This Week’s Top Downloads [Download Roundup]
- Click to Call Dials Calls from Your Browser (Firefox)
"The GrandCentral Click to Call Firefox extension calls phone numbers on web pages using your GrandCentral account with the click of your mouse." - EncryptOnClick Makes Securing Files Really Simple (Windows)
"Have you ever wanted to lock down a few files behind passwords, but don't want to jump into a full-featured encryption system with multiple keys, virtual drives and whatnot?" - Launchy for Linux Works Just Like Windows Version (Linux)
"Application launcher Launchy quietly added a new 'feature' with its 2.1.1 update—Linux compatibility, for both GNOME and KDE-based desktops." - Snarl Displays Growl-Like Universal Notifications (Windows)
"Free application Snarl is a universal notification system for Windows inspired by the popular Mac OS X notifier Growl." - Desktop Media Puts Removable Drive Icons on Your Desktop (Windows)
"Free utility Desktop Media does the simple but immensely helpful task of putting instant icons for removable media on your Windows desktop." - MakeInstantPlayer Converts Videos to Executables (Windows)
"Free application MakeInstantPlayer converts any video file into an EXE file complete with the player and codecs needed to play it." - StExBar Beefs Up Windows Explorer (Windows)
"Free application StExBar adds a toolbar full of useful shortcuts and commands to Windows Explorer." - VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2 Now Available (Mac)
"We were impressed with our test drive of beta 1, and beta 2 adds a few more promising features."
Related posts
August 3rd, 2008 - Posted in Lifehacker | | Comments Off
Save Time and Typing with Outlook 2007’s Quick Parts [Step By Step]
Outlook users, if you find yourself entering the same things into email messages, you should take a look at the Quick Parts feature, which saves snippets of both text and images for easy reuse. While Gina briefly mentioned this feature in her guide to Tweaking Outlook to empty your inbox faster, let's take a closer look at how to use it.
Open up a new email and create the "Quick Part" that you want to save for later re-use, then find Quick Parts in the Text section, and choose "Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery".
Give it a name and a brief description so you can easily find it later.
Now, any time you want to enter that snippet of text, you can simply pick it from the drop-down button menu. Hovering your mouse over it will show you the description that you entered above.
If you want to edit your Quick Parts, you can right-click on any one of them, and choose "Organize and Delete" from the menu.
This will bring up the Building Blocks Organizer window, where you can preview, delete, insert, or get back to the Edit Properties dialog that you were shown when first saving it. Unfortunately you can't actually edit them from within this dialog.
If you want to edit from Outlook, you'll have to insert it, make your changes, and then save it with the same name, and you'll be prompted to "redefine" the building block. Why they couldn't just say "replace" I don't know.
For even quicker access, I'd recommend adding Quick Parts to your Quick Access Toolbar, which is very easy to do from the right-click menu we used above.
If you are more of a keyboard junkie you may already be using Lifehacker's own Texter, but for the mouse-oriented, this feature can be a time saver. What would you use it for?
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July 31st, 2008 - Posted in Lifehacker | | Comments Off
VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2 Now Available [Beta Beat]
Mac OS X only: VMware releases a new beta of Fusion 2.0, the virtual machine software for Mac. We were impressed with our test drive of beta 1, and beta 2 adds a few more promising features, like: automatic virtual machine snapshots (for easy rollback in case something goes wrong), mirroring folders (like your Mac's Documents folder to Windows' My Documents folder), better keyboard and mouse mapping, and improved 3D graphics (happy news for gamers). The folder mirroring is a welcome addition to my virtual XP installation—no more constant browsing to a shared Mac folder. Take a look at how it works.
Screencast courtesy of VMware:
The Fusion 2.0 beta 2 has all-around improved Unity and its ability to use apps from either operating system in any context. For example, you can set Windows apps as the default file handler for documents on your Mac (and vice versa). (Adam showed you how to do this to some extent in Parallels last July.) Here's another upbeat screencast from VMware demonstrating:
Right now beta 2 is a free download for testers; Fusion 2.0 will be a free upgrade for 1.0 users with a ($79.99) license.
Related posts
July 31st, 2008 - Posted in Lifehacker | | Comments Off
Live Search New Homepage Design Is So Bizarre That It Might Just Work
Are scenic photographs the path to increased search engine market share? That seems to be the thinking behind the new homepage that Microsoft Live Search’s just launched. The homepage now features a background image which includes “hot spots” that when moused over bring up details about the image and lets you click to see search results. For example, when mousing over the lower right portion of the homepage, Live Search asks “is that a lily pad or a crocodile?” and then provides a link to image search results for “African crocodile pictures.”
Bizarre? You bet. But Microsoft says “we want the page to be a great place to start a search and also to intrigue and inform as well … users who have tested this new home page have found it both engaging and a great place to start a search.” And, I sort of buy that argument, at least for a lot of average Internet users who don’t do dozens of mission critical queries every day. Additionally, consider the fact that new HP computers will come with Live Search as the default starting in January. Those users are all potential prey for a new Microsoft offering.
Think about the popularity of sites offering customized wallpapers, screensavers, and skins for various software programs – people like pretty. While it might feel like another gimmick from Microsoft in the search space, much like the company’s Cashback program, they are trying things that Google and Yahoo aren’t doing – things that just might appeal to mainstream users, who Microsoft has the power and distribution to reach. At the very least, adding interesting things to the homepage to click on will generate more queries, which is what those all-important market share numbers are based on anyhow.
Or, maybe I’m just crazy, and this is just as silly as it looks 
---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:
Farecast Live Search: Officially Part of the Microsoft Family
Use Live Search, Get Paid (in Tickets)
Is the new Microsoft Live Search Up and Running?
Richard MacManus: Live.com has Nothing On Netvibes
Live.com Homepage: Microsoft’s Netvibes Getting an Upgrade
Windows Live Hotmail Increases to 5GB of Space, and More
Microsoft Live Search Launches New Features for Mobiles
Related posts
July 30th, 2008 - Posted in Mashable! | | Comments Off
Live Search New Homepage Design Is So Bizarre That It Might Just Work
Are scenic photographs the path to increased search engine market share? That seems to be the thinking behind the new homepage that Microsoft Live Search’s just launched. The homepage now features a background image which includes “hot spots” that when moused over bring up details about the image and lets you click to see search results. For example, when mousing over the lower right portion of the homepage, Live Search asks “is that a lily pad or a crocodile?” and then provides a link to image search results for “African crocodile pictures.”
Bizarre? You bet. But Microsoft says “we want the page to be a great place to start a search and also to intrigue and inform as well … users who have tested this new home page have found it both engaging and a great place to start a search.” And, I sort of buy that argument, at least for a lot of average Internet users who don’t do dozens of mission critical queries every day. Additionally, consider the fact that new HP computers will come with Live Search as the default starting in January. Those users are all potential prey for a new Microsoft offering.
Think about the popularity of sites offering customized wallpapers, screensavers, and skins for various software programs – people like pretty. While it might feel like another gimmick from Microsoft in the search space, much like the company’s Cashback program, they are trying things that Google and Yahoo aren’t doing – things that just might appeal to mainstream users, who Microsoft has the power and distribution to reach. At the very least, adding interesting things to the homepage to click on will generate more queries, which is what those all-important market share numbers are based on anyhow.
Or, maybe I’m just crazy, and this is just as silly as it looks
---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:
Farecast Live Search: Officially Part of the Microsoft Family
Use Live Search, Get Paid (in Tickets)
Is the new Microsoft Live Search Up and Running?
Richard MacManus: Live.com has Nothing On Netvibes
Live.com Homepage: Microsoft’s Netvibes Getting an Upgrade
Windows Live Hotmail Increases to 5GB of Space, and More
Microsoft Live Search Launches New Features for Mobiles
Related posts
July 30th, 2008 - Posted in Mashable! | | Comments Off
Live Search New Homepage Design Is So Bizarre That It Might Just Work
Are scenic photographs the path to increased search engine market share? That seems to be the thinking behind the new homepage that Microsoft Live Search’s just launched. The homepage now features a background image which includes “hot spots” that when moused over bring up details about the image and lets you click to see search results. For example, when mousing over the lower right portion of the homepage, Live Search asks “is that a lily pad or a crocodile?” and then provides a link to image search results for “African crocodile pictures.”
Bizarre? You bet. But Microsoft says “we want the page to be a great place to start a search and also to intrigue and inform as well … users who have tested this new home page have found it both engaging and a great place to start a search.” And, I sort of buy that argument, at least for a lot of average Internet users who don’t do dozens of mission critical queries every day. Additionally, consider the fact that new HP computers will come with Live Search as the default starting in January. Those users are all potential prey for a new Microsoft offering.
Think about the popularity of sites offering customized wallpapers, screensavers, and skins for various software programs – people like pretty. While it might feel like another gimmick from Microsoft in the search space, much like the company’s Cashback program, they are trying things that Google and Yahoo aren’t doing – things that just might appeal to mainstream users, who Microsoft has the power and distribution to reach. At the very least, adding interesting things to the homepage to click on will generate more queries, which is what those all-important market share numbers are based on anyhow.
Or, maybe I’m just crazy, and this is just as silly as it looks
---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:
Farecast Live Search: Officially Part of the Microsoft Family
Use Live Search, Get Paid (in Tickets)
Is the new Microsoft Live Search Up and Running?
Richard MacManus: Live.com has Nothing On Netvibes
Live.com Homepage: Microsoft’s Netvibes Getting an Upgrade
Windows Live Hotmail Increases to 5GB of Space, and More
Microsoft Live Search Launches New Features for Mobiles
Related posts
July 30th, 2008 - Posted in Mashable! | | Comments Off
Kiobo Turns Your Web Surfing into Social Recommendations
Kiobo is the latest service to enter the social surfing and recommendation space, with a Firefox toolbar add-on that records your Web surfing history and shares it with the community. As you surf the Web, you’re essentially being categorized into various interest groups which others can see as visual representations of popular Web activity that’s going on in real time (quite similar to the Me.dium sidebar).
From your main Kiobo page, you can view this Web activity and see what sites users are visiting, according to these various categories. You can mouse over the category itself or an individual user that’s visiting a site in that category in order to see more details, such as a tag cloud or their recent click history. If you like the sites they visit, you can follow them so that they’ll be highlighted in yellow and they’ll be easy to pick out of the crowd.
The feature I find equally as useful for enhancing the user experience is the Facebook friend import option, which operates through Kiobo’s Facebook application and displays the browsing activity of Facebook friends that have also added the app.
The biggest downfall of Kiobo’s service, however, is the lack of interactivity for shared items on the site. If you’re viewing another user’s tag cloud or click stream, there’s no way to click on tags in the tag cloud for additional search and filter purposes, or add a preference score to a site in a user’s click stream. This leaves something to be desired in terms of Kiobo’s recommendation capabilities, and forces you to turn to other social bookmarking sites for more comprehensive features regarding comments and interactivity around sites you’re interested in.
Of course, there are tons of privacy issues that go along with a service like Kiobo, and the team has addressed these issues, enabling you to set up your account according to your privacy status. Even as you surf, you can constantly tweak your privacy settings based on every site you visit (there’s even an anonymous option), so you’re in complete control of any information shared as long as you have Kiobo installed on your Firefox toolbar.
Once programs like MySpace’s Data Availability and Facebook Connect are in full swing, Kiobo will have a better time providing recommendations, though more interactivity on the site itself. Perhaps a more fluid experience such as a sidebar or browser widget, could greatly improve Kiobo’s service as well.
Related posts
July 30th, 2008 - Posted in Mashable! | | Comments Off
Kiobo Turns Your Web Surfing into Social Recommendations
Kiobo is the latest service to enter the social surfing and recommendation space, with a Firefox toolbar add-on that records your Web surfing history and shares it with the community. As you surf the Web, you’re essentially being categorized into various interest groups which others can see as visual representations of popular Web activity that’s going on in real time (quite similar to the Me.dium sidebar).
From your main Kiobo page, you can view this Web activity and see what sites users are visiting, according to these various categories. You can mouse over the category itself or an individual user that’s visiting a site in that category in order to see more details, such as a tag cloud or their recent click history. If you like the sites they visit, you can follow them so that they’ll be highlighted in yellow and they’ll be easy to pick out of the crowd.
The feature I find equally as useful for enhancing the user experience is the Facebook friend import option, which operates through Kiobo’s Facebook application and displays the browsing activity of Facebook friends that have also added the app.
The biggest downfall of Kiobo’s service, however, is the lack of interactivity for shared items on the site. If you’re viewing another user’s tag cloud or click stream, there’s no way to click on tags in the tag cloud for additional search and filter purposes, or add a preference score to a site in a user’s click stream. This leaves something to be desired in terms of Kiobo’s recommendation capabilities, and forces you to turn to other social bookmarking sites for more comprehensive features regarding comments and interactivity around sites you’re interested in.
Of course, there are tons of privacy issues that go along with a service like Kiobo, and the team has addressed these issues, enabling you to set up your account according to your privacy status. Even as you surf, you can constantly tweak your privacy settings based on every site you visit (there’s even an anonymous option), so you’re in complete control of any information shared as long as you have Kiobo installed on your Firefox toolbar.
Once programs like MySpace’s Data Availability and Facebook Connect are in full swing, Kiobo will have a better time providing recommendations, though more interactivity on the site itself. Perhaps a more fluid experience such as a sidebar or browser widget, could greatly improve Kiobo’s service as well.
Related posts
July 30th, 2008 - Posted in Mashable! | | Comments Off
Kiobo Turns Your Web Surfing into Social Recommendations
Kiobo is the latest service to enter the social surfing and recommendation space, with a Firefox toolbar add-on that records your Web surfing history and shares it with the community. As you surf the Web, you’re essentially being categorized into various interest groups which others can see as visual representations of popular Web activity that’s going on in real time (quite similar to the Me.dium sidebar).
From your main Kiobo page, you can view this Web activity and see what sites users are visiting, according to these various categories. You can mouse over the category itself or an individual user that’s visiting a site in that category in order to see more details, such as a tag cloud or their recent click history. If you like the sites they visit, you can follow them so that they’ll be highlighted in yellow and they’ll be easy to pick out of the crowd.
The feature I find equally as useful for enhancing the user experience is the Facebook friend import option, which operates through Kiobo’s Facebook application and displays the browsing activity of Facebook friends that have also added the app.
The biggest downfall of Kiobo’s service, however, is the lack of interactivity for shared items on the site. If you’re viewing another user’s tag cloud or click stream, there’s no way to click on tags in the tag cloud for additional search and filter purposes, or add a preference score to a site in a user’s click stream. This leaves something to be desired in terms of Kiobo’s recommendation capabilities, and forces you to turn to other social bookmarking sites for more comprehensive features regarding comments and interactivity around sites you’re interested in.
Of course, there are tons of privacy issues that go along with a service like Kiobo, and the team has addressed these issues, enabling you to set up your account according to your privacy status. Even as you surf, you can constantly tweak your privacy settings based on every site you visit (there’s even an anonymous option), so you’re in complete control of any information shared as long as you have Kiobo installed on your Firefox toolbar.
Once programs like MySpace’s Data Availability and Facebook Connect are in full swing, Kiobo will have a better time providing recommendations, though more interactivity on the site itself. Perhaps a more fluid experience such as a sidebar or browser widget, could greatly improve Kiobo’s service as well.
Related posts
July 30th, 2008 - Posted in Mashable! | | Comments Off
Browzmi: A Social Browser in Your Browser
Social bookmarking has become a pretty standard activity these days, with the likes of Mento, Delicious, Mister Wong, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon offering numerous variations on this theme. Browzmi is taking a different approach from these services by focusing on real-time, collaborative web browsing and bookmarking, with chat being one of its main features. What is especially noteworthy is that Browzmi is not an extension, but basically a browser in a browser.
Browzmi was founded by Travis Parsons in 2006 and is currently being developed by a five person team. Browzmi has not taken any venture funding yet. Registration for Browzmi is open.
Surf With Friends
Browzmi allows you to surf the web with your friends. The core of Browzmi is made up of its bookmarking and sharing function, as well as the built-in IM. The chat function, as well as the real-time updates on the site, are enabled through an XMPP and Jabber back-end.
It's important to note right away that Browzmi is not a screen sharing application. While you can follow your friends around the web, you are not sharing the exact same experience with them and you don't see their mouse cursors moving around etc. Browzmi instead focuses on real-time sharing and discussion.
This concept, of course, is somewhat similar to that of Me.dium or Yoono. However, the interesting aspect of Browzmi is that it does not rely on extentions at all
Just Like a 'Real' Browser
The Browzmi interface mimics a regular browser, with a location bar and search form at the top, as well as sidebars on the left and right. Thanks to this, new users should feel right at home when opening up the application. There are also back and forth buttons, as well as a home button that takes you back to the Browzmi 'Everyone' page.
Once you surf to a site, you can comment on a page, favorite it, and make your opinions about it known by voting up or down on it. You can also 'clip' pictures from a site, making Browzmi a photo sharing application as well. All your actions on the site are saved in a stream that you and your friends can access and which looks somewhat like a stream in Friendfeed.
Sidebars
The sidebar on the left side of the screen ("My Stuff") is mostly reserved for seeing where your friends on Browzmi are right now. Thanks to the "Surf with Friends" feature, you can follow them around the web and chat with them. This sidebar is also where you can access your favorites (which basically function as bookmarks), see your activity stream, and see your friends' online status.
The right sidebar is called "Explore More" and it allows you to see where other users are on the service right now, as well as related content on Flickr, YouTube. Here, you can also see what other users who are not in your network have said about any given site.
Thanks to the XMPP back-end, all of your friends actions are being pushed to you instantaneously .
Privacy
When we first reviewed Me.dium, which offers a number of features similar to Browzmi, we were worried about the privacy implications of the service. Browzmi allows you to make your stream public or private, but any of your online activity through Browzmi does, of course, show on Browzmi and is available for viewing by your friends or (if you don't set the privacy features right) anybody. Given that users are probably quite aware that what they are doing is public - that is, after all, the whole point of the service - we are not too concerned about this, but it is still worth pointing out.
Coming Soon
Browzmi is currently working on adding number of additional features to the site, including allowing users to sign into the site with their AOL, Yahoo, or MSN credentials, which would allow everybody to chat with their IM friends right from Browzmi and also to invite them to surf the web with them. Integration with AOL's IM system will be announced in the next few weeks and the others should follow relatively soon after that.
Browzmi is also planning on allowing its users to comment on specific items on a site. This is something a few other bookmarking services already allow, but without allowing for real-time sharing.
The Browzmi team is also going to release an API in the future, which will allow developers to add widgets and customize the Browzmi experience.
Verdict
We were skeptical of Browzmi at first. Why, after all, would you need a browser within my browser? However, with the IM integration, its various RSS feeds, and straightforward surfing experience, Browzmi is actually a lot of fun to use. If you used it with Fluid or Mozilla's Prism, you could even make it your standard browser interface if you were so inclined. While that is probably not even Browzmi's intention, it does open up some interesting possibilities for the future.
In our tests, Browzmi worked very well and we didn't come across any bugs. For some sites, where Browzmi might be problematic, you can download a Firefox extension, but in our tests, we never needed it.
Browzmi, like most similar services based on social interactions, is going to get more useful as more users start joining and as your list of friends growths. In many ways, it is complementary to other services like Friendfeed, in that it gives you an option for real-time sharing and discussion, while you can also import most of your Browzmi actions to other services through Browzmi's RSS feeds.
Once Browzmi adds more IM services, we think that it can grow quite rapidly and organically, as there will be zero friction for new sign-ups.
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July 29th, 2008 - Posted in read write web | | Comments Off
Dell debuts Studio Hybrid line of “petite” desktop PCs
Filed under: Desktops
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July 29th, 2008 - Posted in Engadget | | Comments Off
Dell debuts Studio Hybrid line of “petite” desktop PCs
Filed under: Desktops
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July 29th, 2008 - Posted in Engadget | | Comments Off
Cuil:
Last night, the new search engine Cuil launched out of stealth-mode. As some had predicted, it seems Google's announcement about the size of its search index was a preemptive move to take some momentum away from one of Cuil's main features: the size of its index with 120 billion pages. As Cuil's team features quite a number of Google alumni, comparisons with Google's search are inevitable. In our tests, however, Cuil performed nowhere near as well as Google.
Layout
The Cuil homepage is a study in simplicity, with a black background, the Cuil logo, and the search box as its only major design elements. The search form is supposed to return typing suggestions, but this didn't work for us on any browser we tested. Maybe Cuil turned this off for the time being to take some load of its servers.
Cuil takes a very different approach to displaying its results. Instead of a list, it displays results in three columns (though you can switch to a two-column view as well). Intuitively, it would seem that the most important results would be in the top left corner, but Cuil does not make this explicit. The top right spot is reserved for related searches, which usually displays either five or ten main suggestions and then, on mouse-over, slides open and reveals a more detailed selection.
Related Searches
Cuil prominently features its related searches, both in the box on the top right, as well as in a bar right underneath the search box. Overall, these seems to work surprisingly well. Thanks to the ability to quickly go down two levels of related searches, this functions works better than the similar features in Yahoo Search, Ask, and Live Search, though they are not as extensive as the related searches on Clusty. Google tested a layout with prominently featured related searches last year, but hasn't made it a default feature.
The results Cuil displays in the related searches are usually relevant, though often, like in our search for 'Portland, OR,' it returned some strange results as well. For Portland, it seemed to think that we would be interested in "Airlines of the United States" and "Regional Airline of the United States."
Unlike Google and its brethren, Cuil does not check your spelling and suggest the correct search terms for you.
Test Searches
Of course, we couldn't do a comprehensive test of Cuil's 120 billion page index, but we did a couple of test searches and the results Cuil returned were often dissapointing. Our search for 'Cessna 152,' one of the most popular general aviation training aircraft, gave us links to Wikipedia and the Cessna company on the big three search engines. Cuil, on the other hand, linked to an online store with manuals for sale.
On the other hand, searches for 'Linux' or other computing terms usually returned pretty good results and good suggestions for 'related searches'.'
Searching for people, however, was often a disappointment. While it worked great for historical figures, prominent bloggers were often nowhere to be found.
In our search for "Portland, OR," Cuil failed completely. Its top results was a link to a local Best Western hotel. Interestingly, a search for "Portland" only, however, gave us great results.
No Wikipedia?
One thing we noticed in our searches was the Cuil never returned any results from the Wikipedia. It isn't clear if Cuil is biased against displaying these, but it seems like a strange omission. Especially in our searches for historical figures, the results would have been far better if they had included Wikipedia articles. The top results for "Hitler Biography," for example, is a biography on BioAndLyrics, a site which copies the Wikipedia article and suggests we also look at his discography.
Still Changing
One thing we noticed in our tests was that Cuil seems to be tweaking its servers constantly. Searches that returned no results last night now display thousands of links, while others, like our "Portland, OR" search above stopped returning results completely for a while. Some of this could be explained by Cuil getting slammed with traffic right now (the site did slow down quite often during out tests), but that would also suggest that their system isn't quite as stable as it should be. Right now, for example, Cuil doesn't even display results for 'computers.'
Good, but not Great
Google, as well as Microsoft and Yahoo, profit from the simple fact that it has a far larger portfolio of its own sites to work with. A search for a city on the big three search engines, for example. will often display a map as one of the top results, while Cuil does not have that option. Similarly, searches for a stock symbol will show the performance of that stock in a little graph as one of the top results in Google, Live Search, and Yahoo Search, while Cuil, with some luck, returns a link to Yahoo's finance page as the top result without linking to the actual stock's page on Yahoo finance, though.
Overall, our experience with Cuil was a bit uneven. While the related searches often are very well chosen, the actual search results are disappointing. Cuil says it ranks results by the content on the pages and not by popularity - however, it seems like this makes it a bit more susceptible to SEO manipulations, as some of our tests show.
On some levels, Cuil doesn't feel like it is quite ready for prime-time yet - even the links from its about page mostly display 404 errors. As of now, it is a worthy challenger and the size of its search index is impressive, but in the end, all consumers are going to care about is the quality of the search results, an there, Cuil's results are still too inconsistent.
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July 28th, 2008 - Posted in read write web | | Comments Off
Power Up Windows Explorer with Free Add-ons [Windows Explorer]
When moving, copying, pasting, browsing, and getting information about your files feels like tedious work—and it can in the feature-sparse Windows Explorer—you need some power add-ons that can help. Instead of completely replacing Windows Explorer with an alternative file manager, you can pick and choose the extra features you want and add them piecemeal. Let's take a look at some free power add-ons for Windows Explorer that make dealing with your growing file collection faster and easier.
Note: Installing every single one of these toolbars and add-ons may slow down Windows Explorer, so pick and choose the ones that give you the features you need.
QTTabBar Adds Tabs to Windows Explorer: Get the tabbed browsing experience in Windows Explorer with the QuickTimeTabBar add-on. Once installed, right-click on the Explorer toolbar and select the QTTabBar toolbars, which add both tabbing and other features, like access to recent tabs and file previews. QTTabBar works in Vista and XP with .Net Framework 2.0 or later. QTTabBar homepage, original post.
Explorer Breadcrumbs Adds "Breadcrumb" Folder Trail: Move up and down your folder hierarchy with ease by adding a "breadcrumb" folder trail to Windows Explorer. This little ditty is a a bit buggy—it didn't work for Adam in his original tests, but it has worked for me—so proceed with that in mind. Explorer Breadcrumbs is a free download for Windows 2000 and XP, donations requested. Explorer Breadcrumbs homepage, original post.
Xentient Thumbnails Offers Actual File Preview: Replace Windows Explorer's boring default image icon with a preview of the actual image itself as shown above. Xentient Thumbnails is a free download for Windows XP only. Xentient Thumbnails homepage, original post.
FileBox eXtender Keeps Oft-Used Folders Always In Reach: Add favorite folders you're always reaching for to every Explorer window with FileBox eXtender, which adds two small buttons that drop down a file menu, and a quick keyboard shortcut to get to those folders as well. Set up your preferred key combo (Adam suggests Ctrl+Shift+F) and type the first letter of the folder you want to select it. FileBox eXtender works in Open and Save dialogs as well, in Windows XP and Vista. FileBox eXtender homepage, original post.
TeraCopy Speeds Up Big File Copy Jobs: Get greater control of file copy operations—especially ones that involve several gigs—with TeraCopy, a simple utility that offers pause, resume, and error recovery to your file copy jobs, as well as speeds them up overall. TeraCopy homepage, original post.
OpenWide Customizes the Open/Save Dialog File View: Set your Open/Save dialog to always list your files in details view, automatically focus your keyboard where you choose, and even place the box's exact location on your screen using OpenWide for Windows XP and 2000. OpenWide homepage, original post.
Folder Size Sorts Folders by the Size of Their Contents: Add a column to Windows Explorer that displays how much space a folder's taking up with Folder Size, a small utility that also lets you sort by folder size as well—making quick cleanup of empty or space-hogging folders a snap. FolderSize is a free download for Windows XP only. Folder Size homepage, original post.
PlacesBar Editor Adds Frequently-Used Locations to the Open/Save Dialog Box: Save and open files straight to your most frequently used files by adding them to Windows' Places bar using the PlacesBar Editor. Unlike PlacesBar Tweaker, PlacesBar Editor works for Microsoft Office dialog boxes, too. PlacesBar Editor is a free download for XP and Vista, donations requested. PlacesBar Editor homepage, original post.
InfoTag Magic Displays File Details on Mouse Hover: Peek inside a file with InfoTag Magic, a small utility that displays a file's metadata (like MP3 tags) in a tooltip when you hover your mouse pointer over the file. Windows XP only. InfoTag Magic homepage, original post.
If this list of add-ons doesn't cover what you want or need in Windows Explorer, check out our recent Five Best Alternative File Managers post, as nominated by Lifehacker readers.
What are your favorite add-ons for Windows Explorer? Let us know in the comments.
Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, likes a more powerful Windows Explorer. Her weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Monday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.
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July 28th, 2008 - Posted in Lifehacker | | Comments Off
Dell Studio Hybrid mini pc shows up in hidden Dell customer service page
Filed under: Desktops
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July 28th, 2008 - Posted in Engadget | | Comments Off
Click to Call Dials Calls from Your Browser [Featured Firefox Extension]
Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The GrandCentral Click to Call Firefox extension calls phone numbers on web pages using your GrandCentral account with the click of your mouse. That means whenever a web page loads, the extension recognizes phone numbers on the page and turns them into clickable links. Clicking the number will call the phones you've connected with GrandCentral, and when you answer, GrandCentral connects you to the number you've clicked on. The extension is a little rough around the edges, but if you've been using the previously mentioned phone consolidation service (that's also been bought up by Google), it's a definite timesaver. Click to Call is free, works wherever Firefox does.
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July 27th, 2008 - Posted in Lifehacker | | Comments Off
The Lifehacker Editors’ Favorite Software and Hardware [What We Use]
Lifehacker readers range from the complete newbie to the most seasoned techie, but where do the Lifehacker editors stand? We polled our own editors for the computer hardware and applications they swear by and we're breaking it down for you here. This post is categorized into the software each editor uses on a daily, the operating systems we live in, the hardware we rely on, the peripherals we utilize on a regular basis, and webapps we need. Then we tell you exactly what kind of user we think we are.
Gina Trapani, Editor:
The Basics
- Firefox: I spend the majority of my day in my favorite browser, where I manage email, write Lifehacker posts, read RSS, and surf. My must-have Firefox extensions include: Foxmarks (so my bookmark are everywhere), DownThemAll! (for downloading big files), CoLT (for grabbing links to drop into Lifehacker posts), all of the Better Extensions which I put together, Firebug and Chris Pederick's Web Developer toolbar (for development), and Greasemonkey and Stylish for customizing pages. (Here are my current user style picks.)
- Quicksilver: On any Mac, I'll Cmd+Spacebar out of habit, because I've come to rely on QS so much for launching apps, moving files, resizing images to Lifehacker's standard sizes, and accessing frequently-used documents on the Shelf.
- TextExpander (Mac) and Texter (Windows): Not only does TE and Texter help me write Lifehacker posts by auto-expanding HTML snippets, it auto-corrects typos and helps me stay on track with our style guide (by automatically replacing things like "wifi" with "Wi-Fi", for example).
- TextWrangler (Mac) and EditPlus (Windows): Everyone needs a good text editor, and these two are my picks. (TextWrangler is free, but EditPlus is not).
- KeePass: The day I sat down and created my KeePass password database—and decided every time I'd set up a new password I'd store it there—was a good day indeed. While I do use Firefox to save web-based logins, KeePass is an awesome secure parking place for Wi-Fi, network, computer, and file passwords as well as software serial numbers. Since it's Mac and Windows compatible, if I save a password on the PC's copy of Firefox, I'll also enter it into KeePass so I can still look it up on the Mac.
- Adobe ImageReady: A throwback to my web dev years, I still reach for an old copy of IR whenever I have to do any image editing beyond simple cropping and resizing. Been meaning to get good at a free option for awhile now—and I'll have to, since Adobe discontinued ImageReady releases.
- Adium (Mac) and Pidgin (Windows): I'm not a huge IM user, but when I need to hop on for a quick chat these are my two clients of choice.
- Cygwin: I'm not running a Linux desktop full-time, but I do need my
lsandscp. While Terminal.app offers these Unix command line tools built into OS X, Cygwin can give it to you on Windows. - InstantShot (Mac), Skitch (Mac), and SnagIt (Windows): Since I take screenshots all day long, these three apps are indispensable. For a simple snap and resize, I use InstantShot and Preview; to annotate screenshots SnagIt and Skitch get the job done.
- Mozy (Mac and Windows), Time Machine (Mac), and SyncBackSE (Windows): Since I work at home with no IT department backing up a network drive, backing up my important data's up to me. I bought an unlimited Mozy subscription for off-site backup in case of fire, flood, theft, or tsunami, and use Time Machine and SyncBack to run regular local backups to a FireWire drive.
- GeekTool (Mac) and Samurize (Windows): I like having my todo.txt, a calendar, and a set of daily reminders in front of my face every day. So while I keep my desktop clear of shortcuts and documents, GeekTool and Samurize pins my top tasks, a two month calendar, and
remindreminders to keep me on track during the day. Here's more on setting up GeekTool on the Mac, and incorporating text files on your desktop with Samurize.
Primary OS
It's changed over the years and will continue to shift, but right now I split my time about 80%/20% Mac OS X and Windows XP. I plan to increase my Windows time (and get Vista into the mix) to better serve Lifehacker readers, who are primarily Windows (about 70% at the moment, though this chart changes by the minute). Setting up a Hardy desktop is also looking more and more tempting.
Hardware
I used to use four different computers on a regular basis, but keeping them all maintained, synced, backed up, and up to date with operating system patches became too much. So last year I decided to simplify and pare down the machine I use for work purposes to one laptop (so I could take it with me when I travel), and chose:
- A 15-inch MacBook Pro to which I added a stick of memory, using Adam's guide. I run both Windows XP and Leopard on this machine with VMware. (I used to Boot Camp and virtualize that partition in Parallels—but when I needed more internal hard drive space, I killed the Boot Camp partition and now just virtualize XP.) I've also got...
- An ancient Dell Dimension tower which I launched Lifehacker on mostly goes unused now. For awhile I used it as a file server, but to reduce energy consumption, I decided keeping an always-on file server was overkill for the two people who live in my household.
- A G4 PowerBook, which was replaced by my MacBook Pro last year, lives in the living room. For a beat-up secondary computer, the PowerBook still does triple duty as a media center file server for my XBMC, a recipe reference in the kitchen while we cook, and my other half's main computer.
- A classic Xbox running XBMC is my primary media center for watching downloaded video, and my TiVo records TV episodes online.
Peripherals
Besides a stack of external hard drives, a Netgear router, an ink jet printer, and a widescreen Dell monitor I hook the MacBook up to when I'm at my desk, I've got:
- A Fujitsu ScanSnap mobile scanner for Mac, which is perfect for scanning receipts, contracts, and newspaper articles. I reviewed the Windows version here and loved it so much, that when I sent the review unit back to Fujitsu I bought the Mac version as soon as it was available..
- An iPhone, which I had misgivings about purchasing when I lost my Nokia. The iPhone 2.0 software isn't without problems that are dogging me as well as a couple of others, but for the most part, it's a very pleasant gadget to use.
Webapps
Even though I still like keeping important files saved to my local hard drive, I've moved most of my daily work into a Firefox tab (which makes it easy to access from the iPhone as well). I use dozens of webapps, but the primary ones are:
- Gmail: A year or so ago I abandoned Thunderbird to use Gmail's web interface exclusively, mostly for its conversation thread view (which T-bird doesn't quite handle as well) and its keyboard shortcuts, and because I'm constantly working on the Better Gmail extension.
- Google Reader: Once I switched from Bloglines to Google Reader, I've never looked back—even though Adam did almost convince me to move to NetNewsWire, I'm too happy with my Reader workflow to change things up. I'll often read feeds while I'm on line at the grocery store or in the doctor's waiting room, and star items that may turn into Lifehacker posts later.
- Google Calendar: The Lifehacker staff uses a shared GCal calendar to schedule vacations, conferences, and software launches, and I use it for my personal calendar as well.
- Campfire: In lieu of instant messenger, at Adam's suggestion, the Lifehacker staff started hanging out in a Campfire room throughout the day while we write, which helps us coordinate and ask quick questions and make decisions so much faster than over email.
- Twitter: I don't have the time to fool around on Facebook or Flickr as much as I used to, but contributing to and scanning Twitter is a fast, efficient way hear what my pals are up to and blog with very little effort. Twitter's helped me keep in touch with my NYC friends, find story ideas faster than they break in my RSS reader, recruit guest writers, keep tabs on people I admire and look up to, and poll people I trust quickly.
Self Assessment
I'm a late early adopter. I love to try out new apps, but after reviewing thousands over the years here at Lifehacker, I think long and hard before I actually work one into my daily workflow. I'm a big open source advocate—to the point of a tendency toward that "tinfoil hat" free software extremist mindset—but I will (and do) compromise for beautiful and easy-to-use software, too. It's great that you can do so much in the cloud these days, but I like to store and manipulate my own data and avoid webapp lock-in as well—so, for example, I back up my Gmail account via POP. I love tinkering with software, but I'm not as much of a hardware DIYer as my co-editors, many of whom have built their own computers.
Adam Pash, Senior Editor:
The Basics
- Aside from the obvious (<