Yamaha Home Theater
If you're a regular user of the revision comparison feature in Google Docs, you'll likely enjoy new service Compare My Docs. It comes from the same folks who created TextFlow, the Adobe AIR-based app that spot differences across multiple copies of a Word document or rich text file.
Compare My Docs does many of the same things as TextFlow, including being able to compare up to six versions of the same document to see what's been changed. The big difference though, is that it runs right in your browser and requires no sign-up whatsoever.
Just like TextFlow, Compare My Docs color codes any changes it finds between the different revisions of a document and gives you a quick and easy way to accept, reject, or set aside a change. This means you can cruise through a document and keep the changes or revisions you like, while keeping an active log of what you don't.
When finished, you'll have a new version that has all of those changes, which can be saved either as a Word doc or rich text file back on your hard drive. Although unlike what you can do in TextFlow, with Compare My Docs there's no way to publish the finished product to the Web or save it in parent company Nordic River's servers for safe keeping; something that seems meant to entice users to try out TextFlow instead.
Compare My Docs looks a lot like TextFlow, in fact it basically is, but runs in your browser instead of as an Adobe AIR app.
(Credit: CNET)The service does manage to suffer from some of the limitations in the core technology behind both it and TextFlow, including having photos and charts being stripped out. This means you'll have to add them back in after you've run a few documents through its editor.
Along with Compare My Docs, Nordic River is also finally releasing an API for TextFlow, which will let developers make use of the service's comparison technology in their apps or Web services. This could help make up for some of the service's shortcomings, while augmenting the versioning tools currently offered by some online services. File hosting in particular comes to mind, since places like DropBox and Box.net offer versioning, and version rollback, but in order to see the differences you have to save, then open up each file and look for differences. Those places could now very quickly build tools that let users compare multiple versions of a saved Word or text file from right within the app.
Nordic River says that TextFlow in its Adobe AIR form will remain, but that the site is closing up to new users in a few weeks until it readies a new interface. In the meantime the company will continue its free and paid services to those who have already signed up.
Correction 8:57 a.m. on November 3: This story initially misstated that users could not make edits to the text within the tool. This was due to the functionality not being present in the pre-release version of the site used for review.
If you're contemplating switching to another e-mail provider, but have been too lazy to do a feature comparison of the competition, there's a new tool that might be of assistance. Aptly named E-mail Service Guide takes more than 100 hosted e-mail providers, and lets you comparison shop by feature.
This is handled gracefully with a search tool that lets you plug in which options you want, like whether the service has POP3 and IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol) support, or customer service by phone or e-mail so you can talk to an actual human if something goes wrong.
It can also tell you how much each service will cost, by breaking down its price according to how many months you're planning to use it. This includes things from the fine print like sign-up fees or required contracts, all of which can be simply sorted by column.
Looking for the e-mail provider with the biggest attachment size? This tool lets you sort to see which one is the tops.
(Credit: CNET)Since the tool is focused on premium services, missing are consumer-grade options like the vanilla version of Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail. Instead you have providers like Zimbra, GoDaddy, and Rackspace--many of which have service license agreements, multi-user seating, and more generous attachment size limits.
See also: Wikipedia's chart of Web mail providers
I've been using the SmarterFox Firefox add-on (Windows | Mac) for awhile now. It's by far one of the most varied productivity add-ons for Firefox that I've seen. Its clever tricks to speed up searching, browsing, downloading, and even copy and paste are good news for just about anyone whose job description contains the word "Web."
I've put together a SmarterFox slideshow to walk you through the substantial features. Without giving away too much, SmarterFox facilitates faster search through multiple channels, including the Firefox Awesome Bar, the context menu, and Wikipedia enhancements. It also helps launch Web sites faster, and has a novel way of dealing with pagination for sites with multipage articles, and for shopping sites displaying pages of results. Check out the gallery to see exactly how these features work.
I'm a heavy e-mailer on my iPhone, and one of the things that really bugs me about the built-in mail client is that it falls just short of being ready for business use. For instance, it lacks the option to flag messages, have different signatures for different accounts, or simply turn on and off an out-of-office auto-responder. But what really irks me on a daily basis is the search tool that got added in OS 3.0. Don't get me wrong, this was a really important thing to add--but there's a big problem with it: it's limited to the subject line and who the sender or recipient was.
That level of search is certainly a good start, but it doesn't compare to newly-released app ReMail (download), which can index an entire e-mail account and do full-text search within all your messages. You want to find a word or phrase in an e-mail body? It can do that, and it's fast. Better yet, it doubles as its own e-mail app, so you can open up and read messages; copy parts to stick in new messages; or forward, reply, and delete--all without leaving the interface.
ReMail searches inside of mail messages. Here it's picking out the word "nice" from a handful of messages, including different ones from the same thread.
(Credit: CNET)Of course having the same account in both ReMail and the mail app means that it takes some extra storage on your phone, but what's surprising is how little it uses. A 140MB Gmail in-box I sucked in for my test account squeezed down to just 25MB. It works like that for one main reason--the app doesn't download attachments until you open them. Though the nice thing is that after it's been opened, it stays cached on the device so you can open it again.
Former Gmail engineer Gabor Cselle, who makes the app, is pushing ReMail as a tool for commuters. One thing that makes ReMail especially well-suited for that is that you can access your entire in-box--even offline. That's compared to the iPhone's built-in Mail app, which has to hit the servers to continue a search if what you're looking for falls outside of what it has recently saved on the device. This can also be a boon when traveling internationally, since you can access and search your account without being connected to, or having to sync up with any servers.
As fantastic as the app is, there are a few annoying bits that will keep it from fully replacing the Mail app, including the fact that it's currently limited to one account at a time. You can go in and switch it with another account, but then your old index gets deleted. Another pain point is that it doesn't work with Microsoft Exchange, just Gmail and IMAP. That's fine for casual users, but business users won't be able to get all that full-text search goodness on their work accounts, which for me, would have been one of the big draws. Cselle told me that Exchange and other account types, like POP, would be added later down the line, but for now he just wanted to get it out there.
Other small annoyances include no landscape view, and a slider you have to toggle every time you want to copy text from a message. I didn't mind this at first, but it's a real drag when you realize you want to copy something halfway down a message and have to go all the way back up to the top to turn that mode on.
For $4.99, this is a very, very solid way to search through e-mail. Though like many other innovative applications that have come along to try to improve on what Apple's done, it runs the risk of being made obsolete by the very product it's trying to fix. I wouldn't put it past Apple to have full-text e-mail search as part of its next major OS update--if not sooner, considering it's already such a big part of its desktop application counterpart. Though if you're willing to invest in this app in the meantime, you'll never have to trudge through e-mails again.
The good:
• Fast, highly-customizable search
• Autocompletion of search terms
• Saved search terms
• Built-in e-mail functions that let you create news messages right inside the app
• Local cache of data for offline reading
The bad:
• Limited support for e-mail services
• Possible obsolescence by an Apple software update
• No landscape view
• Copy and paste toggle is clunky
• Can take a very long time to do the first in-box download, and you have to leave the app running while it's happening
• App can crash when doing long downloads or when opening up attachments
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Rflygd)
Pastie is a new iPhone app that makes it possible to send ready-made text messages or e-mails to people on your contact list. This feature has been around on other phones for ages, but the iPhone has long gone without one.
Pastie's method for improving the sending of e-mail or SMS messages is to let the user create a directory of pre-written messages. These can be set up to be copied to the clipboard, or sent to the SMS or e-mail applications. As a user you can decide this at the time you click on it, or when you're building the preset.
If you frequently find yourself sending an e-mail or a text message to a particular contact, this app can be immensely helpful since there's the option to assign it to a specific number of e-mail address. For instance, several times a day I send out group e-mails telling my colleagues at work what story I'm currently working on. With Pastie you can create a preset that fills in the recipient and subject lines for you, which can save much keyboard pecking.
Each Pastie has an icon to let you know what will happen when you click on it, and if it's assigned to one of your contacts, you can see who it is with a little thumbnail.
(Credit: CNET)A few things that are on the way in a future version of the app is a way to send e-mails to multiple contacts at once, as well as being able to add text to the body of the e-mail (currently you can only fill out the subject). There will also be a Coverflow-like way to browse through your items, besides the current list form. One thing that's not in the cards--and that I hope is added, is a text countdown meter so that you know if you're reaching the limit of a text message, or a reoccurring Twitter update template you've created.
There are two flavors of Pastie--the lite which is free, and the full version which costs $1.99. The free version is just as capable as the full, but limited to just three presets at a time. You can make as many as you want, but you'll have to get rid of one anytime you want to make a new one.
The enormous demo video of how it works is after the break.
... Read more
We all know that BlackBerry phones are touted as some of the best business devices out there. Many of the perks for corporate cogs are baked into the operating system, body design, and secure BES Exchange server. Many more come to the BlackBerry through third-party applications, many of which are now centrally accessed and distributed through the BlackBerry App World. Here are six favorites applications for busy, on-the-go professionals.
Pocket office
Creating and viewing common office documents is essential when you're working from the road. The free Documents To Go Standard Version has been preloaded on BlackBerry handsets running operating system 4.5 and higher (including Bold, Storm, and Tour). It serves as the native reader for Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. Upgrade to the premium version and you'll be able to also edit and compose, format paragraphs and font, and view PDFs. Documents To Go has a yearly subscription rate of $49.99 and a $69.99 lifetime license.
Dynoplex's eOffice is a strong competitor
and costs just $29.95 for viewing, editing, and even faxing.E-mail dictation
MyCaption composition on the Storm
(Credit: MyCaption)We tried MyCaption on a tip. The e-mail dictation software, which has been on the market since August 2008, uses a combination of machine-based speech recognition and human transcription to create accurate e-mail on your behalf. With it, you can dictate e-mail, a memo, a task, or calendar item. E-mail messages cut off at the 3-minute mark. The content is then uploaded to MyCaption's secure, Amazon-hosted servers, where it's transcribed and routed. You'll need to create a MyCaption log-in to start using the software, and serious users should spend some time setting up an address book online--MyCaption can only automatically send messages to you, or to those you've included on MyCaption.com. The $9.99 App World download fee gets you 20 minutes of talk time, which works out to about 80 short messages, fewer the more you pontificate. There's also a subscription model for frequent users.
3, 2, 1...Contacts
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Gwabbit)
If you often travel for work, you undoubtedly have better things to do than type new contacts into your BlackBerry address book. Gwabbit for BlackBerry ($9.95) scans the signature block on incoming e-mails and tries to match what it finds there with contacts you already have. If the contact is new, Gwabbit can create a record populated with the contact's name, number, and e-mail address. It takes a few seconds to process, but saves networking professionals substantial time.
Gwabbit also has a companion app for Microsoft Outlook.
Travel agent
(Credit:
CNET)
Your e-mail is an inconvenient place to store your itinerary, and your calendar is too hard to read. With a little online prep, WorldMate Live makes a fine travel secretary. The download is free, and so are the basics: local and world time and weather, your travel itinerary, and a currency converter, for a start. The premium version adds on a travel directory, flight schedules, and real-time flight updates. Upgrading costs about $12 a month or $100 a year and also confers greater customer support. Watch this First Look video to see it in action.
Payback time
(Credit:
Total Wireless Solutions)
When it comes time to tally those expenses and e-mail them back to the office, you've got a few choices. The old-school ExpenseManager by Total Wireless Solutions ($12.99) is simpler to use than Exgis Expense Tracker ($4.99), which is much less pricey for a similar manager. We liked that ExpenseManager kept a running total of expenses and that its .CSV file exports converted more accurately to Excel spreadsheets than did the Exgis program, which garbled the dates in our tests. However, the Exgis products are more cheaply priced--about $5 each for the expense, mileage, or time tracker, $10 for an app that bundles two tools, and $15 for the trio, which also includes tabs for managing clients and naming products.
Read your voice mail
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YouMail)
When time is scarce, slogging through your voice mail messages is a terrible way to conserve what's left. Visual voice mail is a much more effective route. The free YouMail Visual Voicemail Plus treats voice mail like e-mail, listing callers and messages so you can play them back achronologically, jumping to the message from your boss and skipping the social calls for now. CallWave, and YouMail's premium transcription service, take it a notch higher, transcribing incoming voice mail messages into text so you can quickly read messages, say during a meeting. In addition to managing messages from the phone, each service also offers an Internet dashboard that lets you read or play back messages online. CallWave starts at $15 per month for its transcription service. YouMail ranges from $4 to $7 per month.
Honorable mention
(Credit:
Networks in Motion)
If your company hasn't sprung for a rental car outfitted with GPS, a navigation tool like the free Gokivo Navigator (free for now; for U.S., Canada, and Western Europe) can come in handy. Easy to use, Gokivo's robotic voice helps direct you to an address, airport, movie theater, and so on. The GPS won't always give you a perfect fix, but it quickly recalculates the route if you're off-course. For (written) walking directions, Google Maps will still be your best bet.
Do you have a favorite BlackBerry business app that wasn't included in this roundup? Share it in the comments.
Adobe AIR apps are some of the best designed, most useful applications you can have on your desktop. Last month, I highlighted 10 applications to try out, if you're thinking about using AIR apps. This time around, I want to take a look at 10 apps that will make you more productive. Trust me, they will help you save some time.
Be more productive
Agile Agenda Agile Agenda is a project management tool that helps project managers keep their team on track.
Agile Agenda is quite impressive. You can add your team and input information about the tasks you need to perform. You can set priority, dependencies, when a task should be completed, and more. You can also edit milestones so you can track how the project is coming along. Most importantly, the app's fantastic design makes it easy to use.
Agile Agenda gives you the option of trying it for 3 days or 30 days, or buying a license. If you're buying one license, the software will set you back $70. More licenses reduce the price.
Agile Agenda makes it much easier to manage projects.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Doomi Doomi is an extremely simple to-do-list app that lets you quickly add items you need to complete. That list is displayed under the input box. You can set how long it should take to complete the task and mark the box next to it when it's complete. It's a simple app, but it's far more effective than writing your to-do list down.
Doomi keeps you on track with a to-do list.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)File Furnace File Furnace is a unique app. Instead of impressing you with a nice design and several menus, the app displays a simple image of a fire. Over that, the app displays a message that reads, "Drop unwanted files here." It also features the sound of a crackling fire. As long as you follow the directions of File Furnace, and drag and drop unwanted files or directories into the fire, it permanently removes them from your computer. It's a slightly unusual app, but it's much easier to delete files with File Furnace than waste time with the Recycle Bin.
File Furnace is unique--and quite useful.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
This week, Corel came out with a brand-new suite of office applications for XP, Vista, and Windows 7 users. Corel Home Office ($69.99) bundles in three applications: Write, the word processor, Calculate, the spreadsheet maker, and Show, the presentations builder.
Corel Home Office differs from other Corel office suites in two ways. First, it's been written with a new code base, so it's not a perfect continuation of Corel WordPerfect Office. It doesn't hurt that the suite is the near-spitting image of Microsoft Office 2007 in layout and design.
Second, it has been optimized for Netbooks, both in terms of a smaller footprint (just over 100MB) that translates into lighter features (Corel sticks to core tasks) and a couple concessions for the small screen. The best of these is the F11 button, which hides the menu bar, significantly increasing the amount of screen visible on a Netbook.
As a result of its lighter features and lighter footprint, the suite is aimed toward home users--both casual consumers and those operating home businesses. While there are strong features in this suite--like a built-in PDF maker in each of the three apps--there are detractions, too. Converting files from Microsoft Office into Corel Home Office was sometimes off, and the results from pasting data were imperfect. While it's meant for the budget-conscious, freebies like OpenOffice.org offer a full-featured suite for no cost and may be better suited for Netbook, laptop, and desktop users looking for more powerful tools. However, it may also provide casual users with more functionality than they really need.
Corel Home Office isn't for everyone, but it does hold its own as a midrange productivity suite. It has the added bonus of giving Microsoft users a very familiar workflow and feel in a smaller, cheaper, and less cluttered format. Try Corel Home Office for free for 30 days, or read more of the pros and cons in our detailed review (with images.)
I'll save us both some time by getting right to the descriptions of three Firefox add-ons that shave minutes off my workday. Hey, they add up!
Navigate Web pages using only your keyboard.
When it comes to speed, I'll take a keyboard over a mouse any day of the week. A post from April 2008 explains how to create a keyboard-shortcut list you can access quickly. I also wrote about using your keyboard to move and resize windows and shortcuts for Word and Excel.
Now I can park the mouse when I surf. Instead of clicking, I enter the number Rudolf Noe's Mouseless Browsing add-on places next to each link. If I want to put the cursor in the address bar, I enter 0, while pressing 00 puts the cursor in the search field. Each open tab gets a number, each text box on the page gets a number, each drop-down menu gets a number. (I just wish the bookmark toolbar options and the reload, stop, and home buttons did.)
The Mouseless Browsing Firefox add-on assigns a number to each link and option on a Web page so you get there from the keyboard.
(Credit: Rudolf Noe)The program is loaded with options, including the ability to use only the numeric keypad to enter the numbers, so the top-row number keys aren't used to enter shortcuts. You can also require pressing the Enter key before the action occurs or change the delay between entering the numbers and taking the action.
Granted, the numbers can play havoc with a page's layout, but I can't count the number of times I've struggled to get the mouse pointer over just the right tiny link in a sea of tiny links. Being able to enter a number instead of clicking is a joy for this keyboard aficionado. (Warning: the add-on also slows your page-load speeds a bit.)
Finally! Copy Web text without the formatting.
I know how to create a keyboard shortcut that pastes plain text, but I didn't have the ability to copy and paste text from Web pages without the formatting until I downloaded Jeremy Gillick's aptly named Copy Plain Text add-on for Firefox. Just download the extension, restart Firefox, and when you copy text from a page, you'll see a Copy as Plain Text option just under the Edit menu's regular Copy option.
Copy Plain Text lets you do just that from Web pages in Firefox.
(Credit: Jeremy Gillick)You also get the Ctrl-Shift-C keyboard shortcut to copy the text without formatting. You can say what you want about one-trick ponies, but I only wish all software was this straightforward. Of course, Firefox could have this feature built in, but I'm not complaining.
The latest scores are a right-click away.
OK, I admit it. If I'm working late and missing a big game, I visit a sports site to check the scores. Now I save myself time by right-clicking Vinny 2020's SportsFox add-on, choose the sport, and see that yes, the Tigers dropped another one to the Bosox, and even worse, the Red Wings lost their second game of the Stanley Cup finals the the Penguins. (Might as well keep on working.)
Get up-to-the-minute sports scores inside your browser with the SportsFox add-on.
(Credit: Vinny 2020)Now I'm going to enjoy some of the time these add-ons have saved me. Go Wings!
The incredibly handy Howcast app lets you watch thousands of how-to videos. Free.
(Credit: Rick Broida)Apps like Evernote, Shazam, and Mint get all the glory, but there are plenty of other productivity-boosting, life-improving apps out there. Here's a roundup of five I'm loving right now--and because I'm a cheapskate (as well as The Cheapskate), they're all freebies.
- 6500+ Cool Facts Whether you're a trivia buff or just looking to learn more about the world, this nifty little app delivers. Read a fact, then tap the screen to move on to the next one. That's the entire interface--you can't save favorites or return to previous facts--but so what? Knowledge is power, and there's a ton of knowledge to be gleaned here.
- CardStar Best. App. Ever. CardStar replaces all the discount, reward, and membership cards in your wallet. To digitize a card, just type in a merchant name and your barcode number. When you get to the checkout, pull up the onscreen barcode and hand over your phone for scanning. My wallet just got four cards thinner!
- Howcast Need to know how to fix a leaky faucet...while you're standing at the faucet? Howcast delivers how-to videos wherever you need them. You can view featured, recently added, and random videos (just give a shake), or search for what you need. Second-best. App. Ever.
- iWrecked--Auto Accident Assistant Fender-bender? iWrecked helps you record all the necessary details, complete with photos, and turns them into an insurance company-ready PDF. It can also find nearby taxi and towing services and dial 911. This is one app you hope never to need, but find indispensable when you do.
- White Noise Lite Trouble falling asleep at night? A little white noise might do the trick. Just choose a sound--a thunderstorm, waves crashing on a beach, chirping crickets, etc.--and set your iPhone (or second-gen Touch) on your nightstand. The app features a volume fader and timer so your handset can "drift off" after you do.
Okay, your turn: What apps make your life easier? I'd prefer to hear about freebies, but don't be shy about nominating apps that cost a few bucks.
