Random thoughts on life
I’ve not hidden in the past my dislike of certain aspects of Apple products that I don’t like.
And today’s news that there are reported problems with the iPhone 4’s data connection didn’t surprise me. It appears that they’ve embedded the antenna in the bottom corner of the phone and, held in hand, it rapidly looses signal (especially, it would appear, it you’re left handed). That’s not too good.
The problem with touch screen keyboards are that they, for one reason or another, slow to use. If you’ve never come across the concept of “swipe” keyboards, the idea is that that you don’t life your finger and simply drag your finger across the keys – it’s quicker but the software has to be smarter as a result.
There are a couple in the market, ShapeWriter being my favourite (but this is no longer available). The other is SlideIT, but I found the GUI horribly off-putting. However, Swype (which is now being bundled on some phones at launch) is now available as a free Beta to try out. It’s not in the marketplace, so you have to get it via their website.
Swype is quick, but seems to lack some of the features of ShapeWriter that I like – for example, not needing to indicate repeated letters and one key to change case. I’ll try both and report back 😉
A bookmarklet is a browser shortcut that runs a small JavaScript script, adding useful and immediate functionality to whatever page you might be browsing at the time.
There are many, many to be found on the internet – the site marklets.com is a rather complete collection of around 1000 that you can use.
However, one of the most useful bookmarklet related sites is the Bookmarklet Combiner, which lets you generate your own Bookmarklet, consisting of links to others that you specify.
But, to save you the hassle of searching, here are 21 I’ve found to be the most useful. To use any of them, simply drag the name to your Bookmark list at the top of the browser.
Modify Page
1. PageZipper
This appends multiple pages together to form one, continuous page. Useful on blogs, for instance, where a post may be over divided into multiple pages. [Homepage]
2. PrintWhatYouLike
If you wish to print a page, this lets you modify exactly what you want – turn off background printing and images, for instance. You can even mark which part of this screen requires printing. [Homepage]
3. Readability
This lets you strip everything on a website you are viewing but the content of the article itself. Again, useful for blog reading. [Homepage]
4. Remove Bloat
This eliminates all occurrences of Flash, Java, music, and third-party iframes from a page. This can be particularly useful on those sites where browsing is reduced to a chore thanks to an over abundance of Flash animations!
Downloading
5. Bitlet
Click on the BitLet Bookmarklet when you want to add a “download by bitlet” link near a torrent you want to download. [No longer available]
6. ClipNabber
Download almost any video from any video sharing site. [Homepage]
Passwords
7. View Passwords
Display all passwords on the page that are otherwise not visible – e.g. those displaying as asterisks. [Homepage]
8. BugMeNot
Many sites often free access, but only after signing up to an account. BugMeNot is a service that provides shared signins to popular sites, saving you the hassle of having to sign up first. [Homepage]
9. SuperGenPass
SuperGenPass uses a hash algorithm to transform a master password into unique, complex passwords for the Web sites you visit. And because it’s a bookmarklet it never stores or transmits your passwords. [Homepage]
Web Development & Design
10. Design
Design is a suite of web-design and development assistive tools, encompassing utilities for grid layout, measurement and alignment. [Homepage]
11. Firebug Lite
This is a cut-down version of the well-known Web Development tool, designed to work on other browsers other than Firefox. [Homepage]
12. WP Toolbar
Appends the default WordPress admin menu to whatever page you’re currently on (assuming you’re on a site that’s running WordPress) and styles it with CSS, fixing it to the top right corner. [Homepage]
URL Sharing
13. Email This
Email details of the current page to others. This doesn’t use your own email client, but the email is sent via its own site – simply provide your own email address. [Homepage]
14. Facebook Share
Send details of the current page to your Facebook account, read to share. [Homepage]
15. GmailThis!
Like Email This but uses your own Gmail account – a “Send” window appears with the site details pre-filled in. [Homepage]
Bookmark
16. TheThingsIWant
Save online product pages to the TheThingsIWant website, where you can share, view and buy. [Homepage]
17. Read It Later
Allows you to save the current URL to a special Read It Later account, which you can then view later. [Homepage]
Miscellaneous
18. FreezePage
Stores a copy of the web page that you’re looking at on their servers, for you to access later. [Homepage]
19. Translate
Use Google to translate the current page. [Homepage]
20. Bit.ly
The popular URL shortening service provides a neat sidebar where you can quickly create a short URL and even share it on Twitter [Homepage]
Update: Removed Centricle.com links as the site no longer exists. Also removed SuperGenPass bookmarklet from page as it was causing it to break – please use the link to the homepage to use it instead.
If you’ve not heard of Pogoplug then you’re in for a treat.
This is a bright pink box (don’t let the colour put you off) that you connect to your home router. Then, into the Pogoplug, you attach a hard drive to one of the 4 USB ports – it can be external hard drives or even memory sticks. Now you can access the contents of the drives wherever you are, via Windows Explorer (like any other drive).
It’s simple, and the functionality is constantly being expanded via the Pogoplug website (it’s via the site that your drive is connected to your remote PC). They even have a public API, to allow developers to expand the capabilities.
To top it all off, they have iPhone and Android apps to enable you to access your Pogoplug as well. The Android version has recently been updated with the following new features…
I’m hoping to get a Pogoplug soon for review and I’m very much looking forward to it – this looks an excellent bit of kit. Expect a WordPress plugin of some kind coming out of it as well (I can’t resist an API!) 😉
It costs from £79.99.
I have 2 IM clients running on my Netbook – Windows Live Messenger and Google Talk. Between them they take up over 200MB of memory.
So, I’m looking for an Instant Messaging client to run on my netbook that will run Windows Messenger and Google Talk. Optionally, Gmail notification would be good too. I don’t think that’s too big a wishlist.
In all cases I installed them on my Netbook whilst on my work’s wireless network – this is relatively open but has some port restrictions. None-the-less, both the aforementioned clients work at present.
Miranda
First up was Miranda, which got installed and, not long after, uninstalled. It doesn’t appear to support Google Talk by default – if it did, it wasn’t obvious. I tried searching the site for plugins to do this but came up empty-handed.
A search on the forum seemed to show people messing around with changing server names in config. files, which I’m hoping was not the default way to get Google Talk working. Anyway, I didn’t find anything.
Digsby
When installing you are prompted to install a “Digsby Donates” browser plugin and then, later, a Babylon toolbar (you have to decline for it not to install). At the end there are a number of advertising options to untick before completing.
Digsby uses its own account system, making it easy to use elsewhere. The interface is simple and adding accounts is easy.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work, hanging for some time when attempting to connect before failing. It works fine at home, so this must be down to port limitations at work.
Pidgin
During the Pidgin install you can select whether various URI handlers are supported – all are abbreviated terms with no explanation as to what they are. Also, you can choose a language localisation from a list which appears to be in no particular order. I eventually found EN_GB, which I assume is British English. When it comes to adding in the spell checking support, the languages are listed alphabetically and in full.
After that it was relatively straight forward and I was able to add my chat accounts easily.
Unfortunately, like Digsby, nothing was able to connect.
Trillian Astra
Installation is swift, with few options to choose. However, it does try and get you to install the Ask toolbar and make Ask the default search provider – just be wary that you have to untick TWO boxes to prevent this. Once installed, you have to sign up as a Trillian account, which provides a single sign-in solution.
The default interface is a bit over-engineered so I swapped it to the simpler alternative. My chat account were easy to add and I can also show Twitter and Facebook. If any of your logins are attached to a mail account (e.g. Google Chat) then notifications can be made. This provides a simple interface to all your social networks, but it can be a bit cramped running it all from a small chat window.
The one problem I did have was that new mail notifications are shown on the screen only for a set amount of time. After that, there’s no icon animation, etc, to show that mail has arrived.
Trillian does has a wide range of available plugins and, once set-up and minimised, uses just 22.8 MB of memory.
Meebo
Meebo is an online IM client – simply sign up for their site and you can add all your IM details onto the site for instant access. They also provide a desktop notifier tool which will inform you of any incoming IMs and emails.
You can’t send a message without signing on the Meebo website and, more crucially for me, their mail notifier is damn annoying – the mail icon remains there until you click on it to launch your email, even if the mail has been read and gone (for example, from a phone or another PC).
I know it sounds a small issue, but its a damn annoyance that ruled out Meebo for me.
Conclusion
From the above you’d think I’d chosen Trillian. But, no, the mail notification is an issue for me. So I’m left with my original Windows Messenger and Google Talk installations.
Miranda was too difficult to set-up and Pidgin and Digsby simply wouldn’t connect through my companies security settings.
If anybody has any further suggestions then, please, let me know.
