Firefox only (Windows): Firefox extension MediaPlayerConnectivity opens media files in an external application of your choice—saving you from the extra step of downloading and opening in your preferred media player. Once installed, the extension will take you through a wizard that finds your installed media players and sets each file type to your preferred player. The options panel is chock full of configuration settings to customise playback choices, from adding launcher items to your context menu to automatically replacing the inline player with an icon to launch your external player—very useful so you can restart Firefox without affecting media playback. MediaPlayerConnectivity is a free download for Firefox, but the current versions only work for Windows users—readers using Mac OS X can still download the older versions, but will probably need the Nightly Tester Tools to make them compatible.
MediaPlayerConnectivity [Mozilla Add-ons via Download Squad]Find yourself checking time-sink sites too often? KeepMeOut creates custom, timed bookmarks that give it to you straight when you’re visiting a site too frequently (ahem). To create a bookmark for your favourite time-sink, you simply plug in the site address at KeepMeOut and specify how long a period of time should elapse before KeepMeOut warns you against visiting it. From there out, when you use the time-tracked bookmark, it will either allow you to pass through to the site or direct you to a reminder page that tells you how long it’s been since your last visit. KeepMeOut functions as a gentle reminder, not a total IT lock down—circumvention is as easy as typing the URL to the actual site into your browser. KeepMeOut [via Micro Persuasion]
Windows Vista only: Similar-to-TweakUI application Ultimate Windows Tweaker adds more tweaks, bugfixes, and better 64-bit support to an already ridiculously useful tool for making configuration changes the easy way. We’ve featured this application here before, but the initial release had some stability problems (especially for 64-bit users). The latest version fixes those issues and adds a bunch of new tweaks to make your tweaking tasks just a little bit easier, including more personalization, UAC, performance, and network tweaks. The already-tech-savvy might notice that most of these tweaks are available through registry hacks or complicated dialogs, but this application is designed to put every setting into one easily accessible location—and since the utility doesn’t require installation it makes for a handy addition to your flash drive toolkit. Ultimate Windows Tweaker is a free download for Windows Vista users only.
Ultimate Windows TweakerGoogle has just release a new tool called Google Sync, a service that syncs your Google Contacts and Calendar wirelessly to your iPhone, BlackBerry, Symbian, or Windows Mobile phone. Google Sync uses a Microsoft Exchange server to keep all of your contact and calendar data in sync over the air. If you’ve added a new calendar appointment from your desktop, Google Sync will push the update to your phone. Likewise, changes you make from your phone are automatically synced to your Google account in the cloud.
Eye-candy RSS reader/screensaver MappedUp plots the location of RSS items on a world map with a nice visual effect—so you can use the screensaver for more than just pictures. Once you’ve installed and enabled the screensaver—and stepped away long enough for the screensaver to show up—you’ll see RSS items show up on the world map in little balloons indicating the origin of the news story. You can customise the items that show up by creating a free account and choosing feeds or tags to display—or add any of your own feeds.< MappedUp is a free download for Windows or Mac OS X only. If you want to learn something instead of reading the news, you can always use Wikipedia as your screensaver instead.
MappedUpKamal Meattle used three just three indoor plant species to increase oxygen, filter air, and boost general health at a a New Delhi business park. You can use them, too, in any indoor environment. Meattle’s presentation at the TED 2009 conference details a large-scale success, using thousands of plants for hundreds of workers. In any living or working space, though, the three plants—Areca palm, Mother-in-law’s Tongue, and a “Money Plant”—can be used to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, remove organic compounds, and generally filter and freshen the ambient air. A single person looks to need a minimum of 11 total plants, and certain climates with less sunlight could require a bit of hydroponic growing, but Meattle swears by the health, productivity, and atmosphere benefits. Check out the detailed slides from his TED talk:
