Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

Kindle App for Mac OS X 10.5

The Kindle app for Mac OS X 10.5 and above is finally available without calling for a glitzy press conference, where this free application weighs in at 22MB. Most folks have been looking out for it since its announcement last October, when the iPad was but vaporware at that point in time. With this app, you can download Kindle books that are under your possession, reading them at your own pace on your Mac. Synchronization of progress is fully automatic, so you can switch between your Kindle and iPhone on-the-fly without missing a beat.

You can Download here.

Strings: Letting you Know What Your Friends Have Purchased, Listened Too or Watched Online

Strings is a new startup that aims to help users filter meaningful content across the web. After heading to the Strings site and signing up you are able to download their software for either PC or Mac. Once the software is downloaded you are able to add Trackers to your site, Trackers make it easy to curate everything from the songs you play, to movies you watch, and products you buy.

Strings also has a great sharing option in which you can see what your friends have been purchasing, playing or watching.

Im all for filtering tools that run through the huge amount of internet content and break it down so it only provides you with something that is useful. However, Strings just seems to be a little too complicated and not really well explained. I can see my Dad for example logging on and using this service, cause it just doesnt simplify itself. Its a shame because the design and idea behind the site is pretty sound, its just the execution.

iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 5 Available for Free Download

Another Tuesday, another beta…and wait one second! Today’s not Tuesday, is it? Regardless, a spankin’ new hot beta awaits you at the Apple iPhone dev center (developer credentials needed). As usual, the new release is under NDA. Please consult the dev center for release notes and other details.

Jolicloud Netbook Operating System Going International

Jolicloud the popular netbook operating system will be soon going international. Currently it is still only planned to come in English and French, but at least they are moving forward with a more widespread push.

It would be interesting to see just how many people will take up the Jolicloud offer even though it is free, since Windows XP still rules supreme with the soon-to-come Google Chrome OS more than capable of making a big splash on its debut as well. Perhaps Jolicloud has already talked to other netbook manufacturers to include it in their machines – who knows?

Downloadr: Free Bulk Image Downloader for Flickr

Whether you’re looking for backgrounds for your desktop, Creative Commons licensed photos, or just scanning eyecandy, Flickr is an excellent place to find beautiful digital images.

Need a simple way to download multiple images? Check out Downloadr, a free program with loads of options which makes short work of bulk downloading from Flickr.

Downloadr is packed with search options and fully plugged in to Flickr — so it can locate and download everything you’ve added to your favorites. Authentication is also supported, meaning you can download private images to which you have access.

Internet Explorer 9 Preview

Microsoft has just released their preview to Internet Explorer 9 with HTML 5. If you want to check it out you can get it free here.

AVG Anti Virus 9

AVG 9 Free offers the core features that one would expect from an antivirus software. It protects the computer system from viruses and spyware, offers basic rootkit protection, an email scanner, phishing protection and integrated Linkscanner module for protecting the computer user during online sessions.

AVG Anti-Virus 9 comes with all of those features plus some. It offers advanced rootkit protection instead of the basic protection offered in AVG 9 Free, an online shield mode which protects the computer when downloading and sharing files online and a game mode that guarantees uninterrupted playtime.

And that’s it. Both AVG 9 applications do not offer a software firewall, identity protection and anti-spam protection, both of which are integrated into AVG Internet Security only.

Update Just found out that the version of AVG Anti-Virus 9 offered at the Giveaway of the Day website is only a 90-day trial version of the program, not a full version that works for a year. It is therefor probably not worth the troubles of downloading it.

Positive

• Advanced Rootkit protection
• Online shield
• Game Mode
• Compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows

Negative

• Only a 90-day trial
• No Firewall and anti-spam

Start Menu 7: Replace The Standard Windows Start Menu With Something Better

Start Menu 7 is a new piece of software which replaces the standard Windows Start Menu.

Start Menu 7 key features:

• The list of menu items is alphabetically sorted, so you can easily find any program or command by its name.
• Open any location on your PC with a single click.
• You can create, modify, and reorder items in Start Menu 7. So it’s easy to create a list of the most used locations, popular directories, and virtual folders to access them with a single click.
• There is a special Run button to access seldom used locations without adding them into menu.
• Start Menu 7 has a customizable Power Buttons panel.
• With Power Timer feature you can delay any of power management operations.

Currently there is a free version of the software, but you can also buy the pro version which has even more added features.

Task Coach: Ubuntu Free Task Management Software

Task Coach is a simple open source todo manager to keep track of personal tasks and todo lists. It grew out of a frustration that most task managers do not provide facilities for composite tasks. Often, tasks and other things todo consist of several activities. Task Coach is designed to deal with composite tasks. In addition, it offers effort tracking, categories, and notes. Task Coach is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and iPhone and iPod Touch.

Task Coach Features:

Task Coach currently (0.78.4) has the following features:

* Creating, editing, and deleting tasks and subtasks.
* Tasks have a subject, description, priority, start date, due date, a completion date and an optional reminder. Tasks can recur on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
* Tasks can be viewed as a list or as a tree.
* Tasks can be sorted by all task attributes, e.g. subject, budget, budget left, due date, etc.
* Several filters to e.g. hide completed tasks or view only tasks that are due today.
* Tasks can be created by dragging an e-mail message from Outlook or Thunderbird onto a task viewer.
* Attachments can be added to tasks, notes, and categories by dragging and dropping files, e-mail messages from Outlook or Thunderbird, or URL’s onto a task, note or category.
* Task status depends on its subtask and vice versa. E.g. if you mark the last uncompleted subtask as completed, the parent task is automatically marked as completed too.
* Tasks and notes can be assigned to user-defined categories.
* Settings are persistent and saved automatically. The last opened file is loaded automatically when starting Task Coach.
* Tracking time spent on tasks. Tasks can have a budget. Time spent can be viewed by individual effort period, by day, by week, and by month.
* The Task Coach file format (.tsk) is XML.
* Tasks, notes, effort, and categories can be exported to HTML and CSV (Comma separated format). Effort can be exported to iCalendar/ICS format as well.
* Tasks, effort, notes, and categories can be printed. When printing, Task Coach prints the information that is visible in the current view, including any filters and sort order.
* Task Coach can be run from a removable medium.
* Tasks and notes can be synchronized via a Funambol server such as ScheduleWorld.

There is a todo-list application for iPhone and iPod Touch that can synchronize with Task Coach through the network, starting with version 0.73.2 of Task Coach. Main features are

* Hierarchical categories.
* Editing of task subject, description, dates and completed status.
* Tap on the task’s led icon to mark it complete.
* Available in English and French.

Install Task Coach in Ubuntu:

First you need to download .deb package from here or using the following command from your terminal

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/taskcoach/taskcoach_0.78.4-1_all.deb

Install .deb packge using the following comamnd from your terminal

sudo dpkg -i taskcoach_0.78.4-1_all.deb

Send Email Text to Phone for Free

Here is how it works:

Most of mobile carriers offer free Email To SMS gateways which can be used to forward simple text emails to a mobile phones. And the good news, majority of those gateways are free and available to the general public.

You just need to know the number and the carrier of the recipient to start emailing them to mobile phone. Below we put together a table listing free email to SMS gateways for different carriers. You can use as quick reference both for US and international mobile numbers.

Free Email To SMS Gateways (Major US Carriers)

Free Email To SMS Gateways (International + Smaller US)

These are all I could find from Wikipedia and other sources. If you’re aware of any other ones please share them in comments and I’ll add them to the list.

UPDATES:

If you can’t find a gatewayd for your current provider here, check out following links:

• http://www.tech-faq.com/send-text-messages-free.shtml
• http://www.mutube.com/projects/open-email-to-sms/gateway-list/
• http://www.notepage.net/smtp.htm

If you are aware of any other free sms to email gateways please add it in comments. Also let us know whether you tried any of the above and your experience with it.

VDownloader: Download and Convert YouTube Videos for Free

Vdownloader is a 100% free piece of software that lets users download their favourite videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, Google Video, DailyMotion, Yahoo! Video or any other major video sharing website whenever and wherever you please? With VDownloader, you’ll be able to:

• Play video or audio on the road or on vacation on your MP3, mobile device or laptop.
• Watch videos without annoying advertisements, captions or other distractions.
• Make backups of online videos in any possible format; they might be lost or removed!
• Skip queueing and buffering thanks to the automatic video download accelerator.

We have tested out the software and it completely safe to use as much or as little as you would like.

Lucidor: Simple eBook Reader for Ubuntu

Lucidor is a computer program for reading and handling e-books. Lucidor supports e-books in the EPUB file format, and catalogs in the OPDS format. Lucidor runs on the GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac OS X platforms.

Lucidor provides functionality to

• Read EPUB e-books.
• Organize a collection of e-books in a local bookcase.
• Search for and download e-books from the Internet, for example by browsing OPDS catalogs.
• Convert web feeds into e-books.

Install lucidor in ubuntu

First you need to download .deb package from here or using the following command from your terminal

wget http://lucidor.org/lucidor/lucidor_0.9-1_all.deb

Now you need to install this .deb package by double clicking on that or running the following command from terminal

sudo dpkg -i lucidor_0.9-1_all.deb