Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Thursday, December 18, 2008

AirSet Creates "Cloud Computers" for Your Data [Screenshot Tour]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/_ZES3StaLNU/airset-creates-cloud-computers-for-your-data

Free web desktop AirSet probably fits into your working habits better than most other desktops, because it runs like a multi-tasking computer and hooks into your existing data pretty tightly.

Our ingenious (and Firefox-obsessed) intern AsianAngel loves AirSet, and let us know that it recently rolled out new features and updates to the "cloud computer," so we signed up, took some screenshots, and shared them below.

While you're signing up for AirSet, you'll be encouraged to not only make one for yourself, but create multiple "web computers" for sharing. AirSet lets you fling open the doors to other AirSet users, or the whole web, on almost all of your documents and published items. So if you want to create a landing page for your corporate softball team, complete with music, pictures, a calendar, and links to league rules, it's totally possible with AirSet. You can also collaborate on documents and share notes with friends by adding their email addresses into the group—all your own AirSet correspondence goes to whatever email you signed up with.

Once you get through signing up, you'll arrive at a (mostly) blank desktop. You launch apps by clicking any icons/"favorites" you might have placed there already, or from the Start-Menu-like launcher in the lower left. Here's what your desktop looks like with the "Albums" tool running to view and share photos (click for full-size image):

Take a look at the bottom-left corner, where the AirSet menu (pictured as open at left) and a taskbar-like switcher are located. AirSet moves surprisingly quickly between the windows you keep open, so if you want to swing over to editing your calendar while waiting for some photos to upload, you can do it. The whole thing seems to load in as a Java applet, or at least a heavily designed JavaScript/Java combination, so your mileage will vary with your available memory. Hitting the button in the bottom left-most corner switches you between your "computers," so you can keep your private work data and shared materials separate.

One of the really neat features, familiar to any fan of Firefox 3, is that almost anything around your "web" computer can be bookmarked for your "Favorites" menu (the star icon next to your AirSet button), or placed on your desktop and re-arranged however you'd like. In its interface alone, in face, AirSet is fairly advanced on its competitors—each window gets its own Windows-like minimize/close buttons.

AirSet can also be set up to send alerts, timers, and notifications for calendar events, document changes, or other events to your email or mobile phone. Speaking of calendars, I had no problem importing three of my four Google Calendar subscriptions into AirSet (the failure was a group-shared calendar I don't own, so somewhat understandable). Here's a typical calendar layout:

Finally, the "lists" function adds a little GTD-ish task management into AirSet. The Quick Add box works fine for creating new lists and items, and each can get their own alert, notes, or be bookmarked to your star menu.

As I'm getting ready to spend a holiday week working away from my home office, AirSet seems like a pretty neat solution for getting productive without having to hijack a relative's computer. But tell us what you think of this free "cloud computer" in the comments.

AirSet

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Greasefire Finds Greasemonkey Scripts for the Site You're Visiting [Featured Firefox Extension]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/ml9b61xvFYE/greasefire-finds-greasemonkey-scripts-for-the-site-youre-visiting

Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Greasefire is a companion extension to the popular Greasemonkey extension designed to help you customize your web browsing by finding user scripts for any page you're currently visiting.

Once installed, the extension automatically searches the popular Greasemonkey script repository Userscripts.org for scripts related to the site you're visiting; if a script is available, the Greasemonkey icon in your Firefox status bar will display a fiery background to indicate that it found matches. For Lifehacker, as you can see from the photo above, Greasefire found nine matching scripts.

From there, installing new scripts is simple. Just click the "X scripts available" entry, then browse and find a script you like in the pop-up window. Click the install button at the bottom of the window when you find something you like.

If you've never been able to get into Greasemonkey beyond our top 10 Greasemonkey scripts, Greasefire is a great tool to discover new user scripts and customize your web with Greasemonkey. Greasefire is a free download, works wherever Firefox does.

Greasefire [Firefox Add-ons via Download Squad]

UnChrome Anonymizes Your Google Chrome Installation [Featured Windows Download]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/TwBKL-sXMdo/unchrome-anonymizes-your-google-chrome-installation

Windows only: Free application UnChrome bolsters your browsing anonymity by removing the unique ID from Google Chrome that Google associates with your Chrome installation.

UnChrome isn't the first app to do this; we highlighted another program called Chrome Privacy Guard in our power user's guide to Google Chrome. But for the many who installed Chrome for the first time after Chrome officially left beta last week, it's worthwhile to highlight this kind of tool once more. UnChrome is a free download, Windows only.

UnChrome [via Download Squad]

Search Cloudlet Reveals Better Search Terms [Featured Firefox Extension]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/KsHsr5uzKLc/search-cloudlet-reveals-better-search-terms

Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Search Cloudlet adds a click-on tag cloud to your Google and Yahoo searches, helping you find deep-seated terms and phrases and refine your results, as you'll see below.

The free add-on, developed by the International Software and Productivity Engineering Institute, can adjust the number of keyword results you see below each search, and automatically re-searches as you click to add them in. Search Cloudlet ends up being pretty handy for searches where you don't quite know what you're looking for—because if you didn't, say, know what the big story about Macworld was, hitting the large-sized "Jobs" and then "Keynote" would deliver the goods in the search results.

Check out some of Search Cloudlet's additional features below:

When looking to narrow where your results are coming from—and, in some cases, exclude sites that spam up the findings—the Cloudlet's "Sites" button is quite handy:

Click over to Google News, and you'll get a different set of options, allowing you to refine by news source and locality. The same tools are also usable in Google's blog search.

Nothing a true Google hacker can't do in pure text in the search box, but definitely much handier, visual, and open-ended. Search Cloudlet is a free download, works wherever Firefox does.

Search Cloudlet [via! Webware]

Allrecipes Dinner Spinner Finds Last-Minute Meal Recipes [Featured IPhone Download]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/9-UjXCdzNWA/allrecipes-dinner-spinner-finds-last+minute-meal-recipes

iPhone/iPod touch only: Free application Dinner Spinner puts a slot machine of great meal ideas and recipes from popular recipe-sharing web site Allrecipes.com on your iPhone or iPod touch.

The idea behind Dinner Spinner is very similar to previously mentioned Urbanspoon, the iPhone app that suggest restaurants in your area with the spin of a wheel, but this time your categories are dish type, ingredients, and cook time. Just tap the Spin Categories button or shake your device to set Dinner Spinner a-spinning. If you actually know what you want, you can lock in individual categories or lock them all in and check out the results. The idea is fun, but an actual search bar somewhere—anywhere—in this app would be a huge improvement. After all, when you get the inspiration to cook a specific kind of meal when you're wondering through the grocery store, the whole spin concept is more than a little frustrating. The Allrecipes Dinner Spinner is a free download from the iTunes App Store, requires an iPhone or iPod touch.

Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner [iTunes App Store]

What Are BlackBerry Apps Doing On This HTC Touch Pro? [BlackBerry]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/gLfmHj5zVo0/what-are-blackberry-apps-doing-on-this-htc-touch-pro

Pictures are convincing, but a video, as it goes, seals the deal: Blackberry apps appear to be running on WinMo. But how? And more importantly, why?

It turns out that this is probably a leak of an official RIM project, called BlackBerry Application Suite. CrackBerry dug up a year-and-a-half-old presser from the company describing its intentions:

[RIM plans to] expand its support for Windows Mobile®-based devices with a new software application suite that will enable devices from third-party manufacturers to benefit from the popular BlackBerry® software applications and services.

Well, considering that the pictures and video resemble the aforementioned concept, and that the programs were sighted running on a phone supported by AT&T, RIM's partner in the initiative, it looks like the BlackBerry Application Suite might be coming to fruition.

If carried out correctly, the appeal could be great; the BlackBerry OS core apps offer a substantially more user-friendly experience than Windows Mobile's, which haven't managed to curry much loyalty in nearly a decade of existence and revision. The suite also appears to offer an alternative home screen, which resembles the Storm's.

The success of this will come down to two factors: price and code. If the apps are free and native, then it'd be hard to justify not leaving WinMo's humdrum messaging, browsing and organizational apps behind. If the suite is either paid, exclusively bundled with select handsets or virtualized, it might be a non-starter. This leak is as vague as it is early, so expect a good deal more information to surface before too long. Warning: comically ! lazy gad get video below. [BerryReview via CrackBerry]

Nvidia Ion Supercharges Netbooks With 5X Faster Graphics and Full HD Video [Nvidia Ion]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/9KIK8255xx0/nvidia-ion-supercharges-netbooks-with-5x-faster-graphics-and-full-hd-video

Netbooks are pathetically weak machines. So Nvidia is infusing Intel's Atom with its GeForce 9400M to make netbooks suck less. Or at the very least, let you play Call of Duty 4. On a netbook.

Nvidia calls its new platform—Atom + GeForce 9400M (the same chipset as the aluminum MacBooks—Ion. Performance-wise, Nvidia is promising 5x faster graphics and 10x faster video transcoding than a standard Atom-powered netbook running on Intel's current platform. The Call of Duty thing, I still want to see before I totally believe it, but they promised 25-30s running at 1024x768 resolution. Not amazing but playable. Before you ask, it'll run Crysis, though the results would make you hurt—which is still better than the current netbook crop. (If you proceed to ask anyway or if it will blend, I will ban you.)

So, it'll run graphics faster, better, meaning netbooks that won't cry when it comes to video tasks, like playing 1080p Full HD video. And you'll see more performance benefits as OSes and apps take advantage of GPU acceleration—like Windows 7, Snow Leopard (Hackintosh power!) and any other CUDA or OpenCL app (admittedly not super common yet). Yeah, you'll be able to actually run Vista Premium and Windows 7 and not hate life (if you've got the RAM too, anyway). Supposedly all with comparable battery life to current systems.

Bad news? We won't see Ion netbooks until about midway through 2009, and when we do they're going t! o cost a bit more than other netbooks—"within $50" of standard netbook pricing, since Nvidia is positioning them as "premium" netbooks, whatever the hell that means. And this still doesn't help netbooks' other serious shortcomings, like multitasking or crummy keyboards.

But at least they'll suck just a little bit less. [Nvidia]

Motorola 2009 Smartphones Leaked, Looking Sharp [Unconfirmed]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Uo2Omzo_ENY/motorola-2009-smartphones-leaked-looking-sharp

BGR scored what appear to be renders of Motorola's 2009 product lineup. And it's looking...decent.

There are almost no details on these pictures for the time being, but BGR does promise that they are all destined for Verizon Wireless in 2009. Pictured above, we have the codenamed Flash—what looks to be Motorola's thick response to the iPhone with some sharp HTC Diamond edging.

And here we have the Calgary, mixing RAZR buttons with a sliding touchscreen. There are more photos over at BGR, so hit them up to see what else Motorola's got in the works. [BGR]