Since I've moved to a Mac, I've had quite a bit angst over the inbuilt calculator on dashboard. I can't exactly pinpoint why. Perhaps it is because the screen is small and sometimes when you click on a number, it doesn't register. The calculator that came bundled with Windows worked better for me.
So it is a bit ironical that Calq is an application that works for both Mac and Windows, when for once, the Windows folks don't actually need such an application. Aw well. Maybe after reading about Calq, Windows folks will want Calq anyway. :)
Calq is a quick and nifty calculator that you can call up with a hotkey combination. What pops up is a small window that lets you type in your calculations from your keyboard. It recognises brackets: (1+2)*6; it even remembers the last 100 calculations! Just click the up arrow to look through your calculator's history. How useful! 
And when you are done with your calculations, the calculator fades away unobtrusively.
Perfect. :)
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Free stuff I cannot do without: Calq
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Free stuff to write home about: Picasa + Hello
One of the best things about having a few large players dominating the cyber-world is that when they buy over promising online services with the aim of increasing their market share, they tend to offer it back to the public for free.
When Yahoo! bought Konfabulator (see earlier post), it became freeware. Picasa, a photo management software, used to be a paid-for service. Since Google bought it over in 2004, it has become freeware as well. More power to us.
I wouldn't dare say that Picasa is the best product for organising your photos because there may be better and more professional photo management software out there. But it works for me. The first time I loaded it up, it searched my hard drive for photos and automatically sorted them by date, and then by the folders I had created in my hard drive. So under "2006", I would have, for example, "Valentine's Day Lunch", "Christmas at J's", "Malacca", etc.
Adding keywords to photos is a breeze. All you have to do is to use your mouse to select the photos you want with the Ctrl key held down, go to "keywords" under "view", and type in your keywords. The next time you want to find, say, a good picture of your mother to send to your family, all you have to do is to type the keyword you had set into the search bar (`mum') and it'll pull out all her beautiful photos.
Picasa also makes batch editing easy. Under "Picture" and "Batch Edit", you can apply all of these effects to a large number of photos at the same time: batch rename, rotate, auto colour, auto contrast, sepia, warmify, black and white, and "I'm feeling lucky" which I assume does auto colour and contrast.
Picasa also has a useful bag of tools for you to edit your photo with. You can crop, straighten, undo red eye, etc without having to use a resource-heavy photo editing software. It also saves the original for you in case you change your mind.
Picasa is cool, but Hello is even cooler. Hello is a photo sharing software that is nothing like flickr. Flickr is awesome when you want to share your photos with the world. Hello is impressive when your sister is online halfway across the world and you want to show her ALL your photos of your recent mahjong party, including the ones of you holding out a thong (i.e. not safe for public consumption), and she wants to show you pictures of her dog, both at the same time.
It is blazingly fast. It isn't like sending a picture via MSN where you click, wait for the other party to click, wait, wait some more, then "hey, cool! nice pic! what were we talking about again?" Hello sends photos boom! boom! boom! Literally that quick. Just drag and drop. And you get to see what the other party is looking at so when your sister says "What nice legs!" (we use skype so that we can chat while looking at photos), you can check to see if she is really talking about your legs before grinning to the moon.
And this is really fun: it tickles us to no end every time. Using any of the following in the chat box on Hello will give you a different falling emoticon.
:)
:(
;)
:P
:o
:| (our fav)
<:)
lol
love 
What fun. :) The best thing is that when you are done talking and laughing over the photos, all the photos that your sister sent to you is conveniently saved for you in the section "from hello" in a folder titled "from your sister" in Picasa.
It really doesn't get better than this.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Free stuff to boink for: Firefox 2.0
I've installed the upgraded Firefox 2.0 and then I configured it using this guide.
Firefox 2.0 is very easy to configure. All you have to do is to type about:config in the address bar and change the value of the keys you would like to update.
These were my changes.
| Key | Value | Comments |
browser.tabs.tabMinWidth | 0 | This removes the scrolling function on the tabs. Not being able to see all my tabs bothered me. |
browser.urlbar.hideGoButton | true | This hides the "Go" button in the address bar. |
The rest of the updates, like the built-in spell-checker, close button on tabs, and increased security against phishing and stuff, I digg!
The full list here. Frankly, I couldn't be bothered to read through it. Read More!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Free stuff I cannot do without: PrimoPDF
Once in a while, I find an absolute gem of a free software. PrimoPDF is one of these.
PrimoPDF lets you convert your word documents, webpages, powerpoint handout slides, etc. into PDFs for free, and, believe it or not, the process is as hassle-free as in the propriety version.
Below is the PDF I created from my powerpoint handout slides.
To create a PDF, all you have to do is to open the document you want to convert, click "print" and choose "PrimoPDF" from the printer list. It will ask you if you would like it to print to screen, print, ebook or prepress resolution. You can also control the security settings for the PDF you create, which controls whether users can print, copy, and add comments.
After you specify where you would like your PDF to be saved to, print your document like any other document and there you have it. Your very own PDF. It's a gem!
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Pretty stuff I cannot do without: Macfox Graphite
Blogged about Macfox last month and Kelly Cunningham herself stopped by to let me know that the graphite version is now available.
It is sweet. I like. :) Thank you!
Friday, May 26, 2006
Free stuff I cannot live without: Konfabulator
Except it is not called Konfabulator ever since Yahoo bought over it. It is now called "Yahoo! Widget Engine". Konfabulator rolls off the tongue so much better though, but thanks to Yahoo!, Yahoo! widget engine is almost exactly the same as Konfabulator (just with a few name changes) and it is FREE.
Why can't I live without this nifty programme? Because of a widget that pulls out my events and to do list from outlook and puts it on my desktop. This is a screenshot of my desktop.
This widget, formerly known as PIM overview, is my personal secretary. It reminds me of lunch appointments I've forgotten about, little things that I need to get done, and with one click of a button, tells me the schedule for tomorrow as well. I am atrocious about keeping track of what day and date it is, so by pressing F8 once, it brings all the widgets to the front, including my calendar widget.
There are as many widgets as there are personality types. Folks are constantly creating new widgets: you could get one for itunes, a werewolf monitor (that tracks the phases of the moon), the weather, a fancy wastepaper basket, all kinds of clocks, RSS news headlines, notepads, blogpads, and practically anything, really. What I would really like to see is a Chinese input widget, but unfortuantely, neither my programming nor my Chinese is good enough. :)
Have fun!
(Tip: To adjust the opacity of the widget, right-click the widget and select "widget preferences". I think translucent widgets are cool.)
Monday, October 24, 2005
The Perfect Solution to Measure Distance
This is by far the perfect solution for penny pinching runners. Since Streetdirectory started charging for its route calculation services, I've been searching around for the best solution to calculate the distance of my romps around Singapore. I've finally found it. It is the free software MapEdit, coupled with a map of Singapore studiously put together by a few dedicated GPS enthusiasts in Singapore and Malaysia. What a great bunch of folks! I am very appreciative of their hard work.
Instructions:
1. Install MapEdit
2. Register as a member at malsingmaps.com
3. Download Singapore map
4. Open Singapore map with MapEdit
This is a screenshot of the Singapore map on MapEdit.
To calculate distance on MapEdit:
1. Zoom in to required area.
2. Select "Create object" on toolbar.
3. Mark points of route with mouse.
4. When done, right-click and select "End".
5. Specify type of object (as far as a runner is concerned, this changes only the colour and thickness of the line drawn in) and name the route.
6. To see distance of route, select "Select Objects" on toolbar. (That's the little white arrow.)
7. Right-click on route and select "Properties". The distance is in the "Elements" tab.
To save map with running routes:
1. Save map in "Polish format".
2. Export map to "Garmin IMG/ cgpsmapper.exe".
3. Save map.
As a bonus, malsingmaps.com also has downloadable maps of the roads and trails in Malaysia. Best of all, this solution is completely free. It does not require an internet solution, and is quick and easy to use. :) Great stuff eh?
