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Gmail just made it easier for the coffee shop set and security-conscious types to always connect through https://. Gmail Mobile app users should note this glitch before doing so. [via]
Windows/Mac/Linux: At the very least, the free, just-released Zimbra Desktop client gives non-paying Yahoo Mail users IMAP-style offline access to their messages. More than that, though, Zimbra adds a few features to Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, or any other POP/IMAP account that could be pretty useful—at least at some point down the road. Message tagging and nested conversation arrows are pretty nice features for any services that don't already have them, but they don't sync back, or work with Gmail's labels. There's also a bare-bones word processor/spreadsheet, a (non-syncing) calendar, and more search options, including attachment filtering. Overall, though, the real benefit is Zimbra's ability to synchronise your outbox and mail folders before you go offline. Zimbra Desktop is a free download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux systems.
The second alpha release of the inventive Linux media player Amarok has hit the web, and while there's a new look and some cool new tweaks, there's really two big reasons to take a look—namely, Windows and OS X. You heard right: The next full release of Amarok, one of our readers' favourite media players, will be cross-platform. At the moment, only Linux users can reliably run the testers' release, so I loaded it up and decided to share some early screens to let you all glimpse at the other open source, extensible, innovative app that's coming soon.
Posted by Angus Kidman at 1:55 PM on July 25, 2008
According to Sensis' latest e-Business Report, just 10% of Australians have a phone with email access incorporated. (Whether that's because the data plans for them are so expensive is another matter.) Those of us who do have them seem to like them: six out of ten mobile email users never switch their device off, while roughly a fifth of us de-activate them at weekends to get some proper downtime. Doubtless these figures will be used at some point in the near future to argue that the BlackBerry has turned us all into work slaves -- though, as Gina argued recently, such discussions never point out the productivity gains that can come with better access to work resources.
Posted by Angus Kidman at 9:45 AM on July 25, 2008
It's a familiar problem: you spot an item you want in an online store, and then discover that it won't deliver to a non-US address or without a US credit card. WorldPurchases offers itself as an intermediary, allowing you to order from multiple US retailers. Pretty much every major online store is covered (though sadly no eBay). The service charge is 5% of your total order and shipping from the US, but that still might work out cheaper than buying locally for some items (especially if you take advantage of services like Amazon's Super Saver Shipping to minimise postage). If you've used WorldPurchases or a similar service, let us know how it went in the comments. (Thanks Tony!) [WorldPurchases]
Posted by Angus Kidman at 9:00 AM on July 25, 2008
In Office 2007, Word automatically defaults to full print preview mode, which is fine if you're a design obsessive but a big waste of screen real estate if you just want to get some words written. Fortunately, you can make Word default to draft view, though it's a very obscure option. (Proving the point: while Microsoft notes how to fix this in its online support site, somewhat remarkably this information isn't included in Word 2007's own online help.)
To make Draft the default view, select Word Options from the main Office menu (or just type Alt-T then O), and scroll down to the General section. Tick 'Allow opening a document in Draft view' (despite the confusing phrasing, this actually affects new documents as well). In my experience, you need to exit and relaunch Word to make the setting stick. To really maximise your available screen real estate, you can also minimise the Ribbon (an option under the nearly invisible 'Customize Quick Access Toolbar' downward arrow button to the right of the Office button).
Windows only: Free, open-source application MouseImp Pro adds drag-scrolling to your mouse in most popular applications, including Firefox, Microsoft Office apps, and Windows Explorer. That means you can scroll any supported document by clicking and dragging inside the window (like you often can with PDFs), by pressing and holding the right-click button (by default) and then dragging. The application has other features aside from Direct Scroll, but frankly, it's a little confusing. An AutoShrink feature, when enabled, is supposed to collapse windows to just the titlebar when they're not active to keep your desktop decluttered, but I couldn't get it working. Either way, the simple addition of right-click dragging and scrolling is a nice feature if you like it, and the app takes up a paltry 1.5MB of RAM. MouseImp is free, Windows only.
Thanks Prasanth!
The How-To Geek weblog details how to create a keyboard shortcut that—when pressed—will automatically run the popular Windows maintenance utility CCleaner with your default settings in the background. The setup is simple, requiring you to create a shortcut and add the /AUTO switch to the end of the target. Then you can just assign a keyboard shortcut through the Properties window. If you already obsessively run CCleaner to keep your computer pristine (judging by the results of our Hive Five best maintenance tools, you probably do), this shortcut will make life that much easier.
Popular Science says that sleeping in on the weekend makes it harder to get up on time during the week. The concept may be common knowledge for most, but the article backs it up with science for those who still aren't convinced.
Windows/Mac OS X only: Online and desktop calendar-syncing application Calgoo Connect—along with all of the other calendar tools available from Calgoo—are now free. Calgoo Connect syncs Outlook on Windows or iCal on OS X with popular online calendars, namely Google Calendar and 30 Boxes. Granted, syncing Gcal with Outlook is pretty well covered with previously mentioned Google Calendar Sync, but Mac users haven't had a free solution for Gcal-to-iCal sync, which makes the free offering from Calgoo a godsend. All Calgoo products are now freeware, Windows and Mac OS X only.
Windows only: Computer activity logger TimeSnapper takes screenshots of your computer desktop every few seconds as you work throughout the day. Then, you can play back your computer activity to calculate the amount of time you spent on certain tasks—great for filling out timesheets or just getting the hard numbers on how much of the day you burned reading celebrity gossip or, ahem, productivity blogs. The Pro version of TimeSnapper (which is not free), lets you assign certain a productivity score on apps you work in, and will run reports that show your productivity scorecard. A free version of the software, TimeSnapper Classic has fewer features than TimeSnapper Pro, which costs $US20 for a single licence, with a free trial available. TimeSnapper is available for Windows only.
If you don't feel like you're getting all you can from the iPhone App Store and other perks of the iPhone and iPod touch 2.0 software, then jailbreaking is for you. We've already shown you how to jailbreak your iPhone 2.0 on a Mac, but yesterday the Windows version of the iPhone jailbreak tool—called Winpwn—hit the streets, so now Windows users have a user-friendly way to jailbreak. Let's take a step-by-step look at how to jailbreak your iPhone or iPod touch using Winpwn.
If you're any sort of power user, you've bumped up against the limitations of your operating system's default file manager on countless occasions. The fact is, for advanced file browsing and manipulation, sometimes the default applications—like Windows Explorer or Mac OS X Finder—just don't cut it. Today we're looking at your choice of the five best alternative file managers.
Windows only: Avanquest Connection Manager, previously a $US30 app, is now a free utility that could be seriously convenient for laptop users. The app lets you create profiles for your different wi-fi or LAN connections, changing email, printer, and network drive defaults depending on where you hook up, along with security settings and other concerns. The app's basic connection-chooser is also more user-friendly than Windows' own somewhat plain built-in version (though that might be what some road warriors like about it). The trade-off for its "free"-ness appears to be ads for other Avanquest software scrolling across the top, but I find them pretty easy to ignore. Avanquest Connection Manager is a free download for Windows systems only.
Windows only: Free utility HDDScan diagnoses whatever ails your hard drive. HDDScan works on ATA, SATA, and SCSI drives and (with some limitations) on removable drives such as USB and FireWire. Analyse drive temperatures, conduct S.M.A.R.T. tests, export and print reports to document changes in your hard drive's health with HDDScan, which is a free download for Windows only.
Productivity writer and Inbox Zero advocate Merlin Mann shares some of his recent updates to his talk about email-wrangling, including a bit of advanced common sense about why stashing away your emails isn't productive. Acting on them, and then killing 'em off, Mann says, is where you want to be:
The idea here is that you probably don't have a place in your home or office where you store the shells from every peanut you ever ate. If you did, you'd definitely want to organise them by the year in which you ate them, perhaps keeping separate jars per-month or per-location where you ate the nut. You know. For posterity.
