But what if you took the simple but powerful platform of Notational Velocity, and started adding some amazing features like Markdown, Textile and MultiMarkdown support (with a preview window to see your formatting), a widescreen layout, the ability to hide the notes panel, and some very nice stylistic improvements? The result is a fork of Notational Velocity by Brett Terpstra called Notational Velocity ALT, and it's a thing of beauty.

At this point I have to tell you that I've been lucky enough to use Brett's software for years now. In addition to writing software, Brett's a blogger for TUAW, a sister site of Download Squad, and when I was writing for TUAW I was lucky enough to get involved with using the Mac text editor TextMate with a bundle Brett wrote. He built it to allow writers to write for Blogsmith -- the CMS that runs TUAW and Download Squad -- using Markdown, but with a bunch of added features to make the writer more efficient, and their life easier. It's brilliant software, and it's what I'm using to compose this post.

I'm sharing this because it illustrates that Brett's role of writer puts him in a position to really understand the headaches writers run into, but his role as a coder empowers him to solve those headaches.

Notational Velocity ALT is already the best note taking app I've ever used, but what excites me even more is that Brett's plan is to make it not just a fantastic note taking app, but a fantastic text editor optimized for people who write online. I'm looking forward to the day when I write everything I intend to post online in Notational Velocity ALT, and that day may not be terribly far away.

Based on what Brett has already done with Notational Velocity ALT, and what he's done writing software for writers, this software's future is very, very bright.

Filed under: Text, Macintosh

Notational Velocity ALT, the supremo Mac note-taking tool, goes 1.0 originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 12 Dec 2010 14:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xbench is a free performance benchmarking utility that measures the following items: CPU, Threads, Memory, Quartz Graphics (2D), OpenGL Graphics (3D), User Interface, and Disk. For a full list, including the sub-categories of what Xbench measures, check the bottom of the Xbench homepage.

When you run the app you can run all or only some of the tests, however running the entire suite only takes a few minutes. When you're done, you're presented with a report showing how your machine performed in each area.

By itself, it isn't that interesting, but if you send your report to Xbench's website using the Submit button, you can then compare it against other machines' scores.

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh

Xbench performance benchmarking for Macs originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 20 Nov 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: E-mail, Google

Undocumented Gmail keyboard shortcuts for composing CC and BCC email originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There were rumors about it yesterday, but today we find out that it actually happened: AOL has purchased TechCrunch, one of the biggest blogs (and blog networks) in the technology industry. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong announced the news this morning at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference, noting that TechCrunch will become part of the AOL Technology Network that includes sites like Engadget, Switched, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and Download Squad.

Read more about it in the press release posted on TechCrunch by Tim Armstrong himself.

Filed under: Business, News

TechCrunch now a sister site of Download Squad originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Visually, HyperDock adds window previews when you mouse over icons for running applications, much like what you see in Windows 7. I haven't decided if I like this feature (on my Mac, or on Windows), but even turned off, HyperDock is still worth having installed.

HyperDock adds the ability to set up mouse and keyboard shortcuts for your applications individually or en masse, with options like Activate App, Hide App, Hide Other Apps, Quit App, Kill App, Exposé, Reveal App in Finder, Open Location, and Execute AppleScript. But as much as I love adding keyboard shortcut functionality to my system, it's HyperDock's window handling abilities that really shine.

You can set hotkeys for moving and resizing windows. This fixes one of the biggest UI problems in OS X, which is that in order to resize a window, you must grab a tiny widget at the bottom right of the window. Using HyperDock, you can press a key combination (it defaults to Ctrl+Option) and whatever window the cursor happens to be over suddenly starts moving with your cursor. Release the keys, and the window stops right there. Adding Shift (for Ctrl+Option+Shift) resizes the window under the cursor.

HyperDock is currently in beta, and while so, it is a free download. Once it is released, it's likely to "cost a small fee" according to the site.

[via TUAW]

Filed under: Utilities, Apple, Beta

HyperDock adds eye candy, functionality to your Mac's dock originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gmail's new Priority Inbox feature has revolutionized how many people deal with their email. Unfortunately, you may have noticed that it's only available on the standard desktop version of Gmail in your browser. Well, that's not entirely true.

Priority Inbox works based on a label called "Important" that Gmail's priority algorithm applies to messages it considers important. Just like you can compose a Gmail search that will include items in your inbox or starred items by using the in:inbox or in:starred search operators, you can include items that Google's algorithm considers important by including in:important.

On your iPhone you can go to the mobile version of Gmail in Safari, and compose the following search:

in:inbox in:important 

This is the basic criteria for what Gmail shows you in the top Important pane in desktop Gmail when using Priority Inbox. Once you've run the search, tap the + button at the bottom of the iPhone's screen, and choose Add to Home Screen. Voila, you've now got one-tap access to your Priority Inbox on your iPhone.

You can actually get access to the Important label as an IMAP folder on any IMAP-capable mail client including those on mobile devices, but because there isn't a way to compose a search query on mail clients that says, "show me messages that are both in the Inbox and the Important folder" you can't really create the same effect. But if your goal is simply to see what Priority Inbox deems important, this might be a worthwhile option.

Filed under: E-mail, Google

How to get Gmail's Priority Inbox on your mobile device originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 25 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tweet Nest is a new product that you can install on your Web server that will back up all of your tweets, and it offers an attractive interface for searching through them and viewing the media that you've linked to. It's like your own personal archive of your tweets.

To me, this makes perfect sense, and it's a much more graceful way of archiving your tweets to your blog, rather than relying on syndication as some people do. Tweet Nest is well designed, reasonably easy to install (if you're comfortable with Web software), and nice to look at.

And did I mention that it's free?

Filed under: Freeware, Social Software, Web

Tweet Nest is a self-hosted online tweet archive originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It took me a little while to get used to it, because the user interface is fairly busy. But you get a heck of a lot of bang for your buck with all that busy-ness. While most Twitter apps on the iPad work best in portrait mode, and Twitter for iPad works fine that way, it really seems optimized for use in landscape mode.

Loren Brichter -- who created Tweetie which was then purchased by Twitter and became the official Twitter iPhone app -- has continued his revolutionary approach to interface design on the iPad version. Your list of tweets acts as a sort of launching point, and tapping on a tweet opens a pane from the right that gives you either more information about the tweeter, the conversation if that particular tweet is in response to something, or the webpage of any link that is contained in the tweet. Basically, it tries to show you the most relevant information that can be pulled out of any given tweet when you tap on it. It's nothing short of brilliant.

I really only have one beef with Twitter for iPad. It's a bit awkward to clear the right pane once you're done with a given tweet. It stays off to the right out of the way, but still provides visual clutter that annoys me. Tapping a different list and then back to your timeline clears it, but it should be more simple than that.

Otherwise, Loren has really knocked another one out of the park with Twitter for iPad.

Filed under: Social Software, Mobile

Twitter for iPad launches, and it's beautiful originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you're a fan of life hacks of any kind and you can't touch-type, you're wasting your time. Just like the best current upgrade you can give your computer in terms of overall speed improvement is a solid-state drive, the best overall speed improvement you can give yourself when it comes to the time you spend on a computer is the ability to touch-type. I'm not kidding, and if you're skeptical I intend to convince you.

For our Back-to-School series, I really wanted to write a post about how great Gmail's keyboard shortcuts are. They really are fantastic, and if you learn them, you can really fly through your email without using the mouse at all.

But, I realized that most of the people I've talked to about keyboard shortcuts -- for Gmail and for any other application -- feign interest, then politely lets me know that they "can't memorize keys", or some other similar excuse.

The thing is, I don't believe this. But I'm getting a clear message that people aren't interested in keyboard shortcuts. And I think I know why: most people can't touch-type. Keyboard shortcuts lose almost all of their value if you constantly have to look down at your fingers to find the right key.

Continue reading Gain a superpower by learning to touch-type - Back to School

Filed under: Features

Gain a superpower by learning to touch-type - Back to School originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scores.org has an interesting infographic that shows Google's acquisitions through the past 10 years, starting with their purchase of Deja, which became Google Groups, right up until their most recent purchase of Like.

One of the things that stands out the most when looking at this vertical graph is how much Google's appetite for acquisitions has increased. They bought three companies in July, and already another three in August of this year.

To be honest though, it takes longer to figure out how this graphic is trying to present information than it would to simply view these statistics laid out on a spreadsheet. And that's my general beef with most infographics.

On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have taken the time to look at a plain-jane spreadsheet of this information, so I guess pretty pictures aren't going away any time soon.

Filed under: Business, Google

Every Google acquisition plotted on an infographic originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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But what if I told you there's a way to make searching your Gmail even faster, and that it wasn't Google that did it?

CloudMagic is a Google Chrome and Firefox extension which indexes your email locally on your computer, and provides ridiculously fast results when you search. The extension provides a CloudMagic search field right in Gmail with a shortcut key of Ctrl-/ (rather than just / for Gmail's regular search field). It features search-as-you-type that seems to react instantly to your keystrokes, and uses many of the same search operators that Gmail already uses, so you don't need to re-learn how to search.

From a privacy standpoint, CloudMagic creates the index locally on your machine, so there's no risk of someone snooping through your messages. It also stores your password locally, much like a regular email client does.

It's not clear to me what CloudMagic's revenue plan is, but I sure get a kick out of the idea of someone coming along and beating the pants off Google at search in Google's own email service. CloudMagic reports that Google Docs search is the next feature they will be releasing. I can't wait.

Filed under: E-mail, Google

CloudMagic searches your Gmail faster than Google can originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Don't worry if you've never played with AppleScripts before; the download for iTunes Sleep Timer includes instructions on how to install the script in iTunes, and it's really as easy as copying a file. Once you've done so, you can then select iTunes Sleep Timer from the Scripts menu in iTunes, choose how long you'd like iTunes to continue playing, and that's it; you're all set.

Share

Filed under: Audio, Utilities, Macintosh

iTunes Sleep Timer stops iTunes from playing all night originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While Macs don't have a feature like that built-in, there's a relatively new utility called Divvy that can do some very nice window management at the touch of a hot key. I should be clear that Divvy does not replicate the Windows feature discussed above; instead it does something better.

Divvy allows you to divide up your screen into variously sized rectangular work areas using a grid, then assign a hot key to each one. Then you can snap any active window to a work area using a corresponding hot key that you set. Instead of just resizing two windows equally on the left and right of your screen, you choose how much room to give each one -- though you could use it to divide your screen evenly if you wanted to. You can also resize windows to a grid in a freeform click-and-drag fashion.

Divvy costs $14 US, however they have a demo available that is not time-limited (though it will remind you often to buy a license).

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh

Divvy makes window management a snap on your Mac originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The early levels of the game are very easy, and in my opinion, the game takes a little too long to ramp up in difficulty. It's worth it, though, once you get to the harder levels. The game offers just the right amount of difficulty and satisfying (yet very simple) graphic effects and sounds when you do manage to kill the baddies.

This isn't a game that I would introduce my children to, but as far as physics games go, it's actually a pretty good one. I scored 279 on my first playthrough. I have no doubt you all can do better, so let us know in the comments!

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Time-Wasters, Web

Ricochet Kills 2 makes you a physics sniper - Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There's something about the idea of multiple screens surrounding me with green Matrix glyphs running down them that really appeals to me. When I'm sitting at work, I've got three screens in front of me -- one for my Windows PC, and two for my Mac laptop that is my primary machine.

When I'm not using them, I use Matrix screensavers to create the Matrix effect, but if you ask me, that's not really good enough. What I really wanted was to have that same Matrix effect persist even when the screensaver is not active; I want it to be like an active desktop, of sorts.

While there are several ways to achieve this effect on Windows, the options are much slimmer if you happen to run Mac OS X. After a bit of looking, I found one called Wallsaver that works well.

Wallsaver is a utility that can embed most screensavers on your desktop, and they even offer a compatible Matrix-themed screensaver that works very well with Wallsaver. Wallsaver's primary function is to switch between embedded screensaver mode and normal desktop wallpaper mode. Once you perform the switch, you can close the application, and the effect persists.

Depending on the screensaver you choose and the number of screens you are running, there will be a bit of a performance hit on your system, but in my case, it's not enough to be noticeable. As usual with this kind of thing, your mileage may vary.

Filed under: Macintosh, Mods

Use Wallsaver to embed a screensaver on your Mac's desktop originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I took a piece of writing of mine that I consider to be just garbage, and it told me that I write like Neil Gaiman. Now, I don't know much about his writing, but based on reputation alone, I'm certain that it's far better than the rubbish I plugged into this thing.

On the other hand, if you're a struggling author and you need to justify to your spouse that following your writing passion is going to pay off, you might consider giving them a look at I Write Like. Just be careful not to believe it yourself.

I mean, apparently this very post is similar to Dan Brown.

Filed under: Text, Time-Wasters, Web

I Write Like tells you which famous author you write like originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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My new favorite site of this kind is Support Details. The URL is super easy to remember (supportdetails.com), and when you pay the site a visit, it lists a bunch of details about your computer that you can include when making a support request for software that you're having trouble with.

Here's a quick list of the information that Support Details offers: - Operating system - Screen resolution - Web Browser & version - Browser window size - IP address - Color depth - Javascript (enabled or disabled) - Flash version - Cookies (enabled or disabled)

You can export the details as a CSV or PDF file, or you can simply email them to a recipient by using a form that's right on the site. It's simple and effective.

Filed under: Utilities, Web

Support Details gives you system details instantly originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So I was delighted today when a friend sent me a simple link over IM, and when I clicked it to find out what it was, I was greeted with its sequel, Fantastic Contraption 2. Now, I'm not going to claim that it's new, but it's certainly new to me, and we haven't posted about it before.

I recall that there was another attempt at a sequel that was far too complicated to be fun. Fortunately, though, Fantastic Contraption 2 retains the simplicity of the first one while introducing a new gameplay mechanic: magnets.

I've only just dipped my toe into the fantasticness that is Fantastic Contraption 2, but I can tell right now that I'm going to be losing hours to this thing all over again. Yes, it's that good.

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Time-Wasters, Web

Fantastic Contraption 2 is a sequel worthy of Time Wasting originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you ever wanted to compare how fast one site loads against another one? Instead of futzing around with multiple browser windows or a stopwatch, just head over to Which Loads Faster, and load the URLs into the split window interface. When you hit the GO button, it will load both sites in side-by-side frames, then make a judgment.

Keep in mind, there are a lot of variables at play, and you'll want to run the same test multiple times to get a better idea of what the average load speed is. Also, it's not clear whether the site automatically clears your cache, so you're going to want to do it manually between tests.

Of course, since each test will likely be different, it can help you create smart-ass screenshots like the header image on this post. Hey, we're just havin' fun here, right Lifehacker?

Filed under: Design, Utilities, Browser Tips

Which Loads Faster tells you, well, you know originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Canada requires the television and radio industries to adhere to Canada's Broadcasting Act, which is governed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Currently, ISPs are not considered broadcasters, and it's pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that they should not be.

However, the CRTC has escalated this issue to the Federal Court of Appeal in order to legally clarify this situation. There is heavy pressure from the content creation community (particularly in the television industry) to see ISPs regulated, arguing that they are distributing Canadian content.

On the other side of the argument are the telecommunications companies: they argue that ISPs are simply a conduit through which data flows and have nothing to do with content distribution. They point out that, as with most things, this seems to be motivated by money. If the court decides that ISPs are broadcasters, they'll be subject to the same taxation that broadcasters must pay, and they must contribute to Canadian content development.

While I can see why the entertainment industry would like to create a bigger pie to get their slice from, it makes no sense at all to regulate Internet service providers based on this one type of data that passes through them. ISPs aren't content providers; if anything, it's companies like Revision3 or TWiT in the US that are the real online content providers, along with the television and radio networks of course. These networks are already regulated in Canada, though, and online-only content providers are in the fledgling stage, where regulation would almost certainly constrain or even completely suppress them. Since they don't have a lot of money (certainly not as much as ISPs do), they're not interesting as a potential target for regulation ... yet.

I would be amazed if this case determined that ISPs are broadcasters and, therefore, subject to all of the things that such a decision would entail. It's kind of scary that there's even a case deciding it, though.

Filed under: Business, News, Web

Canadian court deciding if ISPs are content providers originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well-known artists have typically worked with more people, making it more likely to make shorter jumps. But the fun comes in trying to find either the shortest path between two seemingly unrelated artists, or in just trying to put together the longest path.

The best short one I've seen so far is William Shatner to Youssou N'Dour in only three steps, while the longest string I've been able to put together myself was from Baz Luhrmann to The Beat Farmers in 20 steps. The longest string I'm aware of is 40 steps.

So, how long of a string can you put together? Post your accomplishments in the comments!

Filed under: Time-Wasters, Web

Connect bands and artists using Six Degrees of Black Sabbath originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 26 May 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ask MetaFilter poster Dan Reetz reached out to the community on that site to ask for help when he discovered that a friend of his -- an ex-student from Russia -- may have found herself caught up in a human trafficking scam.

She and a friend had traveled to the US on the promise of work when they arrived, only to have the job offer mysteriously dry up. The thread is an emotional roller coaster, as Dan tries to help his friend from across the country and tries repeatedly and unsuccessfully to convince her that she's in a dangerous situation.

I have never seen a thread of more helpful, on-topic information anywhere online. As the story unfolds, Dan is given contact information for various agencies that can help with human trafficking victims. He eventually enlists help from a number of agencies and regular people, and the story has a happy ending.

If you start reading this thread, you will probably lose an entire hour of your time, but you won't regret it. Online culture has taught us to be cynical and expect the worst from people. Reading this thread reminds you just how wonderful and helpful people really are.

[via boingboing]

Filed under: News, Web

Ask MetaFilter thread saves two girls from a life of slave prostitution or worse originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 21 May 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The user interface in Remember the Milk is awkward at best, and you really need to use a browser or Greasemonkey plug-in to reformat the page to be more usable, particularly if you have more than a couple lists and smart lists. I like A Bit Better RTM for Chrome, and it's also available for Firefox.

Unfortunately, the UI problems are not only on the web version; the mobile version for iPhone has text that is comically large, making it great for people with poor eyesight, but only if their tasks have no more than a couple of words in them. The text doesn't wrap, and instead is just cut off. There is also an official Remember the Milk iPhone app, but it too suffers from the same huge text syndrome.

Until very recently there was a much better choice for iPhone users in the form of Appigo's Todo iPhone application that supported synchronization with Remember the Milk. Unfortunately, as of last week the two companies are locked in a disagreement over Appigo's use of RTM's API for a new iPad version of Todo. RTM's position is that the iPad is a new platform, and therefore Appigo needs to purchase another commercial API license. Appigo's position is that the codebase is identical between the iPhone and iPad versions since they both run iPhone OS (they say they didn't need to change a thing in the sync code), and feel they are justified in using the API license for iPhone OS that they already have.

As a user, I don't really care who is right here, except that this dispute has caused RTM to unilaterally and without warning turn off Appigo Todo's access to the API, including for existing iPhone users. Worse, it doesn't look like it's going to come back any time soon.

Since RTM's iPhone user interfaces are pretty terrible, this leaves me in the position of needing to look for an alternative task management system. Luckily, there's no shortage of great options to choose from.

To both Remember the Milk and Appigo: you've both taken my money, and left me without a usable task management system because you can't get along. Shame on both of you. I certainly won't be recommending either of your products in the future.

Filed under: Web services, iPhone

Remember the Milk and Appigo can't get along; users get screwed originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 May 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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My friends think I'm crazy ... overreacting. I've gone and done it, though.

I've deactivated my Facebook account.

My privacy settings were set to be as restrictive as Facebook allows, and I still didn't feel comfortable with it. Not because I have anything to hide, but because I don't trust Facebook to not use my information (and that of my friends) for evil, or even to adequately protect it.

What's the big deal? Like me, you might be thinking, "I have nothing to hide. Who cares if Facebook collects personal information and sells it?" That's a fair statement; pretty much every large company we do business with today does that. The problem here is that Facebook tells us that we can trust it, but then it repeatedly changes the rules on us to suit its own needs. Facebook is within its legal rights to do this, but that doesn't make it right.

I have a friend whose identity was stolen a few weeks ago via a Facebook exploit, and he's in a living hell now. Facebook's new Instant Personalization pilot is so controversial that it's being debated on the floor of the US Senate, and the latest change -- switching your interests to keyword links that you have to individually opt out of -- is a completely transparent user-hostile move. A few months ago, Facebook changed the privacy defaults to be completely public (in other words, not at all private) and pitched it as an improvement to their privacy controls. In fact, those privacy controls are so convoluted (and it's hard to imagine that it isn't intentional) that even when you think you've got it locked down, there's a good chance that your friends don't, and they could be sharing information about you.

Google's mission statement is to "organize the world's information," and their motto is, "Don't be evil." What's Facebook's mission? Where do they stand on being evil?

Actually, we know Facebook's mission statement: "Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." Of course, back in 2008, it was: "Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life." It's certainly not "to be the best place in the world to connect and share with friends and family," even though that's what Elliot Schrage, vice president for public policy at Facebook, claimed it is in a recent New York Times article.

Though Mr. Schrage points people to view his Facebook profile and compare it with Mark Zuckerberg's, at the time writing his profile comes up as a missing page. What happened, Elliot, share a little too much information, maybe? If you need to get a better understanding of your privacy policies, check out this info graphic in the New York Times that shows the more than 170 possible options you can set.

Given the changes Facebook has made over the past couple of years, what new surprises do the folks there have in store for us? Clearly Facebook feels the power of having such a dominant online community. As they say, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So, yeah, I'm taking a break from Facebook for a while. First, I want to see if it's possible to live without the big FB. Then I'll decide whether it's a good idea to live with it. I already know which way I'm leaning.

Of course, even if I do decide to completely delete my Facebook account, Facebook will keep my personal data and continue to mine it.

I don't expect anyone to follow my lead. I do, however, urge you to think about whether you think Facebook is deserving of our trust. Is Facebook a good steward of our online (and increasingly offline) identities and information?

If Facebook was a person, it would be one who can't keep a secret and talks about you behind your back.

Would you stay friends with a person like that?

Share

Filed under: Web services, Social Software

Farewell to Facebook, at least for now originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 13 May 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can't move or control your little guys. Instead, you need to creatively place objects within each level to protect them. Sometimes this just means building a shelter for them, but more often than not, the solution requires a bit more out-of-the-box thinking.

One of the things that frustrates me about most physics games is that I often feel that the game ends just as I'm starting to feel like I've got a handle on it. Cover Orange doesn't suffer from that problem. The game uses user-generated levels and seems to just keep going and going. While the user-generated levels are of varying quality, they're good overall and make the game worth continuing.

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Time-Wasters, Web

Cover Orange is a physics Time Waster that keeps going and going originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 06 May 2010 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Threadsy interface consists of two panes. The Inbound pane on the left is the primary pane, and it's essentially your inbox for incoming messages. Email that's in your inbox shows up here, along with messages from Facebook, and direct messages and mentions from Twitter. The Streams pane on the right shows you all the status updates from your social networks.

The app does a nice job of trying to tie together your contacts' accounts, so that when you're viewing a Facebook message from someone, you see their Facebook and Twitter updates in the pane on the right. Theoretically this can give you more context about the person you're communicating with, but often it's just visual clutter.

For me, Threadsy is a very well done and valiant effort at bringing together all of your inboxes into one interface. Unfortunately, for me email is still king, and my demands for email functionality are extremely high. Threadsy would have to be better at email than Gmail to make me even consider switching. I suppose that's still possible, since Threadsy is brand new in beta, and updates are likely to come.

Until then, I might just remove my email account and use Threadsy for monitoring Facebook and Twitter.

[via Technologizer]

Filed under: E-mail, Social Software, Beta

Threadsy puts your email and social media in one interface originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 06 May 2010 11:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Luckily, there's a new Synergy configuration tool in town, and it's called QSynergy. The big selling point of QSynergy is ease of use. It offers a graphical interface for configuring the server machine on any of the three OSes that Synergy supports: Windows, Mac, and Linux.

QSynergy is not a complete Synergy distribution -- you still need to download Synergy itself from Sourceforge and install it, but once you've done that, you can do all the configuration tasks in QSynergy. As a Mac user this is a huge plus, since otherwise I'm stuck manually editing text-based configuration files. In contrast to previous attempts to use Synergy, I was up and running using my Mac as the server and my Windows PC as a client within about three minutes.

If you've ever wondered how to easily reduce the number of keyboards and mice you need to switch between in order to control multiple computers, particularly if your computers run different operating systems, Synergy with QSynergy is your ticket to a tidier desk.

[via Lifehacker]

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Freeware

QSynergy makes cross-platform Synergy configuration a snap originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While I love Google Maps, one thing I don't love about it is the lack of voice directions. While driving, I find that I spend far too much time studying the map in order to try and figure out if it's the next left I want to take, or the one after that? Should I even be turning left? It's hard to tell sometimes with that top-down view.

Well, MapQuest has released an iPhone navigation app called MapQuest 4 Mobile [iTunes link], and while it won't fix my issue with the top-down view, it does add a killer feature: voice directions.

So, how well do they work?

Overall, they're not bad. The voice itself is obviously computer generated, and sometimes it's a bit hard to understand in a noisy, moving car. The app ducks the volume of any music or podcast that you happen to be listening to while it speaks directions to you, which is helpful. However, the quality of the voice is still problematic. It's also a little strange, since MapQuest doesn't attempt to speak street names, but rather just gives generic instructions: "Prepare to turn left," "Get ready to turn left," or "Turn left now." Given MapQuest's limited vocabulary, it would seem like using recordings of a real voice would be easy enough to do, and easier to understand.

Sound quality quibble aside, I'm pretty happy with MapQuest on my iPhone. Once my phone's GPS gets a solid lock, the instructions come with enough warning to allow me to be ready for turns. On the screen, you can see the distance to your destination decreasing in realtime, though it would be nice to also see the ETA.

I've only had a chance to test it on a few routes, and I'd have to say that it chooses conservative routing compared to Google Maps. It will get you there, but you might have been able to get there a couple of minutes quicker with the route Google Maps would have chosen.

At the end of the day, I just don't want to get lost, so losing a few minutes is not a big deal. I'm going to keep using MapQuest, and I have high hopes that updates will improve on an already winning product.

[via Mashable]

Filed under: Apple, Google, iPhone, Mobile

Free MapQuest 4 Mobile iPhone app has voice navigation originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The website is quite good for reading articles, but one thing that is sorely lacking is keyboard shortcuts. If you're like me and have gotten used to navigating through Gmail and Google Reader using only the keyboard shortcuts, it feels like a step backwards to be forced to point and click to move from article to article on Instapaper.

Brett Terpstra, a developer that has put together a number of my favorite tools (including the specialized editor for Blogsmith that I'm using to write this post) felt the same lack-of-keyboard-shortcut pain, and set out to do something about it. What he's come up with is a user script for use with Fluid, so that you can create a stand-alone browser for Instapaper that is perfectly suited to the task.

The Instapaper Beyond script is very robust, and has a well-documented help screen. Just press 'h', and up pops a window very similar to the window that shows up in Gmail if you press '?' to help you remember the shortcuts, though you'll find them quite intuitive.

Unfortunately, Fluid is Mac-only, making Instapaper Beyond Mac-only as well. Maybe the more adventurous of you can take a stab at making Brett's userscript Firefox-compatible so that Windows users can join in the fun.

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Filed under: Macintosh, Web services, Browser Tips

Instapaper Beyond is keyboard shortcut heaven for Instapaper users originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In SteamBirds, you command one or more "steambirds," which are fusion aircraft that were invented in 1835. Oops, did I forget to mention that SteamBirds is based on an alternative historical timeline? Right, I'm sorry about that.

In SteamBirds, each level is a mission, and can contain various bad guys with various abilities. The planes you command also have a few special abilities, such as the ability to pull a 180 degree turn in the sky, or to become invincible for a turn through the use of shields. Using a special ability will prevent that aircraft from shooting its guns on that turn, and it takes a turn to recover the special ability again.

The visual style and sound design of the game are quite compelling, and from a gameplay perspective, the air combat is challenging without being impossible. SteamBirds is a fun game that you can pick up and put down as needed due to its turn-based play.

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Time-Wasters, Web

SteamBirds is a turn-based air combat Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some objects, such as falling buildings or satellites, give Sam a bigger boost than the regular brick and wood bars. He can also collect fuel cans, which fire him up into the air with the click of your mouse if he gets into trouble. Also, if he collects all of the letters in Stacy's name (which are floating around in purple hearts), he suddenly gets a huge boost from a big pack of purple helium balloons that temporarily shows up.

The game is fun, but if I have a knock against it, it's that it's too easy. Worse, if you beat it once by getting a score that's higher than 100,000 KM (called "shooting the moon"), the game basically just starts over again. If you can do it once, you can do it over and over, and nothing new is introduced. Your total distance is aggregated, though, so it should be possible to get a truly ridiculous score. I quit trying at around 250,000 KM.

Even with the flaw of being a bit too easy, this is a fun game to play. To challenge yourself even more, try playing it without ever using the jetpack (fuel can) booster. How far can you go?

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Time-Wasters, Web

Jetpack Jackass is a high-flying Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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But how do you know what list to follow? Will you drown under the volume of tweets being posted? Who's in charge of who is or isn't on the list? TLists is a service that is attempting to make working with Twitter Lists a little bit easier. For readers, you can search TLists for a given topic and see lists related to that topic. Each list shows how many members the list has, how many people are following it, approximately how many tweets are generated per day by the list, and even the most commonly used words and hash tags.

Beyond just finding lists to follow, TLists offers a strange an "Apply to List" function as well. Clicking the Apply to List button on any list's entry will send an email create an @ mention to the owner of that list, letting them know that you would like to be considered for inclusion in their list. The email doesn't tell the list's owner who is applying, but presumably redirects them to TLists for more information.

This doesn't feel right to me.

Continue reading TLists indexes Twitter Lists and provides curation tools

Filed under: Web services, Social Software

TLists indexes Twitter Lists and provides curation tools originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are also other objects that you can hit, such as one that gives you three more shurikens, and others that shoot out bullets that will break targets and hit the gong. Unfortunately, these are also considered targets, and even if you don't need their help, you must hit them before hitting the gong.

One challenge you'll run into is that your ninja can only face one direction on each level, and the range of motion of his arms limits him from throwing stars at targets that are behind him. He can arc throwing stars up and over behind him, but not straight out from the back, which can make some levels more difficult.

The game is nicely put together, and makes a solid coffee-break time waster.

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Time-Wasters, Web

Shuriken Showdown - are you a ninja Time Waster? originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, just like everyone else, you're probably still going to use PowerPoint, but at least you can spice up your content with some interesting quotes. If you have any numbers that you need to give, hit up NumberQuotes for a pithy comment about the number in your presentation.

The example given on NumberQuotes' homepage is: €œLast year our industry changed by 50 billion dollars, that'€™s the GDP of Serbia. That's not bad, and I could see that actually being a point of interest. Are all of NumberQuotes' quotes that good, though? Let's give it a try.

For my example, I chose the number 32, which happens to be my hockey jersey number. Interestingly, NumberQuotes actually provides quotes, not only for the exact number that you enter, but also for a few numbers before and after your choice. So, the quotes in this example start at 30, and go up to 35. Since I'm only interested in the ones for 32, let's have a look at a few of my options:

32: The population of Ronneby city, Minnesota, USA in 2008
32: The Alexa rank of linkedin.com
32 pennies stacked on top of each other would be as high as 1.10 Burger King Whoppers
32 quarters stacked on top of each other would be as high as 0.98 McDonald's Big Macs
32 quarters would weigh as much as 0.99 soda cans
32 iPhones would buy 3.17 MacBooks

Okay, so my example seems pretty random, but that's because I chose only a few of the many possible options. Most of them are simple calculations where X (height / weight / cost) of object A equals Y (height / weight / cost) of object B. Try it for yourself, and you'll see what I mean. Most of those are not all that interesting or useful, particularly when the resulting numbers are not round.

On the other hand, it's kind of interesting that the average wage for Nuclear technicians in the USA is 32.17 US dollars per hour.

NumberQuotes shoots a fire-hose of possible quotes at you for each number, and it's your job to filter through and find the interesting nuggets. They are there, if you're willing to look for them.

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Filed under: Text, Web services, Web

NumberQuotes helps you liven up presentations with quotes about numbers originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The tool is very simple and straightforward. You log into your Tumblr account via Tumblr Backup, then point it to the blog you want to back up (if you happen to have multiple Tumblr blogs), give it a folder to save the backup to, and press the "Start backup" button. What you'll end up with are flat HTML files and most media files that you've uploaded that can be viewed in any browser, with a very basic style. If you've customized your theme, it is backed up as a separate theme file, as is the description you've written for your site.

Like Tumblr, the Tumblr Backup tool is simple and straightforward and gets the job done. Let's hope a Windows version is coming as soon as this one graduates from beta status.

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Filed under: Utilities, Blogging

Backup tool for Tumblr blogs available in beta for Mac users originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Leftos is a site dedicated to encouraging discussions on gender-related topics, with categories like being single, dating, sex, relationships, marriage, and divorce. Leftos stands for "Lessons for the Opposite Sex", though I hope the lesson isn't that your interactions with the opposite sex will follow the pattern of their categories in sequence.

While allowing anonymity can cause problems for some online communities, Leftos puts a heavy focus on the anonymous aspect of their site, since the point is to help people to talk about subjects that they might otherwise feel are too taboo to discuss.

Leftos uses a points system to allow its users to judge the relative merit of a given response. While there are some simple ways to accumulate points (following other users, or having other users follow you), the way to really rack up points is to offer an opinion, or ask or answer questions in a way that makes other users tag it as a "great opinion,", "great question", or "great answer".

Heavily focused discussion sites seem to be really taking off, and Leftos is a good example of one that is non-technical and meets a very specific need.

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Filed under: Social Software, Web

Leftos lets you anonymously discuss gender issues originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 28 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stock Tweet App has taken these conventions and used them to build a custom interface for viewing Twitter with a scrolling live stream of all stock-related tweets. Alternatively, you can use the Custom Stock List option to type in the symbol for a few stocks you're interested in tracking, and only tweets concerning those stocks will be shown.

We've previously covered StockTwits in this space, and while they cover the same ground functionally, the styles of the two sites are very different. Of the two, I prefer Stock Tweet App, but there's a sneak peek of a new beta version of StockTwits available which is worth checking out.

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Filed under: Finance, Freeware, Social Software

Stock Tweet App makes tracking Twitter stock discussions easy originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Synergy is a cross-platform, open source application that allows you to navigate between multiple computer systems using a single mouse. Each system has its own screen, and once Synergy is installed and configured correctly, you can simply move your mouse to the edge of one screen and watch it seamlessly jump to another screen, which is a completely different computer.

We've talked about Synergy before, but unfortunately, development on it stagnated in 2006. Thankfully, there is a project on Google Code called Synergy+ which has taken the source code of the original Synergy, written by Chris Schoeneman, and updated it with numerous bug fixes. The team behind Synergy+ seems to want to continue improving the product, and they would welcome Schoeneman back, even to the extent of hoping that he would merge the two projects if he ever returned to active development on Synergy.

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Adobe, Freeware, Open Source

Synergy+ shares one mouse and keyboard between multiple computers originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stories about Apple's stranglehold of control over the iPhone App Store have been raging since its inception. However, without signing up to the developer program, it's not easy to find out just what rights developers do and don't have.

This is due to the terms of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement; all iPhone developers have to agree to these terms in order to be eligible to submit their programs to the App Store. One of the terms states specifically that developers must abstain from making any public statements about the agreement without Apple's prior written approval.

Luckily for us, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted a copy of the agreement which includes commentary on specific sections that they chose to highlight. Apple watchers won't find anything particularly surprising, but it certainly does represent a major shift in the rights that developers will have, with regard to the platforms they are developing for, going forward. The number of willing developers is far greater than the number of potentially lucrative platforms, thus putting the platform vendors firmly in the driver's seat.

Filed under: Developer, Apple, iPhone

EFF publishes Apple's iPhone Developer Program License Agreement with commentary originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you were wondering about the validity of the dollar value that TweetValue comes up with for your Twitter account, check out this sparkling copywriting gem displayed prominently on the TweetValue's front page:

"Get ready for some bling-bling and some tweet-tweet!"

Yeah, so there's that.

The site seems to have achieved a high level of popularity recently, which would explain why it is running slowly and having occasional rendering problems. More than anything I see TweetValue as a fun little gag, and a way to gain totally meaningless bragging rights over your friends.

For the record, TweetValue puts our @DownloadSquad Twitter profile's value at $970. What's yours?

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Filed under: Time-Wasters, Social Software, Web

TweetValue calculates the dollar value of your Twitter account - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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