Note the mini magnifying glass all the way to the left of the navigation bar.

You will need a cheap USB light and some skills with a soldering iron, but the end result is a little more authentic looking than say a projector keyring or a $300 desktop lamp. Hit the link for full instructions. [Instructables via Everything USB via Gadgetheat]

The Spotlight, which gives you over an hour's worth of light on a three-hour charge, is expected to cost around $14.99. [Weiguo Solutions via Tips]

So word in the Valley is that Google and Apple are still going out, going dutch at Mel's Drive-In and doing naughty things at Apple dad's garage. Now Google wants to get the relationship one step further without putting pressure on Apple and has released Google Desktop for Mac OS X.

It indexes applications, Mail messages, PDFs and all kinds of files supported by Spotlight's plug-ins, as well as the history of all your web browsers and Gmail. It will even keep track of deleted files. After trying it, it feels slower than Spotlight in my PowerBook (maybe in a MacBook it will be different, since it's a Universal application), but it's quite nice and solid for a beta. More first impressions after the jump.

The setup process is painless. The install application even includes a panel to "explore" and install Google apps for Mac OS X, which at this point includes Google Desktop, Google Earth, Gmail notifier and the Picassa Uploader.

After it's installed, you can double tap the Command/Apple key and the widget—which is not Dashboard, but an independent application—will appear on top of the windows. Like Spotlight, Google Desktop will start searching the moment you write in the first letters of your query. The response is good, but Spotlight seems to come up with the results faster, no doubt a result of being integrated at the file system level.

The widget will present you with the top 10 results, a number that can be changed up to 15 results from the preferences, which are integrated with Apple's System Preferences. From here you can also authenticate with Gmail, so it presents both your local and Internet mail results in the same window.

If you want, you can also access Google Desktop from Safari or any other browser by either accessing it from the menu bar icon (which can be activated from the preferences) or by clicking on one of the bottom options of the widget results list. Doing this will give you extended results just like Google does on the Web. The search will even display results from deleted documents, something which Spotlight will probably include in Leopard thanks to Time Machine.

Bottom line: solid enough for now, so if you have a Mac, go and play with it. – Jesus Diaz

Download page [Google - thanks Oscar!]

UPDATE: These have come on down, per Apple's request.

–Travis Hudson

[Via BabyGotMac]

This week at Lifehacker: We kicked off our Coolest Workspace Contest with a DIY door-turned-tabletop, an adjustable sit or stand desk and more. Submit pictures of your tricked-out rig for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to Amazon!

Also: automatically add an image of the camera model used to shoot photos on Flickr. Blog while gaming on the Xbox 360. Finally, find out how to use metadata and dynamic search-based folders as your digital filing system.

Why don t we love the products we use for work as much as those we use for play? True, there are Crackberry addicts. But is having a highly efficient monkey on your back the same as loving your Xbox, or discovering a great Podcast?Can we make our tools more fun by making them more like playthings? And what can we learn from our toys that will make our work more engaging, productive and satisfying?

1. Serendipity Rules
At work, we think we know exactly what we re looking for. When we play, we often seek out things we don t know about. I can find DVDs on Netflix based on what my friends like, broadening my viewing habits far beyond the new release wall. Flickr shows me photos related to a random word. And random actually feels just right. With ever-increasing options to choose from, any other method of selection might actually feel overwhelming. Serendipity and affinity are also coming to the workplace. OSX s Spotlight and Google Toolbar already threaten to make browsing folders obsolete. Instead of lists of cryptic filenames, I can find files by almost any criteria I choose.

2. It s Just a Game
Too often, work feels like a do or die situation. The things we play with are more forgiving and let us mess around without fear of failure. Both professional and hobbyist musicians have embraced tools like Reason or Ableton Live because they can easily respond to and evolve their ideas and motifs, or manipulate samples—at times stumbling upon new possibilities they hadn t conceived of. Most importantly, playing music with Live really is like playing, not operating the computer. Propellerheads Reason emulates real-life music tools, inviting people to interact directly with the music instead of typical software controls. Flip the instruments around and easily re-wire them together. Pulling wires is far less intimidating than wading through a series of dialog boxes.

Video games, where the journey is the destination, are another place we can find inspiration. Players really work to finish a video game because they enjoy the story or the quests, not to get it over with. Some gamers even feel a twinge of regret once they ve won and there s nothing more to explore. This exploratory approach holds a lot of possibility for the working world. Professional products that help people easily run different scenarios and discover possibilities will encourage a deeper engagement with our work, not just re-circulation of the same old reports.

3. I Just Gotta Be Me
When we play we are free to be anyone we want. Creating and expressing this personality can be central to the emotional experience of playing. But at work, we often just fill the role that s expected of us. Why shouldn t we bring some of ourselves into our professional tools?

Cell phones already have custom ring-tones that can be as amusing or as irritating as the people who download them. Konfabulator Widgets deliver targeted bits of functionality that users call up as needed instead of wading through some bloated application to use a single feature. Maybe someday we ll be able to have it our way, even at work.

4. More Than Meets The Eye
As a kid, Transformers fascinated me. Robots turned into cars that turned into planes. Each was different, yet the same. As the number of gadgets we have available grows, we can t just keep clipping them to our belts (provided you even wear a belt). Maybe we can call on the Transformers for inspiration?

Consider the Sony Ericsson S710a, a phone that swivels into a camera. The transformation improves ergonomics of the device for the two different tasks in a small space.

Perhaps we ll see more chameleon-like devices that are both more fun and less awkward.
We ve just begun to explore how we can change the professional world to reflect our more personal, playful lives. Clearly, playing and working are different. But bringing play practices into our 9-to-5 lives can make work more interesting, and promise to help us work smarter, better, and faster too.

Now all we need to do is get those CEO types to find their inner child.

Gretchen Anderson is an analyst at frog design's San Francisco studio.

Read more frog Design Mind. The column appears every Monday on Gizmodo.