Whyd for iPhone Makes Your Favorite Songs from Around the Web Portable

iOS: Whyd, the song sharing social network that lets you save tracks you find on YouTube, SoundCloud, and elsewhere around the web, took the wraps off their iPhone app today. Whyd for iPhone brings everything great about the service to your mobile device.I've been testing out the mobile app for a while now (and yes, an Android app is on the way) and it works like a charm. If you have a Whyd profile like mine that's stuffed with songs you've found...

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Take the Doors Off Your Kitchen Cabinets for Sheer Convenience

Think about it for a minute: Do you really need doors for the cabinets in your kitchen? Apartment Envy's Kerra Huerta took them off and she's never going back.It seems like a silly idea at first glance, but it can be useful. Unless you have a major pest problem or dust problem, or have pets in the house, the contents of kitchen cabinets don't need robust protection. But you will use and access these items often, so why have one extra step to get...

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Piconka Syncs Web Clips with Google Drive (and Looks Good Doing It)

Chrome: Right now, Evernote is probably the best way to clip and save items on the web. But if you want something simple that works with your Google account, then Piconka is worth a look.Like Evernote, Piconka is a web clipper. The free Chrome extension is easy to use. Select text or an image with your mouse cursor and drag it to the center of your screen. A small green box with a "+" will appear. Drop your selected data in it and you're done.To...

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Check a Hotel's PCI Compliance Before Swiping Your Credit Card

When your credit card is charged at a hotel, are you sure your data is secure? Consumer Reports advocates asking for an "Attestation of Compliance" certificate from the hotel to be on the safe side.A survey found that several hotel managers were unaware that they needed to be PCI compliant—a standard of checks and measures that credit card companies require businesses to have. These include things like running an updated antivirus and firewall,...

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Eight Terminal Utilities Every OS X Command Line User Should Know

The OS X Terminal opens up a world of powerful UNIX utilities and scripts. If you're migrating from Linux, you'll find many familiar commands work the way you expect. But power users often aren't aware that OS X comes with a number of its own text-based utilities not found on any other operating system.Learning about these Mac-only programs can make you more productive on the command line and help you bridge the gap between UNIX and your Mac.This...

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The Ice Cream Rule Helps You Save Without Feeling Deprived

Putting away money for the future can be difficult. MoneyCrush suggests thinking of saving like sharing a bowl of ice cream with a friend.When we share ice cream, we rarely worry about the bite we didn't get:Most of us don't sit around thinking about how deprived we are because we gave a bite of ice cream to our friend. We don't think of that as "cutting back", and we don't go around talking about how we're "giving up a spoonful of ice cream" as...

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Tilt Your Head to Prevent Swimmer's Ear

Swimmer's ear can be a real pain. Literally. We've shared a few fixes for it, but Consumer Reports shares a technique for preventing it.When you get out of the water, tilt your head to one side and then pull on your earlobes. This helps get the water out of your ears. Then just gently dry your ears with a towel. Keeping your ears dry is smart because it's water in the ears that causes the infection.How to prevent swimmer's ear | Consumer ReportsPhoto...

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Check Out the Best From This Week's Open Thread

Where can I find assistance and advice on a tech stack for my app? Why is there a "Bring Your Dog to Work Day?" How can I continue to lose weight while I'm home for the summer from college? What can I do to prevent deodorant from rubbing off into my shirt? Where can I find a simple DIY home alarm system? What tablet should I buy: Samsung 10", Asus, or iPad Air? Where are the up-and-coming neighborhoods in New York?? What entry-level IT jobs are...

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Set Your Email Program to Check Every Hour to Stay Productive

Many of us check email way too obsessively. We've talked about how you should check your email at regular intervals, but if you're having trouble sticking to that, set your email program to check every hour instead of continuously.This concept works on both smartphone and desktop clients. Every time we hear that ding, we tend to stop what we're doing and that leads to lost productivity. If you're using email on the web, just don't open that web...

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Freshen Up Fabrics with a Homemade Vodka Spray

Commercial products like Febreze are great for getting rid of odors, but personally, I hate the chemical smell. Vodka is a great alternative.All you need is some cheap vodka and a spray bottle. Test on an inconspicuous area first. If all turns out okay, spray away. When the vodka evaporates, it takes some of the smell with it. Hit the link for more info.The One Thing That Even Cheap Vodka is Good for - Marking You Smell Better | WonderHowToPhoto...

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Avoid Saying "I'm Sorry" for a Better Presentation

When the inevitable snag in a presentation occurs, we're inclined to apologize for the error. Inc.com says you should consider avoiding that magic phrase entirely.According to Darlene Price, president of Well Said, Inc., by saying "I'm Sorry," though, you actually draw more attention to the error. Business Insider reports:Well-meaning speakers often discredit themselves by thoughtlessly saying the words "I'm sorry.""For example, an audience member...

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The Best Deals for June 22, 2014

Another day of great deals is upon us dear readers. We'll be back at 1pm ET with coverage of Steam Summer Sale Day 4, and at 2pm ET with a special Humble Bundle. Stay tuned.FTL: Faster than Light | $7Buy two select Wii U games, get a third free | TargetTitanfall for $30, Deluxe Edition for $48Shin Megami Tensei IV | $20Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Season Pass | $12Sony Playstation 4 PS4 500GB Storage Black Video Game Console ($350) | eBay | Promo...

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Five Best Online Dating Sites

Looking for love online? You have plenty of places to try and find your perfect someone. We've talked about how to find the right site for you, but this week we're looking at five of the best, based on nominations from you, the Lifehacker community.Earlier in the week we asked you which online dating sites you thought were the best, whether you found your match on one or you've tried them all. You nominated several, from the mainstream to the marginal,...

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Test a New External Hard Drive by Doing a Secure Erase

External hard drives are great for all sorts of things, but sometimes you get a bum drive. Doing a secure erase of the drive gives it a stress test before you put it into service.Over at TidBITS, they have a variety of suggestions for maintaining hard drives, but this one's easy: do a secure erase on it before you use it. This writes data to the entire drive and verifies that it can read and write data on every sector. If it survives the secure...

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This Week's Top Downloads

Every week, we share a number of downloads for all platforms to help you get things done. Here were the top downloads from this week.The Best App Launcher for Mac Over the years, Macs have had a ton of options for excellent app launchers. Alfred is our pick because it manages to balance features with usability. Anyone can pick it up and start using it, but if you want to dig deeper into automation there's plenty of room for expansion.Towelroot...

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Seek Out Problems at a New Job to Advance Your Career

When you start out at a new job, your first instinct might be to blend into the woodwork and not rock the boat. Instead, actively seek out problems you can solve and you'll get better work projects.Business Insider suggests that being known as a problem solver is key early on at a job:Be a heat-seeking missile for problems. If you can become obsessive about identifying and preemptively solving problems, you'll soon find yourself being picked for...

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Improve Your Desktop Mail Performance by Re-Indexing Your Mailbox

While many of us are using cloud-based email, some of us still cling to desktop clients. Re-indexing the email database will improve performance and search capabilities.Fist: make sure you have a good backup before doing any database maintenance. Here are instructions on how to re-index most major email desktop clients:Apple Mail Outlook: may require reindex and compacting Thunderbird Windows Live Mail After you run the re-indexing or compacting,...

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A Bit of Caffeine Could Increase Your Honesty

When we don't get enough sleep, we can't always process information correctly, and might waiver in our ethics. A study in the Journal of Applied Psychology indicates that drinking coffee could help counter that effect.While coffee isn't a magic truth serum, it can keep you awake and alert. The study took two groups of volunteers and gave one group a placebo and the other group caffeinated gum. Both groups were given an ethical dilemma and the caffeinated...

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