Thursday, August 14, 2008
Communicate
HitMeLater Re-Sends Email When You Want It
11:04PM Kevin Purdy | Managing your email through a follow-up system (like our own Trusted Trio) is the best way to stem the endless tide, but sometimes you might not trust yourself to get back to something on time. HitMeLater, a free email service, will re-send any emails you forward to it, based on when you said to send it. So when mum emails to ask you for an answer Friday on the gift you’re getting your sister, forward it to friday@hitmelater.com, and it appears at the top of your inbox Friday. The author says the site’s “secure” and “spamless,” but I don’t see a visible privacy policy. It shouldn’t be a primary mail manager, but HitMeLater could be handy when you’re checking mobile email or need double-assurance that you’ll follow up on a message. No registration required. HitMeLater [via TechCrunch] More »
Organise
map a list Puts Spreadsheet Addresses on Google Maps
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | Free mashup service map a list grabs addresses directly from a Google Spreadsheet in your account and plots them out over a customised Google Map. While it certainly isn’t the only web-based data-mapping tool, the combination of its easy grabbing from GDocs and its step-by-step creation wizard make plotting out the best pizza joints in town, the wedding party members who haven’t RSVP’d, or any other data seriously simple. Your maps update automatically with the spreadsheet and can be shared publicly, and the maps can be exported to KML (for Google Earth fun) and texted or shared by email. A cool tool for those of us without the skills to directly patch into Google Maps. map a list [via MakeUseOf.com] More »
Work
Can your browser history reveal your gender?
8:41PM Angus Kidman | Here’s an interesting twist on browser history: a Web-based calculator which looks at the sites you’ve visited, weights that against whether those sites have a larger male or female readership, and then makes an educated guess on whether you’re male or female. I came up as 92% male, which sounds about right. How do you score? Using your browser URL history to estimate gender [Mike On Ads] More »
Communicate
8:23PM Angus Kidman | Subscription services — where you pay a monthly fee in return for streaming and/or download access to a large music library — are common in the US, but Sanity’s new LOADIT service is the first such option we’ve encountered in Australia. For $29 a month, you can download up to 300 tracks each month. Tracks are encoded in Windows Media Audio format, which means you can only play them back in Windows Media Player 11 (which is where the service is accessed) or on WMA-compatible MP3 players. That means no joy for iPod fans. Does the notion of a download subscription service appeal to you, or would you rather purchase go-anywhere music? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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Sanity launches music subscription service
8:23PM Angus Kidman | Subscription services — where you pay a monthly fee in return for streaming and/or download access to a large music library — are common in the US, but Sanity’s new LOADIT service is the first such option we’ve encountered in Australia. For $29 a month, you can download up to 300 tracks each month. Tracks are encoded in Windows Media Audio format, which means you can only play them back in Windows Media Player 11 (which is where the service is accessed) or on WMA-compatible MP3 players. That means no joy for iPod fans. Does the notion of a download subscription service appeal to you, or would you rather purchase go-anywhere music? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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Communicate
12:23PM Angus Kidman | As predicted here some time ago, Apple has officially made movies available in the iTunes store in Australia, with a claimed 700 titles. Purchasing movies to own costs between $9.99 and $24.99. Rentals cost between $3.99 and $5.99; you have to start watching the rental within 30 days, and then can watch it as many times as you want in a 48 hour period. iiNet subscribers can feel smug, since iTunes content doesn’t count against their download quotas; movie enthusiasts on other ISPs might need to rein in their torrent activities. Do you fancy the idea of renting movies online, or do you still prefer physical DVDs? Let us know in the comments.
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iTunes movie service officially launches in Australia
12:23PM Angus Kidman | As predicted here some time ago, Apple has officially made movies available in the iTunes store in Australia, with a claimed 700 titles. Purchasing movies to own costs between $9.99 and $24.99. Rentals cost between $3.99 and $5.99; you have to start watching the rental within 30 days, and then can watch it as many times as you want in a 48 hour period. iiNet subscribers can feel smug, since iTunes content doesn’t count against their download quotas; movie enthusiasts on other ISPs might need to rein in their torrent activities. Do you fancy the idea of renting movies online, or do you still prefer physical DVDs? Let us know in the comments.
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Fix
Edison Makes Your PC Go Green
9:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Free system tray application Edison helps save energy and money by tweaking your PC’s power settings on a schedule. Edison allows you to set different energy preferences for work and non-work time, then choose the times you want each profile to run. The power settings determine how long your PC should wait before turning off the display, powering down your hard drive, and suspending your computer. After you set your preferences, Edison also estimates your yearly savings in terms of money, energy, and CO2 emissions. Edison is freeware, requires .NET 2.0 and an email address for registration. If Edison’s whopping 45MB memory footprint is too high for your tastes, check out previously mentioned LocalCooling. For more green PC tips, try our best tips for going green with your PC. Edison [via Download Squad] More »
Work
Think Faster and Better on Your Feet with Tricks from Improv
8:00AM Adam Pash | CNN Living and Real Simple suggest stealing a few tricks from improv actors to help you think better and faster on your feet—and look better in real world situations. Make everyone else in your group look good. How it works: Here’s what you learn in improv: You’re nothing without somebody else. There’s nothing to improvise without someone to improvise with. The more you trust others to be your props, the more you invite them to shine, the stronger you get. Despite some heavy-handed improv 101 lessons (if you ever heard anyone “yes… and” like that, you’d think they were insane), the ideas are still useful. If you regularly apply any of these improv ideas to the real world, let’s hear about it in the comments. Photo by Arbron. How to think faster, better on your feet [CNN Living] More »
Fix
Google Reader Lets You Pick Your Friends
7:18AM Adam Pash | If you were one of many people who were upset when Google Reader began automatically displaying your shared items to all of your contacts in Gmail Chat, this one’s for you: Google Reader now allows users to selectively choose who to share with. It’s a nice improvement, especially considering the only way to unshare with someone before was to remove them entirely from your contact list. Thanks alaysias! More »
Organise
Drag & Drop.io Makes Sharing Files Dead Simple
6:00AM Adam Pash | Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The Drag & Drop.io Firefox extension makes it easy to quickly share a file in Firefox 3 with previously mentioned file sharing site Drop.io by simple dragging and dropping the file in your browser. The best part of the extension is that you don’t need to go through any tedious Browse for file dialogs to upload files you’re probably already staring at anyway. The extension has a few subtle differences in how you can use it to upload and share files, so check the demo video for a full overview. If you want to be able to drag and drop files into any upload box at any site, check out previously mentioned dragdropupload. Drag & Drop.io [via Mashable] More »
Work
