Handy Reference For Every Key On A Macintosh

Liquidcity have published a very handy crib-sheet of every accented or special character available on an Apple Macintosh keyboard along with the key combinations required to use them.

There are three sheets and they're available as JPEG images and PDF files, either of which you can obviously download and print. What you get are accented characters, accents, dashes, apples, dipthongs, ligatures, question marks, money symbols, mathematical symbols and more.

PersonalBrain MindMapping

PersonalBrain is a mindmapping tool that helps you organize all your Web pages, contacts, documents, emails and files in one place so that you can always find them - just like you think of them. This saves you time and makes your life easier! With PersonalBrain you can even find related items that you worked on, but forgot existed.

Mindmaps are used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas and they're definitely one of the "in" tools in the office these days. Some folk just like to work in a visual way and it's an easy way to take notes in meetings or to just bat ideas around a workspace and see what links to what.

You can download the full version and try all the features for 30 days and you can register and upgrade to get the full performance or keep using the free edition as long as you want. After 30 days if an upgrade to Pro or Core has not been activated, the program automatically changes to the Free Edition.


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OpenPlanning Lite

Hot on the heels of discovering OpenProj last week, one of my workmates showed me what looks like a useful, free project management tool called OpenPlanning Lite

OpenPlanning Lite can be download for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows and can also be used via a web browser. It's the free version of their business solution OpenPlanning and ProPlanning, which come with a rangle of individual and workgroup licenseing bundles, and you can upgrade to these at any time.

OpenPlanning Lite consists of…

• A basic project management client application (projects are limited to 20 tasks).
• A public online repository to exchange plan expertise with professional peers.
• Community support through the online forum.
  

OpenPlanning Lite projects are accessible on all platforms (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux) and may also be read by ProPlanning.

There's a fairly large number of public project plans and templates available for you to use. e.g. building a house, software development, moving house or starting a new business. Of course, if you create a really useful project, then you can post it up for use by the rest of the community.

Definitely worth checking out if you're looking for a project management solution.

Related Posts: OpenProj, An Open-Source Project Manager, Getting Things Done, Online Office Tools, Microsoft Free Word Processing

vConvert.net - Online Video Converter

The vConvert.net service allows you convert an online video to more popular formats like wmv, mov, mp4, mp3, 3gp, etc. Specifically aimed at Flash Video movies like those found on the likes of YouTube, vConvert.net converts FLV format video to the selected format faster and less lossy than a typical transcoder.

It's fairly simple - you enter the URL of the desired video or the page containing it, pick your target format from .wmv, .mov, .mp4, .3gp, .mp3 or .flv and hit the Convert and Download button. There's no registration required, it's free and, as soon as the video is converted, you can download it.

Other online video convertion services like Movavi Online, MUX, Hey!Watch, Zamzar and Media-Convert are also worth checking out.

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OpenProj, An Open-Source Project Manager

Finally, an open-source project management application has appeared to add another nail in the coffin of Microsoft's dominance in office applications.


OpenProj is a free, open source project management solution and is intended as a complete replacement of Microsoft Project and other commercial project solutions. Unlike Project, it's compatible with Linux and Mac OS X as well as Windows so it may prove attractive to users of those platforms.

OpenProj is ideal for desktop project management and is available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows even opening existing Microsoft or Primavera files. OpenProj an advanced scheduling engine with Project-ON-Demand and has Gantt Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts, Earned Value costing and more. Another plus point is that it's Java based as well so doesn't rely on Apple's buggy X11 environment to run.

AppleWorks Discontinued

Apple have declared their all-in-one software suite AppleWorks as "end of life"

Apple told resellers of the demise of AppleWorks last week, announcing that the software had reached "End of Life" status. It will no longer be sold. The AppleWorks website now directs users to the iWork section of Apple's website.

The original AppleWorks was written by Robert Lissner and released in 1984 by Apple for the Apple II family of computers, and at one point was the biggest-selling software package in the industry.

From: Macworld

I remember using the original version on Apple //e and //c systems back when I worked in Glasgow University. It even made it onto a Windows version but, now that Apple have added spreadsheet functionality into iWork, they've obviously seen that as the breaking point.

Seenly, An Online Photo Booth

Seenly is a web/Flash-based photo booth service. Like Apple's Photo Booth, which came bundled with models with a built-in iSight cameras, you can take snaps of anything your computer-connected camera can see. Unlike Photo Booth, it can run on any web browser with Adobe Flash installed so you can use it on any Mac or PC equipped with a video camera.

As well as a straight video capture, you can choose an effect to apply to the image and this is displayed in live mode so you can see what you're getting. The effects are Black & White, Negative, Sepia, Soft, X-Ray, Artsy Fartsy, Three-Slide, Mirror and Lomo 9.

It's a fairly simple web page. After you allow it access to your camera, you get a live video image with options to select an effect or take a picture.

Once you've taken a snap, it gets added to a roll at the bottom and you get the option of saving it or taking another snap. Saving the shot saves it to Seenly's server and you don't get the option to save to your own hard disk but you do get a link to the web page and a link to the saved image so you can share your images out with friends. They say they might remove snaps not taken by a registered user that haven't been viewed for over a year but if you sign up, it's free, then your snaps won't ever be deleted as long as your account exists.

There's also a Facebook application version that performs just like the full version and your shots can be posted to your profile or sent to friends.

Like most computer cameras, lighting can be an issue and I found my own shots a bit on the dark side. That's my problem though but Photo Booth can simulate a flash effect to brighten up a dark shot so it'd be nice to see that added in the future.

Windows Live SkyDrive

Windows Live Folders, Microsoft's online file storage service, has been renamed as Window Live Skydrive. The system is still in beta development so a change of name isn't unusual and besides, Windows Live Folders was a boring name to start with.

If you've got a Windows Live ID, then you get 500Mb of storage for free. You can then create personal, shared, and public folders and you decide who has access to each folder.

Private folders are for yourself. Shared folders are for you and your selected Windows Live contacts and you can allow any of those contacts to add or delete files as well. Public Folders are accessible by all, no Windows Live ID required, but are read-only.

Windows users can use Internet Explorer 6 or above and Macintosh users can get access via Firefox 1.5 or later. I've had a play around with it and it is pretty easy to use; pity there's only 500Mb on offer. Maybe once it's out of beta, we'll see an increase to more realistic capacities if they want to compete with other providers. For example: MediaMax give you 25Gb for free, the BT Digital Vault comes with 2Gb free, Google's Picasa Web Albums give 1Gb and divShare is unlimited.

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Movavi Online

Movavi Online, another free, online video convertion service, has appeared to stand alongside the likes of MUX, Hey!Watch, Zamzar and Media-Convert.

Movavi is a publisher of a suite of video editing, convertion and burning applications so they have a decent background in the technology.

Movavi Online is a free online web service that lets you download videos from YouTube, Google and other video sharing sites and convert them for your iPhone, iPod, cellphone or other video formats. You can also convert videos stored on your computer.

It'll convert AVI (DivX, XVid), MPEG (1, 2, 4), MP4, 3gp, 3gp2, WMV and MOV formats to…

• iPhone video (mp.4)
• AVI ( XVid)
• MPEG-4
• MPEG-2 (DVD Quality, PAL)
• MPEG-2 (DVD Quality, NTSC)
• iPod video
• iPod 5G video
• PSP video
• 3gp
• 3gp2
• MPEG-4 (.mov)
• Flash (.flv)

It'll allow you to convert up to five files in one conversion session and you can upload up to 100MB of data spread across the files allowed in any one conversion session. They also provide you with a variety of widget/gadgets to plug into various services such as Facebook, Mac OS X Dashboard, iGoogle, iPhone, Firefox and Opera. Yu can also plus a little codelet into your own web site or blog to allow your users to convert straight from your own pages.

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Floorplanner

If you've ever fancied having a play at re-arranging your furniture on paper or just need a set of floor plans for selling your house, then have a look at Floorplanner.

Floorplanner is a web-based floor planning application that allows you to create complex layouts for any room in your home. Floorplanner employs a simple drag-and-drop interface to customize virtually anything you can imagine, making it fairly easy to replicate any room and try out different layouts. It even allows you to work to scale.

A free account is available, which lets you design and share up to five floor plans and that really should keep most single-home owners happy enough but there are premium level accounts as well for the estate agents and property developers out there.

I had a quick attempt at designing my own wee abode and it was actually fairly straightforward. Embellishing the carcase of the structure is easy too as they supply a fairly large range of furnishings and fittings as well.

An alternative online solution is Gliffy, which is more of a diagramming tool but it does have floor plan designs as well. However, Floorplan focuses on one thing and it does it pretty well.

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