Here at Enquiring Mimes we’re building you a toolkit of technology and techniques that are intended make your life, both online and off, better and more productive.
This month we’ve highlighted seven great tools and also found five honorable mentions among what we’ve reviewed. Some are new and some have been around long enough to be proven – all free.
Best Tools of the Month
Dropbox – the easiest way to sync file between computers
“I work on a PC and Mac and I have a constant need to move documents and images back and forth between my computers.”
Manage Your Windows Files without Windows Explorer
”Windows XP has been around for a very long time and Windows Explorer has always been an awkward and underpowered utility for managing files.”
Read PDF Files with a Fast Reader
“Adobe PDF files have become a nearly-universal means of distributing documents that are not meant to have their contents modified and need to look the same on every computer platform.”
Quick Windows File Viewer with Benefits — IrfanView
“Sometimes you just need a quick way to view an image and make a couple of adjustments. At times like these you don’t need Adobe Photoshop…”
Need a video viewer that can play any format? You need VLC Media Player
“So many video formats, so little time. Video cameras, the cute little joke time-wasting videos your friends send you, training videos, DVDs, “backups” of DVDs, avi, wmv, mp4, mpeg, xvid, divx, flash video – you get the idea – you can get so many videos in a babel of formats.”
Share what you see on your desktop using Jing
“When I’m working online or browsing the web I often see something interesting and want to share it, but it can be a very tedious process either capturing and sending a screen image or a short video sequence that I might want to record.”
5 Questions Intended to Change Your Life
“Life Coach, Tim Brownson, on the site, PickTheBrain, has developed a list of five questions that he says, “if you commit to embedding them so deeply into your neurology by constant and conscious repetition that they become second nature”, will make a quantum shift in your life. Without even expecting that level of results…”
The Honorable Mentions
Update: New Picasa 3 with lots to love
“Picasa’s new version adds many useful new features — ones that you might typically pay “real money” to buy.”
Chrome: The brand shiny new Browser from Google
“Do you think you need a new browser? If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer you may think you do or if you use Firefox 3 maybe you think you don’t. No matter, giant Google thinks you do and has released a beta version of their new Google Chrome browser.”
Use Cool Timer, the digital timer, to be more productive
“One way of having the information necessary to know how to make your day productive is to know how long tasks really take to perform. Cool Timer can help.”
Make smart panoramas from digital snaps – Microsoft ICE
“When you’re shooting away with your digital camera sometimes you just want to take a very wide image at a fairly close range. Unless you have some awesome wide-angle lens, you’re probably are not going to make it work. Enter a free program from Microsoft Research, Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) for, of course, Windows.”
Can a printing website be cool? Absolutely. Try Printwhatyoulike.com
“I intensely dislike trying to print pages from websites that don’t offer a clean print option. This is true of most blogs, this one included. What I get when I print is all of the ads, the navigation, and the comments – when all I usually want is a paragraph or two of text…”
