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Below, we've taken a look back at all of our posts from 2005 to present and pulled out the five most popular posts of each year. Not all of them remain entirely relevant today, but they provide a nice overview of where we've been in the past, and hopefully may even introduce you to some older Lifehacker content that only our most dedicated readers may recognize. Let's get started. Photo by BohPhoto.
Five Most Popular Posts of 2005
1. How to Copy Songs from Your iPod to Your PC
The iPod has always been a popular item at Lifehacker, especially considering how many restrictions Apple places on your ability to actually use the thing in perfectly reasonable ways. That's why it's no surprise that the most popular post from our first year of existence is our guide to copying songs from your iPod to your PC.
Of course, a lot has changed since 2005, which is why we've since put together a new, much more up-to-date guide for copying music from your iPhone or iPod to your computer for free.
2. How to Use Gmail as Your SMTP Server
Way back in 2005, Gmail was still an invite-only beta service (oh wait, it's still in beta), but our simple little guide to using Gmail as your SMTP server made a big splash.
3. How to Set Up a Personal Home Web Server
In its earliest days, Lifehacker was primarily a compendium of very short tips and tricks, without much long-form content. In September of 2005, Gina wrote a fantastic, step-by-step guide detailing how to set up a personal home web server—and thus, the Lifehacker feature was born. Since then, we've published countless in-depth guides features, but this web server feature continues to be one of my favorites.
4. How to Reset Your Windows XP Password
Simple Windows tips were our bread and butter back in the day (and, let's be honest, still very popular now), so it's no surprise that this relatively barebones post on how to reset your Windows XP password did so well. (This is pre-Vista, y'all!) Since then, we've covered all kinds of Windows password-related content, including our guide to cracking Windows passwords and our more comprehensive guide to recovering lost passwords with free tools.
5. How to Set Up a Home FTP Server
Hot on the heels of the home server feature, Gina came back to show the world that it doesn't take a computer engineer to set up a home FTP server so you can access your home files from any computer. We've since updated that feature with an even better guide to building a home FTP server with FileZilla.
Five Most Popular Posts of 2006
1. Turn Your $60 Router into a $600 Router
I headed to the first annual Maker Faire in April of '06 and came back with only one project in mind: to turn my $60 router into a $600 router with the free, open-source DD-WRT firmware. Since, I've changed horses in the open source router scene to the equally awesome Tomato firmware—once again detailing how to turn your $60 router into a user-friendly super-router.
2. How to Format Your Hard Drive and Install Windows XP from Scratch
After battling blue screens of death and bloated software installs you just can't seem to clean up, sometimes there's not much you can do but format your drive and install Windows from scratch. We showed you how, and clearly you appreciated the favor.
3. How to Dual-Boot Windows XP and Windows Vista
Love it or lump it, when Windows Vista beta hit the tubes in June of '06 we couldn't wait to try it out. Still, we weren't quite ready to ditch our old installation of XP, so our guide to dual booting XP and Vista showed you how to dip your toe in Vista without leaving the comfort of XP. Believe it or not, it's the same basic process as dual booting Windows 7 with XP or Vista.
4. Make a Ringtone from Any MP3
You may not believe it today, what with all your fancy tools and web sites that make ringtone creation a breeze, but there was a time when getting a new ringtone on your phone without paying for it was kind of a chore. Our guide to making a ringtone from any MP3 walks through editing an MP3 and getting it to your phone in a few easy steps that still hold up today.
5. Top 10 Ubuntu Apps and Tweaks
Ubuntu's first release may have been way back in 2004, but the open-source Linux distribution made a splash in a big way in 2006, prompting us to dig in and write up our ten favorite Ubuntu apps and tweaks. Many of them still hold up today, but our much more recent list of the top 10 Ubuntu applications definitely offers a fresher look at what Ubuntu has to offer.
Five Most Popular Posts of 2007
1. Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800
High price of an entry-level Mac gotcha down? Our guide to building a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800 put Leopard on your desktop for less than the cost of any Mac on the market. The resulting machine benchmarked admirably next to real Macs, and a few months later the process got that much easier when we showed you how to install OS X on Your Hackintosh, No Hacking Required.
2. Better Gmail 2 Firefox Extension for New Gmail
You know that crazy Lifehacker Code project we started in 2006? Well, Gina's Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension was far and away the most popular creation of the bunch, supercharging your Gmail inbox with custom tweaks and features.
3. Jailbreak Your iPhone or iPod Touch with One Click
Back in the early days of the iPhone and iPod touch, jailbreaking was the only way you could get third party apps running on your device. Things changed when iPhone 2.0 hit the streets, but the jailbreaking scene is still as alive as ever, and we're still showing you how to jailbreak your iPhones.
4. Burn Almost Any Video File to a Playable DVD
It's never been all that easy to burn just any old video to a DVD unless you were willing to shell out a little cash for a shareware app. When we showed you how to burn almost any video file to a playable DVD, we stepped through putting those hours of AVIs onto DVDs with a free, open-source app called DVD Flick.
5. Add Music and Movies to Your iPod from Any Computer Without iTunes
Love your iPod but not terribly thrilled with iTunes? Our guide to adding music and movies to your iPod from any computer without iTunes will free you from the shackles of iTunes while still letting you enjoy the goods your iPod has to offer.
Five Most Popular Posts of 2008
A Brief LHistory of 2008: Hopefully '08 isn't a distant memory to anyone yet. The second edition of the Lifehacker book, [I]Upgrade Your Life[/I], hit shelves; Lifehacker won it's second bloggie for Best Computer or Technology Weblog; and we continued to get mentions across the cultural landscape at places like TIME, PC World, The Wall Street Journal, and a few other familiar places. We made a splash on CNBC in about 45 seconds of Holiday GTD, and expanded and contracted to the tune of the recession—namely, our bench added intern-turned-editor, Jason Fitzpatrick.
1. Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required
Our first guide to building your own Hackintosh went up in late 2007; our second guide, which detailed how to install OS X on your Hackintosh PC, no hacking required, attracted the clicks in similar fashion in early 2008.
2. The 20 Best iPhone and iPod touch Applications
By early 2008, third-party apps for jailbroken iPhone and iPod touches had grown from simple tools to seriously cool status. At that point, we published our list of the 20 best iPhond and iPod touch applications. In July, Apple officially opened the App Store for business, which meant a whole new list of excellent free apps for the iPhone and iPod touch—but that's another story.
3. Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks
Despite all the developments on the web in the past four years, at the end of the day we all still end up back at the Google search box. Our top 10 obscure Google search tricks introduced you to the Google-fu you need to create laser-precise search terms for your daily queries.
4. Top 10 Harmless Geek Pranks
Nothing says good times like a little harmless prankery, so it's no surprise that our list of top 10 harmless geek pranks—published the day before April Fool's—garnered some serious clicks.
5. Turn Your iPod Touch into an iPhone
The iPhone's great, but if you don't feel like shelling out the monthly fee to Apple, we showed you how to turn your iPod touch into an iPhone using a jailbroken iPhone, a custom mic, and an iPhone app called SIP-VoIP.
What's to Come in 2009?
Thanks for reading, and thanks for four fabulous years with us at Lifehacker. Here's to four more great years!
Got any Lifehacker favorites over the years? Let's hear them in the comments.
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