Plenty of utilities can recover deleted files, but what if you can’t boot your computer, or the whole drive has been formatted? Here’s how to dig deep and recover the most elusive deleted files, or even whole partitions. More »

Memonic allows you to move away from the model of bookmarking sites that contain data you want and instead of snipping that data out of the page and saving it to your Memonic account. If you're doing research on a vacation for instance, you wouldn't bookmark every page you found with interesting content about that vacation. You would use Memonic to clip out the bits that were of interest to you—a specific restaurant review from a restaurant critic page, a landmark you found on the visitor's bureau site you want to visit, some photos of local street performers you'd like to keep an eye out for, and so on. All the things you clip end up in your Memonic inbox, seen below:

From there you can sort and organize your clips, edit the associated information, and share your clippings and organized portfolios with others. Memonic accounts are free and you can enter information into Memonic using a bookmarklet—see the top screenshot, the green box is the clipping border—or by emailing the information to your Memonic account or manually creating a new entry within Memonic. If you're curious to try out Memonic but hate signing up for new accounts, you can try out all the features of Memonic just by visiting the main page. If you like the service, you can create a free account to save the clippings you made during your trial run.

Have a favorite service for gathering web-based clippings and media together? Let’s hear about it in the comments. Thanks Mick!

The feature seemed to arrive very recently without any official blog post or explanation, but it seems to be working for more than just a select few testers. The only catch to using it is selecting all your files, as the Google Operating System blog explains. I frequently "hide" (or basically archive) documents I'm not using frequently, so I only had to head to the "Hidden" view in the left-hand view selector—those with more complex filing schemes should try the "All Items" view, or a wildcard asterisk search to pin down what they want.

Once you’ve selected or searched for what you want to export, you’ll have to scroll all the way down until all the documents are exposed, then hit the checkmark box to select them all. Finally, right-click somewhere in your selected docs, choose “Export,” and tell Google how to export your word, spreadsheet, and PDF files.

While you’re securing your Docs data somewhere other than on Google’s servers, take a peek at other free tools to back up online accounts—you'll feel a bit less tethered to the whims of various server administrators and account security representatives.

Gina ran down the benefits and how-to steps of separating your data from Windows on a standalone partition back in May, but with Windows 7 just a little over a month away, it’s worth re-considering, especially if you’re on a lower-end system and have a whole lot of media stored away. As PC World points out, once your music, movies, and other stuff is stashed away on a separate partition, you can still make it easy to access with Libraries, one of Windows 7′s best underhyped features.

Sprite’s beta Migrate application, free until Dec. 1, should be installed on both the phone you have now and, when you get it, the phone you’re moving to. From the phone being left behind, load up Migrate and tell it to grab bookmarks, call logs, contacts, SMS databases, photos, and anything else it can find. It dumps all that into a single file you can transfer by microSD or email, and you simply load up Migrate on a new phone and load that file in.

We lacked a second smartphone to grab and transfer Migrate data with, but Download Squad and online reviewers report that Migrate does exactly what it says. It’s a free download for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, and Android phones.

The Newbie’s Primer: What’s a Partition?

A partition is what looks like a separate disk in your computer, with its very own letter—like a D: or E: drive alongside your C: drive. In reality a partition can either be a subset of an existing hard drive (virtual) or an actual separate physical drive.

A virtual partition is a slice of an existing drive. That means if you’ve got one physical hard drive, you can partition it into a C: drive and a D: drive. In Windows Explorer, those will look and act just like separate disks, even though it’s actually one hard drive.

A physical partition is a whole other hard drive that gets its own letter when you add it to your computer.

The Benefits of a Standalone Data Partition

By default, Windows stores your data in a user-specific directory–C:Documents and SettingsginaMy Documents in XP, C:UsersginaDocuments in Vista, etc. However, for the power user, there are benefits to dedicating a single drive letter to your precious data.

Fresh operating system installations are easier. Whether you’re doing a fresh installation of Windows 7 or formating your hard drive to reinstall Windows XP from scratch, a separate data partition comes in handy. With your data stored on partition other than C:, nuking your Windows drive is much easier because you don't have to delete and copy back your files. You never have to touch your data partition—it's there and ready to use when Windows is.

Accessing data from multi-booting operating systems is easier. If you’re both curious but apprehensive about upgrading to Windows 7, you can have your operating system cake and eat it too by dual (or triple) booting your system. If you do decide to dual boot Windows 7 alongside your existing Vista or XP system, a standalone data drive will serve you well: both OSes can access your files in their dedicated location, without one having to navigate through the other’s default folder hierarchy.

Separate hard drives reduce the risk of total failure. If your data partition is a separate physical drive, you’ve got redundancy that reduces the risk of total PC failure. If your C: drive fails, you can pull your data drive out, stick it in an drive enclosure or install it in another PC, and go. If your data partition fails, you’ve still got a working PC: you can just restore a data backup without having to reinstall Windows. With a separate partition for your data, it’s just easier to image, back up, or transfer your important files, photos, videos, and tunes.

You might get better performance. While I haven’t tested this or seen official confirmation from Microsoft on it, at least a couple of savvy Lifehacker readers say that a separate physical partition can boost your PC’s performance, because Windows has another place to store virtual memory and paging information.

The Pitfalls and Gotchas of a Standalone Data Partition

While neat freaks will love the clean separation of their data and operating system with a standalone partition, there are a few things to keep in mind.

You’ve got to switch where all your applications save their documents. It’s not difficult to tell Windows you’ve relocated your “My Documents” folder, but with a separate data partition you do have to do just that. (In all versions of Windows, it’s a matter of right-clicking on your My Documents icon and setting the path in the Properties dialog). Even if you do that, some older software might not get the memo. Reader pdok said:

I’ll confess a little separation anxiety here. I used to do this partition scheme, but finally gave in to the standard “My Documents” hierarchy because there are so many stupid programs that don’t check where the user file store is. I was constantly redirecting default file saves to my separate partition, and eventually I just gave it up since it ended up not saving me time. Yes, I know you can define different locations for My Docs, but I found even Microsoft programs that were too unsophisticated to handle a non C-Drive default location.

For example, here’s how to tell Dropbox to use a different syncing folder.

You’ve got to manually export some types of user data that programs keep within their Application Data folder, like browser bookmarks, Outlook’s PST file, Firefox’s profiles, and address book contacts. There are two types of user data on your system: the files you explicitly create and save, and the data you implicitly create and save, like software profiles and contact lists. Your separate data partition won’t have the implicit stuff unless you manually export ‘em or do things like back up your Firefox profile.

Size matters. (And so do good backups.) When you create your data partition, make sure you give both your operating system and your documents folder as much room as they need. While you can resize partitions after you’ve created them, it’s not as easy on older versions of Windows and can nuke your whole drive if something goes wrong. So size does matter: make the right decision up front. Along those same lines, a separate partition for your data doesn’t mean you still don’t need to do thorough, regular, and preferably automated data backups.

You can’t store application installations on your data partition. Because installing a Windows application makes registry changes and plants various DLL’s around your system, I don’t recommend installing apps anywhere other than your C: drive with Windows. The best way to back up and separate your software is to keep the original installation disks. A separate data partition doesn’t include program installation files. In fact, reader Brian Sexton reminds us:

Software activation for applications such as Flash, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver and media authorization for such things as iTunes purchases are tied up with the system and its registry or at least hidden files, not just the obvious applications and data, so even if most of your data is safely stored on a separate drive or at least completely backed up to another drive or removable media, you still might have to deal with reactivation and reauthorization hassles even if you are using the same exact system after the crash, just with a new hard drive.

How to Set Up Your Data Partition

Still game? Here’s the quick rundown on how to get your dedicated data drive going.

Add another physical hard drive to your PC. For true separation of operating system and your data, you want to crack open your PC’s case and install a new hard drive. Once your new drive’s got its own letter and is formatted and ready for use, it’s a matter of moving your data over to it.

Partition the free space on your existing drive. If you want to split your existing hard drive into separate partitions for your OS(es) and data, you need a repartitioning tool. Windows Vista comes with one installed by default; here’s a step by step on how to repartition your drive in Vista. If you’re using Windows XP, you want to try a free tool like GParted. Adam walks you through how in step 1 of his article on how to dual boot Windows 7 with XP or Vista.

Once your data partition has a letter and data on it, tell Windows you relocated your My Documents folder and you’re good to go. (For the extra anal, here’s how you can further organize your data partition).

You a believer in a separate data partition? Any tips for living the multi-disk computer life? Post ‘em up in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, has been separating her data and operating system for years now. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

Start by heading over to Chartle.net, then hit up the Create link and get to graphing. (No registration required.) Once you’ve launched the webapp, you can choose between bar, pie, line, plots and diagrams, static maps, interactive maps, and dynamic charts. (The tool’s “Fun” tab also offers organization and gauge charts, as well as something the site calls a “static Google-o-meter.” )

Next fill in the relevant details like title, chart size, and position (right, left, top, bottom, label, none), and choose whether you want your chart to have a 3D effect. For a detailed walkthrough of how you can use the site to make nice graphs and charts from your data, make sure to take a look at the video demo.

Once you’re satisfied with your creation, click the “publish, share or embed” button.