Photography

What Everybody Should Know About Cameras
The essentials of digital camera knowledge, from all the different types of cameras to image sensors to jargon like ISO, all in one epic spot.

Why Lenses Are the Real Key to Stunning Photos
Despite what stupid spec wars would have you believe, a fancy slice of glass is just as important as silicon to taking a stunning photo.

When (Not) To Use Your Camera's Flash
What is photography's greatest scourge? Cellphone cameras? MySpace self-portraiture? No, it's that dratted flash—here's when and how you should-and more importantly, shouldn't-use it.

Why More Megapixels Isn't Always Better
In short, twelve megapixels stuffed onto a tiny ass sensor looks like crap. Twelve megapixels with plenty of a room on a full-frame sensor can look pretty great.

Television

The Ultimate HDTV Cheat Sheet and Buying Guide
Read this before you go buy and HDTV, and you'll have the Best Buy employee spinning in circles. Or at least, he won't be able to take you for a spin.

The Difference Between a $600 TV and a $6000 TV
There is a difference, and it goes way beyond the logo sitting front and center. How much do all those extra inches cost? What about 120Hz, or hell 240Hz? The cost of a fancy ass TV, broken down.

What's So Great About LED-Backlit LCDs
Any LCD display worth its salt—especially when it comes to laptops—is lit up by a bunch of LEDs, not the fluorescent bulbs that light up high school cafeterias. But, not all LED displays are created equal.

Audio

Why You Can't Get Decent Headphones for Under $100
Building truly great in-ear headphones is hard. Which means it's expensive. We got an earful of the secret sauce that goes into the pricey headphones that sound oh-so-delicious, and why you can't buy 'em for a song.

The Difference Between $100 and $100,000 Speakers
Well the title really says it all, don't it?

Why Analog Audio Cables Really Aren't All the Same
Yes, there really is a difference between analog cables. And you want there to be.

Computers and Software

Why Quantum Computing Is the Future, But a Distant One
Computing with quantum physics! It's as crazy as it sounds, so we'll let quantum physicists explain it.

Why Stuff Crashes, and Why It Happens Less Often Now
Ever wondered what causes a BSOD or kernel panic? Notice how it happens a less often than it used to? (Though Firefox crashing every five minutes seems to make up for it.)

Android and How It Will Take Over the World
No, it's not because of the mysterious Nexus One. The true nature of Android is a little more complex than you might realize, able to run everything from phones to nooks to set-top boxes. And Google's giving it away for free.

GPGPU Computing and Why It'll Melt Your Face Off
Graphics cards, they're not just for PC gametards anymore. Thanks to new programming standards they'll be accelerating everything on a computer that can take advantage of oodles of processing cores.

How Apple Affects Your Tech World Through Standards (Even You, Windows Guy)
The easy way to have power over technology and people outside of your own little domain: Create tech standards. Here's a few Apple's been instrumental in getting out there.

Microsoft and Standards
The flip side to how Apple plays with industry-wide standards, Microsoft just establishes them de facto, when it can. Here's some of the bigger ones they're responsible for.

Cellphones

How Cell Towers Work
Until Wilson explained how cell towers work, I always thought Stormtrooper fairies carried the signals from my phone to the Death Star and then to my mom's cellphone.

Why WiMax and LTE Wireless 4G Data Will Blow Your Mind
WiMax is really here (at least in some places) and LTE from Verizon and AT&T will be ramping in short order. The days of ubiquitous wireless broadband are very nearly here. Exciting, and scary.

Bill Nye Explains Oleophobic Screens
Uh, Bill Nye. Explaining stuff. Do I need to say anymore?

Electricity

Why Every Country Has a Different F#$%ing Plug
There actually are reasons there's like a billion different types of power plugs scattered across the world. I know you want to know why.

How Electrocution Really Kills You (With Adam Savage)
MythBuster Adam Savage tells us how electricity really kills you—surprisingly, it's not by poaching your brains inside of your skull.

Coffee

How to Actually Make Coffee
Odds are, you're doin' it wrong. Here's most of the major ways to make delicious coffee, with advice from our friends at Ninth St. Espresso, Intelligentsia Coffee and La Marzocco.

Still something you still wanna know? Send any questions about cameras, processors, or anything else crazy complicated to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

This list is culled from a straight listing of the most popular posts that offered a Firefox extension for download in 2009. We're not including posts about configuring Firefox, or even our own hand-rolled Firefox add-on packs—even if they were pretty popular, too. Let's get to the good stuff.

Firefox 3.7 Theme Makes Your Browser Look Awesome

One of the greatest things about Firefox is that its development happens way out wide in the open. When the design workers start coming up with preliminary sketches of a new release, anyone can peek at them and even compile them into a theme, which does just what the headline suggests.

All-Glass Firefox Enables Slick Transparency Effects

Windows Vista and 7 feature some fairly nice looking transparency effects, but if your primary browser doesn't use them, it can feel a bit disconnected. All-Glass Firefox v2 tweaks your browser to look just, well, proper in its fancy-pants surroundings.

"Vacuum Places Improved" Speeds Up Firefox with a Click of Your Mouse

You can speed up Firefox by cleaning up its fragmented database, and the Vacuum Places Improved 0.3 extension automates that admittedly pain-in-the-butt process.

Gmail Redesigned 3.0 Focuses on Speed and Message Space

Google Redesigned, a multi-site suite that trades Google's blue/white/minimal look for a darker, sleeker feel, kept improving its transformative powers this year, adding a host of improvements in its 3.0 release, and later releasing a new version with GReader Redesigned for the RSS hounds.

Dislike 0.2 Adds a Disapproving Dislike Button to Facebook

"I'm having SUCH a bad day—the cleaning lady TOTALLY left her Pine Sol smell all over my bed linens!" That, my friends, is why clever JavaScript tweakers created the Dislike extension.

TinEye Adds Reverse Image Lookup to Firefox

Many of the pictures and illustrations you find across the web aren't in their original form—and many can be had at better, perhaps more wallpaper-worthy sizes. The TinEye extension makes it a simple right-click maneuver to search out similar copies of any image you come across.

SkipScreen Lets You Pass Go and Collect Your Download

Sometimes, great stuff has to be hosted on public download services, because the file—or the attention it's getting—is just too much for our meek little personal sites. And the download sites often make it as painful as possible to grab those files. SkipScreen acts as an automated intermediary, jumping through the necessary hoops and entering the key presses required.

FireFound Tracks Your Stolen Computer, Nukes Your Personal Data

This neat little extension, winner of the Extend Firefox 3.5 contest, utilizes lots of Firefox's built-in features, like geo-location and the extension framework, to offer wary laptop users a way to nuke their personal data, passwords, and history if necessary, track where their machine is logging on after a theft, and cull all kinds of data from the thief. FireFound is, in other words, a smart thing to install if your laptop ever leaves the home.

Gui:config Gives Easy Access to Hidden Firefox Settings

A lot of helpful stuff is tucked away in Firefox's about:config menus. Gui:config brings them into focus and offers a graphical way to manage them. As the How-To Geek puts it, it's amazing that this isn't something being considered for mainstream distribution in the browser.

Memory Fox Manages Firefox's Memory Use, Aims to Keep It Low

(Windows only): Firefox is decently light with memory on startup, but extensions and plug-ins drag it down as you actually use it. Memory Fox monitors Firefox's memory use and, once it reaches your pre-set limit, whips it back into shape.

Daum Blue Firefox Theme is Clean, Simple, and Elegant

(Windows only): Well, the headline and picture kind of say it all about Daum Blue, but it's worth noting that beyond looks, it's also fairly customizable, and looks even better on Vista and Windows 7 systems.

Decreased Productivity Helps You Browse at Work Without Getting Busted

Sure, kind of anathema for this site's stated mission, but giving your mind a break at work has real mental benefits, even if your boss doesn't think so.

UrlbarExt Adds Super Powers to the Awesome Bar

If you're likely to do more at a web site than just simply bookmark it, UrlbarExt is like a Leatherman for your AwesomeBar. Head to a site's root, search the site on Google, and do much more from a small array of address bar buttons.

Foxmarks Becomes Xmarks, Adds Search and Suggestion Features

Another headline that pretty much says it all. We weren't a big fan of Xmarks' new "discovery" features, but its growing reach into Chrome and other browsers make the former Foxmarks' expansion a good thing.

Magnetiser Downloads Torrents When No Torrent File Is Available

Given the recent legal crackdown on BitTorrent-centered sites, magnet links (explained here) are increasingly popular. Magnetiser makes it easy to track down a working torrent link to grab the file you're looking for.

Integrated Gmail Updates with Improved Looks and Handy Features

It must be mentioned that, beyond smooshing together Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader into one neatly-arranged Gmail page, Integrated Gmail also customizes every niggling detail of those combined apps, making it worth the try-out, even if you think you like your Google spaces separated into different tabs.

Omnibar Extension Collapses Firefox's Address and Search Boxes into One

Omnibar is one of the clever ways Firefox can make itself into a Google Chrome clone, and we love that kind of openness 'round here.

Invisible Hand Subtly Shows Best Web Prices

If you're always looking at online purchases and wondering if you could save more before pulling the trigger, Invisible Hand affirms your hunches for you, dropping down and showing lower prices wherever it can find them.

Ubiquity Sees Major Update, New Look, Better Performance

Mozilla's future-facing automation and shortcut engine, Ubiquity, continued to get awesome-r in 2009.

App Tabs Creates Permanent, Icon-Only Tabs, Firefox 4.0-Style

We dug the idea of permanent, favicon-only tabs when a helpful reader explained it to us, but the App Tabs extension took a multi-step process and made it far more simple.

Last year, we compiled the most popular Linux downloads of 2008 and the most popular Linux posts. The most popular Linux downloads, however, tend to also be released for Windows and Mac systems, and we'd rather not repeat ourselves.

So! This year, we ran through our archives and pulled out the posts most directly related to Linux: informational, how-to, Linux-focused downloads, and the like. For good measure, though, we'll list the most popular cross-platform downloads at the end, which will look very familiar to those posted in our Most Popular Free Mac Downloads of 2009 and Most Popular Free Windows Downloads of 2009 posts.

Portable Ubuntu Runs Ubuntu Inside Windows

And it really does, too, after a bit of command line tweaking. It's a close relative of the andLinux system that lets you seamlessly run Linux apps on your Windows desktop. This one doesn't require any installation, however, and you can even take it with you on a thumb drive. This holiday season, feel free to show Uncle Steve just how open and free Linux can be.

Linux Puts the Lie to WEP "Security"

Using a BackTrack 3 Live CD (which we previously profiled, Gina showed us how easy it was to crack a Wi-Fi network's WEP password, offering a sound reason to upgrade your age-old router, and providing a kind of last-ditch solution for those in need of emergency connectivity. She also provided more WEP-cracking tools and tips, including some sound reasoning on why anyone would still use a fallible encryption scheme (or use something much stronger).

Looking Ahead to Ubuntu Releases

Every year, at least two versions of Ubuntu are released in six-month lockstep. This year gave us Keir Thomas' peek at the 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" release, and our own screenshot tour. That release was more about subtle changes and improvements. Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala, brought a whole new look to the free OS, along with some major decisions on default applications and immediate improvements like faster, slicker boot-ups and a universal software store. We are, as ever, eager to see what crops up in April.

VirtualBox Makes Linux Life Easier

Sun Microsystems' free VirtualBox software is free, offers an open-source edition, and is generally easy enough for beginners to get into. Not coincidentally, it solves a big problem for Linux users who just occasionally need access to one or another Windows apps or features. It also keeps adding on new features, like support for Windows' gaming graphics, and making life generally better for those running one system inside another.

Features We Wanted to See from Ubuntu (and a Response)

"If every Ubuntu developer were assembled at one place, here are five things we'd ask them to accomplish." That's the grand daydream that launched our list of five features we want to see in Ubuntu, including strong sticking points like a decent video editor and a design-centric look. Not all of that is under of the Ubuntu team's purview, but Community Manager Jono Bacon still took the time to respond to our wishlist, noting the progress on many of the fronts we wrote on. That was a very nice moment.

Dual-Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu in Perfect Harmony

Simply installing Windows 7 and Ubuntu together isn't all that hard—just do Windows before Ubuntu, and leave a little room for the Linux. Fine-tuning it for convenience, access, and general usability, though—that's something we spent a lot of time thinking on. We wrote it all down, step by step, in this post.

Build a Cheap But Powerful Boxee Media Center

Following up on Adam's guide to building a small, silent XBMC media center on the cheap, Lifehacker's resident Linux nerd (Howdy!) wrote up an alternative guide to getting a more powerful, Linux-backed, Boxee-centered HTPC running. Seeing as how the upcoming Boxee beta and pre-built Boxee Box will include sped-up support for this very kind of NVIDIA-powered, Linux-based system, this Boxee setup will actually hit its real peak in 2010.

Nine Must-Have Features We Want to See in a Google OS

Now that we've actually seen what Chrome OS will look like, and even taken it on an open-source test drive, we can run through our initial wish list for the Linux-based netbook OS and do the tally: Three yays (speed, syncing, and blurred desktop/browser experience), two nays ("All kinds of hardware" and native Linux apps), and four shoulder shrugs (integrated Quicksilver-like app launcher, powerful keyboard shortcuts, user privacy, and enterprise-friendly setup). There's a lot more bound to come in 2010, though, including the first official release, so stay tuned.

GNOME Do and Docky Are Slick Linux Interfaces

We dig GNOME Do as a Quicksilver-like application launcher that knows your system better than you do. When it rolled in a dock interface, it got a bit more unstable, but even more helpful—and notably more smooth and eye-pleasing than the standard GNOME interface. The two projects have since gone their separate ways, but, installed side by side, they still make for a better Linux experience.

Presto Loads a Streamlined Desktop in 15 Seconds

Well, we thought Presto looked like a pretty neat quick-boot alternative for Windows users, at least while it was free, and promising boot-ups in mere seconds. Then we tried it out and clocked it at a more human 15 seconds, found it to be kind of a simplified Xfce desktop, and, oh, right, this other operating system from some search company was announced. Not to say Presto is a dead option, but, at this point, it might need an overhaul (Chrome installed, maybe?) to grab much more than a glance.

Install Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu with One Command

Even released every six months, Ubuntu still manages to make its users wait on some newly-released apps getting official support—like Firefox, most importantly. This little Python script makes short work of bringing your built-in Firefox up to the bleeding edge.

Ubuntu Pocket Guide Available as a Free Download

Author Keir Thomas did the freely-licensed thing with his pocket guide, and we were all very glad to have it.

Elisa is a Simple, Streamlined Media Center

Looking for something that just plays your music, shows your videos and pictures, and doesn't get in your way or bog you down with flashy features? That's what Elisa is, and it looks pretty nice while doing so.

Mac4Lin Gives Linux Desktops the Complete Mac Look

It really, really does. If you don't mind the obvious break in your your free-as-in-speech fidelity, it's a pretty nice setup.

Jolicloud Netbook OS Is a Bit Like Chrome OS with Awesome Desktop Applications

Adam's headline pretty much says it all—you get most of the benefits of a fast-loading, small-screen-oriented OS, but with far more adaptability and a wide range of awesome Linux apps you can install.

Popular Cross-Platform Apps

Google Chrome, Alpha and Beta Releases

Google Chrome, which just barely turned one, has actually been up and running on many Linux systems since its earliest days, due to the hard work of Chromium open-source hackers. You could grab the alpha in May, try out a CrossOver-built release in September, and grab the official beta last week. Been holding off on your Chromium and just now trying Chrome? Check out our power user's guide to Google Chrome to get acquainted.

Namebench Helps You Find the Fastest DNS Server for Your Computer

Google came out with a free DNS service, but many folks are learning, with the help of namebench or the also-excellent DNS Name Server Benchmark, that what the big G does isn't always the best. Test out all the popular, public DNS systems to see what's your own network's best bet.

Google Earth 5.0 Released, Looks Incredible

Google Earth 5 is one of those lucky Linux products that Google still intends to keep up to date, unlike its sad cousin Picasa. So being able to put historical imagery, ocean maps, and improved world touring on a Linux desktop is A-OK with many readers.

Firefox (Of Course)

Firefox seemed to have met its first real challenge for the Best Alternative Browser this year, but it kept up with the modern web at its own pace. This year saw a big Firefox 3.5 release and a bunch of Firefox 3.6 betas (1, 2, 3, and 4). It'll be interesting to see if Linux distributions consider Chrome as their default in 2010, but we expect Firefox to stick around for quite some time.

Thunderbird 3 Officially Released with New Features, Improved Look

A lot has changed since Thunderbird 2.0 release, but 3.0 brought enough savvy features—awesome search, smart syncing, and tabbed content—to make it an ultimate online/offline message hub.

HandBrake Updates to 0.9.4 with Over 1,000 Changes, 64-Bit Support

Yeah, Mac and Windows users probably find HandBrake really helpful. But Linux is where encoding to non-restricted formats can be crucial, so seeing regular development is a very nice thing. On any platform, Handbrake remains a favorite video encoder—even after developers dropped AVI/XviD support.

Like last year's most popular Mac downloads, this list is based on the popularity of apps we've covered in 2009, regardless of the original release date of the app. Many were brand new this year, while others were solid updates to popular software. If you took a look at yesterday's Most Popular Free Windows Downloads of 2009, a few of the cross-platform favorites may look familiar. (I've rounded up the most popular cross-platform downloads at the bottom of the post.)

Snow Leopard: The Feisty Kitty That Could (and No, It's Not Quite Free, Either)

The release of Snow Leopard was nearly as big a deal for Mac users this year as Windows 7 for Windows folks, and while it was never strictly a download (unless you grabbed it from less reputable means), it's worth highlighting. Over the course of the year, we helped out by prepping your Mac for Snow Leopard, highlighted its biggest improvements, and held your hand while upgrading. If you didn't want to pony up for Apple hardware, we even showed you how to install Snow Leopard on your Hackintosh PC, no hacking required—and luckily for the frugal among us (no, this one's not free, but it was a big deal in the OS X world so we figured we'd include it), the $29 upgrade disc worked whether or not you were upgrading from Leopard.

2009 Was Still a Year of the Jailbreak

The iPhone hardware may be getting better and better, but Apple still hasn't gotten any better at opening up the app store to, oh, competition. As long as that's the case, jailbreaking apps like PwnageTool and QuickPwn will still be extremely popular. Read more >>

Magnifique Customizes Your OS X Theme

The release of Snow Leopard didn't do all that much to change Leopard's spots, but Magnifique certainly does. This free skinning app is full of user-generated Leopard-customizing goodies. Note: Magnifique does not support Snow Leopard, so you'll want to steer clear of it if you've upgraded. Unfortunately the Magnifique development seems to be at a standstill at the moment.

DoubleTwist May Be the Coolest Universal Media Manager Ever

People fed up with iTunes' restrictive stance on non-Apple devices (see Apple and Palms' dance, for example) were very interested in doubleTwist, a universal media manager that automatically converts files to the appropriate formats and seamlessly syncs them to your PSP, Android device, BlackBerry, and more.

Google Quick Search Like Quicksilver from Google

A lot of people were disappointed to learn about Quicksilver's grim future a while back, but many of you were heartened to learn that Quicksilver's creator had released a similar tool working with Google called Quick Search Box. Then again, it appears Quicksilver's not entirely dead just yet (see below).

Pollux Automatically Cleans and Tags Your iTunes Library

For all the access to track metadata contained in the iTunes store, iTunes is a slouch at cleaning and tagging mislabeled or poorly labeled tunes. Pollux was an absolutely killer iTunes supplement that grabbed song, artist, album, and other metadata names, along with lyrics and album art, quickly and accurately. The problem? Shortly after we highlighted it, Pollux was shut down because the APIs it accessed stopped letting it access them for free. We liked Pollux better, but if you're looking for something similar, check out TuneUp (free and pay versions available).

Picasa for Mac Beta Released, First Look

After years of Windows-only support, Google released the first Mac version of Picasa at the beginning of the year, and it didn't take long before the majority of our Mac readers preferred it to iPhoto. You go, Google.

Quicksilver Releases Update, Improves Performance

Just when we thought Quicksilver was no more, it turns out that several contributors are continuing occasional development over at social coding web site GitHub. Their latest release brought on some solid performance improvements, and it worked well (for us at least) with Snow Leopard.

Glims Turns Safari into a Browser Worth Using

Free Safari plug-in Glims adds a handful of new features to Safari, giving it the kind of features one might expect from a more, ahem, customizable browser—for those of you who still prefer Safari to its more feature-rich counterparts.

Popular Cross-Platform Apps:

Google Chrome—Dev Releases and Beta At Last

Google Chrome is just over a year old, but it's actually much younger for Mac users. We got our first glimpse at Chrome on OS X back in April, and it wasn't until last week that Google released the first beta for Macs. Be sure to check out our power user's guide to Google Chrome if you're just getting started.

Namebench Helps You Find the Fastest DNS Server for Your Computer

Google very recently announced a free DNS service they boasted as fast, but rather than take their word for it, we pointed you toward namebench (and several readers also pointed toward the excellent DNS Name Server Benchmark). It tests various popular DNS servers to find what's really going to be the fastest choice for your system.

Google Earth 5.0 Released, Looks Incredible

We're sort of junkies for maps and 3D, so when Google Earth 5 was released, we were pleased as punch. The update featured historical imagery, ocean maps, and improved world touring capabilities. Maybe we just like saving ourselves some dough in these tough economic times with a little Google Earth sightseeing.

And Then There Was Firefox

The notorious Firefox memory slow-downs may have some of us down on the reliable old 'fox, but that doesn't mean we aren't all still eager to grab the latest and greatest releases and stick with it as our default browser—whether it's the big Firefox 3.5 release or the Firefox 3.6 beta (1, 2, 3, or 4). We're looking forward to more great Firefox'ing in 2010.

Thunderbird 3 Officially Released with New Features, Improved Look

Sure it was two years since Thunderbird's 2.0 release, but at least they didn't disappoint. Thunderbird 3.0 comes with solid new search and filtering tools, better looks, and a great new tabbed interface.

HandBrake Updates to 0.9.4 with Over 1,000 Changes, 64-Bit Support

Free, open-source DVD ripping and encoding tool HandBrake released a pretty saucy update last month with a ton of fixes and improvements. It's no coincidence that it's always been our readers' favorite video encoder, and this year's big-ish (but still not 1.0) update should only help keep it there—even though several users aren't thrilled that the HandBrake devs have dropped AVI/XviD.

Now, because we like a good polling:

Got a favorite Mac download from 2009 that you'd add to your list of favorites? Let's hear about it in the comments. If you're craving still more popular Mac downloads, you can also take a look back at the most popular free Mac downloads of 2008.

As with 2008's most popular free Windows downloads, keep in mind that the apps featured here are chosen by the popularity of the associated post we published in 2009. Many were new, some were improvements to already loved apps, and others were simply new-to-us. Here's a quick look back at the 19 or so most popular Windows downloads of 2009:

Windows 7—from Beta to Release Candidate and So On

2009 was a big year for Windows, and Windows 7 was the most important ingredient in Windows' solid year. (In fact, you'll notice that several of this year's most popular downloads are related to Windows 7 in one way or another.) Sure it's not exactly an application but rather a full-blown operating system, but it only makes sense that a new version of Windows would top the list of Windows downloads for the year. It started with the Windows 7 beta download in January, which had a ton of hiccups. It was released, then pulled, then released again, then extended because of the trouble Microsoft had handling the demand. (Actually, we just think they underestimated the web.) Later, in May, Microsoft released the Windows 7 release candidate. You even jumped on the chance to try Windows 7's beautiful new themes.

Folks who were still using Vista also flocked to Vista's Service Pack 2 (32-bit; 64-bit) to keep their PCs secure and up to date.

Enigma Desktop 2.0 Released, Adds Installer, Widget Manager, and Templates

One of our very own readers released his popular desktop configuration as a installable utility that brings a handful of great customization and productivity tools to your desktop. It's called Enigma 2.0. Then Rainmeter, another very popular desktop customization tool, set Enigma as its default desktop. Fancy pants.

Portable Ubuntu Runs Ubuntu Inside Windows

Ever wish you could enjoy some of the finer tools available to Linux but stay comfortably in your Windows desktop? Sure you could run a virtual machine, but Portable Ubuntu for Windows runs an entire Linux OS as a Windows application. Better yet, it's portable.

Seven Remix XP Makes Windows XP Look Like Windows 7

The release of Windows 7 left a lot of XP users wishing they could get in on some of that snazzy new eye candy. Seven Remix XP is a free utility that does its best to bring Windows 7's comely looks to XP.

Ninite Bulk-Installs Great Free Windows Apps

Another result of the Windows 7 launch: A whole lot of us were rebuilding systems from the ground up, which often means a lot of tedious downloading and installing one app at a time. Ninite makes it easy, streamlining the download and installation processes for tons of the most popular free Windows apps, including most of our 2009 Lifehacker Pack.

Windows 7 Shortcuts Enables the Best Win7 Shortcuts in XP or Vista

Apart from all the new eye candy, Windows 7 really tickled our fancy with tons of incredible new keyboard shortcuts. For folks still chilling out with XP or Vista, we released Windows 7 Shortcuts, a lightweight utility written to bring some of the best new shortcuts of Windows 7 to previous versions of Windows.

Computer Repair Kit Packs Dozens of Tools in One Portable Package

By virtue of reading Lifehacker, you're more likely than not the most schooled person among your friends and family when it comes to fixing a bum PC. It's a dubious honor, because it also means you generally are the person who gets called when something goes wrong. Computer Repair Utility Kit puts a handful of useful PC repair utilities in one handy, portable suite. Update: It appears the surge of readers looking to download this one brought down the server; luckily helpful reader Richard offers a mirror of the download on his own server here.

Fences is a Seriously Awesome Desktop Icon Organizer

Like to keep items you want to access frequently easily accessible on your desktop but don't want to deal with the added clutter? Fences arranges your cluttered desktop icons into containers so you can clean up the mess into useful groups of shortcuts—or optionally hide them altogether.

AVG 9 Free Antivirus

We're of the mind that Microsoft's security tools are good enough—including the new and impressive Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus app—but that doesn't mean many of you don't get excited when the AVG 9 Free update is available. It's still the favorite antivirus app of Lifehacker readers (who doesn't love free), though we're sensing a slow but steady sea of change on this one.

Google Chrome—Stable, Beta, and Dev Releases

Google Chrome is just over a year old, but it's made huge strides among early adopters. Chrome came out with its stable 2.0 release in May, then followed up with a Chrome 3.0 release in September. Early adopters willing to try their luck in the beta and dev channels get more features, which we detailed in our power user's guide to Google Chrome. Whichever version of Chrome interests you most, it's clear that it was a pretty good year for Chrome.

Hulu Video Downloader Saves Your Favorite Shows for Offline Enjoyment

Hulu Video Downloader was a fun little app that lasted about as long as you could say Hu... that is, it doesn't work anymore. But when it did, it grabbed videos from the popular video service for your offline viewing pleasure, and you were eager to try it out.

Safari 4 Tempts with Good Looks

Safari's 4.0 beta release for Windows came with a lot of bugs and some serious eye candy, but despite the interest at release, we can't imagine many people still stick with Safari on Windows over, say, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc.

Namebench Helps You Find the Fastest DNS Server for Your Computer

Google very recently announced a free DNS service they boasted as fast, but rather than take their word for it, we pointed you toward namebench (and several readers also pointed toward the excellent DNS Name Server Benchmark). It tests various popular DNS servers to find what's really going to be the fastest choice for your system.

Google Earth 5.0 Beta Released, Looks Incredible

We're sort of junkies for maps and 3D, so when Google Earth 5 was released, we were pleased as punch. The update featured historical imagery, ocean maps, and improved world touring capabilities. Maybe we just like saving ourselves some dough in these tough economic times with a little Google Earth sightseeing.

And Then There Was Firefox

The notorious Firefox memory slow-downs may have some of us down on the reliable old 'fox, but that doesn't mean we aren't all still eager to grab the latest and greatest releases and stick with it as our default browser—whether it's the big Firefox 3.5 release or the Firefox 3.6 beta (1, 2, 3, or 4). We're looking forward to more great Firefox'ing in 2010.

Motion Detection Is an Effective, Dead Simple Security Camera App

If your webcam is sitting around collecting dust, try out Motion Detection, a free, motion-detecting security camera application. It'll snap pics and video when it detects movement, can upload the results via FTP, and more fun at-home security stuffs.

Thunderbird 3 Officially Released with New Features, Improved Look

Sure it was two years since Thunderbird's 2.0 release, but at least they didn't disappoint. Thunderbird 3.0 comes with solid new search and filtering tools, better looks, and a great new tabbed interface.

HandBrake Updates to 0.9.4 with Over 1,000 Changes, 64-Bit Support

Free, open-source DVD ripping and encoding tool HandBrake released a pretty saucy update last month with a ton of fixes and improvements. It's no coincidence that it's always been our reader's favorite video encoder, and this year's big-ish (but still not 1.0) update should only help keep it there.

DeskHedron Adds 3D Virtual Desktop Eye-Candy to Windows

Linux users have a killer desktop management tool called Compiz Fusion that puts multiple desktop management on a 3D cube that we've always been jealous of on Windows. Open-source application DeskHedron brings a similar three-dimensional desktop management tool to Windows users.

Got a favorite Windows download from 2009 that you'd add to your list of favorites? Let's hear about it in the comments. If you're craving still more popular Windows downloads, you can also take a look back at the most popular free Windows downloads of 2008.

This week at Uncrate: We get some serious work done with the 2011 Ford Super Duty, give ourselves an emergency workspace escape plan with MojoArt Ejection Chairs, and keep our identities safe inside the Flipside Wallet. We also jam out to Backspacer by Pearl Jam, make our mark with Levi's Imprint 514 Jeans, and sip on a tall glass of tonic and Beefeater 24. Finally, we hit the trails like a champ on the Suzuki QuadRacer R450 Limited Edition, stay warm and toasty in the Barbour Beaufighter Jacket, and let the jerk who always takes up two spaces know how we really feel with Parking Tickets.

How to Actually Make Coffee
Odds are, you're doin' it wrong. Here's most of the major ways to make delicious coffee, with advice from our friends at Ninth St. Espresso, Intelligentsia Coffee and La Marzocco.

Bill Nye Explains Oleophobic Screens
Uh, Bill Nye. Explaining stuff. Do I need to say anymore?

How Electrocution Really Kills You (With Adam Savage)
Mythbuster Adam Savage tells us how electricity really kills you—surprisingly, it's not by poaching your brains inside of your skull.

The Difference Between $100 and $100,000 Speakers
Well the title really says it all, don't it?

Why Analog Audio Cables Really Aren't All the Same
Yes, there really is a difference between analog cables. And you want there to be.

Why Lenses Are the Real Key to Stunning Photos
Despite what stupid spec wars would have you believe, a fancy slice of glass is just as important as silicon to taking a stunning photo.

Why More Megapixels Isn't Always More Better
You want quality pixels, not just more of 'em.

GPGPU Computing: How Your Graphics Card Is Gonna Make Your Computer Fly
Programmers are finally figuring out how to make it easy to use your graphics card to do awesome stuff besides render cool explosions, meaning your computer is going to scream.

How to Choose the Right Graphics Card
Do you really need the Nvidia GeForce Ultra Pro 295 GTX 2 OC Black Edition, or is it okay to play Crysis with some a little more cost effective?

How Cell Towers Work
Until Wilson explained how cell towers work, I always thought Stormtrooper fairies carried the signals from my phone to the Death Star and then to my mom's cellphone.

Why Cell Reception Still Sucks Speaking of cell towers, why does cell reception still suck so hard sometimes?

How Apple Affects Your Tech World Through Standards (Even You, Windows Guy)
The easy way to have power over technology and people outside of your own little domain: Create tech standards. Here's a few Apple's been instrumental in getting out there.

Still something you still wanna know? Send any questions about cameras, processors, or anything else crazy complicated to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

This week at Uncrate: We get ready for serious sailing in the Helly Hansen Ocean Racing Suit, jam out to Ill Communication Remastered by Beastie Boys, and play some serious 3-on-3 with the Spalding The Beast Portable Basketball Hoop. We also dress for (mild) success in the Gap Fitted Two-Pocket Shirt, taste the ocean with Island Creek Oysters, and mix things up in the Waring Professional Bar Blender. Finally, we do our best Top Gun impression in Randolph Aviator Sunglasses, get ready for some football with the Margaritaville Portable Tailgate Grill, and tour France aboard one of the Trek Lance Armstrong Bikes of Stages.

If you're off grid but still needing to use AA-style batteries, wouldn't it be great to be able to add more juice just by shaking them up a bit? That's what the Mint Energy Rechargeable Battery concept would allow us to do...just use a little "shakenergy."

The latest in our un-TreeHugger department is a very odd cell phone idea, that helps you pollute the air with cigarette smoke along with all the other emissions associated with mobile devices. Yes, light up with a built-in cigarette lighter!

MIT has just announced a new project that makes trash a whole lot more technical -Trash Track. The goal is to figure out exactly how much energy and effort goes into taking trash from homes to final disposal, which could help guide consumer choices about products while they're still on the shelves.

They call it the Net-Zero Energy home. It has ground source heat pumps (promising a 30% reduction in energy use), photovoltaic arrays, supplementary wind power, high efficiency appliances and battery storage, all talking to each other through a Home Energy Manager. That's a lot of impressive technology. But are green gizmos the best way to achieve net zero energy?

TreeHugger's EcoModo column appears every Tuesday on Gizmodo.

Two Australian researchers have devised a way to make circuits out of recycled plastic that would help eliminate much of our e-waste stream. Their research is aimed at greening our gadgets, and their video on TreeHugger explains the background on the project.

New gadgets that will attach to fishing nets could help save sea turtles. However, they also have the chance of ending up as e-waste. We weigh the pros, cons, and possibilities of this underwater eco-tech.

An interesting LED light uses ambient light sensors and motion detectors to keep a zen-like feel to hallways and dark corners. You can watch it in action at TreeHugger and see if you feel a little more one with the world.

WALL-E arrives in Italy! The DustCart is helping to keep the streets clean (and people out of the way) R2D2-style.

TreeHugger's EcoModo column appears every Tuesday on Gizmodo.

This week at Uncrate: We kick back with a tall glass of Glenfiddich 31 Year Scotch Whisky, wash it down with some crisp agua from the Charcoal Water Pitcher, and make sure we're good to drive home afterwards with DrinkTracker. We also take our weekend role play to new heights with the Peasants & Travelers Doctor Bag, take a break from our rigorous TV watching schedule to enjoy Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, and enhance our beer-drinking experience with the Samuel Adams Boston Lager Glass. Finally, we take a ride aboard the aptly-named Sachs MadAss 125, test our pretend jousting skills in the Cardboard Tube Fighting League, and roll a few rounds at the ever-so-classy Brooklyn Bowl.

This week at Uncrate: We jam out to Jaydiohead, a mashup album from DJ Minty Fresh Beats, fake out our chopper-loving buddies with the Honda Fury, and let our fellow males know when they're getting the way of a score with Blocker Cards. We also cook up some White Castle-style grub with Slider Mini-Burger Tools, satiate our ganja cravings with the Malin + Goetz Cannabis Candle, and host a house party at Lance Armstrong's Texas Ranch. Finally, we rock out on some rustically-styled Verellen Amplifiers, hit the track in the Ariel Atom, and prepare for some upscale boozing with Innermost Half Pint Glasses.

Palm Pre : Number one with a bullet. If we told you three months ago that Palm would own CES, would you have believed us? But this phone is for real, and from the looks of it right now, it very well could be the morale lift Palm so badly needed.

And the rest, in no particular order:

Samsung BD-4600 Blu-ray Player: Wall-mountable, networked, 1.5-inches thick, and really, really nice looking.

Samsung Luxia LED TV Lineup: Samsung loosed a whole series of ultra-thin, LED-backlit, network-connected LCDs, winning the Battle of the TV Announcements hands down.

Vizio Connected HDTVs: These Vizios stream just about everything possible over wireless-N: Amazon, Blockbuster and Netflix VOD, Pandora, Flickr, Rhapsody, plus any other Yahoo web widget.

Sony Vaio P: Sony's Vaio P is something we haven't seen before: a 2.08:1 aspect ratio (1600x768) on a 1-inch thick portable. Something different in the very, very generic netbook field.

Casio 1,000fps Point and Shoot Cameras: Both the EX-FC100 and the EX-FS10 bring the EX-F1's slo-mo capture goodness to a point and shoot. Casio's still the only folks in the super slo-mo field, and they're continuing to kill.

LG's GD910 Watch Phone: It was a non-working, behind-the-glass prototype last year, but one of every gadget head's boyish dreams will come true later this year: A watch that's a phone.

Eee Keyboard: Asus took the crazy cake with their still-shadowy home theater keyboard. With an onboard processor (of some kind), a touchscreen and keyboard and wireless HDMI, it makes perfect sense as a unique home-theater machine.

Sony Cyber-shot G3: We're all about putting web browsers on as many things as possible, and Sony's found another way to get one into our pants: A super-slim wi-fi-equipped Cyber-shot G3 that's the world's first to surf the web.

Panasonic Portable Blu-ray Player: Panasonic's DMP-B15 is the world's first portable Blu-ray deck. Your laptop probably doesn't have a BD drive, but this will ensure you can watch hi-def 1080p on a tiny, tiny screen on your next flight.

And there you have it. Good stuff you may or may not be able to afford in '09? Disappointment of disappointments? Discuss.

• Also out CES day two's Best of the Rest.
[CES 2009]

In 2008, some media outlets started publishing their "best of" lists by June. For 2009, we didn't want to come in second. So here are our predictions for the best gadgets of 2009.

Premium Netbooks
We've seen the first wave of unusable netbooks with tiny screens. Then they got an upgrade to 8.9, 10 and even 12-inch screens. Now it's time for netbooks to get WiMax and HSDPA connections as a standard. Hopefully they can still stay half-way affordable...

Wii MotionPlus
When I tested the Wii MotionPlus attachment at E3, I felt that Nintendo had fulfilled the promise of the Wii, finally offering a motion controller as accurate and responsive as we'd all hoped the Wiimote to be originally. If Nintendo can coax developers to support Wii Motion Plus, we can expect some killer Wii titles in '09 (on top of Wii Sports Resort in spring), but it might be 2010 before we see all that many compatible games.

Windows 7
Microsoft can do better than Windows Vista. And with Windows 7—expected sometime before the year is up—they will. Whether it's the new features or the less taxing system requirements, Windows 7 promises to be a vast improvement on Vista, and hopefully enough to coax most of us still clutching XP for dear life to finally upgrade.

$99 Blu-ray Player...That Does More Than Play Blu-ray
The $99 part is only slightly wishful thinking, but if LG's recent announcements are any indication, we can expect more players with expanded services like Netflix, YouTube, CinemaNow...and who knows, maybe even Amazon VOD, Hulu and Rhapsody. Let's watch as these companies compete for our digital download dollar.

A New iPhone
Whether it's the iPhone 3G Part II or the rumored iPhone nano, it's not hard to imagine Apple releasing another new iPhone this year, maintaining their trend of releasing an iPhone per year to stay competitive in the everchanging post-RAZR cellphone market. It's no secret that most of Gizmodo loves the iPhone, so we're pretty excited to see what's next. (Juicy rumors of a new Mac mini and iPod Touch XL are going strong, too.)

4G Networks
3G is alright but we're looking forward to even faster 4G wireless networks soon. Intel-backed WiMax launched in a few locales by carriers Sprint and ClearWire. The wide-area network currently promises peaks of 10 megabits per second but on paper it's capable of over 70. We will likely see slow but steady expansion of the service through 2009. Meanwhile, AT&T and Verizon (and eventually T-Mobile) are gearing up LTE technology. The Nokia-driven GSM-based "Long Term Evolution" may actually whomp WiMax with download speeds of over 300Mbps—though its presence probably won't be felt in the US before 2010.

A Decent-Sized OLED TV
The Sony XEL-1 OLED television rocked our world when it was released this year, but there was a catch. Its screen size was a measly 11 inches. And while we can't expect 50-inch Kuro killers just yet, we do anticipate a very expensive mid-sized set—27 to 32 inches—to hit the market in some form this year. (Sony actually showed off a prototype that was 27 inches at CES 2008. Stay tuned for what we see at CES this year.)

Wireless HDMI
A multitude of companies have various wireless HDMI technologies, but there's no set standard (two warring factions need to settle the fight before we can have interoperable products). The technology is there, now it's just a matter of logistics and handshaking. With luck, by next Christmas, you'll be able to add it to a sub-$2000 1080p projector for the ultimate no-mess home theater.

USB 3.0 Devices
Wireless HDMI may not be quite cooked yet, but the eSATA-crushing USB 3.0 standard is ready to roll. Look for a multitude of products announced within the next week with blazing transfer speeds of 4.8Gbps (moving a 25GB file in under a minute). They'll also benefit from USB 3.0's higher electrical power output. [Image]

A Great Android Phone
The T-Mobile G1 was the necessary first step, but with Google amping up their Android development staff and interest coming from other major phone makers like Motorola, we assume we'll see a truly great Android phone soon. Motorola promises that their own offering will be better and cheaper than the G1, but it's not hitting before next Christmas, so we assume HTC's own follow-ups will come first.

And Your Best Guesses
These picks for 2009 are pretty sure things, but what wilder guesses do you have for best of 2009 products? A new PSP? A BlackBerry with a touchscreen that isn't crap? Real light sabers? Ketchup and mustard in one container?? Dogs and cats living in harmony??? If you don't offer up some kind of prognostication in the comments, you can never tell everyone, "I told you so."

Most Popular Lego Stories of 2008

1. The Lego Secret Vault
459,413 views, my favorite Lego story of the year by far.
Video exclusive

2. 3,800-Piece Death Star Diorama Is Coolest Star Wars Set Ever
249,263 views

3. Best Lego Sets In History
245,771 views
Exclusive

4. Lego Brick Timeline: 50 Years of Building Frenzy and Curiosities
217,115 views
Exclusive

5. Lego Master Completes 30-Pound Star Wars Starship
183,202 views

6. Inside the Lego Factory
167,815 views
Video exclusive

7. Lego Airbus A380 Is Biggest Lego Airplane In the World
151,317 views
Video exclusive

8. Forbidden Set Shows Darkest Side of Lego
137,344 views

9. Lego Colonial Space Ship Is Big Enough to Terraform Real Planets
137,268 views

10. Using Hundreds of Lego Star Wars Mini Spaceships to Create Huge Battles
135,898 views

Some of my favorites

65-Foot-High Lego Cathedrals Store 19 Billion Pieces a Year
This thing amazes me every time I see it.
Video exclusive

The Lego Minifig Timeline
135,089 views
Exclusive

How Lego Builds the Minifig
Video exclusive

750,000-Piece Lego Kennedy Space Center Is the Mother of All Lego Models
Video exclusive

Winners of the Go Miniman Lego Video Contest
I still can't believe our readers did all this. Simply stunning.

[All Lego stories at Giz]

•10 Sex Toys That Are Confusing and Wrong (NSFW): A roundup of NSFW toys that are pointless, vulgar, confusing and (in some cases) scary.

•10 Gadget Get-Ups For Guys That Don't Mind Looking Like a Tool: This is a gadgety fashion guide for guys secure in their geekyness.

•10 Gadgets That Transform Your Bathroom Into a Home Office: Studies show that Americans like to take their work into the bathroom. I'm just giving you guys what you want.

•10 Gadgets That Will Trip You Out Without Drugs: Who needs drugs when there are gadgets that can tap into the psychedelic potential of your brain?

•10 Gadgets That Provide Perpetual Pleasure: These gadgets can simulate a pleasurable experience on demand.

•10 Gadgets For Instant Portable Partying: Big plans for the weekend? Everyday can be the weekend with these gadgets.

•10 Gadgets That Make You Less Physically Repulsive: These gadgets can get you cleaned up, toned up and *ahem* beefed up for the ladies.

•10 Gadgets For Guys That Hate to Cook (But Love to Eat): These gadgets help you eat like a king at home with as little effort as possible.

•10 Gadgets That Help You Survive In Cheap Hotel Rooms: Traveling this holiday season? These gadgets can help you stay alive even in the most disgusting hotels.

•10 Gadgets For Winter Fun: From Snowball Guns to Ice Saunas: These gadgets help you make the most of the wintery weather.

•10 R/C Toys That Are Extraordinary (Or Just Plain Weird): This list has all things R/C...and I do mean all things (R/C Penises and Zombies anyone?).

•10 Ultimate Ghetto Gadget Creations: These gadgets may not be pretty—but they work.

•10 Record Breaking Consumer Gadgets: The fastest car, biggest plasma television, most powerful flashlight and highest popping toaster are all right here.

•10 Insane Bikes That No One Should Ever Ride: Designers with a deathwish push bicycles beyond all bounds of practicality and logic.

•Top 10 Desks For Gadget Lovers: Serious desks for serious professionals. If you love gadgets, these are the desks you should have in your office.

•10 Gadgets That Have No Business Using a Jet Engine: People will put a jet engine on anything.

•10 Hypnotic Gadgets You Just Can't Stop Looking At: These design and repetitive movement of these 10 gadgets are truly mesmerizing.

•10 Segway Killers That Don't Make You Look Like a Complete Tool: These vehicles only make you look tool-ish.

•10 Gadgets With Mind Boggling Moving Parts: These gadgets are so complex it will blow your mind.

•8 High Tech Christmas Trees: In honor of the holiday, I give you the 8 nerdiest trees on the planet.

January


• Holy Crap: Did Bill Gates Just Say Windows Sucks? [The first time in history Gates admitted (indirectly) on camera that Vista was not great. And we got it.]
• How To Discover Secret Gadgets Through the FCC [It's not that we can't crawl the FCC, its that we don't want to.]
• Best LEGO Sets in History [The best in the year of the brick]
• LEGO Brick Timeline: 50 Years of Building Frenzy and Curiosities [Another addiction for JD]
• 10 Examples of the iPhone Making People Crazy
• The Truth About the Format War and HD DVD's Demise [Secret: HD DVD was the more thoughful format.]
• The Best of CES 2008 [For all that noise, there wasn't much.]
• 1960s Braun Products Hold the Secrets to Apple's Future [The past is now]
• Complete Uncut Gizmodo Bill Gates Interview [Our exclusive Bill Gates video interview, in its complete form.]
• Ten Reasons We're Doomed: CES Edition [CES is a victim of its own success and greatness, and I've still never met a single person who enjoys the show.]

February


• The Analog Cellphone Timeline [Jesús Diaz timelines and Trinitron are some of my favorite things.]
• Stop! Why It Still Isn't Safe to Buy Blu-ray [Probably no longer true, but still great for its day!]
10 Feasible Concepts We Wish You Could Actually Buy [This is when we learned how good Sean was at lists.]
• The Biggest Star Wars Collection in the Galaxy [The man's Star Wars addiction in its early stages]
• Nokia's Touch UI Hands-On: Officially Way Behind Apple [At MWC in Barcelona, with Jesús]
• Gizmodo Super Bowl XLII Tech Commercial Awards

March


• Technosexual: One Man's Tale of Robot Love
• Sony XEL-1 OLED TV Review (Verdict: Small on Size, Large on Beauty) [Wish we did more reviews like this. Totally unattainable, but totally lust worthy.]
• Comcast n' BitTorrent BFF: What's Good, What Sucks
• Dash Express GPS Full Drive Review: Total Traffic Terminator [Given the company's financial troubles, I wish we hadn't recommended it without some reservations.]
• Whole Blu World: The Format War's Bloody Aftermath
• Apple TV vs. Vudu vs. Xbox 360: Video Download Battlemodo [Ah the infinite format war, reviewed in battle.]
• Sony Trinitron Timeline Shows Why It Will Live Forever In Our Hearts
• Axiotron ModBook Review (Verdict: A Touchscreen MacBook Done Right) [I still can't figure out if a Mac tablet makes sense.]

April


• Casio Exilim EX-F1 Slow-Mo Super Cam Full Review (Verdict: Totally Unique, Shockingly Powerful) [One of the most revolutionary cameras of the year.]
• Giz Explains: Plasma TV Basics [Matt starts hitting his stride with Giz Explains here.]
• Giz Explains: Digital Camera Image Sensors
• The Ultimate Cheap Camera Battlemodo
• Ten Things You Need to Know About the Optimus Maximus Keyboard Hardware [Never loved this keyboard, but I respect it as art.]
• Will Your ISP F You In the A? Bandwidth Hogs Beware [Matt has a potty mouth that is as sharp as it is filthy.]

May


• How to Love a LEGO Lunatic [Addy!]
• Giz Explains: OLED, the Future of TV
• Subnotebook vs. UMPC vs. Netbook: WTF Is the Difference? [I still can't tell the difference and have to ask Mark every time.]
• 10 Awesome Grills You Can Buy For The Ultimate Memorial Day BBQ
• MacHEADS: The Movie Interview
• Giz Explains: An Easy Primer on GPS
• First Netflix Streaming Box Review, $100 and Unlimited Downloads! [The first of many Netflix enabled devices. If only they'd get grade-A releases, they'd be the only service I'd ever want.]
• Wii Fit Review By a Formerly Fit Geek [Before Wii Fit.]
• Gadgets That Are Guaranteed Date Disasters
• Giz Explains LCD TV Basics
• Full-Screen Multitouch Mac OS X Is Here (But Not from Apple)

June


• Things No One Gives Microsoft Credit For (But Should) [Part of the Bill Gates Retirement Party, which was astoundingly fun to work on.]
• Bill Gates' Made Men: The Wild 'n' Crazy Ventures of the Microsoft Millionaires
• Giz Explains: How the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Will Save the World
• Story of a Peanut: The TiVo Remote's Untold Past, Present and Future
• iPhone Clone Battlemodo: Which One Is the iPhoniest?
• Why I Still Use Windows Despite the Peer Pressure [I like Adam's essay, especially the end where he chalks it up to being lazy.]
• A Night With Bill Gates' New Big Hairy Vision [Bill Gates thinks I'm dumb.]
• Samsung Instinct Review: Best Sprint or Samsung Phone Ever
• 3G iPhone Hands On [It's ok.]
• State of The Infinite Format War: Get Ready for Five Long Years of Set-Top Battle Royale [I think we were the first to recognize that a two format war is nothing compared to the format war between download services.]
• Giz Explains: Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard Parallel Processing and GPU Computing [Apple is crazy smart for not improving their OS with BS, but trying to fine tune the back end.]
• How To Launch an Apple Product in 5 Easy Steps [Sad but true, and effective.]
• The Ultimate Cheap Camcorder Battlemodo
• How I Sold My iPhone in 24 Hours For More Than I Paid
• Exclusive Video: How Lego Builds the Minifigs [Part of Jesús's exclusive visit to Lego HQ]
• Exclusive: Inside the Lego Factory
• 65-foot-high Lego Cathedrals Store 19 Billion Pieces a Year
• Lego Secret Vault Contains All Sets In History

July


• The True Story of the Hurricane Katrina Lightning-Laser Memorial and the Peg-Leg Biologist [This post didn't do well for whatever reason.]
• Giz Explains: An Illustrated Guide to Every Stupid Cable You Need
• Verizon FiOS: How They're Futurizing TV Faster Than AT&T and Big Cable
• Steve Jobs Says He Doesn't Have Cancer (And Why It's Not Your Business Anyway) [I'm fine speculating on the man's health, but not because of its effect on share holder wealth. Sorry, that's greedy. Sell the stock if you have a problem.]
• Why We Still Need the iPhone App Black Market [It's still true.]
• The Dark Knight Review: Even Gadgets Can't Stop The Joker's Madness [Best gadget movie of 2008]
• iPhone 3G Review
• iPhone 2.0 Software Review: Forget 3G, It's Code That Counts [Absolutely true; the iPhone 3G would be nothing without the new firmware.]
• Fantasy Gadget: The Ultimate Next Generation Connected TiVo Box
• What Doesn't Break a Toughbook Makes It Stronger: How They Test the Hell Out of Them [From Japan]
• Gizmodo's Ultimate Water Gun Battlemodo Royale [Reminded me a bit of the Top Gun volleyball scene when the dudes got out the white t shirts and slow motion camera, except ours was even more erotic.]

August


• How it Feels to Fly a Jetpack [Mark drove to an airshow a few hours away and RODE A JETPACK! Of course we had to do this first person.]
• MS Paint Gadget Fantasies are as Twisted as They are Unlikely
• Giz Explains: Batteries, Tech's Choke Point
• AT&T's Internal Plans To Fix Their Network [I hear the exec quoted here got a bit of heat because I headlined "fixed", which implies broken. Anyone who calls my house on my ATT line will know why I said that.]
• Cranky Windows Guy: Apple's iPhone Bugs Stopped Me From Switching to a Mac [Adam knows how to kick up a shit storm, any day of the week.]
• Motorola Insider Blame Game: Engineers Shoved Designers Aside [Brendan K., one of my favorite writers of this generation.]
• Giz Explains: The Magic Behind Touchscreens
• When Good Firmware Goes Bad... And Why You Should Wait To Update
• Secret Origin of the OLPC: Genius, Hubris and the Birth of the Netbook [This epic tale of the OLPC's development was not successfully received by readers (probably for lack of a news peg) but it was fun to work on and over 10k words, I believe.]
• OLPC Origins: US and Taiwan's Hardware Lovechild
• OLPC Origin: Bittersweet Success and Future of the XO Laptop

September


• 150-Inch TV In Action: It'll Melt Brains and Empty Wallets [Giz exclusive, a day of play on a 150-inch plasma.]
• Why Android Will Soon Kick Ass [Half of us were for Android, and this is the piece we came up with in response to Jesús's rant against it.]
• How Criterion Hones Its Restoration Magic for HD [Did you know people complain about high def film grain as compression noise?]
• How Many Google Phone Engineers Does It Take to Tell the Time? [Here's the Jesús rant against Android's UI.]
• What Does LASIK Really Feel Like? [I almost have 20/10 vision now!]
• Review: EFiX Dongle Perfectly Transforms PC to Mac
• Giz Explains: Why HD Video Downloads Aren't Very High Def [Spoiler: compression.]
• 7 Years of iPod: What You Paid and What You Got [Tech evolving and trickling down, in time line form]
• 90 Gadget Cross Promotions That Would Seriously Damage Some Brands [One of Adam's best photochop contests]
• Why I Hate Netbooks [Mark vs. Mark]
• Why I Love Netbooks
• Is Steve Jobs Preparing His Farewell [Jesús has pre-cog powers!]

October


• Smartphone Is a Dumb Word: We Need a New Name [I should start using the word com. Pretty nerdy, but it makes sense.]
• Why It's Safer Than Ever To Buy First-Generation Hardware [I stand by this!]
• Giz Explains: Why Windows 7 Will Smash Vista
• T-Mobile G1 Google Android Phone Review [Spoiler: Important but meh.]
• Why Zen Software Design Does Not Come From Japan [Lisa K.]
• Windows 7 Walkthrough, Boot Video and Impressions [Wilson gives us the first major presentation of the next Windows]
• My Favorite Childhood Sci-Fi Author Fries My Brain
• Giz Explains: How to Choose an HDTV Like a Pro
• The Truth About the Apple Tax [Matt broke down the actual extra cost involved with Apple gear vs comparable PC gear running Windows. ]
• MacBook and MacBook Pro Dual Review
• Internet TV Remote: Quick Links to Free Streaming Shows
• Zero-Cost Gadget Upgrades For the Next Great Depression

November


• This is My Farewell Transmission From Mars [Part of an amazing guest edit by the Phoenix Mars Lander, via Veronica McGregor, from NASA, where we have the Phoenix Lander blogging in first person. As it dies!]
• How To Calibrate Your New HDTV (and Not Lose Your Mind)
• How to Buy an HDTV Today (or Any Day)
• A Call for Revolution Against Beta Culture [Jesús wrote this as a follow up to the Why It's Safer to Buy 1st Gen post, saying just because you can upgrade/fix by firmware, doesn't mean its right that companies come out with shitty stuff out of the gate.]
• A Complete Guide to Playing Video Files On Your PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii
• BlackBerry Storm Review (Verdict: Not Quite a Perfect Storm)
• Mobile Browser Battlemodo: Which Phones Deliver The Real Web
• 10 Things You Should Know About The New Xbox Experience
• 30 Mars Phoenix Discoveries NASA Will Never Show the World
• What it Feels Like to Drive a Tesla Roadster [It's fast, but not faster than some gas vehicles I love.]
• The Wii Fit Review: Six Months Later [After Wii Fit!]
• Review: The World's Thinnest LCD HDTVs [Drool.]
• How To: Max Out Apple TV's Potential With Boxee [I like Boxee, but would prefer to run it lag free with HD content on a Mac mini,]
• Happy Birthday Saturn V, Still The Biggest Rocket of All
• The 50 Skills Every Geek Should Have [Adam made us proud on this list. First draft was a little too easy but the final list was challenging to all.]
• Giz Explains: What's So Awesome About 64-Bit?
• Why You Should Buy a Refurbished Laptop
• 25 Features You Definitely Won't See in Windows 7 [Photochop!]
• Prof. Dealzmodo: Why You Should Stop Buying Your Computers Fully Loaded and Why You Should Buy a Refurbished Laptop [Sean breaking out of lists!]

December


• The Definitive Coast-to-Coast 3G Data Test [Who else is going to run around 8 cities testing 3G data rates for you from all three major 3G carriers?]
• 120 Feet of Video Art: Final Exams at NYU's Big Screens Class [A wall of motion art, as homework. That's an assignment I could have fun with.]
• Silver-Painted Plastic Gadgets Must Die
• Dealzmodo Hacks: 8 Ways To Get More Miles Out Of Your Old PC
• What Beautiful Future Gadgets Will Be Made Of [Ceramic, wood, more metal, and plastic. But not painted plastic.]
• Why Kids Deserve Crappy Gadgets This Holiday
• Dealzmodo Hack: Make Your Old USB Stick Into a Digital Multitool
• Gizmodo Gallery, our little museum presentation of the best gadgets we could find, small and big.
• Choose Your Own Apple Adventure

See how the features progressed towards being bigger and better towards the end of 2008? I feel like a proud papa. Special thanks to Wilson for doing a lot of the behind the scenes work on features without a byline on all the pieces he's influenced, and thanks to all the writers who did features on top of their regular short posts. I hope next year's features will be even better. Happy New Years everyone, thanks for reading.

This week at Uncrate: We pack our gear for the gym in the throwback No Mas Finisher Bag, dress like rockstars of yesteryear in Worn Free T-Shirts, and mortgage our Macbooks for Luke Skywalker’s Red Five X-Wing Model. We also get cooking with Ikea Datid Appliances, stay warm on our Armstrong-like journeys with the Rapha Classic Softshell Jacket, and get clean in a boozy way with the Zirh Cocktail Bar. Finally, we enjoy the old school country sounds of That Lonesome Song by Jamey Johnson, catch the big one with Green Monster Underwater Fishing Lights, and settle the score with the Jack Spade I Buy/You Buy Dice Set.

We also take the new Volkswagen CC out for a spin, hone our golf games with the Gyro Swing, and get in the ring with Everlast Protex3 Training Boxing Gloves. Finally, we give our nail-biting a rest with Ace Nail Clippers, brew a pot of coffee at the edge of the world with the Brunton BrewFire Dual-Fuel Coffee Maker, and add some comedic relief to our drinking with the Mustache Pint Glass.