I have to say, same here. :) Researching the nominees for this Hive exposed me to a lot of notebooks I hadn't been familiar with, and now suddenly need to own!

I'm still using Moleskine, but since many folks mentioned other products, I think I'll give them a try next time. Thanks for the recommendations, guys!

Here's an image of the vegetarian version, since it took me forever to find it on their site and I thought I'd save others the trouble. Unfortunately it doesn't look like you can download that version for free (the image isn't as big, and has the big "copyright" on it).

If its the NSA youre concerned about its important to understand what they're doing and how. One of the main things they're doing is looking to record meta-data, rather than data per se. Meta-data is far more useful. For example they can see who you are emailing and where your email comes from. You cant encrypt this…

"use of things like Tor or encryption services" the law was written to allow the NSA to store encrypted communications indefinitely. The 'spirit' of this was that if they were tapping a suspected terrorist's email account and it was encrypted, they should be given time to break even really tough encryption.

Oh god, can we just not? Please? Because this only ever ends one way. The people with kids will turn into instant sanctimommies, all like "If you aren't a parent you will never understannnnddddddd!!!!!" and the people without kids will be all like "Why can't I apply for maternity leave when I get a new kitten, cats…

That's ridiculous. We talk about SugarSync ALL THE TIME. Just last week I wrote about them: http://lifehacker.com/five-best-clou…

Alan,

The idea of buying more products, testing, then returning is good, sadly most of us don't have the money to buy so many things at once. Most of the high-end headphones are on display unpacked in Germany anyway so what I did is I used my smartphone and pluged them in and compared. Interesting fact, I bought a pair of…

I'm sorry but this is incredibly bad advice and I sincerely hope no one actually does this. Because if they did, people end up buying things that have already been "used", instead of the the "brand new" they're paying for, just so someone can go home "try it all out" and return the ones they didn't like.

disappointed with Lifehacker allowing this article to be posted. I don't respect anyone who intentionally returns something just to try it out. Make your best guess on the research and only return it if your not pleased. Heck I am the king of returning things but I draw the line at whimsical testing of products.…

Waste. The fuel and packing materiel that it takes to ship 3 items to you. Then to ship 2 back. Then the time and effort to check, clean, re-certify, and repackage the now used items. They maybe sold at reduced profit as refurbished or they could be simply thrown away. Quite simply you suck. You waste resources,…

Five shipments, bought on credit, because you must have precisely the right headphones without actually having to do in depth research.

This really sounds like it's only an option for people with a vast reserve of disposable income for their gadgets. Who can seriously afford to buy multiple $200 products at a time, even if they plan to send all of them back but the one they like best? That's the whole point of doing research before purchasing, so you…

As a retailer do you honestly have any idea how much this drives the cost up? "Just return the ones you don't like" wonderful mentality

Buying 3 products with no intention of keeping 2 of them hurts all of us. It astounds me that you would publish and encourage this kind of behavior. What an a** you are for even publishing this article, much less doing it.

Must be nice to have enough money to keep it tied up waiting for refunds from your return sprees. I would guess most people don't have the extra income to play that game.

I have to agree with previous posters that this is really bad advice. Buying and returning items costs the merchant money, and we all know who eventually pays those costs. If everybody did this, merchants would be forced to raise prices significantly, or more likely severely restrict their return policy. Of course…