Web site WebToMail sends full web pages to your email on demand. Why? Let’s say, for example, you’re sitting behind a nasty internet filter at work that won’t even let you access your friendly, productivity-enhancing Lifehacker. Just fire off an email to send@webtomail.co.cc with the URL of the web page you want in the subject (http://lifehacker.com.au). A few minutes later, you’ll receive an email back from WebToMail with the contents of the URL you requested conveniently embedded in the email. The results vary depending on the email client you’re using; in Gmail, you don’t get nicely styled CSS, but you do in desktop apps like Thunderbird. Seems like a worthwhile utility to add to your IT lockdown toolbox.
Weblog Apartment Therapy describes how to create a table of contents for your file cabinets to help make your filing system cleaner and easier to use. It’s actually a very simple idea: You just print the different folder tab names of your file cabinet onto a piece of paper you can place on top of your cabinet to give you a quick overview of what’s inside. The biggest hurdle to a clear, organised paper filing system is a lack of easy access, and Apartment Therapy’s simple table of contents method attempts to remove one more boundary to easy filing. If you’re serious about fixing up your filing cabinets, check out our extreme filing cabinet makeover. How To: Create a Table of Contents for Your Files [Apartment Therapy]
Windows only: Free application StExBar adds a toolbar full of useful shortcuts and commands to Windows Explorer. Even better, the add-on binds keyboard shortcuts with virtually every action it adds, so you can create a new folder by hitting Ctrl-Shift-N, open a command prompt in the current folder by pressing Ctrl-M, or copy a full file path with Ctrl-Shift-C. We just highlighted several free tools to power up Windows Explorer, but StExBar is a new offering you might want to add to your list. StExBar is freeware, Windows only. StExBar [via Download Squad]
Ensure that an important message never gets marked as spam with Gmail’s new “Never send it to Spam” option in its Filter rules. Just create a filter that matches messages on a certain criteria—whether it’s a company domain (like from:lifehacker.com.au)or certain keyword in the subject—and check off “Never send it to Spam” in the second step to immunise yourself from missing that mail. Gmail’s spam filter has a pretty decent track record for false positives, but at least once it marked a message to a company mailing list as Spam for me, so might have to add this to my essential email filters list. Prevent Gmail from Marking your Important Emails as Spam [Digital Inspiration]
iPhone/iPod touch only: Free application Here I Am uses your location-aware iPhone to pinpoint your position and share your whereabouts with a link to a Google Map. It’s a very simple application, but the concept—that you can quickly email your location to any contact to help them find you—is very helpful. Just fire it up, let it locate you within a reasonable level of accuracy, and when you’re happy with it, hit the email button. Straightforward but effective. Here I Am is freeware, requires an iPhone or iPod touch running the 2.0 software. Here I Am [iTunes Store via Gizmodo]
When you need something done quickly, efficiently, and without any software overhead, the command line is where it’s at. It was the first way humans told computers what to do, but as graphics became increasingly important, the command line, or terminal, became an insiders’ secret weapon. But with the right commands and a little bit of know-how, anyone can get things done from a text-only interface. Let’s take a look at 10 commands and tricks that make the terminal more accessible, and more powerful, on any system. Photo by blakepost.
YouTube, Google Video, and family is ripe with music videos whose soundtrack you’d love to add to your music collection, and VidtoMP3.com can do just that. Enter a video URL and it spits back the MP3 file available for download. [via]
Windows only: Free image utility VJPEG is a tool that could be a serious time saver for anyone who regularly views or compare digital images from their desktop. The tiny application installs itself as the default handler for JPG, BMP, and other common image files (and that’s kind of annoying), so when a file is double-clicked, it opens super-fast in a frame-less desktop windows. There are shortcuts to resize, rotate, and even email a picture, but the concept is quickly checking out photos without waiting for Windows’ viewer, or even something as light as IrfanView to load. My recommendation? Set up VJPEG as a send to item menu, and feed batches of pictures to it for quick selection. VJPEG is a free download for Windows systems only.
VJPEG [Stereopsis via FreewareGenius.com]
