350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis–the solutions that science and justice demand…More at http://www.350.org/mission and at http://www.350.org/multimedia
Author: Reza
-
fSekrit Holds Your Secrets
fSekrit is one of the many useful tools available from donationcoder. fSekrit has a very simple and useful purpose. Its purpose is to create encrypted notes and ones that are self contained. What this means is that when using fSekrit the note taking application and password setting and encrypting tool are one and the same.
Double click on the fSekrit icon and start typing or pasting (or use Import text located under the File menu) the desired text. When exiting and saving the program will prompt for a location to save an *.exe file, not a *.txt file, and then also prompt for a password. No unencrytped text is written to the system’s hard disk and the encryption used is 256bit AES, a near unbreakable encryption standard.
Download the latest beta from this thread or visit the above link for the older but non-beta release. -
Pigeonhole Is A Convenient Notes Organizer
Pigeonhole is a useful notes organizer that does a simple job well. The program interface is divided into a grid, clicking inside a grid opens a window where a note can be entered and formatted with anything from color to text case, blank line removal and more.
When a note is saved the first few characters would be visible on the program grid and here is where the usefulness of Pigeonhole comes in. Hovering over a note triggers a relatively large preview of the saved note. This used in conjunction with Find (Ctrl+f) makes it really easy to not only find a note but to also get an idea of its contents without too many keystrokes. The program also includes options to set it to start with Windows, to be maximized with a hotkey or by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. The note data are saved in files named group.0, group.1, etc. but a peak inside using a text editor confirms that the they saved as pure text which makes future access to the data relatively painless.
The free version includes one group or set which means 175 separate notes can be stored using it instead of the 20 groups in the professional or full version. Groups would be accessible from the File menu. Pigeonhole runs on Windows, from 98 to Vista. -
StickySorter From Microsoft Office Labs Does Notes Differently
StickySorter is another rather pretty innovative idea from Microsoft’s Office Labs, the site with ‘grassroots’ projects coming via ’employee initiative and ingenuity’. StickySorter is akin to mind mapping or brainstorming software but with a twist. The twist is that, as the name of the program implies, brainstorms take the form of sticky notes. Many a number of sticky notes can be added to the program’s interface and arranged in several different ways.
Each note can belong to a group to make sorting and arranging easier. Clicking customize under the note menu one can also create separate fields so that the text on the notes themselves can be categorized. The view menu includes several ways to arrange all notes such as piling notes on top of each other or aligning notes to grid. The search box works well as a text filter and does a good job with large collection of notes as well. The interface can be zoomed in and out or panned to bring into legible view as many or as few notes as needed. There is no networking or sharing feature built-in but separate *.csv files can be inserted into existing ones as a way to merge notes.
The program’s FAQ page has a few more hints on usability. For example creating a field, using the aforementioned customize menu, and placing an ! in front of it will make the field appear only on the back of the note and selected notes can be flipped by pressing Ctrl+t.
Perhaps the best attraction of StickySorter is that it saves everything in *.csv format. It is therefore usable even if the program is discarded for another similar software. StickySorter works on Windows XP or Windows Vista with .Net Framework 2.0 -
Speed Launch From Microsoft Office Labs Is An Interesting Launcher
Speed Launch is created by Microsoft’s Office Labs. The office labs is one experimental arm of Microsoft that is sometimes not too busy on the public side and develops products that one may not necessarily associate with the company. Speed Launch is perhaps one such example and is a program that has many other freeware equivalents.
Upon installation Speed Launch places a bulls eye looking icon on the desktop that stays on top of all windows but dims to stay as unobtrusive as possible. Using the win + c keys the program pops up a set of what it calls functions. The set of built-in functions can be activated by clicking on them. They allow for such things as searching for weather forecasts and wikipedia pages.
Being a launcher Speed Launch has an interesting way to make routine tasks easier. Dragging and dropping any shortcut, file or site favicon into the bulls eye allows the user to associate an intuitive keyword with it and to later use it to open the same program, document or website. Keywords can also be added manually via the program’s ‘Add Shortcuts’ menu (by right clicking on the bulls eye).
Speed Launch also supports more advanced functions. These are the equivalent of launching a program or website – that has a shortcut created in Speed Launch – with parameters. One example used in the video on the program’s website shows how by choosing a keyword followed by “.” (dot without quotes) one can make a function that loads a map of a certain location without the need to enter the map’s homepage and then typing the desired location. It is therefore and like any other program launcher a way to save time and key strokes. Another interesting feature built-in is what is called the MegaSearch. Typing megaseach. and a search term launches the query in bing.com, yahoo.com and google.com. Again something not readily associated with Microsoft of the past.
Office Labs calls Speed Launch a ‘prototype’ and requires the user to allow anonymous usage feedback, however I am not certain if this program is being very actively developed as it is termed a grassroots project that is a ‘direct result of employee initiative’. -
KUninstall Is A Capable Alternative Uninstaller
KUninstall is described by its author as
…is a small, quick and powerful uninstaller
KUninstall runs on Windows 2000 and XP and provides a non-Microsoft alternative to the sometimes very slow add/remove programs feature of Windows.
It is a 377KB unzipped portable download that offers an unzip and run way to list all the programs installed on a computer and then uninstalling them as needed. It is also possible to browse and clean up the folder and registry items that are possibly left over by the program(s). Right clicking on any item provides the latter options and also an option to the uninstall quietly or without intervention, however this is not supported by all programs.KUninstall also provides some additional information such as install date, these are available either in the programs columns or by choosing the detail info option when right clicking. One additional feature is the target like icon called Finder. Click on the Finder icon and drag the mouse to the icon of any running program or desktop shortcut to get some additional options and information. The filter makes finding an installed program easier, however this is not necessarily the fastest feature of KUninstall.
-
WWF – The New Climate Deal – A Pocket Guide
WWF has provided this pocket guide or short article on where we stand on the issue of climate change in 2009. It starts by quoting President Obama…
Climate and the economic crisis
“This is the generation that must stop the spread of the pollution that is slowly killing our planet… Rolling back the tide of a warming planet is a responsibility that we have to ourselves, to our children, and all of those who will inherit creation long after we are gone.” Barack Obama, Strasbourg, April 2009…read the rest
It is available both in a pure text HTML page or in PDF format. Well worth a read.
-
WinTray Saves Taskbar Space
WinTray is a small and simple no install script or program built using the AutoIt scripting tool that works with Windows Vista and earlier Windows versions which allows programs to be minimized to the tray instead of the taskbar therefore saving taskbar space.
The icon used in the tray will be that of the minimized program’s executable. The default way of activating WinTray, after running it, is to hold the shift key while minimizing. Shift can be replaced by the Ctrl key as well.
WinTray is one of many scripts written using AutoIt, a similar program to AutoHotKey.
-
Image Analyzer Offers More Image Editing Features
Image Analyzer is described by its author as
Advanced image editing, enhancement and analysis software…plus a number of advanced features not even available in professional photo suites
Indeed the strength of Image Analyzer is that it is somewhat more than an average freeware or shareware image editor. Its features include the likes of resize and crop but additionally also warp. Color correction, brightness and contrast tweaks are all included but again local contrast and statistical images enhancement provide more. A number filters are also available, some of which are specialized and require calculations that take more than a few seconds to complete on a relatively older XP install for example. Skeletonize, dilation and more fall under the morphing category or menu. There are other features that include yet more complex calculation like fourier and cosine transforms. Under the help menu an expression evaluator reads like a math calculator and allows the user to check values before using the update with expression option available for the transformations menu which is located like all other advanced features under the operations menu.
Documentation is very sparse and this is admitted on the author’s page, therefore many may not even be aware of how some of the features work and only an image expert may understand all that is available. Image Analyzer is an 841KB zipped, no install download and is good both for the relatively novice and professional image editor, but perhaps more the latter. It is also worth noting that a number of plugins are available, 3D modeling just to name one, along with some documentation on creating new ones. -
ScrapBook Captures It all
ScrapBook is a Firefox addon that is perhaps the most useful written. Using ScrapBook it is possible to capture parts or all of a web page and to save it for future reference. It is also in one sense better than bookmarking a page because as much or all of the page is saved locally as it existed at the time of the capture. It is also an alternative to taking a screenshot because all the elements are saved in a text format and can therefore prove useful in the future.
Using ScrapBook is as simple as right clicking any where on a page and choosing the Capture Page to save the page into the root of ScrapBook’s data folder or a subfolder within it. Choosing the other option, Capture Page As provides options to save or not save images, styles or javascripts that reside on the page. Additionally it is possible to save different files that are linked on the page or to even to follow links, meaning one has the ability to download elements that are on the linked pages as well or to essentially download or capture entire web pages.
ScrapBook’s options don’t end there. Once a page is captured, certain portions can be highlighted, an annotation or note can be added to them to ease future reference or certain paragraphs or elements can be removed by clicking on the Dom button. A page can actually be bookmarked and reside in ScrapBook’s folder as a straightforward bookmark as well. When clicking Alt+k to load ScrapBook in the Firefox sidebar all captures can be searched, not only by title but by the text inside them. Notes, which can be added by right clicking a captured item in the sidebar, add further information for and to captured pages. The Tools drop down menu that resides in the top right hand corner of the ScrapBook sidebar includes additional features such as import/export that essentially makes a back up of captures, calculation of size that provides an overview of the size of captured pages and many more.
As of this article the current version of this superior addon is 1.3.5 and works on Firefox 3.0 to 3.5.x.
