifting. We do the research, we compare each model, we balance performance, ease of use and price for you. We pick products that we find to be the best value. We cut through the crap. These are the products that we would recommend to our family and friends if they asked, 'What digital camera should I buy?' or 'We are thinking of getting a new HDTV. Which one should be get?'

I looked over every category on their site, and while I disagreed with some of their choices, that's the whole point. I'm the kind of geek that would spend a whole weekend reading about HDTVs before buying one. Within my family and social circle I'm one of the few people who actually does—and enjoys!— that kind of thing. So while the recommendation of Kallow that my next laptop should be a macbook doesn't actually fit me, it does fit almost every friend and relative I have. Kallow just might save you from spending another holiday as Uncle Bernie's human-encyclopedia for the digital age.

If you're a fan of Make magazine and their DIY-ethos, you won't want to miss the premiere of Make Television. Available both online in HD and on a large number of public stations across America.

Check out if and when the show is being broadcast locally by looking at the Make.tv's broadcast listings. The listings will tell you if the show has been picked up but not formally scheduled, if it is schedule, when it will first or next broadcast, and what time.

If you're not too keen on waiting for an actual airtime, and many of our readers here have professed a deep love of their Tivos and all things digital, you can jump right in and watch the episodes in HD online. Check out the episode guide and click on the links in the episode summary to watch the actual segment.