If you’d like to use desktop apps or features that require a 3-D compositing manager but lack the hardware power (or patience) to enable Compiz effects, the Tombuntu blog points out that the standard Metacity window manager can fit the bill. As noted, enabling metacity’s compositing gives you just a few effects—mostly window previews on Alt+Tab switching, drop shadows, and window movement smoothing—and relies only on the CPU for power, so nearly any graphics card can use apps like the OS X-style Avant Window Navigator. To enable Metacity’s built-in composite manager on most any modern GNOME-based Linux distro, open the gconf-editor tool (by launching with Alt+F2 or through a terminal), head to apps->metacity->general, and enable the “compositing_manager” option. Hit the link below for a command line switch you can script or shortcut to turn compositing on and off.

• Source: Lifehacker

The search-by-voice iPhone app we heard about on Friday may not have shown up as planned, but it is now available from the iTunes App Store. The iTunes page itself doesn’t show the app as updated, but download and sync it anyway, and you’ll notice a shiny new Google Mobile on your iPhone complete with voice-recognition. I’ve just started playing with it, but my initial one-word review: Amazing!

• Source: Lifehacker

iPhone/iPod touch only: Popular restaurant reservation web site OpenTable has just released an iPhone application that makes finding and making reservations nearby a snap. Find a restaurant by searching or using your location-aware iPhone, pick a time, and make that reservation. OpenTable is a free download from the iTunes App Store, works on iPhones and iPod touches running the latest software.

• Source: Lifehacker

The YouTube development team has released a geolocation webapp that integrates Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Gears’ geolocation features to show you YouTube videos uploaded by users near you. The idea is great in theory, but unfortunately Google Gears came no where close to finding my actual location (especially compared to Geode’s accuracy)—which meant I had to pretend I live in 70 miles to the west (and near Grammy-nominated singer Eric Benet). [via]

• Source: Lifehacker

This weekend we showed you how to customize your own killer “Enigma” desktop using popular desktop customization apps and a few tools and scripts contributed by one very helpful reader. If you put together your own Enigma desktop using our guide, submit a screenshot of your results to the Lifehacker Show and Tell Flickr Group (be sure to note that you used Enigma) so we can see the different ways you’re tweaking your desktop Enigma-style.

• Source: Lifehacker

Windows only: The popular Windows firewall application ZoneAlarm Free has a big brother called ZoneAlarm Pro, which boasts a handful of features not available in the free version—including integrated antivirus. Normally $40, ZoneAlarm Pro will be available tomorrow (11/18) for the low, low price of free. ZoneAlarm Free was voted one of the five best Windows firewalls by Lifehacker readers, so if you like what you’ve seen from that, a free upgrade to the Pro version sounds like a winner. The promotion link below will likely offer an active link to the deal starting 6AM PST tomorrow morning, but we’ll post the direct link as soon as it’s available.

• Source: Lifehacker

Windows only: exTray is a free system tray utility that monitors your iTunes playback and displays album art and other track information on your desktop. exTray can also control volume and playback through keyboard shortcuts and—strangely enough—even includes export functions to help you move metadata like track ratings and playcounts to another machine. exTray is far from the only app of its kind—for example, previously mentioned apps like CD Art Display and moreTunes offer similar features—but exTray has its own flair, is very customizable, and boasts a light footprint worth checking out. exTray is a free download, Windows only.

• Source: Lifehacker

Google released this morning its seventh edition of SketchUp for Windows and Mac systems, the free 3D modeling tool that topped our list of Top 10 Google products you forgot all about. New to this edition are tools for collaborating and sharing models and objects through the 3D Warehouse, automatic tools for beginners, and lots of other tweaks. What do you use SketchUp for? Tell us in the comments. [via]

• Source: Lifehacker

Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): Darik’s Boot and Nuke does what it sounds like, so it’s not a tool you want to mess around with unless you really want everything securely wiped off your system. If you’re donating or otherwise handing off your hard drive, however, it’s a serious tool for erasing data so it’s really, really hard to ever find again. You load Darik’s tool onto a CD, DVD, USB flash drive or even a floppy disk, and after it boots, you can either choose which mounted hard drives it should wipe clean and in which fashion (with varying numbers of over-writing to meet the standards of, say, the U.S. Department of Defense or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police), or use the “autonuke” option to wipe everything gone for good. It worked flawlessly on some non-partitioned hard drives I wanted to donate to a local non-profit. Darik’s Boot and Nuke is a free download; owners of dual-core processors should head for the 2.0 beta.

• Source: Lifehacker

Adobe plans to demonstrate today a version of Flash 10 working on a Windows Mobile phone, and a spokesperson says an Android version is also in the works. The Flash maker is also working closely with chip-maker ARM to optimize mobile Flash, but as for a version for iPhones (which run on ARM chips): It’s “up to Apple.” [via]

• Source: Lifehacker