Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Communicate
Stinto Generates Disposable Chat Rooms
11:30PM Lifehacker US Edition | Need to chat with a group of people all running different chat clients and you don’t have time to coordinate everyone switching to a multi-service chat client like Digsby? Stinto is a free web-based chat application, specializing in disposable chat rooms. There is no registration required, upon visiting the site you simply click “New Chat” to generate a random URL and set basic settings like the name of the chat room and how long it can remain empty before it auto-deletes. Email or instant message the URL of the chat room to your friends to get started. Moderate your chatroom with backslash-based commands, much like IRC, such as /ignore and /kick. From within the chat interface you can save a log of the conversation, spawn a new chat room, and lock the chat for privacy. For another disposable chat room option, check out ChatMaker. Stinto [via MakeUsOf] More »
Design
Forty Colourful Wallpapers
10:30PM Gina Trapani | Feeling the urge for a new wallpaper image? The Web Designer Depot site rounds up 40 wallpapers loaded with colour for your perusal and downloading. Nice selection here of super-colorful items. More »
Fix
Get Windows 7’s Best Features Right Now
9:00PM Gina Trapani | If you’re tired of hearing about Windows 7’s upcoming features while you sit and stare at your aging XP or Vista desktop, take solace in a few free apps and themes that can give you a taste right now. While it’s true that Windows 7 isn’t much different from Windows Vista (inside and out), a few neat features are worth trying out, and you can do it without installing the Windows 7 Preview. Here are a few free apps and alternatives that simulate Windows 7’s built-in features. More »
Organise
4:30PM Angus Kidman |
If you’ve been playing around with Microsoft’s Live Mesh syncing technology and tried it on your Windows Mobile device, then Flickr2Mesh, a simple application to download photos from your Flickr account onto your hard drive or mobile phone, might be of interest. As Aussie Live Mesh guru Angus Logan points out on his blog, the code could also be used as the basis for an application giving you access to your photos on multiple devices. If you want to mass-download Flickr shots but aren’t ready for Live Mesh yet, check out previously mentioned Flump.
Flickr2Mesh[via Angus Logan's Blog]
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Flickr2Mesh Downloads Flickr Shots Using Live Mesh
4:30PM Angus Kidman |
If you’ve been playing around with Microsoft’s Live Mesh syncing technology and tried it on your Windows Mobile device, then Flickr2Mesh, a simple application to download photos from your Flickr account onto your hard drive or mobile phone, might be of interest. As Aussie Live Mesh guru Angus Logan points out on his blog, the code could also be used as the basis for an application giving you access to your photos on multiple devices. If you want to mass-download Flickr shots but aren’t ready for Live Mesh yet, check out previously mentioned Flump.
Flickr2Mesh[via Angus Logan's Blog]
More »
Organise
3:00PM Angus Kidman | Looking for an ebook read but don’t fancy messing with the complicated authentication schemes that often get in the way? New site eBooks Just Published focuses on newly-published titles that don’t use any form of digital rights management (DRM), making it much easier to read them on a wide variety of devices. Perhaps surprisingly, there’s more fiction than non-fiction on offer. There’s also a useful subcategory of entirely free titles if you’re looking to save a few dollars.
eBooks Just Published
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eBooks Just Published Finds DRM-Free Reading Options
3:00PM Angus Kidman | Looking for an ebook read but don’t fancy messing with the complicated authentication schemes that often get in the way? New site eBooks Just Published focuses on newly-published titles that don’t use any form of digital rights management (DRM), making it much easier to read them on a wide variety of devices. Perhaps surprisingly, there’s more fiction than non-fiction on offer. There’s also a useful subcategory of entirely free titles if you’re looking to save a few dollars.
eBooks Just Published
More »
Work
1:30PM Angus Kidman | Ever wondered just what’s hiding in the various system directories that make up Windows, or why an operating system needs to take up quite so much room? A post at the Engineering Windows 7 blog reveals some of the secrets of Windows’ internal structure (including how some files get counted twice if you try and do a right-click directory size measurement). It also explains why deleting the apparently space-hogging WinSxS directory is a bad idea, which is a useful addition to our existing collection of Vista performance-tweaking myths.
Disk Space
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Why Does Windows Use So Much Disk Space?
1:30PM Angus Kidman | Ever wondered just what’s hiding in the various system directories that make up Windows, or why an operating system needs to take up quite so much room? A post at the Engineering Windows 7 blog reveals some of the secrets of Windows’ internal structure (including how some files get counted twice if you try and do a right-click directory size measurement). It also explains why deleting the apparently space-hogging WinSxS directory is a bad idea, which is a useful addition to our existing collection of Vista performance-tweaking myths.
Disk Space
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Organise
11:29AM Angus Kidman | Google’s Street View has been pretty successful since it rolled out in Australia in August, but now the Big G has decided it would work even better with an interface tweak, which includes the not entirely intuitive decision to replace the words ‘Street View’ with a draggable icon of a person (’Pegman’) on the Zoom control, thereby matching the Google Earth experience more closely. Check the video above for an overview.
[via Official Google Australia Blog]
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Google Maps Revises Street View Interface
11:29AM Angus Kidman | Google’s Street View has been pretty successful since it rolled out in Australia in August, but now the Big G has decided it would work even better with an interface tweak, which includes the not entirely intuitive decision to replace the words ‘Street View’ with a draggable icon of a person (’Pegman’) on the Zoom control, thereby matching the Google Earth experience more closely. Check the video above for an overview.
[via Official Google Australia Blog]
More »
Money
10:00AM Angus Kidman | The massive banking glitch which saw up to 200,000 Commonwealth Bank customers double-charged for withdrawals has apparently been resolved, with reports indicating that the problem was fixed overnight. The bank has promised to reverse any overdrawing fees resulting from the stuff-up. Obviously, if you’re a Commonwealth customer, it would make sense to double-check your online statements today and over the next few days to make sure the error really has been resolved and no errant fees have stayed on the books. More »
Commonwealth Bank Fixes Processing Glitch
10:00AM Angus Kidman | The massive banking glitch which saw up to 200,000 Commonwealth Bank customers double-charged for withdrawals has apparently been resolved, with reports indicating that the problem was fixed overnight. The bank has promised to reverse any overdrawing fees resulting from the stuff-up. Obviously, if you’re a Commonwealth customer, it would make sense to double-check your online statements today and over the next few days to make sure the error really has been resolved and no errant fees have stayed on the books. More »
Work
TextFlow Offers A New Take On Collaboration
9:00AM Adam Pash | Windows/Mac/Linux: TextFlow is an Adobe AIR-based word processor with a new and innovative take on document collaboration. Rather than offer real-time updates when multiple users are working on a document like Google Docs, Zoho Writer, or previously mentioned Gobby, TextFlow imports multiple Microsoft Word documents, analyses all of the differences, and provides robust tools for merging, accepting, or rejecting any of the changes therein by a master editor. Say, for example, you send a document to several co-workers. Even if you track the changes, you’d still need to manually merge all the suggestions and changes into one document once they got back to you. On the other hand, you could drag and drop all of the documents into TextFlow and let it analyse the differences, making it significantly easier to create a single document using the best changes available and without making mistakes. When you’re done, just export the final result back to a Microsoft Word doc. If you’re still not entirely convinced, check out TextFlow’s intro video for a better idea of how it works. TextFlow [via CNET] More »
Communicate
5:00AM Angus Kidman | Apparently not content merely with offering access to iTunes and the ABC’s iView without affecting your monthly download limit, ISP iiNet has also now added Xbox Live gaming content to the list of quota-free material. The announcement makes it pretty clear that it’s gaming-only for now, though Xbox options in Australia being more restricted than the US, this isn’t much of a problem. What we’d really like to see is other ISPs following iiNet’s lead: come on people, it’s supposed to be a competitive market! More »
iiNet Adds Xbox Gaming To Quota-Free List
5:00AM Angus Kidman | Apparently not content merely with offering access to iTunes and the ABC’s iView without affecting your monthly download limit, ISP iiNet has also now added Xbox Live gaming content to the list of quota-free material. The announcement makes it pretty clear that it’s gaming-only for now, though Xbox options in Australia being more restricted than the US, this isn’t much of a problem. What we’d really like to see is other ISPs following iiNet’s lead: come on people, it’s supposed to be a competitive market! More » 
