Technology Geekz

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Translate Any Web Text on the Fly with a Bookmarklet [Bookmarklet]

Google has recently offered translation of web pages generated from JavaScript—like search results and webapps—through its own toolbars. Want to quickly translate text without the toolbar? The Google Operating System blog has a bookmarklet to try out.

If you're already using the Google toolbar on your browser, or mostly browse sites that use Google's own persistent translation toolbar, you won't need this bookmarklet. For those of us looking for quick translation of any web page out there, the bookmarklet linked at the Google Operating System post is a nice and easy fix.

While this bookmarklet can work with any kind of text on a page and automatically detect the language, it doesn't automatically convert to a default English language. For that, you should check out the To English bookmarklet that's won its way into our hearts (and bookmarklets folder).

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Do You Really Need More Than 4GB of RAM? [Ask Lifehacker]

With the price of upgrading system RAM extremely low these days, people are always asking me whether it's really worth it to upgrade beyond 4GB; today we'll answer that question for everybody.

More RAM Means Better Multi-Tasking

First, let's take a moment to clarify what exactly more RAM can (and can't) do for you. The biggest benefit of upgrading your PC's memory is better multi-tasking, especially for those of us using RAM-hogging applications like Photoshop, Outlook, or Firefox 5 minutes after we've opened it. Having a lot of memory means that you can quickly switch back and forth between the different applications without Windows writing the process memory out to the pagefile. (The pagefile performs much the same purpose as RAM, but the data is stored on your much slower hard drive.)

To put it another way, your RAM generally does not make your PC faster, it just allows it to do more things at once. If your single application uses 200 MB of RAM, it won't matter if you've got 2 or 8GB of total system memory, but if you've got 10 windows open using 200 MB each, then you are probably going to benefit from an upgrade.

What Applications Actually Use 4GB+ of RAM?

It's true, very few applications are going to use large chunks of your system memory, but there are some applications that will benefit greatly from an upgrade—image editing applications like Photoshop, video/audio editing applications, or virtual machines like VirtualBox or VMware will use as much RAM as you can spare. On my desktop with 8GB of RAM, I'm able to run all of the above at the same time, without showing any signs of slowdown when switching from one application to another.

More RAM Will Not Make Single Tasks Faster

Other than the specific applications that hog your RAM, if you think bumping your RAM from 3GB to 8GB is going to increase the speed of a regular application-like a video game—you should think again. The only thing that additional RAM does is allow your computer to do more things at once, not actually make it faster. So if you normally have a few dozen windows open before you launch your video game, you'll see some speed improvement by upgrading, or you could just close a few apps.

How Do You Know When to Upgrade?

If you are running with 2GB or less RAM in your system, you could probably benefit from an upgrade unless you barely use your PC or run a single application at a time—it should be easy to open up Task Manager and check whether your memory usage is reaching the limit. If you consider yourself a power user, you'll want to consider upgrading your PC to 3 or 4GB of RAM. So what if you already have 3GB+ installed? Should you drop the cash for 6 or even 8GB of RAM?

To really analyze whether your PC is using the memory properly or paging to the disk, the best tool is the Resource Monitor included in Windows 7 or Vista—it gives you a quick view at exactly what resources are being used, and what they are being used for. The key thing to pay attention to is the Hard Faults/sec graph, which tells you how many times an application attempted to read memory that Windows was forced to push into the pagefile because of a lack of memory.

What About 32-bit vs 64-bit?

So you've upgraded your PC with 8GB of system RAM, only to find out that Windows doesn't see all of it. The reason is simple: 32-bit versions of Windows XP, 7, or Vista cannot use more than 4GB of system RAM—at least not without an ugly and unsupported hack. If you want to actually use all of that RAM that you installed, you'll need to install a 64-bit version of Windows.

The Bottom Line

Let's break it down into a couple of bullet points for easier digestion:

• If you are a regular user, just light browsing, IM, or YouTube, you are probably just fine with 2GB of RAM—but check Resource Monitor if you aren't sure.
• If you consider yourself a power user but don't use Photoshop or virtual machines, you should probably have 3-4GB of RAM installed.
• If you are a power user with virtual machines or you do heavy audio/video/image editing, you should consider upgrading with as much RAM as you can afford—just keep in mind that you'll need a 64-bit version of Windows to take advantage of it all.

Want some actual proof? The well-known PC building site Tom's Hardware ran a bunch of tests on machines with different RAM configurations, and ZDNet ran through a number of tests with the same conclusion—unsurprisingly, most people just don't need 8GB of RAM at this point. Still, we wouldn't call Lifehacker readers "most people", so be sure to examine your needs and upgrade appropriately. If you've never opened up your computer to install RAM, don't worry—we've walked through how to install RAM before.

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Ten Alternatives to Mininova [BitTorrent]

Ed. note: Last week, popular BitTorrent tracker Mininova started limiting torrents to only approved partners. If you're hunting for a new torrent-tracking home, all-things-BitTorrent weblog TorrentFreak is here to offer some worthwhile alternatives.

After nearly five years of loyal service, Mininova disabled access to over a million torrent files when it partly shut down its website. Starting today, only approved publishers are able to upload files to the site, but luckily there are plenty of alternatives and potential replacements BitTorrent users can flock to.

With an impressive 175,820,430 visits and close to a billion page views in the last 30 days, Mininova set a record that they will be unable to break in the near future. Last August a Dutch court ruled that Mininova had to remove all links to 'infringing' torrent files, with disastrous consequences.

Since it is technically unfeasible to pre-approve or filter every potentially infringing torrent file, the Mininova team decided to throw in the towel and only allow torrents to be submitted by approved uploaders. This move resulted in the deletion of more than a million torrents, many of which were not infringing any copyrights at all.

Thankfully, there are still plenty of alternatives for those BitTorrent users who are looking for the latest Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, or Fedora release.

Below we provide a random list of public torrent sites that are still open, but there are of course hundreds more sites we could have included. If your personal favorite is missing, feel free to post it in the comments below–-preferably with your reasons why it should be included in any upcoming lists.

1. Torrentzap

2. Fenopy

3. ExtraTorrent

4. KickassTorrents

5. BTjunkie

5. Monova

7. isoHunt

8. yourBitTorrent

9. The Pirate Bay

10. ShareReactor

Update: The owner of Monova told TorrentFreak that he has reserved all Mininova usernames for people who want to make the switch to his site. The account names can be claimed here.

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From the Tips Box: iPhone Stylus, Touchpad Middle-Click, and Focused Browsing [From The Tips Box]

Readers offer their best tips for using touch screens in the cold winter months, middle-clicking with your laptop's touchpad, and staying focused on your work when that work is in your browser.

Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.

About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or email it to tips at lifehacker.com.

Use a AAA Battery as an iPhone Stylus

Logan shows us a quicker way to use touch screens in the winter:

Wearing winter gloves means having to pull them off every time you want to use your iPhone. There are a few stylus products out there, but I found that the negative (flat) end of AAA batteries, even when remote controls have exhausted them, are conductive enough to act as a stylus. Because it's flat it doesn't scratch the screen, but it works through light fabric too if you're hesitant about the whole metal-on-glass thing.

AA batteries should work just as well and may be easier to come by for most.

Middle Click With a Two Button Touchpad

Photo by CLF.

Chinmay tweaks his settings to allow for quick middle clicking on his laptop:

It's simple really: since you can already left-click by tapping the touchpad and drag by double-tap dragging, set your left-click button to middle-click. Really helps while browsing. I use middle-click all the time for opening links in new tabs and closing tabs.

Access Facebook and Twitter From Gmail

Felipe tells us how he keeps his favorite social networking sites handy in Gmail:

I just found out you can add iGoogle gadgets to Gmail. Since that is not what they are originally made for, they can look a little weird or just not be of any use at all. But these two gadgets I found work wonders!

The Twitter gadget is actually made for Gmail, and the great thing is that it goes "fullscreen", that is, instead of your email you see tweets! The same goes for Facebook, although it's originally made for
iGoogle. But it also goes fullscreen, you just have to click on "Expand" inside the gadget box.

To install them, just do the following:

1. Go to Settings –> Labs, find "Add any gadget by URL" and activate it.
2. Find a XML gadget for Gmail or iGoogle.
3. Go to Settings –> Gadgets, enter the gadget URL into the text box and click Add.

These are the gadget URLs:
Twitter - http://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml
Facebook - http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/facebook.xml

Stay Focused in Your Browser

Ryan lets us know how he stays distraction-free when working in his browser:

I frequently find myself wasting time browsing the internet, specifically some of my favorite bookmarked sites, when I should be getting work done. I found that by simply opening the few tabs I actually need (such as Gmail and RTM), pinning them in Chrome, and hitting Ctrl + b to hide my bookmarks bar, the problem is solved! Just the act of seeing no bookmark bar there that I am so used to seeing serves as a reminder that I should be doing something productive. Simple, yet effective tip.

I don't know about Windows, but on a Mac you can take this even further by hiding your address bar if you don't need it too much, by clicking the button in the upper right hand corner of the window.

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25th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster

A policeman points to the gas tank which vented its contents into the atmosphere in 1984, at the site of the deserted Union Carbide factory on November 28, 2009 in Bhopal, India. Twenty-five years after a massive gas leak at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal killed thousands, toxic material from the 'biggest industrial disaster in history' continues to affect Bhopalis. A new generation is growing up sick, disabled and struggling for justice. The effects of the disaster on the health of generations to come, both through genetics, transferred from gas victims to their children and through the ongoing severe contamination, caused by the Union Carbide factory, has only started to develop visible forms recently. (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

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