Lifehacker's recent System Tray Show and Tell got me feeling really self-conscious about the things that show up on my computer's SysTray. While there are several items that I don't mind keeping an eye on there are a couple of Windows processes that I really don't think need constant monitoring. A perfect example of this is the Windows Local Area Connection icon that sits with a perpetual red X because my laptop is hooked up with WiFi.

Why do I need to see this icon if I never use the wired connection?

I did a little playing around and managed to find two ways to hide the icon. One doesn't appear to work all the time so I'll provide both just to be safe.

Removing the Local Area Connection Icon

This works perfectly for the wireless connection icon but on my machine it doesn't seem to work for the wired one. The first, really simple, option is to completely disable the connection. To do this you can double click the icon to open the Network Connections listing. Once this is done just right click the Local Area Connection item and select Disable.

In the long run this isn't really an ideal solution mostly because it involves completely turning off the wired network adapter. To avoid turning it off you can right click the listing and instead select "Properties."

Under the "General" tab look for the two check boxes and de-select them both. This should disable the icon while leaving the adapter activated.

Last Resort: Hide the Local Area Connection Icon

On my machine this didn't work - it did work to hide the Wireless Network Connection icon though. If you hit the same wall I have a work around that might help both here and in general for hiding icons in the SysTray. To get started right click the taskbar and then "Customize" under the "Notification area" heading.

The next section shows a list of all the items that are currently, or have recently, appeared in the System Tray. Under the "Behavior" column you can change the rules for each of the items - just select "Always hide" to keep the icons hidden.

If you're a Lifehacker reader you may already be hip to this great Firefox extension. Better GMail is a collection of Greasemonkey scripts brought together as a standalone extension. While you can certainly install the scripts individually the extension offers a one stop supply which will work even without Greasemonkey.

Among the additions made by the extension are the ability to create folders in GMail (the one thing I really miss about traditional eMail), a status bar showing the current state of your GMail storage, and the ability to incorporate both Google Calendar and Google Reader into the GMail interface.

Head on over to Lifehacker and grab the extension to see what I mean.

As I mentioned earlier this week I finally broke down and bought a new cell phone. My Samsung SCH a930 arrived yesterday and was one heck of a surprise. While I've only made a few calls so far I've been playing around with it a lot and am quite impressed.

Being the geek that I am one of my first priorities was to grab a data cable and Sandisk Micro SD 2 GB card so I could get some audio, video and images onto the phone. Thanks to an old Lifehacker post I also came across BitPim, an open source Personal Information Manager, that makes syncing just about everything VERY simple.

So far I've added custom wallpaper, updated my addresses through my Laptop (rather than through the keypad) and even played around with some of the calendar.One of the best features here is the ability to move pictures to and from your cell without worrying about sending pix messages or trying to text them. It's a great way to save on those extra charges.

If you're looking to backup your cell and want an easy open source solution check out BitPim. You can see a list of supported phones here.