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Wed, 07 May 2008 15:43:10 GMT

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Xobni Inbox for Outlook

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:42:36 GMT

Xobni Inbox for Outlook - Review
By: Paul O'Mara
4/7/2008

(Ed. note: "Xobni" is "Inbox" spelled backward)

Xobni is, per its website', “the Outlook plug-in that helps you organize your flooded inbox.” It’s basically what Outlook should be. It appears as a sidebar next to Outlook and shows past conversations and attachments, also automatically pulling contact information from signatures. For whatever message you have selected in your Inbox, in the sidebar will appear that person/organization’s contact info, when throughout the day they’ve email you (shown graphically), how many messages you’ve sent them and they’ve sent you, who else they’re connected to among people who email you (it’s kind of a social network in this way), a list of your recent conversations, and a list of all the files you’ve exchanged with them. The last three things are in scroll-downs, which is how Xobni’s able to cram all this information into its sidebar. All these things listed are clickable, of course: clicking on a conversation listed makes that conversation appear in the sidebar, clicking on any file listed opens up that file, and so on.

Obviously, those obsessive about their email usage (volume, patterns, etc.) will be able to go nuts with Xobni. It also adds a Xobni menu on your Outlook top-menu between Actions and Help. From here you can tweak its settings and also run Xobni Analytics, which gives even more stats about your email usage: today’s summary, mail traffic, response times, unique contacts, and so on. Almost everything is available in graphical format by day, week, month, year, hourly average, daily average, and monthly average. You can even graph specific date ranges, or limit to just incoming or outgoing messages. Whatever you wanna know about your Outlook usage, it can tell you.

By far the best feature of Xobni, though, is that it also indexes all your messages to give quick search results when you need to find something in your email. Like the search boxes in Mac OS X and Windows Vista (among other things), results start showing up as you type in the box. This alone makes it worth it, since searching in Outlook is normally really slow and difficult to do across many different archives. Similar to how the web-based email programs have become, searching is so fast and accurate that it makes the practice of filing in folders kind of unnecessary. Instead of knowing where a message is via the use of folders, you know you can always just find it via search.

Even though it’s in beta, everything in Xobni has always worked. The only negative I’ve encountered so far is it makes startup of Outlook a little slow. But once it’s launched it’s quick as can be, so it’s only a minor annoyance.

! Make New Tiddler

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:40:11 GMT

Champion!
Pluses -
Minuses -
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24th Entry building a new computer

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:47:00 GMT

I just built a new computer out of parts from TigerDirect

The good news: it was cheap. The bad news: the motherboard didn't come with any of the drivers and I spent about three hours figuring out what hardware I actually had.

Couple of tools that I stumbled on were quite helpful in my quest:

The first was PC-wizard
PC-wizard http://pc-wizard-2008.en.softonic.com/
It basically tells you everything you need to know about your computer and the devices installed or attached to it, including brand name and model.

From here, I found out that the Ethernet card was an Intel, and I had the model number. I used that to get the network card drivers, and, hey presto! I was on the internet.

PC-wizard also told me that the Motherboard was HP - this lead me to HP's site. Under the Support" link I could use the "Detect My hardware" and got the motherboard, and all drivers for the chips on it. Most major manufacturers have this function on their site.

Installed all of them. I then went to Control Panel, System, and went into Hardware manager and "Uninstalled" anything with a yellow "!" Reboot the computer, and it all installed,

Except for the sound card. HP only had Vista drivers and they didn't work on XP.

Rats!

OK - quick search on http://groups.google.com.
I put in the name of the computer that my Motherboard came from, and entered "Windows XP" and "sound card drivers". Sure enough, a bunch of people had this problem and posted a website I could go to for the drivers I needed.

Bingo! had the chip drivers, and the sound card worked.

Lessons learned: 1: When you buy electronics from a discount shop, read the fine print and assume the "worst case" about what comes with it. I'd have paid extra for the drivers disk.

2: Setup requires a little detective work and a lot of patience. It's a fair bet that someone had the same problem that you're having, and searching on Google to research an answer is usually worth the time it takes.

EverNote

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:59:00 GMT

Review Date: Continuous First Listed: Jan-2008 License: Corporate Freeware Greenware

You are exposed to more written information in the Sunday morning newspaper than William Shakepeare was exposed to in his entire lifetime. Yes, you read that right.

How do you keep track of all the necessary information you encounter during the course of your day and keep it all straight? Isn't there a way to use a computer to help with this?

The answer is "Yes".

Pluses - The Cadillac of notes programs, and it's free.
Data collection is easy. very little retyping. If you use the "capture" widget there is none at all.
The notes can be searched, you can save searches, you can access your notes online, you can put the program on a thumb drive to make it portable.

Minuses - It has lots of advanced features, which may be a drawback for someone looking for something quick and easy (Try TreePadLite instead) Also , version 3 is in Beta test, which means some of the features may not work.

Website

PDF Reader: Fox-It PDF Reader

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:58:00 GMT

Champion! Review Date: Jul-2005

Average Rating = 3.0 (Of The 3 Programs Reviewed)

Minuses - Only available as a 60 day trial.

Visit Website

EasyCapture Screen Capture

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:58:00 GMT

Reviewed: Oct 2007
Overall Rating: 9

Quote from the website:
'EasyCapture is a powerful, flexible and easy-to-use free screen capture software. It allows you to capture anything on the screen including windows, objects, full screen, rectangle-selected regions, fix size regions, and scrolling windows/web pages. It also allow you to edit captured image and add annotate.

Pluses - Nice interface. Anyone who has worked with any type of picture editor is going to be at home here. Add pointers, callouts and text boxes.

Minuses - Couldn't find any. No portable version like Gadwin.

Website: http://www.xydownload.com/easycapture/

AVG Antivirus

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:54:00 GMT

Review Date: Continuous License: Free for Personal Use
Average Rating = 8.5 (Of The 5 Programs I Reviewed)

I thought that AVG was no longer free. I was informed by several that this is not the case.

While Avast comes out ahead, it does so just barely. AVG is also a solid performer both in detection and ease-of-use.

Pluses - - Again, you get the full house, Email scanning, on demand scanning, scheduled updates and scans. Virus detection and removal is easy. Manual updates are one-button-click.

Minuses - Added as of 04/07/08 - the updater no includes a nag screen to buy the professional version, Booooo!.

Website

Jarte

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:52:00 GMT

Review Date: Continuous First Listed: Jan-2008 License: Corporate Freeware

Jarte has a small but devoted following. Their devotion is well founded. As mentioned, this is an elegant word processor for elegent writing.

Pluses - Fast startup - tabbed interface for multiple documents, import existing Word formats - reads RTF Doc and Docx, exports to PDF - single click bookmarking and bookmark navigation - can be run from a USB drive.

Minuses - One small nitpick that is easily corrected: The 'clickless' interface loads by default, without the standard buttons people are used to. Easily fixed, click the left-most button in the top center row, and put a check mark in Main Menu." That's it.

Website

The Jhoodsoft Newsletter - Issue the First

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:40:00 GMT

(Sign up to receive the newsletter on the Welcome page)

"Easy, inexpensive, socially responsible technology"

Contents:
1: Declaration of Intent
2: Cell Tech - Cell phone help for busy people
3: Free Tech - Open Project, Phun
4: Web Tech - Google Docs and Spreadsheets adds a feature
5: Medical Tech - Serving the needy in ... Tennessee???
6: Future Tech -Futuristic watches, cool looking, but what time is it?

Declaration of Intent:
Keeping up with new technology now-a-days is rapidly becoming a requirement. But how do you separate the new offerings that are truly useful from the avalanche of technology information? Do you really need an ~iPhone, or a PalmPilot, or that $150 computer program? I monitor digital technology and examine it to see how helpful it would be for the average person. The results are on these pages.

You will not receive a newsletter issue that is written to meet a specific deadline.
You will not receive this newsletter merely because I have something to say.
You will only receive this newsletter if the content is worth your time to read. For more information, please see the Wikipedia article on the "information pollution" syndrome.

Cell Tech - Cell-phones help busy people;
Here are three free services that make using your cell phone an enjoyable experience.

'Jott.com – "Talk Your Text'
Jott is a new service that is just rolling out. It allows you to use your cell phone as a dictation machine. Visit http://www.jott.com. Sign up, input your cell phone number, and email address. Now you can call ~Jott.com's central number from your cell. Speak a note into the phone (up to 30 seconds). ~Jott.com, will transcribe what you say and email the transcription to you. You can also set up other email addresses, or phone numbers for text messaging other people.
Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfKcmaNp99E

* Google Local Search has Speech Recognition:

Cell phone companies are charging $1.00 to $1.75 or more for 411 information calls when they don't have to. Instead input this number into your cell phone "Contacts"
"Goog 411"
1-800-466-4411
When you call the number, you can talk to Google search computers for any city or area. When it finds the results, it will dial the number for you, send you details or send you a map.
Action video here: http://www.google.com/goog411/

* Send a text message from computer to your cell. http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/09/google-send-to-phone-free-sms-in-us.html

You can send small lists, reminders etc, from your computer to your cell. Keeps you from losing little slips of paper.

Free Tech –
A project planner that costs you nothing – Open Project.
You may have a massive project to deal with, lots of people, lots of steps, lots of due dates, lots of things that have to happen before other things can happen, lots of bits and pieces. A good project planner helps you keep track of it all.

Microsoft Office sells one for $150. Want to pay that much? Neither do I.
Take a look at Open Project Note this does require Java Run times to be installed.

Fun Tech
Tired of Solitaire, and Free-Cell? Are your Tetris fingers tired?
Wait until you see "Phun". Phun is a two dimensional shapes sandbox. The shapes can be changed, moved, or set to move on their own, with settings you select.
It was designed as an application to teach kids the basics of physics, but has turned into much more than that.
It's (of course) a free application, very addictive.
If you're looking to kill a little time and you're tired of solitaire, boy, this is the way to do it!
Website: http://www.badscience.net/?p=622

Web Tech -
Google Docs and Spreadsheets add a new feature.
Google has been making a dent in Microsoft's hold on the desktop applications market, with Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Google offers a word processor program and spreadsheet application, available for free, on-line, that you can access from any computer and web browser. Instead of attaching a document or spreadsheet to an email, you can create it on Google, and invite people to share the file.

The latest feature comes under the "Sharing" tab of a Google Spreadsheet. When you share a sheet, you have the option to "Share as a Form." You create a spreadsheet in Google Create Email the form to your recipients. They fill the form out and click submit, which populates rows in your shared spreadsheet. Oh cool!

Nice video of it in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bme4z2gFoas
Website: http://docs.google.com

Your-Fellow-Man Tech:
Charity sends medical technology to the uncared-for in... Tennessee??

Recently, 60 Minutes heard about an American relief organization that airdrops doctors and medicine into the jungles of the Amazon - Remote Area Medical, or "RAM". They set up emergency clinics where the needs are greatest. But these days, that's not the Amazon it's places like America that need a lifeline. Remote Area Medical recently set up its massive clinic, for a weekend, in an exhibit hall in Knoxville, Tenn. - over nine hundred people served in twenty four hours - and hundreds more turned away.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/28/60minutes/main3889496.shtml

Watch the video. Consider donating.

Future Tech?
Boy, I hope not! Wrist watches that are so cool and stylish - you can't tell the time.
Tokyoflash Watches vs. Theoretical Physicist

The Jhoodsoft Newsletter - Issue the Second

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:38:00 GMT

"Easy, inexpensive, socially responsible technology"

Contents:
1: Tech Tips - Do you really need anti-virus?
2: Inbox Tech - EverNote
3: Free Tech - VLC Media Player - Plays pratically any video.
4: Play Tech - Google Sketchup
5: Your-Fellow-Man Tech - The BoGo solar flashlight
6: Future Tech - "Hell-o Gorgeous!" The laptop you will be using in 2015.

Tech Tips:
I started working on a friend's laptop the other day. She wanted to know what her children had done to her machine.
It would boot up, login, and promptly execute a full-on "blue screen of death." - Ouch!
Malicious Software Removal Tool detected a loooong list of bad news software on this system.
I asked the user if she had any antivirus or antispyware programs running on this machine.

"Uh, I don't think so. I meant to install it, but never got around to it."

Oh boy.
She just bought herself a whole world of hurtin'.
At this point, all she can do is take it to the Geek Squad, have them fix it. When they hand her a bill with a lot of zeros at the end, she will pay the bill, say 'thank you' politely, and take the machine home and put anti-virus and antispyware on it, having learned a very important life lesson: "Not getting around to" installing antivirus on your computer, is like "not getting around" to filling your prescription for birth control pills or heart medication. It's fairly quick and easy, and could save you from a lot of *ahem* unexpected consequences.

Folks, anti virus software is NOT OPTIONAL if you own a computer. This goes double if you're running Windows, but NO computer is immune. PC World magazine recently conducted an experiment where they built a new computer, ran the latest patches, then put it on the internet, without antivirus software.
Total time it took before the first virus infection appeared on it? 40 seconds.
Total time it took for the computer to become so slow it was useless? About 3 hours.

Antivirus and anti spyware software is cheap (my site has two free ones). It's easy to set up. Set it up. Learn how to keep it updated, and run a scan once a month.

Inbox Tech - EverNote

http://evernote.com/

We are living in the Information Age.

You are exposed to more written information in the Sunday morning newspaper than William Shakepeare was exposed to in his entire lifetime. Yes, you read that right.

How do you keep track of all the necessary information you encounter during the course of your day and keep it all straight? Isn't there a way to use a computer to help with this?

The answer is "Yes".

EverNote is a program that is designed to harvest information on your computer, or on the web, wherever it is, organize it, allow you to tag it, and index it so it is search-able. It's very easy to use, since it comes with a "grabber" tool that eliminates the cutting and pasting of other programs. Highlight the data you want to keep, click a button and EverNote does the rest. Text, graphics, entire web pages if you want. It even has web component that they are field testing, which makes your notes available anywhere. Email me if you would like an invitation to the web test.

It's free for 60 days. After that the advanced features disable.
Evernote represents the "best of breed" for notes organizer programs. There are others: Total Text Container comes close, as does Freemind. I think EverNote has them all beat. Using it feels like my brain just built an addition out-back.

Free Tech – VLC Media Player - Plays practically any video.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

You want to play a DVD on your computer. You may have the hardware. Yu may have a player. Small problem, you might not have a DVD "codec" driver on your system, which you find out when you try to play the DVD. so you go in search of one and discover they cost money. Intervideo charges $40 to buy theirs.

Easy fix: Get VLC media player - it'll play pretty much any DVD you put in. It'll will even stream your video across a home network. Slick, hey?

Fun Tech - Google Sketchup

http://sketchup.google.com/

A very cool program that lets you draw three dimensional shapes. Want to see how your kitchen remodeling project is going to look? Want a three-dimensional map of your workplace? How about a full 3d model of your house?

Most 3d rendering programs are VERY hard to use. Google Sketchup makes it a lot easier for the lay person to use: Make a box, make a curve, throw a texture on it (wood, brick, glass, what have you) and you're done.

Your-Fellow-Man Tech - The ~BOGO Flashlight

We don't think too much about electric lights, except when the power goes out, or when it comes time to pay the electric bill.
But there are places all over the world which have no artificial light when the sun goes down - whatever light there is, gets provided by oil lamps or firelight. Have you ever tried to read by the light of a fire? How about do school work? Or try to work to bring more money in?

Enter Mark Bent, a Texas oil man who worked in Africa for many years, saw the need and filled it - an artificial light that requires no batteries, no bulb to burn out and only one moving part.

The BOGO flashlight - "BOGO" stands for "Buy One Give One". The price for one unit actually pays for two. You get one, and the other goes to a villager who needs it.
Eight hours of solar power gives about five hours of light. LED's provide the light and never need replacing. The case is high-impact plastic in two colors, orange and pink (male villagers took the orange lights from their women, so Bent made a second model with a pink case).

Women have been using them to start after-dinner reading and study groups. Children can now do homework after dark. Men can do additional skilled work, which brings in more money. Villages can protect themselves from tribal violence. Since fires are no longer needed for light, gathering wood doesn't take as long, and fewer trees need to be cut.

Here you can see it in action: https://www.bogolight.com/Articles.asp?ID=136
If you want to buy one/give one :http://www.bogolight.com/

Future Tech - "Hell-o Gorgeous!" The laptop you will be using in 2015.
I'll take one of each - http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9070158

Coming in future issues:
Why getting tech support sucks, and what you can do to get better support.
My impressions of Windows Vista - the unvarnished truth.
The creator of Irfanview has granted me an interview!

John
—
Hood's Best of Free Software
www.jhoodsoft.org

Open Project

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:30:00 GMT

First Reviewed - In Review Now.

Requires the Java2 Runtimes

9/12/07 I know very little about this, except that it looks very nice. It claims to be able to import and export Microsoft Project files.

9/19/07 I've done a little more looking and I'm pretty impressed. It appears to be easier that Gantt Project when creating tasks and resources. You can see your project with multiple different views down the left side and multiple reports filters and styles.

Visit Website

Google Notebook

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:21:00 GMT

Web Page Saver for Browsers:

Review Date: Continuous First Listed: May-2007 License: Free
Average Rating = 10.0 (Of The 2 Program Reviewed)

If you have done research on the web, you've probably run into a page or two that had very good information. When you go back, a week, or a month or a year later, you can't find the page!. Or you may have bookmarked a page and then forgotten what the bookmark was for. Enter the class of tools known as surf-savers. These tools save a selection for a page, the URL and the date and time you saved it.

Pluses - Google Notebook installs as a little browser add-on. Highlight any text on the web, and click the notebook icon, and Google notebook records date, time, page location and the text . It's all on the web any time you need.

Minuses - - Not much.

Website

Comments

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:50:00 GMT

Comment, info or idea?

View Comments

Note: The Comments site messed up the post page.
Just do this: Put the code in the dark gray field into the small field below it. Then fill out the rest, as much as you want!

23rd Entry - Newsletter, and 'Wiki Wiki!'

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:56:00 GMT

I instituted an email newsletter. You can subscribe on the Welcome page.

I have created a private wiki for myself at www.tiddlyspot.com If you are familiar with wiki's at all, this is a fantastic place to host it. I chose one of the Getting Things Done wiki templates, and was up and entering data in a matter of minutes.

Tiddlywiki has it's devotees, although there are people who needs something even easier for web publishing and collaboration.

For them there is always pbwiki (Watch video).

I set up a wiki for my family, who range in computer ability from Total Geek to "I click and it works and that's all I know." These people are editing their own pages in pbwiki.

Coming up in the next newsletter:

Google docs does forms,
Fun with Phun,
and, I go-off on software reviewers.

Welcome

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:53:00 GMT

Welcome to the best of business and productivity free software, and the documents to help you use them.

New! Sign up for the newsletter. I talk about free and open software, "green tech" and bridging the information gap (with some interest in cool geek toys too).

"Digg This page

Subscribe to RSS

Site Navigation - a very short guide on how to use this site's features.

Other Pages of Note - background info I didn't know anywhere else to put.

The Rating System

Comments

Scribus Desktop Publisher

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:38:00 GMT

Review Date: Dec-2006 License: FOSS
Average Rating = 8

Looking for a replacement for Adobe Pagemaker, Microsoft Publisher or Quark Express? Check out Scribus.

Pluses - - I can think of three words: Ho-Ly-Cow! It's all here, shapes, graphics, layering, templates for any publishing project you need, from brochures to full magazine layout. Too many features to mention. It's open-source, so there is never a problem with file compatibility between clients, vendors, or other collaborators. They can simply download and install Scribus, and you're set. When was the last time you could say that with a pay-ware program.

Minuses - Like any publisher program, it's not for the faint of heart. Read the tutorials.

Website
Download (Listed as "Win32 install")

Site Navigation

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:33:00 GMT

This site uses wiki navigation:

1: Clicking the Left menu option will give you a drop-down list of programs to choose from. You can choose one from the dropdown or choose to "Open All".

2: Entries don't close up by themselves. When you finish with an entry, there is a "Close" and "Close Others" link at the top. Feel free to use them, you can always find your way back. You may want to "Close All" periodically to clear the screen.

3: If you have a list of entries that you want to hang onto - bookmarking the page won't work. Click "Permaview" and then bookmark. That will work.

You could also copy the location that appears in your location bar at the top of your browser, and paste it into a document or a shortcut.

3: Try a "search" or look at the "tags." Program list by subject is < = over there. Search for a program by name or "tag" over there = >

SiteSubtitle

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:31:00 GMT

Free replacements for Word, Excel, Project, Visio and more...

SiteTitle

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:30:00 GMT

"Best of Free Software"

"Best of Free Software"

AdvancedOptions

Xobni Inbox for Outlook

! Make New Tiddler

24th Entry building a new computer

EverNote

PDF Reader: Fox-It PDF Reader

EasyCapture Screen Capture

AVG Antivirus

Jarte

The Jhoodsoft Newsletter - Issue the First

The Jhoodsoft Newsletter - Issue the Second

Open Project

Google Notebook

Comments

Comment, info or idea?

Leave a Comment

View Comments

23rd Entry - Newsletter, and 'Wiki Wiki!'

Welcome

New! Sign up for the newsletter. I talk about free and open software, "green tech" and bridging the information gap (with some interest in cool geek toys too).

Scribus Desktop Publisher

Site Navigation

SiteSubtitle

SiteTitle