tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77304479964382219692010-01-13T19:43:51.226+08:00Useful freewares and online applications for the rest of usCatus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-70699166893953872542010-01-05T21:06:00.000+08:002010-01-05T21:06:36.332+08:002010-01-05T21:06:36.332+08:00

I don't use either Windows' or Google's Desktops. Although they have a lot of features. But indexing all my files with those no-so-useful-me widgets is no such an appealing idea to me. Sometimes, I do want a some pieces of information refreshing real time on my desktop. Out of all options, here comes a little interesting Air app called Snippage. It "snaps" part of a webpage and stays on your

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-29427500323010198902009-11-29T20:09:00.000+08:002009-11-29T20:09:10.515+08:002009-11-29T20:09:10.515+08:00

In my new job, I need to manage a startup - from crafting strategies to managing product development. There is a need for quickly presenting my ideas on the flow of work to others. Years ago I use Visio (the company paid for this). But I now use Dia. (OpenOffice.org Draw is good. But for structured diagrams, it takes extra effort in planning before drawing.) Dia for Windows is a port from it

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-82524220053686643772009-11-25T08:02:00.000+08:002009-11-25T08:02:18.934+08:002009-11-25T08:02:18.934+08:00

It's been a long time. Almost 9 months since my last post. A lot of moves in life and now its time to resume adding posts. Stay on, my collection of freewares and services is coming.

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-5418943646287568142009-03-20T08:16:00.000+08:002009-03-20T08:16:42.549+08:002009-03-20T08:16:42.549+08:00

Gmail is getting better and better. After Multiple Inboxes, here comes the ability to "Undo Send". For people with occasional accidents of sending without thinking/proofreading/..., it works well. What it actually does is to allow you 5 seconds after a message is "sent". Effectively, it is a time buffer between you hit "send" and Gmail actually sending out the mail. Nice stuff. Another good

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-77719631545854758512009-02-15T14:56:00.000+08:002009-02-15T14:56:49.275+08:002009-02-15T14:56:49.275+08:00

I first know of Feedly a few days ago. After I installed this Firefox extension, I'm immediately in love with it. As described by Feedly, it is based of Google Reader, Twitter, and Firefox. But, what does it actually do? Simply put, it makes your RSS viewing a pleasure. You RSS feeds to Google Reader (yes, you have to use Google Reader to enjoy this experience) will be displayed in a

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-3012070948494373232009-01-28T21:22:00.002+08:002009-01-28T21:24:08.602+08:002009-01-28T21:24:08.602+08:00

Being a long term Gmail user, having the ability to access it offline is highly desirable, especially when I'm on the road or have no access to the internet and need to access stored mails. In the past, I use Thunderbird for its extensive list of add-ons. But when I'm moving more and more of my stuffs to the cloud, like calendars, mails, tasks, and documents, offline access becomes a must.

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-28982989340165171862009-01-21T22:49:00.002+08:002009-01-21T22:53:01.491+08:002009-01-21T22:53:01.491+08:00

As a consultant, one of the little stuffs that I use often is that little yellow post-it notes. Writing ideas on them, sticking them on a wall or whiteboard, and then moving them around for grouping or other arrangements. To my surprise, Microsoft has created a little tool called StickySorter. This little creature moves the whole tasks of working with the yellow pads into my Windows environment.

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-5215267075568537992008-11-18T18:37:00.001+08:002008-11-19T15:40:43.619+08:002008-11-19T15:40:43.619+08:00

My work involves a lot of research work. Mainly from the internet. Some from libraries, research papers, journals, and even magazines. In the olden days, that added up to piles of documents and stacks of paper. Now, I normally go digital. Pdf is the de facto standard for my collection. However, the problem comes when I have to store articles or scanned documents which are not OCRed (that means

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-80353406901676221282008-11-04T08:35:00.000+08:002008-11-04T14:39:43.800+08:002008-11-04T14:39:43.800+08:00

Although I use a Windows Mobile PDA phone, I find the task list app (Pocket Outlook) higher deficient. Therefore, I use Remember the Milk (RTM) instead. RTM is intuitive to use. An additional new is that I can not access it in Gmail. With Gmail as my email central, I can now access most of my online activity management tasks there. I can now access Gmail (of course), Google Calendar, RTM,

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-20594044640427914562008-10-15T19:44:00.002+08:002008-10-15T19:45:18.891+08:002008-10-15T19:45:18.891+08:00

This is quite a long wait... and OpenOffice.org 3.0 is finally out, officially. Of course, there are many improvements to the suite. Better graphs, nicer interface, a starter page, and many more. But the best thing that attracts me is the ability to do the keynote thing: while presenting a slide on a projector, you can view the next slide and the notes page on your computer's screen. This has

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-79690636562010118722008-08-18T19:07:00.002+08:002008-08-18T19:08:53.791+08:002008-08-18T19:08:53.791+08:00

Owing to my business needs, presentation is a day-in and day-out ritual. Powerpoint is the de facto standard. Keynote is of course good, but I don't use Mac.One feature that I'm constantly hoping for is 3D slide transition. OpenOffice.org has promised it in version 3, which is due to release later this year.Here comes SlideRocket, an online presentation application which has nice 3D transition

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-4955045153529444182008-08-03T21:01:00.000+08:002008-08-03T21:01:00.160+08:002008-08-03T21:01:00.160+08:00

As a consultant, I'm always working on multiple projects. Busily juggling tasks, meeting deadlines, and collaborating with others are facts of my life.To work with clients, tools for managing project is required. Project management software packages such as Microsoft Projects (need a purchase licences), OpenWorkbench (free), and OpenProj (free, open source), jxProject (free) are useful. However,

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-23273133593727061942008-07-18T08:28:00.000+08:002008-07-18T09:33:34.927+08:002008-07-18T09:33:34.927+08:00

After I completed editing my Thang (see previous post), I decided that I need to burn it into a movable media so that I don't need to take my ThinkPad to the event. There I have three choices: copy the file to my associates computer as he will be taking it to the event, burning a Video-CD (VCD) which is easier and faster, or burning a video DVD.Again, I'm in a rush.Copying to another computer is

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-84014280334390537332008-07-17T10:02:00.001+08:002008-07-17T10:02:50.808+08:002008-07-17T10:02:50.808+08:00

Because I need to make a short executive interview video for a client's executive retreat, I am loaded with clips from an interview and the mission to make a video with "acceptable" quality within a very short.Okay, I don't normally work with videos, and only position myself as a Youtube "watcher" rather than "producer". I seldom use the camera of my cell phone. Digital camera hibernates on the

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-86484662885422752042008-06-19T07:59:00.000+08:002008-06-19T08:15:53.283+08:002008-06-19T08:15:53.283+08:00

Yesterday, Mozilla has officially released the new version of Firefox, version 3. A couple of enhancement is introduced - on security, user experience, and performance. You may see details here.To my experience, it feels good. Since I usually open no more than 5 tabs, so I haven't tested if the performance is still good with many tabs opened. But the smart location bar is really a nice feature.

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-25593727257578326142008-05-18T20:42:00.000+08:002008-05-18T21:47:22.495+08:002008-05-18T21:47:22.495+08:00

Just a few weeks ago I upgraded my AVG Antivirus Free Edition to version 8. After a few moment of excitement, I had to made the decision to switch to another antivirus app. Here's my experience in brief.AVG 8 may be great in protecting the PC from viruses, it had given me the perception of slowing down my machine - my browser (Firefox), in particular.Worse still, it interfere with my other apps.

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-31545406859165458682008-05-01T10:40:00.000+08:002008-05-01T13:45:43.595+08:002008-05-01T13:45:43.595+08:00

The new AVG Free (version 8) actually taught me a lesson: I was not protecting myself against being tracked. Sites may install tracking cookies that disclose web visits. Those little cookies, as they are normally transparent to the average users like me, got planted in my computer silently.AVG alerts me of this with the Resident Shield feature. However, using it to "heal" is still very disturbing

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-36158694249790109772008-04-30T15:56:00.000+08:002008-04-30T19:53:52.029+08:002008-04-30T19:53:52.029+08:00

Recently, Grifsoft has released the updated version of the AVG Antivirus software. This time it includes spyware protection.When you install the new version, make sure you choose "custom installation" so that you can select the "email scanner" of your choice ("The Bat", "Outlook", and/or "Personal Email Scanner"). Since have both Outlook and Thunderbird in my system, choosing "Custom" will ensure

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-14323454677722535232008-04-19T11:01:00.001+08:002008-05-01T11:15:47.675+08:002008-05-01T11:15:47.675+08:00

Searching is one of my top "most frequent internet tasks". Google is definitely a good one. Since using Google, I've seldom use other engines. However, I do like to try out new ones, just in case there are new ones that can offer better value (and save more time.)Recently, I come across Searchme, one that display your search results like flipping your album in an iPhone. Your search results will

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-73719582593399713972008-04-11T19:01:00.000+08:002008-04-13T08:09:28.331+08:002008-04-13T08:09:28.331+08:00

I need to collaborate with others on some of my projects. Online applications that allows simultaneous editing by multiple parties is a very very desirable way of work. In today's term, it is call collaboration.There are quite a few options available - Google Docs, Zoho, Thinkfree and more. I have accounts in the named three. ThinkFree requires installing something locally. For this reason, it

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-29256246894575041772008-04-09T11:52:00.000+08:002008-04-08T21:17:38.978+08:002008-04-08T21:17:38.978+08:00

Migrating to a new PC is a headache. Installing softwares, backing up and restoring data may cause you hours and days. In addition, the personalized settings for applications may also be lost. Headache, uneasiness,....As a user of Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird, I find the software MozBackup very useful. You can backup settings, user profiles, extensions (add-ons), and data (bookmarks, emails,

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-85553678292665358092008-04-08T23:50:00.000+08:002008-04-15T13:27:43.029+08:002008-04-15T13:27:43.029+08:00

Do you mindmap?A lot of people like to organize their thoughts using mind-maps. Basically, it is a spider-web type diagram centered around a theme. This graphical visualization of ideas helps you efficiently organize thoughts, stimulate thinking, and facilitate recall. More information on mindmap can be found here.Even if you are not a mindmapper, you may occasionally need to quickly brainstorm

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-91063882520203883772008-04-06T23:30:00.000+08:002008-04-06T20:12:35.291+08:002008-04-06T20:12:35.291+08:00

I'm not a big fan of watching movie/DVD in my notebook or desktop PC. Great movies should be watched on big screens. However, I do watch seminar recordings in my notebook.Windows Media Player is always a headache. Slowness and the unnecessary features cost me extra time and efforts. On searching for alternative players, I find the GOM Player a simple and versatile video player.GOM Player can play

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-10012125088397279382008-04-04T23:49:00.000+08:002008-04-04T23:36:33.185+08:002008-04-04T23:36:33.185+08:00

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a popular document format over the internet. If you want to send nicely formatted pages to your business partners, or publish an ebook, PDF is definitely a top choice.By using PDF, you can preserve the format and typefaces. If your document is not meant to be altered by the recipient, pdf can also offer the benefit of being "non-editable". It is now common to

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730447996438221969.post-43113851309202031112008-04-04T09:33:00.001+08:002008-04-05T08:47:50.681+08:002008-04-05T08:47:50.681+08:00

I've just added the askablogr widget here (try figure it out in the next column!) It allows readers and me to have Q&A more directly, better than the "comments" features on this blog. It also preserves your privacy as your email need not be disclosed to me.If you want to ask or suggest something, let's talk.Website: www.askablogr.com

Catus Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02590946677129487203noreply@blogger.com0