Daily Digest
Show Hidden Files with a Keyboard
Shortcut [How To]
Drawing inspiration from our own commenter turn-
ersd, the How-To Geek offers up a AutoHotKey-based
application that turns hidden file showing on and off in
any version of Windows. The small application runs in
the background from startup, and can be set to acti-
vate with any key (Win H being the default). For those
who do a good deal of file copying and system wran-
gling, it’s a serious time saver that’s probably worth the
less than 2MB memory taken up by the utility. For a
Visual Basic-based solution of similar convenience, try
CyberNet’s own utility as well. Keyboard Ninja: Tog-
gle Hidden Files with a Shortcut Key in Windows [The
How-To Geek]
Election Day Post-Mortem, Geek
Edition [Election]
Google’s official blog rounds up yesterday’s top searches,
with interesting oddities (cassoulet forever?). Our sib-
ling site Gizmodo explains how CNN’s hologram inter-
views work. And CNET offers a humorous/insightful
look at last night’s fervor through ten election night
tweets worth remembering. What sites or services were
you checking online while the results rolled in?
Google Groups Now Searches All Web
Forums [Google]
Google has expanded its Groups search to cover the
wealth of web-based forums across the general net, with
results snippets showing post authors, last updates, and
other stats. Looks to be a pretty good resource for
asking tech support questions of the entire internet or
seeking out rare, forum-only software. [via]
TinEye Finds Instances of an Image
Across the Web [Image Search]
Search engine TinEye finds instances of an image
across the web. After signing up for a free account, you
1
upload an image or provide a URL to an existing image
on the web and TinEye will search for other places that
image exists. How effective is it? To test the system I
decided to ”face stalk” our very own Gina Trapani us-
ing a head shot photo I know she’d used for a variety of
interviews in the past. TinEye found a few instances I
had overlooked, but ignored other instances that came
up under a cursory Google image search. For instance it
caught the head shot attached to the speaking schedule
at the 2008 O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference
but missed it from a Geek Illustrated interview and a
New York Times interview. Missing the Times article
seems like a glaring oversight to a human, but might
have an obvious explanation from the standpoint of the
search algorithm? Uploading a head shot I took specif-
ically for the post Gina used to introduce me here at
Lifehacker yielded a pinpoint accurate link right back
to my Lifehacker profile. If you mess around with Tin-
Eye, share your results in the comments below. Thanks
jsmorley! TinEye
ToYcon Converts Drag-and-Dropped
Images to Icons [Featured Windows
Download]
Windows only: Free image-to-icon converter ToY-
con is a portable, drag-and-drop tool that takes a few
tweaks to get working swiftly, but makes for an easy
custom icon maker once you do so. The no-install
app opens up a hovering icon on your desktop, with
its options available by right-clicking it. You’ll defi-
nitely want to enable ”Choose Destination” under the
Options dialog, and if you’re doing batch conversions,
choose a pre-set file type. You can also customize the
number and size of icons put out by ToYcon, and in-
clude coding meant for Vista icons. Other than that,
it’s simply dragging a JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, or TGA
file onto the box to get back nice-looking icons. ToYcon
is a free download for Window systems only. ToYcon
[via FreewareGenius.com]
Jackson West is Our Newest Associate
Editor, Jason Rockin’ Weekends
[Announcements]
 Thrilled to announce this morning that Jackson West,
our guest writer who’s been feeding your reader with
posts for the last two weeks, has decided to stick around
on a permanent basis. Jackson is officially our newest
Associate Editor, covering news and downloads live from
San Francisco in the afternoons and evenings. You
can reach Jackson directly via email to jackson at life-
hacker.com. Also from the hires and promotions de-
partment comes another piece of great news: contrib-
utor Jason Fitzpatrick, who graduated from our rig-
orous intern program, is now officially our new Week-
end Editor and Comments Overlord. Bless Jason for
giving the editorial staff a breather on Saturdays and
Sundays, and for keeping everyone happy in comment
threads. Now, with all pistons firing we’re full speed
ahead. Thanks and congrats to both Jackson and Ja-
son! Photo by Rachel Kramer Bussel.

Tethering Your Android G1 for Web

Access [Android]

One intrepid coder has released an application that

allows for web access tethering between a T-Mobile
G1’s 3G connection and a laptop starved for net ac-
cess. It requires a bit of command line work and SDK
installing, but reports say that it works, with a bit of
latency. [via]

Google Backs Out of Yahoo Ad Deal

[Google]

Google just announced that they’re ending the agree-

ment with Yahoo made earlier this year that would have
partnered the two internet giants, providing Google ads
to Yahoo.

Firefox Browser Share Hits 20

Mozilla reports that the Firefox market
share topped 20 during October. 20
may not sound that big, but when
Wired points out the
obviousmdash;that it’s one in five web
surfersmdash;it somehow seems
enormous. Nice work, Firefox!