Thursday, May 22, 2008
HamachiX Updated with Leopard Support
11:30AM Gina Trapani | Mac OS X Leopard only: Our favourite free virtual private network client for the Mac, HamachiX, has been updated (finally!) to work with Leopard. HamachiX is a graphical front end to the Windows Hamachi product, and essentially it lets you access your Mac remotely over the internet as if it were on the local network. That means you can listen to shared iTunes libraries, remote control your Mac, and access file shares as well. HamachiX isn’t as easy to use or quite as stable as the Windows version, but it lets you network with PCs running the client as well. Here’s how to create your own virtual private network with Hamachi. HamachiX More »
Top 10 Firefox 3 Features
8:00AM Kevin Purdy | The newest version of our favourite open source web browser, Mozilla Firefox 3, offers dozens of new features and fixes, but only a handful will make the most dramatic difference in your everyday browsing. After 17 months of alphas and betas, Mozilla’s finally made a feature-complete release candidate available, so it’s time to spotlight the biggest improvements that will make “Gran Paradiso” the browser to beat. Nearly everything in the open-source app has gotten a second look from the minds at Mozilla, from back buttons to bookmarks, address bars to add-ons, passwords to performance, and the changes will make Firefox 3 worth the upgrade come its official release date, slated for sometime next month. Let’s take a look at the 10 best upgrades in Firefox 3, and how they’ll bolster your browsing, after the jump. More »
What Apps Make You Run Windows on Your Mac?
7:50AM Gina Trapani | The writers at Macworld are going over to the dark side and listing all the Windows applications that make them want to dual boot or virtualise Windows on their Intel Macs. The main package that makes Windows-on-a-Mac worth it? Microsoft Office 2007, simply because it includes Outlook and Access, both Windows-only packages. (Yes, Office 2008 for Mac includes Entourage, but Entourage can’t do everything Outlook can.) Likewise, some of the other Office on Windows programs have features MS Office on Mac does not—like Word’s handy revision tracking. Other applications on the list include IE 7 (for web site testing), Windows Media Player 11, Visio, and Netflix. Oddly, Macworld didn’t mention the one program I absolutely pine for when I’m booted into OS X. More »
Make Your Finance System Paperless
7:40AM Gina Trapani | Personal finance blogger J.D. Roth is on the road towards making his money system completely paperless. Direct deposit, automatic savings transfers, Quicken, and auto bill pay gets most paper out of the way. Then Roth scans any paperwork that does come in to PDF with our favourite scanner—the Fujitsu ScanSnap—and then he shreds it. Nice to see how several parts of his paperless system has also evolved into an automated finance system, too. How do you make your money go without too much paper (or intervention)? Let us know in the comments. My Paperless Personal Finance System: A Work in Progress [Get Rich Slowly] More »
PosteRazor Splits Images into Multiple Page Posters
7:30AM Gina Trapani | Windows/Mac/Linux: When you want to create a large poster but don’t have access to a wide-format printer, you want printing utility PosteRazor, which produces PDFs of your large image across several pieces of regular printer-sized paper. Load up your large image in PosteRazor, and tell it how many sheets of paper you want it to span, and PosteRazor will spit out the appropriate number of PDF file pages. Print out the resulting sheets and put them together to make your large poster. Just make sure your image is super high resolution. Great to make posters for the next office roast or maybe the kids’ room, PosteRazor is a free download for Mac, Windows, and Linux. PosteRazor [via Macworld] More »
Snackr RSS Ticker Keeps You on Top of News
7:20AM Adam Pash | Windows/Mac/Linux: Freeware Adobe Air application Snackr runs a news ticker of your RSS feeds at the bottom or top of your monitor, or as a scrolling sidebar. The application is very customisable, allowing you to add feeds individually or import an OPML file of feeds from your current reader of choice. If you like to keep an eye on all the latest updates to your newsfeeds, Snackr is an excellent option. The attractive Snackr is freeware, cross-platform, and requires Adobe Air. Snackr [via Download Squad] More »Use the “APC” Method to Creatively Solve Problems
7:10AM Kevin Purdy | The Tools for Thought blog delves into a creative problem solving technique from Edward de Bono that isn’t exactly new, but might be a fresh idea for recent converts to the Getting Things Done school of thinking. When faced with a problem or task, don’t drive immediately toward a single solution, but do an “APC” on it—consider alternative causes or approaches, think up a list of possibilities for accomplishing or fixing it, and come up with a list of your choices. As poster Andre Kibbe explains: Before spending too much time building what may turn out to be the wrong strategy, it’s worth spending some time dedicated to generating alternative strategies, without elaborating on a particular one. After having a variety to choose from, focus on implementing the best elements of one or more approaches. How do you implement APC thinking into your workflow? What other de Bonot-based thinking helps you tackle your tasks? Offer up your creativity in the comments. Alternatives, Possibilities, Choices [Tools for Thought] More »
Some PDF to Word Converter Does What It Sounds Like
7:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Freeware application Some PDF to Word Converter takes your PDFs and—as the name implies—converts them to Microsoft Word documents. It’s always been a cinch to print Word documents as PDFs, but going the other way around is generally more difficult. Many online tools can handle PDF-to-DOC conversions, but most of us don’t want to upload our sensitive docs to the web for third-party conversion, so desktop tools are preferable. We’ve featured one other PDF-to-Word converter in the past, but Some PDF to Word Converter requires no registration, has more options, and seems to perform better. If you’d like different PDF conversions, check the download page for PDF-to-HTML or text converters. Some PDF to Word Converter [via FreewareGenius] More »
Do You Shoot in RAW?
6:50AM Adam Pash | Whether you’re a weekend photographer or seasoned professional, Wired’s Charlie Sorrel says you should always use your digital camera’s RAW setting—no excuses. Sorrel cites increased dynamic range, no in-camera processing of the image, and full reign to adjust the results using all of the pre-compressed, raw data available in the image (hence RAW). The downsides to RAW, on the other hand, include slower capture times, larger files, and lack of support on lower-end consumer cameras. (Then again, if you’ve got a Canon point-and-shoot, there’s a good chance you can add RAW support and other high-end features by installing the easy-to-use Canon Hackers Development Kit.) Wired’s recommendation is one thing, but we’re curious what mode you regularly shoot in. So we want to know: More »
