Archive for the 'Freeware' Category

Scribd iPaper is a fantastic way to preview documents online, without having to download and install the necessary apps for viewing locally. Think of it as Adobe Reader for the web. Except you can also preview Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and many other file formats.

Witch is a System Preferences utility for Mac OS X, allowing you to customize the process of cycling between windows, which is traditionally accomplished with “Command + Tab” (“Alt + Tab” on Windows).

The traditional approach has a few drawbacks, specifically on Mac OS X:

You are limited to cycling only between open applications, as opposed to […]

Desktop sharing is an incredibly useful approach for collaborating on ideas, holding presentations, or simply accessing remote computers. Zoho Meeting meets the needs of desktop sharing for small businesses and independent entrepreneurs. The product is straight-forward and practical. And did I mention it’s free?

RSS Popper is a feed subscription plug-in for Outlook and Outlook Express users that bring RSS, RDF and Atom support, as well as auto-add from Internet Explorer and synchronization support with other readers like Bloglines.

Pownce lets users post messages, links, files, or events. Messages posted to an account page are viewable by friends and “fans” of an individual. Once a message is posted, it can be replied to and forwarded, and there are a couple options for recipients (such as users that have not yet received the message). Pownce requires an age and zip code to create an account, somewhat intrusive by today’s privacy standards. The sign-up page has a real-time validation effect that is very nice, and the website and application are very attractive in general. Sign-ups are by “invitation only” at this time, but anyone can sign-up for an invitation on the Pownce site.

While browsing the web - it’s a luxury that we don’t have to manually type in a URL, because our favorite sites are already saved as bookmarks. But sometimes it’s necessary to go in and manually edit a URL in the address bar.

Tim Westergren was in Minneapolis Thursday, July 26th, to talk about Pandora, the company he founded in 1999. Tim is originally from Excelsior, MN which is a suburb of Minneapolis–a good piece of local trivia. Pandora is an internet radio service growing in popularity, recommending music in innovative ways, and attracting droves of fans from around the world (though recently Pandora was forced to disable service outside the US to the chagrin of Pandora and its happy non-US users).

Sometimes it’s helpful to change the location of your iTunes music library.

For example, I currently use Amazon S3 to store my music through iTunes, but since it’s a network drive, it’s really slow when importing CD’s, or downloading songs from the iTunes Music Store.

The reason is because it has to upload at the same time it downloads. I’ve seen some strange things happen when I attempt to do this, so to be safe, I always change my iTunes music library to somewhere local before I try any of those tasks.

Joost is currently private beta software that intends to bring a richer television viewing experience (for free) to users around the world, with high-quality content, social features, and minimal advertising. Joost was formerly known as The Venice Project, and deserves your attention because it is the latest software from Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis of Skype and Kazaa.

Microsoft Photo Info is a tool for adding metadata to your photos. Released in January 2007, this is a free tool for Windows XP SP2 or Vista (32-bit versions) that will help you update batches or individual photos with titles, keywords, descriptions, locations and other information. I’ve been using Photo Info to add metadata to photos I’ve shared on Flickr for 2 days, and it has worked better than any of the other Windows solutions I’ve tried thus far.