Upgrade Your Life (by Lifehacker)

Lifehacker's Upgrade Your Life is the ultimate compilation of the best Lifehacker tips and tricks. It's a book version of the best Lifehacker has to offer. While you'll have to shell out dollars to get the book, the online version is absolutely free. There are lots of great tips you can use. Here are the most useful for me...

• Outlook tip: Color code messages addressed only to you - This is extremely useful since I get a lot of email advisories that I don't necessarily have to read asap. This makes the most important emails (the ones addressed directly to me) stand out of the numerous unread messages in my inbox.
• Generate unlimited email addresses with Gmail - I hate, hate, hate spam. Who doesn't? With this tip, you can create "disposable" email addresses for use with websites that require the submission of an email address.
• Future-proof your email address - Email addresses used to be novelties. Not anymore. Now, they are a cruicial part of your social life. That's why it's important to choose an email address that will grow with you.
• Create and customize your own planner with D*I*Y Planner - Electronic PDAs aren't always the best choices in organizing your life. Sometimes, the good old planner is the way to go.
• Power Texting Tips - Text messaging may not just be for kids and teenagers anymore. These tips take you from novice to power texter.
• Create your own virtual private network with Hamachi - If you've got multiple computers at home, creating your own VPN makes it a whole lot easier finding and accessing files from other machines.

Check out Lifehacker's Upgrade Your Life for many other useful tips.

9-inch Asus Eee PC

My only gripe about the original Asus Eee PC is the ugly black bezel surrounding its LCD screen. The laptop is already so small, adding a black bezel around the LCD screen makes it even smaller and very hard to read from.

Thankfuly, they have announced an updated version of the tiny laptop which gets rid of the offensive bezel. It's got a 9 inch screen and a 1024 x 600 resolution according to Asus. Not too bad at all, if you ask me.

Engadget has a snapshot gallery of the glorious 9 inch Asus Eee PC screen. It looks so pretty, I'm almost tempted to get one even though I wouldn't have any use for it.

Here's another gallery of pics comparing the 7 incher to the 9 incher Eee. I really think the 9 inch Eee looks a whole lot better than it's 7 inch counterpart. It's a wee bit bigger but who cares? It's still a tiny laptop anyway.

Awesome iPod Nano Video Enlarger Plus Speaker

Think your iPod Nano's screen is too small? Then check out this do-it-yourself iPod Nano video enlarger. It's made out of an old 35mm slide viewer, hacked to include portable speakers. Very cool.

My Gadget Wishlist

Realistically speaking, I don't have enough money to buy all the gadgets I want. But if ever I did, I'll go ahead and buy these things. These are very simple and mainstream gadgets, nothing too fancy in here. And if I probably starved myself for a year I could buy these, but I just love food too much.

• Apple Macbook Pro - This one's a no-brainer. This laptop's simply unbeatable.



• iPod Touch 32 gb - I have the 16gb model but I want the newly released 32 gb! I'm frustrated.



• Bose iPod Dock - This is the prettiest iPod dock around.



• PS3 - Now that BluRay's the clear winner, I'd love to get the PS3 not only for games but for watching awesome movies as well.



• PSP - I used to have a PSP but it got sat on and the screen cracked. Now I'm thinking that I want one again.
  

Laptop DIY

If the price of your new laptop has left you all broke and laptop accessory-less, then DIY! Here are a bunch of do-it-yourself projects for all sorts of laptop accessories that will surely make you the envy of all your friends. Ok, maybe not, but they're still cool projects! :-)

• Foam, foam, foam! There's no better and cheaper material to encase your laptop in than foam. This step by step tutorial shows us how to custom make a foam case for your laptop.
  
  



• If foam doesn't float your boat, then cardboard and duct tape might. Check out this instructable for creating your very own cardboard and duct tape laptop case.
  
  

  
• This PVC laptop stand is cheap, easy to construct and definitely cruicial if you use your laptop on a regular basis. Your back will definitely thank you.
  

PSPhone Mockup

If Sony Ericsson came up with a cellphone slash PSP that looked like this, I'd definitely snap one up. It looks gorgeous! The dual-sliding keypad is suspiciously similar to that of the Nokia n95's but I think this one makes use of it in a better way. How I wish this is a mockup of an actual product to be released, but unfortunately, Engadget debunks it's existence as a mere flight of fancy.

MacBook Pro Mockups

The MacBook Pro is rumored to be updated any time soon. But while that's not happening yet, the time's just right for speculation and excitement. To up the speculation, Engadget challeged it's readers to create mockups of the next MBP. The gallery of submissions is now available at the site and while there were some pretty wacky submissions, some looked great. See my faves below...

Macro Photography 101

I love macro photography. For those who are unfamiliar, macro photography is "the art of taking pictures of things extremely close-up." It's a great way to see your subject in a whole new perspective. However, it's not exactly the easiest thing to do, especially if you don't have a dslr in your camera bag. Erin Manning has created a how-to for taking macro photos using just a regular point and shoot camera. Take a look and you'll be taking terrific close-up pictures in no time.

Keep Your Love of Gadgets from Making You Broke

Gadget freaks, relax. When every new gadget makes you whip out your credit card, it's not a good sign for your wallet or your bank account. Your love of gadgets doesn't have to mean going broke from credit card debt. Put Things Off has a great article on how to curb your anxiety everytime a new gadget is announced.

Then again, when you've got the money to blow on gadgets, go ahead. No ones stopping you from being an early adopter. Just don't complain when the prices are lowered a few months later.

Macworld 2008 Keynote

Check out Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld 2008 here. I'm personally not blown away by any of the things he announced. However, I'm sure a number of people are or will be psyched about a certain practically-paper-thin laptop.

Anyway, I think it's better to watch any keynote without any knowledge about the content whatsoever. It makes everything sound better I guess. So I'll stop blabbing now.