The Digital Inspiration blog points outs the nifty webapp Tumblelog Backup Tool, which can export all the posts, photos, and anything else from your Tumblr blog—or any other Tumblelog, actually.
iPhone/iPod touch only: TouchType, an iPhone utility that costs 99 cents, allows for landscape mode typing when composing or replying to email. It’s definitely a function Apple should have included in the firmware, but, for whatever reason, email remains a portrait-only affair. You can start an email in TouchType and send it to email for addressing, or start a reply, hit the home button, open TouchType and finish the reply there. Whether you feel you should pay for a software fault, TouchType does make it easier to type with your thumbs, and to generally peck through longer messages. TouchType costs 99 cents, and is available for iPhones and iPod touch models running at least the 2.0 firmware.
TouchType [iTunes App Store via TechCrunch]It’s nothing that Firefox 3 can’t do by itself, but free webapp SiteReloader makes monitoring multiple pages for new content—like, say, during a certain nation’s presidential debates—easy on any browser. Type or paste in the address, choose a refresh rate, and SiteReloader opens your site in a new window, piping refresh requests out to it every so often. The app is free to use, but signing in lets you save a list of sites and refresh times. For now, it’s a good bookmark for Internet Explorer 7, Google Chrome, and other browsers without an auto-refresh tool.
SiteReloader [via MakeUseOf.com]If you fancy watching the Australian cricket tour of India over the next month, going mobile might be your best bet. Telstra will be streaming live coverage of the tour, which begins on October 9, via its Next G network. Of course, that amount of streaming media doesn’t come cheap — it’s $3.95 for a day pack or $9.95 for a monthly. If you’re interested (and already have a Next G phone), the latter is obviously a better deal. BigPond Sport
Windows only: Instant Eyedropper is a simple system tray tool that can identify the colour of any pixel on screen — a useful trick if you’re designing a web site or performing other graphics-related tasks. Just drag the tray icon to the part of the screen whose colour you want to copy, and release. Instant Eyedropper copies the colour code for that pixel onto your clipboard (you can choose from a range of formats), ready for use in your HTML editor or graphics program. This is a simple one-task tool, but if you’re trying to experiment with different colour schemes it could save you a lot of hassle. Instant Eyedropper is a free download for Windows users. Thanks Chris A! Instant Eyedropper
Our recent discussion of mobile banking sites for the iPhone highlighted the fact that many people can’t access their banking applications on their mobile device, whatever flavour. However, the situation may be set to improve. A recent survey by Sybase 365 suggests that a third of global banks already offer some mobile banking features, and a similar number expect to do so over the next year. That’s partly driven by consumer demand: almost a quarter of customers surveyed said they would switch banks to get access to a mobile net banking service. Are you able to access your bank on your mobile phone, and is that a useful feature? Share your thoughts in the comments. More »
If you only use Excel to occasionally tote up the family budget, you probably don’t appreciate how slowly it can run when dealing with massively large spreadsheets. The official Excel Blog looks at a common scenario — making a series of calculations on a very large number of rows — and examines which kind of macro will produce the quickest results. Turns out the obvious approach (moving through the data using an offset) is a lot less efficient than writing some slightly smarter code. Hit the post for the full details. Excel Blog
Vodafone has dropped the price of its entry-level mobile broadband plan, cutting its 1G a month offering from $34.95 to $24.95. (It advertises the service as $19.95 a month, but you have to pay $5 a month for the USB stick modem.) The plan still requires a 24-month contract, so it’s not ideal for super-ideal users, but it doesn’t have the trick conditions of most prepaid mobile broadband plans. Vodafone
Canon today released its half-yearly Canon Digital Lifestyle Index, which suggests that Australians spent $2.4 billion on technology in the first half of this year. A ton of that was on big-screen TVs (hello Beijing!), but there’s also some areas where we’re spending less:
The latest CDLI also reveals categories in decline, including DVD players with their already high household penetration rate, and single-function inkjet printers in the face of high multi-function device growth.
Given that even the cheapie printer that came with my last notebook included a scanner, it seems to me that single-function inkjet printers have reached the end of their working life. Admittedly, there’s still single-function photo printers, but at the prices charged to get photos printed professionally, they don’t make much economic sense. Do you still find a non-multi-function inkjet useful? Share your thoughts in the comments. If you want to get more out of your printer, check out our top 10 printable paper productivity tools. More »
Windows/Mac/Linux: Free application RTM Notifier periodically checks in with popular to-do list web site Remember the Milk and displays notifications for time-sensitive tasks. The goal of the application is two-fold: On one level, it’s just a notification tool, displaying pop-up alerts for due tasks. Beyond that, it’s a desktop entry point for your RTM tasks. Both features could be improved upon (especially since RTM has an open API), but if you manage all your to-dos with RTM, it might be worth checking out. RTM Notifier is a free download, requires Adobe AIR. RTM Notifier [via RefreshingApps]
