Windows only: That extra thumb drive you have lying around is great for portable apps suites, but if you'd rather leave out the hardware altogether, free web service Spoon lets you run a ton of Windows programs right from the cloud.
You will have to download and install a small plugin for this to work (so if you're blocked from doing so, you'll have to stick with the thumb drive), but after that you can run a ton of different programs without downloading or installing anything. Apps available range from TweetDeck to Notepad++ to Thunderbird to even browsers like Chrome, Firefox and Opera. It can also run a large number of games, both small (like Pac-Man) and large (like Second Life). You just find the app you want to run in their database, hit Launch, and the app will start right up in Windows. It's incredibly simple, but really cool if you need to run any of these apps on a computer on which they aren't installed.
Friday, 10 December 2010
Spoon Lets You Run Portable Desktop Apps From Your Browser
Friday, 3 December 2010
It's a big World Wide Web out there, so let's support dotscot on St Andrew's Day
Dot Scot is the campaign to get Scotland its own domain name on the internet. It shouldn't really be too difficult, with the proliferation of .nets and .orgs.
Catalonia already has its own, which is great for business, culture and tourism. It's a big world wide web out there and the more distinctive you are the better. It's also a great way of uniting the Scottish diaspora, linking a world wide family with affinity to the country.
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Aviary HTML5 Editor Fixes Photos Without Flash
If you're working without Flash, either out of hardware necessity (iPads, hot-running MacBooks) or computational fidelity, you'll dig Aviary's new HTML5-based editor. It's a suite that has most of what you need to fix up photos in a Flash-less browser.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Convert YouTube to MP3, Get MP3 from YouTube video, FLV to MP3, extract audio from YouTube, YouTube MP3 - ListenToYouTube.com
MP3 From YouTube Flash Video
ListenToYouTube.com is the most convenient online application for converting YouTube flash video to MP3 audio. This service is fast, free, and requires no signup. All you need is a YouTube URL, and our software will transfer the video to our server, extract the MP3, and give you a link to download the audio file.
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Miro Video Converter FREE - Convert any video to MP4, WebM (vp8), iPhone, Android, iPod, iPad, and more.
Finally!
A super simple way to convert almost any video to MP4, WebM (vp8), Ogg Theora, or for Android, iPhone, and more.
100% Free and open-source.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Stream movies legally and for free during Online Movie Week | Expert Reviews
Full Stream Ahead is a week-long celebration from 7-13th June of legal online movies. Several Hollywood studios are working together with Blinkbox in the UK to offer Britons the chance to try out its legal movie streaming service for nothing.
The campaign, which is backed by the BFI and UK Film Council, is intended to show internet users that there's an alternative to illegal downloading. All you have to do to get £20 of credit to use on Blinkbox's website is to visit fullstreamahead.co.uk and click on the Free Trial link on the right-hand side.
You'll then be asked to create a free account on Blinkbox and once you sign in, you'll see you have £20 of credit to rent or buy movies. The selection, from studios such as Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox and Universal, includes Avatar, Law Abiding Citizen and Sherlock Holmes.
Microsoft Office is now live on SkyDrive!
Over the last few months, we've gotten incredible feedback from the hundreds of thousands of users in our Office Web Apps Technical Preview. We’ve been busy incorporating much of that feedback, and today, Office Web Apps on SkyDrive are now available to everyone in the US, UK, Canada, and Ireland. We’ll have more to share next week when Office 2010 is released to consumers, including how Office 2010 + SkyDrive + Office Web Apps give you the best productivity experience across the PC, phone, and browser.
In the meantime, if you live in the US, UK, Canada, or Ireland, you can head over to Office.live.com today to start viewing and editing Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote documents right in your web browser – and share them with your friends.
Friday, 4 June 2010
Windows Phone 7 Developer Training Kit | Learn | Channel 9
Windows Phone 7 promises to be an amazing mobile phone operating system given its innovative user interface and functionality, as well as its great development platform upon which you can quickly and easily build games and applications. With a myriad of new devices, a powerful and immersive software platform, and a new marketplace to attract developers and provide easy access to applications, consumer demand for Windows Phones will be high, and developers will quickly adopt the Windows Phone platform to capitalize on this growing mobile marketplace. This Training Kit will give you a jumpstart into the new Windows Phone world by providing you with a step-by-step explanation of the tools to use and some key concepts for programming Windows Phones.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Droopy Creates Instant Servers for Large File Trading
Windows/Mac/Linux: Droopy is a Python script that creates a miniature, one-shot web server that lets anyone upload files through a web page straight to your computer, no matter the size.
Instead of using traditional file-sharing methods like FTP or even Dropbox (which requires an account), Droopy lets people upload large files without hassle through their web browser. The file is saved directly onto your machine in a chosen folder. Unlike other web-based file-sharing services, like YouSendIt, it does not require the additional step of downloading the file.
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
Learning in an Open World : John Connell: The Blog
He has the speakers:
Grainne Conole, Peter Scott, Chris Pegler, Frank Rennie, Simon Buckingham Shum, Laura Dewis, Patrick McAndrew, George Siemens, Tony Hirst, Linda Wilks, Elton Barker, Steve Swithenby, Anne Faulkner, Doug Clow, Lesley-Anne Long, Joe Smith.
He has the topics:
- Open Content: Cloudworks, iTunesU, SCORE
- Open Learning: SocialLearn, OpenLearn, OLNet
- Open Teaching: Creating open courses, Digital Humanities, Open CETL
- Open Access: iSpot, the OU in Africa, Researching the environment in the open
And he manages to squeeze in Jimmy Wales too for a closing talk.
He is Martin Weller, who has pulled together an officially awesome agenda for this year’s Open University conference, on 22nd and 23rd June.
And the best bit? The whole thing will be run online, using Elluminate, and all are welcome to attend. But there is a maximum number for each session – so you can register to attend on Cloudworks.
What are you waiting for?
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Kevin Grandia: Shocking NASA Image: Never-Seen-Before Southeast Oil Slick Arm
A startling new image released by NASA today shows a massive column of oil extending out Southeast towards the open ocean.
This column has not been visible in any satellite photos taken so far and will no doubt change the estimated extent of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.
Perform OCR with Google Docs - Turn Scanned Images Into Editable Documents
Perform OCR with Google Docs – Turn Images Into Editable Documents
Google Docs can now perform OCR on digital images. You can upload an image containing typewritten or printed text (like a fax document or a scanned newspaper clipping) to your Google Docs account and it will turn that image into editable text.
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
10 Awesome Vintage Video Games You Can Play Online
10 Awesome Vintage Video Games You Can Play Online
There’s something about an old video game that does a body good. The 16-color graphics, the 8-bit sound — something about it conjures memories of simpler times, when joysticks seemed larger because our hands were still small, and a dollar seemed like a heck of a lot more money than it does right now.
Allow us to take you on a vintage voyage with a time machine of links, if you will. Here are ten computer and arcade games we all know and love that you can now play online and free of charge. If you’re of a certain age, you probably played these games while waiting for your mom to finish grocery shopping. Or they might have been on your very first video game console. We hope you remember them fondly and enjoy playing them again.
Nachofoto Is Not Your Average Image Search Engine
Quick Pitch: Nachofoto is a real-time image search engine with a focus on trending topics and rising search terms.
Genius Idea: Nachofoto is designed to return the most relevant and recent images for rising search terms, as determined by Google Insights for Search, Google Trends, AOL Hot Searches and Yahoo Buzz.
The site functions just like the search engines you’re already familiar with, but is much more convenient for searches related to widely discussed topics. So a search for “Miss USA” will return images of the newly crowned winner, Rima Fakih, instead of a barrage of older photos that aren’t relevant to yesterday’s pageant.
Identity Finder Searches Out All the Sensitive Data on Your Computer - Security - Lifehacker
Identity Finder Searches Out All the Sensitive Data on Your Computer
Windows: Free utility Identity Finder scans your hard drive looking for sensitive information, like credit card numbers and passwords.
Similar to previously mentioned Sensitive Number Finder, Identity Finder searches your Windows user folder, including files and browser data, for possible credit card numbers or passwords, and then lets you know so you can do something about it. The program also has a few options for dealing with that data, like "shredding" the file (which will make it unrecoverable), encrypting the file, or quarantining it.
Unshake Makes Blurry Photos Passable - Photos - Lifehacker
Unshake Makes Blurry Photos Passable
Sometimes, you just have to take a picture of what's in front of you but you're stuck with low light and a cellphone camera. Free utility Unshake makes those photos somewhat presentable by toning down the blur.
You can't truly make a blurry photo clear (the only thing you can do is breathe like a sniper when you first take the photo), but you can at least salvage some of it with this handy program. Unshake can really make your photos passable, but it takes a bit of tweaking. There are a number of settings that you'll have to play around with to find the right balance—the wrong combination can produce super etched-looking photos—but with a bit of patience, you can probably turn a trash-bound jpeg into a photo worthy of at least showing your friends.
Monday, 17 May 2010
Autodesk Education Community Offer Free Products for Students
Access over 25 free* downloads of the same design software used by professionals worldwide.
Now you can push the boundaries of design with Autodesk® software. Download the same, full version software that over 9 million designers, engineers and digital artists are using at 100 percent of Fortune 100 companies in over 183 countries around the world. Experience the newest editions of 2D and 3D products, such as Autodesk® Inventor®, Autodesk® Revit®, Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya®, and AutoCAD®.
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Clean Up Your Photo Collection with Free Tools - Organizing - Lifehacker
You've taken digital pictures for years across multiple systems and camera upgrades, and now your collection is a mess. These free tools and techniques will fix your photos' metadata, weed out duplicates, reorganize folders, and otherwise whip your digital photos into shape.
The aim here is to provide fixes for the common problems that plague photo collections, no matter what kind of photo organizer you're using, or what kind of data your digital camera provides. After this de-duping, meta-tagging, folder-fixing shape-up, you should be in a good place to keep your photos organized with whatever methods or tools you choose.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Free Audio Editor Strips Audio from YouTube and Video Files - Audio Editing - Lifehacker
Windows: An update to Free Audio Editor doesn't change its simple mission, but the newest version is chock full of extra-helpful features. The application downloads YouTube videos, and then strips audio from those FLVs and other video files.
By entering a URL, you can strip audio from YouTube videos online. It downloads the YouTube video in FLV, then strips the audio from the FLV file. Free Audio Encoder will also strip audio from normal videos, such as those in AVI format.
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
BatchGeo - Make google maps using many addresses / coordinates
Have locations in a spreadsheet? Well try this free and unique tool to...
- Map them using Google Maps
- Post it on your Web site
- Create a store locator
- Get coordinates, print maps, and more!
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Register now for the FREE UK Windows Azure Self-paced Interactive Learning Course starting May 10th
Register now for the FREE UK Windows Azure Self-paced Interactive Learning Course starting May 10th
[Suggested twitter tag #selfpacedazure]
We (myself and David Gristwood) have been working in the UK to create a fantastic opportunity to get yourself up to speed on the Windows Azure Platform over a 6 week period starting May 10th – without ever needing to leave the comfort of your home/office. The course is derived from the internal training Microsoft gives on Azure which is both fun and challenging in equal parts – and we felt was just too good to keep to ourselves! We will be releasing more details nearer the date but hopefully the following is enough to convince you to register and … recommend it to a colleague or three :-)
What we have produced is the “Microsoft Azure Self-paced Learning Course”. This is a free, interactive, self-paced, technical training course covering the Windows Azure platform – Windows Azure, SQL Azure and the Azure AppFabric. The course takes place over a six week period finishing on June 18th. During the course you will work from your own home or workplace, and get involved via interactive Live Meetings session, watch on-line videos, work through hands-on labs and research and complete weekly coursework assignments. The mentors and other attendees on the course will help you in your research and learning, and there are weekly Live Meetings where you can raise questions and interact with them. This is a technical course, aimed at programmers, system designers, and architects who want a solid understanding of the Microsoft Windows Azure platform, hence a prerequisite for this course is at least six months programming in the .NET framework and Visual Studio.
Are ALEOs even legal? ~ Scottish Review : Gordon MacGregor
They bypass the democratic
will of the people. Are ALEOs
even legal?Gordon MacGregor
While we shouldn't give way to excitable speculation about shadowy cabals – Glasgow City Council is more reminiscent of Tammany hall than la cosa nostra - it is plain that the matrix of power and accountability in Glasgow has become much more fluid and intangible during the past decade. While once we had a fairly predictable vertical arrangement of administration we are now treated to a barely intelligible spaghetti of partnerships amongst stake-holding agencies, both public and private.
Central to this re-vamped structure of service delivery has been the creation of a number of 'arm's length' private companies (ALEOs) and limited liability partnerships to take over many of the functions of the council, leaving the latter free to do….well, other things. The attraction of these is obvious; accountable only to their shareholders, outwith the ambit of administrative responsibility, able to apply for alternative sources of funding, they are far more attractive than dull civic committees. And there is a political bonus. They bypass the democratic will of the Glasgow electorate and represent nothing short of a coup.
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
UK Parliament - Free Parliamentary training
Parliamentary Outreach offers free training to organisations wanting to know more about the UK Parliament and how they can get involved with the work of the House of Commons and House of Lords.
Each training session is tailored to the specific interests of your organisation. It could include any aspect of Parliamentary work
NumberQuotes Gives Perspective to Your Statistics, Is Great for Presentations - Lifehacker
Numbers—especially big ones—can seem pretty abstract. One way to help people better understand them: Provide context based on numbers they do understand. Free web service NumberQuotes spits out related statistics containing any number you throw at it.
For example, if you wanted to give context to a number like "50 billion", punching it into NumberQuotes returns things like "the 2008 GDP for Bulgaria," or "50 billion dollars would buy a 2010 Cadillac Escalade for everyone living in Indianapolis City, Indiana." Similarly, punching in "15" returns "the population of Friendship town, Oklahoma," "15 iPhones would buy 1.49 MacBooks," and, strangest of all, "15 hot dogs laid next to each other would reach as far as 1.18 dollar bills." All you do to get a quote for your number is type it in on NumberQuotes' home page—you'll be instantly greeted with a bunch of other statistics pertaining to that number (or one close to it). Some of them make a lot of sense, and some are just downright random.
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Astonishing sculpture of church is carved... into a single grain of SAND.
A talented micro-sculptor has proven you really can see the world in a grain of sand - after carving this incredible church from a single granule that fits inside the eye of a needle.
Willard Wigan, 52 made a name for himself by sculpting tiny recreations of everything from Barack Obama and his family, to Neil Armstrong on the moon's surface.
He was challenged by his girlfriend Sarah Slade, who lives at the foot of Chosen Hill in Churchdown, near Gloucester, to sculpt the hilltop parish church St Bartholomew's.
Micro view: Willard Wigan carved the St Bartholomew's church into this grain of sand and then put it in the eye of a needle. It's so small that it can't be seen with the naked eye
Friday, 26 March 2010
Free AVG Rescue CD ~ Essential for your rescue toolkit.
Key technologies
- Anti-virus: protection against viruses, worms and Trojans
- Anti-spyware: protection against spyware, adware and identity theft
- Administration toolkit: system recovery tools
The AVG Rescue CD is essentially a portable version of AVG Anti-Virus supplied through Linux distribution. It can be used in the form of a bootable CD or bootable USB flash drive to recover your computer when the system cannot be loaded normally, such as after an extensive or deep-rooted virus infection. In short, the AVG Rescue CD enables you to fully remove infections from an otherwise inoperable PC and render the system bootable again.
Apart from the usual AVG functions (malware detection and removal, updates from internet or external device, etc.), the AVG Rescue CD also contains the following set of administration tools:
- Midnight Commander - a two-panel file manager
- Windows Registry Editor– simple registry editor for more experienced users
- TestDisk - powerful hard drive recovery tool
- Ping - to test the availability of network resources (servers, domains, IP addresses)
- Common Linux programs and services– vi text editor, OpenSSH daemon, ntfsprogs etc.
Free of charge
The AVG Rescue CD is a free-to-use product that anyone can download. This also covers any new program versions and virus database updates. If you have any other paid AVG license, you are also entitled to receive our full technical support.
Thursday, 25 March 2010
O'Reilly Tech Books as iphone Apps - £2.99 in iTunes App Store - HotUKDeals Forum
Most people who work in IT will know that O'Reilly books are very expensive. I'm sat at my desk looking at a 'Learning Java' book that cost me the thick end of £30.Well, whilst browsing the app store on my iPhone I found that O'Reilly have bundled a load of their books up in the Stanza ebook reader app and are selling each title for peanuts (£2.99 seems to be the most common price point). That 'Learning Java' book I paid £28 for? £2.99.
Hard-up Scots councils spend £115,000 every _day_ on consultants - Scotsman.com News
SCOTTISH local authorities have paid out more than £40 million in fees to consultancy firms in the past year, new figures have revealed.As councils wrestle with looming budget cuts, data released by 28 of Scotland's 32 councils showed £42m – roughly £115,000 a day – was spent on management and finance advice, with many consultants hired to help councils cut costs.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Macmillan to allow professors to change textbooks online, on the fly
Macmillan, one of the largest textbook publishers in the world, is introducing a new software for instructors that will allow them to change the online versions of textbooks that their students use.According to the New York Times, with DynamicBooks, "Professors will be able to reorganize or delete chapters; upload course syllabuses, notes, videos, pictures and graphs; and perhaps most notably, rewrite or delete individual paragraphs, equations or illustrations."
Learn a New Photography Trick or Two; Entire BBC Photo Masterclasses Now Available Online - #Lifehacker
If you loved browsing the archives of National Geographic when they opened up their vaults last November and found yourself wanting to take your own impressive nature shots, you'll definitely want to check out the BBC Photo Masterclasses.
Published in the pages of the BBC's Wildlife magazine, the Photo Masterclasses are articles written by Wildlife photographers and specialists in their genre of nature photography. You'll find articles on macro photography, landscape photography, and photographing different creatures under all sorts of different conditions. If you love learning a new photography trick or two you'll definitely want to dive into the archives of the BBC.
The Complete Guide to Ripping and Converting Flash Videos - #Lifehacker
Whether you want to save and watch a Flash video offline, convert a Flash music video for your MP3 player, or do something else entirely, learning how to rip and convert Flash videos is a useful skill. Here's how it works.
When it comes to ripping Flash videos, there's more than one way to accomplish the task, and in many cases it depends greatly on where you're grabbing the video. We'll cover a number of different options for downloading Flash videos, as well as several ways you can convert them into more useful formats. Once you've seen the options, you can choose the one that works best for you and your situation.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Get Mac-Like Scrolling and Gestures on a Windows Laptop ~ At last! ~ #Lifehacker
Once you've used the hand-helping, time-saving, two-finger scrolling and three-finger gestures on a MacBook, a standard Windows trackpad can feel kind of, well, dead. Here's how to get total finger control with a tiny app, or go further with a driver swap.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Score Free AudioBooks at BooksShouldBeFree - Audiobooks - Lifehacker
You can find quite a few free audiobooks online but they're frequently scattered all over. Save yourself the run around by checking out the thousands of free audiobooks cataloged at BooksShouldBeFree.
BooksShouldBeFree houses thousands of books in the public domain, available as both MP3s and as iTunes format audiobooks. Each entry for a book includes links to the full text, supplemental text, and reviews.
Scottish councils: audit of services - Times Online
The first comprehensive survey of performance across Scotland, based on figures provided by the authorities themselves
Look at Data Like a Statistician, Minus the Ph. D - Data - #Lifehacker
Nathan Yau is a doctoral candidate in statistics, but the most valuable lessons he's learned in analyzing and working with data don't involve formal math. Here's how he suggests looking at lines, charts, and numbers to find interesting things.
Eight (or so) Easy 2.0 Pieces to Piece Together ~ Educational Wiki
Eight (or so) Easy 2.0 Pieces to Piece Together
Excellent source for Web 2.0 educational resources.
Commercial Break: First Apple iPad ad appears in US | BitterWallet
As seen in the United States of A during last night’s Oscars binge. Launch date across the pond confirmed as April 3rd. Does it make you want one then? Does it??
Yes. Yes it does.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
How HTML5 Will Change the Way You Use the Web #Lifehacker
Firefox and Safari partially support it, Google's Wave and Chrome projects are banking on it, and most web developers are ecstatic about what it means. It's HTML5, and if you're not exactly sure what it is, here's an explainer.
A Celebration of Duct Tape ~ Possibly the best invention ever! #Lifehacker
If the DIY community had a universal symbol, it most certainly would be a roll of duct tape. Inexpensive, abundant, strong, and ready to stick to nearly anything, this versatile DIY companion is a must in your DIY toolkit.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Please Rob Me - This is why automatic public location reporting is just wrong.
This can't be good.
Listing all those empty homes out there
Mathalicious - A great resource for a range of maths explanations in plain English
Welcome to Mathalicious. Here, we’re guided by a simple philosophy: Math isn’t something you learn, but a tool you use to learn about other things. Our mission is to help transform the way math is taught and learned by focusing not only on skills but on the real-world applications of math, from sports to politics to video games to exercise.
If you’re a teacher, parent or student, we invite you to use our content in your homes and classrooms. So poke around. Have some fun. Get some smart.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
The Making of an Expert - Everything you know about making someone an expert is wrong.
Thirty years ago, two Hungarian educators, László and Klara Polgár, decided to challenge the popular assumption that women don’t succeed in areas requiring spatial thinking, such as chess. They wanted to make a point about the power of education. The Polgárs homeschooled their three daughters, and as part of their education the girls started playing chess with their parents at a very young age. Their systematic training and daily practice paid off. By 2000, all three daughters had been ranked in the top ten female players in the world. The youngest, Judit, had become a grand master at age 15, breaking the previous record for the youngest person to earn that title, held by Bobby Fischer, by a month. Today Judit is one of the world’s top players and has defeated almost all the best male players.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games.
Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. The programming environment runs on the Xbox, allowing rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input.
5 Amazing Downloads for Educators and Students
5 Amazing Downloads for Educators and Students
Category: Microsoft Research
Submitted Date: 1/29/2010Ideal for students in the classroom or at home, these downloads were selected in honor of National Computer Science Education Week 2009 and are offered to the public free of charge. Explore some of the amazing things you can do with software in your home or school today.
Kodu
Kodu is an exciting new visual programming language designed to be accessible to children and enjoyable for anyone who wants to create cool games. It runs on Xbox, allowing rapid program design iteration by using only a game controller for input. A PC version is available in beta for schools.Photosynth
Photosynth creates an amazing new experience with nothing more than a bunch of ordinary photos. Creating a “synth” allows you to share the places and things you love by using the cinematic quality of a movie, the control of a video game, and the mind-blowing detail of the real world.Robotics Developer Studio
Robotics Developer Studio (RDS) is a Windows-based programming environment for academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. Included is a set of visual authoring and simulation tools, as well as templates, tutorials, and sample code to help you get started.WorldWide Telescope
WorldWide Telescope (WWT) enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world. Experience narrated guided tours from astronomers and educators featuring interesting places in the sky. Run it in a browser window or as a standalone application.XNA Game Studio and XNA Creator’s Club Online
The XNA Creators Club Online is a community all about games made by you and creators like you. Create your games by using the XNA Game Studio, submit them for review by the Community, and sell them on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Games can be made for Xbox 360, Windows, and Zune.
Microsoft Office Add-ins for Scientists - Microsoft Research
Working with members of the research community and developers in the Microsoft Office Product group, we are developing a series of technologies for scientists—built on existing community protocols and practices—to advance semantic knowledge discovery.
Setting Aviary Free
As of today, we have decided to make using Aviary's suite of editing tools FREE for everyone.At Aviary, we believe that everyone in the world should have access to powerful creation tools. We therefore chose our company mission to be We make creation accessible to everyone. Our powerful set of tools helps fulfill this mission by enabling small businesses, students, artists & creators across different genres.
As a business, we did need to bring in revenues to cover our costs and development and to accomplish this we created a tiered pricing plan for certain types of uses. Although this was financially successful for us, the side effect of this was that our tools and their features (in their full capacity), were not truly accessible to everyone.
The Data Liberation Front
The Data Liberation Front
The Data Liberation Front is an engineering team at Google whose singular goal is to make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products. We do this because we believe that you should be able to export any data that you create in (or import into) a product. We help and consult other engineering teams within Google on how to "liberate" their products. This is our mission statement:
Thursday, 11 February 2010
LookInMyPC Is a Must-Have Tool for Computer Troubleshooting - Lifehacker
Whether you're a tech guru who knows your way around your computer better than the company that built it, or a novice just getting acquainted with your system, LookInMyPC is a free app you'll want to download and run at least once, even before you need its diagnostic help. It's like a big verbal X-Ray of your PC, detailing everything from the brand of network adapter you have to the number of user accounts on your system.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Data Crow is a Cross-Platform Manager of All Your Media - Lifehacker
Data Crow doesn't just catalog your movies with IMDB look-ups, organize your MP3s and CDs with discographies, or handle pictures. It handles all three, plus contacts, software, books, and much more, and runs on any system.
Data Crow is huge, and can be very intimidating on first boot-up—there are menus upon menus, and it's not immediately obvious how you drop your stuff into this app. Thankfully, there's a beginner's wizard that pops up on first using the app—which can be re-launched from the Help menu if you lose track of it—that walks you through adding, tagging, and managing your media.
Once you get the hang of adding your stuff, you'll start seeing some of the cross-indexing and search powers that Data Crow provides. There are lots of web hook-ins to help you grab cover art and details for your media off Amazon.com and other online sources, and a good number of import tools to save you time if you've already done some cataloging in another app.
FollowUpThen Automates Email Follow Ups - #Lifehacker
You're pinging somebody over email right now, but they'll probably need a reminder or follow-up in two days. CC twodays@followupthen.com, and if that person hasn't responded yet, they'll be automatically re-pinged 48 hours from now. It's a neat service, and it's free.
That's the main way FollowUpThen works: CC a message that needs a second push to an address like 5hours, 2days, 1week, or even 10minutes@followupthen.com, and if your recipient doesn't reply (with FollowUpThen as one of the addressees) before your time period is up, the original message is re-pushed by FollowUpThen.com, with a little email graphical tweak, seen above, and a notice that FollowUpThen is acting on your wishes.
If you want to handle the second notice yourself, add the @followupthen.com timed address to the BCC field, and it will only get back to you, with a reminder of what you sent. You can also send a message directly To: followupthen.com, and your reminder is pushed back to you at the time you specify.
Expertise Requires Time over Talent, So Get Busy - Lifehacker
Career blogger Penelope Trunk carries a 2007 article from the Harvard Business Review with her everywhere she goes. The article, called The Making of an Expert, discusses the reality of expertise, which, simply put, is this:
Sketchpad Is a No-Flash-Required HTML5 Painting App - #Lifehacker
Chrome/Firefox/Safari/Opera: Want proof that HTML5 is the way of the future? Try Sketchpad, a surprisingly robust online painting app that doesn't require Flash, Shockwave, or any other plug-in—just a modern browser and your fingers.
Run by a team that dubs themselves Colorjack, this "Sketchpad" demo shows off the capabilities of modern JavaScript and HTML5 support. You can paint any color in any shade or opacity, take on patterns and "Spirographs," and use all the tools you're likely familiar with from Microsoft's older versions of that old Paint standby.
Learn Basic Color Theory for Better Designs - #Lifehacker
Whether you're putting together a portfolio web site or just slapping together some slides, knowing how colors affect the minds of your audience makes your message more appealing. Smashing magazine offers a post that serves as Color Psychology 101 for would-be designers.
Monday, 8 February 2010
Classroom Response System - Clicker Free | Poll Everywhere
Classroom Response System
An affordable Classroom Response System (CRS) accessible to all educators
Sugar on a Stick brings sweet taste of Linux to classrooms - Ars Technica
Sugar Labs has announced the first official release of Sugar on a Stick, a Linux-based learning environment that can boot from a USB memory stick. The Sugar platform, which originally emerged from the One Laptop Per Child project, could soon arrive in classrooms.
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Dummy Image Generator Is the Lorem Ipsum of Images - Lifehacker
Lorem ipsum is a block of dummy text in Latin often used in design and publishing to fill space in a mockup. The brilliant Dummy Image Generator is like "lorem ipsum" for images.
Skip the Raise, Ask Your Boss for These Perks Instead - Negotiation - Lifehacker
If your company is already tightening its belt, it might not do much good asking for a raise during your next performance review. Instead, consider asking for other perks that might be almost as good as cash in your pocket.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Iraq inquiry to recall Tony Blair over possible conflicting evidence | UK news | The Guardian
Iraq inquiry to recall Tony Blair over possible conflicting evidence
Former prime minister to be questioned in public and private over evidence he gave to panel on invasion's legality
Grumpiness “A Sign Of Advanced Civilisation”? « Derren Brown Blog
Researchers now believe that being aggressive, intolerant and short-tempered could be a sign of a more advanced nature.
A more childlike attitude to behaviour such as tolerance and sharing, could, in contrast, be an indication of not being as developed, the new study suggests.
Evernote 3.5 for Windows Released, Introduces Better Interface - Evernote - Lifehacker
Windows: Evernote's desktop software does a good job at clipping screenshots, scribblings, and as-you-think text into your cloud-connected second brain, but didn't look so hot doing it. Evernote 3.5 upgrades the note views, and also improves your search powers.
How to Put Your PC to Good Use While You're Sleeping - Automation - Lifehacker
The great part about your computer is that—unlike you—it doesn't require any sleep. Take advantage of your PC's insomnia by automating time- and processor-intensive tasks while you're counting sheep.
Come on - you know you never actually turn if off anyway.
Google Docs Now Allowing Any Type of File Upload - Google Docs - Lifehacker
The semi-GDrive upload feature announced earlier this month has gone live, giving everyone with Google Docs a 1GB space to store, and share, files of any kind.
Oh good. More of my life on Google...
Firefox 3.6 Officially Available, Brings Speed Increases, One-Click Themes, and More - Firefox 3.6 - Lifehacker
Windows/Mac/Linux: The oft-delayed but much improved 3.6 version of Firefox has landed, offering up faster performance, one-click themes, safer add-ons and plug-ins, better font handling, and a lot more. Grab it now.
Weave 1.0 Syncs Nearly Everything About Your Firefox Setup - Weave - Lifehacker
Firefox: Mozilla's out with the 1.0 of its Weave project, and it delivers on what it first promised—quiet, complete syncing of bookmarks, passwords, preferences, history, and even open tabs. It also heralds the coming of a really cool mobile experience.
Download Over 150 Free Advanced PowerPoint Slides to Jazz Up Your Presentations - Powerpoint - Lifehacker
If you're tired of your PowerPoint presentations being a bit tame, Microsoft has released a collection of PowerPoint slide sets that show how you can push the envelope in slide design and get away from boring slides.
They've collected dozens of slide sets that are not only interesting for their color schemes and animations, but also include instructions on how each was created. If you see a set in the collection that you'd like to not only use but learn how to make, download it and check out the attached notes—they'll detail the creation process slide by slide like an elaborate tutorial.
After the Deadline Brings Better Grammar and Spellchecking to Firefox, and It's Awesome - spellcheck - Lifehacker
Firefox: As you make the rounds commenting at your favorite blog or composing a lengthy email, avoid misspellings or a bad turn of phrase with After the Deadline's excellent grammar and spellcheck Firefox extension.
This nifty little add-on hides in the background on Firefox until you're ready to use it. The next time you visit a message board, fill out a web form, or leave a comment on your favorite web site, just hit F7 on your keyboard before you send your message into the intertubes. The extension checks for spelling and grammatical errors and underlines them in hard-to-miss bold colors.
Sikuli Automates Almost Anything with Screenshot Ease - Automation - Lifehacker
Windows/Mac/Linux: Ever wanted to write a script for some repetitive task, but don't know how to code? Sikuli makes it possible for pretty much anyone to automate tasks, by telling it what to do with just some screenshots and simple commands.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
:: Download Free Political Documentaries And Watch Many Interesting, Controversial Free Documentary Films On That You Wont Find On The TV! ::
Free Documentary FilmsAt freedocumentaries.org we strongly believe that in order to have a true democracy, there has to be a free flow of easily accessible information. Unfortunately, many important perspectives, opinions, and facts never make it to our televisions or cinemas (you can watch movies in our media category if you want to know why).
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
LessProjects Organizes Your Projects Into Bite-Sized Pieces - Project - Lifehacker
If you're in the market for a project management application that lets you organize lots and lots of little tasks that make up the bigger picture, LessProjects may be just the app for you.
OpenShot 1.0 Is an Actually Usable Linux Video Editor - Video Editing - Lifehacker
OpenShot 1.0 Is an Actually Usable Linux Video Editor
Quix is an Extendable Bookmarklet to Rule Them All - Shortcuts - Lifehacker
Quix is an Extendable Bookmarklet to Rule Them All