Windows only: NexusFile is a feature-rich portable Windows Explorer alternative. Weighing in at just under 3MB, NexusFile easily replaces a host of other applications. There is a basic file renamer, an ftp client, and a file splitter/joiner. You can export saved file lists in a variety of formats, assign favourite folders, browser folders in tabs and in a dual pane view, and compare folders. NexusFile has keyboard shortcuts for every imaginable need from jumping to the root folder to executing command line instructions and everything in between. If you have a disdain for your mouse, you won’t be reminded of it while working in NexusFile. If you’re on friendly terms with your mouse you aren’t forgotten, the GUI of NexusFile is very well laid out. Have a set of working folders your access frequently? Assign them while you work to the vertical bar of numbers in between the dual panes. They’ll be right at your fingertips from then on. The rest of the interface follows with a similar degree of thoughtfulness. If you need Unicode support for your daily file management, you’re covered with NexusFile. If the extremely high contrast colour scheme is too much for you, there is a detailed colour scheme designer under Tools -> Options -> Color. For another feature rich and portable explorer alternative, check out Cubic Explorer. For more alterantives make sure to look over the Five Best Alternative File Managers. NexusFile is freeware, Windows only. Thanks g915!
NexusFileThe New York Times reports that in a study of 61 people, those who took a 2-hour afternoon nap did “significantly” better at repeating verbal, perception, and motor-skill tests from that morning than those given caffeine or a placebo. What’s more, the caffeine takers didn’t do do much better in verbal tasks than the placebos, but claimed to be the most awake. Not brand-new news to long-time Lifehacker readers, perhaps, but a nice reminder that coffee does not always equal productive power. (Here’s the full study paper).
Microsoft’s Live image search tool added a new button underneath every image result you mouse over: “Show similar images.” Close to the functionality of previously mentioned engine TinEye, but with a much wider scope and reach. The complexity of the image, and cleverness of its knock-offs, will of course vary from search to search, but if you’re looking for a higher-res or non-marked-up copy of a certain graphic, Live seems pretty spot-on. Got your own dupe-finding tool for web images? Tell us about it in the comments. Using images to find other images [Live Search blog via Google Operating System]
Just-released webapp Freckle isn’t, as it proclaims, a whole-cloth re-thinking of time tracking, billing, and client management, but it is refreshingly light, agile, and easy to get into. Like Remember the Milk and other text-aware apps, it doesn’t require learning an entirely new input system, but knows that “1h35m” and “1:35″ mean the same thing. The AJAX-saturated interface requires very few refreshes, and the smart tagging system works well for those who tend to “organise” on the fly. The fleshed-out version of Freckle isn’t free, but they do offer 30-day trials on any account type, along with a very limited free account. Walk through screenshots and analysis of using Freckle for organizing billable hours and client work below.
The Microsoft Outlook Team Blog offers up a useful summary of how you can use Outlook’s rules and colour categorisations to automatically keep track of multiple work projects in your inbox. I’m personally a big fan of using colours on my calendar, because that’s where I like to track upcoming tasks, but the same principle holds, and my initial cynicism about taking this approach gave way when I realised how much easier this made it to identify different kinds of events.
Living in Outlook: Automatically Categorize With Rules [Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog]Organising a Christmas party that’s big enough to need formal tickets and don’t want to just throw the whole thing on Facebook? Sticky Tickets lets you set up an event (complete with its own page), issue and distribute tickets for anything from business breakfasts to kids parties. There’s a booking fee charged for any paid events, but if you’re just looking to control the guest list and not charging any fees, the whole thing is free to use. Sticky Tickets
A couple of items in a list of Top 10 telecoms industry trends published this week by consultant Telsyte struck me as interesting:
Year of mobile content” fuelled by next-generation smartphones, dropping mobile data charges and user preference to go “off deck” Birth of an advertising-subsidised mobile market, powered by location-based technology
It would certainly be nice to see more reasonable prices for mobile data, and there have been a couple of useful indicators in that direction. The just-about-to-appear BlackBerry Storm has an almost-all-you-can-eat data plan, and while the iPhone doesn’t have (to my mind) great data deals, it’s certainly played a key role in getting people using more mobile data. Getting good mobile sites will require some sort of advertising model, but I’m not so sure that’ll happen in a hurry — if only because Australia’s population makes it harder to justify that kind of advertising investment than in the US, where a handful of cities can provide all the revenue you need. In any event, we’ll need the cheaper rates first. More »
The deadline for sending seamail packages overseas (and saving a fortune in the process) has well and truly passed, but if you do have Christmas parcels you want to get to family and friends in other countries, it’s time to brave the queues at the local Post Office and get the job done. If you’re not sure of the delivery times for everyone on your mailing list, there’s a handy country by country guide on the Australia Post site. If you’ve already missed the cut-off date, resolve to do better next year and head online to order a few gift vouchers. More »
Windows only (running Google Desktop): If you want access to your Gmail on your desktop (literally) without running a full-blown email client, now you can download the Gmail Google Desktop gadget. You’ll need the free Google Desktop software installed first, and then you can dock your Gmail gadget to the desktop to read, search, send, and star messages. The Gmail gadget offers the same keyboard shortcuts that web-based Gmail offers, too. You can even open multiple instances of the gadget and log each into a different Gmail account. The only complaint about the gadget? It doesn’t play a sound when new mail arrives. (Though you may thank Google for that one.) The Gmail gadget is a free download and works in conjunction with Google Desktop 5 for Windows only. Gmail Google Gadget [via Official Gmail Blog]
Internode has been selling Chumby, its hard-to-describe programmable Internet gadget/toy/tech fetishist’s dream, for a few weeks now, and the ISP is keen to encourage the development of more Chumby widgets that supply Australian content. If you’ve got some basic programming chops and fancy winning a Chumby, there’s a competition running offering up Chumby prizes for the best efforts. If you want a basic course in building Chumby widgets (not too hard if you can handle basic Flash and RSS), check out this overview on the Chumby wiki.
Chumby Competition
