Misc

TechCrunch has just announced that WashingtonPost.com will be carrying their stories. That’s great news for TechCrunch. Like a lot of newspapers, our own local newsrag, The San Jose Mercury News, is struggling. Why didn’t they think of it? Or, for that matter, why didn’t the (sometimes more tech savvy) San Francisco Chronicle? It’s sad when the local newspapers of Silly-con Valley don’t know enough to make use of local resources and talent. I hear lots of companies make noise about “eating their own dogfood”. Rather than whine about loss of advertising revenue, downsize staff and shave paper and ink costs, wouldn’t it make sense to take advantage of what’s going on in your own locality? Grrrrrr …

I work fast and don’t want to be slowed down by moving from keyboard to mouse and back when I don’t have to. Sure, there are situations where a mouse is the only way but, for me, those are really few and far between. If you’re similarly inclined AND a Windows user, these tips are for you.

Windows + B will move focus to the system tray. Once there you can move between tray icons with the arrow keys. When you’ve highlighted the one you want, press the context menu key or Shift-F10 to open its context menu then use the arrow keys to navigate that menu. If you just want to execute the default action for that icon, hit Enter instead of the context menu key.

Windows + TAB will bring focus to the taskbar then you navigate from one app to another with the arrow keys. While there, Control + TAB will navigate among the system tray, Desktop, quick-launch bar and the task bar. At each focus point, the arrow keys will move you among the various items in that area. Again, the context menu key/Shift-F10 will open the context menu for each of those items. Enter, instead of the context menu key, will execute the default action, which usually opens the application.

Zamzar is an onine service that converts files from one format to another. PDF to DOC or HTML, MP3 to WMA or AAC, BMP to JPG or TIFF, VOB to MOV or MPG, RAR to CAB or ZIP. Free version comes in two forms: registered user or not. Not registered users upload files and get a link back in email (that you provide when you upload the file) to download the converted file. Registered users can maintain multiple files on the site. Then there’s the paid accounts. But try out the free, unregistered service first.

This article from the How-To Geek explains how to sync your Windows clock to your time servers from the command-line. w32tm has other parameters, however, which include the ability to compare your clock to that of another computer (/stripchart) and to manually set the time servers (/config). w32tm /? for a complete list.

OK, when I read this Lifehacker article on Wesabe, I couldn’t imagine how they could make social networking mesh with managing your finances. And I’m not entirely certain they have but the heart of their idea is pretty good, especially if they can do the things with privacy that they say they do (see their Security & Privacy page.

What is it, you ask? THey give you an interface to enter purchases from the web and your mobile browser. They also give you a tool to extract data from your bank and credit card sites and upload it. Your purchase history is compared against others (don’t know how they choose the demographic yet) and you’re shown tips for managing your purchases by category (tag). I’m not convinced but I’ve signed up for an account anyway.

Chad put up this really interesting article about Yahoo! Pipes. So, here’s the deal with pipes, away from all the hype and buzzwords. If you’ve got something (a web page, a spreadsheet, Flickr photos, OPML, …) that can be accessed from the Internet-at-large, you can use Pipes to fetch it, manipulate it (i.e. filter items, recode items, etc.) and put it into an RSS feed that you can then retrieve with your RSS reader. That’s what they mean by “aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web”. It’s not difficult to do if you have ANY programming experience at all — it’s a visual, drag-n-drop environment with a lot of help.

Give it a try and if you can’t think of something you can use it for … well, you’re not trying hard enough 🙂

I’ve seen his mentioned in a couple of places, most recently at Lifehacker.com. Anyway, DriveImage XML is a free drive backup/restore tool that can do your backups while you work.

… is Ditto. It’s open source, it’s free, it can be installed to a USB key and it’s being maintained regularly. This, along with KeePass Password Safe are probably my two most favorite personal-use applications. The download page has versions for USB key, Blackberry, PocketPC, Linux, MacOS and others.

KPBS has put up this overlay for Google Maps that gives information about the fires in the San Diego area including evacuations and evacuation centers.

DownloadSquad is reporting that Google’s rolling out IMAP support! The lack of IMAP has been the main thing stopping me from using GMail as my primary mail platform. Lifehacker has a good entry about it here. Don’t let the iPhone part of the title put you off — it’s for everyone.