Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Productivity

If you’re like us, you’ve to read long blocks of text on a monitor all the time, and it’s kind of a pain for your eyes. E-books and long PDF articles would be great if they could somehow get diced into neat, readable columns. Hey, it works for newspapers. Well, Tofu brings that pleasant reading experience to the Mac.

In a nutshell, Tofu cuts up what you’re reading — whether it’s a PDF, a doc, or a chunk of text you’ve selected — into columns. This is a good, because monitors are wider than the human eye is really comfortable with, and columns fit the text into your optimal scanning area for easy reading. Tofu’s full screen mode and adjustable text size and colors are crucial, too. This app is good enough that we’ll think twice before printing out something we have the ability to just read in Tofu.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: World wide web, Productivity, Web services, Google, Googleholic, web 2.0

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix for everything Google!

In this edition:

• Google Finance gets more real-time quotes
• Google Map Maker
• Google Doc creation shortcuts
• Customize Google forms
• Personalized YouTube homepage

Continue reading Googleholic for June 24, 2008

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, Troubleshooting, Browsers

If you’ve recently switched to Firefox for Mac, you’re probably getting used to hearing all your problems answered with “there’s a plugin for that.” Well, here’s one more problem plugins can solve: inline PDF viewing. Safari does it automatically, and you might be missing it if you’ve switched recently.

You could always download the PDFs and open them with the notoriously slow Acrobat Reader or a faster 3rd-party app, but if you want them to open right in your browser, just grab this plugin. No frills here, the description on Google Code simply states it, “uses PDFKit to display PDFs in the browser.” We tested it out on some large PDF magazines, and it handles them just as well as Safari can.

[via Daring Fireball]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Utilities, Blogging, Productivity

Making a point-by-point comparison chart is a pain in the butt. It requires fiddling with spreadsheets, formatting lots of individuals cells and hoping the results are simple to read. Tablefy takes all the mess out of comparing things. Just put in your data and it’ll do the rest. You can even embed photos and YouTube videos with little fuss.

The example charts look sharp and professional, and there are some neat tiny auto-formatting quirks that save you time. If you’re doing a comparison that uses a lot of “yes” and “no” — a feature comparison between two apps, for example — Tablefy will automatically color the yes and no cells for you, making them easier to distinguish. Even though the charts are made to be embedded on your own site, there are several examples to browse and vote on at the Tablefy site.

[via Webware]

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Competitive strategy, Apple Inc (AAPL), Dell (DELL), Marketing and advertising

Computer manufacturers never let a moment pass up where they can seemingly one-up the competition by using meaningless marketing claims. The “World’s Fastest” and “World’s Most Secure” taglines are so hokey that it’s astounding we all don’t buy PCs at the local flea market. So, when Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) recently said that it made the “World’s Most Secure Notebooks.” Chinese competitor Lenovo had a problem with that. What exactly does that claim mean, anyway?

This isn’t the first time for a meaningless claim to be used in PC land. Sure, one of Dell’s systems may be the “World Most Secure” in a certain environment with a certain arrangement of software, but to use that implied moniker to describe your entire product line is ridiculous. Apparently, consumers and business decision makers believe these pitches of manufacturers. The funny thing is that it makes sense for all Computer manufacturers to use illegitimate claims. Why? Because the Computer industry is a commodity one. What else is there to differentiate products?

No matter how much PC company CEOs harp on “we’re superior at this, we’re superior at that,” it doesn’t matter. Nearly all Computers are like a gallon of milk; you select one and you move on. Service options after the sale are the differentiators, not the hardware that was most likely made by one of a handful of Asian contract manufacturers anyway. Even the high-and-mighty Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been accused of using claims that sound too good to be true, such as “the world’s fastest, most powerful personal computer” — to which Dell promptly complained.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: General Motors (GM), Marketing and advertising, Oil, Recession

GM (NYSE:GM) went back to huge incentives to move out inventory and keep its sales churning, at least at a modest level. Its product mix, with too many SUVs and pick-ups, is bleeding the company as more buyers move to sedans which burn less gas.

Under the company’s latest program, the large car company will “offer zero-percent loans for up to 72 months or cash rebates of up to $7,000,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

What may not be apparent, at least at first blush, is that the program costs GM some real money. It has to come up with the capital to finance the customer’s borrowing. It does not get that money without paying interest. GM sells a car, gives up the 4% interest it might have earned each year, and has to find capital to make the loan at a time when its corporate cash balance is falling..

The other problem GM has is that the rebates and low financing devalue the automobile itself. The consumer is getting a “cut rate” automobile. When the time comes to launch next year’s models, people are not going to be willing to pay large increases which include the normal annual price increase, but without the incentives. In theory, a buyer could move from $25,000 for a 2008 model of a GM sedan to $32,000 for the same model for 2009.

Incentives cut the price that GM can get on a brand, not just in the year it is sold, but for at least a year after. And, the money GM loans the customer is not “interest free” for GM.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Utilities, Blogging, Productivity, Web services

Poll Authority is an easy poll-creation service that generates nice tidy multiple-choice polls you can paste into your website or blog. A lot of blogging services and social networks have their own polling systems, but as far as the platform-neutral free poll generators go, Poll Authority looks pretty decent.

With the free version, you get unlimited polls and a bit of customization in terms of appearance. Upgrading to the $5 or $8 monthly plans doesn’t actually seem to do much, other than adding a bit of professionalism by replacing the Poll Authority link on each poll with a customized one. The Gold plan gets you a breakdown of your results by geographic area. Bottom line: if you’re looking for a fast, simple way to make a poll, and you don’t want it to cost you anything, Poll Authority is a good bet.

Read

Share This

Share This