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Windows XP only: When you right-click on your desktop or on a file, do you have to go through two dozen useless menu items before you hit the one you want? Free utility Mmm offers an easy interface for hiding and organizing context menu items—into a "Rarely used" subfolder, for example. With Mmm running, hit the colored button it adds to the top left of the menu to see the configuration area, shown here. Check out the before and after photos of my context menu using Mmm. Before: After: Recently, the How-To Geek explained how to clean up your right-click menu by editing the Windows registry—a fine option for super-savvy users who don't want to run yet another utility to achieve the same end. If messing with your registry isn't your bag, previously mentioned FileMenu Tools and ShellExView also get the job done. Mmm Free is a free download for Windows XP only; Mmm+ offers more options for $9.99. Thanks, gravi_t! MMM free

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Amid growing concern that a power vacuum in Washington was contributing to the global financial crisis, shares of U.S. banking giant Citigroup skidded on Friday while legislators and corporate chieftains weighed the fate of the U.S. auto industry.

Before you join your family around the turkey next Thursday, join the Berkman family for two great events next Monday and Tuesday.Monday,11/24, 4:00 PM ET: "Participatory Governance: In open source communities, companies and government" with Irving Wladawsky-BergerPound Hall Room 335, Harvard Law SchoolRSVP requiredread more

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey was expected to return to work on Friday after a "fainting spell" during a speech sent him to hospital the night before, a spokeswoman said.

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp will return two of its leased corporate jets amid intense criticism in Washington this week on the luxury travel arrangements of its chief executive even as the company pleads for federal aid.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Retired Marine Gen. James Jones emerged as a leading contender for White House national security adviser as President-elect Barack Obama worked on Thursday to assemble his foreign policy team.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc shares tumbled for a fifth straight day, as Chief Executive Vikram Pandit tried to downplay speculation the banking giant might sell major businesses to restore its health and investor confidence.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port on Friday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world's biggest hijack, a local elder said.

Hundreds -- thousands? -- of people across the country are trying to buy new BlackBerry Storm gadgets at Verizon Wireless stores today, and many of them are talking about it on Twitter. In fact, it seems some places are already sold out of the Storm. One guy, Derek McClain in Indiana, says Verizon (VZ) will offer free overnight shipping and a $50 instant rebate if you got stood up and want to order one. We haven't verified that, but it sounds plausible. Here's a live stream of what people are saying about the Storm on Twitter. It might take a few seconds to load -- don't be alarmed. See Also:BlackBerry Fans Line Up For StormRIM's (RIMM) BlackBerry Storm Is No iPhone, But Should Sell WellLive CNBC On BlackBerry Bold: Mobile TV That Makes SenseCNBC's Erin Burnett Gushes On BlackBerry Bold, Disses iPhone ${keywords}' // title of the widget, where ${keywords} indicates where to insert the key words (default: 'Realtime conversations about${keywords}') // SummizeWidget.collapse = true // hide widget if there are no tweets (default: true) // // Or, you can pass arguments into the create method. Any of the // above options can be passed in. // SummizeWidget.create('key words', {size: 2, include_links: false}); // -->

StopBadware.org has teamed up with the good people of Consumer Reports WebWatch to create BadwareBusters.org, a new online community for people looking for help removing viruses, spyware, and other bad and malicious software from their computers.read more

Rampant piracy of intellectual property in China has long been a sore point for companies like Microsoft (MSFT), but Disney (DIS) seems to be playing both sides of the fence. Today the WSJ reports that Disney hits like "Wall-E" are available on Chinese video site 56.com -- which is funded in part from Disney's Steamboat Ventures. WSJ: John Ball, founder and managing director of Steamboat, says the firm was aware that pirated content was a potential issue when it made its investment in 56.com, but thought it could promote legal content on the site and work toward eliminating pirated material. One of the company's investment strategies "is to help the legitimate evolution of digital content online," he says . Eric Garland, chief executive of Big Champagne LLC, a firm that consults for copyright owners on piracy issues, says Disney's involvement in such a site is "ironic" and "shocking." But he added that Mr. Ball's rationale has some merit, as simply shutting down the site would drive infringing users to other sites. Not so shocking to us. The only solution to the problem of piracy in China is for the Chinese government to aggressively and consistently enforce its own laws and uphold its promises to stop the pirates -- something Beijing so far has shown no signs it intends to do. Until then, companies like Disney could be best off trying to recoup whatever revenue they can, even if it means getting into bed with the very people who are ripping them off. See Also:Microsoft: Piracy Makes China An Irrelevant MarketWant Ad Growth? Try Beijing.Chinese YouTube 56.com Returns To Living

A good sign your gadget will sell at least a few copies: Scores of people are lined up in the cold to buy one. So while people wait for their chance to buy the new touchscreen BlackBerry Storm, Research In Motion (RIMM) shares are far outpacing the overall market: They're up 6% right now, according to Yahoo, nearing $44. The Storm probably won't beat the iPhone this Christmas, but it will at least help RIM and Verizon (VZ) compete much better with Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T). See Also:BlackBerry Fans Line Up For StormRIM's BlackBerry Storm Is No iPhone, But Should Sell WellLive CNBC On BlackBerry Bold: Mobile TV That Makes SenseCNBC's Erin Burnett Gushes On BlackBerry Bold, Disses iPhone

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George W. Bush left on his last scheduled trip abroad as U.S. president on Friday, heading to an Asia-Pacific summit where he will seek support for global financial reform and hold talks on ending North Korea's nuclear program.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marched on Friday against a pact letting U.S. forces stay in Iraq until 2011, toppling an effigy of President George W. Bush where U.S. troops once tore down a statue of Saddam Hussein.

As if the New York Times wasn't having enough trouble keeping up with an ad recession and the Internet crushing its print business. Now the newspaper is facing increasing competition for print ads... from Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. Bloomberg: Saks Inc., a Times advertiser since 1924, recently chose to promote a new Chanel boutique and made-to-measure men's suits in the Journal. Owner Rupert Murdoch's expansion of general news coverage and a new lifestyle magazine are starting to attract wealthy consumers and create ad space for retailers, said Milton Pedraza, chief executive officer of Luxury Institute LLC. ``They certainly have become a significant part of the advertising mix for luxury brands where they were not before,'' said Pedraza, whose New York research group tracks the market for the most expensive lines of consumer goods and services. ``They're definitely stealing advertising dollars.'' And then there's the stats: The WSJ has a paid circulation of 1.4 million, up 2.4% y/y. The NYT: 859,000, down 5.5%. With more readers, the WSJ can charge more for ads, $264,426 for full page color vs. $193,800 at the NYT. See Also:The New York Times Slashes DividendReducing Our Offer For The New York TimesHow The New York Times Can Save Itself

The long-awaited 2.2 firmware updates for iPhones and iPod touch models hit iTunes at midnight last night, pushing a good deal of new features and long-awaited fixes to the mobile devices. We've already detailed some of the major new features already: Street View with walking/transit directions in Google Maps (iPhones only, unfortunately) and "emoji" face emoticons, over-the-air podcast downloading, and, while not really a feature, it's expected that 2.2 will be jailbroken before you know it. There's a good number of interface and usability improvements too, like improved HTML email formatting and location sharing, stability and menu bar tweaks to Safari, and a few other punch-list items. I'm downloading my 240MB-ish iPod update just fine this morning; tell us your impressions of 2.2 in the comments. iPhone 2.2 Update Available Now [Gizmodo]

When Yahoo's stock hit $12, we said it was ridiculously cheap. Now it's below $9. Given that no one else seems to want to buy and fix this once-great and still amazingly valuable company, we're now offering to do it ourselves. We have the privilege of being a co-host of Yahoo's "TechTicker" financial show. So that makes this an employee-led turnaround plan. To execute the plan, we're going to need the support of many other Yahoo employees, including Jerry Yang, David Filo, and the Board, so we're just going to call this a management buyout. Cool? We've structured our proposal to be as simple and easy as possible: No need for shareholder votes. No need to raise billions of dollars of capital (who has time for that?). No need for interminable, angst-ridden negotiations. We're also making the proposal completely transparent, so our fellow Yahoos and shareholders know what's coming. Here's the plan:

• Yahoo will acquire our parent company, Silicon Alley Media, for stock. We already own some YHOO, and we're willing to put more money where our mouth is: Specifically, we're willing to bet our entire company on our YHOO turnaround plan.
• Yahoo will appoint us as acting CEO. No worries: We will not become yet another fat CEO pig at the trough. In fact, we're so excited about this opportunity that we'll do it for Jerry's salary: $1 a year (okay, maybe we could add some zeroes, to preserve our marriage. But not six. Or, god forbid, eight). We also have no ambition to hold this post indefinitely. Several folks in the business world are more qualified to run a global Fortune 500 company than we are, and when the time is right, we will gladly hand the reins to one of them. Unlike many incoming Yahoo CEO candidates, however, we know what Yahoo needs right now, and there's no sense wasting time CEO-hunting when we can start the process today.
• We will immediately resize the company, cutting approximately one-quarter to one-third of the cost base. Even now, with its bloated cost structure, Yahoo is still making money. Our cuts will ensure that Yahoo is positioned to survive a major online ad downturn and still have plenty of cash flow to reinvest in the business. One big reduction instead of several small ones will also ensure that Yahoo doesn't go down the road it is heading down now, which is the demoralizing death by a thousand cuts.
• We will do a search deal with Microsoft. Yahoo has lost the search game, and it is senseless for the company to throw more good money after bad. Yahoo will continue to maintain a significant if declining share of search queries for the next few years, but these can be monetized better with economies of scale, and the company can avoid mindless and expensive duplication of effort. Microsoft is great at engineering and desperately wants to show Google who's boss. We'll sell Yahoo's search technology to Microsoft and do a multi-year revenue deal with them. And when it comes up for renewal, we will play Microsoft and Google off one another.
• We'll step up Yahoo's focus on content aggregation. Algorithms cannot create the best user experience for every application. Yahoo highest and best opportunity is to do what Tim Koogle used to talk about in the 1990s and Jerry has been suggesting over the past year: Become the first stop for anyone looking for an intelligent, organized view of the world. The company has made great strides in this effort over the past 14 years, but it has gotten distracted of late. We'll fix that.
• We'll increase Yahoo's production of lightweight, high-velocity online content, through programs like TechTicker, blogs, fantasy sports leagues, etc. With a distribution platform that reaches 500 million global users a month, Yahoo can make a killing on low-cost content production. We will not turn Yahoo into the New York Times (which is a dying print business.) Instead, we will hire a few more folks from the New York Times and other excellent content-production companies (people who get the Internet). These folks will help edit, curate, and organize all the great content that's already out there and produce some good original stuff. (But not TV shows or magazine articles. TechTicker works because it takes advantage of what the Internet can do better than other media, not because it tries to clone CNBC or a newspaper).
• We will buy or build small consumer subscription businesses that produce content that people will pay for...and then we will plug them into Yahoo's massive global distribution engine. In several years, we will build subscriptions into a major contributor to revenue, not the afterthought they are today.
• We will fix Yahoo's communications platform, in part by buying and integrating AOL (and, if we can help Steve Ballmer see the light, MSN). As long-term Yahoo Mail users, we are appalled that Yahoo has fallen behind in this area. We don't want to switch to Gmail, but if nothing changes, we may have to. Once we've integrated AIM and the AOL mail user base, we will once again have a dominant share of online communications. We'll probably buy Skype, too, just to round out the package.
• Most importantly, we will finally revolutionize online display advertising, which hasn't innovated since 1995. We can't tell you how tired we are of hearing advertisers complain that their display ads aren't "performing" because people aren't clicking on them. The same advertisers still line up around the block to buy unclickable ads in newspapers that get tossed on the back stoop without even being glanced at. It is time for the online ad industry to start developing better BRAND and STORYTELLING solutions. These ads can be big. They can be beautiful. They can be fun. They DO NOT need to be clicked on. If we do this intelligently, users should even come to value and/or enjoy them. No company is in a better position to lead this online ad revolution than Yahoo, and we can't wait to drive this initiative forward.

Sound good? We think so. We're not guaranteeing much of a turnaround in the stock price until the global economy recovers, but we're going to position the company to coin money when it does. We're going to stop Yahoo from trying to boil the ocean and compete in businesses it has already lost (search engineering). We're going to take advantage of what Yahoo does better than anyone: content organization and display advertising. We're going to inspire what used to be one of the industry's most passionate and competitive teams. Despite its demolishied stock price and demoralized staff, Yahoo remains a one-of-a-kind global media platform. With the right turnaround plan, we think the company's best days (and possibly even best stock prices) are ahead of it. We would be honored and privileged to lead this revolution from within!

We don't want to jinx it, but the fact that an NBA player appears to be enjoying Twitter can't be bad for its hopes of mainstream adoption. Yes, that's really Shaq -- at least, according to numerous press reports -- and he's really tweeting up a storm, now to an audience of more than 5,500 followers. The best part: He seems genuine, he seems to get it, and he seems to be having fun. This could all be a flash in the pan. Shaq could storm off in two days, tired of getting messages in the middle of the night from Robert Scoble fans. But we can't help but think back to 2002, when we remember watching some Fox Sports camera crew following basketball players around as they went shopping for MP3 players. "It has to be an iPod," one said. Not saying this is the same kind of trend line. But you know how that turned out.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Friday signed into law an extension of unemployment benefits, the White House said.

We all love our music but sometimes the speakers that pump our tunes out aren’t as pretty as we would like them to be. Acoustic Research has a solution to that problem. Decorative speaker covers. Hide your speaker in a wicker box, or satellite speakers in Sconces. There is also a clock to hide them in or a set of fake books. Insert your speakers into  these cases from either the top or bottom.  If you have larger speakers, there are leather chests for $129.95 that will cover those as well. The best part is the sound won’t be affected at all and you’ll have people guessing were the music is coming from - which should be pretty entertaining in itself.