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14 11 2008

Notifu: group messaging to help you make plans

Posted by: in Productivity

Filed under: Productivity, Web services, Social Software, Web

If you’ve ever been in the situation of trying to make plans with a group of people who are all communicating via different methods (SMS, IM, email), then you know how much of a pain it is to keep track of what everyone is doing. Notifu tries to make it easier, with a web app that can send messages to your friends via email, IM or text message, and let you know when they’ve received them.

On Notifu, you can set up a contact list, complete with groups. You can also set up polls, so your friends can text back a single number to indicate what they prefer to do, and Notifu will count them up for you. Notifu’s developers are also very savvy about web platforms, with an iPhone web app available and an OpenSocial app in the works.

Notifu: group messaging to help you make plans originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

13 11 2008

Meet InBetween Us: find a place to meet

Posted by: in Productivity

Filed under: Productivity, web 2.0, Web

If you have friends who live across town from you, it can be a constant tussle over who is going to drive to whose neighborhood. Sometimes the ideal answer is to find an agreeable place to meet in the middle, and now you can do that quickly and easily on a site called Meet InBetween Us. It uses the power of Google Maps to recommend places to meet, and then gives you the driving directions.

Using Meet InBetween Us only involves a few steps. First, put in the starting locations of everyone who’s meeting, and then adjust the “middle ground” according to your needs. The halfway point between a friend and me was in the middle of a river, for example, so I moved it onto land. Potential meeting places are divided into categories, to make sure you don’t get a bar when you want a coffee shop. Once you find one you want, just click “meet here,” and it will come up on the map and show you driving directions. If popular restaurant suggestion sites like Yelp and Urbanspoon added this as a feature, it would be phenomenally useful.

Meet InBetween Us: find a place to meet originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 02 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

13 11 2008

Network Notepad creates swift diagrams and flow charts

Posted by: in Productivity

Filed under: Business, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

While network planning and design isn’t usually part of my job, I do sometimes need to put together a swift sketch of a client’s systems to help me oragnize a plan of attack.

Network Notepad is exactly what I was looking for - a small, free app that lets me lay out network devices, servers, printers, and workstations quickly and easily. It’s a great tool for documenting sites in case another tech has to attend to a call in my absence. Once you’ve set IP addresses, you’re able to use the F1-F6 keys as hotkeys to ping, surf, or telnet to a device.

Don’t be fooled by the Notepad in the name, though. This app is full-featured enough to tackle complicated networks. Be sure to download the Cisco-created object libraries and hub/switch pack, as they provide several icons that aren’t included in the default set.

There’s even a flow chart icon pack which turns Notepad into a kind of poor man’s Visio (if you’re looking for a Visio clone, try the open source Dia). You can’t argue with the price, and the feature set is impressive for such a small download.

Network Notepad creates quick diagrams and flow charts originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Four apps that will/might keep your wife from killing you

12 11 2008

Four apps that will/might keep your wife from killing you

Posted by: in Productivity

Filed under: Fun, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

…when her computer crashes.

Jason’s writeup of PMS Buddy inspired me to write a sort of Public Service Announcement. Since I’m sure a lot of our loyal readers are “the friend that knows about personal,” I thought I’d share some programs that I should’ve used long before my wife’s hard drive took a dirt nap.

Prepping a close one’s personal for a catastrophic event is kind of like stockpiling supplies for a fallout shelter. When the proverbial bomb drops, you’ll be safe - as long as you’ve got the right provisions.

1. GMail. I took the liberty of setting up what I think is a phenomenally crafty stealth email backup. Step one: enable IMAP and copy all the old messages to GMail. Step two: set up GMail to automatically check our ISP’s crappy POP server. Step Three: set Outlook Express to access GMail via POP and leave the original copy on the server. Step four: twiddle thumbs. All emails are now stored in the cloud where a hard drive is a lot less likely to take a steaming hot bath in coffee.

I’ve chosen to use POP instead of IMAP because of the odd problem we’ve had with our GMail for Domains access. Phone calls from home that begin “Why is it telling me the server can’t be contacted?” aren’t good for my health.

Four apps that will/might keep your wife from killing you originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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12 11 2008

Looking for a portable hotkey app? Try QOpen!

Posted by: in Productivity

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

I’m not generally inclined to make use of program launchers. Instead, I prefer to use the tools that are built in to my Windows OS to save mouseclicks and keystrokes.

QOpen, however, is an interesting substitute for me. It’s portable, insanely light on memory usage (about 2mb) and incredibly useful on my service bench.

By default, QOpen is invoked by pressing win + space. Once the window is displayed, entering your preferred abbreviation launches the specified application: NP for Notepad, for example. It also supports drag-and-drop creation of new hotkeys from shortcuts or programs, allows you to specify command line arguments and working path, and can launch applications maximized, minimized, or hidden.

When would this be useful? A lot of the systems I repair on the bench require the same applications, which I store either on a network share or on my USB flash drive. By launching QOpen first, I have the ability to execute obnoxiously long commands like “c:windowssystem32oobemsoobe /a” (to open the Activation Wizard) by typing something simple like “act” into QOpen.

Its size and low resource utilization is key. I still see the odd Windows XP machine with 128 or 256 megs of memory that needs tuning - some people just love their old beaters and don’t want to upgrade or replace them. QOpen is a handy, light way to access apps like CCleaner, HijackThis, and Adaware from my file server and it doesn’t bog down older machines like Launchy does.

Looking for a portable hotkey app? Try QOpen! originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

12 11 2008

Looking for a portable hotkey app? Try QOpen!

Posted by: in Productivity

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

I’m not generally inclined to make use of program launchers. Instead, I like to use the tools that are built in to my Windows OS to save mouseclicks and keystrokes.

QOpen, however, is an interesting alternative for me. It’s portable, insanely light on memory usage (about 2mb) and incredibly useful on my service bench.

By default, QOpen is invoked by pressing win + space. Once the window is displayed, entering your preferred abbreviation launches the specified application: NP for Notepad, for example. It also supports drag-and-drop creation of new hotkeys from shortcuts or programs, grants you to specify command line arguments and working path, and can launch applications maximized, minimized, or hidden.

When would this be useful? A lot of the systems I repair on the bench require the same applications, which I store either on a network share or on my USB flash drive. By launching QOpen first, I can execute obnoxiously long commands like “c:windowssystem32oobemsoobe /a” (to open the Activation Wizard) by typing something easy like “act” into QOpen.

Its size and low resource utilization is key. I still see the odd Windows XP machine with 128 or 256 megs of memory that needs tuning - some people just love their old beaters and don’t want to upgrade or replace them. QOpen is a handy, light way to access apps like CCleaner, HijackThis, and Adaware from my file server and it doesn’t bog down older machines like Launchy does.

Looking for a portable hotkey app? Try QOpen! originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

11 11 2008

FlickrDown: bulk photostream downloader

Posted by: in Productivity

Filed under: World wide web, Pic, Utilities, Productivity

My wife takes a lot of pics of the jewelry she creates, and she uses Flickr to store and share them. Recently, however, she was shooting out of town and ran out of room on her SD card. Her solution: plug in to a friend’s Personal computer and upload them to her photostream.

When she got home, she wanted a swift way to download all 300+ images for editing. That would have been a pretty tedious chore, were it not for FlickrDown.

You can search by username, e-mail address, tags, or groups. Results display quickly, and downloading is as easy as checking a few boxes, browsing for your destination folder, and clicking download. Authorization is supported - and necessary if you’re going to download private photos.

FlickrDown will automatically create a new folder inside your destination to make sure your selected photos are stored neatly. Folders are named based on your search text or the group name. You also don’t have to worry about it overwriting existing files - it will automatically append -fd to the new ones.

My only minor gripe is that the download progress shows in a separate window (and adds another button to the taskbar). It’s easy to overlook since FlickrDown so good at what it does.

FlickrDown is freeware for Windows only, and the .Net 2.0 runtimes are required.

FlickrDown: bulk photostream downloader originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

11 11 2008

Open Google Calendar in Firefox from any page

Posted by: in Productivity

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, Google, Browsers, Web

GCal Popup is a Firefox extension for Google Calendar users too lazy to open a new tab when they want to enter a new appointment or check their calendar. Once the plugin is installed, you’ll see a tiny calendar icon in your status bar. Click it and your Google Calendar will pop up, over the top of whatever page you happen to be visiting. Click the close button and it will go away.

If you’re already logged into your Google account you won’t even need to login to Google Calendar when the window pops up.

This is listed as an experimental plugin, which means you’ll need to register for a Mozilla account and login before downloading. But the add-on seems to be stable enough and hasn’t caused my computer to burst into flames. Yet.

[via gHacks]

Open Google Calendar in Firefox from any page originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

10 11 2008

Send files out fast with uSend.io

Posted by: in Productivity

Filed under: World wide web, Utilities, Productivity

There are a lot of sites for swiftly sharing files, but some of them are painfully slow or require registration. If you want to send a file with a minimum of fuss, and the file happens to be 100mb or smaller, give uSend.io a look. It’s powered by drop.io, and the upload speeds when I tested it were excellent compared to similar sites. This is now my go-to site for sending any medium-sized file to a friend.

Besides being fast, uSend.io also has some nice extra touches. The test file I used was an AAC from my iTunes library, and usend.io converted it to mp3 to generate an in-browser preview. Of course, when I went to download the file, it was still in the original AAC form. Beautiful. The download pages for uSend.io files are hosted on drop.io, so you can also link, embed, or share you file with additional contacts via email. It’s an all-around smooth experience.

Send files out fast with uSend.io originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.