Posted by Samer on November 3, 2010 in Productivity & Applications, Web2.0 |
Although I’m always interested in good, innovative desktop-based task management programs, I have recently come to the conclusion, now that I have an iPhone, that any task management software I use has to be cloud based, rather than desktop based, so I can access it from both my PC and my phone. Which is why I am now using the online service Remember The Milk for task management. (hitherto referred to as RTM).
In my search for a desktop Client for RTM I wanted something that looks fairly good in terms of its user interface, and that can perform all the aspects of task and list management that I need rather than just being a desktop display widget. After looking at 3 different desktop based clients, App For The Milk was the one I liked the best. This Adobe AIR program is reliable and gets the job done, and makes working with RTM on your desktop extremely simple and easy. It is also the only app that I know of that works offline and syncs once the online connection is restored. Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 29, 2010 in Video/DVD players |
One of the major annoyances with watching video on the iPhone is the need to convert them into iPhone friendly format first (H264 video encoder, AAC audio, 640 max width, and MP4 wrapper). And while in theory video conversions are not that difficult, in practice I found myself simply avoiding watching video on my iPhone altogether, rather than deal with video conversions and with iTunes insisting on managing my media library.
Enter the free VLC app for iPhone. Yes, folks, this is the same multiplatform free media player that you’re familliar with on your PC, and its still super awesome. It allows you to play any video format of any size on your iPhone or iPad, including MKV, AVI, MPEG, and over oversized MP4s with large HD resolutions, as well as most formats you could think of.
You still need to use iTunes to sync your videos with VLC, but now you can avoid dealing with iTunes as a media library management software and skip straight to dragging and dropping your videos into the VLC app (see below for a description of how this is done). Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 27, 2010 in Audio, Freewaregenius Picks, Web2.0 |
Imagine a media player on your desktop that can find and play almost any song you want from the internet, on demand. Hold that picture in your head and add a recommendation engine on top of that and you would have a fairly good idea of what Grooveshark Windows App is like.
This is a free, unofficial desktop-based app for Grooveshark. There is, in fact, an "official" Grooveshark desktop app but it is only made available to paid "VIP" members. Moreover, this unofficial app, at least the version I tested, is totally ad free, and simply provides a tremendous user experience. Here’s hoping that it will be allowed to exist and thrive.
As you might expect, this program will let you bypass the browser and connect to the Grooveshark site straight from your desktop. It looks very much like any modern media player, with the distinction that your tune selections and your playlists are online, in the cloud, taking up zero space on your hard drive (but requiring a fast internet connection for you to be able to listen, of course). Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 26, 2010 in Graphics, Icons, System, Utilities | Tagged Desktop Enhancements, Windows 7 |
Do you like to customize your operating system’s look and feel? Do words like “sleek”, “minimalistic”, and “metallic” turn you on? If so then read on: 7Conifier (pronounced “iconifier”) is a free tool that can customize your Windows 7 taskbar and start menu icons by replacing them with any of a number of sleek-looking icon libraries (notably the Token Icon set found on DeviantArt).
7Conifier comes with 3 pre-installed icon libraries, but you could easily add your own or even extend the existing icon libraries to include icons for programs that they might have missed. It also gives you the option to easily revert back to the original icons at any point. Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 22, 2010 in Productivity & Applications | Tagged Note-taking |
Pasteboard is a free 10-page tabbed “scratch pad” type program that provides space to type in or paste any text that you might need, whether it’s pasting coupon codes from the internet, quickly jotting down an email address or a phone number, grabbing some code to embed on your site later, writing down a few thoughts, or holding text while you cut, copy. and paste between programs, etc.
This program is different from many notes programs in that it does not have tags or outlines; and aside from labeling the tabs it does not have any kind of scheme to store or categorize information, and is not designed to display on-screen notes or reminders. It also does not have editing or formatting options; all it offers are 10 tabs on top marked one through ten, and a white page for each to store your transient bits of text.
But here’s the interesting part: it actually is extremely useful. After using it for about 2 weeks now it remains on my taskbar and I find myself using it over and over. Continue reading ..
Posted by Guest author on October 20, 2010 in Launchers, Utilities | Tagged Launchers |
AltRun is an open-source, lightweight launcher that launches applications, documents, and folders with just several keystrokes. This software also provides the flexibility to perform a wide range of tasks; examples of these include, but are not limited to, quickly running web searches, controlling on-screen windows, sending e-mails, and shutting down, restarting, suspending or hibernating the computer.
AltRun is somewhat different from other popular launchers, for example, Launchy and FARR. AltRun does not search for applications or documents in specific folders, but in a list of user-defined shortcuts. In this way, AltRun presents the results quickly with minimum memory use. AltRun has some helpful built-in shortcuts and you can add yours to the list in various ways. For example, you can drag and drop the application or document onto the built-in shortcut manager or use the “Send to” menu to create your own shortcuts.
[Editor’s note: this review was guest written by reader Terry Chen]. Continue reading ..
Posted by Samer on October 18, 2010 in File Management, HD Utils, System, Utilities | Tagged Desktop Enhancements |
MyDefrag PowerGUI is a front-end for free hard drive defragmentation software MyDefrag. It is designed to manage all aspects of hard drive defragmentation with MyDefrag, including scheduling defragmentations, auto-updating the MyDefrag engine, installing the MyDefrag screensaver option, as well as providing a variety of advanced defragmentation functions such as a wide range of defragmentation profiles to choose from, filtering files by extension or by location that would be included or excluded from the defragmentation operations.
An interesting addition is MyDefrag PowerGUI’s coupling of defrag operations with disk-cleaning functions, a rather useful feature that can prevent moving and processing useless and unwanted files during the defragmentation process. MyDefrag PowerGUI can do this by performing its own cleaning operations before the defragmentation process or alternatively it can run another program such as CCleaner to do this instead. Continue reading ..
Although I’m always interested in good, innovative desktop-based task management programs, I have recently come to the conclusion, now that I have an iPhone, that any task management software I use has to be cloud based, rather than desktop based, so I can access it from both my PC and my phone. Which is why I am now using the online service Remember The Milk for task management. (hitherto referred to as RTM).
