Filed under: Utilities

Google Earth has always been a great way to explore the globe, but now you can use it to explore real-time rain and snow patterns, too. By enabling the new cloud layer and radar layer in Google Earth 5.2, you can track clouds and also see precipitation on a constantly updating radar.

These features are only available in the latest version of the Google Earth desktop app; they are not in the iPhone app or other mobile versions. Google Earth 5.2 also adds the ability to track your speed and elevation by using imported data from your GPS device. You can also see your heart rate and cadence if your GPS records that information.

Like to spend as little time as possible mousing around your desktop? Windows has a built-in feature called Mouse Keys which lets you move your pointer by using the numeric keypad, but not every keyboard has one.

If you're using a netbook or laptop without a number pad and you like the sound of Mouse Keys, check out MouseFIGHTER. It's a free program which lets you use the arrow keys to navigate -- I've never seen a keyboard without them, but I'm sure one of our loyal readers can probably tell us about an exception.

Even still, MouseFIGHTER lets you customize keys for directional control and button emulation -- so it can work on ANY keyboard. Acceleration, brake, and jump distance (as a percentage of your screen resolution) can also be tweaked to your preference.

MouseFIGHTER uses the caps lock key to activate keyboard control - either by pressing and holding it or using it as a toggle (again, your choice). When activated, the app changes your pointer's appearance to let you know it's working.

Know another app which you prefer? Share it with us in the comments!

So, you've got a new iPhone 4, and you love FaceTime, but you're finding it's just not that useful. It's hard to know when friends are actually going to be on Wi-Fi and available to take a FaceTime call, so you've stopped using it after those first giddy test calls. It sounds like you need FacePlant!

This free app with a silly name was produced by the team behind the successful 12seconds video app, and it makes FaceTime calls a lot simpler to arrange.

FacePlant shows you when your friends are available for FaceTime, and it lets you leave a video voicemail for them when they're not. Sure, audio voicemail comes with the iPhone, but who else is doing it with video? This idea is novel and pretty cool, even if you wouldn't necessarily use it regularly.

The downside to FacePlant is that your friends also have to have it installed in order for you to see their availability. I definitely think you should start inviting them right away; FacePlant is a good idea that I suspect Apple will eventually copy in some form, and everyone with an iPhone 4 should start using it.

FacePlant hasn't launched publicly yet, but you can sign up to see when it does.

[via TUAW]

So, maybe I should just say that "Google Alarm makes noises," because Google is always collecting your data.

Whether it's Google.com, YouTube, or any site with Google Analytics, chances are you've picked up some Google cookies during your browsing travels. If you want to know when that's happening, Google Alarm is the Firefox or Chrome add-on for you.

I shouldn't make it sound like it's going to be beeping at you and popping up alerts nonstop (there's a no-sound option, too), but I don't necessarily want to install an extension that tells me when my data is being sent and then doesn't give me a way to prevent it. There are already popular alternatives, like Ghostery, that offer similar alerts and the option to stop your data from being sent when you don't want it to.

If you're worried about what Google's servers know about you, I recommend you skip past Google Alarm, and give Ghostery a try. It works on Firefox, Chrome, and IE. There's also another Firefox add-on called BetterPrivacy, which focuses on removing never-expiring cookies like the ones Google uses. Check both of these out and see which one might be right for you.

I really enjoy what have come to be known as single-serving sites. These are sites that do only one specific thing, but the best of them do that thing exceedingly well.

My new favorite site of this kind is Support Details. The URL is super easy to remember (supportdetails.com), and when you pay the site a visit, it lists a bunch of details about your computer that you can include when making a support request for software that you're having trouble with.

Here's a quick list of the information that Support Details offers: - Operating system - Screen resolution - Web Browser & version - Browser window size - IP address - Color depth - Javascript (enabled or disabled) - Flash version - Cookies (enabled or disabled)

You can export the details as a CSV or PDF file, or you can simply email them to a recipient by using a form that's right on the site. It's simple and effective.

CD Art Display is a great little utility that puts the album art for the music you're listening to right on your desktop. It works with numerous players (iTunes, Foobar2000, Winamp, Helium, Windows Media Player, and more), and it shows you the album art for whatever track is currently playing with a beautiful skin. The art has to be in the album's folder, but if you don't already have it, CD Art Display can help you find it (it has a feature for automatically downloading covers).

Since it already interfaces with your player, CD Art Display also lets you switch to the next or previous track, pause/play, change the volume, and even rate the song and find and display its lyrics (right in the program, not in a pop-up browser window). It's pretty neat stuff!

CD Art Display isn't new; the last stable version (2.0.1) was released on September 8, 2009. The program is certainly not dead, though; CD Art Display 3.0 Beta was last updated on July 12, so it seems like development is definitely ongoing.

There are currently over 200 skins in the official gallery, so picking nine was tricky. However, I used the program's built-in browser to go through lots and lots of skins, installing and testing, until I found nine skins that I really liked. You can check them out after the jump!

What the Zuk is a (very) occasional feature, in which I review software that I have been using for many years, and which is instrumental for my work. These are the first tools I install on every new system, the reliable work-horse applications I turn to for every need. In every installment I will try to explain what makes this particular program special, and why I find it so vital for my computing experience.

The first program I'd like to review is none other than perennial classic, Total Commander. Now, this review isn't aimed at the hardened geeks who use FAR and other file managers; rather, it's aimed at most Windows users, whom, I assume, use plain Explorer. And while Explorer has made tremendous strides over the past few years, it still doesn't come close to what you can do with Total Commander.

So if you've looked at the screenshot and wondered what could you possibly get out of such an "antiquated" interface, keep on reading to find what you can do with Total Commander that you can't do with Explorer.

Weighing in at a massive 13 kilobytes, PureText is a classic freeware utility; it's tiny, portable (single file), straightforward, does one thing, and it does it well. It lets you copy rich text from a Web page, Word document, or any other source and paste it, clean and devoid of any formatting. It also makes a cute "bong!" sound when it does its job, but you can switch that off.

I can't begin to count the number of times when I wanted to paste a snippet from a Web page into an email, and the formatting completely screwed the rest of my email. You know, it changes the font, and then you have to copy the beginning of the email again, paste it after the Web page snippet, and edit over it (so that the formatting matches the beginning of the email); the whole thing gets pretty messy.

With PureText, just hit Win-V, and you're done. It's really handy!

Image Resizer Powertoy Clone is a neat, free Windows utility, that doesn't forget to give credit where credit is due. I've never used the original Powertoy, but I can tell you its clone lets you very easily batch-resize image files.

You get a single context menu entry (yes, another one) that says "Resize Pictures". When you select several image files and click this entry, a simple-looking dialog pops up (which is what you see above). In "Basic" mode, you get to choose one of four preset resolutions. "Advanced" mode lets you specify a custom resolution, choose to make pictures smaller but not larger (i.e, don't blow up smaller images – a wise decision) or resize the original picture rather than creating a copy.

The copies are sensibly named – for example, I tried the Mobile option, and all copies just had (Mobile) appended to the original filename. Personally, I don't see myself using this tool because it's just not customizable enough (and I already use IrfanView's batch mode for these sort of operations). But if you're just looking for a quick, simple solution – this is a well-made piece of software, and I think it can definitely come in handy.

When I wanted to write a post about WhatIsMyIP, the first thought that came to mind was about the commenters. I read all of your comments (thanks for your kind and useful ones!), and there are always those readers who are looking for the bleeding-edge stuff, and are disappointed when I write about things "everybody knows".

Well guys, this one's not for you – sorry! For those of you who did not know WhatIsMyIP.com, it's a very handy service for figuring out exactly one thing very fast: What is my "real" IP address right now?

This is something you're going to need every now and then, when troubleshooting network applications, trying remote control applications (although it's not needed as often these days), configuring certain games, et cetera.

WhatIsMyIP's advantage does not lie with edgy Web2.0 looks, or snazzy JavaScript. It's a pretty drab-looking site, and the copy writing is bordering on awful ("Whats My IP Address?"). But it has one big thing going for it: the domain name. It's really, really easy to remember. And it shows you your IP address in huge font right on top, and does not have any pop-ups, pop-unders, or blink tags. Sometimes, that's all I need!

The other day I asked about real-time collaborative Ruby editing. I mean, I found Amy Editor, but it just wasn't good enough. It was too slow and wonky, and didn't work well.

Well, I still needed a tool for coding collaboratively over the net, so I kept hunting and searching. And what do you know – it turns out Notepad++ has a plug-in that does exactly what I need.

Notepad++ is an awesome text editor in itself, and it's extremely versatile. It's one of the many editors I went through before finally settling down with Komodo Edit (for now, at least). It has themes, syntax highlighting for numerous languages, macros, endless configuration options, and, of course, plug-ins.

Have you ever wanted to compare how fast one site loads against another one? Instead of futzing around with multiple browser windows or a stopwatch, just head over to Which Loads Faster, and load the URLs into the split window interface. When you hit the GO button, it will load both sites in side-by-side frames, then make a judgment.

Keep in mind, there are a lot of variables at play, and you'll want to run the same test multiple times to get a better idea of what the average load speed is. Also, it's not clear whether the site automatically clears your cache, so you're going to want to do it manually between tests.

Of course, since each test will likely be different, it can help you create smart-ass screenshots like the header image on this post. Hey, we're just havin' fun here, right Lifehacker?

I recently wrote about a utility called Keyboard Leds which puts a small icon in your system tray showing keyboard LED status, for systems which do not have actual keyboards LEDs (or have tiny ones).

Commenter Lonnie McClure pointed out a very handy built-in Windows accessibility feature, which does the same job, but uses sound instead of images. It's called Toggle Keys, and it makes a short "chirp" when you hit Num Lock, Scroll Lock or Caps Lock, and a different chirp when you hit any of them again to turn it off. While this doesn't let you track their current status, it does let you prevent accidental activation and easily see if your press just turned the function on or off (because the sound is different).

What I like about this solution is that it doesn't add yet another system tray icon (I have 22 of those, at present), and that it's built right into Windows so it doesn't require an additional install. There are two ways to turn it on:

Keyboard shortcut: By default, just press and hold Num Lock for five seconds. You should then hear a chirp, which means the feauture is on. When you want to turn it back off, press and hold Num Lock for five seconds again.

Via the Control Panel: (In Windows 7) Go to Control Panel > Ease of Access Center > Make the keyboard easier to use > check Turn on Toggle Keys.

Thanks, Lonnie!

To use a cliche, the best just got a bit better. WriteMonkey, one of the very best full-screen freeware text editors for Windows, has now been released as 0.9.9 Final. This final version was preceded by no less than three release preview versions, so I expect it to be quite bug-free (also, I have been writing all of my posts using WriteMonkey for the past few months, and it has yet to crash once).

Besides the usual soothing full-screen text-only view, 0.9.9 introduces several new features. Here are just two:

• Export templates: You can now write your texts with Markdown or Textile, and define export templates using CSS. You can then easily export your documents into DOC or HTML files, formatted for users to view. This means you can write a novel on WriteMonkey and easily print it in wide-margin, double-space format for proofreading/reviewing, or create web pages, or do anything else CSS lets you do.

• Typewriter scrolling is a feature dubbed "experimental" which keeps your current writing position constant. This means you don't have to keep looking down towards the bottom of the screen while you write: you can just place your cursor somewhere near the middle of the screen, and that line will always be the last line. I am using this feature right now, and it's pretty nice!

There have been quite a few other additions, all of which you can see on the release notes. If you haven't tried WriteMonkey yet and you do any sort of writing (heck, even emails), you should definitely grab it for a spin!