Appatic

It took some weeks after Microsoft Pivot got itself available for Download, but the TED conference Demo from Gary Flake on Microsoft Live Labs Pivot is now online and ready to watch:

The session only last 6 minutes, but  it is breath-taking (more if you like data visualization or stat charts)  because it shows how you can navigate actual data. Map it in a relational structure and then look at it from a broad big picture or focus in a single detail filtered from either massive amounts of data or even just a single document. Truly inspiring. Just don’t take my word for it and give it a watch.

And remember that if you want to watch more TED sessions, you can do so with the TED Talks Silverlight 3 app from the comfort of your desktop (PC or Mac).        

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Microsoft Pivot

TED

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Adding watermarked text is actually easy. You can do it with office in several ways, paint and almost any photo editor. But you have to do it one by one and it then quickly becomes a slow chore you will not want to do anymore.

Watermarker is a tiny portable app (28k!!) and  all its purpose is to help you watermark photos in the quickest and simplest way. It is main attractive is not only only that it is a tiny portable app but that it let you watermark images in batches and select in what format you want them. So you can have 10 .jpg images and have them watermarked and turned into .png images in less than one minute. It is THAT simple.

The app is a open source codeplex project in a supposed alpha state (more like a beta), but i have tried it out and it works great in XP, Vista or 7. The developer is also looking for feature requests and opinions. In my case i would like to see the following in order to make it “perfect”".

1.-A option to select the height of the watermark in a picture: Top, Center or Bottom

2.-A option to indicate a level of text transparency

3.-A option to add a image instead of text. That way you can watermark them with your logo if you want.

If those 3 things get added later. Watermarker can be not just the good app it already is today, it can become a must have one too. But if you were in the look for a simple image watermarking app, look no further.

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Watermarker

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If you see something called Security Essentials 2010 (That can look as in the above screenshot) somewhere. Let it know to whoever installed it that it is a fake software full of malware. If you see someone recommending it anywhere, report him to the network or site moderator.

This thing trying to lure people into thinking it is Microsoft Security Essentials is a really bad piece of malware. You can read all the details on it here as stated by a Microsoft representative:

http://blogs.technet.com/mmpc/archive/2010/02/24/if-it-calls-itself-security-essentials-2010-then-it-s-possibly-fake-innit.aspx

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If your preferred way to get updates from your favorite blogs is E-mail. You should already know that not all blogs or sites count with this option or maybe do but they are only partial updates. The workaround to that is usually creating feeds from websites, then taking that feed to a RSS to E-mail service and then just hope that both services work right.

FeedMyInbox does the same thing in a single service. You can take any feed and send it to your E-mail, but you can also do the same with websites. 

So you can manage the sources you are getting the updates from  with a single dashboard.

The services is Freemium based. So you can keep track of 5 sources for free (site or feed) and if you want more you can choose a paid plan starting at $50 a year or $5 a month for 25 sources + more advanced and faster management.

I find the service very good but i think it is a bit overpriced. I think that it should start with a 9.99 a year service for 15 sources and then go up for the $50 a year or $5 a month but for 50 sources to make it attractive enough to be a impulse buy. But even then, 5 for free is a good deal. You just have to think on what 5 sources would you really really want to push to your E-mail.

If you are curious about it but still not convinced, they also got a nice video demo that shows how it works.

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FeedMyInbox

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Startpages seem to be in vogue yet again when it comes to the non-widget based kind.

Just startpages with shortcuts for the most frequently visited websites. No doubt that Opera 10 and Chrome 4 have something to do with this new found interest for what Opera calls the web Speed Dial and that later got shamelessly ripped off by Google with Chrome.

Fav4.org takes this idea to the bare minimum. Only 4 big icons for your 4 most visited websites. That is it. No more, no less. 4 striking and very soothing looking icons. I love the idea but dislike the limitations of it. Right now you can choose from a list of 73 web properties icons for your Startpage.

If your favorite webpage icon is not in here, the only thing you can do is to suggest it to the developer so it gets added later on. Right no there is still no choice to make the shortcut icons to open in a new tab but the developer says it is coming soon. Other updates are also going to be added.

Some Notes

But that still don’t overcomes the fact of ONLY being able to have 4 web icons in your startpage at a time.  As much as i like the idea of Fav4.org. I would like to be able to decide the layout for it. In my case i would go with 3 row levels and up to 5 icons per row.

(If someone makes a clone of this with that option, let me know. Of course that the developer of fav4 will never be able to add those changes without changing the name of the site.)

So the only option would be if there could be more 4 icon line-ups (lets say 3) that could be slide-out/pop-out to appear by a tiny pagination selector at the bottom (like the one you see in this blog). At least that is the only solution i see that could work for Fav4.org being truly enticing to more users and also remaining with the same look it has now.

However, if you like the idea as it is. Fav4.org is a good option for a minimal and pretty startpage.

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Fav4.org

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Tomboy continues to improve and with the 1.1.1 dev release. You can now have  it in Windows 7 with Jump Lists fully supported. A dev release can be considered of Beta quality, so avoid it if you are only interested in stable releases.

Other improvements include faster startup, better performance and snappier response.

Here is the full changelog for the 1.1.1 dev release:

• Awesome new Jump List support on Windows 7
• Rearranged Tomboy startup so icon appears within 0.5-1.0 seconds or simply faster than beforePrevent crash when entering empty notebook name
• 3 Bug FixesNew translations
• Translation updates: bg, bn, es, et, eu, he, it, nb, sl, sv, uk, zh_CN

For full information on Tomboy and its installation just go to  the original Appatic Tomboy Post:

http://www.appatic.com/2009/10/tomboy-10-simple-note-taking-app.html

If you are just updating, then just proceed to download the latest version below if you are ok with it being a dev (beta) release.

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Tomboy 1.1.1       <—Direct Download Link

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via Sandy Armstrong

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After almost 14 months without any update. Tasque is now finally up to date again thanks to the 0.1.9 release.  This release comes with

• Support for Mono >= 2.6  
• Customizable color highlighting in tasks. 
• Clear "New Task..." text in inputfield on drag and drop
• Option to change category via context menu
• Hiveminder improvements
• Close task window on ESC keypress
• Initial implementation of tooltip for the tray icon
• Translation updates for: cs, da, de, en_GB, eo, es, et, gl, gr, hu, id, it, ja, nds, pl, pt, pt_BR, sl, sv, th, zh_CN.

A seriously needed and worthwhile update for everyone using Tasque. Also makes it more palatable to those still in the fence on trying it or not.

Go to the Tasque post for full details on Tasque and its installation. If you are updating, then just proceed to download it.

http://www.appatic.com/2009/11/tasque-simple-todo-list-app.html

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Tasque 0.1.9     <—Direct Download Link

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via Mario Carrion

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After showing it off live in the TED conference. Microsoft Pivot has now been updated with a version that no longer needs invites. You just have to download, install and use it.

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Microsoft Live Labs Pivot

Microsoft Pivot Guide

Download Microsoft Pivot     <—Direct Download Link

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A lot has changed since it first appeared last year and now you no longer need invites to access it. Pip.io is now out of Private Beta.

Pip.io

To read my first preview post on the service just visit this post:

http://www.appatic.com/2009/11/pipio-social-operating-system-preview.html

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When you think about a Startpage service, you more than likely will immediately think of MyYahoo, iGoogle, Live Home, MyAol, Netvibes or Pageflakes.  What any of these have in common is that they are the most used Startpages (in the order i put them) and that there is a Widget factor to display information, games, news or other interactive content in them.

Start.io thinks that the Widget based Startpages are too complicated and that Startpages should return to their roots. When they were only simple html pages with live bookmarks (Activity monitored links like in Firefox) on them.

That is the whole concept behind Start.io. A Stylized page with different categorized sets of live bookmarks. If you hover a link, it will show in a tooltip if there is recent activity by counting how many new entries are in that page it is linking.  You need a account and after you have one it sets you a short linked startpage like this: start.io/username

You can then add some categories, customize your links and the style of your page look from 9 predefined styles or make your own custom style.

To make it easier to set up. You can import your links from a exported bookmarks file from your browser or import a OPML file from you Feedreader of choice. If  later on you decide Start.io is not for you. but you have manually setup your links, you can export them out the same way.

Start.io sets a long lasting cookie so you will be always logged to your Start.io account once you are in. The part of setting it up as the browser startpage is actually up to you to do manually.

While the idea is almost TOO SIMPLE. It got some good merits to it. The only things i would like it to have are: (1) a automatic browser startpage setup (why i do have to do that manually?), (2) that the links had dropdowns and counters just like in the Firefox Live Bookmarks bar and (3) that there were more page styles to choose from.  Would it also kill it to have Video DEMO’s and actual live examples for previewing the service?.

Forcing a user to setup a a account just to check out the service is a horrible practice that only results in unused dummy tests.

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Start.io

Start.io About    <—Service Info

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*Edited* (10/02/2010)