Web page archiving site BackupURL takes point-in-time snapshots of web pages on demand—useful for capturing and sharing fast-changing web pages. To create a snapshot, simply go to BackupURL, paste in the link to the page, and click the Backup button to generate the cached copy, which is accessible from an already-shortened URL. The web application is very simple, and the lack of information makes it questionable for long-term archiving, but it could be very useful for saving a quick copy of a constantly changing news site for sharing with others. For a similar service with more features (although requiring a browser extension), check out previously mentioned Iterasi.
BackupURL [via Download Squad]Windows only: If you like mixing up your desktop wallpaper, but not enough to keep a dedicated application running and chewing up system resources, 100dof Wallpaper Rotator will shuffle your wallpaper at boot time. You pick the directory of images to shuffle through and tweak the settings. You decide whether or not the image should be stretched and otherwise maniuplated, and every time you boot into Windows, 100dof Wallpaper Rotator will load a new image from that directory as your new desktop background. After it performs this function, it shuts itself down—much like previously reviewed Fleace, which grabs images from Flickr. You can use BMP, ICO,.JPG, or PNG files as your source images. 100dof Wallpaper Rotator is freeware, Windows only. 100dof Wallpaper Rotator [via Freeware Home]
A detailed home inventory serves an important purpose, giving you something to show your insurance company in the event of theft or damage. As Apartment Therapy points out, a home inventory is also a great decluttering tool. The post provides a two-part guide to home inventory. The first part explains how to make a good inventory, from spreadsheet creation to recording items with your digital camera. After you’ve inventoried your stuff, the post suggests that many of us, when faced with all of our belongings, realise we have way too much stuff. That’s when the decluttering begins.
Go through your list, room-by-room, and ask yourself how many of each item you really need. Highlight each item that can be reduced. You may realise that you only need five t-shirts instead of fifteen, two sets of sheets instead of four, or one frying pan instead of three.
Whether or not you get any serious decluttering done using this method, you’ll still come out on top with your new home inventory. Good on you! Photo by yenna. How To: Make an Inventory of Your Home… And Use It to Declutter [Apartment Therapy]
Windows with Opera only: oGet improves on the limited and often non-existent integration between the Opera browser and third-party download managers, acting as a link between them. After installing oGet, you’ll be asked to select which download manager you would like oGet to pass your download requests to. The plug-in doesn’t actually install the download managers, so you’ll need to grab it on your own—check out the Hive Five for best download managers if you need some help picking one out. oGet supports over 25 managers including GetRight, FlashGet and LeechGet, among others. Depending on the content you click on, you’re offered the following options in your right-click context menu: download, download all, and download selection for downloading the contents of a link, an entire page, and a selection of files or links, respectively. oGet is free and works with Opera 9.0 and higher. oGet [via gHacks]
Linux only: Font manager application FontyPython organizes system fonts into “pogs”—easily installable groups of fonts that can be organized on a per-project basis. Getting started with the application is simple—just add the fontypython package through the Synaptic package manager, or use the apt-get command line to install it from the repositories.
sudo apt-get install fontypython
Once the package manager finishes, new system fonts can be installed by adding downloaded fonts to “pogs” and toggling their installed status. The fonts will be symlinked to your ~/.fonts folder from their original location—so you can organize your font collection however you please. FontyPython is free and open source, for Linux only. And now, for something completely different—Windows users can check out previously mentioned AMP Font Viewer.
Fonty Python [via Debian Package of the Day]iPhone/iPod touch only: Free, no-sign-up file sharing service drop.io is a great place to stash files. With the Droppler iPhone app, it becomes an essential tool for storing and grabbing anything on the go. Droppler isn’t free, but at $US1.99, it serves up a lot of useful functions. drop.io is a pretty unique service amongst the many online storage competitors; it only offers 100MB per “drop,” which can contain multiple files, but those files can be shared, linked, controlled, and otherwise used as semi-disposable cloud space. Connecting your iPhone to Drop.io through Droppler gives you, for instance, the ability to quickly upload photos for easy grabbing on your desktop, rather than to click the photo, hit “Email,” type an address, wait to send, and repeat ad nauseum. You can stash away links and notes to check on your iPhone later, like grocery lists, and images and screenshots from your iPhone can later be faxed, sent, or otherwise manipulated. Droppler also lets you record voice memos directly into a drop.io space, but my iPod lacks the iPhone’s mouthpiece to properly show it off. The major limitation of Droppler is really an iPhone limitation—you can’t download or store files that the device doesn’t work with or recognise, like .zip archives. Other than that, it’s a real convenient means of keeping web-based notes and links accessible anywhere, offloading files for quick download, and otherwise extending your phone’s space. Droppler is $1.99, requires an iPhone or iPod touch running at least the 2.2 software. Droppler [iTunes Store via Just Another iPhone Blog]
