Friday, September 12, 2008
Design
Photoshop Alternative Artweaver Helps Edit Your Images
11:30PM Lifehacker US Edition | Windows only: Free application Artweaver isn’t just a Photoshop alternative like GIMP, but a fair clone of Photoshop itself. While Artweaver lacks the polish and advanced feature sets of Photoshop, the menus are laid out like they are in Photoshop and the tools function close enough that use is intuitive. The programs are so similar, in fact, that seasoned Photoshop users will find themselves wondering why a feature is suddenly missing from the menu. While it isn’t a true replacement for Photoshop, Artweaver’s feature set is robust; it includes layer management, image cloning, a history function, transparency, pen tablet support, and a host of the common filters in Photoshop. Artweaver is available as a full install or in a portable version. Artweaver is a free download for Windows only. Artweaver [via CyberNet] More »
Communicate
Yammer Creates a Private Twitter for Co-Workers
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Free micro-messaging service Yammer, winner of the TechCrunch50 start-up conference’s top prize, creates a private Twitter-like service for companies, filtered by work-assigned email addresses. Just like with Twitter, you can send direct messages and tag replies with “@” symbols, but Yammer adds a few organisational and corporate tools to the mix, including topic tagging, clients for BlackBerries and the desktop (through Adobe Air), and an IM interface. You obviously don’t want to be posting up gossip or gripes here, as not only can anyone with a corporate email sign up, but if a company wants to buy in, they get administrative control over the network. Still, Yammer looks like a great way for a company (or any group with private email addresses) overwhelmed with “Taking off early Friday” emails to keep people in the loop with less clutter. Yammer More »
Communicate
Teach2000 Quizzes You with Advanced Flash Card Management
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: Free flash card creator and tester Teach2000 is a robust solution for those who believe in the power of learning through simple question/answer pairs. The software comes in both a “full” desktop version and a USB-portable copy, though both run basically the same. You enter question and answer pairs in a text box, separated by special characters or tabs, and can add second answers and notes to each item. As for testing, Teach2000 is better for subjects that involves exact answers, like numbers, dates, and programming code, but seems flexible enough to work in most any situation that paper flash cards would—and you can print those out too, of course. Teach2000 is a free download for Windows systems only. While you’re self-testing, check out Brad Isaac’s guide to making effective flash cards. Teach2000 [via gHacks] More »
Communicate
10:45AM Angus Kidman | One of the less pleasant parts of the book publishing industry is the slush pile — the stack of unsolicited manuscripts that no-one wants to read, but which might just contain the next Dan Brown or Tim Winton amongst the detritus. UK publisher HarperCollins is experimenting with using the crowdsourcing approach to change its approach to the slush pile, and its site Authonomy moving out of private beta this week. Authonomy lets authors upload chapters of work in progress and comment on each others’ writing, with the promise that the highest-ranked works (based on site user recommendations) will be considered by Harper Collins editors. Managing the process as the beta expands could be challenging, I suspect, but it’s a novel way of identifying new writing talent.
[Authonomy]
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Authonomy lets readers judge unpublished manuscripts
10:45AM Angus Kidman | One of the less pleasant parts of the book publishing industry is the slush pile — the stack of unsolicited manuscripts that no-one wants to read, but which might just contain the next Dan Brown or Tim Winton amongst the detritus. UK publisher HarperCollins is experimenting with using the crowdsourcing approach to change its approach to the slush pile, and its site Authonomy moving out of private beta this week. Authonomy lets authors upload chapters of work in progress and comment on each others’ writing, with the promise that the highest-ranked works (based on site user recommendations) will be considered by Harper Collins editors. Managing the process as the beta expands could be challenging, I suspect, but it’s a novel way of identifying new writing talent.
[Authonomy]
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Communicate
10:17AM Angus Kidman | A story appearing in today’s Daily Telegraph boasts that “Australians will be able to see the new American version of the hit series Kath and Kim before it premieres on US television”, since NBC (the broadcaster of the US version of the hit Aussie sitcom) is planning to make the opening episodes of its new season shows available for free when they debut next month. However, it seems that in its enthusiasm to get a story about Kath and Kim into print, the paper ignored one significant fact: the material that NBC puts up in the US iTunes store is not automatically available in the Australian store (as the current studios list shown makes plain, and exactly like the HD TV content announced this week). Of course, if you set yourself a US iTunes account, it’s a whole different story — but that’s not what most Telegraph readers will do, I suspect.
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Why Kath and Kim US won’t be available to Aussie downloaders
10:17AM Angus Kidman | A story appearing in today’s Daily Telegraph boasts that “Australians will be able to see the new American version of the hit series Kath and Kim before it premieres on US television”, since NBC (the broadcaster of the US version of the hit Aussie sitcom) is planning to make the opening episodes of its new season shows available for free when they debut next month. However, it seems that in its enthusiasm to get a story about Kath and Kim into print, the paper ignored one significant fact: the material that NBC puts up in the US iTunes store is not automatically available in the Australian store (as the current studios list shown makes plain, and exactly like the HD TV content announced this week). Of course, if you set yourself a US iTunes account, it’s a whole different story — but that’s not what most Telegraph readers will do, I suspect.
More »
Organise
LongURL Expands Short URLs So You Know Where You’re Going
9:00AM Adam Pash | Web site (and Firefox extension) LongURL expands URLs that have been shortened by services like TinyURL, Ping.fm, is.gd, and tons more, so you know where the link is pointing before you follow it. The site itself is a decent tool to begin with, but the Firefox extension is what makes LongURL really useful. Once installed, the LongURL extension will automatically expand a shortened URL in the tooltip when you hover over the link with your mouse (it doesn’t waste bandwidth until you hover over a compacted link). Since it uses a web service, the supported services are automatically updated when new services come and go. LongURL also comes in Greasemonkey script and Ubiquity form, so be sure to check the tools page for the add-on you prefer. While you’re at it, check out previously mentioned Embiggen and Tin Foil Hat. LongURL More »
Communicate
Gmail Labs Adds Three New Reply Features
7:00AM Adam Pash | Gmail Labs has rolled out three new features to beef up the popular email client’s Reply feature. How can you improve something as simple as Reply, you ask? Well, in at least three ways: Quote selected text, Default ‘Reply to all,’ and Vacation time. First, the simple Quote selected text feature generates a reply with the currently selected text. Just select the text you want to quote and then hit ‘r’ (the keyboard shortcut for Reply). This one seems like the most buggy, and the Official Gmail Blog admits it doesn’t work in Chrome or Safari yet. (I even had a little trouble getting it to work in Firefox.) The other worked much better. More »
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DropBox Leaves Private Beta, Invite No Longer Necessary
6:38AM Lifehacker US Edition | One of Lifehacker readers’ favourite file syncing tools, Dropbox, left private beta today and registration is now open to all. If you’re unfamiliar with the service check out how Dropbox syncs and backs up files between computers instantaneously. More »
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Monitor Your Monthly Bandwidth with Your Router
6:00AM Adam Pash | Stressed about your download cap? The Simple Help weblog details how to use a router running the open-source DD-WRT firmware to monitor your bandwidth. It’s actually very simple to do, requiring no work on your part aside from installing DD-WRT on your router. DD-WRT automatically tracks bandwidth, so from there it’s a matter of knowing where to look. If you’re running the user-friendly Tomato firmware (we also showed you how to install Tomato), you can easily access your daily, weekly, or monthly bandwidth as well. More »
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