Filed under: Windows Mobile, Productivity, Mobile Minute

There are two complaints we’ve had with Windows Mobile since before the operating system was even called Windows Mobile:

1. The X button at the top of a screen doesn’t close a window, it just minimizes it.
2. The calendar/contacts/notes applications are horrible.

There are plenty of free third-party add-ons that address the first issue. But if you want a superior personal information management suite than the one that comes with Windows Mobile, you’re going to have to get out your wallet. Agenda Fusion, Pocket Informant, Agendus, and several other applications are excellent PIM replacements. Each has enhanced search features, a more useful calendar week-view, and better integration of tasks, notes, calendars, and contacts. But each of these applications also costs a few bucks.

Pocket Informant has long been one of our favorites, but the latest version costs a whopping $35. Sure, it’s worth it, but if you’re on a budget, you might look at the price tag, look at your Smartphone and decide the built-in calendar isn’t that bad.

But Jan 4th and 5th you can get Pocket Informant for free. The makers of Pocket Informant have partnered on the web PDA software retailer MobiHand to give away free copies of the software for the next two days. Just use the code PIFREE at checkout to get your free copy. Be forewarned, when we tried to download the application this morning, MobiHand’s site was performing very slowly, but slow and steady wins the race. We were able to download and register Pocket Informant 7. The software should work with all Windows Mobile 2003 and newer devices.

[via AximSite]

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Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Mozilla

It pains us to say it, but sometimes tabs are a waste of time. We hate when we’re on a site, and see a story with an accompanying link that promises to be the epiphany we’ve been waiting for all our lives. We eagerly click the link, and feverishly switch to the new tab. Our hopes and dreams are tragically dashed to pieces when we find the link is to a parked domain that has nary a thing to do with the subject at hand.

Interclue is a Firefox extension that allows for previewing web pages before you click the link. It gets a little less buzz than the similar Cooliris extension, but we think it’s just as worthy. Cooliris doesn’t require clicking on the preview icon to pop up a preview window, a simple mouse over will do. It’s extraordinary how often we mouse over the icon, not meaning to, and get the preview.

Interclue requires a click on the preview icon, which might give us carpal tunnel in the long run, but is much easier on our psyche than having preview windows seemingly appear at random. From the Interclue preview window, we see the contents of the page in question, as well as some optional vital stats for the site we’re viewing (called metaclues). We have the ability to bookmark, email, open in tabs, and paste the site link to the clipboard. We can easily resize the preview window and change our settings to not recognize certain links or certain pages.

Interclue 1.5.1.4896 was released January 2nd, and works in Firefox 1.5 and up. Despite its impossible version number, its simple interface and unobtrusive application is a breath of fresh air for those poor souls traumatized by dead end links and madly popping preview windows. We highly suggest it for those wanting link previews who have been less than happy with other applications’ execution.

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Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Productivity

Okay, maybe saying xGestures is “software we can’t live without” is a bit of an overreaction; read on, and we’ll let you make the call.

xGestures is a mouse gestures program for the Mac. In case you didn’t know, mouse gestures give you the ability to command a program by moving your mouse in tandem with your oft-neglected right-click button (there are other gestures as well, but the right-click button is usually the main trigger). Mouse gestures are as old as the Internet; typically, however, gestures are limited to a specific program (e.g. Opera), and lack the same control outside that program.

With xGestures, you’ve the capability to assign universal mouse gestures across your entire personal. For example, with xGestures installed, you can hold your right-click button and move your mouse up to create a new Finder window. If you have Firefox open, however, that same gesture will open a new tab. Want to move to the next song in iTunes, but don’t want to bring it front and center and click the next button? Simply assign a gesture to move to the next song. (On our machines, you hold down the right-click button, move swiftly to the right, and just like that, iTunes changes to the next track).

xGestures is easily customizable, with enough options to make your head spin. Available for a mere pittance ($5) and a guarantee from Download Squad that you’ll be wondering how you got along without it. The current version (1.73) has been updated to work with Leopard.

So, is this “software we can’t live without?” Maybe that’s too black and white. How about “software we would be severely lacking without?” Or possibly, “software that would make for a poorer user experience without?”

Better?

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Filed under: Security, Office, Productivity, Microsoft, OpenOffice.org

If you are an Office 2003 user who has recently installed Service Pack 3 who has found it necessary to open up file formats from the pre-Office ‘97 era, you may have noticed that Office now blocks access to these file formats. According to Microsoft, older Word, Excel, Lotus 1-2-3/Quattro and Corel Draw files are affected, because “…By default, these file formats are blocked because they’re less secure. They might pose a risk to you.” This isn’t pure FUD, as Larry Seltzer points out, file parsing is an easy way for miscreants to attack personal using malformed data files. So rather than patch the holes for these, let’s face it, ancient file formats, Microsoft has decided to just disable default access. Yeah, it’s lazy - but we kind of don’t blame them (even in the corporate or academic environment, when was the last time you access a document created in one of these formats?).

For users who really need to access that old data, Microsoft’s Support Site has posted instructions on how to alter the registry so that your program(s) can access the old files. This can be done manually or by running a pre-configured registry script.

Conversely, OpenOffice can be used to open the old file types. In any event, we highly suggest converting your old files to a new format anyway — it really is more secure (and will help guarantee compatibility with future Office suites by Microsoft or someone else).

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