Video Downloader
There's this specific Monty Python sketch on Youtube that I absolutely love. Every now and again I'd browse over to Youtube, search for the video, wait for it to buffer, and then watch it, while my limited bandwidth drops quicker than a B-side Springbok does a rugby ball.
Google to the rescue
So, I decided to get myself a little tool to download this video, because I really like it. I Googled 'video downloader', or something to that effect, and came across one called save2pc. Nice little program, and it works.
Save to AVI, even from behind a proxy
You have the option of saving the movie in the AVI format. This is the free version's option. If you use a proxy to surf the web, you can enter the details, and voila, you're good to go.
Where to get it
You can get save2pc at save2pc.com. Please do make sure you don't download stuff you're not allowed to download. And if you do get into trouble, you didn't get this info from me...
South Africa 2.0
The Mail and Guardian brings you amatomu.com, South Africa 2.0. Eish bra, this is a shweet site eksê. Their claim: The South African blogosphere, sorted. Which just proves that these okes are murg en been South African.
If you're not a blogger, you probably have no access to a computer. It seems blogging is an event to be considered for the Olympic Games. It has taken off in a big way, and it doesn't seem like it will come in for landing soon. So it was only a matter of time before a South African Technorati was born. And good people of South Africa, they're doing a brilliant job.
If you dig a blog post, Shmaak it
Amatomu gives you the ability to subscribe to their site, adding your blog to the list. you can add a 'Shmaak it' button to your posts, which readers can click if they... shmaak it. The more clicks your posts get, the higher up your ranking goes on Amatomu, thus creating exposure for you. Shweet little marketing trick hey.
Choose your favourites
Amatomu lets you add favourites to your profile, so you won't forget who you really shmaak.
Check your blog stats
This is a really nice feature. You've got your own stats page. It shows you page impressions, unique visits, links from amatomu and so on and so on.
Get a blog
You thought blogs are for secretaries who have nothing to do in their spare time? Think again. Blogging is an excellent way to get the word out on your products or services, IF you do it in the right way.
Google Gulp Beta
Google is for sho' the king of the search world. This awesome company has brought out yet another winning product for the average internet surfer. Check out Google Gulp, the searcher's thirst quencher. Google claims that this product will 'maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty.'
Finally, someone who can recognize the hard work that goes into searching for something on the web, and is willing to reward it.
Excellent marketing info site
Ok, this one is for people who want to stay in the loop of all things web marketing. It's a site called marketingpilgrim.com, and belongs to Andy Beal.
It's like People magazine, or Life, or Perez Hilton, for all things marketing online. They push out a couple of fresh articles daily, about new events in the world of wide web, like what Google's up to, who Yahoo has acquired, and what Facebook does in his spare time, when he's not wasting employers' valuable time, which is money.
So if you want to know what's hot and what's not, whether you should invest in Google, Hulu or Digg, check out The Marketing Pilgrim's site. He might be able to help you decide.
Browser bookmarks (favourites, in Internet Explorer) a powerful, free tool
This is something I only realised the other day. Now I cringe to think how lost I'd be without it.
Organize them
Like so many powerful tools out there, bookmarks are only as useful as you make it to be. If your bookmarks look like it's been washed in a tumble drier, don't expect them to help you be a more efficient human. Take the time to create different folders for different websites, and make sure you group them, and that you are grounded in this habit.
Save them... just in case
Any good browser has the 'export' option for your bookmarks. This is a great way to make sure you do not lose them, should your computer decide to die. In Firefox you'll find this option under the 'Bookmarks' tab. In Internet Explorer 7, you need to click on the 'Add to favourites' button.
Import them into your favourite browser
Any decent browser gives you the option of exporting your bookmarks, which you can then import into a different browser. This is very handy if you have to work at different machines, and you don't want to have to remember from memory where you got that sweet deal on a chewbone for Fluffy.
You're human, right?
So when you use something made for humans, you'd expect the item you're using to make you look like you've got natural flair for using it, whatever it might be.
Take a look at what the guys over at humanized.com have to offer. They have some brilliant products, packaged in an easy to use, humanized website. People, this is what design is all about. Sigh... beautiful.
RSS
If you do not know what RSS stands for, or how it works, or what it's good for, be not alarmed! You're not the first, and you're certainly not the last.
Instead of spending time on what RSS stands for, or the origin of this powerful tool, let's look at how you can benefit from using it.
Get updates from your favourite sites immediately
RSS allows you to receive news articles from a site immediately (or pronto, or stat). In other words, if you subscribe to a site's RSS feed, you receive their latest news articles, as soon as it is posted.
Let's say you love reading articles on alistapart.com, but you hate having to go to their site to check if they have any new articles every so often. Also, you do not want to subscribe to their newsletter, because you don't want them to have your email in their database. So what do you do?
Consider this list of options:
- Ask a friend to subscribe to their email newsletter, and keep you updated
- Phone their offices and ask them to keep you updated by calling you weekly
- Do nothing and miss out on great articles
None of those options are good. They suck! So, subscribe to the feed, and keep in the loop of things. All the cool kids are doing it.
You need something to receive the articles with
Just like you need an email client to receive emails, so you also need a client for your RSS feeds, called a feed reader or feed aggregator. You get some fine feed readers out there, and they're free as well. Google has one, to name but one, and we all know Google is the new pink. So all you do is subscribe to one of these feed reader services. From there you can add feeds from your favourite sites.
I came across a sweet little feed reader. It's free, sits on your computer, and works much like an email client (such as Outlook or Outlook Express). It's called RSS Bandit, and it works beautifully. You can download it here. What's really nice about this feed reader, is that you can delete messages from your inbox once you've read them, or if you feel you don't want to read it. I hate an overly full inbox. Call it outboxolitis, but an inbox overflowing, sucks.
Receive RSS in your email inbox
Another option that I find highly appealing is subscribing to a feed that is delivered to your email inbox. The catch here is that you have to supply your email for this service. Is this bad? Could be, but if you trust the site, it shouldn't be. You then receive feed snippets from where you can click through to the site to read the full article.
What's the main difference between feeds and email from a user experience perspective?
A feed is a one way communication mechanism, whereas email is (or at least should be) two way (or more).
Opening a document in a new browser window while surfing the net
A small little piece of advice. Very small, but can be very useful. When you browse the internet (on a Windows PC, it must be added), and come across a link that you would like to open in a new window, hold down the control (Ctrl) key, and click on the link. This forces the link to open in a new window, or with newer browsers, in a new tab, depending on the setting.
Firefox Browser
I've always been an Internet Explorer fan, especially Internet Explorer 7. Other browsers (yes, there are many out there) I simply kept for development purposes. This has changed a lot for me. I started using Firefox after reading about the nice development tool addons at compassdesign.net. I had to try it out, and I must admit, I'm hooked! Not only is there a nifty li'l developers toolbar, but also an XML toolbar! Add the Google toolbar, a sidebar, and you have a browser that looks something like Dreamweaver, only free. That's not all folks. Another sweet little addon allows you to do simple browser functions like opening a new tab, switching between tabs and more, with the sweep of your mouse!
Check out Mozilla for all their projects. Top quality stuff at the cost of a download.
PDF to Image Converter
A friend of mine needed to convert a PDF file to an image format. So I decided to search our good ol' friend Google for an answer or two. Came across many 'free' products, as usual. The problem is, there's always a catch to most of these 'free' products. Maybe irritating banners flashing inside the programs. Maybe an image watermark which can only be removed if you purchase a valid license. No free lunch, they say. Then I came across the following PDF viewer and editor, and it is seemingly totally free, unconditional! Unless, of course, these guys are planning to send me an invoice a month from now. This is one amazing tool, and info on it can be viewed at www.docu-track.com. Follow the download link from there should you be interested...
Ubuntu Linux operating system
This week I went hunting for more HTML building tools, after getting frustrated with some of the tools I paid for. Lately I'm really on a mission to see what can be got for free. Is it possible to find joy in tools you don't pay for? YES!!! Take Mark Shuttleworth's Ubuntu project, for instance. A brilliant product at the cost of a download. Ubuntu operating system is open source, and it is a joy to the eye as well as the mouse hand. Unfortunately many people still hang on to Windows (and I have nothing against Windows. I use Windows XP home...GASP!!!),for fear of installing an operating system that they think is inferior to the one they got with the machine they purchased. And is there such a thing as a free lunch in this world of ours? Well, if you don't check the menu, you'll never know.
Free HTML editors
For all those out there looking for yet another free HTML editor, check out the following editor brought to you by Chami. It's called HTML-Kit, and it is really something special. I must be honest here. I am a self-confessed freeware/open source download junky, so coming across this page really tested my self-control levels. This baby has so many plugins, I didn't know where to start! This must be one of the best editors I've seen in quite some time. Be warned though. It's not really a wysiwyg editor. You need to have some coding skills to be able to operate it. And if you can't, I'm sure they have a plugin teaching you how to...;)
Another editor I came across was one straight from the W3C. It's called Amaya, and judging by their Google pagerank (9/10), it's a very popular editor. It's aimed at web standards web design, which is a brilliant concept if applied correctly. Check it out.
Last, but not least, is Aptana, which is and IDE. It is aimed at Javascript junkies developing DOM pages. This editor is going places, with PHP support included in their roadmap. Can't wait for it!
Using these editors with Firefox (with all the web development bells and whistles) should put you on a web design power trip.
Stickies
Now here's a welcome addition to my toolbox. I'm a note fanatic. When I go shopping, I make notes of what needs to be bought, or I force the person sending me on an errand to make notes of all that needs to be done. It just makes sense. So I happily downloaded the following Sticky note program, and am addicted to it. It's basically exactly the same as the yellow Post It notes you can buy at an exhorbitant price, only it's free! and it sits on your desktop where you can easily read it. It's lightweight, meaning it opens really quick. You can change the colour, font, and what not else. Also, you can set an alarm to it, and it hides until the set time and then takes over your desktop till you click it. The best annoying thing I've come across in quite some time. It can be downloaded here.
Free image site
sxc.hu is the place for you if what you're looking for are free images of all sorts and shapes from all over the world. It's really hard to find the right image(s) for a project sometimes, and then not having to burn your conscience (not to mention break the law) by stealing it from someone who put in a lot of effort to create it. So this site was an awesome find, kind of like Willy Wonka's factory to Charlie. You initially spend hours just browsing in disbelief that people would put out quality images like that at no cost. But be warned, not all the images are free. At least the terms of download for all images are clearly visible for all to see. This could be something as trivial as asking the owner permission to use his/her image on your site. Fear not, the people are generally very friendly. Seems it's a friendly place with warm people and good images. Sounds almost like Google...
Syncback Backup Tool
Backing up your work is essential. And yet, so often it's treated as a peripheral task, something that can be done later. I've been the victim of a system crash (several times, in fact), and it is when this happens that one starts to see the light concerning backing up your files and folders.
At one stage of my life I religiously used a Packard Bell PDA, which came with a sync station, which enabled synchronization between the PDA and my notebook (laptop) by simply plugging the sync station in with the PDA inserted into it. This came in extremely handy, and led me to search for a similar system to use between my notebook and our main network computer. Of course, it has to be free.
After installing one that seemed quite usable, I came across another one that met exactly my needs! It was like walking into KFC and getting two Sweet Chilli Twisters for the price of one (you have to be South African to understand the meaning of that). It's called Syncback, is brought to you by 2brightsparks.com, and can be found here. It has numerous settings, either for sync-ing or backup purposes. The first run I made with it was as a backup, and thereafter I changed the configuration to synchronization. You have the option of specifying different folders for backups between two linked machines, which is really sweet. Flexible and free, two of the most beautiful words when it comes to software, and Syncback gives you both. Of course, there is an upgrade version available, but the free version is more than sufficient for simple synchronization or backups.
