Flickr Badge Generator

Ever since Flickr removed the link to the Badge Generator on their main page, I've been finding it difficult to find it when I need it.

So, once and for all, the Flickr Badge Generator.

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Free stuff to download for your kids: Scratch

Do you have kids? If you do, they may have fun with Scratch, an easy-to-use programming language that lets you create animations. It works on both PCs and Macs.

I was excited when I first heard about this, but I probably won't continue to use it, primarily 'cos Scratch clips can't be exported to a more accessible format, and the pre-made animations are just too limited and choppy.

But like I said earlier, kids under 12 may have fun with this programme.

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Free stuff I cannot do without: Calq

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. :)

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Free stuff I cannot do without: Skim

All I want to do is to be able to highlight my PDFs so that I don't have to print it and underline it manually.

Skim does this, and more. Not only does it let you highlight text, it also lists all your highlights in a column on the right. (See screenshot above.) It lets you insert notes, both sticky-style and inline.

The inbuilt search engine is sweet too. You can search the text of the PDF (search bar on the top of the left panel), or you can search through just your highlights and notes (search bar on the top of right panel).

Combined with Yep, an iTunes-like application that tags and organises your PDFs, you are good to go. Yep costs US$34. I may buy it if I get a scanner.

Skim and Yep are Mac-only apps.

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Free stuff for all your concept mapping needs

Are you a visual learner? Do you like Concept Maps?

Want to see where your blog stands in relation to the World Wide Web?


Pencil Shavings in relation to the World Wide Web

This blog is the small red dot at the top right of the picture above. Apparently, the most important link on my page is Hackosphere.


Zoomed-in image

Click here to find out where your blog stands in relation to the WWW.

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If you don't own a blog, perhaps you may be interested in this visual representation of the New Testament. Every single person's name is visible. How cool is that?



This map is created by Crossway. If you go to this page, you can click on any of the names to see who the person is related to. See picture below for the people related to Paul.



Crossway has also created visual representations of Popular Names of God in the Bible and Who Gets Mentioned Together in the New Testament.

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If you like words and their definitions, check out Visual Thesaurus. It gives the various meanings of a word in a visual map. See the map for "love" below. The definitions are colour-coded for adjectives, nouns, adverbs and verbs too.



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If you want to create your own concept maps, download CMAP, a free software that works for both Windows and Macs users. It is really cool and easy to use. It makes me wonder why I bothered creating all my grammar maps on Word.




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Still can't get enough of concept maps? Check out Visual Complexity, your one-stop portal for everything visually complex.




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Ok, I'm finally done.

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Free stuff I cannot do without: Actiontastic

Alright, forget what I wrote earlier today about dragging items from OmniOutliner to the iCal to-do pane. The manual syncing manoeuvre I recommended does not hold a candle to a new application I found: the sleek, simple, integrated Actiontastic.

Like kGTD, Actiontastic is based on David Allen's Getting Things Done. (Unlike kGTD, it does not require you to purchase OmniOutliner Pro.) Actiontastic allows you to collect data quickly, organise your tasks by project, as well as set contexts for each task. Best of all, it syncs with iCal and is compatible with Quicksilver. It even syncs with the iPod.

Tasks are easily collected via Quicksilver with the Actiontastic plugin. You can specify which project and context the task belongs to by using ">" and "@" respectively. For example, if you type in Quicksilver:

Borrow "March of the Wooden Soldiers" > Comics Appreciation @library

Borrow "March of the Wooden Soldiers" will get sent to the project Comics Appreciation with the context library. Sweet....



Tasks collected via Quicksilver get sent straight to the inbox in Actiontastic.



At your leisure, process the tasks by hitting the "Play" button on the bottom left of the screen. You can then sort it into a project (or single action) and allocate a context.



Plan your projects in the "Projects" pane. The first item in any project is considered a "Next Action". You can drag items to order them.



And it will be automatically updated in the "Contexts" pane.




And when you are done, hit the "sync" button at the bottom right and it syncs with iCal, creating individual calendars for each of your contexts.

The syncing works the other way as well: if you change something on iCal, it syncs right back to Actiontastic.

It is fast and the interface makes sense to me: the best kind of app. Thank you, Jon Crosby!

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STOP PRESS! REGION-FREE MACBOOK!!!!

Region madness no more! There is a solution!!!

I don't know whether it is because of the latest version of VLC (release 0.8.6c) or if it is because of Mac OS X 10.4.9 (check out the comment in this forum), but, dang it dang it dang it, it works!!!!!

VLC played my region 1 and region 3 one after the other without a hitch! Afraid that it only worked because it changed the region coding of my supposedly unflashable MATSHITA DVD-R drive, I loaded up DVD player and inserted a disk of the "wrong" region, and I was relieved to find out that I still had all 4 changes to make.

Oh my goodness, I need to celebrate....

Steps:
1. Download the latest version of VLC (release 0.8.6c), and/ or
2. Do a software update (Apple > Software Update)

[Aside: your computer may start crashing after updating to 10.4.10. If so, download the airport extreme update here.]

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OmniOutliner + iCal = the low-tech, free way

One of the limitations of using iCal to organise my work-life is that I cannot organise by project and context concurrently.

Is it a little confusing? Let me explain it a little better. For example I have two projects: to clean my room and a course that I need to pass. If I organise it by project, this is how it looks.

1. Clean room
• Buy mop (Next action)
  
• Research best way to remove coffee stain
  
• Clear out top shelf
  
2. Pass course
• Buy textbook (Next action)
  
• Read online notes for class
• Read textbook

If I were to organise it by context, this is how it would look like.

1. @town
• Buy mop
• Buy textbook
2. @home
• Read textbook
• Clear out top of shelf
3. @computer
• Research best way to remove coffee stain
• Read online notes for class
  

At present, my to-do list in iCal is organised by contexts, but it doesn't give me a good overview nor a platform to plan the details of each individual project.

kGTD (kinkless Getting Things Done) + OmniOutliner Pro solves this problem in a way that is nothing short of beautiful. Check out the video here to see how it works.

In a nutshell, what kGTD + OmniOutliner Pro does is that it allows you to create a list of projects in OmniOutliner, allocate contexts for each task within each project, and even allocate "Next Actions". When you hit "sync", all of that gets synced with iCal, with individual calendars created for each context.

But OmniOutliner Pro costs US$69.95. (Educational price US$49.95)

I may purchase it some time in the future (or wait for OmniFocus); meanwhile, I'm going to steal the idea and implement it with the OmniOutliner that was bundled with my MacBook instead. What I'll do is plan my projects in OmniOutliner, then drag the tasks into iCal under the right context.

OmniOutliner:



For example, I can drag "Get a haircut" under my Make-over Project in to the to-do pane in iCal under the context @town. And viola, there it is. Manual syncing! Haha!

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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.

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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.

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Bells and whistles

Nothing cheers me up better than adding bells and whistles to this site.

I've added a new Google search bar on the right (get the free code here). I use the search option in other people's sites all the time so I'm not sure why it took me so long to put one in when I've accumulated enough words here to write a mini-nonsense-thesis.

Which reminds me that I really ought to figure out how to back-up this site. When I first started blogging, my mantra was to reveal as little as I can about myself and to write as if I would lose everything tomorrow; but over time, I've inadvertently invested more and more of myself into this space, and I must admit that it would sting (a little) to lose everything.

But words are fleeting you know? Yet, the irony is, these words would outlive me.

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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!

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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!

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Free Pretty stuff I cannot do without: Macfox

If you can't have a Mac, you can at least dress up your PC to look like one. :)

Introducing Macfox, the Mac OS simulator for firefox.

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Free stuff I cannot do without: Skype

Everyone knows about Skype so I'll let the pictures do the talkin'.


Talking to sis. Isn't she beautiful? :)


Talking to dog.


Pop talking singing to dog

Skype alone is worth the $43 I fork out each month for the internet.

Tip: if you can't get video to work with the latest Skype version, try installing an older version instead. While Skype 2.0.0.103 works great with my A4 Tech webcam ($35 at Sim Lim), skype 2.5 does not.

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Free stuff I cannot live without: Gizmo Project

Does free calls to any mobile or landline from your computer sound too good to be true?

It isn't. With Gizmo Project, you can call mobile phones and landlines in 60 countries for nothing more than what you pay for your internet connection. These 60 countries include Singapore, Malaysia, the USA, South Korea, and the Vatican, in case you would like a hearing with the Pope.

This is the deal: the call is free if the person you are calling is registered with Gizmo and has included their numbers with their profile. To call, click their name in your contact list, choose the number you want to dial (landline or mobile), and hit "dial". The call is completely free. Accounts also have to be active.

I have called my sister's US mobile (and spoken to her answering machine four times). I've also used it to call mobile phones in Singapore. The reception is not as good as computer-to-computer (for e.g. skype) but it is comparable to one of those cheap calling cards. But who bothers? the call is free!

I tried telling my buddy who has a fiancée in South Korea about Gizmo Project over lunch today but he is the type who can't really be bothered with new-fangled technology. I think I may try to persuade his fiancée instead, 'cos it'll be a shame not to make use of this.

In other places, Gizmo project is said to use less RAM than Skype. I still like Skype a lot for the oh-so-crisp sound, more so now that they have fixed the video problem. It is one powerful and amazing programme. But Gizmo project lets you call mobile and landlines for free, taking it to a whole different level.

Go download now!

Technorati Tag: Gizmo Project

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Free stuff I cannot do without: Firefox

Firefox is a drool-worthy browser. There are so many features that are worth an entire post on their own, such as draggable tabed browsing, the find feature, bookmarks that support a RSS feed, and the wonder of wonders, firefox quick searches.

Tabbed browsing
Firefox allows you to open new pages in tabs which means that you don't have to constantly go to your toolbar to check what pages you have open. The new version also allows you to drag your tabs and rearrange them, which is plan nifty. You can also set your home page to be series of tabs instead of a single page. I love tabs! Tabbing shortcuts:

Ctrl-T	Opens a blank page on a new tab
Click scroll button	Opens clicked page in a new tab
Ctrl-click	Opens clicked page in a new tab

Quick Searches
Ever since I switched to firefox, I do all my searching through the address bar. To set up quick searches, go to the search engine you frequent, for example Google. Right-click on the search bar and choose "Add a keyword for this search".



Type in a name you want to call this search and a keyword (Google, g) and save it under "Quick searches" (that's where I save mine anyway). The next time you want to search for something in google, go to the address bar, type in "g searchterm", hit enter, and you're all set. I've search terms set up for Amazon, google images, google calculator, national library, wikipedia, bible gateway, street directory etc.

Live bookmarks
Live bookmarks are easy to add. Go to "Bookmarks", "Manage Bookmarks", "File", "Add New Live Bookmark". Type in the RSS feed and there you go. (To get the feed, right click on the RSS icon of the page you want and click properties. Copy the link.)

Firefox Scrapbook
ScrapBook is a Firefox extension that helps you to save Web pages and manage the collection. Good for research!

Other shortcuts

Ctrl-B	Opens Bookmarks
Ctrl-F	Opens "Find"
Ctrl-G	Finds next occurrence of search term
Alt-K	Opens Scrapbook Panel

Next post: Google Calculator

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Free Stuff I cannot do without: Online Chinese Input Method Editor

I think the Online Chinese Input Method Editor (IME) ought to have a name change. It is too unwieldy a name for such an efficient and powerful java programme. With this programme, which does not require any downloading as all the work is done online, you can type out Chinese characters even if you don't have a Chinese input programme on your computer.

Just type in the han yu pin yin (that is, the romanised Chinese), choose which character you want, and select the number. If the characters are part of a commonly used phrase, you could save time by typing the han yu pin yin of both characters together. I love this input method because I am brilliant with multiple choice (how do you suppose I passed Chinese all the way up to `A' levels?) so I can usually choose the right character from a list, while not necessarily being able to write it off the top of my head. :) I am brilliant like that.

This IME is actually a sub-page of a Chinese-English dictionary that is quite versatile. You can type in English (for example `flower') and it will tell you how to write it in Chinese. You could also type in Chinese characters, and it'll tell you how to read it and what it means in English. Very useful if you can't remember how to say something in Chinese.

I actually wrote a post in Chinese a while back but for some reason Blogger couldn't pick up the Chinese characters. That is why this post is in English, really.

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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.)

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Free stuff I cannot do without -- Protopage

One.
Protopage.

I use protopage to keep me on the same page in between work and home. It is a nifty tool to keep links, lists, and what-nots, like a big online notice board with lots of sticky notes. This is a screenshot of my protopage. The sticky notes are retractable too: if you roll over the black tabs on the left, the content of the note appear.



Sometimes I am anal so all my sticky notes line up in a grid, but if you wanted to, you could overlap them to your hearts content, like this. Personally that would drive me nuts.



They have weather widgets and email widgets too, but I don't care too much for either. In my opinion, even the calendar isn't up to scruff. For my calendar needs I use konfabulator, which will feature in "Free stuff I cannot do without, part II".

Protopage loads up quickly and seamlessly with firefox, even on a lousy dial-up connection. There are many preloaded colour schemes to choose from; you can load your pics from flickr in a sticky note or as the wallpaper, and choose what colour you want each sticky note to be.

The best part? It is as private as you want it to be. You can password protect it so that only you can view the page, or you could click on a little "lock" icon on the bottom right to make your page public. Just a piece of advice: remember to log out after you are done if you are on someone else's computer because it doesn't have a time-out function like yahoo or hotmail.

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