Sharky's Notebook

Windows only: If you're going to create a photo mosaic, you might as well invest the time to do it well. Foto-Mosaik-Edda is a powerful tool for creating impressive, detailed, finely-tuned photo mosaics.

To use Foto-Mosaik-Edda you need a pool of source images—the bigger the better, as they recommend 2000 or more—and the actual image you want to base the mosaic off. In the case of our sample image we used 1,800 images of Marilyn Monroe and found that Foto-Mosaik-Edda did an excellent job using the variety of images we provided.

While Mac and Linux users may be the most vocal (ahem), the overwhelming majority of Lifehacker readers get here using some version of Windows. Let's review the most popular Windows tutorials we've ever published.

 Since the dawn of Windows, power-user tipsters (us included) have proffered hundreds of suggestions with the promise of improving your PC’s performance or streamlining its operation. The tip-givers have the best of intentions, but do all of those tweaks, registry hacks, utilities, and “undocumented secrets” really make any difference? To our surprise, in a number of cases, it turns out that tips that sound great on the surface don’t actually do anything when you put the screws to them.

One of the most frustrating experiences you can have as a PC user is when something just won’t work. Maybe it’s a game that blacks out after the title screen, or an app that refuses to launch when you tell it to, but in any case it doesn’t give you much of a clue what’s going wrong, and it’s enough to make you want to pull your hair out.

Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): Having an automated, secure, off-site backup solution is a great idea, but for many folks, burning their data and system files to CD and DVD is just more manageable. Free indexing app Virtual Volumes View (VVV) helps you keep track of exactly which file is located on which of those numbered DVDs.