Joost

Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping.

What's Joost?

Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping.

Inside the box

You get great internet features too, such as search, chat and instant messaging, built right into the program - so you find shows quickly and talk to your friends while you watch. And with no schedules to worry about, you can watch whatever you want, whenever you like - as often as you want. Joost is completely free, and works with most modern PCs and Intel Mac-based computers with a broadband connection. Get Joost today!

Free TV

Now showing at Joost: hundreds of full-screen shows from your favourite channels.

Exciting extras

Chat, instant messaging, search and more - baked right into the TV experience.

Complete control

With Joost, you're in charge. No more schedules - watch what you want, as often as you like.

Coming soon...

Write your own add-ons, watch yet more great content. Come back regularly for updates.

Screenshots:

For more screenshots click here to see it on the Joost website.

Top 10 Firefox Extensions to Improve your Productivity

Firefox is the browser of dreams for many people (myself included). One of the great perks of Firefox is that there are tons of extensions that enhance the functionality of the browser. With over 1500 extensions in existence, there are many that can be used to improve your productivity. The following is my take on the top 10 extensions that will keep you focused, reduce distractions, streamline your daily work flow, and improve your productivity.

1. Customize Google

Customize Google is a very robust extension that lets you customize many features of the services provided by Google. Customize Google lets you block advertisements on pretty much any Google page (including Gmail). It remaps Google Images search results to point directly at the images (no longer will you need to click through the originating site). Customize Google lets you add links from other search engines directly into your search results. It can also block Google click tracking and allows you to connect to Google Calendar and Gmail securely (https). Give it a try, you won’t be sorry.

2. Gspace

Gspace is a content management extension that lets you turn your Gmail account into an online mass storage device. Gspace integrates nicely into your browser and lets you drag and drop files into Gmail for backup or storage purposes without interrupting your work flow. If you use Gspace, I recommend adding a tag in Gmail to your files so they can be filtered and accessed quickly. The following is the description of Gspace from its homepage: “Gspace turns the 2GB of your Gmail account into free online storage. With Gspace you can manage unlimited Gmail accounts to store all type of files within its simple, user friendly interface. Listen to your favorite stored music directly from your Gspace, view your collections of pictures and manage your Gdrive files as well. Download Gspace now and transfer files between your computer and Gspace at anytime, from everywhere!”

3. Flashgot/DownThemAll
The default download manager built into Firefox is very handy; however, there are many occasions that you’ll find that you need more flexibility with your downloads. This is where Flashgot or DownThemAll comes in handy. The features of Flashgot and DownThemAll have their differences; however, they generally provide finer-grained control of your downloads. My personal preference is Flashgot. I recommend trying at least one of them.

4. Greasemonkey + Stylish + Ad blocking per Gozer
Greasemonkey is an extension that lets you add scripts that alter the web pages you visit. Using Greasemonkey and Stylish and Ad blocking per Gozer together will block pretty much every advertisement from any Web site you visit.

5. Flashblock

The Flashblock extension by default blocks flash from playing when a Web page is first opened. Most (distracting) advertisements are written using flash. Flashblock is particularly useful because it replaces the flash from a Web site with a “play” button so you can watch the flash if it something useful (like a video at Youtube) and leave it blocked if it is an advertisement.

6. Download Statusbar

Download Statusbar manages your downloads in the status bar instead of the Firefox Download Manager. I find that the download manager that comes with Firefox to be very intrusive. Download manager tucks your download progress bars into the generally unused status bar of Firefox. This lets you download care-free without the Firefox Download Manager popping up and interrupting you.

7. URL Fixer
URL fixer will replace the common typos you enter when typing a Web site into the URL bar (i.e., http://www.lifehack.rog, htp://lifehack.org). The auto correct feature of URL fixer is very helpful. “[URL Fixer] will correct common misspellings of .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, and .mil, as well as the protocol (http:, https:). It will also correct errors in country code TLDS such as .com.XX, .net.XX, and .org.XX.”

8. Tab Mix Plus
Many of the features of Tab Mix Plus were incorporated into the release of Firefox 2. However, Tab Mix Plus allows you to add finer-grained control of your tabs. The following is a description of Tab Mix Plus: “Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.”

9. Scrapbook
Scrapbook is extremely useful for researchers and students. Scrapbook saves blurbs from Web pages to your hard drive along with the URL of the originating Web site. It allows you to organize and categorize your blurbs in a format similar to your bookmarks so that when it comes to creating a bibliography or works cited, you won’t waste any time.

10. IE Tab

I find myself using this extension less and less as more Web developers code their Web sites following standards. However, occasionally you will find it necessary to open a Web site using Internet Explorer in order for it to render correctly. Rather than taking the time to launch a separate browser, just choose “View Page in IE tab” and an Internet Explorer tab opens in Firefox. This is very useful if you like to have multiple Gmail accounts open and active on one computer.

That’s my take on the extensions that will improve your productivity. Like I previously mentioned, there are tons of Firefox extensions. What extension didn’t I mention that you can’t live without? Please tell us about your favorite productivity-enhancing Firefox extension in the comments.

- found on www.lifehack.org

Picasa Web Albums + Picnik!

I did a post about a very nice service called Picnik back in February. Picnik is an amazing, free service. With no install nessacary, Picnik is great for quickly editing all your online photos from one place. It's the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.

Picasa web albums is the easiest way to upload and share photos online. So what happens when you put these two great services together? You get one mindblowing service. This will be done with Picasa's API. More information on API and what it has done for Picasa can be seen below.

The Picasa Web Albums data API allows client applications to view and update Picasa Web Albums content in the form of Google data API ("GData") feeds. Your client application can request a list of a user's albums, photos, comments, or tags, edit or delete content in an existing entry, and query the content in an existing entry.

Here are some of the things you can do with the Picasa Web Albums data API:

• Include your public photos in your own web page, and allow users to comment on them (and have the comments stored in Picasa Web Albums).
• Write a plugin to manage your albums and photos from a desktop or mobile phone client.
• Create a custom screensaver to display your Picasa Web Albums photos on your computer.

More projects other than Picnik + Picasa are on the way and they can be seen below.

ShoZu

Have a camera phone? Use ShoZu to upload your pictures to Picasa in just one click!

Booksmart

Free bookmaking software for both PC and Mac. Make your own bookstore-quality books.

Gmail Drive

Gmail Drive is a great (FREE) program I just so happen to have come across and I think it's great! It makes a sort of artificial drive on your computer and then if you copy files to the drive, it emails them to your Gmail address. Very cool, and very handy.
***********************************************************************

GMail Drive is a free namespace extension ("add-on") for Microsoft Windows. It allows a user to access a virtual drive stored in a Gmail e-mail account by causing the contents of the Gmail account to appear as a new network share on the user's workstation. In order to use this add-on, the user needs a Gmail e-mail account. The add-on enables the user to use the standard Windows desktop file copy and paste commands to transfer files to and from the Gmail account as if it was a drive on the user's computer. - Wikipedia
************************************************************************
GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google GMail account, allowing you to use GMail as a storage medium.

GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google GMail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your GMail account directly from inside Windows Explorer.

GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag'n'drop files to.GMail Drive shell extension is a tool that creates a virtual filesystem.

Ever since Google started to offer users a GMail e-mail account, which includes storage space of a 1000 megabytes, you have had plenty of storage space but not a lot to fill it up with.

With GMail Drive you can easily copy files to your GMail account and retrieve them again. When you create a new file using GMail Drive, it generates an e-mail and posts it to your account.

The e-mail appears in your normal Inbox folder, and the file is attached as an e-mail attachment. GMail Drive periodically checks your mail account (using the GMail search function) to see if new files have arrived and to rebuild the directory structures.

But basically GMail Drive acts as any other hard-drive installed on your computer.
You can copy files to and from the GMail Drive folder simply by using drag'n'drop like you're used to with the normal Explorer folders.

Because the GMail files will clutter up your Inbox folder, you may wish to create a filter in GMail to automatically move the files (prefixed with the GMAILFS letters) to your archived mail folder.

Please note that GMail Drive is still an experimental tool. There's still a number of limitations of the file-system (such as total filename size must be less than 40 characters), and it doesn't make full use of the secure internet protocols available.

You can try Xmail alternative for portability. - Softpedia

Upload Files in a Browser Using Drag and Drop

A typical file upload control in HTML looks like this:


You have to type the file path or can you click on "Browse" to get the path using a dialog provided by the operating system. This is usually cumbersome if you have a file manager like Windows Explorer that shows the file in the current view because you have to get the path of the file.

So it would be nice to drag and drop the file to the upload control and obtain the path. In Firefox, you can do this if you have an extension called dragdropupload. The extension should work in any site that lets you upload files using standard controls, but here are 3 examples of Google services where you can be more productive if you use it.

When you compose a message in Gmail, you can click on "Attach a file" and drag and drop one or more files in the input box. You can also drag and drop the files over the "Attach a file" link.

Another example: Picasa Web Albums lets you create albums and upload photos online. While in Internet Explorer you can do that easily using an ActiveX control, in Firefox you can add up to 5 photos at a time, one by one. The extension can save you time, because you can just select 5 photos in a file manager and drag-and-drop them to one of the upload controls.

This extension is also the magical way to upload more than one image at a time in Blogger. Just select the images you want to upload, and drag them to the standard control. Everything will look messy, like in the screenshot below, because the extension adds more upload controls at the bottom of the page, but the important thing is that it works and there's no limit for the number of images (the total size should be less than 8 MB, though).


- googlesystem.blogspot.com

Great Google Gadgets For your Personalized Page

Google AJAX Gadgets for News and Video Search

If you want to monitor the latest news about global warming, Google or your favorite basketball team, there's a newsbar gadget for the Personalized Homepage that shows the headlines at the top of the page and news snippets in the gadget container.



There's also a videobar that shows the top 8 search results from Google Video and YouTube for a list of queries. You could include a list of your favorite artists, TV shows or video series (like Google Techtalks) and the videos are always accessible from your personalized homepage (unless, of course, they are removed by the content providers).


These gadgets, but also Google mini search (that lets you search Google without leaving the page) and Google Map search were implemented using Google AJAX Search API. The API lets you build controls and gadgets centered around search, even if this isn't obvious.

Google tried to repeat the success of the Maps API. "We felt that the Maps API was successful because it was very easy to use, and very easy to explain, where you could show somebody a piece of HTML with some JavaScript, and most anybody could get a map on a webpage very quickly, and have some good eye candy, and some good utility by adding that to their page. What I was interested in is that Google is known for search, and we have search across a wide variety of backends. Could we make search as easy to integrate, and as useful, as we have done with Maps?" explains Mark Lucovsky from Google.

They build different solutions that could be just copy-pasted on a site and also these gadgets for Google Personalized Homepage. And because they use AJAX, you can search and see the search results on the same page that contains the gadgets.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com

Google Earth - A Must Have

Jessica Pfund, a Google employee, talks about a program you may have heard about: Google Earth. The one-hour video takes you "through some of the most powerful, yet overlooked, features of this program and how people are using it".



Some notes:

* Google Maps is a 2D view of the world, while Google Earth is a 3D view of the world.

* Google Earth shortcuts: double click to zoom in, double right-click to zoom out. Double click on the zoom in button to zoom in to the maximum. Press N to recenter the view.

* Google Earth is a geobrowser, like Firefox is a browser for the web. It's also a way to search the world.

* Google Local is included in Google Earth. You can get local results by searching for a businesses or by enabling some of the layers (for example, the lodging layer).

* If you click on the pop-ups that describe a place, you'll find links to web search, images search, news. The search results pages open inside Google Earth.

* You can hide the left sidebar by clicking on a button from the toolbar or by typing Ctrl-Alt-B.

* Layers are displayed on top of the imagery and bring meaning to what you see in Google Earth. You can see the name of the populated places, the railroads or videos from different places.

* Create your own map: add pushpins, choose an icon and type HTML code in the description. Then post it at Google Earth Community, Google hosts it for you. Enable the Google Earth Community layer to see what people say about different places in the world.

* Content layers - provided by authoritative organizations, hand-picked. You'll find them in "featured content".

* KML files (XMLs used to display geographic data), network KMLs (link to external data that is dynamically generated).

* Create models in SketchUp, build KML files and share them in the 3D Warehouse. You can view models from the 3D Warehouse in Google Earth. The latest version of Google Earth (v4) added the ability to view texturized models.

* 1/3 of the world covered by high-resolution imagery.

* Google Earth is used for urban planning, education, disaster response and awareness, environmental activism, to share vacation photos. [Notes found on googlesystem.blogspot.com]

Google Sets? What the hell is that?

Google Sets is the oldest Google product that never graduated Google Labs. Using Google Sets, you can create sets of items from a few examples. With this very interesting tool you can type in the names of 3 or more major cities and google will show you the names of a bunch of other major cities. Or you can type in the names on a few cars like bmw, honda, and mercedes benz and google will display Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Audi, Volvo, Jaguar, Mitsubishi, Chrysler, Lexus, and etc. Great tool for making lists. It's a simple tool, but it's pretty nice and not very well known at all.

Other little known google pages include:

Google WiFi
Google provides free WiFi in Mountain View through Google Secure Access, a client that makes the WiFi connection more secure.

and..

Google Newsletter
You knew Google has a blog, but you didn't know they have a newsletter called Google Friends. You can read the full archive.

But there are so many Google Pages that most people don't even know about. Check out this link to see a whole big list of them and be sure to click "more strange google pages at the bottom of that post cuz there's some interesting stuff.

Let's have a Picnik!

What's Picnik you say?

With Picnik you can quickly edit all your online photos from one place. It's the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.
It's fast, easy, and fun.

NO INSTALL NECESSARY!!! Easily edit your photos online on any computer!

• One-click photo fixing or in-depth tweaking
• Crop, rotate, and resize in real-time
• Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun
• Amazingly fast

• Works directly with many photo sharing sites
• No download required, nothing to install!
• Works on Mac, Windows, even Linux
• Free and premium versions

Try it Now!!!

Honestly the best online photo editor I've seen yet!

Instant Productivity - Get IMified

Imified is the answer to all our prayers! Not only does it provide easy access to all your favorite services such as blogger, basecamp, google calendar, backpack, etc. but it does so without making you launch a single browser. View all you favorite services in a single user interface. Imified is an instant messaging buddy that runs on all majorIM networks and offers access to an ever growing number of web apps and tools.



Best of all, IMified is 100% FREE!!!!



I guess the only question left is ...

HOW DO I SIGNUP?

Signing up is easy. Just send a message to the imified buddy on your favorite network to create an account:

AIM: IMified



Yahoo: IMified



MSN: imified@imified.com



Google Talk/Jabber: imified@gmail.comI will personally be getting IMified this evening and report back about everything that blows my mind. So stay tuned internetters.

Log Me In

Control your PC from your laptop, your laptop from your pc; your work computer from your home computer, your home computer from your work computer. This includes file sharing, access to programs, EVERYTHING you would normally be able to do! Click here to try it out for yourself! This program is am

Access & Control Your PC from Anywhere

For you, success means finding the perfect balance between work and life. You work hard, and play hard. And LogMeIn Pro gives you the edge you need: in the office, on the road, or wherever you choose to go.

Gain seamless access to your home or office PC from any other computer with an Internet connection. It's the fastest, easiest, most reliable remote access solution available.

Advantages of LogMeIn Pro

» Remote access Powerful remote control - from anywhere » File Transfer Move files quickly between PCs » Remote Printing Automatically print remote files locally » File Share Easily share large files, without uploads » Guest Invite Share your desktop for remote collaboration » File Sync Synchronize files & folders in seconds » Security 256-bit SSL encryption anchors powerful security Get Free Trial »

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agloco

I don't normally advertise on here, I never have and I don't intend on doing it again but this is something I think a lot of people are gonna wanna see! Make money for sitting on your ass and surfing the net. Just click here or click on the banner above.

30 Essential Pieces Of Free (and Open) Software for Windows

Recently,
I received a fresh new laptop from Dell. Upon receiving it, I did the
traditional “installation of Windows from scratch” on it to remove a
lot of the garbage that is preinstalled on Dells. Then I got really
busy installing tons of great software that takes care of pretty much
every software need I have. Not only was all of the software free, every piece of it was open source, which means that the code is peer-reviewed; no spyware here!

What follows is a list of thirty pieces of software that are the
cream of the crop of open source software for Windows. Not only is
every piece of it free, almost all of them directly replace expensive
software packages.

Now, if only there were an open version of The Sims 2, I might go the whole way and switch to Linux…

1. Firefox


http://www.getfirefox.com/


Replaces Internet Explorer


If you haven’t switched to Firefox for your web browsing needs, do it now. It stops annoying popups and it has tons of amazing plugins
that can make surfing the web even better. I could evangelize all day
about Firefox, but one thing’s for sure: the first thing I do on any
new Windows machine is run Internet Explorer just long enough to
download Firefox.

2. Thunderbird


http://www.mozilla.org/thunderbird/


Replaces Microsoft Outlook or Eudora


Thunderbird is an email client that has five big things going for it:
it’s free, it’s full featured, it’s lightweight and runs quick, it has
an unparalleled spam filter, and it protects you from those ridiculous
phishing attacks by clearly indicating which emails send you to a bogus
website. If you’re not already using a web-based email solution,
Thunderbird should be your client.

3. Sunbird


http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/


Replaces Microsoft Outlook’s calendaring functions


Might as well get the Mozilla trifecta out of the way by mentioning
Sunbird, which is the Mozilla Foundation’s calendaring program. It’s
extremely easy to use (I figured out everything I needed in a minute or
two) and easy to share your calendar with others. I consider a
calendaring tool to be essential if you’re using a laptop, and this is
no different.

4. Abiword


http://www.abisource.com/


Replaces Microsoft Word


Want a good word processor but find Microsoft Word too expensive?
AbiWord is my favorite replacement for Word. It’s lightweight (meaning
it runs quickly) and includes pretty much every feature that I use
regularly in a word processor, plus it can save files in formats that
you can exchange with Word and WordPerfect users, plus open any of
their files, too.

5. OpenOffice


http://www.openoffice.org/


Replaces Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint


If you want to replace the rest of the Office suite, your best bet is
OpenOffice. It includes very nice replacements for Excel and PowerPoint
(and workable replacements for Access and other Office elements). In
fact, I actually prefer their Excel and PowerPoint replacements to the
real thing.

6. ClamWin


http://www.clamwin.com/


Replaces Norton AntiVirus or McAfee


ClamWin is a slick anti-virus software that’s quite easy to manage and
is unobtrusive while keep your system free of viruses. That’s pretty
much all I want from a package, so why pay money for McAfee to keep
bugging me all the time?

7. Gaim


http://gaim.sourceforge.net/


Replaces AIM, Windows Messenger, etc.


This is a very clean instant messaging program that allows you to be on
AOL Instant Messenger, Windows (MSN) Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger
simultaneously with one program. There are other free packages that do
this, but Gaim is stable and clean and simple.

8. BitTorrent


http://www.bittorrent.com/


Original but essential


From their website, “BitTorrent is a peer-assisted, digital content
delivery platform that provides the fastest, most efficient means of
distributing, discovering, and consuming large, high-quality files on
the Web. Our mission is simple: to deliver the content that entertains
and informs the digital world.” In other words, BitTorrent allows you
to download large media files and also use your bandwidth to help
others download these files. Search for media files you want and
download ‘em.

9. GIMPShop


http://www.gimpshop.net/


Replaces Adobe Photoshop


This is a version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program that does a
pretty solid job of imitating Adobe Photoshop - a regular user of
Photoshop (like me) can adapt to it quite quickly. It’s very richly
featured and runs quite well - in fact, I see no reason to ever go
back, even if Photoshop were free.

10. Gnucleus


http://www.gnucleus.com/Gnucleus/


Replaces LimeWire, BearShare, etc.


Sure, LimeWire and BearShare are free, but why not just get the same
basic software without all of the spyware? Gnucleus is pretty much
identical to those software packages - but without all that extra junk
that slows down your computer.

11. VLC Media Player


http://www.videolan.org/vlc/


Replaces Windows Media Player, Quicktime, RealPlayer, etc.


If you get tired of having tons of media players on your computer, get
this package that runs pretty much every media type you’ll run across
without breaking a sweat.

12. Juice


http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/


Unique but essential


Juice lets you effortlessly subscribe to podcasts, organize them, and listen to them at your convenience. In conjunction with PodNova, I find it easier to use Juice to organize podcasts than using iTunes itself.

13. Audacity


http://audacity.sourceforge.net/


Unique but essential (for some)


If you’re interested in recording your own podcast (or just want to
make your own voice recordings for whatever reason), Audacity and a
microphone are pretty much all you need to get the job done. I’m not
much for podcasting (let’s just say I don’t have a radio voice), but I
use Audacity for other voice recording purposes.

14. RSSOwl


http://www.rssowl.org/


Unique but essential


RSSOwl is one of many open source RSS readers. In other words, it
enables you to use one program to keep track of the content of a lot of
different blogs; if you read a lot of blogs, it’s the only way to keep
tabs on all of them without devoting hours jumping from site to site.
If you have a laptop, it’s preferable to using sites like Bloglines,
but if you’re on a desktop, a web-based feed manager might be better.

15. Filezilla


http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/


Replaces WinFTP


Many people occasionally have a need to FTP files to other computers;
if you ever have the need to transfer files in such a fashion,
FileZilla will do the job slickly and quickly.

16. Keynote


http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html


Unique but essential


Keynote is basically designed specifically for the task of taking notes
on a laptop. If you ever find yourself in a meeting or a presentation
with your laptop open and want to jot down notes and organize them just
a bit, Keynote is unquestionably the program for you. It’s not good at
quality word processing, but that’s not the point. In my professional
work, I find myself using Keynote almost as often as any other utility.

17. MusikCube


http://www.musikcube.com/


Replaces iTunes


If you’re not already committed to downloaded music from the iTunes
Music Store, then MusikCube is the best choice available for a music
organizer and player. It organizes your mp3s, makes it really easy and
really fast to find them, and allows you to make some incredibly clever
smart playlists.

18. Handbrake


http://handbrake.m0k.org/


Unique but essential


Handbrake enables you to stick a DVD in your DVD drive and have the
contents of that film stored to your hard drive in a form that can be
read by pretty much any media player. I often use it to put a few
movies on my laptop for travel purposes, so I don’t have to worry about
keeping track of DVDs while on the road.

19. X-Chat 2


http://www.silverex.org/


Replaces mIRC


X-Chat is a free IRC client. For those unfamiliar with IRC, it’s a
place for technical people (and, as my wife loves to point out, nerds)
to meet and discuss topics in an open environment. I often find it very
useful when piecing through difficult technical issues.

20. KeePass


http://keepass.sourceforge.net/


Unique but essential


KeePass is a program that securely stores and manages the abundance of
passwords we all use on a daily basis. I have literally hundreds of
usernames and passwords spread out all over the place; KeePass keeps
them all for me and keeps them safe.

21. TrueCrypt


http://www.truecrypt.org/


Unique but essential


TrueCrypt enables you to convert a memory stick into a strongly
encrypted data storage device, meaning that you can store personal data
on it without worrying about losing it and having personal information
get out and about. I use it to keep some of my most personal data off
of my laptop and strongly secured, just in case.

22. PDFCreator


http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/


Replaces Adobe Acrobat


PDFCreator creates a virtual printer on your computer that, if you
print a document to it from any program, creates a PDF of that document
that can be read on any computer with Acrobat Reader on it. After
installing PDFCreator, all you have to do is print like normal and out
comes a PDF!

23. Freemind


http://freemind.sourceforge.net/


Unique but Essential


Freemind is a “mind mapping” software program. In essence, it enables
you to brainstorm and link together ideas quickly, creating “maps” of
concepts similar to what you might do on a whiteboard. I find it
incredibly useful when putting together ideas for new posts or planning
small projects or assembling the backbone of a writing project.

24. NASA Worldwind


http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/


Replaces Google Earth


WorldWind is very similar to Google Earth in that it allows you to
browse the globe. While it isn’t strong for creating maps (but why not
just use Google Maps for that?), it is utterly incredible for viewing three-dimensional landscapes of any place on earth.

25. Notepad2


http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html


Replaces Notepad


Notepad2 is a replacement for the traditional Windows Notepad that just
adds a few sweet little features: multiple documents; line, word, and
character counts; and some highlighting of tags. In fact, I’m using
Notepad2 as I draft this post (after using Freemind to organize it).

26. HealthMonitor


http://healthmonitor.zucchetti.com/


Unique but useful


HealthMonitor enables you to keep an eye on the health of your
computer. It identifies slowdowns and other system issues quickly and
lets you know (for example, it gives a popup if your system memory gets
to a certain percentage of fullness, or if your hard drive has only 10
GB free). This can keep you out of trouble and also give you clues to
problems your machine might be having.

27. Workrave


http://www.workrave.org/


Unique but useful


Sometimes late into a writing session, my wrists get sore from too much
repetitive movement. Workrave basically jumps in before this happens
and locks down the computer for a while, preventing me from working too
much and causing repetitive stress injury. Since I’ve started using it,
it hasn’t significantly hurt my productivity at all and my wrists are
thanking me!

28. GanttPV


http://www.pureviolet.net/ganttpv/


Replaces Microsoft Project


If you do any project management (or have a need to dip your toes in
the water), GanttPV does a brilliant job of managing the task quickly,
easily, and freely. If you need to move to MS Project later, you can
export from GanttPV to Project, but once you start digging into
GanttPV, you’ll likely have no reason to use Project.

29. GnuCash


http://www.gnucash.org/


Replaces Microsoft Money or Quicken


GnuCash is a slimmed-down version of the bloated Microsoft Money and
Quicken packages, but it contains all of the features I want for
managing my money. The interfaces are incredibly simple - it functions
much like a checkbook ledger on your computer - but there’s a lot of
meat hidden throughout the software.

30. True Combat: Elite


http://www.truecombatelite.net/


Replaces Quake IV, Halo, etc.


After all this downloading, you’re going to need to blow off a little
steam, and I’ve yet to find a more enjoyable free game than this one.
It’s basically a third person combat game, but the graphics are
spectacular and the game is quite engrossing.

If you’ve downloaded and installed all of these, you’ve got access
to all the productivity software you’ll likely need, clean and open and
best of all free.

Courtesy of thesimpledollar.com

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This E-mail Address Will Self Destruct in 10 Minutes!

"Welcome to 10 Minute Mail.



By clicking on the link below, you will be given a temporary e-mail address. Any e-mails sent to that address will show up automatically on the web page. You can read them, click on links, and even reply to them. The e-mail address will expire after 10 minutes.



Why would you use this? Maybe you want to sign up for a site which requires that you provide an e-mail address to send a validation e-mail to. And maybe you don't want to give up your real e-mail address and end up on a bunch of spam lists. This is nice and disposable. And it's free. Enjoy!



Get my 10 Minute Mail e-mail address.





Please note, we are currently being slashdotted:) A curse and blessing. Please be patient, or try back later. Also feel free to help my bandwidth bill!"



CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE SITE!

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Vincent Flanders Presents: Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015

From webpagesthatsuck.com



Webpagesthatsuck.com has a really interesting article on web design that anyone doing any degree of web design will surely enjoy and some may even find it a handy heads up. The description of the article reads:



"Next to e-mail, your web site is one of the most important marketing tools you have. Too many people are using their web sites in the wrong way and are hurting themselves.



building a web site is a lot like building a houseI’ve gathered what I think are the biggest web design mistakes committed during the period 1995 to 2015. Yes it is a little facetious to say these mistakes will be made in the year 2015, but it’s human nature to repeat your mistakes over and over. But it’s human nature to repeat your mistakes over and over.



I've rewritten parts of the article and put in some videos of sites that have changed. I have the proof of how bad they used to be.



Some mistakes I’ll discuss aren’t actually design mistakes in the classical sense — ugly graphics, bad navigation, etc. — but serious big picture problems like our Number One Mistake: "



Here are the top ten mistakes according to Vincent Flanders, you can click here to view the site where you will find each mistake fully explained.



1. Believing people care about you and your web site.

2. A man from Mars can’t figure out what your web site is about in less than four seconds.

3. Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS.

4. Using design elements that get in the way of your visitors.

5. Navigational failure.

6. Using Mystery Meat Navigation.

7. Thinking your web site is your marketing strategy.

8. Site lacks Heroin Content.

9. Forgetting the purpose of text.

10. Too much material on one page.

11. Confusing web design with a magic trick.

12. Misusing Flash.

13. Misunderstanding graphics.

14. AFFrontPage.

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WebFTP is Back!

WebFTP is back!

Posted by Dan on December 6th, 2006

Web2FTP is back, it is one of the most useful tools a mobile blogger could ever need. With this service you can access any FTP account through a Web interface - no matter whether there is a firewall or not. You can use webftp for the complete administration of your homepage, downloading files or just making small changes.

Unfortunately there’s a filesize limit, but still be useful in an emergency.

Read More

Wufoo!!!

What is Wufoo?

Wufoo is an Internet application that helps anybody build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun. Because we host everything, all you need is a browser, an Internet connection and a few minutes to build a form and start using it right away.

What can I build with Wufoo?

Basically, the possibilities are endless, but here’s a short list of things to give you an idea of Wufoo’s versatility:

* Contact Form
* Mailing List
* Survey
* Job Application
* Workshop Registration
* Event Calendar
* Account Management
* Customer Management
* Bug Tracker

* Invitations / RSVP
* Online Orders
* Wedding Planner
* Address Book
* Home Finances
* Classifieds
* Personal Journal
* Quizzes / Tests
* Media Collection

Click here to visit the Wufoo site!

Type text of your program and click Run

Real-time, web based program editor that does javascript and more. Really cool! Could be handy, click here to check it out

Convert any image to a text image of ASCII characters

Wow click here to check out a really cool site that lets you convert any image to a text image of ASCII characters! Look below to see what it let me make! It's my display pic here on the right, but made with different letters and characters

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oddl:;ll;;ldoool:::o;';lollolclollllclddolocc:;:llc;;,;;,;;:lllcccloodddlclloloo
xxddoodddxdxdddddoodooodxdollcccloxxxxxxxdxkkxoodollllolc:looolllllclollc:cldooo
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:cc::ccc:cccc::::::::;;;;;;:cx0KXXKx::ldddc;oxdo0Xx:;;;;;;;;;;;;;;,;;;;;,,;;;,;;
lllccccccccccccc:cc:cccc:cclxOKXXKOl,,,;::,.cc:lOXOl;;;:;;;;;;;::;;:::::::::::::
llllllllcclccccccccccccc:::oOKKKXX0l;;;cc:;,:lcl0Kxc:::::::::::::::;:::::cccc:::
lccccclccclllllllcllcccccclk00KXNXXdccldollodolkK0xllllllccllllllllcccccclllcccc
cc:::ccclllllllllcllccccclxO0XXNWNKdlccc;;loookXOkxlllclllllllllllllllllllllllcl
;;;;;::ccccllllcccccccc:cdk0KNNXKKxolccc:;:lk0KKxoxollllllllllllllllccccccllllll
;;;;;;;::::::ccccccc::cldk00OkkxxklcclccccloOK00ddoolllllllllllloooooollllllllll
::::::::::::::::::cccclol;;:o;;;oc..'cllllodx0OOkdo:clllloooooooooooooooooolllll
lllcccccccc:::::::::::;.. ..,c..l,....;clooood00kc'';lolllllloolloooooooooolooll
lllllccccccccccccccc:,......':c.o.  .....,coookXk;:cllllllcccccclllloooooooooooo
cccccccccccclllllllc,'.'',,,'.col   .......,c:;Ok;:ollllloollllloooolollllllllll
ccccccclccccccccccc;'''',,,;'.o0kc;'.........'lOOdcollllllccccccclllllccclllllll
cclllllllllllllllc:,''',,;:c:o000000kdlc:;:lxOOOOkoollccccc:::c::cc::::cc::::ccc
oodddooooooooollll:,,,,;;cd000OO0OOOOOOO000000OOOkdloolllllllccccccccccccccccccl
xddxxxkxdddddddddd:,,,,;:o0X000000OOO000000000000Oxooolllllooooooooooooooooodooo
dodddddxxddxxxxxxd;,,,;:lkNKK0000000KKKKKKKKKKKKKOdoodddddddddoddddddddddddodddd
oooodddddxxxkkkkko,,;;;:o0NXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXK0kxdooddddddxxxddoodooddddddooddx
:lxxxxxkkOOOOOkxxc,,;;;cxKKKKKXNNNNNNXXXXXXXXXXkxkxolddxxxxxxdddddddxxxxxxdxxxxd
  :xxodkkkkkxkOkxc,,,;:o0X00KKXXNNNXXKKKKXXKKKKkxkx::ddxxxkkxddddxxdxxxddddddxkx