Monday, October 20, 2008
Work
Google Docs’ Features Explained
11:35PM Kevin Purdy | Whether you’re a Google Docs user or you’re a little unsure about what the online suite can really do, Digital Inspiration’s 15-point guide, “How to Do Stuff with Google Docs,” explains how to convert, import, sync, translate, and tweak your documents in myriad ways. Makes for a good link-mail if you’re trying to get friends on the cloud-based bandwagon. More »
Fix
Windows xKill Closes Crashing Programs With One Click
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: Closing applications that have become unresponsive usually involves opening the Task Manager and hoping you “End Process” before it ends your desktop. Windows xKill, a free stand-alone utility, aims to give you more firepower in shooting down buggy apps. Once it’s running, you hit Control-Alt-Backspace to activate the skull-and-bones cursor, and simply click on the flailing app’s window to kill it, similar to the Linux xkill command. Windows xKill does add an annoyingly blinking icon to your system tray, but you can set your system tray to always hide it if you’d like. Windows xKill is a free download for Windows systems only. Windows xKill [deviantART via Daily Gyan] More »
Organise
Use The New iGoogle As A Universal Scratch Pad
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | Not everybody’s a fan of the just-changed full-screen, canvas view iGoogle start page Web PR consultant Steve Rubel notes, however, that canvas view does improve a few things, including the usefulness of Google Notbeook. By keeping the Notebook widget full-sized, you can quickly start a note and tag it, send it over to Google Docs or Gmail, and quickly get to Google Reader or your email if you need to reference it. In other words, it’s a universal capture tool you can keep in a tab. Rubel offers two other canvas-view conveniences—let’s hear about your own full-screen findings in the comments. Three Ways to Rock the New iGoogle [Micro Persuasion] More »
Fix
BFilter Blocks Web Ads From Any Browser
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows/Mac/Linux: BFilter, a free local-based browser proxy, blocks banner, JavaScript, Flash, and many other types of advertisements from displaying on web pages. BFilter installs itself on your system and has you set up your browser to run through it as a proxy, quickly killing ads as they stream to your system. Unlike many other ad-block tools, BFilter relies on analysing and filtering web code, rather than a blacklist or whitelist—although you can edit the filter to ad individual sites or servers to be blocked. Setting up BFilter was a five-minute affair, even on a browser (Google Chrome) that lacked specific installation instructions, and BFilter worked as promised—although it did block Digg badges for some reason, so a little tweaking is likely necessary. BFilter is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. BFilter Web Proxy [Sourceforge] More »
Organise
Bloglines Not Updating Feeds
4:30PM Gina Trapani | TechCrunch reports that web-based feedreader Bloglines has stopped pulling in updates for “thousands of blogs” with no word from its parent company, Ask.com, about what’s going on. We made the switch from Bloglines to Google Reader two years ago. How about you? More »
Work
4:00PM Angus Kidman | Using styles is the best way to apply consistent formatting in any kind of word processing document, but with so many different ways of achieving format effects in Word, it can be hard to tell which approach to take, or what takes precedence when there are multiple document styles and individual formatting tweaks in use. The official Word blog has a useful rundown of how Word applies the various formatting options — very handy if you can’t work out just why a particularly tricky document isn’t doing quite what you want.
Behind The Curtain: Styles’ Order Of Operations [Microsoft Office Word Team's Blog]
More »
How Does Word Apply Styles And Formatting?
4:00PM Angus Kidman | Using styles is the best way to apply consistent formatting in any kind of word processing document, but with so many different ways of achieving format effects in Word, it can be hard to tell which approach to take, or what takes precedence when there are multiple document styles and individual formatting tweaks in use. The official Word blog has a useful rundown of how Word applies the various formatting options — very handy if you can’t work out just why a particularly tricky document isn’t doing quite what you want.
Behind The Curtain: Styles’ Order Of Operations [Microsoft Office Word Team's Blog]
More »
Communicate
2:30PM Angus Kidman | Back in July, we told you about Wi-Fi network Tomizone’s offer of free Wi-Fi access for iPhones. That deal was originally only scheduled to run for three months, but Tomizone has now extended it until the end of December. The deal has a 500MB limit, but it’s a useful option if you’re an iPhone owner looking to save on download charges. If you’ve previously registered for the offer, you can now top up with an additional 500MB for use through to the end of the year. If you’ve tested out the Tomizone network on your iPhone, share your experiences in the comments. More »
Tomizone Extends Free iPhone Wi-Fi Deal
2:30PM Angus Kidman | Back in July, we told you about Wi-Fi network Tomizone’s offer of free Wi-Fi access for iPhones. That deal was originally only scheduled to run for three months, but Tomizone has now extended it until the end of December. The deal has a 500MB limit, but it’s a useful option if you’re an iPhone owner looking to save on download charges. If you’ve previously registered for the offer, you can now top up with an additional 500MB for use through to the end of the year. If you’ve tested out the Tomizone network on your iPhone, share your experiences in the comments. More »
Organise
1:00PM Angus Kidman | OK, it’s a given that you’ll need your notebook, PC, phone, associated chargers and the minimum of clothes and toiletries you can get away with. But years of travel have taught me that there are some just-as-essential items that don’t show up on many packing lists for business trips, whether it’s a quick Sydney-to-Melbourne jaunt or something more substantial. Here’s five gadgets and tools I don’t want to travel without.
More »
Five Extra Things You Must Pack For A Business Trip
1:00PM Angus Kidman | OK, it’s a given that you’ll need your notebook, PC, phone, associated chargers and the minimum of clothes and toiletries you can get away with. But years of travel have taught me that there are some just-as-essential items that don’t show up on many packing lists for business trips, whether it’s a quick Sydney-to-Melbourne jaunt or something more substantial. Here’s five gadgets and tools I don’t want to travel without.
More »
Fix
11:28AM Angus Kidman | Earlier this month, we explained how to get rid of Twitter’s US Election 2008 bar. Twitter made some interim tweaks to the bar, but has now recoded it so that once minimised, it stays minimised — a useful result if you’re looking to save screen real estate and don’t want to mess with AdBlocker. If you do want to kill it altogether, reader Mike Campbell points out that you need to change the original AdBlocker code to read as follows:
twitter.com#div(class=elections-promotion) More »
Twitter Fixes US Election Bar Glitch
11:28AM Angus Kidman | Earlier this month, we explained how to get rid of Twitter’s US Election 2008 bar. Twitter made some interim tweaks to the bar, but has now recoded it so that once minimised, it stays minimised — a useful result if you’re looking to save screen real estate and don’t want to mess with AdBlocker. If you do want to kill it altogether, reader Mike Campbell points out that you need to change the original AdBlocker code to read as follows:
twitter.com#div(class=elections-promotion) More » Advertisement
