Friday, March 12, 2010

FeelHome Gives Easy Remote Access to Your Files Across Platforms [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5490268/feelhome-gives-easy-remote-access-to-your-files-across-platforms

Windows/Mac/Linux: If you would like to easily access, edit, and save files across multiple computers, free application FeelHome allows you to share files across operating systems and over the web.

Once you install FeelHome on your computer and specify which folders you want to share, you can access those files from the web or from another computer in your virtual FeelHome network.

Files aren't stored on the FeelHome servers, and FeelHome isn't an online storage solution like Dropbox. Your files still reside on their respective computers. Instead, FeelHome allows you to access them between machines and through the web-based interface. FeelHome's servers act as secure mediators in the transaction—much like the LogMeIn Hamachi servers help mediate your VPN connections.

Check out the video below to see FeelHome in action:

FeelHome is free, and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. Have a great tool for sharing files across multiple computers and the web? Let's hear about it in the comments.

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Photo Magician Batch Converts Your Images with Drag and Drop Ease [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5491775/photo-magician-batch-converts-your-images-with-drag-and-drop-ease

Windows: If you're not about to manually convert that pile of images in front of you but you've found the batch converters you've tried to be lacking, free and portable Photo Magician offers both fine tweaking and drag and drop simplicity.

Photo Magician has two modes: full and quick convert. In the full mode you select an input and output folder and options like whether or not you want to scan the sub folders, overwrite the originals, speed up conversion by ditching the image preview, and unify the image format to a format of your select, among other options.

Photo Magician also supports presets covering popular portable devices and common image sizes. You can select Custom to set your own sizes if they aren't covered by the presets but unfortunately you can't save the custom presets you create, an oversight we'd love to see corrected in future versions of an otherwise strong program.

Full conversion mode aside you can also click "Quick Convert Mode" in the menu bar of Photo Magician and the program will minimize to the magician's hat—see at left here—like a sidebar gadget. Drop Photos right onto the hat and they will be automatically converted and saved after being reduced by the percentage you've selected.

Photo Magician is portable freeware, Windows only. Have a favorite tool—image-related or otherwise—for batching tasks? Let's hear about it in the comments.

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GigaPan Indexes Enormous Panoramic Photos [Photography]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5491787/gigapan-indexes-enormous-panoramic-photos

If you like taking and sharing panoramic photos—or just enjoy checking out the impressive results others have gotten—GigaPan indexes high-resolution panoramic photos.

The panoramic images at GigaPan are extremely high resolution which allows you to not only enjoy the greater panoramic image but zoom deeply into the image. How deeply? In the same image above we zoomed in to the point where we could read signs and small text—in the lower right hand portion of the bridge a guy is wearing a basketball jersey with a number 5 on it.

How big are the images in a quantifiable sense? GigaPan rejects photos smaller than 50 megapixels in size and the majority of images on the site well exceed that. Check out the link below to browse GigaPan photos and if you're interested in submitting your own pictures, check out their tips and tricks in their FAQ file. For more great—but not as huge!—panoramic photos, check out previously reviewed viewAT.

Have some tips or tricks of your own to share on panoramic creation? Let's hear them in the comments.

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Reboot Your Office to Return to a Clean Workspace [Clutter]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5491829/reboot-your-office-to-return-to-a-clean-workspace

Every night thousands of workers boot down their work stations and return to them the next morning, booting into a fresh system. Reboot your physical workspace in the same way to keep your office tidy and efficient.

Photo by Masterjay88.

Over at the organizational blog Unclutterer they've put together a list of ten ways you can do little things each day to keep your home uncluttered. We particularly like the idea of applying their first tip to your workspace at the end of the day:

Reset your home each evening. This doesn't have to take long, but it's really effective. Spend 5 or 10 minutes on a quick run-through of your home. Straighten books and knickknacks, return dishes to the kitchen, and hang up jackets. Don't strive for perfection, this is just a quick pick up.

Sitting down to a messy desk—or waking up in a messy house!—isn't a relaxing or productive experience. Today when your work day is over, take a moment to put your desk in order and prepare it for a fresh start tomorrow. The effort it takes to keep a clean workspace in order with nightly reboots is much less effort than it takes to overhaul a totally trashed office or dig through the piles on your desk looking for things.

Check out the full list at the link below for more tips and tricks for beating back clutter and disorder. Have an end-of-day ritual of your own to share? Let's hear about it in the comments below.

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Enable Variable Speed Playback in YouTube [YouTube]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5491852/enable-variable-speed-playback-in-youtube

If your browser supports HTML5 you can opt into the experimental HTML5 video playback on YouTube. Not only will you get smoother video playback—goodbye Flash!—but you'll be able to speed up and slow down your videos.

The variable speed control is great for seeing things in slow motion. DIY and tutorial videos often go too fast and watching something in slow motion is usually better than having to watch the same section over and over again to see what is happening. Conversely you can speed up to make finding a section of a long video easier than hopping around from point to point trying to find it.

Visit the link below to opt into the HTML5 beta test. You'll need a browser that supports HTML5 like Chrome or Apple Safari to participate. Check out the link for more details and sound off with you opinion on the new video playback in the comments.

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