Windows only (running Google Desktop): If you want access to your Gmail on your desktop (literally) without running a full-blown email client, now you can download the Gmail Google Desktop gadget. You'll need the free Google Desktop software installed first, and then you can dock your Gmail gadget to the desktop to read, search, send, and star messages. The Gmail gadget offers the same keyboard shortcuts that web-based Gmail offers, too. You can even open multiple instances of the gadget and log each into a different Gmail account. The only complaint about the gadget? It doesn't play a sound when new mail arrives. (Though you may thank Google for that one.) The Gmail gadget is a free downlo ...

If you'll be without your personal assistant when webapp Sandy closes its doors next Monday, you may not have to wait long for a replacement: A group of developers are working to build a free, open-source Sandy, and they're hoping to resurrect as much of Sandy as they can from the startup graveyard. Be sure to stop by the Sandy's Back blog or send a tweet @mysandy to let the developers know which features they should tackle first. Thanks Joshua! ...

If you'll be without your personal assistant when I Want Sandy closes its doors next Monday, you may not have to wait long for a replacement: A group of developers are working to build a free, open-source Sandy, and they're hoping to resurrect as much of Sandy as they can from the startup graveyard. Be sure to stop by the Sandy's Back blog or send a tweet @mysandy to let the developers know which features they should tackle first. Thanks Joshua! ...

Software developer Gustavo Duarte explains exactly what your computer does while you wait, in a thorough, technical answer to the question "Why the hell is my computer taking so long to do something when I have such a fast processor?" This post isn't for anyone who glazes over at measurements of throughput in nanoseconds at the component level of a computer. If you want to speed up your computer by giving it less to do, make sure you're running only the stuff you need clean up your startup. ...

Windows only: Free text replacement application PhraseExpress updates to version 6.0, sporting a handful of new time-saving features and stability improvements. If you're unfamiliar with text replacement apps like PhraseExpress, they're like digital shorthand for your computer; the user defines small text snippets that expand to larger pieces of text, so when you type ,sig, for example, a text replacement app can expand that text to a full text signature. We've developed our own text replacement app here at Lifehacker, Texter, which was inspired by the Mac-only TextExpander, but PhraseExpress has a ton to offer in its own right. Among new features, PhraseExpress 6 supports HTML formatting, f ...

Firefox with Greasmonkey (and other browsers): The Helvetireader theme for Google Reader strips away the bells and whistles and offers a minimal interface redesign for keyboard shortcut users. Install Helvetireader in Firefox with the Greasemonkey extension, Opera, a Chromium nightly build, or Safari with Greasekit. With Helvetireader enabled, GReader uses red and black Helvetica font and white background with a light gray gradient. Especially suited to work in Reader as a Fluid or Prism standalone app, Helvetireader is a free download. Helvetireader [via Waxy] ...

Online language translation app Frengly autodetects the source language of text and quickly translates it into your language of choice. Just paste any piece of text into Frengly, hit translate, and let Frengly take care of the rest. Frengly actually plugs into the Google Translate API to both detect the language and to translate the text, so you may wonder: Why use Frengly? Ultimately it's about speed and ease of use. Google Translate requires you to choose the auto-detect option every time you head to the page, which means you lose a step in what should be a feature that shaves a step off translation. Likewise, it's easier to select your destination language once from one of the many button ...

On the heels of Sandy's closure announcement, another small startup announces its shutdown and acquisition: previously mentioned file-sharing service Pownce has been acquired by blogging software makers Six Apart, and the service is shutting down on December 15th. Pownce users can export their messages and import them into a blogging service like WordPress, TypePad, or Vox; no word on how and if Six Apart will integrate Pownce technology into their services. [via] ...

Google has published official documentation detailing their plans to bring extensions to their beta web browser Chrome. When we asked you a few months back whether Chrome with extensions would convince you to switch, 28% said yes, while a whopping 22% of you said that as long as an Adblock extension never reached Chrome, you wouldn't use it. A previous announcement should have already satisfied the first group, but if you were in the Adblock crowd, you'll be happy to know that one of the highlighted uses for Google Chrome extensions is content filtering, including "Adblock, Flashblock, Privacy control, and Parental control." Sounds like Google's moving in the right direction if they want to ...

When you find yourself glancing worriedly from your bank account balance back to the calendar this holiday season, it's time to ditch the catalogs and commercials, roll up your sleeves and get to doing it yourself. Everyone's cutting down on expenditures this holiday season, but that doesn't mean you can't give thoughtful and creative gifts to your family and friends. Lifehacker readers are the craftiest and cleverist DIYers on the interwebs, so we want to see your handmade creations and DIY gift ideas. Submit photos of your holiday projects-in-progress, or maybe ones you've completed in past years, and we'll feature some of the best ones here throughout December. Break out your knitting nee ...

The Get Rich Slowly blog details the ins and outs of the cooling-off period, a three-business-day window the (U.S.) Federal Trade Commission enforces to cancel purchases of $25 or more. There's a good deal of fine print, as J.D. explains: If you make a purchase entirely by mail or telephone, the rule does not apply.When you initiate the sale at the seller’s permanent business location, the rule does not apply, even if the deal is closed in your home.Despite popular misconception, there is no cooling-off rule for automobile purchases. Make sure you want that car before you buy it. Helpful stuff to keep in mind, especially as gift-buying mentality starts to take over. If you're looking to cu ...

Free alert service Exactfactor tracks search engine results by key words, and can email anyone interested in how any web site is doing in the battle for the top Google, Yahoo, or Live.com spot. After signing up for an account, you enter one or two web sites and key words to track them by. You'll see an instant report on the site's ranking on each search site, and can hit "Get alerts" to be e-mailed when that site improves, declines, or hits the front page of the search results. If you're looking for ways to juice your standing in the world of web search (or bury something unfortunate), check Tamar's guide to managing your online reputation. Exactfactor [via Digital Inspiration] ...

1. View Source It’s right there for free all over the web. Make a habit of it, and pretty soon you’ll train yourself to see the second web - the world of Meta-tags and Javascript libraries and CSS style and comments - some of them quite fun! I’ve known several sites that were easier to read from the source code than they were in the web browser proper. 2. Switch Window Managers Mainly this is for the Linux/BSD crowd. Try a lightweight like Blackbox or Window Maker, if it comes with your distro. Edit a style. By changing your desktop every now and then, it just keeps your mind loose and limber. 3. Try a New Distro From the same reasoning as above. Live CDs are gre ...

Firefox only: Easy DragToGo is a Firefox extension which enables interaction with highlighted text and images via mouse gestures. Text actions are determined by whether or not the highlighted text is a URL or not, and by the variables you assign in the preferences menu. An example setup, and my current one, is that all non-URL text when highlighted and dragged becomes a Google search. Drag up to search in a new foreground tab, drag down to search in a new background tab. You assign gestures to opening new URLs, searching text, and saving images. The amount of movement required to trigger the assigned action in Easy DragToGo is minuscule, which makes for some wonderfully lazy mousing. If you ...

The team at the Phoronix site benchmark tested the newly-released Fedora 10 Linux distribution against Ubuntu 8.10 on 32 and 64-bit machines, and found the results nearly identical. Interesting find, and nice to know it's really the features and interface that sets most Linux distros apart these days. ...

We've already pointed out a Greasemonkey script that hides Google's new SearchWiki ranking buttons, but there are viable work-arounds for those not using Firefox or its page-styling Greasemonkey extension. The Google Operating System blog points out four other methods. Most clever and convenient among them is heading to your Experimental Feature settings and enabling any other experiment, like keyboard shortcuts, which disables SearchWiki buttons and notes until you clear out your browser's cookies. Also recommended: Signing out from your Google account and a URL-ending trick, detailed at Google Operating System's post. More Ways to Hide Google SearchWiki [Google Operating System] ...

Windows only: Free utility Gladinet Cloud Desktop removes the web interfaces from Google Docs, Picasa Web Albums, Windows Live SkyDrive and Amazon S3 Storage, mounting them instead as folders you can add, remove, or open documents from. Gladinet hides most of the back-end technology that pulls it off, asking you only for a username and password. Once mounted, it's easy to, say, open a Google Docs file in your local copy of Microsoft Word, or directly add pictures to folders in your Picasa or SkyDrive accounts. Read on for a look at how Gladinet works, along with a 10-minute video that explains more of its features. After grabbing the beta download, installing and launching Gladinet Cloud De ...

Before December 1st is officially upon us, make sure you didn't miss any of November's greatest hits: How to Burn Any Video File to a Playable Video DVD"With your BitTorrent addiction in full swing, you've filled hard drives with media but can't seem to figure out how to burn any of the videos you downloaded to a DVD."Customize Your Own Killer "Enigma" Desktop"Windows desktop tweaker extraordinaire and Lifehacker reader Kaelri—who brought us the gorgeous Lightning at Sunset desktop and then showed us how to do it ourselves—is back, this time with a fresh new desktop he calls 'Enigma.'"Is Your Printer Wasting Your Ink and Money?"Everyone's been there: You just bought an expensive ink cart ...

If you're a fan of the ultra thin All-Ett but you're on a budget, all you need to do is score a free USPS Tyvek mailing pouch and grab a pair of scissors. Over at the DIY site Instructables there is a tutorial on turning those extremely durable Tyvek pouches into equally as durable wallets. The end result is definitely more attractive than you'd assume a folded up mailing pouch would be. Additionally if you're a fan of the Hipster PDA it makes a perfect cover for your stack of 3x5 cards. If you have trouble finding a USPS mailing pouch, any Tyvek mailing pouch will do although it may require slight modification to the folds in the tutorial. For other wallet related goodness check out our wal ...

Windows only: Cubic Explorer is a robust Windows Explorer replacement. Among the features power users have come to expect from Explorer alternatives you'll find tabbed windows, bookmarking, bread crumb navigation, file previews, detailed file searching and quick search via extension filtering. One area of oversight is the lack of dual pane browsing, but the tab interface is snappy enough that the lack of panes can be forgiven. The feature which really shines is the ability to save sessions. If you use Cubic Explorer on multiple machines you can save your preferences for each unique setup: work, home, laptops, etc. Cubic Explore is packaged both in an installer and in a zip file for portable ...