The web becomes more and more capable each day, finding ways to replace what you do on your desktop. In the very near future you'll talk to your web apps, enjoy complex animation without the drain of Flash, and maybe even plug in your guitar. These features and more already exist, and they're coming to the broad internet this year.

Thanks to the quick iteration of browsers like Chrome and Firefox, what developers can easily accomplish with their sites grows by the day. At Google I/O last week, I had the pleasure of sitting in on Google engineer Eric Bidelman's session The More Awesome Web (you can view the presentation here) and learned about what we can expect from web developers—and what we as web developers can do ourselves—with the latest features of HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. Even if you're not a developer, what's up next for the web is pretty exciting. Here's a look at some of the coolest features you'll see in web apps this year.

Note: Not all browsers currently support the technologies discussed in this post, so you may need Chromium to try out any linked examples.

Plug Your Guitar into a Web Site

Yes, you will plug your guitar into a web site. Chrome already offers a web audio API that allows developers to access a user's audio input (with permission) by writing very little code. While not terribly exciting in itself, the amazing stuff happens after grabbing that signal.

Audio processing on the web is kind of mind-blowing. Developers can now detect pitch—which could lead to web-based pitch correction/auto-tuning—and add effects to live or recorded audio (e.g. vocoders). You can even plug your guitar into a web site and add effects. The web audio API can also do simple things like record audio notes. What once took an app now takes a tiny amount of code written for the web.

Automatically Translate Your Speech into Another Language

We've been able to talk to the web for a little while now, but with a number of limitations. For the most part, voice search was as good as it gets. With the latest speech recognition abilities in Chrome, developers can make use of this technology to do much more.

For example, what if you could say something in English and see it translated into Spanish, French, Italian, or a variety of other languages on the fly? You can. With access to the speech recognition API, developers can take what you say and use that text for a variety of purposes. Running that text through a translation service is just one of them.

Easily Share Your Screen

Plenty of web apps allow screen sharing, but they require quite a bit of work to make it happen. Some ask you to download software, others try to make it work with plug-ins like Flash or Java. Soon you'll see screen sharing offered directly by your browser using HTML5, bypassing a lot of the heavy lifting required by other technologies. If you're running Chromium, you can try it now. Other browsers will have to wait a little while before simple screen sharing is widely supported.

Enjoy Live-Rendered Animations with Complex Imagery

Although not the most outright exciting feature for the end user, we'll all come to appreciate the complex animation possible in the browser as developers implement new possibilities. By now you might be familiar with the SVG format, which offers a way of drawing scalable vector graphics using XML code. This format not only makes it possible to create images without files that load quickly, but also scale those images to pretty much any resolution without pixelation. In its own right, SVG is amazing. When you add animated masks using clipping paths, you get some pretty cool effects. The code is easy to write and will allow developers to add compelling and interesting motion elements to their sites.

The Future

These are just the highlights. Smaller, less flashy improvements are on the way as well and new technologies will likely surface in the latter half of 2013. The web is growing in awesome, incredible ways this year. As the years progress, we'll be doing even more than we expected in our browsers.

Title image remixed from an original by Ralph Bijker.

Yahoo, in an attempt to make its photo-hosting service Flickr relevant again, decided to offer 1TB of free space to all users. The downside? Everyone who doesn't pay $50 per year gets ads.

An entire terabyte of space is a generous gift to users who still care about storing tons of high-resolution photos. (For the record, I'm one of them, but most people like posting low-resolution images to Instagram nowadays.) Nevertheless, not all users are pleased because the previous paid service offering didn't have a storage limit (although existing pro users get grandfathered in). Flickr's new "Ad Free" tier costs an extra $5 per year and puts a limit on storage. While 1TB seems like more than most anyone could need for their photo collection, Flickr also decided to offer a "doublr" tier that provides an extra terabyte of space for a whopping $500 per year.

While it's hard to argue against the free space Flickr now offers its users, as the photo sharing service lost its momentum shortly after Yahoo acquired it (and slowed development to a crawl), we're saddened to see the users who paid to support Flickr over the years get the short straw. Even still, the disenfranchised won't find a better deal from Flickr's rivals.

Yahoo Drops Flickr Pro To Compete With Facebook, Still Offers Two Paid Tiers For Ad Haters And Power Users | TechCrunch

OS X: Auto-restore works great when you want to pick back up where you left off working, but how many times do you leave open a photo or video you actually want to see again when you re-open Preview or Quicktime? A couple of terminal commands can disable this annoying—and potentially embarrassing—feature of OSX.

Enter this into Terminal to fix Preview:

defaults write com.apple.Preview NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

And this one for Quicktime:

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

That's it! Just change false to true at the end of both statements to bring back auto-restore.

10 Terminal Commands That Every Mac User Should Know | Mactuts+

You'll rarely end up with a poor workspace if you include an organized desk, a good chair, only the tools you need for work, and an abundance of natural light. Designers Ryan Meis and Sarah Labieniec created an excellent space on those simple principles.

For those of you wondering where to grab the flip clock screensaver on their computer, you can find it here.

If you have a workspace of your own to show off, share them with us by posting it to your personal Kinja blog using the tag featured workspace or adding it to our Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Flickr pool. Photos must be at least at least 640x360 and please include information about what you used, how you came up with the design, and any other relevant details. If your awesome workspace catches our eye, you might get featured!

Playlist: Sarah Labieniec and Ryan Meis of Lab Partners | Herman Miller Lifework.

We live in a culture of immediacy where we think we want everything on demand, but it turns out that we may actually prefer the wait. When we pay for something we won't get for quite some time, it tends to make us happier because we forget that it cost us money.

Philip Moeller, writing for US News, explains:

This principle is particularly appealing to me because it turns the basis of our debt-loaded "buy now, pay later" consumption economy on its head. Spending money is, literally, a pain to our brains. That's one major reason credit cards are so alluring; they separate the purchase from the pain.

But it turns out that paying in advance for something you will consume in the future does the same thing and turns the actual purchase into something our brains regard as being free. Buying pleasurable things and experiences ahead of time – such as a weekend spa getaway or vacation – also frees our minds to imagine all sorts of wonderful outcomes, and this anticipation can add to our happiness. Finally, it's also true that laying out the money ahead of time is an effective check on overspending. So we can get more happiness and spend less money.

Vacations tend to be one of the most enjoyable purchases you don't get to enjoy immediately. Not only do you get the pleasure of waiting, but you also receive the benefit of buying an experience instead of a thing.

5 Ways Money Can Buy Happiness | US News

Photo by Champiofoto (Shutterstock).

Amazon often earns its reputation as the world's largest online retailer due to the fact that they offer tons of awesome discounts and services that most of us don't know about until they've been around for years. The latest? Their virtual outlet store.

A number of us at Lifehacker (myself included) and plenty of people on the internet seem to have missed Amazon's Outlet store, where you can score major discounts on anything from TVs to tablets to clothing to pet supplies. You can search it for a specific item or browse a specific category (e.g. video games) for markdowns of a specific amount (e.g. 40% off). If you aren't aware of the virtual outlet store, check it before you buy anything new from Amazon.

I haven't used Amazon Outlet to find anything (yet) myself, but received some positive feedback when posting about it on Google+:

I found my timbuk2 messenger bag on there for half off because it was "open box." It came still in the package and in perfect condition.

I have, however, ordered from Amazon Warehouse Deals in the past with good results. When using the Outlet store you need to be sure to visit the product page and view your other buying options. If you scroll down the new and used choices, you'll likely find a handful of Amazon Warehouse Deals. This is where you'll save the most money. I've yet to purchased a refurbished product from Amazon that didn't work well, but if there's ever a problem they never hesitate to cover the cost of a return or replacement. If you want to get some big discounts without much risk, the Outlet page can help you find what you're looking for.

Amazon Outlet | Amazon via US News

Few routers utilize their full potential out of the box because their firmware limits their functionality. Thanks to an open-source project called DD-WRT, you can unlock your router’s potential to broadcast a stronger signal, manage network traffic, remotely access all your home computers, and a whole lot more. Here’s how to install it, set it up, and supercharge your network.

What You’ll Need

You don’t need much to get started with DD-WRT. All it takes is a little time to find the right version for your (hopefully) supported router:

• A supported router: Many popular routers released at least six months ago have DD-WRT support, but DD-WRT does not support all routers. Search the database to find out if yours is supported. Many have functional beta firmware, if not a final release, but read any notes on your router’s page to find out if you need to do anything special in order to successfully install DD-WRT.

• DD-WRT: When you look up your router using DD-WRT’s router database search (mentioned in the previous step), you’ll have a few downloads. Most routers will have a few downloads and you just want to choose the latest stable build. In some cases, like with the popular Asus RT-N66U, you may need to first flash temporary firmware to install DD-WRT. Most routers don’t require much work, but some need a little extra effort. Read your router’s page carefully so you don’t accidentally install the wrong thing and brick it.

• About a half an hour of your time to handle the above steps, install the DD-WRT firmware, and configure your newly supercharged router.

That’s it. Once you have your router and its corresponding DD-WRT firmware you can start setting it up.

Install DD-WRT

Installing DD-WRT varies depending on your router, but the general instructions tend to stay the same. Here’s how it usually works:

1. Log into your router’s admin page. This page lives at varying locations, but it’ll either resemble 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x. For example, most Linksys routers host their admin pages at http://192.168.1.1. Consult your router’s manual for its admin address if you don’t know it.

2. Go to the Admin(istration) section and choose Firmware Upgrade.

3. Choose “Select File” and find your DD-WRT firmware.

4. Upload it and wait for your router to update. Do not unplug or do anything to the router until it finishes updating.

Again, these instructions will differ depending on the router you choose. DD-WRT will include specific instructions for your router if you need to do anything special, so make sure you read them.

With DD-WRT successfully installed, reconnect to your network over ethernet or Wi-Fi (with a new network SSID of dd-wrt) and visit your admin page. In most cases it will still live at the same address of its predecessor (e.g. if you went to http://192.168.1.1 to upload the DD-WRT firmware, go there now). DD-WRT may request a username and password, which by default is root/admin (which you should change to your own if this happens). Newer versions will ask you to choose your own. After logging in, you’ll see the DD-WRT admin page. Now you’re ready to get started!

What You Can Do With Your New Super Router

With DD-WRT installed, you’ll have access to tons of awesome features. Let’s take a look at some of the best.

Note: You might notice that some of these features are available in existing routers that don’t run DD-WRT. Some routers offer more features than others, but DD-WRT always expands on those features even if they’re already present in the default firmware. So, don’t discount DD-WRT just because you already have certain features. DD-WRT can make them better.

Boost Your Wireless Signal

DD-WRT offers a few ways to improve your wireless signal. First, you need to pick the best wireless channel with the least interference. To do that, use the Meraki Wi-Fi Stumbler to see which channels are occupied by the fewest nearby routers. For more exact results, DD-WRT offers a bunch of tools to locate the best channel. If you’d like to take a deep dive into this process, read these instructions.

Once you know the channel you want, you have to tell DD-WRT. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Choose the Wireless tab from the admin page.

2. DD-WRT should select the Basic Settings sub-tab by default, but if not you should click on it.

3. Find the Wireless Channel drop-down menu and select the channel you want.

4. Click Save, then click Apply Settings.

Wait for the router to reboot with its new wireless channel, connect to your network, and you’ll be good to go.

DD-WRT can do more to improve your wireless signal by actually making your router transmit more powerfully. While it may seem like you’ll want to transmit as powerfully as your router allows, you might end up frying its motherboard that way. Instead, setting its transmit (Tx) power to 71 mW will give it a slight kick without any burnout. You can change by clicking the Wireless tab and then the Advanced Wireless Settings subtab. You’ll find a Tx Power setting. You may see it at 71 mW already as more recent versions change this for you, but if not you can make the change in that section.

If all of that doesn’t do it for you, there are always signal-boosting DIY projects that can help as well.

Use QoS to Prevent Bandwidth Hogging and Network Overloads

QoS (Quality of Service) is a set of rules that prevents bandwidth hogs, whether that’s a person (your roommate) or application (BitTorrent). QoS provides a lot of power and control and setting it up can get pretty detailed if you want. We’ll take a look at the basics here, but check out our full QoS guide for more information.

To get started, navigated to the NAT / QoS tab and then click the QoS sub-tab. Before you can do much, you’ll have to enable QoS (by selecting the Enable radio button) and fill in a few settings:

• WAN, LAN, or Both: Generally you’ll use QoS to handle traffic from outside your local network, so you’ll defaults to WAN (Wide Area Network). Unless you have a reason to change it, just leave this setting as-is.

• Packet Scheduler: This can be set to HTB or HFSC. HTB is the default method that uses a "token" system to manage bandwidth. Don't change this to HFSC unless you know what you're doing.

• Uplink and Downlink: Here you can set a limit for the total network bandwidth can be used on your network. If you don't want to max out your connection, you can set these speeds to less than their theoretical maximums. DD-WRT recommends 80-95% for uplink and 80-100% for downlink.

Once you've got those global settings taken care of, you can start specifying rules. DD-WRT splits these rules up into three categories: Services, Netmask, and MAC priorities. Here’s what they mean:

• Services Priority lets you set bandwidth priorities for different applications. These applications are pre-set and include everything from SMTP to BitTorrent to Xbox Live. If a particular service isn't listed, you can add it yourself.

• Netmask Priority can give bandwidth priority to a range of IP addresses. For example, if you have three computers that use the IP addresses 192.168.1.10, 192.168.1.11, 192.168.1.12, you can specify that range to receive priority. This can be useful if you want to ensure that your machines will always take priority over any guest computers that show up on your network.

• MAC Priority is a way to set which specific devices receive priority over others. Here you enter your device's MAC address (a MAC address is a unique identifying address for your computer's network adapter) and set a relevant priority.

Once you've chosen a service, IP range, or MAC address, and added it to your priorities list, you have to actually define the priority. By default the priority will be set to Standard, but you can promote it to Express or Premium to give it a higher bandwidth priority over other items on the list. These categories are good for applications that will sometimes require additional bandwidth, such as video chat and VOIP. You can also set any item to Exempt to let the app or computer use as much bandwidth as it wants and Bulk if you want it to only use bandwidth that is left over from other applications.

After you've finished adding all your devices and setting their priorities, you can save your settings and let your router reboot (if necessary). That's really all you have to do to get QoS working, but if you want to take a deeper dive you should check out our full QoS guide.

Set Up Port Forwarding to Access Your Computer from Afar

In most cases, your local network is local and cut off from the rest of the internet and you have just one IP address that's shown to the world (even though your router distributes several to your individual computers and devices locally)—your WAN IP. Port forwarding does takes a port on your WAN IP address—the one available to the rest of the web—and forwards it to a port on one of your local machines—a LAN IP address—so you or others can access a specific service on your local network when they’re connected to another one.

To give you a real-world example, web servers run on port 80 by default. If you wanted to run a web server from a machine at home, you’d open up port 80 on your WAN IP address and tell it to forward to port 80 on the LAN IP address of your local machine. Let’s say your WAN IP is 75.43.111.3 and the LAN IP of your desktop computer—the one you want to use as a web server—is 192.168.1.104. When someone goes to http://75.43.111.3 in a web browser (HTTP assumes you want to use port 80) they’ll get forwarded to the web server on your local machine and see whatever site you set up.

Setting up port forwarding is pretty straightforward, but before you get started you need to know what ports you want to open up. Most of the time, you'll set up port forwarding on an as-needed basis—say after you've set up a new service on your computer, like a web server. Sites like PortForward.com can help, as they provide a handy list of common ports for specific services. You can use this list to check which ports you need to open for whatever services you want to make available from outside your home network.

Once you know which port you want to open, click on the NAT / QoS tab in DD-WRT and then the Port Forwarding sub-tab. Once there, click the Add button to create a new port forwarding rule and fill out the following:

• Application - The name of the application you're forwarding this port for. You can use any descriptive text you want—this field is here to help you remember why you set this up; like the name suggests, you normally want to use the name of the application you're setting up port forwarding for. I also include my computer's name along with the service, since I forward ports for the same applications on different computers. This helps me quickly find the rules should I need to change them later on.

• Port to - "Port to" is the port on your local IP address. If you were setting up VNC for a local computer, you'd fill this in with 5900 as that's the port number VNC uses.

• Port from - "Port from" is the port on your external IP address. Generally you'll also enter the same port as you would in the "Port to" field. This works just fine when you're configuring only one machine for one type of service. But say you wanted to be able to remotely access two or more computers using VNC. If you used 5900 on a single, external IP address they would be in conflict. The router would see a request for port 5900 and not know which local IP address should handle that request since the port forwarding table has two. To solve this problem, you can use the standard port for one and not for the other—kind of like an apartment building has a single address but multiple apartments. As you can see in the sample routing table above, Grey's "Port from" is set to 5900 while Hunter's "Port from" is set to 5901. If you try to use VNC normally on my external IP address, you'll be asked to log in to Grey because it uses the standard port. If you want to access Hunter, however, you can easily do so by just using port 5901 instead of the default. This way you can set up identical services with a single external IP address without conflicts.

• Protocol - This is where you specify whether or not your service uses the TCP protocol, UDP protocol, or both. When you look up your ports you'll also want to make note of the protocols used. In most cases it will just be TCP.

• IP Address - This is where you specify the LAN (local area network) IP address of the computer you want to use for this port forwarding rule. You can easily find this information in your computer's network settings. The IP address will generally be in the 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x format. Because these IP address are generally dynamic (meaning they can change), you'll want to either set up static IP addresses or DHCP reservations. More information on that is available below.

• Enable - You need to check this box to enable the port forwarding rule. If you don't check it, you'll still be able to save the rule but it won't be active or function in any way.

When you’re done adding a port forwarding rule, click Save. When you’re done adding all of your rules, click Apply Settings. These are just the basics of port forwarding, and you can do quite a bit more with DD-WRT. For more information, read our port forwarding guide.

Learn More

These features just scratch the surface of what you can do with DD-WRT. If you want to learn more, you’ll find tons of tutorials over at the DD-WRT Wiki. It’s not only a great resource for DD-WRT router setup and administration, but networking info as well. Whether you stop here or learn more, enjoy your new super router that cost you nothing to upgrade.

Exercise: most of us hate it and wish we did it more often. The key? Finding a routine that doesn't take too long but also doesn't try to pack two hours of work into four minutes, leaving you feel like you're lucky to be alive. Over the last couple of years, tons of of quick exercise routines you can actually stick to have surfaced. Pick one and get started this weekend.

Simple Circuit Training

Circuit training workouts are great because you can pick a few key exercises for the day and just keep doing them for 20 minutes (or until you can't go on anymore). The downside, of course, is that these workouts tend to be a little difficult in the beginning but if you stick with them and don't expect too much of yourself right off the bat, you'll get in better shape with a small time commitment.

Our guide to getting a complete workout with nothing but your body features plenty of simple exercises you can start with. Just pick three to five that focus on different parts of your body and swap them out with other routines during the week. You can also spend different days concentrating on specific parts of your body (e.g. arms, legs, or core) when you want more focus but try to work in some sort of cardio whenever possible. For some assistance, check out previously-mentioned mobile and webapp Sworkit. It creates randomly-generated circuit training workouts, walks you through them, and tracks your progress. The app is free to use, but a pro version offers additional features.

Tolerable Interval Training

Interval training proves that you only need about 20 minutes worth of exercise per day to get in shape. Like circuit training, interval training tends to require harder work for a shorter amount of time but it can be a lot easier than you might think.

Researchers found that the single most effective exercise regimen may be spending 20 minutes on a stationary bike performing micro intervals. You simply pedal slowly for 12 seconds, pedal as fast as you can for 8, and then repeat this process 60 times (for a total of 20 minutes). The exercise itself isn't that hard, but it requires a lot of attention. Thinking about exercising for 20 minutes can feel like torture even when it isn't. To help solve that problem, I developed an app to keep you on track with this specific flavor of interval training. That way you can watch TV, listen to a podcast, or engage in a variety of other activities and only sort of pay attention to the fact that you're working pretty hard.

A Comprehensive Micro Routine

A full body workout doesn't require a gym or much time at all. In fact, you can manage on in just seven minutes. The American College of Sports Medicine's Health and Fitness Journal highlighted an effective, quick routine that uses your body weight to provide a comprehensive work out and help you get you in better shape. Like the bike interval training method mentioned about, this routine was essentially developed in a lab to find a simple and quick way for people to exercise on a tight time budget. If you're in a rush, this is the routine for you.

Don't Forget About Your Diet

Exercise is only one piece of the puzzle. A healthy diet matters just as much. Different diets work better for different people, so you'll have to find the right one for you, but you should be able to make a significant impact by simply limiting your portion size to only what you need and making healthy substitutions for unhealthy foods. Whatever you do, don't expect exercise to turn you into a Greek sculpture. Diet matters, too, so don't make it an afterthought!

Good luck, and happy Friday everyone!

At some point you've been told to fake it 'til you make it, and that's because with a little effort you can delude yourself into believing—and then becoming—whatever you hope to be. As A.J. Jacobs, author of Drop Dead Healthy, points out in this quote, we're a lot more flexible and less stubborn than we may think. He explains:

Our behavior greatly affects our thoughts and attitudes. If you are feeling a lack of confidence or have an urge to change something within yourself, you must “act your way into a new way of thinking,” rather than trying to think your way into a new way of acting.

Not sure how to fake-act? A few body language changes can make a big difference.

Insights from A.J. Jacobs, Joe Gebbia, Charlie Todd, & More at the 2013 99U Conference | The 99U

Photo by VLADGRIN (Shutterstock).