Since taking up residence at Toomey's Rent-All Center I've pretty much found carrying some sort of pocket knife to be a necessity. For a long time I was carrying a CRKT folder but after a bit of an accident left the belt clip badly bent I ended up having to search out a good replacement.

Enter the Skeletool CX (pictured).

The Leatherman Skeletool is a pretty nifty multitool that's high on function as well as appearance. It sports a short serrated knife, pliers, bottle opener / carbineer, as well as some wire cutters and an interchangeable screwdriver.

It's very sturdy and super light weighing in at only 5oz.

I'm usually worried about the condition of knives on multitools but the blade on the Skeletool is excellent. The CX has the 1/2 serrated blade and I was happy to find it super sharp when I opened the package. The blade is a bit short (at least compared to my old CRKT folder) but is more than adequate for my needs.

At $70ish it's not cheap but is worth the investment if you're in the market for a barebones multitool.

You can pickup the Leatherman 830850 Skeletool CX Multitool from Amazon.com. I've also seen them (a bit more expensive) at Target and Walmart.

After having the VHS transferred to DVD (something I realized I can probably do at home with my DVD recorder and some creative cable work) I set out on the task of finding the right clip and putting together the first video.

I'm not going to go too in-depth and instead just provide a quick walk through of the process.

The DVD transfer wasn't protected the way most commercial DVDs are so I was able to just browse through the DVD contents in Windows and select the .VOB files that make up the movie. In all there were four so I copied them to my hard drive and then set about researching the conversion process.

Because Windows Movie Maker doesn't accept the VOB files (even when renamed to MPEGs) I had to get them converted to .AVI first. This is where a quick lifehacker search and several downloads came in.

Ultimately I found Any Video Converter to be the best option for making the conversions. It's got a drag and drop interface and allows you to simply set it and forget it. After selecting the four VOB files taken from the DVD I set Any Video Converter to convert to AVI and took a little break. In my case it took about 30m per video to get the conversion done which didn't seem to bad.

For those wondering about cost Any Video Converter is offered in both a free and paid version. I'm using the free version which works just fine.

Once the video's were converted I opened up Windows Movie Maker and just went from there. Movie Maker is a pretty simple tool to use and is included in all versions of Windows. Just import your video and everything else is pretty self explanatory.

It should come as no surprise that this I have no intention of doing anything malicious to my visitors but I think that Google's new requirement that each of it's AdSense serving sites should include a Privacy Policy is appropriate.

If you're interested in reading the new AdSense friendly Privacy Policy you'll see it linked in the footer as well as in this post.

In the last two months I've had my LCD TV die and my Laptop die.

It turns out that the laptop crash was the result of a faulty heat-sink.   After shipping it off to Gateway and waiting for two weeks I've learned that Gateway is unable to fix my 2 year old laptop - they don't make that type of heat-sink anymore apparently so Gateway has offered me a brand-new PC at no charge.

Lesson - always buy the extended warranty if you can't fix it yourself.

Last night my HD TV burned out.  It's gonna take about a week to get someone in to fix it but thankfully it'll be fixed free of charge thanks to an extended warranty I bought from Best Buy because ... I knew I couldn't fix the TV myself.

Bad things always happen in 3s so now I'm just wondering when exactly my third thing is gonna happen - whatever it is I hope I bought an extended warranty.

The original vid appears to have been pulled so here's a link to the YouTube search results for "Sitar Sweet Child of Mine."

Today on Lifehacker I spotted a new pocket of calendar called the "Thumb Calendar." The Thumb Calendar, by Adam Sporka, is an incredibly neat little design that looks ideal for popping into your wallet, hipster PDA or even your Moleskine.

When I started working full time (7am to 5pm) that changed. While I still don't drink hot coffee I find it absolutely necessary to have an iced-coffee every morning. Of course that creates a lot of problems.

I have not found a good way to make iced-coffee using hot brewing methods. Brew a pot of coffee - through it in the fridge and invariably you're unhappy. Buying an iced coffee every morning is even more trouble partly because of the money involved and partly because I end up buying a donut (or two) to go with it.

If you figure $4 a morning (for coffee, breakfast and a tip) times 365 days that's over $1400 a year at Dunkin Donuts!

I realized this just recently and immediately cringed at the wasted money. The good thing is it got me looking for a new way to fuel my morning coffee fix. What I found is called "Cold Brewed Coffee" and it's an incredible money saver for hot and cold coffee drinkers alike.

The system I bought (Toddy Cafe Cold Brew Coffee System) is extremely easy to use and makes a more consistent cup of coffee than any of my local Dunkin Donuts. If you're a coffee drinker looking to save money this year be sure to check it out!

Why do I need to see this icon if I never use the wired connection?

I did a little playing around and managed to find two ways to hide the icon. One doesn't appear to work all the time so I'll provide both just to be safe.

Removing the Local Area Connection Icon

This works perfectly for the wireless connection icon but on my machine it doesn't seem to work for the wired one. The first, really simple, option is to completely disable the connection. To do this you can double click the icon to open the Network Connections listing. Once this is done just right click the Local Area Connection item and select Disable.

In the long run this isn't really an ideal solution mostly because it involves completely turning off the wired network adapter. To avoid turning it off you can right click the listing and instead select "Properties."

Under the "General" tab look for the two check boxes and de-select them both. This should disable the icon while leaving the adapter activated.

Last Resort: Hide the Local Area Connection Icon

On my machine this didn't work - it did work to hide the Wireless Network Connection icon though. If you hit the same wall I have a work around that might help both here and in general for hiding icons in the SysTray. To get started right click the taskbar and then "Customize" under the "Notification area" heading.

The next section shows a list of all the items that are currently, or have recently, appeared in the System Tray. Under the "Behavior" column you can change the rules for each of the items - just select "Always hide" to keep the icons hidden.

Besides my pocket reporter I also keep a couple of Large Moleskine Notebooks for other purposes as well. The most recent addition is my Moleskine Weekly planner - it's a great way to track all your major events and a solid way to keep a paper backup of your Online calendar.

One major problem with Moleskine Planners? They sell out fast. If you're looking to get a hold of one of these great notebooks now's a good time to grab them as there are many available on Amazon. Wait too long and you may not be able to get them until early next year!

Links to all the products are available above.

Among the additions made by the extension are the ability to create folders in GMail (the one thing I really miss about traditional eMail), a status bar showing the current state of your GMail storage, and the ability to incorporate both Google Calendar and Google Reader into the GMail interface.

Head on over to Lifehacker and grab the extension to see what I mean.