Nocs: a Notepad replacement with a twist October 4, 2009
Posted by CLibra in Clippings, Google, Notes, Software, Sync.add a comment
In my never-ending quest to find the perfect note-taking application, I stumbled across nocs, a lightweight application very similar to Windows Notepad that can be used for taking text notes on the fly; the catch is that your notes are saved into Google Docs, with the option of encrypting them to. After testing, I found that nocs was very fast and easy to use, it took up very little system resources, and it was good that my notes were saved online because if my hard drive broke, I’d lose them, and it means I can sync my notes between PCs.
However, nocs does lack a little in a few places; the notes are saved in an obscure spreadsheet format in Google Docs, making them unreadable through a browser, and as of yet there’s no Mac client. Notes can’t be read offline, and at the moment it’s only focusing on plain text notes, but in the future we might see nocs develop further.
All in all, I’d recommend nocs for a quick replacement to Notepad, but it’s still in its early days yet.
GMail IMAP – a Thunderbird fix August 3, 2009
Posted by CLibra in Email, Google, Mozilla, Software.2 comments
GMail gets used on a day to day basis by not only me, but a good lot of people on the internet. And although that there’s been a decline in the use of desktop email recently, Thunderbird still has its fans, including me.
However, a while back I encountered a rather irritating issue in Thunderbird, and I assume it’s similar for other desktop clients using GMail; my spam messages were treated as new mail, so Thunderbird would alert me when there was no new email, and because I receive a large volume of junk emails each day, it was becoming rather cumbersome. And to frustrate me even more, if I deleted email from the spam folder in Thunderbird, it’d be moved to the trash folder and not removed properly. I could have unsubscribed from the IMAP folder, but that would have meant losing the ability to send messages to the spam folder from within Thunderbird
Fortunately, GMail’s filters helped me craft a server-side solution to this annoying problem. I created a filter to match the criteria of having the words in:spam and marking such emails as unread. That way, Thunderbird never sees them as new messages, I could still send messages to the spam folder through my client, and GMail would clear it out for me on a regular basis; spam became literally ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
Webapps Extending Uses March 8, 2009
Posted by CLibra in Articles, Clippings, Internet, Software.add a comment
DesignM.ag has posted an article on unorthodox uses of WordPress – that is, not using it as a blog. For example, WordPress can be turned into visual bookmarking database, an email newsletter hub, a contact manager and even a wiki; Design.mag links to all of the tutorials and plugins so it’s easy to adapt your WordPress installation, and if you don’t already have hosting for WordPress, hop on over to DreamHostApps for no-strings-attached webapp hosting.
This article got me thinking; what other applications do we use that could work for us in different ways? I’ve tried to think of some myself.
- It’s not a secret that Google Calendar can be used to book resources and equipment but I don’t see it being implemented as often as it could be.
- A CMS like drupal could be turned into a portfolio or note-taking application.
- GMail has been transformed into a ‘Personal Nerve Center‘ which is used to store information, bookmarks, to-dos, news updates and blogs.
- I’ve used GMail + Thunderbird as a cross platform, offline sync’d note-taking system.
- Twitter can be used to run a link blog (article to follow)
It’s harder than it looks to think of uses for online software. Perhaps in the future, we’ll see more plugins and tutorials on adapting well-known internet applications for other uses.
[http://designm.ag/design/11-non-traditional-uses-of-wordpress/]
Foldershare out, Windows Live Sync in November 21, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Clippings, Internet, Microsoft, Software, Sync, Tools.1 comment so far
My favourite cross-platform syncing tool, Foldershare, is doomed to die soon.
In its place will spring Windows Live Sync, a tool promising the same great features, and then some.
Click the link below to read the full letter from Microsoft, as it also explains how to prepare for the upgrade, because your libraries will be lost by Windows Live Sync.
Let’s hope this new version’s really something, hey?
3×3links, the online dial page November 7, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Extensions, Firefox, Software, Web 2.0, Websites.2 comments
Opera did it first, yes. And then there were the Firefox extensions (Auto Dial, Fast Dial, Speed Dial) which replicated the killer feature.
Fore those of you who haven’t come across it, a dial page is opens in blank tabs & the home page to provide links to oft-used websites, either manually entered or pulled from history or bookmarks, depending on the dial variation.
But there was never really any portability between them; working on both Windows & Mac, I couldn’t keep my changes current between my dial page. I’d change which websites I’d visit often, re-order them, make changes, only to find that I have to repeat again. And again.
The pages don’t have any sync functions, so they’re not really designed to be used across computers – however, there is a similar service offered online by 3×3links. You can set up a custom dial page online (all that’s needed is a Google Account), and then simply set it as the homepage on each computer you want to use it. If you want it to open in blank tabs, just set it up with the Firefox extension Tab Mix Plus, but the pages themselves can be used cross-browser. I find that using 3×3links is faster than the extensions as it doesn’t have the bloat, but a downside is that clearing browser cookies would mean you have to log in to the site again to access your dial page.
A similar service is provided by Flyapp, but I personally prefer the layout of 3×3links. Who knows, maybe this kind of start page will become as prominent as the likes of NetVibes and iGoogle.
[http://www.3x3links.com/]
Via [http://lifehacker.com/5074982/3x3links-is-a-speed+dial+style-start-page]
Ubiquity = YubNub + Operator September 15, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Extensions, Firefox, Mozilla, Software.1 comment so far
Browsing Mozilla Labs, I come across Ubiquity.
It’s meant to be some flashy toolbar thingy that pops down when you press a key combination. You enter commands to make the web, well, do stuff.
For example, you invoke Ubiquity, and type “ebay Converse” to search eBay for converse shoes. It can also detect selected text & images on a page and automatically input it when you open Ubiquity?.
Sound good? Well to be honest, I’m a bit ho hum about Ubiquity. I think the concept is good, but the current delivery of it isn’t. I see Ubiquity as a forced mashup of YubNub and Operator, both of which I use daily, but Mozilla’s adaptation is without the real seamlessness that you’d expect.
Sorry Mozilla, Ubiquity ain’t for me. I love the idea and think it’s very workable, maybe in the next few versions you can win me over, but Ubiquity seems to cluttered and not as customisable or extensible as I would have envisaged; for now, I’m sticking to YubNub and Operator, but the selling point for Ubiquity (for me) would be a higher intelligence, recognising Microformats and data on pages much more fluidly, and being able to remove commands I don’t want, possible linking into the YubNub database.
Browser wars: Turning Firefox into IE8 and Chrome September 7, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Firefox, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Software, Tools.3 comments
I have to be honest – I was impressed by some of the new features showed by Google Chrome and IE8. There I said it! Yup, I was wowed by a Micro$oft product, don’t laugh. However, I swear by Firefox, and was in two minds about switching – why leave the browser I love just for some features, wait, do I choose Chrome or IE8?
After some digging, I found I didn’t have to. Here’s a roundup of the best extensions to have features from IE8 & Chrome in Firefox:
- Accelerators in IE8, those little shortcuts to web services, can be exactly replicated by IE8 Activities for Firefox – remember to install accelerators here afterwards! For the more technical minded, have a look at Operator, which focuses on Microformats to provide a similar – but more advanced – experience; as with the activities, check here to find Operator user scripts. I much prefer Operator and would recommend it, but for simple accelerators, IE8 Activities for Firefox will do fine.
- Webslices manifests as Webchunks in Firefox. How d’ya use it? Just install it, and when you land on a Webslice enabled page, Webchunks will alert you and let you subscribe to it in a special toolbar. That’s all you gotta do! You can easily keep an eye on your ’slices with a click, and the toolbar will change to visually alert you when there’s an update. Have a look at eBay’s Webslice search portal, and StumbleUpon’s Buzz Webslice.
UPDATE: Webchunks has been updated, with a function now better than the original. You can now subscribe to any part of a webpage, regardless if it’s a coded Webslice or not. Get the latest version here. - You may think that Chrome’s new tab interface is cool, but the original idea was actually stolen from Opera! To put it into FireFox, check out Speed Dial and Auto Dial, two extensions that work in different ways to fill blank tabs with something useful.
- The smart location bar is better known as the Awesome Bar to us Firefoxians. To add domain highlighting, install Locationbar², and site-specific browsing from Chrome can be put in a more workable form in Firefox courtesy of YubNub LocationBar (read more about how to use YubNub here), or manually add Quick Searches for your favourite sites.
- Incognito/InPrivate mode isn’t exactly reproduced for Firefox (yet), but for now we have Stealthier, an extension that disables certain browser features that leave tracks; it ain’t pretty but it works, for even more protection combine it with Tor and TorButton.
- Whilst individual tab isolation isn’t available yet, we can remove permissions from certain tabs. Tab Permissions will let you selectively remove access to Images, JavaScript, MetaRedirects, Plug-ins and Subframes, so you can take away things that will crash a tab until we get the power to separate tabs.
- Application Shortcuts, a cool feature from Chrome, sounds a lot like Prism, a project from Mozilla Labs which lets users run Webapps right from the desktop. For that streamlined creation in-browser, install Prism on your system, then add the Prism extension (Windows only) or the Spectrum Bookmarklet (cross platform). These webapps don’t get automatic offline functionality like Chrome’s unfortunately, but with Gears you can get offline access to some apps in the browser.
- Like the SmartScreen feature of IE8, which is called Safe Browsing in Chrome? This one’s baked into Firefox! Just pop open the Security Tab in Firefox’s options and make sure the options to tell you if a site is an attack site and forgery are checked. Easy as.
- Finally, Firefox’s download window can be moved into the status bar with the Download Statusbar extension. It’s not as aesthetically pleasing as Chrome’s implementation, but it does the job.
It’s surprising how fast the Firefox developer community has responded to the features from the latest browsers, although some of these features were around before Chrome and Internet Explorer hard coded them in.
Is it possible that Firefox will be able to pull of these features better? How will it affect the browser shares? Stick around to find out.
Faux Google Gears – wget July 27, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Clippings, Code, HowTo, Internet, Software, Tools.add a comment
Yeah, I know I go on about Google Gears a lot, but Lifehacker’s wget tutorial makes me think of a simple, powerful, and portable solution to back up your online data for offline use. Now you can access your important websites offline, even ones that don’t support Google Gears.
What’s wget?
a free software package for retrieving files using HTTP, HTTPS and FTP
Basically, it’s a tool that can download files and webpages. How is this different from a normal browser?
wget can selectively download parts of a webpage. You want all links to be downloaded? No problem. You want images to be dropped? That can be done too. wget provides an advanced level of customisation for getting your files.
[http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/]
The guide, written by Lifehacker, will walk you through advanced ways to download content from del.icio.us, Digg, and Goolge Notebook, but if you read the comments you will find user tips and strategies, which you could just as easily implement into other uses of wget,
Why I’ll never be happy with notes July 21, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Articles, Notes, Software, Sync, Theoretical.1 comment so far
Out of all of the tools I use on a computer, I’d say that multimedia notes have been one of the most useful, and I think that they’re severely underrated – I’d often store a mini progress log, annotate a picture or keep a phone number in notes, because it’s too cumbersome to then go and create a document to do these tasks, especially when the document will probably be deleted soon.
Notes are infinitely useful. But so is sync.
It’s an implicit necessity for me to be able to access any of my data – be it email, calendars, or files – across different platforms easily, have offline accessibility (through some medium like a client, Gears etc) and have a web interface.
I know it seems a lot to ask, but in my situation, I need portability.
And from there, the problem arises.
X has some amazing features, but will only sync to Windows.
Y is a sleek multimedia power-app, but we can’t get it offline.
Z will sync to all systems, however it has no web interface and lacks advanced tools.
There is no standards for notes. iMap and vCard are two standards for mail and contacts that are universally supported. What have notes got? Where would they even go? We could probably all name some built-in email aplications that will inherently know these protocols, but what about notes? By having image annotations, does that mean you loose out on a multi-platform/client user base? Ok, so plain notes are fine, but exactly where will they go, what can they be access in.
Do you see my dilemma? I can never find the perfect solution for notes because there is no ideal for it set.
Someone needs to create a system – similar to that used by, for example, calendars – that is globally accessible.
WordPress gets Turbo, with Gears July 7, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Blogroll, Code, Google, Software.add a comment
I blog on WordPress. I worship Google Gears.
So what happened when the two fused?
Unfortunately, there’s no offline blog access.
However, WordPress makes an intriguing use of Gears that hasn’t been done before.
It downloads dashboard components to the Gears storage, speeding up access to them, so general admin & posting on the blog is faster. It’s better than native caching because it won’t get cleared on browser exit.
Hopefully, this will see the creation of a plethora of unique uses for Gears.
