Thursday, November 13, 2008
Organise
Congregar Helps You Pick An Optimum Meeting Date
11:30PM Lifehacker US Edition | Congregar is a web-based event scheduler designed to help you choose the optimum meeting time for a group of people. The interface is simple, and the site requires no formal registration beyond assigning your email to the survey you create. Participants don’t have to provide an email address, merely their name as an identifier. Once you create an event, description, and a list of potential meeting times, you’re ready to distribute the provided link to the potential attendees. They can all vote yes or no on the dates you’ve suggested and append the dates with notes for you and other attendees to read, such as their reason for having to vote no on a certain day. The results for each suggested date are displayed beside that date as a status bar with the yes and no votes represented by green and red. For alternative ways of organising events check out: Doodle, recently updated to include Facebook integration, and FasterPlan which in addition to allowing date-based voting has a polling system so attendees can vote activities related to the event. If you like your web apps to do the work for you, check out Diarised which will email you the optimum meeting time once everyone has voted. Congregar [via MakeUseOf] More »
Work
WinAudit Creates Seriously Extensive System Profiles
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: Free system profiler WinAudit is similar in some ways to the previously mentioned System Information for Windows, being a no-install-needed executable and offering exhaustive amounts of data on your system. What differentiates it are the graphed views of statistics like drive usage and installed software types, its easier-to-grasp interface (in one reviewer’s opinion, anyways), and the fact that it doesn’t reveal browser passwords, system keys, or other data you wouldn’t want to accidentally sent to IT or a helpful friend. You choose the areas of your system you want profiled in the options, run the check, then print, save, or email the results. Helpful for anyone upgrading, troubleshooting, or even donating a PC, WinAudit is a free download for all Windows systems (seriously, back to even Windows 3.1). WinAudit [PXServer via The How-To Geek] More »
Work
Make Any Linux Directory Into An ISO File
10:45PM Kevin Purdy | Linux newbies might appreciate knowing that you need no software app to create burn-able CD images of a particular directory on your system. One terminal command–mkisofs -V LABEL -r DIRECTORY | gzip > cdrom.iso.gz—creates a compressed ISO for easy backup (replace the italicized sections with your CD label and directory, of course). [via Tips 4 Linux] More »
Work
Microsoft Office Web Apps Not Exclusive To IE
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | Microsoft has clarified that its upcoming Microsoft Office Web Applications—lightweight versions of Word, Excel, et. al. run from a browser—won’t require Internet Explorer or be otherwise locked to Windows systems, working in Firefox, Safari (Mac and iPhone), and on Linux. No final decision on whether the web-based apps will be free and ad-supported or fee-based. [via CNet] More »
Organise
Deadline Keeps Events And Reminders Simple
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Free appointment/event manager and reminder service Deadline aims to keep everything about managing an online calendar really simple, from its minimalist dark interface to its text-centric update interface. Deadline parses your text to figure out when things are due—like “Call Linda for brunch Sunday”—and offers reminders and subscriptions through email, RSS, and iCal feeds. You can also add update and get reminders through your Jabber/Gtalk IM client, and the email correspondence is minimal enough to work through a cell phone’s text messaging. The text parsing is still a little young, but Deadline delivers on what it promises for those looking for a scaled-down, agile reminder service. Deadline is free, requires a sign-up to use. Deadline [via WebWorkerDaily] More »
Work
Google Chrome Gets Bookmark Manager, Better Pop-Up Blocker
9:00PM Kevin Purdy | Google’s Chrome browser released an update to those signed up for “developer” updates that adds a few nifty features, though most of them are already standard in other browsers. First, and most anticipated, is a stand-alone bookmark manager, which offers simple tree-nesting views of your bookmarks, and lets you edit and rename your bookmarks. The “privacy” options have been updated as well, to give users more control over what gets suggested and saved by Chrome, and blocked pop-ups now nest in the lower-right corner, with a number to indicate multiple windows. Windows users using a standard beta installation of Chrome won’t see the update, but you can subscribe to the Dev channel in Chrome to get the 0.4 update. Google Chrome: Dev Release: 0.4.154.18 [via WebWare] More »
Communicate
4:19PM Angus Kidman | In the age of Gmail, Microsoft’s Hotmail service has a distinct last-century vibe about it, but Microsoft is still trying to maintain its relevance. A promised list of upgrades announced today in a press release include integration with feed from other social networking, sharing and blogging sites (including Flickr, Twitter and Wordpress), and access to Gmail and other external accounts via Hotmail. The social networking options are also being added to Live Messenger, though it should be noted that the big three — Facebook, MySpace and Bebo — aren’t part of the deal. (A bunch of other Live features were also mentioned in the announcement, but most of these are already available as separate downloads.)
The new features are scheduled to be rolled out to Australian users between now and February 2009; they haven’t shown up in my Hotmail account as yet, and frankly I’m reluctant to reinstall Live Messenger while I’m on the road because of the hideous effect it has on system start-up times. But if you’ve seen the new-look Hotmail, tell us how it rolls in the comments. More »
Hotmail Plans Everything-But-Kitchen-Sink Upgrade For Aussie Users
4:19PM Angus Kidman | In the age of Gmail, Microsoft’s Hotmail service has a distinct last-century vibe about it, but Microsoft is still trying to maintain its relevance. A promised list of upgrades announced today in a press release include integration with feed from other social networking, sharing and blogging sites (including Flickr, Twitter and Wordpress), and access to Gmail and other external accounts via Hotmail. The social networking options are also being added to Live Messenger, though it should be noted that the big three — Facebook, MySpace and Bebo — aren’t part of the deal. (A bunch of other Live features were also mentioned in the announcement, but most of these are already available as separate downloads.)
The new features are scheduled to be rolled out to Australian users between now and February 2009; they haven’t shown up in my Hotmail account as yet, and frankly I’m reluctant to reinstall Live Messenger while I’m on the road because of the hideous effect it has on system start-up times. But if you’ve seen the new-look Hotmail, tell us how it rolls in the comments. More »
Communicate
3:00PM Angus Kidman | Want to see what’s being said about a particular topic on Twitter? Monitter lets you track up to three keywords simultaneously, offering continuously updated feeds of posts on Twitter that mention those topics. The simultaneous scrolling of multiple posts makes this more effective than the better-known (and now Twitter-owned) Summize, but be warned: this tool can be a serious drain on your productivity if you latch onto an interesting/distracting subject.
Monitter [via TwiTip]
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Monitter Tracks Tweets In Real Time
3:00PM Angus Kidman | Want to see what’s being said about a particular topic on Twitter? Monitter lets you track up to three keywords simultaneously, offering continuously updated feeds of posts on Twitter that mention those topics. The simultaneous scrolling of multiple posts makes this more effective than the better-known (and now Twitter-owned) Summize, but be warned: this tool can be a serious drain on your productivity if you latch onto an interesting/distracting subject.
Monitter [via TwiTip]
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Organise
1:33PM Angus Kidman | The blog at previously mentioned house pricing social network Home Price History offers up a trick for finding prices for houses that are listed online without a dollar figure (a pretty common scenario with auctions). Turns out that both realestateview.com.au and realestate.com.au store background information using Google Base, and if you go hunting through the real estate category on Base, you can often find the asking price in the listing for a particular property. As the blog points out, that situation may not last long, and our quick tests suggest it didn’t always produce the goods, but it’s potentially useful information if you’re trying to research a specific property.
Home Price History
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Find Hidden House Prices On Real Estate Sites
1:33PM Angus Kidman | The blog at previously mentioned house pricing social network Home Price History offers up a trick for finding prices for houses that are listed online without a dollar figure (a pretty common scenario with auctions). Turns out that both realestateview.com.au and realestate.com.au store background information using Google Base, and if you go hunting through the real estate category on Base, you can often find the asking price in the listing for a particular property. As the blog points out, that situation may not last long, and our quick tests suggest it didn’t always produce the goods, but it’s potentially useful information if you’re trying to research a specific property.
Home Price History
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Communicate
12:00PM Angus Kidman | ABC Classic FM’s classic/amp site gathers together rare classical recordings of Australian works from the station’s archives, offers background on their composition and recording, and lets you listen to the recordings themselves on-demand. There are currently around 40 works on offer, but regular updates are promised. For an example of how modern classical music can sound, check out Colin Bright’s The Wild Boys. My only gripe? Listening to the music requires either RealPlayer or Windows Media — a Flash-based player would be nice (and more cross-platform).
ABC classic/amp
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ABC classic/amp Streams Rare Classical Recordings
12:00PM Angus Kidman | ABC Classic FM’s classic/amp site gathers together rare classical recordings of Australian works from the station’s archives, offers background on their composition and recording, and lets you listen to the recordings themselves on-demand. There are currently around 40 works on offer, but regular updates are promised. For an example of how modern classical music can sound, check out Colin Bright’s The Wild Boys. My only gripe? Listening to the music requires either RealPlayer or Windows Media — a Flash-based player would be nice (and more cross-platform).
ABC classic/amp
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