HERE'S HOW...

The iPhone is a beautiful device on its own, but with hundreds of millions of iPhones sold it's not particularly unique. Whether you employ a few simply tricks or more complicated alterations, it's easy to put your own custom stamp on your ordinary device. Here's how you can design custom cases, themes, icons, and more to change your iPhone both inside and out.

The Inside

Before we get started you're going to need to download the great and free application iExplorer (works on both Windows and Mac), which will allow you to access your iPhone's file system. You'll want to have this app whether or not you're jailbroken. It's the simplest way to copy and edit files on your device.

Change Your Icons

Changing your icons is very simple with iExplorer. You'll need to download existing icons in PNG format or create your own. When I'm looking for existing icons, my first stops are The Icon Factory (be sure to browse for and check out the "Flurry" sets) and deviantART. If you want to make your own, we have a guide that can help you. Once you've got your new icons it's just a matter of replacing the correct files.

Get Creative With Your Wallpapers

Your wallpapers don't have to be a photo that sits behind your apps. You can make them feel like part of the interface as well. For example, you can create shelves, gridded paper (pictured to the right), and even a PacMan board. There are plenty of other options available if you want to make your home screen wallpaper serve a greater purpose.

Customize Your Lock Screen

There are plenty of ways to customize your lock screen to make it look the way you want or offer additional functionality. Either way, you need to be jailbroken to do anything beyond changing your lock screen's wallpaper, so be sure to take care of that before proceeding with this section.

If changing the look and feel of your lock screen isn't your primary goal, and you'd like to be more practical, you should check out IntelliscreenX ($10). Although iOS 5 is capable of providing a lot of information on your lock screen, this jailbreak app can do a bunch more. You can toggle settings (e.g. Airplane Mode, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.), check the time, see RSS feeds, check the weather, look at your messages, and more. It's a really great app, but is a bit pricey at $10. It does offer a free trial, however, so you can check it out and see if it's worth your money.

Completely Alter Your Interface

When you want to go all the way and completely change your iPhone's interface, you need to jailbreak and download DreamBoard (Free) from Cydia. It's customization abilities are nothing short of amazing. You can even make your iPhone look like it's running Mac OS X Lion or even Android. Although DreamBoard is a free app, some of the themes will cost money. Also, acquiring DreamBoard themes isn't always a simple process. While you can find some on Cydia, which are very easy to acquire and install, sometimes you'll need to use another application called Theme Outlet.

The Outside

Design a Custom Case

You can always go out and buy one of the countless pre-made iPhone cases, but if you want to get a little more creative you can design one of your own. I did this for my iPhone 4 using Uncommon. Chances are you've seen some of their (very nice) pre-made cases in an Apple Store. For $35, they'll print your design on a minimal case to offer a unique look.

As for services I haven't tried, you've got a few options that off their own unique benefits. Case-Mate provides image generators created by professional designers so you can create a unique case in a pre-defined style. (You can create custom options as well.) Zazzle has a larger variety of case types to choose from, but some of them cost as much as $40. Like Zazzle, unYOUsual provides a variety of case choices but at a slightly lower price print. GelaSkins offer a product that's very similar to what you'd get with Uncommon, but the cases look like they may offer a slimmer fit. Finally, Infectious offers cases at a lower price of $29 but only prints an image on the back (as opposed to one that wraps around the entire body).

Skin Your iPhone

Like the temporary tattoos of the iPhone world, skins are a nice way to add a custom design to your device without adding bulk or making an unchangeable commitment to any one look. An iPhone skin also offers some scratch protection, so it's not entirely cosmetic. While these skins won't protect your device in the event of a drop, preventing some scratches is still better than nothing.

Swap in Custom Hardware

Apple's most recent iPhones—the 4 and the 4S—are devices with a beautiful glass backs. Glass isn't exactly the most sturdy material, however, and you may also want a different look. Lucky for you, plenty of other options exist, from metal to wood to carbon fiber.

No matter how good you are at rolling the dice on airplane tickets, vacations are an expensive undertaking. Sure, with careful planning, saving, and budgeting, you may eventually make your way to the beaches of Hawaii and smell the scent of 1,000 pounds of suntan lotion. Or, if you don't feel like spending every cent you can scrape together, you take a volunteer vacation now, and save a bucket of cash in the process.

Why Would I Spend My Vacation Working?

The idea of working on vacation isn't a popular one for obvious reasons, but take a second and think back to your last vacation. What did you do? How closely did you stick to your itinerary? Did the vacation feel like a vacation? How much more money did you spend then you planned? Often, we look back at a vacation and realize we didn't do anything but shuffle around from one tourist trap to another, and we spend a silly amount of money on (often overpriced) food and drinks because we're on vacation and that's what your do. A volunteer vacation can cut through those headaches while providing you with a more authentic view of the place you're visiting.

You Can Save a Ton of Money

You Can Participate in Activities You Wouldn't Normally Consider

• You can take care of animals in Ecuador and get your room, in-country travel, food, and more covered.
• Teach English in Russia for 15 hours a week and get all of your boarding and food costs covered.
• Cruise in a riverboat down the Amazon surveying pink dolphins to get your food, boarding, and airport pickup covered.
• Photo by ollie harridge.

  You Can Practice Your Skills or Learn New Ones

  If you have a specialized skill set, a volunteer vacation can be a good way to put your skills to use in another country. For instance, if you're a doctor you can volunteer your skills to a vaccination shelter. If you're a teacher, you can teach. You don't always need special skills though. If you've always wanted to learn more about carpentry, for example, you can build a house on your volunteer vacation. If you're a student, volunteering on a scientific exhibition can add flavor to your resume and experience in the field.

  You Can Write Off What You Do Spend

  Of course, one of the biggest factors in choosing a vacation is cost. Some volunteer vacations will still require a hefty up-front charge to participate and don't include airfare. Others are totally free while you're participating. The price difference is directly related to the work your doing, the insurance required, and the materials needed. Teaching English to a farmer in Poland isn't all that dangerous, but diving into the sea to film turtles hatching is.
  That said, any money you do pay can be written off as a charitable contribution on your taxes. As a general rule, you can write off any expenses you pay to the organization as long as they're a non-profit. Any non-profit you enroll in will have a 501(c) designation somewhere on the website. You can also search the government's registry to make sure the organization qualifies as tax-deductible. Your airfare, Visa, and travel-related expenses are also tax-deductible if you volunteer an average of eight hours a day.
  If you've decided a volunteer vacation might be a good idea for your next trip, it's time to get to research. Let's look at a few of the sites you can use to find opportunities and verify you're volunteering for an organization you're comfortable at.
  Photo by KOMUnews.

  How to Find a Volunteer Job That's Right for You

  Planning volunteer vacations can require a bit more work than you may be used to, depending on how you normally plan your vacations. You won't find a bunch of deal aggregation sites that filter everything for you in a neat pattern. Instead, your best bet is to go directly through the non-profit. Here are a few places to get you started on your search:
  • American Hiking Society: As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to wander off into the American wilderness and go hiking, you might as well improve on the trails and area as you go along. From my own experience, volunteering with the American Hiking Society is a blast for a number of reasons. If you're a beginner camper, it sticks you with people who know what they're doing so you can learn the ropes. The work itself is as simple as constructing steps or transporting vegetation. You pay a $245 membership fee, but everything is free, including meals, boarding, and park fees.
  • World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms: This one is simple: work on a farm and get free boarding and food for your stay. You can do this around the world and for the most part, you know exactly what to expect. It's not easy work, but it might be worth it for the savings.
  • Habitat for Humanity: Remember when we mentioned building houses earlier? Right, this is where you volunteer to do it. Experience isn't as necessary but you should be physically capable.
  • Global Volunteer: This site isn't exactly the cutting edge of travel booking, but it gets you the information you need. As the name suggests, Global Volunteer is best for global trips and is at its best at providing information about volunteering in Africa and Asia. The work ranges from teaching English to building homes.
  • Sierra Club: If you're the type of person to spend your vacations outdoors, the Sierra Club's offering might be appealing. They usually cover the rooms, food, and materials you need, but they can get pretty costly. The benefit? On top of volunteering you also get to surf in the oceans off New Zealand or service trails in Hawaii.
  • Idealist: Idealist is a massive database of volunteer opportunities from around the globe. It's not geared directly toward volunteer vacations, but as a search engine, it's a good place to start and find the non-profits working in the country you're interested in visiting. You can find temporary volunteer opportunities that offer housing and food.
  • VAOPS: The site is not pretty, but what it does, it does well. Instead of concentrating on the middleman (and adding cost), VAOPS gives you links directly to the charities so you can plan through them. This means you can find zero cost trips easily. Transitions Abroad is a similar service.
  • STA Travel: If you're a student or teacher, you can use the already cheap STA Travel to find and book a volunteer vacation. These are typically on the pricier side, but include more "adventure" style vacations where you're chasing down sharks for rescuing turtles for a week.
  If you're using one of the above search engines, keep in mind it's possible to use them as a suggestion as opposed to a booking agent. If you find a cause you're interested in and a location you'd like to go, try visiting the non-profit itself to see if you can schedule directly through them.
  If you are planning on leaving the country, don't forget that aside from a Visa, you also might need vaccinations. The CDC provides a list of what you need. You should also do a little research into the non-profit to make sure it's legit. Charity Navigator, GuideStar, and The Better Business Bureau are good places to research before making plans.
  Now that we have an outline of the resources available, let's go ahead and plan a sample trip and see how much money we can save in the process.
  Photo by USFWS Mountain-Prarie.

  Book a Trip to Hawaii and Save $1,000

  While I've done smaller jaunts in North America, I've never gone for the full-force two-three week volunteer vacation across the globe. Personally, I've always had a desire to visit and work at the Chernobyl disaster site in Ukraine, but since I imagine most people don't share that desire, let's go with something a bit more exciting: Let's plan a volunteer vacation to Hawaii.

  Step 1: Find a Volunteer Opportunity in Hawaii

  Let's start with some quick numbers. An average price for a hotel on one of the islands of Hawaii is around $100 a night (though you could easily find a more expensive hotel). A flight will cost about $850-$900 from the U.S. during most times of the year. So for a trip to Hawaii for one person and not included meal expenses we're looking at around $1,450.
  Searching the sites above, I came up with two appealing options:
  • Sierra Club's hiking and service in Kauai ($945 + airfare): This trip requires moderate work on trails in a national park across a seven-day period and includes meals, in country transportation, and boarding. The work takes about eight hours a day and involves picking up trash, moving rocks for trail posts, and removing exotic plants. Three of the days are devoted heavily to work, while the rest of your time can be spent however you see fit. It's more expensive than the cost of a hotel, but gets you to the outdoors with people who know what they're doing.
  • American Hiking's Iao Valley State Park vacation ($245 + airfare): This trip also requires some moderate work on trails in a state park. You will be doing the same type of work as the Sierra Club for about eight hours each day. The price includes meals, permits, and boarding. As the cheaper option, this is the most appealing. A shared cabin isn't a hotel, but if you're in Hawaii, you shouldn't be spending too much time indoors anyway.
  Deciding on the location and volunteer work is just the first step. Unlike a regular vacation, volunteer work requires you to apply to make sure you're capable of doing the work. This application process typically takes a week and can be submitted online. These aren't hard hitting questions. They typically cover your experience, physical condition, and volunteer history. Not having experience doesn't immediately bar you from participating, but the application process works to vet people who might be in over their head. Make no mistake about it, this will be work no matter what type of volunteering you do.
  Before you settle on your plan, request an information packet and itinerary for your visit. This will help you make your final decision and guarantee no surprises will ruin your trip.
  Once you hear back from the non-profit and are accepted, you can book your flight through any channel of your choosing. If you're getting picked up at the airport by the volunteer service they'll give you a time slot to shoot for. The same goes for the returning flight. Check out ultimate travel hacking guide for a few useful tricks to get cheap tickets.
  Photo by Kristina D.C. Hoeppner.

  Step 2: Figure Out What You Need

  Working in a foreign place is difficult enough as it is, but doing it without the proper gear is going to make your life miserable. You will receive a packing list from the volunteer organization of everything you need. Follow this as closely as possible. In addition to normal vacation items like clothes and a toothbrush, we'll need: a sleeping bag, rain jacket, hiking boots, mosquito repellent, and a day pack for this trip.
  Photo by Nestor Lacle.

  Step 3: What To Do When You Arrive

  For many of these vacations, you get picked up at the airport with a group of other participants on the first day. They take you to the volunteer site and let you unwind before giving you an orientation on the program. Depending on where you are and what type of work you're doing, this will vary from a primer on cultural customs to a brief walk around the work site.
  In our American Hiking Society example, we're not getting picked up at the airport. According to Google Maps, no good bus system gets us from the airport to the volunteer site, so we'll take a cab. At $3 a mile, a cab will cost about $24.
  Once we arrive, we get checked in and go to the cabin to meet the rest of the volunteers. For the next week, we'll be cleaning up trails, taking hikes, and enjoying the wilderness of Hawaii. Meals are provided by our host, as is a plan for every day of the week. Sure, a big chunk of our day is work, but at least we're in a great location.

  The Final Cost Breakdown

  Before we break down the cost, we need to add a meals to the regular vacation. For three meals at an estimate of $10 a meal, we can add an additional $200 to the minimum cost. Every trip is going to net different results, but it's a fair starting point.
  But we're not done yet. We volunteered for the full duration of our stay in Hawaii so the entire trip is tax deductible.
  Donations to the American Hiking Society are completely tax deductible. This includes the plane fare, cab, and any additional fees incurred. For a full list of what you can deduct from your volunteer vacation, check out the IRS Publication 526 or get in touch with a tax professional. Your tax situation is different from mine, but for someone like me, a $1,100 tax deduction can add an estimated $400 to my rebate. This drops our basic cost to $700. Not bad for a week long trip to Hawaii.

  Volunteer Vacation: $700

  Regular Vacation: $1,650

  ---

  Volunteering on your vacation isn't for everyone. Nor is it for every trip you take. It is a good way to explore a part of the world you would not otherwise see or be able to afford. If you're a student, it's a great way to get experience in the field by volunteering on a science expedition. Even as a working adult, these experiences are worth your resume. Personally, I see it as a way means to go on a trip and interact directly with a culture or landscape without the need for rental cars, bus schedules, or complicated itineraries. Plus, if worked right, it's a heck of a lot cheaper.

Face it: Google runs your life. The search giant turned web ecosystem owns your email, calendar, and even your voicemails. Your most important data lives on Google's servers. What you may not realize is that, despite the quality of Google's products, someone else is doing it better—and placing all your eggs in Google's basket isn't necessarily the best thing. Here's a look at alternative services you can use in place of Google's webapps.

The Best Search Alternative: DuckDuckGo

Google Search, while great, isn't without some big annoyances. From the new Google+ results on your search page to the Instant Preview layout to its constant desire to change your search terms to what it thinks is better, you might just be ready to switch to something new. Our favorite alternative is DuckDuckGo, a search engine that focuses on your privacy, while also packing itself with great features for power users, like searching specific sites with a bang (e.g. !lifehacker jailbreak iphone), keyboard shortcuts that help you navigate your results, and even integration with other services like Wolfram Alpha for quick answers to certain things (like unit conversions, calculations, and other facts).

The Best Gmail Alternative: Hotmail

Gmail, frankly, is far and away our favorite web-based email. But if you're truly committed to ditching Google—even your precious Gmail account—you could do much worse than Hotmail.. We've compared the two before, and not much has changed since last year. Hotmail has some pretty cool features, like one-click filters, SkyDrive integration for attachments, and embedded content, not to mention some Gmail favorites like conversation view and a great spam filter. Even its Bing-powered email search is very good, offering suggestions for certain operators but offering a ton more (many of which are the same as Gmail's). It also has a great set of keyboard shortcuts, just like Gmail, that let you control the interface without touching your mouse. Also like Gmail, you can use it to manage your other, non-Hotmail mail accounts. If we weren't in love with Gmail, this is the first place we'd go to host our email.

The Best Google Calendar Alternative: Zoho Calendar

Zoho Calendar is the only calendar application that can really stack up to Google Calendar. It has everything we love about GCal, like a "smart add" feature that lets you add events with one line of text, the ability to search your calendars, an "agenda" view that shows you just your upcoming events without the grid, and more. The interface is very similar to Google, so migration is dead simple, and sharing your calendars with others is as easy as copying a given calendar's link.

The Best Google Maps Alternative: Bing Maps

As much as I hate having three services from the same company in this list, I couldn't find anything I liked better than Bing Maps. Its interface is not only clean, but smooth as heck—even smoother than Google Maps—and its Streetside view is arguably even better than Google's Street View, too. It's super easy to use, and the images are all very high-res, meaning you can find what you're looking for quite nicely (though it also has a 360 view if you prefer something more akin to Google Street View). It also has live traffic views, satellite images, and great pages for businesses that you find via the Maps search. And, of course, you can save places you want to visit later, as well as find driving, public transit, or walking directions to just about anywhere. Zooming in with the mouse wheel is a bit overagressive, but if you can get past that, it's a fantastic alternative to Google Maps—in fact, I might even like it better.

The Best Google Reader Alternative: NetVibes

Even if you aren't looking to ditch Google Reader, you should check out NetVibes. You can add and read feeds just like Google Reader, though it also has a really cool widget view that turns your RSS feeds into a more visual, newspaper-like layout in your browser. You can give higher preference to certain sites, see the top stories, and (as with the feed view) see how many articles you haven't read. It'll also link you up with the Twitter accounts of the sites you add, so you can see what they're saying there too. It's also got a bunch of different snazzy themes to choose from, and sharing features coming out of its nose, for sending articles by email, through Facebook and Twitter, and more.

The Best Picasa Web Alternative: Flickr

This one's a no-brainer: Flickr is one of the most popular photo sharing sites on the net, and that's because it's very well put together. While Picasa has Google integration and 1GB of free space, Flickr lets you license the photos as you see fit, and has a bunch of really cool social features that get you in touch with like-minded photographers (and gives others the chance to see your work). It also has a built-in image editor for you to tweak your photos, which is pretty great.

The Best Google Docs Alternative: Office Web Apps

This is another area that Google wouldn't win even if it were in the picture. Microsoft's Office Web Apps let you edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations from its web interface, designed after the Office desktop programs. It has the ribbon, built-in support for Microsoft SkyDrive, and tons of collaboration features for working on documents with your friends and co-workers. Plus, since it's made by Microsoft, compatibility with Office documents is top-notch, which you won't get with Google Docs.

The Best Google Voice Alternative: Phonebooth

There is no true Google Voice alternative on the market. When you look at the feature set and the price, Google Voice is really the only service of its type, and once you use it, it's hard to pull away. If you absolutely must, though, the most comparable is probably Phonebooth. They have a free service that gives you a local phone number for free, lets you forward calls to your different phones, and transcribe voicemails, just like Google Voice. The free version gets you 200 minutes of inbound calling per month, with extra minutes costing 3¢ each. You can't record any of your calls, nor can you make any outbound calls on the free service. You also can't send SMS messages from that number or from your browser (though you could always use a service like DeskSMS instead). You can also upgrade Phonebooth to the paid, $20/month plan which includes unlimited minutes, outgoing calls, and more business-oriented features.