Tuesday, June 8, 2004

HELP COMPILE "THE WEB USER'S ESSENTIAL LINKS AND FREE DOWNLOADS" LIST My Salon Blog colleague Ted Ritzer keeps a list of Useful Web Sites (for all web users, not just bloggers) originally compiled by Kevin Kelly, of Wired, The Well, and Whole Earth Catalog fame. Kevin no longer maintains his list, and instead has an intriguing Cool Tools site, but it's only for the rich -- virtually everything on the site costs money, often a lot of it. So Ted and I agreed it's time to update the Useful Web Sites list, and we need your help. What links and free downloads should every self-respecting Internet user have on their desktop? The list should not include pay sites, nor should it include news sites, blogs or other sites that appear on blogrolls (too many, and too subjective). Nor should it include highly specialized sites (I have a personal list of favourite genealogy sites, but I realize that few people would consider these 'essential'). To make the list manageable, I've identified 21 categories for the essential links (let me know if you think I've missed an entire category). If I get enough response, I'll publish a list of the Top 3 in each category and keep it on my sidebar or Spurl it (Spurl lets you keep your web bookmarks online and share them with others). The examples shown for each category are my personal favourites and some of them are eccentric, so they may not make the Top 3 list. Quite a few of them come from the excellent Jason Lefkowitz' Quality Software list (thanks to Internet Time for the link): Search engines -- e.g. Google Converters, voice recognition tools and translators -- e.g. Reverso Language Translation Internet browsing tools and aids -- e.g. Firefox browser, Xnews newsreader Website composing and management tools -- e.g. HTML-Kit web page editor Publishing tools - e.g. PDFCreator Word processing and office productivity -- e.g. OpenOffice File and desktop management -- e.g. FilZip compression software, Furl digital filing cabinet Writing aids -- e.g. The 39 Steps, Rhymezone Reference tools -- e.g. IMDB movie & TV show database Music and book sellers -- e.g. FYE, CDBaby, McNally Robinson Consumer information -- e.g. CNet product reviews File sharing tools Internet streaming radio/video -- e.g. ShoutCast Connectivity and discussion tools -- e.g. Thunderbird e-mail, SightSpeed videoconferencing, Trillian IM and chat integrator, Skype VoIP Multimedia tools -- e.g. PhotoPlus image editor, IrfanView image viewer Website/RSS feed aggregation tools -- e.g. BlogLines site aggregator, Spurl online bookmarking Network/community builders and expertise finders Software download sites -- e.g. Download.com, Tucows Investment tools and information -- e.g. MLS real estate finder Electronic Payment and LETS tools Anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-spyware/adware utilities -- e.g. SpyBot anti-spyware What are your essential links and invaluable free downloads? [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "postCosmos" hasn't been defined.] 11:49:12 AM    comment []

Marc Freeman sent me an e-mail with... Marc Freeman sent me an e-mail with a more expansive explanation of TrustyFiles private file sharing capability. Seems to be nicely viral. I ask him about RSS enclosures. We've actually had Private File Sharing since we launched back in January. It works as follows: The user is NOT connected to the P2P networks, so there's no way for a public P2P user to get the data regarding the files being shared. The sender selects a file and clicks the Send button. This starts our Send A File feature. An email web form displays for the sender to enter the recipient's name and address. The sender clicks Send the File and an email with a TrustyLink is sent to the recipient. The TrustlyLink contains file name, IP addresses, file size, etc. The recipient simply clicks on the TrustyLink in his email. TrustyFiles starts and connect to the recipient to download the file. The recipient doesn't have to do anything except leave TrustyFiles on. The advantage is the robustness of P2P protocols. The recipient client will continually to try to connect and download what it can. The client can handle partial downloads, interruptions, etc. without any problems, and will continue to download as long as both sender and receiver are online. [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "postCosmos" hasn't been defined.] 10:32:38 AM    comment []

Not-so-smart cut & paste Just one of the reason's I'm not using Entourage any more. Entourage enables "smart" cut & paste by default, which does things such as selecting an entire word automatically when you drag over it, and adding a space at the end of a word. Some of these features can create problems, however. When cutting & pasting e-mail addresses between Entourage and other e-mail software (Letterrip, for example) the address will have a trailing space appended to the selection. Since e-mail addresses cannot contain spaces, the address will be invalid. Disabling "Use smart cut & paste" from Entourage's General Preferences will prevent this from happening, and also allow you to select only part of a word. [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "postCosmos" hasn't been defined.] 10:10:09 AM    comment []

WeatherMenu 3.6 I just d/l this. It looks interesting and I'll let you know how it goes. I've been using Watson for the local weather and maybe with both, I'll be able to get a better picture of what's going on. About WeatherMenu Displays complete weather information in the menu bar. You can set up multiple cities and have each city represent in the menu bar or as sub-menus of the main menu. WeatherMenu displays current conditions, extended forecasts, radar, weather alerts, complete solar and lunar data as well as showing the moon phase in the menu bar after sunset. [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "postCosmos" hasn't been defined.] 10:07:03 AM    comment []

Apple recognized among 'Ten Best Web Support Sites' Apple was among those recognized in the Association of Support Professionals' seventh annual "Ten Be... [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "postCosmos" hasn't been defined.] 10:00:15 AM    comment []

Security Update You should already have this in your Software update, automatic update. Security Update 2004-06-07 closes all of the recently-publicized security vulnerabilities. Even better, it’s well-documented. [Macro error: Can't call the script because the name "postCosmos" hasn't been defined.] 9:35:43 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Paul W. Swansen.