Doit.im Is a Cross-Platform GTD Task Management App [Downloads]
My Clippings November 16th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
Windows/Mac/Linux: Doit.im is a free, attractive, cross-platform task management application built on the principles of productivity guru David Allen’s Getting Things Done. It syncs to the web, it’s easy to use, and soon it’ll sync to your phone, too.
(Click the image above for a closer look.)
Once you install the app and register for an account, you can start adding items to your inbox, creating projects, and scheduling your tasks. A lot of the organizational tools will be familiar to GTD followers: notice the Projects and Someday inboxes, as well as the next actions section for arranging your tasks. You can easily drag and drop tasks into any bucket across the application, and while I ran into a snag on my first run, everything seemed smooth sailing after I started it up again.
Doit.im is a free download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, requires Adobe AIR. The developer claims mobile versions for the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, and Symbian devices are underway, which would be a real boon for accessing your tasks anywhere, especially since they’d sync with your desktop. If you’re looking for a new task manager and you’re keen on GTD, Doit.im is certainly worth a look.
Tags: amazon, cli, Google, IO, Linux, ma, Mac, man, way, wind
Groupon Gives Your Community Buying Power
My Clippings November 13th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
Many businesses and retailers offer discounts if you’re buying in bulk or buying for a large number of people. The trouble is: how do you get those discounts when you’re just shopping for yourself or maybe a couple of other people? Groupon can help; it’s a new Web service that provides you and your community collective buying power with participating businesses offering group discounts in your area.
Each day, the service posts a number of discounts and coupons for goods and services from retailers and stores in your area that you can sign up to take advantage of. The catch is that the bargain is only good if the required number of people to activate the deal also sign up. You only get the bargain price if enough people sign up for it as well, so the service depends on members to spread the word.
Regional or national chains that don’t set their own pricing or schedule their own sales are a bit less likely to participate in a service like Groupon, but your local winery or brew pub may have a special deal on the site that’s only available if 20 people sign up for it, and you may find a local spa or gym that’s offering a discount off of a membership if they can get enough people to sign up to become members at the same time.
That’s the beauty of a service like Groupon: It has the ability to connect local businesses with communities and people who live near the business who may not even have known were around the corner from them. For example, in my area an indoor climbing gym with only three locations in my region offered their regularly #35 “Intro to Climbing Course” for $17 if they could get 15 people to sign up. The deal was successful, and 86 people signed up for the course.
One of Groupon’s strongest features is how local it is. The service calculates your location when you visit the homepage, and drops you into the Groupon section for your city or region. The service also pulls down Twitter posts from the Groupon account in your area and puts them in the sidebar, so you can read previous deals in your area or sign up to follow your local Groupon rep. If you’re curious what’s happening in a different city, you can click to see them all, or visit the Groupon forums to see what other members are talking about.
Trick Out Google Apps for Your Domain [Google Apps]
My Clippings October 28th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
You registered a domain name and set up the free Google Apps Standard Edition to get Gmail, GTalk, GCal, and GDocs running behind it. Now, take a look at some advanced settings Google Apps (for your domain) makes available.
What the what? Sometimes we refer to all of Google's regular, free, public products as "Google Apps," but today we're referring to the product formerly known as "Google Apps for Your Domain" as just plain "Google Apps." (Note to Google: Come up with a clearer naming convention.) Give this flavor of Google Apps a domain name you own—like yourfamily.org or example.com—and it puts Google services behind it. If you've got a regular Google Account and [email protected] email address, that's cool—you can forward mail for [email protected] address to and from it. But Google Apps lets you create and manage several users associated with your domain and enable various services for them. Google Apps (for your domain) comes in several flavors: Standard Edition (free for individuals and non-affiliated groups, what we’re going to cover here), Premier Edition (for businesses), Non-Profit Edition, Education Edition, and Government Edition.
Nerd Threat Level: Orange
This flavor of Google Apps is only useful to people who own their own domain name (or want to purchase one), and who plan to set up a workgroup behind that domain. For example, if you’re Carol Brady and you register thebradybunch.com domain name, you’re going to want to set up several users at that domain. With Google Apps, Carol could create a [email protected] account, a [email protected] account, all the way down to Cindy, Bobby, Alice, and Tiger. When Marcia gets hitched? Carol can add her spouse to the family domain. When Alice moves onto greener pastures? Carol could shut down or suspend her account.
The two key advantages to using Google Apps this way are: 1.) you get a custom [email protected] email address that you can take with you to another email provider if Gmail goes away or you want to transfer it. Your regular @gmail.com address is married to Google’s service, so you can never use it with another provider. 2.) You get system administrator-level capabilities for setting up your workgroup’s IT needs with Google’s easy interface. We’ve already done an an overview of what Google Apps can do; if you haven’t already, here’s how to get it set up with your domain.
Tags: Advent, amazon, cli, email, gmail, Google, IO, ma, man, php, Remove, security, ssl, way, wind, XP
TomTom car mount now available at US Apple store for $120
My Clippings October 26th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
The Tomtom iPhone mounting kit is now available in the US Apple Store. We still think it is exploitation of iPhone customers when a full Tomtom can often be had for less than the $120 Apple Store price of the Mounting kit alone.
Especially when you consider you have to buy the $100 App too.
Even newer Tomtoms with screens almost an inch bigger than the iPhone’s cost about the same as the mounting kit alone.
Can someone explain to us why you’d want to use your iPhone as a GPS rather than just buying a (cheaper, bigger, better) stand alone unit?
TomTom car mount now available at US Apple store for $120
My Clippings October 25th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
The Tomtom iPhone mounting kit is now available in the US Apple Store. We still think it is exploitation of iPhone customers when a full Tomtom can often be had for less than the $120 Apple Store price of the Mounting kit alone.
Especially when you consider you have to buy the $100 App too.
Even newer Tomtoms with screens almost an inch bigger than the iPhone’s cost about the same as the mounting kit alone.
Can someone explain to us why you’d want to use your iPhone as a GPS rather than just buying a (cheaper, bigger, better) stand alone unit?
How to Clean Your Debit and Credit Cards [Cleaning]
My Clippings October 13th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
There's a certain list of things we routinely clean, but your debit and credit cards probably aren't on that list—although they should be! It's easy and can greatly extend the life of your card.
You might be wondering why you should bother, but if you’ve gone cardless for a few days while waiting on a replacement, the extra step of cleaning your cards can go a long way toward preventing such a hiccup. (As someone who once worked in a bank, I can vouch that this method works like a charm.)
All you need is an eraser and a damp towel. Wipe the card clean with the towel to remove any grimey build up deposited onto your card from your wallets or card reader machines. It’s not something that gets extra dirty, but the small particles when compacted with continuous swiping/use can rub off the magnetic strip holding your card’s information.
Next take the eraser (we prefer Pink Pearl erasers, but the one on the end of a pencil will do just fine) and gently erase/rub the magnetic strip on the back. It will remove any gunk that’s built up over time. This trick also works with old school cartridge based gaming systems, just in case you really have the urge to play some NES Duck Hunt.
Got your own methods for successfully cleaning off your grimy credit card and getting more mileage out of it—at least while you're waiting for a replacement? Sound off in the comments.
Tags: amazon, Build, cli, Google, Information, IO, ma, Mac, Photo, Remove, way
How to Build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, Start to Finish [How To]
My Clippings September 7th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online
Two years ago, I detailed how to build a Hackintosh for under $800—then covered how to do the same with less hacking. Now that Snow Leopard’s out, we’re revisiting the Hackintosh, building a Hack Pro from scratch for roughly $900.
For folks eager to try a Mac but never wanted to plunk down the high price tag to get it, the Hackintosh—that is, a regular PC tweaked to run OS X—has always been an attractive option. That said, it’s not something you should take on lightly unless you’re willing—even enthusiastic—to build and maintain a PC entirely from scratch. I can’t guarantee it’ll be easy, but if you follow this guide step-for-step (it’s exhaustive) and stick with the same (or at least roughly the same) hardware as I am, I can vouch for a rock solid system that also happens to cost a good deal less than you’d pay for a comparable Mac.
Price Comparisons
Most Hackintosh enthusiasts will say you shouldn’t build a Hackintosh primarily to save money, as it’s more than just an insert-disc-and-click install. Still, I always enjoy looking at the price differences between my Hackintosh and Apple’s current offerings. At the moment, the cheapest Mac in the Apple store is a Mac mini sporting a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 120GB hard drive. For $300 more, I’m running a 3.0GHz Quad-Core processor, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, and a damn saucy video card. I could have made this build much cheaper by skimping on hardware and still ended up with a great little machine, but I liked aiming for around the $800 price point from my last build—plus I really wanted to make it fly.
The most expensive iMac, by comparison, has only a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of memory for $2,200 ($1,300 more than my build, but it is built into a monitor), while the cheapest Mac Pro has a single 2.66GHz Quad-Core processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 640GB hard drive—and it costs $2,500 ($1,600 more than mine, though it’s a different and better processor and DDR3 rather than DDR2 RAM). In short, my $900 “Hack Pro” sports nearly as good or better hardware than any Mac that Apple sells short of the $3,300 8-Core Mac Pro (which can, incidentally, get more expensive, but it won’t get much better).
Tags: amazon, Apple, Build, Hackintosh, Information, IO, ISO, Leopard, Mac, OSX, php, Snow Leopard, ssl, Sudo, Unzip, video, way, wind, XP
Showcase of Fresh and Well-Designed Online Shops
My Clippings September 6th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online
  
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E-Commerce websites are often thought of as typically being unattractive or poorly designed. In this post we will feature 35 appealing designs of online shops. Those featured in this post include examples from a variety of different industries and showcase several different styles of design.
Throughout this showcase the most noticeable trend of well-designed e-commerce sites is the use of high-quality photos. Many of the sites use large images on the homepage, and product and model photography is always important for creating interest from visitors.
You may also be interested in these other posts from Smashing Magazine:
- 12 Tips for Designing an Excellent Checkout Process
- Shopping Carts Gallery: Examples and Good Practices
- Showcase of e-Commerce Fall Sales Designs
- 5 Universal Principles for Successful eCommerce Sites
Fresh Well-Designed Online Shops
Zoomii.com – The “Real” Online Bookstore
Tags: amazon, Google, IO, Photo, php, Shopping, way, wind, XP
Amazon Kindle 2 Hacked to Run Linux [Kindle]
My Clippings September 5th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online
Hacker Jesse Vincent, who’s previously written software to allow PDFs and ePubs to be read on the Kindle, wheedled and cajoled the Kindle 2 into running Ubuntu 9.04. You know, just because.
Vincent called it “a lovely little Linux box” when showing it off at geekfest Foo Camp last weekend. We’re not really sure what the practical applications of a Linux Kindle would be, but it’s an impressive proof of concept for sure. [Boing Boing Gadgets]
Toshiba bows 640GB 2.5-inch drive range
My Clippings September 3rd, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online
Toshiba today introduced a new range of 2.5-inch hard drives, running at 5,400 rpm with a maximum 640GB capacity. Although that is less space than the 1TB monsters that Western Digital have rolling out by the end of the year, the Toshiba drives are 8.5mm thick. That is small enough to fit in most laptops, making them the biggest such announced drives in this category. The WD drives are 12.5mm thick which are better suited to external enclosures.
The 640GB MK6465GSX drive range also includes 500GB, 320GB, 250GB and 160GB models. These are being shipped to OEM’s now.
The advantage of the new design is that energy efficiency has been improved by 28 per cent. (So, a battery-powered device carrying these drives would gain significant increases in operation time in between recharges)
The new storage will also be made available as external drives in a variety of different-coloured chassis, including Vivid White, Liquid Blue, Komodo Green and Rocket Red.
These drives are expected to cost $179, however, Amazon carries Toshiba drives at heavy discounts, for example the Toshiba 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Dive HDDR500E04XL (Liquid Blue)
