Tag: TOOLS

Creative writing is not an easy task, but the web gives us great opportunities to collaborate and get some help. For our own book, my friend and I set up a custom DokuWiki which does the trick quite nicely. But not everyone likes to tinker; some people simply want to get down to business and start telling their story while getting feedback from their writing buddies. This is the purported ...

Welcome to a new week; heck, welcome to a whole new month! And what better time than Monday morning for procrastinating by reading about ways to stop procrastinating? Over at the WSJ, they put up a very comprehensive review of four different time-tracking systems. Since anti-procrastination (is that even a word?) is a bit of a hobby of mine, I have actually used three of those systems ...

When it comes to screenshot applications, I am not easy to please. As a technical writer, screenshots are my bread and butter. I've used SnagIt, ZScreen, and even the Windows 7 Snipping Tool. Yet nothing comes close to the convenience of Screenpresso. Screenpresso is tiny. I have no idea what it's written in -- maybe some newfangled .NET thing, but it sure doesn't feel like the standard fare ...

As I mentioned last time, don't choose a tool that doesn't fit your flow. What does that mean? Here's an example: I thought I'd be clever and create a separate flow for home and work. Since I work at home, the thinking was that I'd further separate my two worlds with two systems. In one corner I had The Hit List syncing to iCal which in turn was syncing with Todo on my iPhone. In the other ...

No, Windows won't ever compete with Linux on price. However, even though Microsoft isn't giving away their RTM operating systems for free, they do offer a lot of great software and services at no charge. Here are my six favorites -- feel free to share yours with us in the comments! 1. Windows Live Writer - If you don't blog, Live Writer probably isn't that useful to you. If you do, though, it's ...

Used to be desktop applications were essential to getting the job done, whatever the job may have been, large or small. Now, with all the nimble web apps to choose from, the idea of firing up a huge application for a small task seems almost, well, unproductive and wasteful. Yeah, sure, no one is suggesting you do away with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Illustrator, Photoshop, Quickbooks and other ...

We're big fans of FriendFeed, the social network aggregator that helps you keep track of your friends' activities across different platforms like Twitter, LastFM, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and about 1,000 36 others. If you're a fan or if you're just getting started, below are 10 tools to help you experience it just the way you like, after the jump. ...

"Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter" is a message most feared while booting up a computer. It could mean a number of things from a loose cable to something as serious as your partition being deleted. A loose cable is a simple fix but if your hard drive's partition is lost you just may have to call in the big boys who specialize in data recovery. But before you pick up that phone ...

Contrary to marketing hype, Macs do crash and when they do you'll need to do some basic troubleshooting to determine the reason why. If it appears to be a hardware problem, one thing you may want to remember is, well, Rember. Rember is a front end GUI for Memtest and while you can certainly run Memtest in Terminal, Rember's GUI version makes it much easier to use. The interface is broken up into ...

Do you have trouble finding like-minded people to follow on Twitter? Not sure how your favorite Twitter celebrities pick the people they follow? Now you can follow the same folks as your Twitter idol -- it's Merlin Mann, just admit it -- by using a tool appropriately called Twannabe. Twannabe takes your username and your idol's username and tells you who they follow that you don't. We think ...

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 ...

You've just downloaded that must have program only to realize that Windows has no idea what to do with it. After an hour of Google searching, forum posting, and being called n00b, you finally figure it out. If only there was a guide that showed you how to get all those needed programs. We at Download Squad feel your pain and have put together a list of 10 free programs that will take care of ...

Springnote is a powerful browser based note taking system. You can forget about the standard text only inputs that many online note tools offer, this application has the ability to drop in images, attach files and organize layout at will. Its wiki style note taking system allows pages of content like todo's, monthly calendars and plans to be created with Word like functionality and tools with ...

School is in session. Your website is the pupil, and Website Grader is the teacher, its time to let this seo tool measure your online marketing successes or failures. Website Grader is a search engine optimization tool that analyzes websites to see if they are up to scratch with search terms, and ensures online marketing effectiveness. Website Grader takes into account traffic, social ranking, ...

In keeping the school theme we have been running with, a newer educational tool to enter the market is Edu 2.0. This web based education website that holds features for teachers, student and parents that aid in learning wherever the user is connected. There are four main sections to the site. A teaching section where teachers can host a class using a specially designed learning management system. ...