Alonline » utility

25 hacks for Skype

Al — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 02:39:55 +0000

I think Skype is absolutely wonderful. The innovation behind it has lead to many copies, but it keeps on adding new features and staying ahead of the game. When you consider what is involved in making a free phone call to someone 6,000 miles away, with virtually no lag, no centralised servers, and the aid of an indeterminate number of other user, then you can only be amazed. When you see what else Skype can offer you, such as free translation of chat messages, then you will realise that Skype has become a necessity. If you don’t already have Skype – get it.

SmartSetr: a better way of organising photos

Al — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 03:06:10 +0000

If you use Flickr then SmartSetr is probably going to be of use to you. It allows you to create sets based on time the photos were taken, or their location, or their tags, of just about anything you need. A far better way of organising you photos, and free to use as well.

Scrybe – revisited

Al — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 02:46:28 +0000

I blogged Scrybe a while ago, and just looking at the video they had of Scrybe’s features made me think that it would be good. Well I’ve just had my invite to sign up for a Beta account and I’ve been playing with Scrybe, and I have to say it looks to be very good. Although it is just a calendar and ost manager at the moment, what it does it does very well. The way the days zoom in the planner is great, the overall look and feel is good, and seems very responsive too. The list/task manager section is basic, but then managing lists is not really that complex. And the Scrybe team have managed to get another very nice feature in early – the printing formats. I printed off a sample calendar using their “Pocket” format and was really imrepssed with the design – and amazed no-one had thought to this earlier: the printout managed to fit 30 days onto one sheet of A4, which in itself is not hard. What is clever is that when you fold it 3 times, following the printed instructions, you get a handy pocket sized piece of paper with a monthly overview and space for notes on the outside, open this up once and you get the next 10 days, open it up again and you get the next 20 days. It’s incredibly simple, yet a stroke of genius at the same time.

Overall I’ve been very impressed with my last hour playing with Scrybe – it looks to do exactly what is should do as an online organiser. You can also use it offline, which was one of the seeling points when it first launched, and it has some extra design touches which lend it a cool factor. I’m intrigued now to se what is going to arrive in the “Upcoming Modules” section, because if they are as good as the basic offering then Scrybe could really be the ultimate online organiser.

Online file conversion

Al — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 00:17:11 +0000

This may be useful some time in the future. ZamZar offers to convert files from one format to another, for free. The file types are reasonably well represented, although there is room for improvement. And the file size is limited to 100MB, which is fine for some files, but not so good for videos. Still, this is well worth a look.

MyFabrik Lite – upload, share and embed files

Al — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 01:37:46 +0000

Now this may turn out to be a very useful site. It allows you to upload files up to 1GB in size, and then share them or embed them. I just thought I’d try it with this little clip to see if it works OK.

Scrybe – ultimate organiser?

Al — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 01:14:24 +0000

I’m not normally excited by calendars and organisers. My life is just not exciting enough to need them. However Scrybe looks so good that I might be tempted to use it just to use it’s many features, including it’s online/offline mode that looks to be very useful indeed.

Super – video converter

Al — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 12:51:07 +0000

I’ve just been chatting to some friends in work and we were discussing the best methods of converting video files from one format to another. Well I’ve used Super for this in the past and it does just about anything you would want it to do, it even rips Flash movies, and will convert to any size and level of detail. Have a look at some of the suppored formats:

- Video format: 3gp/3g2 (Nokia,Siemens,Sony,Ericsson), asf, avi (DivX,H263,H263+,H264,XviD,MPEG4,MSmpeg4 etc..), dat, fli, flc, flv (used in Flash), mkv, mpg (Mpeg I,Mpeg II), mov (H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4 etc..), mp4 (H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4), ogg, qt, rm, ram, rmvb, str (Play Station), swf (Flash), ts (HDTV), viv, vob, wmv
- Audio format: ac3, amr, mp2, mp3, mp4, mpc, ogg, ra, wav, wma
- AviSynth Script Files: avs. Let you specify advanced encoding commands using AviSynth scripts
SUPER © supports the conversion (encoding both ways, to & from ) of ALL the listed formats

TiddlyWiki

Al — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 23:42:04 +0000

This is just so cool! TiddlyWiki is a simple webpage that allows you to create a very cool and funky Wiki page in minutes. This is incredibly useful for some tasks, but appears to have one drawback – you can only edit content that is on your hard-drive and cannot edit content on a webpage. This rather negates the portability aspect. Still the pages created are quite nice and I can see them being useful for help pages, FAQ’s, and any other form of list where you don’t want to present all the information at once.

Other small Wikis are detailed here.

Kablooeymail – self-destructing emails

Al — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:07:26 +0000

Now this might be a very useful idea, or alternatively may be completely useless, it is definitely an interesting development though. Kablooeymail.com allows you to send emails which are only viewable though it’s web based system, which allows you to set some very specific constraints on the email, and it’s contents. You can set a time limit for how long the email will be viewable, you can prevent copying of the content, and you will always get delivery and read receipts for every email. If you need to send secure emails, and you don’t want them being copied or forwarded to others, then Kablooeymail may be just what you need.

Copy and Paste between 2 PCs

Al — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 23:37:55 +0000

This could be a useful little web application – cl1p.net allows you to create a URL which will allow you to paste whatever you like, then when you open it back up again you will be able to copy the contents and use them as you see fit. You can also upload a 2MB file, if you really need to.