Ari Oskarsson – Litt om alt…

Bilderedigeringsprogrammer finnes det flust av, jeg kan nevne Paint Shop Pro, Gim,p og Adobe Photo Shop bare sånn i slengen, men dette er alle programmer som er avhengig av installasjon. GIMP kan innstalleres på minne brikke , men da må jeg huske på å ta med meg minne brikken.

Jeg har funnet picnik som ikke er en photoshop erstatter, men ett allright alternativ når jeg er hos
mine foreldre og “skal bare” redigere bort noe på bildet eller vise generelle fordeler ved å redigere bilder…

Dette er altså ett bildeediteringsprogram på nettet, du laster opp bildet og kjør endringer, og så kan du lagre bilde igjen. Foreløpig så er det i BETA og dermed GRATIS.

http://www.picnik.com/

Etter å ha blitt hektet på tagging/labling/merking av e-post via Gmail så har jeg ventet i spenning på når jeg kan gjøre det samme på mine filer. Google har kjøpt Jotspot for nesten ett år siden og mange bloggere har spekulert i at JotSpot vil danne utgangspunktet for Gdrive, en sentral for å laste opp alle typer filer som kan behandles via Google sine nett applikasjoner, og at i denne støtten så vil det være en eller annen form for tagging. Google har jo praktisert flere typer tagging, i Gmail og i Google Docs and Spreadsheets, så angir du en tagg for filen, mens man i Google Calender har ulike kalendre som fungerer som egne tagger. Hva de endelig velger blir jo spennende å se.

Men mens vi venter så har jeg kommet over ett veldig spennende alternativ, Tag2Find . Prinsippet er det samme som i Gmail, det vil sio at du kan angi en eller flere tagger/labler/merker på en fil, og deretter søke deg frem til filen ved hjelp av taggen.  Hvis du nå tenker at det er det samme som mapper, så glemmer du at du nå kan ha flere merker på en fil !  Så for meg så har jeg nå satt opp 1 mappe som heter Arkiv, og en som heter Live, samt at jeg bruker skrivebordet til å dumpe filer. Jeg kan ikke flytte en fil til Arkivet før jeg har gitt den en eller flere labels. Så voila, når jeg leter etter filer, så trenger jeg i utgangspunktet kun å lete i arkivet og benytte tagger.

Det er visse svakheter i forhold til Gmail og merkingen, da Gmail har ett filter som kan settes opp til å automatisk angi tagger, basert på avsender og emnefelt og mottaker. Filtre er enda ikke en del av Tag2Find, og jeg er ikke helt sikker på hvordan de skal implementere det… Det andre elementet som Gmail er vesentlig bedre på er søket, da jeg kan omtrent søke på hva jeg vil. Søket er ikke like bra utviklet i Tag2Find, men jeg gleder meg til dagen da jeg får en søkeboks lik den i Gmail og kan skrive Label:jobb Label:prosjekt1 Label;kladd “utrekk kundeliste” . Dette er en enkelø søk i google som gir meg treff på alle dokuemnter med tagg jobb og tagg prosjekt1 og tagg kladd + at dokumentet inneholder uttrekk kundeliste. Da snakker vi !

Tag2Find snakker allerede om en ny versjon som skal komme snart, og hvis du vil så kan du lese litt om de her . Jeg anbefaler uansett at du leser litt om det og evt vurdere å prøve det. jeg er allerede hektet men tør ikke å implementere det i jobben før de har lagt inn søk, og forhåpentligsvis filtre men dette er lovende !

Dette er det de skriver på sin hjemmeside:

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Her finner du en link til www.diskusjon.no som omhandler alt du kan tenke deg vedr Nokia N73. Posten har over 120 sider så her er det bare å bla. Mye gode tips også om oppgradering til andre versjoner av N73.

For deg som har en “moderne” Nokia telefon, så kan du fra denne linken laste ned Nokia Software Updater som kan oppgradere firmware versjonen på din telefon.

Google just posted this info as i logged into my gmail account:

What’s new on Gmail?

Just launched!

Get mail from other accounts
Now Gmail can check for the mail you receive at your other email accounts. You can retrieve your mail (new and old) from up to five other email accounts and have them all in Gmail. Then you can even create a customized ‘From:’ address, which lets you send messages from Gmail, but have them look like they were sent from another one of your email accounts. Please note that you can only retrieve mail from accounts that have POP3 access enabled.  Learn more

Read/WriteWeb has a post regarding the twenty best extensions or add-ons as they are called now. You can find the post here. I’ll try to post more about the add-ons I use and my experience with them in a later post.

I’m kind of into effectiveness so I constantly have problems with the way Microsoft forces me to work. Things have gotten better as time has progressed, for example the start menu in Windows xp is a lot more intuitive now than it was in windows 95.

But it is still a cumbersome task to open a new program. You can press The windows button and the use the  arrow or the menu name to start the app, or you can use the mouse to select the program via the start menu or you can minimize the active window to show the desktop or you can use the quick launch buttons or you can use the the run box available by pressing WINDOWS-R. If you need notepad you can press ctrl-r and type in notepad and press enter, or if you need the command line screen do the same except type cmd and then press enter. This is the method I prefer, so i used to create bat files in notepad to create short cuts, and then run the bat file from the run menu. This way my hands never leave the keyboard.

I did it this way until I found Slick Run created by Bayden Systems. It’s an excellent launcher based on the principle from the run menu, it’s just better.

It is a small application which only shows itself as a mini window always on top displaying the date and time (formats can be changed by the user). The user has to activate the slick run input box by typing WINDOWS-Q (can be changed by users –> I recommend alt-space for fresh users since it’s a faster combination of keys.)

By default it has some features, by activating the window (WINDOWS-Q) and typing cmd the command line box pops up. By typing jot (also accessible by pressing WINDOWS-J) you get a mini editor which remembers text. By typing in c:\ it opens up windows explorer in that directory. This can be used on all directories that you have access to.

But the power lies in the auto complete and the fact that you can save commands by names (you can call the autotask whatever you want) and not keyboard codes. For example i can create an auto task that i call google, that will when i type Google, it will prompt me for what I want to search for on Google, and then when pressing enter, it will fire up windows explorer and show the results from google. Now i have saved some time and some keyboard presses. Then you add the auto complete function, meaning taht next tiume ( if you don’t have any other auto tasks starting with goo.. it will immediately show google just by typing g or go. you can also type in google ari oskarsson, and then google will search for Ari Oskarsson. If you combine this with IE 7 or Firefox, it will open up in a new tab.

You can download additional word packs from Bayden Systems, for word and windows and so on.

Compared to other app launchers slick run is non obtrusive. comparing it with Active words, i quickly became fed up with all the pop ups and the need to type the whole name of the active word. In slick run the auto complete is a time saver, and since you add a task with a name and not a keyboard code it is easier to remember. I’ll try to post my favorite auto tasks, but here is just an excerpt.
RDP = the remote desktop program.
Home = the remote desktop program with setting for connecting home.
Phonebook = connects to the norwegian telephone list on the net after I type in a name or no.
SMS- Opens up the sms proram on the web after i have typed in the recipients name.
mm = opens up mind manager
ff = opens up firefox
mp3 = opens up my mp3 player
copernic –> opens up copernic !

And so on. The flexibility is endless, you can even connect auto tasks into one. The UI is not as good and has ample room for improvement, but not something that I let bother me! Slick Run is the application I recommend the most, and the application that I get the most feedback on.

I’m one of the many that just upgraded to version 2.0 release of Firefox , and instead of giving just another list of great new functions and fixes, I’m simply going to point out a couple of time savers, and the first one is Shift+Ctrl+T. Behind this complicated keyboard “code” is the availability to restore a tab that yo accidentally deleted. I’ve done this any times, and I’ve wished for this function and now it is here and it works!!!

The other one is the spell checker, and this one also works great. This is one of the functions I didn’t know I could live without!

Chuck frey has on his blog “Mind Mapping Software Weblog” published a link to a review of the open source Mind Mapping utility Freemind he has done and posted on his innovation tools website.
To keep the post short I’ll just give you an excerpt from his conclusion : “FreeMind 0.8.0 is an impressive mind mapping program that has improved significantly in just a few years. Despite a few quirky behaviors, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to businesspeople who want to learn what all the excitement surrounding mind mapping software is all about. It’s also well-suited to people with fairly basic visual diagramming needs, or if you simply cannot afford one of the commercially available programs. If you need the ability to integrate your maps with Microsoft Office or other business applications, I wouldn’t recommend FreeMind.”

It’s the same feeling I have after using Mind Jet Mind Manager for a while. I’m using the links to Microsoft Office all the time, and the first thing I missed in freemind was the export to word, and the second thing was the edit in outline view. But I still use freemind at home, and for brainstorming and making maps it’s great !

You can find Chuck’s post here.

Here is a brilliant article describing different alternatives for ditching the MS file explorer. I myself use xplorer², and I’m kind of dissapointed about the score, but then again, it’s been a while since I tried Yplorer, so I wouldn’t know. But my recommendation is still xplorer²!

If you read my post regarding Active Colab on a USB stick, I can now only say : DO IT !

I am no expert in HTML and Apache and so on, but following the instructions in the post it took me 15 minutes to install. Now i have a project management system installed locally on my computer to test before I go and recommend this to my collegues. The only problem i faced , was with the APache Server service not starting because of Skype was using Port 80. You can read more about the work around here.

I use mind maps to organize my thoughts and ideas. A mind map is just a way of arranging items with branches off to related items.

I use a spinal bound notebook with blank pages so I can draw them by hand. The problem is once they are written down, I can not re-arrange the branches if a part of the paper gets too crowded. So the solution is to use a software program to electronically re-arrange the branches as the ideas grow. I find that using an application for mind mapping is more flexible and easier to manipulate so I can create and change mind maps as fast as I think.

There are many software options out there; just type “free mind map software” into Google and get 49 million hits…. The tool that I have opted to use is Mind Manager from Mindjet. It’s bit pricey, but highly recomendable. Many users claim that it is the best tool in the market at this time. I am one of them! I’ll be blogging more about Mind Manager and why it is such a great tool.

There is a freeware open source alternative out there which is supposed to be very good: Freemind. I haven’t really tested it, but I’ve recommended it to friends and collegues who wants to see if mind mapping is something to use as a tool before shelling out the bucks, and none of them has complained!