The iPhone famously solves many of life's little problems--you can't decide where to eat, you've got nothing to read, you need to update your Facebook status right now--but who's going to solve the iPhone's problems?
For instance, maybe it's low on storage. Or it's having trouble connecting to a Starbucks hot spot. Here's a list of five common iPhone ailments and the apps that aim to cure them.
Why let music consume precious iPhone storage when Simplify Media can stream your entire library from home?
- You're running out of storage. Apple may have a 32GB iPhone waiting in the wings, but how does that help you and your storage-strapped model now? Here's one radical idea: delete all your music. Then install Simplify Media, a $3.99 app that streams your entire music library from your Windows, Mac, or Linux PC. I've been test-driving the app for a few days and it works like a charm. Just think of how much space you'll free up for apps, videos, photos, and the like.
- You're texting your way to the poorhouse. Tired of dropping an extra $20 per month for unlimited texting? How about a one-time fee of $5.99 instead? That's the price of Textfree Unlimited, which, true to its name, lets you send and receive an unlimited number of text messages. It's not perfect--you need to enable "push" mail if you want new-message notifications--but it'll definitely save you money.
- There's no way to check your SMS count. Prefer to stick with old-school texting? It would be nice if you could see how many messages you have left for the month. Pageonce just took the wraps off Cell Minute Tracker, a 99-cent app that shows not only your SMS usage, but also your AT&T account balance, rollover minutes, and more. (You can even pay your bill.) Check out Jessica Dolcourt's full review.
- There's no to-do list. Third-party apps to the rescue! Chapura's KeyTasks provides robust task management, and it syncs with Outlook. (But $9.99? Ouch!) Appigo's Todo offers iCal syncing for Mac users for an equally ouchy $9.99. If you'd rather sync your tasks to the Web, try Remember The Milk. The app's free, but you need a $25/year pro account.
- Connecting to Starbucks' Wi-Fi is a hassle. Oh, the hoops you must jump to tap a Starbucks Wi-Fi network. For a mere 99 cents, Easy Wi-Fi lives up to its name, making AT&T hot-spot connections a one-tap affair. No monkeying around with text messages and all that: you'll be online faster than you'll be sipping your latte.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
If you want to manage and keep track of your Gmail task list outside of Gmail, or Google's special iPhone front end, there's a new tool to help you do it. Called gTask Sidebar, this Firefox plug-in will put Gmail's task list in your browser sidebar. It's basically an IFrame that emulates what you get in Gmail, although without any skinning or the capability to pop it out as its own window.
You can create, complete, and edit lists and tasks the exact same way you do it in Gmail. And instead of having an instance of Gmail open, or your task list in a pop out window that must be managed outside your main browser window, you simply pull it up or dismiss it using a small button that hangs out in the bottom corner of your browser.
There are a few things that bug me about it though. For one it doesn't let you re-size the list, which in Gmail is nearly twice the width. It also doesn't let you have two different task lists up at the same time, which is a shame considering it has an extra frame below it that remains unused no matter how large your list gets. Also, it uses the same log-in cookie as any other Google service you have running, which means logging into another account logs you out of the task list. Regardless, having this installed is a much simpler way to keep your to-do list close at hand.
Note: The screenshot to the left has been edited to fit the size of this blog post. In reality it's noticeably taller. You can see it in its full size here.
Trying to get work done is tough if you have an Internet connection. The constant urge to take a peek at a video on YouTube or check your personal e-mail is a siren song that for many simply cannot be ignored. Luckily, there are several sites and browser add-ons that can help keep us in line, be it with basic productivity or making sure we do not stumble in moments of weakness.
Gmail "e-mail goggles" and "take a break" labs add-ons
Don't drink and e-mail.
Want to send that e-mail at 4 a.m.? Unless you're up early, and getting a jump start on the work day, Google's Gmail thinks you're drunk and will wisely make you do the math problems to prove you're not. Of course, if you really want to outsmart the machine you can simply turn this Gmail labs add-on off from the settings menu, which requires no math whatsoever.
Likewise, the "take a break" labs add-on can make you stop whatever work you're doing to go enjoy the finer things in life. It keeps tabs on how long you've been working in Gmail and will give you a pop-up that requires doing something else for 15 minutes before coming back to your in-box. This is recommended if you don't want to install one of those ergonomic nag programs on your machine.
E-mail discipline
E-mail discipline bars you from using certain sites until you get work done.
(Credit: Mozilla)Want to hop on Facebook or check your personal e-mail for a little while while drudging away at work? You'll need to earn it with E-mail discipline. This Firefox add-on keeps you from visiting nearly 20 different sites including MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter without doing a little bit of work between sessions. As long as you ignore these places for two hours at a time it lets you browse for a short while, before putting up a nag screen that tells you to get back to it. Users are able to override the nag screens at any time by clicking the "cheat" button.
Procrastato
Like E-mail discipline, Firefox add-on Procrastato works off a blacklist of sites you probably shouldn't be visiting. Once you're on one of these sites (which you add in manually) it starts a timer in the background. If you're there past your allotted amount it gives you a pop-up message telling you to get back to work.
MeeTimer
If pop-up nags aren't your thing, and you don't feel like being scolded for bad online behavior, worth checking out is MeeTimer. Once installed it simply keeps tabs on how long you're spending on each site and breaks it up into percentages--including how much of that was done during "work" time. Consider it the browser equivalent of parental guilt trip. It's not mad at you, just disappointed that you spend 29 percent of your working day on Facebook.
See how your daily browsing is broken down with MeeTimer. You might be shocked.
(Credit: Mozilla)HassleMe
If you want the nagging features of Google or Yahoo calendar with some level of anonymity there's always HassleMe. The site will send you a friendly reminder e-mail to do something, be it to take out the trash, reply to a certain e-mail, or finish a project. You get to pick how often it sends these messages, and it promises to change up the times ever so slightly so you cannot anticipate when it will arrive.
ReminderFox
If clogging up your e-mail in-box with reminders sounds less than desirable, check out ReminderFox. This Firefox add-on puts a to-do list on the side of your browser. You can set deadlines for each task, along with reminders that will pop up, and can be acknowledged, ignored, or delayed, just like in Microsoft Outlook.
LeechBlock
Along the lines of MeeTimer and Email Discipline, LeechBlock lets you organize sites you probably shouldn't be going to in sets. You can prioritize each set, and block yourself out of using them down to certain times of day, or how much time you've already spent using them. Consider this something similar to the parental settings on a TV, keeping you from accessing content you shouldn't be looking at when you're supposed to be working.
Any we missed? Leave them in the comments.
Imagine Regmon on steroids, and you'll have a glimpse of this home-run hitting process watchdog. Process Monitor's simple spreadsheet-like interface displays processes through a user-created filter. The interface lacks simple single-click column sorting, however, columns are easily shown or hidden.
Process Monitor displays an extensive amount of information that will appeal mainly to advanced users. Context-clicking a process offers a pop-up menu of options to display additional information or affect the process. The pop-up is also available as the toolbar Event menu. Other pull-down menus manipulate the great amount of information to highlight trends. A button bar offers single-click icons for the most used commands. Three commonly used filters appear on the bar to show Registry Activity, File System Activity, or Process and Thread Activity. This app should appeal to intermediate users and above.
You can rely on Z-Cron as a robust scheduler that can handle not only shutting down the computer, but also launching programs, leave reminder notes, and cleaning directories. Similar to the Unix Cron scheduler, and far more powerful than the native Windows task scheduler, Z-Cron is an aggressive sergeant at arms, able to tell your computer what to do and when to do it, leaving you to get on with your life when you're away from your machine. Besides tasks, Z-Cron also has the capability to schedule tasks to run daily, weekly, monthly, once, and regularly at your system start-up.
The most useful tool that Z-Cron possesses, and what makes it such an excellent utility, is that it comes with a database of Embedded Tools. These tools are the basis for everything it can do, and they include a range of tasks such as an alarm clock, the capability to shut down a remote computer on your network, activate a USB peripheral, and connect or disconnect from the Internet.
Note that the installation is in German, although the program is in English. Still, that's not a cause for concern: getting the program going is about as simple as can be. The value of being able to have the computer do necessary tasks while you sleep or while you're away is a great weapon in any power users' arsenal.
If you're looking for an Expose emulator to port that cool app-switching feature from the Mac to Windows, DExposE2 is probably about as close as you can get to a direct copy for either Windows XP or Vista. It gives them three choices for jumping between open programs, and it doesn't slurp up more RAM than it should.
(Credit:
Devrexter/DExposE2)
Using the F9 key, you'll be able to minimize your applications to fit on the screen, then choose one to bring to the front by hitting Tab or left-clicking your mouse. F10 highlights only the active windows belonging to the application currently running in the foreground. F11 reveals the desktop by shunting all active windows off to the right side of your screen, visible only as a thin and unidentifiable bar.
DExposE2 lets you set up other hot keys or move your mouse to the corner of the screen to activate, and there's also a Windows Taskbar icon you can use to access it's features--but the hot keys are more than adequate. Other customizations include setting a background image, determining the behavior of previously minimized windows, and customizing program labels. Three levels of graphical quality should allow those with less RAM to scale the program to their needs. Although some crashes have been reported, DExposE2 worked flawlessly for me.
When Power Downloader needs to set a schedule for his computer to do basic tasks when he's not around, he needs to rely on a robust scheduler that can handle not only shutting down the computer, but also launching programs, leave him reminder notes, and cleaning directories. For all that and--cliched as it sounds--more, Power D relies on the freeware Z-Cron.
Z-Cron's list of available tasks should make any power user take note.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Similar to the Unix Cron scheduler, and far more powerful than the native Windows task scheduler, Z-Cron is an aggressive sergeant-at-arms, able to tell your computer what to do and when to do it, leaving you to get on with your life when you're away from your machine. Besides the aforementioned tasks, Z-Cron also has the capability to schedule tasks to run daily, weekly, monthly, once, and at the system start-up.
The most interesting tool that Z-Cron possesses, and what makes it such an excellent utility, is that it comes with a database of Embedded Tools. These tools are the basis for everything it can do, and they include a range of tasks such as an alarm clock, the capability to shutdown a remote computer on your network, activating a USB peripheral, and connecting or disconnecting from the Internet.
Power Downloader notes that the installation is in German, although the program is in English. Still, that's not a cause for concern: getting the program going is about as simple as can be. The value of being able to have the computer do necessary tasks while you sleep or while you're away isn't lost on the globe-trotting Power Downloader, and leaving his computer in control of such capable code means never missing an important chore.
This simple utility enhances Windows' ALT-Tab functionality by displaying screenshots of open windows along with their icons. TaskSwitchXP Pro's familiar Windows XP-style interface is accessible from the system tray or by using the conventional ALT-Tab hot key. The icons are arranged in a vertical list on the right, while a snapshot of the selected window appears on the left.
TaskSwitchXP Pro is extremely handy, especially with multiple instances of a particular application. The graphic display makes it much easier to choose the right window. You'll find an assortment of settings for customizing the program's appearance, choosing and defining hot keys, and accessing the program. TaskSwitchXP also is available in several languages.
Security Process Explorer is a freeware replacement for the Windows native Task Manager. It comes with some useful functions, but the simplistic layout doesn't adapt well when displaying deeper investigations into the relationships between different processes. Still, it's worth looking at.
It offers many of the same functions that other process-managing programs offer. You can explore the connections between different processes, block processes, end them, and view in-depth information about a particular process. You can even search on the Web for a particular process, but unlike other programs, Security Process Explorer takes you to a proprietary page to learn more.
It's stable, it only eats about 4MB of RAM, and beginning users will appreciate that the information clutter isn't overwhelming. Still, the program feels unfinished, as if an interface that veered toward either slickness or geekiness might serve it better. There's no doubt, though, that you can get what you need from this useful app.
Ever wonder if your PC is keeping secrets from you? Wonder no more. The utility What's Running reveals all your system's active processes, services, drivers, and connections.
It's like Windows Task Manager, except far more informative. The cramped multipane interface is a bit hard to read, but even it has its good points: it lists processes in a parent-child hierarchy, not a bad way to accidentally spot malware. It also lets you choose which columns of information to display, and it makes stopping or prioritizing processes as simple as a mouse click--a right-click, to be precise. It even lets you control which programs launch at start-up, and includes information on active DLLs, EXEs, and drivers.
Lacking only the ability to replace the Task Manager outright, What's Running tells you things you didn't know you needed to know.
