Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Work
Jarte Is A Portable Wordpad Based Powerhouse
11:30PM Lifehacker US Edition | Windows only: Jarte is a free portable word processing application built on the framework of Microsoft Wordpad. Don’t be deceived by its spartan lineage though; Wordpad serves only as the undercarriage of Jarte’s feature set. Jarte is designed around the most frequent needs of the average user. By putting commonly used tools and features in the menus immediately accessibly by the toolbar buttons, users aren’t left digging through menus when they’d rather be writing. Jarte supports tabbed based word processing, dictionary files, spell check, and a favourites system for bookmarking favourite folders, files, and fonts. Jarte is freeware, Windows only. Thanks cohomology! Jarte More »
Communicate
Google Profiles Adds No-Email Contact
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Want to let people find and contact with you without having to offer up your actual email address? Your Google Profile, which already exists if you share Google Reader items or edit Knols or Maps, can make it so. Hitting this link should allow you to enable the checkbox and get profile messages in your primary email. [via CNet More »
Work
Some PDF Image Extract Pulls Pictures Out Of PDFs
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: Some PDF Image Extract isn’t blessed with a grammatically sound name, but it does help you remember its sole purpose—pulling image files from PDF documents, in whatever number, quality, and format you want. Feed the app a file or directory of PDFs, set the easy-to-grasp image options (output directory, file mode, quality, and an option for black and white), and hit “Start converting” to get your files. I ended up getting a number of “.ppm,” or portable pixelmap, files out of my PDF that I didn’t ask for, but the JPEGs were also all there, knocked down to the file size I’d hoped for. Some PDF Image Extract is a free download for Windows systems only; Adobe or any other PDF reader isn’t required to use. Some PDF Image Extract [via Online Tech Tips] More »
Work
Roll Your Own Online Office With OpenGoo
9:00PM Kevin Purdy | Maybe you like the convenience and portability of Google Docs, Zoho, or any of the myriad other online office suites and scheduling applications out there, but you’re not crazy about posting your documents and organizational data to Google or anyone who can guess your password. OpenGoo, a free office package that’s easy to install on nearly any modern web space, gives you go-anywhere access to your own documents, calendar, contacts, tasks, and even email. We took OpenGoo through a test installation and grabbed a few screens to show off the suite’s slick interface and features, so read on to see how you can test out your own web-as-desktop experience without pledging allegiance to any one web firm. More »
Fix
5:47PM Angus Kidman | If you want to get a sneak peek at some of the interface tweaks Microsoft has planned for Windows 7 but doesn’t think is quite ready for public consumption, check out the Blue Badge hacking tool one enterprising coder cooked up to work around Microsoft’s restrictions. Caution: it’s unsupported and not necessarily representative of the final release, but it does offer up some options (like the enhanced task bar) that aren’t accessible through the current release.
Within Windows [via APC]
More »
Hack Windows 7 For Extra Features
5:47PM Angus Kidman | If you want to get a sneak peek at some of the interface tweaks Microsoft has planned for Windows 7 but doesn’t think is quite ready for public consumption, check out the Blue Badge hacking tool one enterprising coder cooked up to work around Microsoft’s restrictions. Caution: it’s unsupported and not necessarily representative of the final release, but it does offer up some options (like the enhanced task bar) that aren’t accessible through the current release.
Within Windows [via APC]
More »
Communicate
3:30PM Angus Kidman | One of the earliest examples of the novel in English was written entirely as letters from the protagonist, and most new communications mediums eventually end up being used as a structure for fiction (Lucy Kellaway’s Who Moved My Blackberry? is a great example of the email novel genre). Guest blogger Brandon J. Mendelson at TwiTip offers some thoughts on his experience trying to write a “Twitter novel”, The Falcon Can Hear The Falconer, posted one sentence at a time via a dedicated Twitter account. If you’ve always contemplated writing a novel but find the prospect of chapter-by-chapter writing and plotting scary, Twitter’s inherent brevity and built-in audience commentary might be just the tonic. And if you’ve started a volume of social network fiction, share a link in the comments.
How to Start a Twitter Novel
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Tips For Writing A Twitter Novel
3:30PM Angus Kidman | One of the earliest examples of the novel in English was written entirely as letters from the protagonist, and most new communications mediums eventually end up being used as a structure for fiction (Lucy Kellaway’s Who Moved My Blackberry? is a great example of the email novel genre). Guest blogger Brandon J. Mendelson at TwiTip offers some thoughts on his experience trying to write a “Twitter novel”, The Falcon Can Hear The Falconer, posted one sentence at a time via a dedicated Twitter account. If you’ve always contemplated writing a novel but find the prospect of chapter-by-chapter writing and plotting scary, Twitter’s inherent brevity and built-in audience commentary might be just the tonic. And if you’ve started a volume of social network fiction, share a link in the comments.
How to Start a Twitter Novel
More »
Work
1:30PM Angus Kidman | Over at APC, I’ve looked at some of the techniques which Microsoft is using to punch up performance in Windows 7. Many of these are familiar as means of improving the responsiveness in Vista and earlier Windows versions, such as minimising the number of services loaded at start-up and not running unneeded software. However, some changes — like loading device drivers in parallel and letting graphics processors take on a prominent role — can’t be readily replicated on older systems. Doubtless Windows 7 will eventually develop its own mythology about performance tweaking (any user tweaks on the current M3 release can’t be taken too seriously since so much of the user interface is still to be implemented).
How does Windows 7 improve performance? [APC]
More »
Windows 7 Performance Secrets
1:30PM Angus Kidman | Over at APC, I’ve looked at some of the techniques which Microsoft is using to punch up performance in Windows 7. Many of these are familiar as means of improving the responsiveness in Vista and earlier Windows versions, such as minimising the number of services loaded at start-up and not running unneeded software. However, some changes — like loading device drivers in parallel and letting graphics processors take on a prominent role — can’t be readily replicated on older systems. Doubtless Windows 7 will eventually develop its own mythology about performance tweaking (any user tweaks on the current M3 release can’t be taken too seriously since so much of the user interface is still to be implemented).
How does Windows 7 improve performance? [APC]
More »
Work
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Trying to find casual work to fit in around your study schedule, or to overlap with another part-time job? Web job matching service PloyMe.com.au lets you list your available hours, so employers in your area can contact you by SMS or email. You can specify your areas of expertise (pizza & food processing, anyone?), and the distance you’re willing to travel. PloyMe.com.au is free for job seekers; employers pay for the ability to advertise shifts or contact employees. If you’ve used the site to find a job (or an employee), tell us how it went in the comments.
PloyMe.com.au
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PloyMe.com.au Fills Casual Work Shifts By SMS
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Trying to find casual work to fit in around your study schedule, or to overlap with another part-time job? Web job matching service PloyMe.com.au lets you list your available hours, so employers in your area can contact you by SMS or email. You can specify your areas of expertise (pizza & food processing, anyone?), and the distance you’re willing to travel. PloyMe.com.au is free for job seekers; employers pay for the ability to advertise shifts or contact employees. If you’ve used the site to find a job (or an employee), tell us how it went in the comments.
PloyMe.com.au
More »
Fix
10:30AM Angus Kidman | Before its acquisition by Microsoft back in 2004, Lookout was a well-regarded Outlook add-on that made it possible to search through your email inbox effectively (Outlook’s own search being singularly useless at the time). Microsoft clearly learnt something from the acquisition, since search in Outlook 2007 is much better, if still not Google-like in its efficiency and speed. If, however, you’re still hankering for the Lookout experience, it is possible to get Lookout installed on Outlook 2007, as blogger Mike Belshe (a former Lookout employee) explains in a detailed post. The process sounds a tad fiddly, but it’s a useful option if you don’t want to just stick with the default Windows search option for Outlook.
How to Install Lookout on Outlook 2007
More »
Install Lookout On Outlook 2007
10:30AM Angus Kidman | Before its acquisition by Microsoft back in 2004, Lookout was a well-regarded Outlook add-on that made it possible to search through your email inbox effectively (Outlook’s own search being singularly useless at the time). Microsoft clearly learnt something from the acquisition, since search in Outlook 2007 is much better, if still not Google-like in its efficiency and speed. If, however, you’re still hankering for the Lookout experience, it is possible to get Lookout installed on Outlook 2007, as blogger Mike Belshe (a former Lookout employee) explains in a detailed post. The process sounds a tad fiddly, but it’s a useful option if you don’t want to just stick with the default Windows search option for Outlook.
How to Install Lookout on Outlook 2007
More »
Work
