If the announcement of the iPod Touch made you wonder whether to go for its sleek goodness now, rather than hanging out for the iPhone, ZDNet’s article “10 reasons to buy an iPod Touch over an iPhone” may help. The two most compelling arguments in my mind are the fact that waiting for a later gen iPhone should see it move up from 2G to 3G or HSDPA 3.5G, and the fact that unlike iPhone, you don’t need to worry about signing a ridiculous 24 month lockin contract for a iPod Touch! If you’re thinking about the iPod Touch versus iPhone dilemma, what are the important issues for you?
Windows only: Freeware application Screenshot Captor is an advanced, full-featured screenshot application boasting an impressive feature set that rivals the paid-for favourite, SnagIt. For example, Screenshot Captor has tonnes of options for capturing your full screen, specific regions or selected windows; it has excellent callout functions, like standard arrows and highlighting tools along with the excellent blur effect you see in the screenshot above; and it can automatically open screenshots in your favourite image editor or email screenshots as soon as you take them. In all, Screenshot Captor may be the most full-featured screenshot app I’ve seen, freeware or otherwise. On the other hand, it does have a slightly steeper learning curve, so if there’s a downside, that may be it. Screenshot Captor is donationware, Windows only.
Screenshot Captor [DonationCoder via Simplehelp]Ah the system tray. It’s that little corner of screen real estate that holds all of your must-have, always-on utilities. They’re generally not the sexiest apps you’re running on your system, but to many of us, our favourites would be impossible to live without. Today we’re looking at the system tray applications your fellow readers use every day to get things done.
Wired magazine profiles productivity guru David Allen and offers a good summary of his Getting Things Done system, its history, and some great quotes from The David. First, for folks who say GTD is too complex: [Allen]realises that his system can be difficult and that he’s often accused of going overboard with elaborate schemes. He responds with a shrug. “Look, the workings of an automatic transmission are more complicated than a manual transmission,” he says. “To simplify a complex event, you need a complex system.”
The people willing to take on that complex system? They’re the ones who know they need help and are trying to improve.
Keep an eye on that eBay auction in its closing minutes automatically with Page Reboot, a web service that refreshes a given web site every 30 seconds (or any interval you set). Similar to the ReloadEvery Firefox extension, drop the URL into Page Reboot’s refresh box, set the refresh interval (in seconds) and go. A bookmarklet version is also available.
PAGE REBOOT [via Micro Persuasion]PR guy Steve Rubel uses his Gmail account to interact with all his favourite social networking apps (like Twitter and Facebook.) Using email settings and some feed trickery, Rubel doesn’t have to go to those sites to get or post updates—it all happens in his inbox. The other day we posted about Fuser, the single inbox for your social networking messages, but Rubel’s method uses the inbox you’re already in every day to manage your online presence.
Turn Gmail (or any E-mail Account) Into a Social Network Hub [Micro Persuasion]A recent survey shows that being friends with your coworkers can help you get more done at the office: “Employees who have buddies at work are more eager to come to the office and enjoy their workday, which translates to higher productivity.”
Search page Smplr is a web search command line tool. Using one input box, enter your query, prefaced by a snippet that directs the search to a particular site—very similar to the much-celebrated (and much more configurable) YubNub. For example, film:Dragon Wars will search IMDB, bt:Ubuntu will search the Pirate Bay, and terms without a prefix will search Google by default.
A couple of weeks ago we told you about a cool feature on using geotagging to link photos to locales. Well the author behind that story, Stephen Shankland, has written a follow up in which he goes through some of the traps he encountered while using geotagging, and how he got around them. He also talks about the newer, high end cameras with GPS interfaces, and riffs about how he’d like to see this technology develop.
Mac only – Danny Orog from APC magazine describes Rogue Amoeba’s latest release, Radioshift, as ‘tivo for internet radio’. It lets you capture internet streaming (or regular radio) on your mac, for later playback. You can search from over 50,000 listings of internet radio stations, and filter by genre or geography.
Looks like there’s a catch or two though, first up it’s paid software ($32) and if I read the article correctly, you need a $US50 radio appliance (Griffin’s Radio Shark) to use it. I’ve contact Rogue Amoeba who make the software to find out about getting a review copy, and hopefully I’ll be able to clarify whether you can use it with any internet radio receiver. I’ll keep you posted!
