Archive for the ‘M@’s Picks’ Category
TweetDeck
TweetDeck is a Twitter client that helps you keep track of everything on your timeline. It’s core feature is a multi-column view that lets you group your tweets together however you’d like. You can add friends to groups, so their tweets will always show up in a particular column. A column can also be configured [...]
Handbrake
Handbrake is a video transcoding application. Most people use it to shrink videos down to a size that their iPod/Phone can handle. For transcoding software, it’s very easy to use, with presets for a lot of common formats and handheld devices. Select the file and what you’re going to use it on and you’re ready [...]
Google Mobile Sync
A few months ago Google rolled out Google Mobile Sync. This syncs your Google calendar and contacts to your mobile phone. On Windows Mobile, you don’t even need any software for it. It runs right through the built in Active Sync interface in Windows. Syncing happens very quickly, and it is very smart about resolving [...]
SCalc
The calculator included with Windows Mobile is rather limited. If you need trig, scientific functions, constants, and more check out SCalc. It’s a very simple command line-like interface, but also very powerful.
VLC
VideoLan Client (VLC) is a media player that works with many OS’s. Unlike Windows Media Player, and many others, VLC has all of the codecs that you might need built in. So if you’re having trouble playing a particular file, give it a try. Also, there are several advanced features of the software that allow [...]
Bonus Tip: KeePass Password Safe
By putting the file KeePass generates inside a Jungle Disk, and then using Jungle Disk’s USB drive version you’ll be able to get to your passwords from anywhere. You can keep the KeePass software itself either on your USB drive, or on the Jungle Disk.
KeePass Password Safe
KeePass Password Safe is a password management program. Passwords are stored encrypted in a file, and are listed in a simple spreadsheet style interface within the program. In addition to user names and passwords, you can store additional notes and information about the service that they’re used for. It also has some nice features, such [...]
User Agent Switcher
The Firefox plugin User Agent Switcher is a quick and dirty way to often get past login requirements on several news sites. By setting the plugin to report that you’re the GoogleBot, you can often view content on sites that would otherwise require a login. This works because sites will allow Google to browse their [...]
Windows Mobile Mail Shortcuts
The mail application built into Windows Moblie includes several shortcuts to make managing email easier. To use them simply hold down the corresponding number for about 1 second. 0 – List Shortcuts 1 – Replay All 2 – Reply 3 – Mark Read/Unread 4 – Flag 5 – Move 6 – Forward 7 – Delete [...]
Tetris for your phone
Instead of paying your wireless carrier way too much per month to play Tetris on your Windows Mobile, get the free Kevtris. Nothing unusual here, it has all the normal playing modes and an online high score list if you want to participate in that as well.
Search and replace across files
I still do a lot of my coding by hand, so every now and then I need to do a global search and replace across several files. Notepad++ (see this post) has this feature built in. Simply open all the files needing the search and replace in Notepad++ (drag and drop works nicely for this) [...]
AllSnap
Working with multiple monitors and can’t get your windows to line up with the edges of them very well? I use AllSnap to do this for me. It makes the edges of all windows and monitors sticky so as you drag the border of a window to resize it, when you get close to another [...]
Taskbar Shuffle
Windows won’t allow you to rearrange the buttons on your taskbar. If your dependent on having something in a particular location, probably because you’re running it all the time and it’s always on the left side… until it crashes, then Taskbar Shuffle is for you. It allows you to drag and drop buttons on your [...]
TruCrypt
You can encrypt just a few files or your entire hard drive with the open source TruCrypt. In the file mode, TruCrypt works by creating a single file that, when unlocked with your pass phrase, mounts itself as a drive on your system. Anything going into this drive is then automatically encrypted. You can then [...]
Unlocker
Don’t you hate it when Windows says it can’t delete a file because it’s in use. This usually happens after an app crashes, but there are some other times I’ve seen it as well. The free utility Unlocker adds an item to your right-click menu to Unlock the file, or a group of files if [...]
TwitterFox
I’m using TwitterFox within Firefox to keep track of everything on Twitter. The add-on sits in the status bar and pops up a window similar to the update available window with any new tweets. The timeline is nicely color coded so you can quickly tell apart you normal messages, @ replies and direct messages. It [...]
Skype
Skype is a communications application. You can do instant messaging, video conferencing and voice chat with it all for free. In addition you can use their Skype In and Skype Out services to make calls to and from land line phones to your computer. The rates are quite competitive too, especially internationally. I’ve used it [...]
Google Traffic
Google Traffic isn’t the official name for it, but I think it should be. Head over to Google Maps find a major city and then click the traffic button in the upper right corner. All of the major routes through the city will be color coded according to how quickly traffic is moving. You also [...]
Filezilla
Filezilla is a powerful open source FTP client. It has plenty of built in features to appease any power user, but a simple file transfer is still very straight-forward. I’m particular fond of the nag-once-per-session options when determining which files to overwrite and how. This means when I’m updating WordPress or Gallery that I can [...]
Sudoku Mobile
Instead of paying for one of the many Sudoku mobile apps offered by my wireless carrier, I downloaded Sudoku Mobile. The game also includes a solver, so you can, uh, check your answers to the one in a newspaper without having to wait until the next day.
