14 Jun 07 Capture Express, getting the best captures from the web

People who regularly writes blogs, news, letters, etc, use to need some graphical resources to illustrate what the text is about. Most of the images come today from the internet, and one of the easiest tools to get them in the shape and format you want is Capture Express. Although it is not a free tool ( you have a trial version of 30 days before purchasing it), it is quite straight forward and easy to use. Once installed and configured you just need to push a key on your keyboard ( usually F11, but it can be changed) and the capture screen will appear. You select the area you want to capture, select the format (jpg, gif, bmp, directly to the clipboard, directly to the printer, etc) and it is done. It is actually what I use to get images that I need for this blog, so I can’t say I am not happy with it :-).

09 Jun 07 Bandwidth Monitor

A very simple tool, but useful to see if our internet connection is working and at what speed, is BandWidth Monitor. With a half-transparent background, you can keep the monitor running on your computer while doing you usual stuff, and whenever you want to see why the internet is so sloooow or what is actually the speed you are getting from your provider, just need to move the mouse over the running icon and you will get the Download and Upload rates. Just a small tool to be always aware of your connection to the world.

06 Jun 07 Earth Explorer 4.6

Before Google Earth was launched, one of the most interesting programs concerning maps and satellite images of the Earth was the Earth Explorer, from Mother Planet. The new version of this software, 4.6, comes with some improvements in resolution, fixed small bugs and increased some data in the database used for maps location. The difference in resolution with Google Earth is still notable in some areas, although it has increased from 50m/ pixel to 40m/pixel for the whole world, but still misses details that satellite image fans like to see while browsing the planet.

The advantage is that you do not need to be online to enjoy your view of the world, as it comes installed in your computer. I personally use both programs now, combining images from Google Earth and Earth Explorer to identify those places I plan to travel or I simply have been and want to see them from different perspective. In all the versions, Earth Explorer comes also with several map layers, featuring countries, cities, earthquakes, political boundaries and coast lines. I would still love to see tiny details from every corner of the world, but I am sure this will be soon possible in the coming versions.

02 May 07 X-Setup Pro 9.0, optimize your computer

If you need a desktop tool to customize everything in your computer, this one is pretty much everything you can ask for. Just imagine that it needs even its own internal search engine to be able to offer you almost 2000 possible settings :-). We talk about X-Setup Pro 9.0, the last version of this popular software that will allow you to execute all sort of tasks, from optimizing your hard disk till improving your internet connection, without even having to touch anything in any Windows options, registry or control panel.

The program offers you a directory tree with the different categories of possible settings, or you can also use the search option and it will zoom in on any class of adjustments or settings you define. Easy and clean, and the changes can be reversed, so may you be not happy with them. A must have tool for all PC users!

27 Abr 07 Google Desktop Search Assistant

Google Desktop Search Assistant is a free plug-in that extends the search capabilities of both Google Desktop Search and Datacatch Librarian, allowing users to search their offline removable media and desktop in a single operation. If you are the type of consumer or user from small office/home office applications that regularly turn to low-cost removable and portable media solutions to store an ever-growing amount of data including files, photos, movies, music, and business archives, here is something that can be of your interest.

Datacatch Librarian is totally integrated with Microsoft Windows so provides a familiar view of archives, backups and other data stored on removable media. To locate a particular document, file or photo, a user simply browses files, folders and thumbnail images in the same way as browsing a computer’s hard drive. Alternatively, a user can type in a title or file name into the Windows search engine to locate the removable media.

25 Abr 07 Copy2calendar, create instant calendar entries

I’m a fan of calendars, agendas, TODO lists and everything that helps me to organise my work, my postings and even my private time :-). For that reason I use to keep everything quite well arranged in my Firefox and Outlook calendar, my paper agenda and also my mobile phone. If you, like me, can’t stand having to spend too much time to create just an entry in your calendar to remind you about something important, this tool could be useful for both of us :-).

The application is named Copy2Calendar, and it will allow you in a few seconds to create calendar entries in Outlook, Lotus Notes or Palm Desktop from text in email, web pages and documents. When you receive an email with the date and time of an upcoming event, you just highlight the text, press Ctrl+C twice and that’s it! A new calendar entry is created. 

The best is thing is that it is available free for non-commercial use, and it is able to find date and time specifications in 13 languages including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Swedish. So now, no excuse to miss that important date!

 

22 Abr 07 Twenga, shopping search engine

#Sponsored Post #

If this blog is about product and services reviews, the website we are presenting you now is more or less about the same, on a shopping search engine format :-). We talk about Twenga, which despite being still in their beta version, looks like is gonna be one of the majors search engines about new products and shopping options for european consumers. The search engine is focused so far in 4 european countries (France, UK, Spain and Italy), and according to their creators, Twenga is defined as a next-generation shopping search engine, which, since it was launched in 2006 uses a proprietary crawl technology to agregate merchant offers so to make it powerful and easy to use.

I have been playing around a bit the site to find out its capabilities. I like that the main categories are displayed quite nicely on the top bar, so it is easy to go directly to the directory of the item you are searching for, be it computers, photo, video gaming,  or supplies,  to name the ones I am more interested in.

While looking for a laptop ( yes, I want to change mine :-)), it was quite easy to sort out the different options by brand, price, store and other parameters, so I finally got up applying several filters to get to the one I may buy soon. In this way, it works in a similar way as Yahoo Shopping!, and although I would have liked to see more filters so to digg more in the products, I am quite happy with the choices I got.

Another option to help us consumers find out best products out there, which is indeed not always easy!