- Caledos Manages Your Massive Wallpaper Collection (Windows)
"If you like varied wallpaper but find yourself frittering away time digging through your archives picking new ones out, let Caledos Automatic Wallpaper Changer take care of the management side of things." - Lazarus Form Recovery Saves Web Page Form Data (Firefox)
"At one point or another, every power surfer has filled out a long web page form, then lost all the time and effort when Firefox crashed before you could submit it. The Lazarus Form Recovery add-on is out to keep that from ever happening." - iPhone 2.2 Jailbreaking Tools Now Available (Windows and Mac)
"The iPhone Dev team has already released QuickPwn for both Windows and Mac and PwnageTool for Mac." - Minime Minimizes Windows to a Single System Tray Icon (Windows)
"Small utility Minime clears your taskbar by minimizing windows to its single icon in the system tray." - Tark Gives Bookmarks Expiration Dates (Firefox)
"If you frequently deal with bookmarks that have limited future utility, the Tark (Temporary Bookmarks) extension can set an expiration date on them." - Newzie Newsreader Watches Feeds and Feedless Pages Alike (Windows)
"Free application Newzie is a feature-rich desktop newsreader designed to keep you up to date with the latest web content, whether that content is coming from a traditional RSS feed or not." - TextFlow Offers a New Take on Collaboration (Windows, Mac, Linux)
"TextFlow is an Adobe AIR-based word processor with a new and innovative take on document collaboration." - Fedora 10 Officially Released, Ready for Download
"Fedora has just released version 10 of the popular Linux distribution." - uTorrent for Mac Officially Released (Mac)
"If you've been waiting patiently for the popular BitTorrent application, uTorrent, to find its way to your Mac, your wait is finally over: uTorrent for the Mac is officially available."
Adobe Air: Sure you can export your RSS feeds from Google Reader and import the feed file into desktop RSS reader for offline browsing. Scoop takes offline browsing a step further by allowing you to not only read your feeds but have them remain synced to your Google Reader account. Removing and tagging items in Scoop modifies the feeds in your Reader account as well. The interface is easy to use and includes most of the commonly used keyboard shortcuts from Google Reader. On the downside images are not currently downloaded for offline browsing, so if you've synced and now no longer have internet access you're out of luck until you're jacked back in. Scoop can be used independently of Google Reader, with manually added feeds, but it's Google integration is where it shines. For an alternate method of accessing your Google Reader feeds offline, check out Google Gears and RSS Bandit. Scoop is freeware, cross platform, and requires Adobe Air to run.
Whether you'd like to increase your mental health or just relax after a stressful holiday visit, there aren't many games more classic than chess. Over at tips and tricks blog MakeUseOf, they have rounded up a variety of ways you can both play and sharpen your chess game. The screenshot above is from FlashChessIII, a beautifully rendered flash-based and free for download chess game. If you're concerned that all the playing in the world won't make you any better, they have a variety of resources listed for helping you not just play but increase your grasp of the game. My favorite was Chess Problems, a site which generates "puzzles" based on chess board setups ranging from simple to extremely complicated. After some practice at Chess Problems you won't find yourself often staring down a chess board without a clue what your next move will be. If you're absolutely brand new to the game, make sure to check out a beginner's guide to getting good at chess.
Bath bombs, for the unfamiliar, are chalky feeling balls about the size of a small orange that you throw into a bath tub. They don't explode but they do react with the water fizzing and spinning, filling the water with fragrance and moisturizers. Bath bombs are a project ripe for DIYing, they often run $6 or higher at stores. SoapyHollow, a contributor at the DIYer blog Instructables has a top rated guide on how to create your own bath bombs. The ingredients are all cheap and readily available in most locales: corn starch, essential oil, vegetable oil, and so on. The most difficult component to find casually browsing your local market is the citric acid, ask if they have "sour salt" the common name for powdered citric acid. If you're looking for a side project to go with your bath bombs, make a matching scented candle or set up a bathroom spa on the cheap.
Update: Our apologies, support for Windizupdate has been discontinued. For a current non-Microsoft Update way to keep your Windows install up to date check out AutoPatcher. Windows only: If you're not particularly fond of the official Windows Update system provided through Internet Explorer, whether your reason being a distaste for the Windows Genuine Advantage software or the insistence that the next upgrade of Internet Explorer really is a mission critical system update, there is an alternative way to update your system. WindizUpdate is a Firefox plugin which mimics the official Windows Update application. The key advantage of using WindizUpdate is that you have complete control over what gets installed and what doesn't. The system never forces you to install an update you don't want and will skip updates that aren't necessary for your system.
The downloader has error correction and auto resume should you lose your connection to the servers while updating. In my test run of WindizUpdate on a laptop running Windows XP Professional that hadn't been updated for several months the only issue that came up was the latency between the releases on the official Microsoft server and the WindizUpdate server. If you can tolerate some lag time between the official release of a patch and the push to the WindizUpdate servers then the deal is sealed. For other methods of securing Windows updates without updating using Internet Explorer and Windows Update, check out AutoPatcher to download update bundles and learn how to slipstream updates into your Windows install with nLite.WindizUpdate is a free Firefox plugin, Windows only.
We've all been there. You look at a list of names for a meeting or at a new business card and you have absolutely no idea there was a last name with that many vowels. HowToSayThatName.com is a web site devoted to cataloging both first and last names, spoken by native speakers. No idea how to pronounce last names like "Nyguyen" or "Dokht"? Look the name up and play the embedded audio file to hear it. While a mispronounced name here and there is unavoidable, saying someone's name correctly when they are accustomed to it being butchered goes a long way whether in a boardroom or at a barbecue. For other name related tricks, check out how to find out a name you've forgotten and how to remember names in the first place.
Hand-Me-Downs is a web-based service reminiscent of Craiglist where parents can list used items for babies and children. Users are given the option to sell, give away, or donate their things. If you're looking for things you can select the metropolitan area you're in or nearest and browse a variety of categories like: baby gear, girls and boys clothing, accessories for moms and dads, toys, media, furniture, health and safety accessories, and so on. In addition to returning results for Hand-Me-Downs listings, the site also aggregates Craigslist, eBay, Kijii, and Oodle listings to ensure you find that Spaceman Spiff Rocket Bed you've been looking for.
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