Monday, August 23, 2010

Clinical trial confirms effectiveness of simple appetite control method

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news201793368.html

Has the long-sought magic potion in society's "battle with the bulge" finally arrived? An appetite-control agent that requires no prescription, has no common side effects, and costs almost nothing? Scientists today reported results of a new clinical trial confirming that just two 8-ounce glasses of the stuff, taken before meals, enables people to shed pounds. The weight-loss elixir, they told the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), is ordinary water.

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Five Ways To Download Torrents Anonymously [Privacy]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5617891/five-ways-to-download-torrents-anonymously

privacy-bto.jpgWith anti-piracy outfits and dubious law-firms policing BitTorrent swarms at an increasing rate, many BitTorrent users are looking for ways to hide their identities from the outside world. Here's an overview of five widely used privacy services.

The services discussed in this post range from totally free to costing several dollars a month. The general rule is that free services are generally slower or have other restrictions, while paid ones can get you the same speeds as your regular connection would.

VPN (paid / free)

Hundreds and thousands of BitTorrent users have already discovered that a VPN is a good way to ensure privacy while using BitTorrent. For a few dollars a month VPNs route all your traffic through their servers, hiding your IP address from the public. Some VPNs also offer a free plan, but these are significantly slower and not really suited for more demanding BitTorrent users.

Unlike the other services listed in this article, VPNs are not limited to just BitTorrent traffic, they will also conceal the source of all the other traffic on your connection too. Ipredator, Itshidden and StrongVPN are popular among BitTorrent users, but a Google search should find dozens more. It is recommended to ask beforehand if BitTorrent traffic is permitted on the service of your choice.

BTGuard (paid)

BTGuard is a proxy service that hides the IP-addresses of its users from the public. The service works on Windows, Mac, Linux and as the name already suggests, it is set up specifically with BitTorrent users in mind. Besides using the pre-configured client, users can also set up their own client to work with BTGuard. It works with all clients that support "Socks V5″ proxies including uTorrent and Vuze. In addition, BTGuard also includes encryption tunnel software for the real security purists.

After these words of praise we're obligated to disclose that BTGuard is operated by friends of TorrentFreak, but we think that should be interpreted as a recommendation.

TorrentPrivacy (paid)

Torrentprivacy is another proxy service for BitTorrent users, very similar to that of BTGuard. It offers a modified uTorrent client that has all the necessary settings pre-configured. The downside to this approach is that it is limited to users on Windows platforms. TorrentPrivacy is operated by the TorrentReactor.net team and has been in business for more than two years.

Anomos (free)

"Anomos is a pseudonymous, encrypted multi-peer-to-peer file distribution protocol. It is based on the peer/tracker concept of BitTorrent in combination with an onion routing anonymization layer, with the added benefit of end-to-end encryption," is how the Anomos team describes its project.

Anomos is one of the few free multi-platform solutions for BitTorrent users to hide their IP-addresses. The downside is that it's not fully compatible with regular torrent files as Anomos uses its own atorrent format. Another drawback is that the download speeds are generally lower than regular BitTorrent transfers.

On the uTorrent Idea Bank, more than 1,600 people have asked for the Anomos protocol to be built into a future uTorrent build, making it the second most-popular suggestion overall.

Seedbox (paid)

A seedbox is BitTorrent jargon for a dedicated high-speed server, used exclusively for torrent transfers. With a seedbox users generally get very high download speeds while their IP-addresses are not shared with the public. Once a download is finished users can download the files to their PC through a fast http connection. FileShareFreak periodically reviews several good seedbox providers.

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Sad Steve is a Minimalistic, Ad-Free MP3 Search Engine [Music]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5618097/sad-steve-is-a-free-minimalistic-mp3-search-engine

Sad Steve is a Minimalistic, Ad-Free MP3 Search EngineWe've featured more than one MP3 search engine before, but most nowadays are filled with ads and confusing layouts. Sad Steve is a plain but effective MP3 search engine and player, complete with profiles on new bands to get you started.

Since Sad Steve is not out to make any money, the site is completely devoid of ads and other intrusive features, separating it from the dime-a-dozen MP3 search engines out there nowadays. It's just a simple engine from which you can search, download and stream a ton of different songs (even fairly obscure stuff). The site also hosts profiles of new indie bands on the site, and you can pledge money to bands that you like and would like to see succeed. It also has a nice "Percolator", which randomly generates a 20-track playlist every 20 minutes, so you have something to listen to even if you don't know what you're in the mood for.

Sure, it isn't the best-looking site around, but its simplicity gives it an ease of use that other sites don't quite have, and the lack of ads all over the place is a really nice change of pace. It won't give you the powerful playlist-crafting abilities something like Grooveshark or Mixtape.me will, but if you're just looking for a few tracks (or for a few new bands to check out), it's a pretty good place to start. Hit the link to check it out.

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Five Best Places to Buy Cheap Textbooks [Hive Five]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5618881/five-best-places-to-buy-cheap-textbooks

Five Best Places to Buy Cheap TextbooksAs if college weren't an expensive enough endeavor, textbook prices tend to range from shocking to outrageous. Save on your textbooks with these five great places to buy cheap textbooks.

Photo by a composite of images by vierdrie and Leonardini.

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite place to find cheap textbooks. We compiled the results and now we're back to share the five most popular places Lifehacker readers go to save on books.

Chegg

Five Best Places to Buy Cheap Textbooks
Chegg offers a nice compromise between buying the overpriced textbooks at your local bookstore and shopping for iffy-quality used books online. At Chegg you don't purchase your books; you rent them for a semester. The Chegg discount, compared to retail prices, is anywhere from 30%-80% off, with most book rentals falling around the 50% mark. You rent them a semester, a quarter, or a 60-day rental window and then ship them back for free with a prepaid UPS label. You won't be able to find books at pennies on the dollar like you can by scrounging for used or out-of-print editions elsewhere, but you do get a 30-day "any reason" return policy and free return shipping.

Amazon

Five Best Places to Buy Cheap Textbooks
No one should be surprised to find out that Amazon has their hand in the textbook business. The book superstore originally offered textbooks mixed in with the rest of their book offerings, both new and discounted through their third-party marketplace. Now Amazon has a dedicated student/textbook section with enhanced textbook search and student-centric features. They even offer a free Amazon Prime membership to anyone with a valid student email address (even if you have an Amazon Prime account already, they will refund you the remaining balance and extend your Prime membership a year into the future). With careful shopping you can find textbooks anywhere from new with a slight discount to heavily-used and extremely discounted.

AbeBooks

Five Best Places to Buy Cheap Textbooks
AbeBooks is a massive online marketplace for new, used, and rare books. They have a bustling textbook section with new and used books that average 50% off retail—we found quite a few books in our test searches that crept up in the 75-90% range, however. AbeBooks has a 30-day return policy and an easy-to-use sell-back program—plug in the ISBNs, print off a free mailing label, and ship them back for cash in your pocket.

Half.com

Five Best Places to Buy Cheap Textbooks
Half.com, an eBay subsidiary, offers cheap media and books including textbooks. Like a giant used bookstore/record store equivalent of eBay, Half.com is a great place to find cheap textbooks. Low prices aside, one of the strong selling points for textbook shopping at Half.com is their Buying Wizard. Using the Buying Wizard you can search for the books you need and the wizard will search all the deals on Half.com to find you the best combination of prices and combined shipping to get your textbooks faster and cheaper.

BIGWORDS

Five Best Places to Buy Cheap Textbooks
BIGWORDS is the textbook website that put seller/shipping optimization on the map with their Multi-Item Price Optimization services. When you search for textbooks at BIGWORDS, they scan dozens of other textbook retailers and resellers to find you the absolute bargain basement prices. When the semester is over you can use the BIGWORDS engine in reverse to sell them all back or donate your textbooks through Better World Books to help fight illiteracy in developing nations.


Now that you've had a chance to look over the five most popular contenders for the best place to buy cheap textbooks, it's time to vote for your favorite:



Which Place to Buy Cheap Textbooks Is Best?online surveys

Have a favorite spot to grab cheap textbooks that wasn't highlighted in this Hive Five? Let's hear about it in the comments.

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Attach Your Camera to a Microscope for Super Close Macro Photography [DIY]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5619011/attach-your-camera-to-a-microscope-for-super-close-macro-photography

Attach Your Camera to a Microscope for Super Close Macro PhotographyWe've looked at a few methods of macro photography, whether making your own macro photography tube out of a Pringles can or replacing your cameraphone's lens. DIYer Ben Krasnow takes it to the next level with a microscope.

Attach Your Camera to a Microscope for Super Close Macro PhotographyTo attach his new Lumix GH1 to his microscope, Ben used a homemade adapter using pieces from old equipment he had lying around. The barrel of the adapter fits inside the microscope's tube, and the other end attaches to the camera's lens. Coupled with previously mentioned software CombineZM, Ben was able to stack multiple photos to create a crystal clear shot of microscopic objects, like the above grains of pollen. Hit the link for more details, and let us know your favorite camera hacks for taking unique photos.

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