Software

Learning Online and Finding a Real-Life Teacher

1 Comment / Gizmo of the Day, Software / By /

We thought we’d follow up our last post about online language learning site, Livemocha, with some more educationally-themed sites. As geeks, we’re always trying to learn something new, so it seems pretty appropriate.

Another more general online learning site is eduFire, which does include language education, but a host of other subjects particularly in business & technology. Their primary form of teaching is by video. Some of their classes are free, while others are premium starting at only $5 per video.

If online learning isn’t quite your thing, or perhaps you need more tactile and in-person education, find a class in your area. TeachStreet helps learners find and get matched up with teachers. Membership is free.

Livemocha – learn a new language online

Gizmo of the Day, Software / By /

livemocha online languageLooking to make that backpacking trip to Europe you’ve been talking about for years, but would like to learn some of the languages first? Take a look at online language education site, Livemocha, which has a number of free online courses in 36 different languages as well as more advanced, premium courses.

Livemocha takes your native language into account when determining how to ‘teach’ you.

PS> You may learn the language well enough not to need these translation glasses!

Memeo Connect syncs your Google docs to your desktop (PC or Mac)

Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet, Software / By /

memeo connectWith the recent update to Google Docs that allows users to not only create documents, but to upload existing ones, there are a few companies that are taking advantage of that to spawn new services. One such company is Memeo.

Memeo Connect is a desktop application for Macs and PCs that syncs up your Google Docs to your desktop. This is perfect for the road warrior who likes to work on docs while flying, or the company that wants to reduce bandwidth usage, and improve the responsiveness of working on docs.

Memeo Connect costs $9/user/year, and seems to be geared to small companies. However, Memeo would be well served to offer a free version for personal use, as they can probably get an uptick in sales from individuals who like it enough to push for their employers to adopt it.

Sleep Cycle iPhone app tracks your sleep patterns

Gizmo of the Day, Phones, Software / By /

sleep cycle iphone appRemember the Sleeptracker which tracks your sleep patterns based on your movement through the night? Well, they’ve got some competition in the form on an iPhone app called Sleep Cycle.

It uses the iPhone’s built-in gryoscope in a similar manner to the Sleeptracker. However, we’re doubtful of its accuracy as compared to the Sleeptracker because you have to place your iPhone somewhere on your bed, whereas you wear the Sleeptracker right on your wrist. Depending on how good/bad your bed is at transmitting motion, then Sleep Cycle is going to vary in its results.

We’ll give Sleep Cycle the win for the much better price ($0.99) although you do have to buy an iPhone first!

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $0.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Review: Mozilla Weave keeps your Firefox installations in sync

1 Comment / Gizmo of the Day, Recommended, Reviews, Software / By /

mozilla weaveMozilla Labs has just released Weave 1.0 and (so far) it rocks for sync’ing up my Firefox installs on different computers. Weave is actually a lot more than just a synchronization tool, but that’s the first service to come out of the project.

So what’s the point of it? Let me paint you a picture: I’ve got desktop and laptop computers that I run Firefox on, and it’s a pain to have to re-implement, transfer and/or update settings, tabs, history, bookmarks, etc. whenever any of those changes on 1 or the other. Weave now takes care of that for me automatically.
…

Review: Mozilla Weave keeps your Firefox installations in syncRead More »

7 Free Software Apps to Protect your Laptop

Computers, Gizmo of the Day, News, Software / By /

One of our great readers sent in this set of 7 pieces of free software that you can, and in most cases should, use to protect your PC laptop. Most of these also apply to your desktop as well.

I happen to use most of these and recommend them as well. At a minimum, you should be using antivirus, a firewall and backups.
…

7 Free Software Apps to Protect your LaptopRead More »

FOTOBOX Plus automagically creates slideshows from your digital photos

1 Comment / Cameras and Photo, Gizmo of the Day, Software / By /

fotobox plusPlug your SD memory card with digital photographs into Honestech’s FOTOBOX, plug the FOTOBOX in your PC and the FOTOBOX application runs you through a quick wizard and quickly creates a slideshow complete with effects.

You can transfer the finished product to DVD, YouTube, your iPod or save on your computer. That’s it!

Honestech makes the excellent VHS to DVD product (VHS to DVD Deluxe) that we reviewed previously.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $52.25
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Readability Bookmarklet for Web Reading

1 Comment / Networking & Internet, Software / By /

While cleaning up some old bookmarks today, I ran across a company that was acquired by Twitter which lead me to one of the owners Twitter’s feed. The last item in the feed then pointed me to a brilliant web experiment called Readability which is a arc90 lab experiment that provides a bookmarklet that you simply copy to your modern web browser’s toolbar. As you surf the web and find an article really worth reading, click on the bookmarklet and the article reloads in a reader friendly interface providing options to return to the original page and email or print the article. …

Readability Bookmarklet for Web ReadingRead More »

Latest version of Firefox, 3.6, is faster, has new theme feature, Personas

1 Comment / Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet, Software / By /

mozilla firefox 3.6Mozilla has released the latest version of Firefox, 3.6, and it claims a 20% speed improvement over v3.5. I just installed and startup certainly seems a lot faster. I’ve also noticed an improvement in memory usage.

New features include improved security features like anti-phishing and anti-malware detection and warning, improved JavaScript performance, support for new CSS features like gradients.

But the feature that I particularly like is a new type of theme called Personas which you can preview and install without a restart of the browser. Just visit GetPersonas.com, browse the over 30,000 themes, then simply roll your mouse over a swatch to see your browser immediately take on that theme.

If you don’t already have Firefox, you can download it for PC, Mac or Linux from www.firefox.com.

Lockheed Martin makes self-contained PC on a USB Thumb Drive

Computers, Portable, Software / By /

In what seems like a strange jump for a defense contractor, Lockheed Martin just introduced IronClad, a complete PC on a USB flash drive. IronClad contains all of the operating system, applications and user data in the 8GB stick made in conjunction with storage vendor, IronKey.

lockheed martin ironclad

The entire stick is encrypted with 256-bit encryption and there’s anti-virus protection for when you plug into unknown computers to run your ‘stick laptop’. The technology to run the OS from the stick was developed by LM.

Makes it sooo much easier to lose your ‘laptop’ now doesn’t it?!

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