Control Windows Media Center with Your Voice [Video]

If you use Windows Media Center on your home theater PC you can configure it to run via voice commands using macros for Windows7's built-in Windows Speech Recognition software. The only additional cost is for a decent microphone if you don't already have one.

Gadget weblog Inspect My Gadget uses Windows Speech Recognition macros to create voice tags that link with keyboard shortcuts. If you say "stop TV" it will send the keystroke Ctrl+S. The AutoHotKey script used to make the system work waits for a predefined button press before listening for a command so that music or video dialogue cannot trigger a command. The button press also lowers the volume so that the system can recognize the user's voice from anywhere in the room. Finally, the author installed an arcade button in his recliner to trigger the voice command so no keyboards or mice are needed.

If you're interested in voice control this would be an interesting weekend project. Because the system associates audio tags with keyboard shortcuts you could also figure out a way to control XBMC using this method.

How-To: Voice control Windows Media Center | Inspect My Gadget

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Switch Your Scrolling Preference on the Fly with the Option Key [Video]

When you click in the well of a scrollbar in Mac OS X, one of two things occurs, depending on your preference: you either jump to the location you clicked or you scroll up/down one entire page length. In general you'll choose the scrolling option you prefer, but sometimes you'll want to switch things up. Fortunately, all you have to do to reverse your scrolling preference temporarily is hold down the option key.

Check out the video above for a demo.

This shortcut can be hard to understand when described, so take a few seconds and try it out for yourself, using this window as a testing ground. Try clicking in the scrollbar well (the empty space that the bar travels inside of) in the window and see how the bar scrolls. Now do the same thing while holding down the option key. You should notice the behavior is a little bit different. The OS X default is to scroll one page at a time when you click in the well, but you can also set this to jump to the specific location where you click. Sometimes it's useful to be able to use both and now the option key will let you do that.

Want to do a lot more with the option key on your Mac? Check out this post.

Five unexpected uses for the Option key | MacWorld

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Today's Lifehacker Workout: Start the Week Right with a 30-Minute Workout [Video]

Happy Monday, everyone! Time to get moving with our group exercise plan, The Lifehacker Workout. All you need is 30 minutes, 3 times a week to keep fit. Here's the plan for today.

The video above shows you how to do today's workout: 20 minutes of walking or jogging plus 10 minutes of strength exercises (5 push ups, 10 crunches, 15 squats; repeat). There are video instructions in the playlist above, but you can skip through those 3 to fast forward to the 10-minute looped video showing the core exercise reps (great to exercise along with).

Whether you're just joining us or have been doing the workout all along, you're welcome to come join our end-of-year group challenge and log your workouts on Fleetly.

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Learn the Basics of Coding [Video]

Smartphone apps, desktop apps, and web apps are some of the best tools we have to get things done, express ourselves, and yes, sometimes have fun. You may have once thought programming was the domain of anti-social neck beards living in basements across the world, but the fact is, anyone can code, and almost everyone can benefit from knowing a little bit about programming. This week's episode of Lifehacker is an introduction into the basics of coding.

This is the sixteenth episode of season two of Lifehacker. Today's episode highlights:

In lieu of downloads, we rounded up some of our favorite resources for your journey into the world of coding:

Hungry for a little more? Check out all the episodes from our current season, catch up with the entire first season of Lifehacker, or pick up a few episodes of our summer series.

Grab it in any format you like: If you don't want to watch it in your browser right now, you can catch the show wherever you want, and in nearly whatever format you like. Visit the episode page on Revision3 to download HD or phone-friendly versions of the show in MP4 or WMV. You can also subscribe in iTunes or via RSS, watch it on YouTube and subscribe to our channel there.

Learn the Basics of Coding, How to Pick a Language a Project, and More | Revision3

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Snapheal Performs Complex Photo Touch Ups and Object Removals in Two Clicks [Video]

Mac OS X: You're probably well aware that you can use Photoshop to perform touch ups and remove objects, but that comes with the obvious disadvantage of a hefty price tag. Snapheal is a new Mac app that's designed to handle just about every kind of photo touch up you could want, but for far less money.

The video above demonstrates one of Snapheal's coolest capabilities—dramatically altering the contents of a photograph to remove undesired elements. It's about as easy as it looks, in that you simply paint over the part of the photo you want to remove and press a button to remove it. What the video doesn't demonstrate too accurately is that the erasing process happens pretty slowly (or at least it seems that way from my experience). The developers seem to have realized this because the app shares fun facts with you while it does the work in an effort to keep you from getting bored. Although it can take awhile to perform the touch ups, Snapheal did a very nice job.

I tested it on a picture of a cake and it erased all the crumbs without issue. I also tried erasing Albert Einstein's eyes from his face and it did a great job, too. (And yes, I realize this was a creepy choice but I wanted to give it something complicated to do and had that photo handy.) Snapheal also offers other image editing tools like painting on contrast and color changes, along with manual touch up options as well. It's comprehensive enough to handle pretty much any photo editing task.

The main downside to Snapheal is that it's a little bit buggy. The first time I tried to erase some crumbs from the cake it just turned half of the photo black. Another time it failed entirely and I had to restart the application. It seemed to have more of these issues with higher-resolution photos, which is problematic because that's likely what you're going to be touching up. That said, Snapheal is a very new application and it's bound to have a few bugs. When it works, it seems more adept at healing blemishes, removing options, and general touchups than even Photoshop. While it's strange that there isn't an available demo to test it out. Nonetheless, it's definitely worth the $15 (or $10 if you get it during the promo period) if its functionality is useful to you—especially once the app becomes a little more stabile.

Snapheal ($15 regularly, but $10 until via December 21st via this MacUpdate promo) | MacPhun

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Jailbreak Your Kindle Touch with an MP3 [Video]

Amazon's new version of the Kindle Touch comes with a new operating system, but programmer Yifan Lu has already managed to jailbreak the device with an incredibly easy process that requires nothing more than playing a MP3 file.

The process to jailbreak is as simple as it gets. You need to download a ZIP file from Lu's site and then copy the MP3 inside to your Kindle. Then you need to play the file on your Kindle to jailbreak it.

This first step is just a gateway for apps and there aren't any mods available for the Kindle Touch yet, but if you plan on jailbreaking in the future, it might be a good idea to do this now in case it's patched later on. You can find the full guide on Yifan Lu's website below.

Kindle Touch (5.0) Jailbreak/Root and SSH | Yifan Lu via Digital Reader

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Freezer Bag Cooking Provides Inexpensive Easy-to-Prepare Meals for Backpacking or Emergencies [Video]

Freeze-dried foods from such brands as Mountain House and Backpacker's Pantry are staples for multi-day backpacking trips, and many preppers also store them for emergencies since they store for years and only need hot water to prepare. By utilizing dehydrated and freeze-dried foods from the grocery store you can make your own meals that are tasty and easy to prepare for a fraction of the cost of commercial backpacking food.

Trailcooking.com is the main resource for this method and features recipes, tips on dehydrating your own foods, and even plans to make an insulated cozy for freezer bags to reduce cook times. Most of the ingredients can be sourced at your local grocery store, but a few (such as single serving packs of olive oil) may have to be ordered online. Update - a helpful reader just informed me you can snag a few single-serve packets of olive oil at the Subway fast food chain.

Once you've assembled the ingredients for your recipe all you need do is put everything together in a freezer bag, label it, and when you're ready to eat you'll just need to add almost-boiling water, stir, and close the bag and wait typically 5-15 minutes for your meal to rehydrate and cook. You'll definitely want actual freezer bags as sandwich bags are not rated for high temperatures.

From my research it seems that Ziplock brand freezer bags do not contain BPA and are rated to be safely heated to microwave temperatures. As long as you're not immersing the bag in boiling water there should not be any health risk with regard to the bags. Freezer bag cooking seems to be a great compromise between tasty meals, ease of preparation, and cost.

Freezer Bag Cooking 101

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How Science Can Teach You to Easily Spot a Liar [Video]

By Adam Dachis Oct 17, 2011 2:00 PM 38,590 43

We've mentioned a few ways to detect liars, but Pamela Meyer has discovered just about all of them. She's taken a look at the most common behaviors of liars, scientifically, and shares her expertise on how to detect them.

Meyer believes that lying is often a cooperative act. We willingly let others deceive us because we want to avoid conflict. We may tell each other an email didn't receive a response because it ended up in the spam folder or that dinner was delicious (or at least tolerable). This is okay to some extent because we're all okay with it, but studies show that you may be lied to anywhere from 10 to 200 times per day. Many of those are white lies, but studies have also discovered that strangers lie three times within the first ten minutes of meeting each other. Meyer sees lying as what we do to bridge the gap between fantasy and reality. When we want something to be true, we lie so that it at least appears to be true in the hopes that we may be able to make it that way before any truth is uncovered. We hope it will be true, and so our lies are essentially loans of a desired future.

We all do this on occasion, but some lies are worse than others. Fortunately, science points to plenty of indicators to help us detect when we're being told a lie, many of which are contrary to what most people believe:

Liars like to distance themselves from the subject. Taking Bill Clinton as an example, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," has the two giveaways of "did not" and "that woman" help point out that it's a lie.Liars use qualifying language, like "to tell you the truth."Repeating the question before answering it dishonestly is a common indicator of a lie.Liars look you in the eyes too much. They don't fidget, but rather freeze their upper body.Liars will fake smiles. Here's how to tell the difference.Liars like to offer details.When liars are the culprits and trying to avoid punishment for what they did, they're more likely to suggest strict punishments for the "real culprit."Liars are terrible at telling their stories backwards.Liars will often point their feet towards an exit.Liars will often put barrier objects between themselves and the person asking them about their lie.

Meyer's talk demonstrates several other lie detection methods, such as head shakes and asymmetrical expressions, that you really need to watch the video to understand. It's fascinating and worth the 15 minutes it'll take to watch—especially because, with a little practice, you should be able to point out lies in your everyday life pretty easily.

How to Spot a Liar | TED via Swissmiss

You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook.  Twitter's the best way to contact him, too. Related Stories

Boards of Canada [Video]

I'd never heard of Boards of Canada until commenter JacobyDave recommended it in our first Work Sounds post, but after a quick skim through their first album, Music Has The Right To Children, I'd describe them as a ambient electronica; great for flicking on as background music and forgetting about it.

Although BoC gets slightly more bombastic than the basically one-step-up-from-silence Music For Airports, it rarely hits crazy enough heights to distract you—or I guess me—from work. You probably won't/can't jam out to them, but it gets the job done.

Rdio | Spotify | Amazon | iTunes

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Remains of the Day: The iPhone 4S Shoots Impressive HD Videos [Video]

By John Verive Oct 18, 2011 4:00 PM 3,566 6

See a side-by-side shoot-out between the iPhone 4S and a professional camera that costs four times as much, watch the livestream of the Google and Samsung Android event, and experiment with Google's concept of a digital bookcase.

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You Are Beautiful At All Times [Video]

By Jason Chen Oct 17, 2011 1:30 PM 8,008 6

I only discovered Yppah's You Are Beautiful At All Times last week, but it's already made its way into my "I gotta get stuff done but still need something to listen to" playlist. On the sale of the Work Sounds we've done so far, it's a bit more energetic than Boards of Canada, but maybe a little less than Explosions in the Sky.

If anyone's familiar with Yppah, let us know if their other albums are as good, if not better, for Work Sounds.

p.s., Really excited about Wednesday's installment.

Rdio | Spotify | Grooveshark | Amazon | iTunes

Have a suggestion on a song or album we should feature for Work Sounds? Share it with us here.

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How to Migrate All Your Data to iCloud from Google with Minimal Fuss [Video]

By Whitson Gordon Oct 18, 2011 8:00 AM 18,444 35

While most of us use Gmail for all our cloud computing needs, Apple's iCloud actually has some really nice things going for it—especially if you're a heavy Mac and iOS user. I've walked through why you might want to switch from Google's apps to iCloud, so whether you're migrating all your data over or just a few choice items, here's how to move from Google to iCloud without losing any of your existing email messages, contacts, calendars, and documents.

You can start fresh with your new iCloud account, but maybe you want access to your email archives all in one place. In that case, you'll have to migrate your current Gmail inbox over. It isn't the quickest process, but we've found that plugging both accounts into an IMAP program—like Apple's Mail—makes it fairly straightforward. Just make sure you follow the instructions below to the letter. Read through them first, so you understand what you're doing, and then go through each step, one by one. If you make a mistake, you could severely confuse your iCloud inbox and have to start over. Here's what you'll want to do:

First, set up both Gmail and iCloud in Mail.app. Setting up Gmail is easy, and creating a new iCloud email address is as simple as going into System Preferences > iCloud, signing in with your Apple ID, and creating a new Mail account. It should show up in Mail when you're done.Let Mail download all your messages. You'll see all your Gmail labels set up as folders. Note that iCloud doesn't use labels like Gmail does, so you'll need to go into Gmail and make sure all of your messages are assigned only one label—otherwise, you'll get duplicate messages in your iCloud account.When you're ready to migrate, head into Mail.app and click on Gmail's "Sent Messages" folder. Go to Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Sent. Repeat this process with the Deleted Messages folder as well.Now, you're ready to start moving messages over. Start with the inbox. Go to Gmail's inbox in Mail.app and select all the messages within. Right-click on them and hit Copy To > Inbox > iCloud. This should copy all those messages over to iCloud's inbox. Do not drag and drop the messages; that will remove them from Gmail, which we do not want yet.Repeat this process for each of your user-created folders—that is, all your Gmail "labels" except All Mail, Important, Starred, and Spam. Create a new folder on the iCloud account (by right-clicking on the iCloud inbox and hitting "New Mailbox), click on the corresponding folder from your Gmail account, select all the messages, and copy them to the new iCloud folder. Be sure to copy over all your sent messages, too, even though they're a Gmail-created folder! Note that if one of your folders is particularly big, you may run into some errors when copying messages. If you get an error, delete all the messages in the iCloud folder you're trying to fill and try the copy again. After another try or two, it should work.When you're done, you should have a good portion of your messages migrated to the iCloud account. The only messages missing will be the ones that didn't have a label, and weren't in your inbox or sent messages folder. To migrate these, we'll need to delete everything we've migrated so far, and move them from the "All Mail" folder into a new "Archive" folder in iCloud. So, go back to your Sent Messages, Inbox, and other user-created labels and delete all those messages—using the Mail.app interface—from your Gmail account.Lastly, copy everything from the All Mail folder in to iClouds Archive folder, as you did with the other folders. When you're done, your inbox should look just like it did in Gmail, and you're ready to start using iCloud Mail.

If you want to undelete those messages from your Gmail account just in case, you can head to the Gmail web interface, select all the messages in your Trash, and move them to your inbox. Then, re-archive them all in case you want to move back to Gmail later.

Migrating your calendars is much easier than migrating your email. Open up Google Calendar, go to Settings > Calendars, and hit the "Export Calendars" link. This will download all your calendars in a ZIP file to your desktop. Extract the ZIP file somewhere, then open up iCal and go to File > Import. Choose one of your calendars in the folder you just unzipped, and assign it a new calendar in iCal. Repeat this for each of those calendars. As long as the Calendars box is checked in System Preferences > iCloud, all those calendars should sync right up to iCloud with no problem.

Migrating your contacts is extremely easy:

First, go into System Preferences > iCloud and uncheck the contacts box (that's right).Open up Address Book and go to Preferences > Accounts. Check the "Synchronize with Google" box and enter your Google credentials when prompted.Head back into System Preferences > iCloud and recheck the Contacts box. It will ask you if you want to merge your computer's Contacts with your iCloud contacts; pick Merge. Then, it'll tell you that it's going to turn off Google sync, which is okay, so hit OK.

When it finishes, head to the iCloud web interface, you should see all your Google contacts there, imported and ready to go.

Google offers an easy way to download any documents you want to your desktop, after which you can just drag them into iCloud:

Start by going to Google Docs' web interface and select the documents you want to transfer over. You can select all the documents in your account by clicking the check box at the top of the list.the "More" button that appears and choose "Download" from the list. Make sure you download the documents in Microsoft Office format.Unzip the resulting file anywhere on your computer, like the desktop.Open up the iCloud web interface and hit iWork. Drag all those files you extracted into the iWork interface. They should upload right then and there, and pretty soon you'll see them on all your iOS devices, ready for editing.

Most of the data is actually very simple to migrate, so you shouldn't have any problem moving your important work from one service to the other. When you're done, you can access all that data from any of your iOS devices or from the iCloud web interface, no matter where you are, and everything will sync seamlessly. What's even better is that if you get a new computer or iOS device, setting up iCloud takes just a few seconds—you'll never have to worry about complicated account syncing ever again. Have you already given iCloud a shot? Let us know how the migration went for you—or what you did differently—in the comments.

You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
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Ask and Answer Questions About Digital Video [Help Yourself]

Oct 18, 2011 11:30 AM 1,615 21

Every day we're on the lookout for ways to make your work easier and your life better, but Lifehacker readers are smart, insightful folks with all kinds of expertise to share, and we want to give everyone regular access to that exceptional hive mind. Help Yourself is a daily thread where readers can ask and answer questions about tech, productivity, life hacks, and whatever else you need help with.

HD video recording is finding its way onto more and more cell phones and digital cameras, and the the file formats get increasingly easy to work with every year. There are so many ways to shoot HD videos and options for sharing what you have captured that it is easy to get overwhelmed. Ask and answer any of your questions about shooting, processing, and sharing digital video in the comments.

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Text by Voice for Android Reads Incoming SMS Messages Aloud, Sends Them Using Your Voice [Video]

By Alan Henry Oct 18, 2011 4:00 AM 9,471 39

Android: There are a lot of apps out there that can send text messages using your voice, including Google's own in-built Voice Actions. However, not many read your incoming messages out loud when they arrive. That's where Sonalight's new app, Text By Voice, comes in.

Once the app is running, Text by Voice is completely hands-free. It's similar to Vlingo in that it listens for a specific trigger phrase, and when you speak it the app jumps into action, acknowledges that you spoke to it, and waits for a command. Tell the app who you want to send a message to and what that message should say, and the app will send it. When you get a response, the app will alert you to the incoming message and speak it aloud as well, giving you the opportunity to reply right away or wait.

Text by Voice stands out because it makes the entire process of sending and receiving texts completely hands-free, which is perfect if you're driving and want to tell someone where you are or how long it'll be until you arrive without touching the phone. Even Google's own Voice Actions require that you tap the screen or long-press the search button to send a message, and it won't read your incoming messages to you. Some Bluetooth headsets include an app that will read incoming messages aloud, but you still have to tap the headset to respond.

Text by Voice is a solid addition to Google's own Voice Actions, but you have to have it running for the app to help you, so remember to start it every time you get in the car. For more voice-activated and hands-free Android utilities, check out our list of Siri-like apps for Android. Do you have a preferred app that will send and receive text messages aloud? Let us know in the comments below.

Sonalight Text by Voice

You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter or Google+. Related Stories

Remains of the Day: The iPhone 4S Gets Dropped for Science [Video]

By John Verive Oct 17, 2011 4:00 PM 9,554 10

Experts on broken gadgets compare 2 high-end smartphones, U.S. wireless carriers agree on customer notification guidelines to minimize bill-shock, and Amazon expands their in-store delivery system to Manhattan.

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Noow Is a Media Player that Downloads and Plays Music and Video for You [Video]

By Alan Henry Oct 18, 2011 5:00 AM 7,478 16

Windows: If you're a fan of jukebox style music and video players, Noow is a new app that plays the music and movies you have, downloads more for you to watch, manages your podcasts, and can play almost any file type you throw at it.

Once installed, Noow will search your system for video and music, add it all to its library (without moving the files) and gives you a single application to watch and manage those files. If you're subscribed to podcasts, the app can handle those as well, and will download them regularly. It supports HD video, supports BitTorrent, will play and download YouTube videos for offline viewing, and comes pre-loaded with web video to watch, including TED Talks and our very own Lifehacker show. If you want to sync media with a phone, tablet, or other portable player, the app can perform file conversions just by right-clicking the file you want to convert. All of these features are wrapped up in a tidy interface that's fast and easy-to-use.

If you decide to try Noow, make sure to choose the custom install: if left alone the installer wants to change your browser home page and search preferences. The app is available now for Windows only. The developers promise that Mac and Linux versions are on the way.

Noow | via The Next Web

You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter or Google+. Related Stories

Siri Can Work on iPhone 4. Will Apple Allow it? [Video]

By David Galloway Oct 15, 2011 10:30 AM 35,266 54

iPhone developer Steven Troughton-Smith managed to port Siri to iPhone 4 as shown in the above video, but Apple is not currently authenticating Siri commands from iPhone 4. This means that you can certainly install Siri on your iPhone 4 but the digital personal assistant will not respond to your inquiries.

Tech bloggers are speculating that Apple may wish to only allow Siri to connect to their servers using the new iPhone 4S even though there is no technical reason that iPhone 4 and iPad 2 should not be able to use the feature. Perhaps Apple will introduce Siri to these devices once the 4S has been available for a few months.

Siri voice command system ported from iPhone 4S to iPhone 4 | 9to5 Mac via Gizmodo

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Top 10 Tricks for Dealing With Email Overload [Video]

By Whitson Gordon Oct 15, 2011 8:00 AM 34,143 13

It doesn't matter what you do, modern jobs seem to require that everyone barrage you with email at all hours of the day. If you're feeling overwhelmed and like you'll never get back to a clean inbox, here are ten of our favorite tips to help you manage the ever-growing mountain of email.

If you're going to effectively manage your email, you'll need to know your way around your email client like the back of your hand—whatever your client may be. We're big fans of Gmail, and we've written a lot on how to become a Gmail master, including some of our favorite experimental Gmail features you should definitely enable. If you're not a Gmail user, we've written many tips about Outlook and Thunderbird too—but you can't go wrong with reading your client's documentation to learn a bit more.

Lots of time you spend dealing with email is spent writing email, and clearing up confusion with email you sent earlier. Spend less time on email and more time working by practicing good email habits: like clarity, concision, making it actionable, and relevance. The less time you spend communicating simple ideas, the less time you'll spend sifting through your inbox.

Chances are, not every single email you get requires your attention right away. Filter out the important messages so when you're crunched for time, you can prioritize what email you answer so you don't waste time. Gmail's Priority Inbox is a fantastic, automated way to do this, although you could probably accomplish something similar with a few well-crafted filters in any email client.

Whatever you do, don't be a slave to your email notifications. Answering your email every time you see that little popup, hear that little ding, or watch that icon badge climb up another point will kill your productivity. Assign yourself a 15-minute minimum for email checking: Let the emails come in, and then check it periodically throughout your day instead of every time a new one comes in. And don't check it first thing in the morning, either, or you'll never get anything done.

Responding to your email quickly keeps you looking professional, but it's a balancing act. Try following the 2-2-2 rule, which says to aim for answering emails within two hours of their arrival. If you don't have time to respond to it right now, a service like Boomerang for Gmail can remind you of it later on so you don't let it float to the bottom of your inbox. Remember, responding in a timely manner is not the same as responding immediately—not only does that mean you're breaking tip number 7, but it means people will then expect you to always reply instantly, which is often an unachievable goal.

If you think your email is overloaded, wait until you come back from a week-long vacation—it becomes an unclimbable mountain. Instead of dreading your vacation, take an actual delete-all-email sabbatical. Let everyone know you'll be gone, set up an auto-responder that tells them to email you back later, and delete everything that comes in. That way, you come back to an empty inbox, and anything important enough to wait for your return will be re-sent when you come home.

If you find you're typing a lot of the same phrases over and over again in email, it's time to automate that. We've long advocated using a system-wide text expander that replaces tiny snippets of text with oft-used phrases. That way, when you need to type a canned response, an address, or any other tedious amount of text, you can just hit a few keys on your keyboard and be on your way to the next email.

A recent study found that wading through email folders is an inefficient way to search through old messages. This doesn't mean don't use folders—You don't want to become an email piler, where everything piles up in your inbox—but it means learn to use your client's search function. When it comes time to find that old email, don't go clicking through folders, use advanced search operators in conjunction with good filters to find what you're looking for.

It's unlikely work email is the only thing overloading you. The other thing taking up all that space in your inbox is spam, and while it seems impossible to get rid of, there are a lot of techniques you can use to keep it at a minimum. First, make sure you know which messages were sent directly to you and not to a mailing list, by coloring them in Outlook, highlighting them in Thunderbird, or turning on personal level indicators in Gmail. Next, you can avoid incoming spam by filtering the word "unsubscribe", and filter future spam by using a temporary, disposable email address from a service like Trashmail or Mailinator. With a few extra filters and tools, you can keep your inbox (mostly) free of any spam that comes your way.

In the end, the best way to get to inbox zero is to get your email out of your inbox, act on it, then archive it away. We've always advocated triaging your inbox with the trusted trio of folders: Follow Up, Archive, and Hold. If you can get by without ever leaving a read message in your inbox, you'll be able to achieve that mental peace you've always wished for. Check out our full guide to email triage to learn more.

These aren't the only tips that'll help you keep a clean inbox, but they're some of the ones we've found most useful over the years. Got your own tip or trick to dealing with a constant barrage of messages? Let us know about it in the comments.

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Luma Video Camera for iPhone Stabilizes Your Video, Kills Shaky-Cam [Video]

By Alan Henry Oct 14, 2011 4:00 AM 2,318 6

iOS: If your mobile videos are plagued by shaky-cam action and you have a hard time holding your device still while you record, Luma Video Camera is an app that can help. Luma does real-time image stabilization to reduce the shakes and wobbles that make the people watching your videos nauseous.

Luma Video Camera is the latest version of an app that used to be called SteadyLens, and it's free in the iTunes App Store for a limited time. The app features a full-screen viewfinder, uninhibited by tools or options, allows you to pinch an area on the screen to zoom in on it, and supports shooting video in both portrait and landscape modes. Like any good social app, Luma also lets you apply themed filters over your video if you want, including a black and white filter, a vignette filter, and more.

Have you tried Luma, or did you try the app when it was still SteadyLens? Do you have another video app you prefer? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Luma Video Camera | iTunes App Store via Tested

You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter or Google+. Related Stories

MapsGL Brings a Much Smoother, More Detailed 3D Experience to Google Maps [Video]

By Whitson Gordon Oct 14, 2011 4:15 PM 26,043 15

The Google Maps team has released a new experimental version of Maps, complete with 3D buildings, smooth transitions between views, and more.

The new version of Maps, called MapsGL, uses WebGL technology in the latest browsers (all modern versions of Google Chrome as well as Firefox 8 and above) to create a smoother Maps experience. The sweeping transitions between map view and street view are pretty cool, as are the smoother motions when you drag around the map. The coolest part, though, is the addition of 3D buildings to many towns and cities. Not only do they look awesome, but it's helpful to know where actual buildings are on a street without having to enter street view.

MapsGL runs in Firefox 8 and above, as well as Google Chrome. Your system does need to meet some minimum specs to work (MapsGL will tell you whether it meets them or not), so if you're on a netbook or low-powered laptop like a MacBook Air it may not work for right now. Head to the link below and hit the "Want to Try Something New?" button to get started, or check out the video above for a demonstration.

MapsGL | via Chrome Experiments

You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
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