Friday, December 12, 2008

Ecofont Saves Your Ink

11:30PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Ecofont is the brainchild of Colin Willems, a font with tiny circles placed within the characters to reduce the total ink/toner laid upon the paper. Much like you can purchase pocket knives with skeletonized handles to reduce weight, Ecofont reduces the volume of printing supplies consumed. How much of a letter can be removed while maintaining readability? After extensive testing with all kinds of shapes, the best results were achieved using small circles. After lots of late hours (and coffee) this resulted in a font that uses up to 20% less ink. While not intended to replace all fonts, for throw away printing that compromises the bulk of what most users print it’s an ideal solution. Legible driving instructions for instance, with less waste. Ecofont [via QuickOnlineTips] More »

Create Paper Cases For Photo CDs From Picasa Albums

11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Paper Case, the previously mentioned bookmarklet that creates fold-able, track-listed cases for CDs and DVDs, can now create stylish contact-sheet-style cases for photo CDs from Picasa Web Albums. Check out a full-size example below. [via Cnet] More »

Skype 4 Beta 3 Adds Outlook Support, Bandwidth Manager

10:30PM Kevin Purdy | Skype has released a third beta of Skype 4 for Windows, which keeps the focus on large-screen video chat and adds a few new (and returning) tools. Namely, support for Outlook contact importing, abuse reporting, and a “bandwidth manager” that aims to improve call quality are present in the Windows-only beta. The missing button to report call quality to Skype also makes a comeback. [via Download Squad] More »

SUMO Paint Puts Photoshop-Style Editing In Your Browser

10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Free, high-end image editor SUMO Paint is a fairly impressive clone of Photoshop’s major features inside a browser window, for those who want more precision and tools than offered in most free Flash-based image editors. Similar in style to previously mentioned Aviary Phoenix, but without the 50-use limit, SUMO Paint is up-front about its similarities to a certain Adobe-made editor, giving you a floating toolbox, side-stacked palette and colour bars, and menus with familiar options. If you’re without your favourite desktop editor and in need of photo-tweaking power, SUMO can load images from uploads, URLs, and do its own in-browser copy and paste. SUMO Paint is free to use, no sign-up required. Thanks SwetaButterfly! SUMO Paint More »

SnapAsk Delivers Wikipedia Articles, Other Data By Email

9:00PM Kevin Purdy | Need to do some quick research or settle a beer-fuelled dispute, but lack a decent web connection? Email or test SnapAsk.com and get the relevant Wikipedia article sent to your phone or email.SnapAsk.com can respond with many other information services when you email or text ask@snapask.com, including weather conditions (albeit not in Celsius), word defintions (including UrbanDictionary.com results), and much more. But its replies with the full text of Wikipedia articles, and a subject-defining snippet up top, makes it truly useful for last-minute look-ups and, say, your never-ending arguments about which David Bowie was released before the other. SnapAsk.com is a free service, and may throw a text ad or two in its responses. SnapAsk [via Digital Inspiration] More »

Five Things To Do This Weekend

4:30PM Angus Kidman | Get in the swim of things by catching up with these key productivity tips from the last week: Try and win a bunch of stuff from Lifehacker by taking part in our reader survey (there’s a Sony Bravia TV and shopping vouchers up for grabs) and our Mozo competition (with $500 for your credit card bill on offer) Turn your caps lock key into a mute button Use your Christmas shopping online discount codes wisely Go nuts watching programs on ABC iView (assuming your ISP has joined the growing list which don’t include its content in your caps) Upgrade your copy of Google Chrome and see if you can spot the difference between the beta and non-beta releases More »

Precision Is The Secret To Better Cocktails

3:00PM Angus Kidman | If you’ve been serving cocktails at your Christmas parties recently, you might be wondering why they seem to lack the sparkle of the high-priced ones you can get in fancy establishments. I attended a cocktail-making class at the Zeta Bar in Sydney’s Hilton yesterday (along with some other IT writers, and courtesy of the nice guys at Blue Coat Systems), where bartenders Nelson and Thales were happy to pass on a few quick tips between watching us make fools of ourselves in the cocktail-making competition. The most important element, it turns out, is precision: measure your shots carefully, follow the steps exactly, and learn the specific mixing requirements for different cocktails. Don’t skimp on the ingredients, including the garnishes. Also, you can’t cheat by using tricks like pre-chilling glasses to make martinis. Mixing the alcohol with ice enhances the flavour and kills off the ethanol-like fumes, which won’t happen if you just pour vodka into a glass straight from the freezer. And if you want the ice in your drinks to look clearer, triple-freeze it (half-freeze, thaw, half-freeze, thaw, freeze), which removes the impurities and excess air. More »

Will The Smart Phone Kill The Netbook?

1:30PM Angus Kidman | Over at Hyrdapinion, guest columnist and tech journalist Alex Kidman (yep, he’s my brother) argues that rises in netbook prices coupled with a relative lack of innovation and the annoying Microsoft-imposed 1GB memory limit on XP netbooks mean that the prospect of a relatively cheap minimalist PC isn’t as appealing as it was a year ago, and that well equipped smart phones may dampen any further growth in the netbook space. Unlike Alex, I have no issue with writing columns using a BlackBerry, so this is a scenario I can quite easily imagine coming a about. Do you think the netbook revolution has lost momentum? Share your thoughts in the comments. Smartphone or netbook? [Hydrapinion] More »