Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Organise
11:00PM Angus Kidman | Previously mentioned voice recording reminder service reQall has rolled out a BlackBerry version (there’s already web and iPhone releases). While the software includes conventional text entry, the big selling point is the ability to record voice reminders, tasks or appointments. Those reminders can be emailed to you, both as a recording and as a transcription. The recognition and transcription definitely needs improvement — the word ‘Add’ got rendered as ‘Had’ and failed to recognise an appointment; what I actually said in the screen grab was “Organise the posts for Lifehacker for the rest of the week”; and it later translated a feedback message saying “It’s a shame that there’s no Australian dial-in number” as “whether the shine that they no Australian doll in number”. However, given my Aussie accent and customary high-speed garbling, it could have been worse.
Even when accurate, the transcription takes some time, and it’d be nice to have proper integration with the BlackBerry’s own calendar and task list. But if you’d rather say it than type it while on the go, reQall may be worth a spin. reQall is free to download and sign up during its beta phase (don’t use the record-to-call option unless you fancy paying for international phone calls).
reQall
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reQall Speech-To-Text Reminder Service Adds BlackBerry Version
11:00PM Angus Kidman | Previously mentioned voice recording reminder service reQall has rolled out a BlackBerry version (there’s already web and iPhone releases). While the software includes conventional text entry, the big selling point is the ability to record voice reminders, tasks or appointments. Those reminders can be emailed to you, both as a recording and as a transcription. The recognition and transcription definitely needs improvement — the word ‘Add’ got rendered as ‘Had’ and failed to recognise an appointment; what I actually said in the screen grab was “Organise the posts for Lifehacker for the rest of the week”; and it later translated a feedback message saying “It’s a shame that there’s no Australian dial-in number” as “whether the shine that they no Australian doll in number”. However, given my Aussie accent and customary high-speed garbling, it could have been worse.
Even when accurate, the transcription takes some time, and it’d be nice to have proper integration with the BlackBerry’s own calendar and task list. But if you’d rather say it than type it while on the go, reQall may be worth a spin. reQall is free to download and sign up during its beta phase (don’t use the record-to-call option unless you fancy paying for international phone calls).
reQall
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Fix
Synaptics Adds Mac-Like Gestures To Touchpads
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Synaptics, the driver provider for the majority of laptops with trackpads, is rolling out an upgrade that allows for two new types of finger movement and application control. Similar to MacBooks, the Synaptics upgrade lets touchpad users flick two fingers across their pads to scroll through items or change modes. More intriguing is the “ChiralTouch,” which detects circular trackpad movement and converts it into scrolling or rotation. Synaptics says that more than 100 apps currently support the new motions, with more to come. To get in on the new scrolling, check with your laptop manufacturers’ support site (or Windows Update) to see if an updated driver for your model is available. ChiralMotion Technology [Synaptics via Gizmodo] More »
Organise
Google Image Search Adds Photo-Only Option
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Google Image Search now has an option, available in the “Advanced” options, to return only actual photos on a search, rather than illustrations and logos. A few tests show it isn’t perfect, but it does help winnow down results. The Google Operating System points out, however, that Microsoft’s own Live image search has a fuller set of search filters. [via] More »
Fix
3:27PM Angus Kidman | Twitter has recently added a Election 2008 topic bar covering key tweet topics around the forthcoming US presidential election to the top of the site. While you can minimise this by clicking on the X at the right, the setting isn’t permanent — so every time you change pages or click on Home to refresh, it returns. Fortunately, as the Get Satisfaction forum explains, Firefox users running the free AdBlock Plus extension can banish the bar permanently.
To install AdBlock Plus if you don’t have it, just search for it from the Add-ons option, found under the Tools menu. Once it’s installed, selected Tools, select Add-ons, select AdBlock Plus and click Options. Click on Add filter and paste in the following code snippet:
twitter.com#H1(class=elections-promotion)
OK your way out of there, and Twitter will have a clean appearance once again.
Get Satisfaction
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How To Kill The Twitter Election2008 Topic Bar
3:27PM Angus Kidman | Twitter has recently added a Election 2008 topic bar covering key tweet topics around the forthcoming US presidential election to the top of the site. While you can minimise this by clicking on the X at the right, the setting isn’t permanent — so every time you change pages or click on Home to refresh, it returns. Fortunately, as the Get Satisfaction forum explains, Firefox users running the free AdBlock Plus extension can banish the bar permanently.
To install AdBlock Plus if you don’t have it, just search for it from the Add-ons option, found under the Tools menu. Once it’s installed, selected Tools, select Add-ons, select AdBlock Plus and click Options. Click on Add filter and paste in the following code snippet:
twitter.com#H1(class=elections-promotion)
OK your way out of there, and Twitter will have a clean appearance once again.
Get Satisfaction
More »
Communicate
2:13PM Angus Kidman | YouTube videos tend to be brief (even with the newly-relaxed upload limit), but even so people often stop watching partway through if they get bored. Hot Spots, a new feature on YouTube, helps you identify when the audience is getting turned off by showing how likely people are to watch at any given time, based on viewing statistics from YouTube’s Insight tracking feature. To access the Hot Spots graph, select the Hot Spots tab from the Insights dashboard. (Like many Google features, it seems to be rolling out gradually; I couldn’t see it on my own YouTube account).
While any judgement on your work might need to be taken with a grain of salt if the video has only been viewed a handful of times, spotting a common exit point could suggest ways to re-edit your video for improved impact. If you want to share someone else’s YouTube video and cut out the dull bits, check out recently-mentioned Splicd.
YouTube [via Official Google Blog]
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YouTube Hot Spots Identifies The Popular And Dull Parts Of Your Videos
2:13PM Angus Kidman | YouTube videos tend to be brief (even with the newly-relaxed upload limit), but even so people often stop watching partway through if they get bored. Hot Spots, a new feature on YouTube, helps you identify when the audience is getting turned off by showing how likely people are to watch at any given time, based on viewing statistics from YouTube’s Insight tracking feature. To access the Hot Spots graph, select the Hot Spots tab from the Insights dashboard. (Like many Google features, it seems to be rolling out gradually; I couldn’t see it on my own YouTube account).
While any judgement on your work might need to be taken with a grain of salt if the video has only been viewed a handful of times, spotting a common exit point could suggest ways to re-edit your video for improved impact. If you want to share someone else’s YouTube video and cut out the dull bits, check out recently-mentioned Splicd.
YouTube [via Official Google Blog]
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Fix
11:55AM Angus Kidman | There’s been an ongoing price war amongst large retailers for the cheapest price to print photos, but this particular deal might take some beating. Online photo printing service Snapfish (an HP spin-off) is running a promotion offering up to 50 prints for 1 cent each by using the code NEWCENTAU at checkout. Even with $2.95 for standard postage, that equals an effective rate of about 7 cents a print. That might be hard to beat if you want some hard copies for the relatives, but get ordering quickly if you’re keen: the offer expires on October 7.
Snapfish [via OzBargain]
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Get Photo Prints For One Cent Each
11:55AM Angus Kidman | There’s been an ongoing price war amongst large retailers for the cheapest price to print photos, but this particular deal might take some beating. Online photo printing service Snapfish (an HP spin-off) is running a promotion offering up to 50 prints for 1 cent each by using the code NEWCENTAU at checkout. Even with $2.95 for standard postage, that equals an effective rate of about 7 cents a print. That might be hard to beat if you want some hard copies for the relatives, but get ordering quickly if you’re keen: the offer expires on October 7.
Snapfish [via OzBargain]
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Organise
10:20AM Angus Kidman | As part of its tenth birthday celebrations, Google has made its 2001 index (the oldest it could still easily retrieve) accessible. Typing in a few search terms is a reminder of how rapidly technology evolves. Lifehacker brings up absolutely nothing, the iPod is an “Image Proof of Deposit Document Processing System”, and Google hadn’t yet learnt that the best result for my name was my own web site. (Actually, there’s so few results for my name that I suspect the index is a tad emasculated; even back in 2001, there was a whole lot of me online.) If you spot any other interesting results, share them in the comments.
Google 2001 [via Google Operating System]
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Search The 2001 Version Of Google
10:20AM Angus Kidman | As part of its tenth birthday celebrations, Google has made its 2001 index (the oldest it could still easily retrieve) accessible. Typing in a few search terms is a reminder of how rapidly technology evolves. Lifehacker brings up absolutely nothing, the iPod is an “Image Proof of Deposit Document Processing System”, and Google hadn’t yet learnt that the best result for my name was my own web site. (Actually, there’s so few results for my name that I suspect the index is a tad emasculated; even back in 2001, there was a whole lot of me online.) If you spot any other interesting results, share them in the comments.
Google 2001 [via Google Operating System]
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Communicate
9:00AM Angus Kidman | Windows only (for now): When Skype rolled out its first beta 4.0 release back in June, its enhanced video chat and managed conversation features came at a cost: a screen-filling app which wasn’t necessarily helpful on ultra-portable devices and in which it was easy to lose notifications of chat messages. The newer beta, out this week, addresses those concerns by adding an optional ‘compact view’ that’s more akin to classic Skype, and incorporating pop-up notifications on the taskbar (which you can switch off, fortunately). Those changes aside, the 4.0 release is still a little buggy (my install required a reboot and didn’t accurately reflect available people to chat to). The current beta is still Windows only, but a Mac version is in the works.
Skype 4.0 Beta
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Second Skype 4.0 Beta Shrinks Screen, Adds Notifications
9:00AM Angus Kidman | Windows only (for now): When Skype rolled out its first beta 4.0 release back in June, its enhanced video chat and managed conversation features came at a cost: a screen-filling app which wasn’t necessarily helpful on ultra-portable devices and in which it was easy to lose notifications of chat messages. The newer beta, out this week, addresses those concerns by adding an optional ‘compact view’ that’s more akin to classic Skype, and incorporating pop-up notifications on the taskbar (which you can switch off, fortunately). Those changes aside, the 4.0 release is still a little buggy (my install required a reboot and didn’t accurately reflect available people to chat to). The current beta is still Windows only, but a Mac version is in the works.
Skype 4.0 Beta
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Fix
How To Customise Your iPod With iPodWizard
9:00AM Adam Pash | If you’re happy enough with the features your iPod offers out of the box that you don’t want to install a custom firmware like Rockbox, but you’d still like to add a little personal flair to Apple’s cookie-cutter look, you’re in luck. Freeware application iPodWizard customises the look and feel of your iPod’s interface while still using a customised version of your iPod’s default firmware on the device. That means you still get the same iPod software that you already know and love, but you can skin it to look however you want. Let’s take a closer look at how to customise your iPod with iPodWizard. More »
Fix
