So I received this flashlight through their Kickstarter program. It's actually a really cool flashlight even without the Arduino baseboard. It's bright, has a great weight, and feels solid. I've programmed several different functions for the flashlight, but nothing that is quite 'useful' yet. I could see some really good uses for it, however, depending on your industry. Check it out, especially if you are a flashlight nerd!

Ended up moving to Trillian, which has a free and a paid version. It's worked admirably on my list and has a lot of features that Pidgin lacked.

What I am trying to say is that I would recommend using Trillian vs Pidgin for multi-network chat.

Printing on trash bags seems to be very time intensive and probably also prone to damage your inkjet!

Restore was just as easy. This had to have been my easiest jailbroken iPhone update, due to Pkgbackup.

Check out this week's most-awesomest, must-check-out downloads from Lifehacker:

Ubuntu 11.04 Beta

The next version of Ubuntu's Linux desktop, due out April 28, will feature some really big changes, including a very new desktop shell running Unity, a "Test Drive" for apps, and a default LibreOffice installation. Try it all out and see how it runs with the public beta.

The best way to try out the beta is to load it onto a USB stick for no-install launching-we recommend UNetbootin for that task. Download the proper ISO (the x86 "Desktop" option in most cases), plug in your USB stick, then launch UNetbootin and choose the option to manually point to an ISO.

Dock4Droid (Android)

While Android allows you to run multiple apps in the background, it doesn't have the best method of switching between apps quickly. Dock4Droid brings a swipable dock, not unlike iOS' fast app switching, to your Android phone.

Gladinet (Windows)

Everybody gets 5 GB free in Amazon's new Cloud Drive, and those who buy any MP3 album get 20 GB. Make more of that web-based space with Gladinet Cloud Desktop, which just updated to support Cloud Drive and integrate it like a network-attached folder.

CalendarBar (Mac)

CalendarBar is a really handy menubar utility that stores your calendars in your Mac OS X menubar. It syncs up with Google Calendar, works with iCal, and even Facebook.

QuickSync (Windows)

QuickSync is a minimal synchronization tool that lives in your system tray, allowing you to quickly bring it up and start syncing your data. To get started, all you have to do is drag and drop a folder onto its main window.

Android Music Player (Android)

A new version of the Android Market leaked out onto the web today containing a new music player stable enough to use. The new stock player sports an improved interface, recent listening history, and some neat touch controls. The updated player even adds feature for cloud-based streaming-they're just not available yet.

Power Data Recovery (Windows)

If you've managed to delete important photos, crush a partition, or otherwise go wiping out data where you weren't supposed to, add MiniTool's free data recovery app to your list of last resorts. It's a powerful tool for finding data on Windows systems, working or otherwise.

Meal Snap (iOS)

Meal Snap is a neat app that photographs your food, uploads the picture, and then replies with a calorie count in just a few seconds. And it works surprisingly well.

Minimalist Facebook (Chrome)

Facebook has gotten seriously cluttered over the years, and if you'd like to tone it down by removing, say, the Groups button, the Messages dropdown, or the ads, Minimalist for Facebook will let you tweak it to your liking.

Stratiform (Firefox 4+, Windows)

Usually, changing your Firefox browser's looks requires a CSS tweak, an about:config switch, or specialized downloads. Stratiform is an all-in-one add-on that offers a variety of button, toolbar, and other visual element switches. Try out new themes and switch back without any hassle.

E4rat (Linux)

Whether your computer already boots pretty quickly or you're trying to eke some extra spee dout of your old computer, free command line tool E4rat will seriously decrease your boot time. Check out our article on how to get it set up on your PC.

Let us know if you think we missed any "must-see" downloads for this week in the comments below!

If you've wondered what all the talk about Near Field Communications (NFC) is all about, you can get started experimenting with it today if you have an Android device that supports it.

Although most of the talk surrounding NFC is about the possibilities of mobile payment solutions, you can also perform a lot of tasks using NFC and the Android app NFC Task Launcher.

One such possibility is having your phone bluetooth turn on and ring volume turn up when you enter your car. Another is having your phone set to vibrate when you arrive at work.

I can't wait to see what interesting hacks everyone will come up with once NFC-supporting phones are manufactured in greater numbers. One such possibility is this neat Spotify Box concept from Jordi Parra.

After purchasing the RFID tags, the only other requirement is that your phone supports NFC. Right now the one with the biggest distribution in the US is the Google Nexus S.

Weekend Project: Make Your Own NFC Tags via ReadWriteWeb

One of the biggest challenges when organizing your living room is organizing your video system game controller(s). Using a readily available part from Ikea, you can create a great-looking holder for your controllers.

The Signum series is a favorite of ours here at Lifehacker, and this hack is another vote for its utility.

Turning the product upside down gives you a slotted tray that will cradle your video game controller, and if it is wired it will also help you manage the cable portion as well.

Game Controller Management System via IKEA Hackers

Back before internet mapping websites were as readily available as they are today, if you needed a good local map you would get one of those nifty County map books at the nearest gas station. With a little leg work & the information now available to you via Google Maps, you can create an awesome customized map book of your very own.

Instructibles user frazeeg has come up with a method to create this home-grown map book. The main map source for this project is Google Maps and you can use several software packages with free alternatives - the author recommends Photoshop (Gimp) and Word (OpenOffice) for performing the different tasks.

Once you have exported the map from Google Maps, you then need slice up the image into pages and then export into Word (or OpenOffice) to finish up the book. The author has then laminated the pages and bound it with spiral bounding, which is a great way to get a professional looking product.

Although I wouldn't try to sell this for copyright reasons, it makes a useful item for when you don't have a smartphone to get maps on the go.

Make A Map Book Using Google Maps via Instructables

From Japan, this cool idea takes an old piece of trash headed for the dump and gives it new life.

The site Merry Shop sells these packets ready to go for 158 Yen (about $2), but there is nothing stopping you from creating these on your own.

Take any bottle cap (the larger the better) and find some fertile dirt outside and place it in the cap along with seeds. You have an almost free way to build your own micro-garden and it should fit almost anywhere.

Merry Shop via Springwise

Lately many ISPs are enforcing limits on downloading - similar to the telephone and electricity industries. If you have to download a large file, but it isn't needed right away, use this lightweight Firefox addon for scheduling your download for a later time.

After installing the download scheduler extension, you will have a context-menu option to "Schedule Link As..." which will add the download to the scheduled time.

Options for your schedule are located in the Addons menu in Options for the Download Scheduler plugin. You can set a time for it to start and stop.

This simple addon is a must-have if you need to postpone your larger downloads for a later time. It works in Firefox 3.5 through 4.0.

Firefox Schedule Download Addon via AddictiveTips

If you are into electronics and designing your own circuits, check out this handy tip for harvesting nearly-free components from old PCBs.

You can purchase components such as resistors, capacitors, micro-controllers and the like for relatively cheap, but why not recover them from old unused components for free?

With a heat gun and some time, you can de-solder the compoents from a PCB with relative ease. After the melting temperature of the solder is reached, the components will come off with ease. Just make sure you use proper venting and protection from the harmful gasses that can come off from this activity.

How to salvage parts from PCBs via PCB Heaven

Have you ever wondered why the keyboard you are using right now has the characters laid out in that particular order? The standard keyboard layout is called the Qwerty layout, and was designed around 1875. But what if you wanted to try a more efficient layout? The Dvorak keyboard layout was invented just for that reason.

Instead of buying a new keyboard to try out this newer layout, why not just hack an old keyboard so that they keys use the Dvorak layout?

BiOzZ, an intrepid user over at the Hack a day forums, has disassembled an old Kensington keyboard, washed the parts, and then re-assembled it using the new key mappings.

Everything was relatively easy to change over, with the exception that some of the keys had backwards connections that required a 90 degree change to the orientation of the key. With a little correction using a label maker, they keys are now very usable.

The final step is telling your OS to use the Dvorak layout rather than the standard Qwerty layout that you are using right now.

Have you attempted to make the change to a Dvorak keyboard layout? Let us know how it went in the comments!

Qwerty to Dvorak Keyboard Conversion via Hack a day Forums

Your desktop is your virtual home, and much like you're real home, customizing it to fit your needs and style can make the difference between between a drab and depressing workspace and one you're excited to work on. Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite desktop customization tools, and now we're back with the five most popular tools for the job on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Image courtesy Lifehacker reader 0John0.

Rainmeter (Windows)

Rainmeter is a great tool for tweaking your Windows desktop. This actively developed tool attractively displays all kinds of information on your desktop (like your to-do list, calendar, weather, and a ton more), and from all kinds of sources on your computer or via the internet. You can change its look using themes available from their web site. Rainmeter is widely used and for Windows is a great way to customize your desktop.

GeekTool (Mac)

If you want to display system information, text files, photos, graphs and other information on your Mac desktop, GeekTool can do the job. By default it ships with only a few plug-ins capable of monitoring text files, launching scripts, and monitoring system information, but used with conjunction with user-created Geeklets (GeekTool scripts), GeekTool can be extended to display any number of sources of information.

Samurize (Windows)

Samurize is another tool for customizing information displayed on your Windows desktop. Similar to Rainmeter, Samurize has many plug-ins that allow you to extend its functionality and the information it's capable of displaying on your desktop. The app itself doesn't appear to have been updated since 2007, but it works with Windows 7, and users are still submitting new plug-ins.

Conky (Linux, FreeBSD)

Conky is a customization tool that allows you to put system and other information onto your Linux desktop. Like many of the other tools featured above, the most popular way to use it is often to display current CPU, memory, and disk usage—but there are hundreds of other system options you can display, including things like email (IMAP and POP3) and currently playing music. Conky allows you to write any type of custom plugins you can think of using the Lua programming language.

Fences (Windows)

Fences is a unique program that's a bit different than the rest of the options in today's Hive. Rather than focusing on the kind of customization in which you add attractive information-focused widgets to your desktop, Fences is all about organizing your desktop clutter. Using the tool, you create boundaries (or fences) around areas on your desktop where you would like wrangle and organize certain shortcuts. These fences organize your desktop and all those shortcuts into a more attractive and manageable interface, keeping those desktop-cluttering shortcuts translucent in the background until you need them.

Now that you've seen the contenders, it's time to cast a vote for your favorite desktop customization tool.

Want to add a note about your favorite customization tool and what makes it so great? Let's hear it in the comments.

About the Hive: Every week we ask our readers to submit their nominations for a favorite software or service. The last Hive Five winner was Southwest Airlines for readers' favorite frequent flyer program. Check back on Tuesday for the results of this week's Hive Five: the best desktop customization tools.

Check out the awesome downloads we've covered over the past week:

Boxcar (iOS, Mac)

Boxcar is probably my favorite app for iOS, and now it is available for your Mac. It is considered beta and isn't in the Mac app store yet, but is available directly from the Boxcar website. The company reports that versions for Windows and Android platforms should be available within the next few weeks.

If you're already running Boxcar on your iPhone, there's good and bad news. Your Boxcar accounts and pings will already be set up, but, for now, they'll appear on both devices (with a fix/setting available soon). In the meantime, Boxcar for Mac is a handy way to keep tabs on services and messages without having to actively keep them open. Twitter items of note, Google Voice messages, email or RSS that you choose, and lots of other services.

Desktoday (Mac)

Desktoday is a handy utility that organizes your desktop for you when you get lazy. Whenever you leave a bunch of crap on your desktop, Desktoday can easily move it into a folder with today's date so you're not overwhelmed by tons of files.

Trim Support Enabler (Mac)

TRIM is a command that lets you take advantage of your solid state drive (SSD), it isn't available in OS X by default. TRIM Enabler patches Snow Leopard systems to take advantage of it and get better performance out of their SSDs. TRIM support is coming in OS 10.7 Lion, but if you're running Snow Leopard right now you can enable it with TRIM Enabler, which performs a little hack on your system that lets you take advantage of TRIM.

Firefox 4 (Android, Maemo)

Android has a lot of great browser alternatives, but today Mozilla released the final version of Firefox 4 Mobile, which brings tabbed browsing, add-ons, and serious synchronization power to your phone.
Firefox Mobile's main goal is to eliminate the amount of typing you do on your tiny smartphone keyboard. It eases your browsing experience by adding tabs, one-touch bookmarking, and auto-hiding browser controls. You can also easily access your history, bookmarks, and open tabs from the address bar-just like in Firefox 4 on the desktop, as well as access custom search engines and one-tap sharing features.

Camera+ (iOS)

Camera+ is pretty remarkable and solves so many problems you likely have with Apple's built-in camera app and the camera itself. We've never really highlighted it before (although we have mentioned it), partially due to its absence from the iTunes App Store for using a volume button as a shutter (which Apple didn't care for and everyone else loved) but with all it can do it seems like it's time to correct that.

Creepy (Windows/Linux)

If you've ever doubted how much anyone could track you based on information embedded in geolocation services like Foursquare, Twitter, and Flickr, free app Creepy will show you by aggregating GPS coordinates for any user, pointing out their most frequented hangouts on a map.

Rockmelt

RockMelt, the new Chromium-based social networking browser, updated today to add improved Facebook chat, real-time Twitter updates, a bookmark-and-read-later function, and support for Chromium 10.

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below!