Don’t be sh*t out of luck when a huge disaster or emergency strikes and causes an electricaloutage…which is exactly what Sun Flare Systems hopes to avoid with their SOS in a Box: a totally portable (and ultra-high efficient) solar power generator. It can produce up to 800-2,500 Watts of household electricity on demand for when an emergency strikes. the patent-pendngsolar powered backup generator system provides instant solar electrical power in any outage or disaster so you have a virtually endless supply of electricity.

The kit consists of three main components that work together to create a very efficient home power plant, including the generator backup, high efficiency solar panel(s)s and the charge controller. The solar kit works better than any gas generator because in an emergency, gas stations can’t pump gas without electricity, so it’s a waste of a generator! Even a few gallons stored in a gas can means a little electricity for a little while before it gives out, which won’t happen with a solar kit like this.

The Sun Flare Systems SOS in a Box comes in four different models that all provide reliable power when you need it most. Their lowest model is the Marine RV Line for $1,080 that provides 75 Watts of PV power with 25amp MPPT charge controller, with external battery terminals for those consumers who already have their own battery systems and inverters. Their Economy Line sells for $1,348 and features 75 Watts of PV power complete with 800 Watt 110/120 60hz power inverter, 25amp MPPT charge controller, all built in with a 18Amph battery for lite overnight power use. The Commercial Grade is $2,248 and provides double the PVsolar power at 150Watts, 1000watt 110/120 60hz inverter, 25amp MPPT charge controller, and with an increased 36Amph battery, but it’s their Military Grade version that’ll provide the best quality! Price isn’t listed, which means it’s probably pretty expensive.

[LINK]

You want to be organized and prepared when you’re walking around, but you don’t want to lug around 10 pounds of gear and ruin your back with a mega-wallet. These essential carry-around Tools are discrete, super-handy, and oh so brag-worthy.

photo by joelogon.

We’ve previously covered the gear our editors and readers find handy to carry in their “Go bags” and laptop bags, and some of those tools (like a certain USB key) cross into the pocket-worthy realm. Otherwise, we tried to stick to very small tools and printables that do a really good job for this roundup.

10. Foldable Organizer

The PocketMod webapp is more than a simple printout maker. It’s an expandable, customizable system for creating an 8-page, super-slim booklet with anything you want on any side. You can track your business mileage on one side while keeping your calendar and important contacts on another, or print out an entirely new pocket stuffed with travel maps and local attractions. Cool stuff, and definitely worth the wallet space. (Original post).

9. compact keychain

If you’ve only got a few keys, and an eye for something different, you don’t have to go with the typical ring-shaped chain. You really only need washers and a rivet to create a minimalist, quiet keychain. You can take it further by shaping those keys into a mini-Leatherman with a few tools kept in, attaching the rivets onto a money clip, orcrafting your own compact key device. (Original posts:compact keychain, mini-Leatherman)

8. Universal club card

Some stores require them, some stores provide discounts with them, and others offer passive rewards and points for using club/membership cards and bar codes. Combine all of your codes onto a single card with Just One Club Card, or choose between a card and keyring tab at KeyRingThing. Actually, the two sites seem to have gotten together, and now offer combination cards with a nice laminate finish and firm back, so you won’t have to worry about wear, tear, and faint barcodes. We love it when great webapps find each Other. (Original post: Just One Club Card, KeyRingThing)

7. Indestructible, keychain-friendly USB drive

Maybe you don’t need this exact model, but having a nearly-indestructible USB drive that fits on your keychain is convenient in ways you can’t quite fathom until you’ve added it. You’re almost never without a bit of storage for transferring or grabbing files. If you’re the PortableApps type, you’ve always got a working Firefox/Pidgin/Thunderbird setup handy for being productive on someone else’s system. At the moment, the 4 GB IamaKey sells for $22 directly, so it—or something like it—might make a great recommendation as a last-minute stocking stuffer. (Original post)
 

6. Compact calendar

Designer David Seah has been making “candy bar calendars” for some time now, and his 2010 compact calendar is just as beautifully efficient as ever. His are monthly calendars you line up and customize in Excel. If you’re looking for more of an all-in-one solution, try The Small Calendar 2010from Grafish Designs, or the Thumb Calendar 2010 Design, both of which offer clever ways of peeking at today, tomorrow, and the future from a wallet-sized slip of paper. (Original posts: The Small Calendar,Thumb Calendar).

5. A baby (or really cute pet) photo

Wallets get lost, left behind, and lifted more often than you’d like to think. If your wallet is more misplaced than stolen, having a very cute baby photo in your wallet, even if it’s not necessarily yours, seems to seriouslyboost your chances of getting it back. A not-too-close backup is having a cute pet picture. As they say in journalism school, every story (and wallet, maybe) needs a dog—or at least a really interesting human. Photo by °Eli.(Original post).

4. earbud de-tangler

Ever pull out your tangled, knotted headphones and wonder if they’re secretly holding gymnastics practice when they’re tucked away? Keep your earbuds, cords, and plugs in place with a de-tangling tool. Our inner stylist loves this laser-cut earbud owland its old-time-y wooden look, but you can also cut something similar from plastic. In fact, you can fashion an earbud holder out of a junk or expired credit card. If you’ve got no room for a single-purpose flat piece, at least train yourself in manual de-tangling methods like the devil horn wrap, thearound-the-player wrap, or get fancy with a daisy chain or chain sinnet style. (Original earbud owl post)

3. A darned good pen

Yeah, you still need to write now and again. Whether it’s a credit card receipt scrawl or a note you really want to be able to read later, having a pen that actually makes you want to write is always worth the price. We asked our script-friendly readers what pens they liked, and they came back with impressive results. In describing his trusted PenAgain, for example, Cowboy Bill wrote: “Helps my horrible handwriting. Busted knuckles from nuns’ rulers.” That’s an endorsement from the heart, or at least the memory of hands.

2. Multi-tool, credit-card or standard

We agree with Steve Sussex’s assessment of the Leatherman Micra—it’s just as useful to computer geeks as to outdoor types. If carrying an actual knife on your keychain won’t fly with security at work, or you don’t want to clutter it, consider the 11-function, credit-card-sized survival tool, alsorecommended by Cool Tools. You get a ruler, a knife and screwdriver plane that can work in a pinch, and, perhaps most helpfully, a bottle opener you never forget at home. Even if you forget to pull it from your wallet before a flight, it’s only around $5, and a fairly clever conversation starter. (Original posts: Leatherman Micra, credit card tool).

1. A backup system

The wallet is where you should keep all your essential IDs and cards, but it’s good to have a fallback plan for when you leave it at home, or in the cab. Inspired by a Real Simple article (now dead-linked) on using clear pockets and cords to separate ID badges, Gina wrote up a diet plan and backup system for your wallet, based on her own use of a Slimmy minimalist wallet and just the bare essentials. If you find yourself holding up the line to dig through a virtual filing cabinet of receipts and cards, consider putting your own money holder through boot camp.
 

What’s the most essential item on your own keychain, in your wallet, or loose in your jacket pocket these days? Share your stuff in the comments.

Gina Trapani — A few years back you dropped significant cash to switch over from the virus-laden world of Windows to a shiny new Mac, but over time it’s gotten slow and crufty. Let’s clean it up.

Before you get started uninstalling this and deleting that, do yourself a favor: hook up an external drive to your Mac and back everything up with Time Machine or any other free alternative. The last thing you want is for your “clean up” to turn into “holy crap where did all my Documents go.”

Ready? Let’s get started. (PC user? You want this article.)

Find the CPU and Memory Hogs in the Activity Monitor

first things first. If your Mac is acting like a petulant three-year-old, dragging its feet, crossing its arms, and refusing to do what you ask in any reasonable amount of time, it’s time to fire up the Activity Monitor (in Applications > Utilities). Here you’ll see a list of running applications and processes. Sort the columns shown in the screenshot to find out what Apps are hogging the most CPU time (Firefox, in this case), what apps are for Intel or PowerPC (it’s a good idea to use Intel-only apps on Intel Macs), and what apps are running at all. If there are processes running for software you don’t need, note them down. Also, if an app is a runaway CPU and memory hog, quit it and restart for immediate relief.

Clean Up Your Startup

Whether or not the Activity Monitor is showing processes you don’t recognize, it’s a good idea to audit what programs start up automatically when you log onto your Mac. In System Preferences, Accounts (I know, unintuitive placement), click on the Login Items tab. From there, make sure each and every app listed is something you need and use. If it isn’t? Just select it and click the minus (-) sign. (Rule of thumb: Generally you want to keep things called “SomethingHelper” where Something is an app you use, like iTunes or Growl, as shown.)

Uninstall Unneeded Apps (and Related Files)

Just like your Login Items, you want to cruise through your Applications folder and trash anything you don’t need or use any more. To be clear, this won’t speed up your Mac, but it will reclaim hard drive space.

Before you get to dragging and dropping unneeded applications to the trash, though, it’s a good idea to install a, well, uninstaller program. Strangely Apple still hasn’t shipped a proper uninstaller with Mac OS X, but a few free and pay-for apps will clear out related files when you send an application to the Trash. While the irony of having to install something in order to uninstall something isn’t lost on us, keep in mind: your Mac will be fine if an extra plist file gets left behind by an app you once used.

But, in case you’re a neat freak, you want to check out the likes of AppTrap (free, our review), AppDelete (used to be free, now requires a minimum payment of $5 after a few uses, our review), or AppZapper ($13, our review).

Personally I prefer Hazel, which will set you back $22 for a license—however, in addition to clearing away application files on uninstall, Hazel can make your Mac self-cleaning, too, which makes it worth the cost.

Do Some Maintenance

Now it’s time to make sure your disks are in tip-top shape, and luckily, you can do this without any extra software. Simply run Disk Utility (in Applications > Utilities) to verify and repair disk permissions (which determine what apps can do what with what files on your Mac) and verify and repair the disk itself. These operations take some time, and you can’t do them while other applications are running, so set ‘em in motion before you head out to lunch or to grab coffee. 

To run some more hardcore and detailed maintenance tasks, download the free OnyX (our review). While OnyX does lots of fun Mac customization (see the Parameters tab for that stuff), you want the Maintenance and Cleaning tabs. There you can do things like manually run your Mac’s daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance scripts (which don’t on their own if you shut down your Mac at night), and clear out log files and system caches. You can also fix system application-specific issues, by rebuilding Spotlight’s or Mail’s index, if those apps are acting particularly wonky.

Reclaim hard drive Space

While you’re on a cleaning spree, figure out exactly what’s taking up all that space on your Mac with a visual tool that maps what’s what. Disk Inventory X (free, our review), is your best bet in this area: it creates what’s called a “tree map” of your hard drive usage that will unearth things like 10 gigabytes of video files you just don’t need any more.To get down to the unneeded-megabyte level, Macworld has some detailed advice for where to find redundant system files and Dashboard widgets. You can also reclaim space taken up by unneeded language files using the free Monolingual (our review).

Care for and Troubleshoot Your battery and Memory

If you’ve got a Mac notebook and you’re having trouble with your battery, a few troubleshooting techniques might help. First, to get the longest life out of your battery, calibrate it to make sure your life-o-meter is giving you the right readings.

If your Mac’s battery is cutting out before issuing the “You’re running out of power” warning, you want to reset the SMC or PMU, which cleared up that very problem on my MacBook.

Finally, some problems can be resolved by resetting your Mac’s PRAM and NVRAM—but this is generally a last-resort just-short-of-the-Genius-Bar troubleshooting technique for that inexplicable problem your Mac’s having.

Beef Up Your Memory and Get the Latest System Updates

This should go without saying, but the more memory your Mac has, the snappier it will be. If you’re thinking about an upgrade and you’ve got a MacBook, check out Adam’s guide to adding RAM to your Mac.

Also, it’s generally a good idea to stay up-to-date with OS X patches and versions—and normally Software update runs on its own and does just that. (Note: Yesterday the 10.5.7 update came out, and while I had no problems with it, Gizmodo reports that some people are having issues. As always, back up your stuff continuously to avoid disaster.)

Got any tales of victory or defeat when it comes to cleaning up and speeding up your Mac? Tell ‘em in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, has a MacBook pro that’s a bit snappier today than it was yesterday. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

Kevin Purdy —There’s something about grilling food outdoors that’s both exhilarating and terrifying. It’s great to commune with your food in such a straight-up way, but what if it goes wrong? We’re here to help overcome your fear of the flame, or step up your grilling game, with these 10 techniques.

Photo by adactio.

10. DIY marinades

Not every cut can be filet mignon, and some meats, like pork, almost always deserve a lengthy dip in some flavor-infusing sweet and salty stuff. Your grocery store wants to sell you a 12 oz. bottle of sickly-sweet stuff for a hefty markup. But you’ve got oil, acids, and flavoring agents at home, so learn to make a basic marinade, and open up your grill to a whole cabinet of ideas. You won’t turn super-tough meat into tender tournadoes, but you’ll learn a lot about how to impart flavor to big, seemingly impenetrable cuts of the good stuff.

9. steak improvement through salt

It makes your grandmother cry, but totally covering cheap, firm meat with salt, especially cheaper cuts of steak, just an hour before grilling or otherwise cooking is like giving it a really, really deep Shiatsu rubdown. The salt you cover the surface with—and then wipe off, rinse, and pat dry—denaturizes the long protein strands and mixes up the moisture spread in your steak. That turns them, in the Steamy Kitchen blog’s words, from cheap “choice” steak into Gucci “Prime” steak.

8. Chill soda, beer, or wine in two minutes

Waiting for meat to cook leaves you with a good amount of time to stand around and, well, drink something. But what if you forgot to drop your Coke/Sam Adams/Pinot grigio in the cooler or fridge before you cranked up the coals? Mythbuster Adam Savage, one of our favorite interviewees, explains a last-minute chilling technique at Metafilter: Spin it around in some heavily salted ice water. Savage claims it’s based in science instead of backyard lore, and I believe him—it’s amazed many a dinner party host with a “I forgot to” dilemma.

7. Easy grill cleaning

Maybe you’re pulling out the grilling can for the first time this weekend, and … eee-yuck. Here’s what you do. Swipe off whatever big, grungy stuff you can with a stiff (preferably wire) brush and then toss it in your oven on self-clean. Now that a majority of the tough stuff is off, or at least loosened, you probably won’t have to swing for any specialty tools—a wad of aluminum foil can suffice. For light, between-meal cleaning, rubbing a face-down half onion on a heated grill is an eco-friendly way to get in and around the bars without burning your hands or leaving non-compatible scents for your food.

6. Use your broiler as a backup

Unless you live in Hawaii, you really can’t count on the weather to hold for your grilling just because you bought buns and paper plates. If it’s just a drizzle and you can make do with the garage door open, go to it. If the weather or temperature really put a crimp in your style, or you just lack for grill space, consider braising and browning with your broiler. Slow-cooking the food in liquid, then crisping the exterior with a quick broil, gives you surprisingly grill-like results. For big groups or days when it just doesn’t seem like standing outside is feasible, consider the tiny grill your already own in your kitchen.

5. Get started with smoking

There exists a comfortable middle ground between having spent a summer working for the barbecue kings of Kansas City and just wanting a little hickory flavor in your food. Hank Shaw, who’s one serious meat fan, knows exactly where that sweet spot. Using just two grocery-store-standard aluminum pans and some wood chips, he turns a kettle grill into a smoker, one that turns out certifiably tasty ribs with real smoke flavor. Like any barbecue exercise, the real secret ingredients are time, patience, and a tasty rub or sauce.

4. Make your own BBQ sauce

You’ve already put the time and care into tending to your flame, your meat, and your sides, so why settle for a bottle of stuff found next to the ketchup, laced with corn syrup? The BBQ Recipe Secrets blog runs down three basic sauces, covering the traditional tomato sauce, a Carolina-esque vinegar version, and a basic mustard variant. We’ve made this tomato sauce template and been happy to tweak it in different ways, which you can, too. Photo by INeedCoffee / CoffeeHero.

3. Use a cheat sheet

We like Real Simple’s grid-style grilling cheat sheet, as it provides both basic, reassuring timings for a standard grill that won’t leave anyone with undercooked food, and won’t turn out dried-out cinders or hockey pucks, either. It also helps you arrange items across your cooking surface, as you move items from direct flame heat to indirect, ambient cooking. Got another favorite, printable guide? Link it for everyone in the comments.

2. know when meat is done

Unless you’ve got a serious instant-read thermometer, it’s a pain to keep stabbing your meal-to-be, or, even worse, cut it open, to determine just when it’s just at the edge of safe to eat. Skip the torture and use your hands. By touching your thumb to each of your fingers, and then pressing on your thumb muscle as it changes firmness, you’ll get an idea of how your steak should feel, moving from rare to well done as your thumb muscle moves from your index to your pinky finger. Whole chickens are a similar matter of intuitive touch, or, actually, a twist of the chicken leg. If the leg won’t move, it’s not quite ready—you want there to be a slight amount of tension, and then feel the joints release as you apply soft pressure.

1. perfect burgers

We asked and our commenters responded about what makes the perfect grilled burger: Good meat, preferably ground while you watch, kept at room temperature right before grilling, and not pressed and overly handled. We’d just add that you shouldn’t try to compress your homemade patties into chain-restaurant-style discs, and that seasoning your patties with salt and pepper right before they hit the heat makes a big difference.

Our list covers a lot of what the average griller would cook up for their friends or family, but we’re certainly open to suggestions—especially vegetarian ideas and technique suggestions. And be sure to check out last year’s guide to becoming the memorial day grill master for more techniques and basic starter tips.

MacX iPhone DVD Ripper Giveaway- Fastest DVD Ripping software for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G

MacX iPhone DVD Ripper, all-in-one Mac DVD to iPhone ripping software to make backup of DVD to iPhone (iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G) iPod, iPad.

MacX iPhone DVD Ripper is an innovative Mac DVD to iPhone ripping software to rip any DVD to a wide selection of output formats for multimedia devices like iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPod touch 4, iPod classic, iPod nano.. You will also get the choices for converting DVD to MP4, H.264, MOV or even music with up to 8x the real time. This Mac iPhone ripper allows you to convert both homemade and protected DVD without sacrificing any image or video quality.

We try to be careful with our gadgets, but even the most diligent protectors can be thwarted by a slip from the shoulder while relieving themselves, or by an errant step on a lake- or river-side camping trip. Consider Bheestie ($20) your backup plan. This moisture-absorbing stuff comes in a handy, resealable bag that lets you toss your soaked silicon in and retrieve a dry, hopefully functional device. Unfortunately, it can’t un-trigger a moisture sensor, so you’d best hope that iPod or iPhone didn’t get too drenched.