Jason Fitzpatrick

This week’s edition of WIG is filled with news links covering topics such as a startup funded by Microsoft aims to kill BitTorrent traffic, a reset feature has been added to Firefox 13 beta, Windows 8 upgrades for new PC buyers will cost $14.99, and more.

All browsers support keywords, which you can type into your address bar to quickly search or visit websites. Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer all have their own methods of setting keywords, some more hidden than others.

Internet Explorer’s keyword features are particularly hard to find, relying on a registry hack and a little-known bookmark feature. Google Chrome makes this easier, although setting a bookmark keyword requires a trick. Firefox makes this easiest of all.

Email has become a standard method of communication and we all use it often. We’ve gathered some tips and tricks for using email programs and tools and for learning more about email terms and how email works.

Last year we shared a beautiful collection of Starry Skies wallpapers with you and today we are back with more star-powered goodness. Gaze upon the stars from the comfort of your desktop with the second in our series of Starry Skies Wallpaper collections.

Charms are an important new feature in Windows 8. Some of the charms are context-sensitive, while some aren’t. Some are important on the desktop, while some only work in Metro apps.

They’re named charms because they resemble items you’d find on a charm bracelet. To get to grips with Windows 8 – and shut down your computer – you’ll need to figure out the charms.

Liking Pinterest is one thing, but things get way out of hand when one woman takes her love of the website far too literally (and too far)!

Pinsanity! [YouTube]

Is there a lesson to be learned here??

History [EatLiver.com]

Have your dreams of becoming a Tesla Trooper been thwarted by lack of a good Tesla rifle? Fear not, you can follow in this mad scientist’s foot steps to build your own.

Courtesy of Rob Flickenger, we find this polished Tesla rifle. Rob’s project guide covers every aspect of the construction including casting the body of the rifle and crafting the innards. Hit up the link below for the full run down or check out the video to see it action.

The Tesla Gun [via Boing Boing]

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite tricks for keeping your gear from getting lost and getting it back should it go missing. Now we’re back to share some great reader tips.

Johann opts for the most straight forward method:

Best way is also the least geeky and therefore ignored by techies – stick a big label on the thing with some contact details.

By all means encrypt etc but this isn’t making it easier to return, just securing your data, and these are two very different things.

How To Hide Passwords in an Encrypted Drive Even the FBI Can’t Get Into

How To Use Calibre To Correctly Order Your Ebook Series

How To Make Line Tone Art (Like on Money) With Photoshop and No Filters

Combine the hero of Hyrule and his foes with a Pac-Man board and you’ve got a recipe for an entertaining retro game mashup where Link races to get the coins with goblins on his tail.

While just a creative video, we’re hoping someone takes this simple concept and runs with it. We’d definitely play a round or two of this Pac-Man/Link hybrid.

Link: The Legend of Pac-Man

Lightning, Clouds, Storm, Desert [Wallpaper Abyss]

Chrome: If you’re a fan of Bing’s eye-catching daily backgrounds but prefer Google as your search portal, this Google Chrome add-on will pull the Bing wallpaper and add it to Google for you.

It’s as simple as it sounds. Install the add-on, visit Google.com and you’ll see all the usual Google stuff but with a Bing background layered behind it. The only issue we found with the add-on is that custom Google logos (like those used to celebrate holidays and so on) are usually designed with the assumption that the background will be totally white and look a little off when placed over a non-white background. Other than that, it works perfect.

Bing Wallpaper for Google Homepage is free, Chrome only.

Bing Wallpaper for Google Homepage [via Digital Inspiration]

In this week’s game you are a spy whose mission is to infiltrate a building and successfully circumvent all of the security there. Are you quick enough, good enough to stealthily sneak past all of the guards and security cameras there or will you get busted?

From ultrabooks to netbooks, computers are shedding their optical drives. If you still use an occasional CD or DVD, you don’t have to buy an external optical drive –  you can share another computer’s optical drive over the network.

The two computers must be on the same local network to share an optical drive. This requires using the Advanced Sharing settings in Windows – there’s no easy, HomeGroup-style way of doing this.

Once a week we round up some great reader tips and share them with everyone. This week we’re looking at a cheap DIY setup for “scanning” film negatives and slides, animating GIFs with Android, and pushing RSS feeds to your Kindle.

Sounds about right…

Note: Originating blog is in Portuguese.

Celular novo [via MakeUseOf]

Are you tired of switching to a new tab when you need to add an image, interesting fact, or other item to your document in Google Docs? Then you are definitely going to love the new Research Pane feature that has been added to Google Docs!

The new Research Pane allows you to find those awesome tidbits of internet goodness directly from within Google Docs now, so say goodbye to those extra tabs and tab switching hassles.

You can see the starting, weblink, and image result examples above. When you need to access the Research Pane, just go to the Tools Menu and click on Research or use Ctrl + Alt + R (Windows)/Cmd + Alt + R (Mac) on your keyboard. It will appear on the right side of your document window ready to go.

Learn more about this awesome new feature in Google Docs by visiting the blog post linked below!

In addition to syncing your bookmarks, extensions, history, and other settings, Google Chrome now syncs your tabs between computers and devices–no tweaks or third-party tools necessary.

Read more about the new stable release of Google Chrome at the link below.

Keep Tabs On Your Tabs [Google Chrome Blog]

Quinine, a compound found in common tonic water, is UV reactive. While you could simply be content to watch the bottle glow under a black light, this fun kitchen experiment infuses gummy candies with the glow-in-the-dark properties of the tonic water.

Courtesy of Wired’s Geek Dad column (and adapted from Modernist Cuisine), we find a clever little recipe that combines gummy worms and tonic water to produce a neat and flavorful glow-in-the-dark treat that glows extremely bright under UV light. Hit up the link below for more information.

Cook Up Some Glow Worms [Geek Dad]

Have you ever wondered what happens when you send an email? This fun interactive slideshow from Google shows you the entire journey your Gmail letter takes from beginning to end.

Note: There are also mini picture slideshows, videos, and notes embedded within the main slideshow presentation (look for the small pulsing blue circles with icons inside them).

The Story of Send [via Neatorama]

When the water fountain in their hackerspace broke down, Dave and Craig weren’t content to just fix it–they upgraded it to dispense Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator.

If you’ve never heard of Brawndo, you’ve never seen the movie Idiocracy–a lesser known but quite entertaining satirical Sci-Fi comedy from written and directed by Mike Judd.

The design of the upgrade is quite clever, a new series of valves and pumps give the user the option of selecting regular water (labeled Toilet Water, in the spirit of the film) or Brawndo. The Brawndo is cleverly created and flavored on the fly by a pump that drips energy drink concentrate into the water line.

Hit up the link below for more information–and watch Idiocracy if you haven’t!

Brawndo – It’s What GEEKS Crave! [via Hack A Day]