Google and a host of net-savvy partners have opened up a free set of web tools to help anyone determine if their net connection is blocking or throttling BitTorrent or otherwise limits their bandwidth. At the moment, three tools are available—when their servers aren’t jammed up, and they seem to be pretty popular at the moment. The Glasnost tool determines how your ISP is handling BitTorrent traffic and gives a readout on whether it’s being denied, throttled, or otherwise impaired. Network Diagnostic Tool covers other problems that might affect your upload or download speeds. And the Network Path and Application Diagnosis tries to reveal the routing, network tools, and other “last mile” issues that affect net performance. The tests are fairly simple, and each seems to require a working Java plugin to run. The Glasnost test, for instance, creates a fake BitTorrent stream between your connection point and the test’s servers, then monitors what happens to the packets.
Freeview Australia has been heavily promoting itself, but will it really make a difference to your television viewing habits? And more importantly (for Loaded’s purposes), will it save you a bucketload of money as the name implies? More »
Windows only: If you prefer web-based email like Gmail or Yahoo Mail, Affixa seamlessly bridges the gap between the web and your desktop for painless file attachments, mailto links, and more. Affixa integrates webmail with every corner of your desktop. As you can see in the video, each time you encounter an email situation in Windows, Affixa lets you choose what email account you’d like to use—meaning that you can easily switch between sending an attachment via Outlook for work or your personal Gmail account, for example. Affixa will handle attachments you send to your email from the right-click menu or directly through any applications (like Word’s Email option). If your email client has limits on attachment size or file-type, Affixa can upload the attachment to previously mentioned file-sharing webapp Drop.io.
Kids are already back to school, and university will be resuming shortly — which means there’ll be a lot of people seeking out the ideal backpack for lugging laptops, textbooks and all the rest around. Anthony Caruana’s review of five contenders at The Age is a good place to start if you (or one of your offspring) is in the market for a new backpack, though of course there are other options — every second person I see on a plane these days seems to be favouring a notebook bag on wheels. If you’ve got a piece of notebook luggage that’s proven itself in practice, let’s hear about it in the comments.
Compare: Back-to-school backpacks [The Age]Using VOIP for your standard telephone calls can save you a bundle on local and national calls, but when it comes to calling mobiles, the savings aren’t so evident. VOIP providers can’t dodge the interconnect charges associated with connecting to mobiles, so you’ll generally pay somewhere between 15 and 30 cents a minute. Depending on your mobile plan, it might well be cheaper to use your mobile to call other mobiles. However, there are some exceptions. MyNetFone recently updated its MegaSaver Premium Yearly plan to include 100 minutes of free mobile calls a month. MyNetFone aren’t the first to venture into these waters — GoTalk has long offered free mobile calls (subject to an acceptable usage policy) on most of its VOIP plans — but it’s still a fairly unusual move, even if it does require a long-term signup commitment. If you’re on another VOIP plan that includes free (or hugely discounted) mobile calls, share the details in the comments.
MyNetFone [via OzBargain]Andrew Ramadge at News.com.au has assembled a much-discussed list of the 10 “most interesting Australian Twitter users”. There’s certainly people here who are well worth following (including ones Lifehacker has recommended in the past like Fake Stephen Conroy, However, it seems to me that these lists are contrary to a basic Twitter principle: the most valuable people to follow are those who work in (or obsessively track) your own areas of interest, and that will be a different list for everyone. Thoughts?
Australia’s most interesting Twitter users [News.com.au]Web application whspr! creates a private feedback form that you can share on services like Twitter without revealing your real email address. Simply enter your real email address, a description of what the form is for, and the number of days you want the form to be active. Once completed, you’ll be given a URL to the form to share with others. This application could be useful for job postings, blog contests or giveaways—pretty much anything where you’d like email responses but don’t want to give out an email address. If you want to send private messages instead of receiving them, check out previously mentioned Whisper Bot, or you can send your awkward messages anonymously with NiceCritic.
whspr!Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Firefox extension SearchLoad Options adds a couple of useful and much-needed tweaks to power up the search bar. After installation, the new settings panel can be accessed through the new Search Options item on the search menu, with tweaks that include clearing the search box after a certain number of seconds, resetting the search provider to the default, or controlling whether search results are loaded in the current or a new tab. Loading search results in a new tab is nothing new, and can be accomplished through the previously mentioned Tab Mix Plus extension, but the options to clear the search box and reset the search provider to default can be quite useful for doing quite one-off searches via another search provider, since you no longer need to reset the search to Google every time. SearchLoad Options is a free download, works anywhere Firefox runs.
SearchLoad Options [Mozilla Add-ons]Everyone knows that Google Image Search sports a drop-down menu for filtering results by small, medium, large, and extra large sizes, but if you’re looking for the perfect wallpaper, for example, the imagesize operator is even better. Weblog Google Operating System uncovers the undocumented search operator (that’s also new to us) and demonstrates how to use it. Just use the imagesize operator followed by the WidthXHeight in pixels, like so:
Here’s an example: [imagesize:640x480 muffin]finds 640px x 480px images related to muffins.
As the post points out, the imagesize operator is perfect for finding wallpapers that are the perfect fit for your screen. Find Images that Have a Certain Size [Google Operating System]
There’s nothing like the restorative power of a nap to bolster your energy, mood, and productivity, but if you want to get the most from your naps, there’s plenty of room for improvement. The Guardian examines the best practices for napping, covering everything from optimal nap time (anywhere from 20 to 120 minutes, depending on what you want from it) to the right time for you to take your siesta: To determine the best time to nap, it helps to know your “chronotype”. What time would you get up and go to sleep if you were entirely free to plan your day? If you’re a lark, apt to wake as early as 6am and go to sleep around 9pm or 10pm, you’re going to feel your nap need around 1pm or 1.30 pm.
If you’re an owl, preferring to go to bed after midnight or 1am, and to wake around 8am or 9am, your afternoon “sleep gate” will open later, closer to 2.30pm or 3pm.
We’ve covered our fair share of napping guides in the past (I’ve always been partial to the caffeine nap), but it’s always nice to get a refresher on the why’s and how’s of nature’s most glorious treat, the nap. Thanks DrewB
Update: The Guardian’s napping guide appears to be a mostly text version of the previously mentioned cheat sheet for power naps, but hey—it never hurts to have a refresher. Still, the original cheat sheet version comes complete with great graphics, so I’d recommend checking it out first. Photo by Daveybot. Napping: the expert’s guide [The Guardian]
