Can I Stream It?

Michael — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:38:16 +0000

You may have access to a streaming Internet TV and Movie service. Since each one has their own catalog of media, you might subscribe to more than one. When it comes time to watch something specific, you may waste time searching or *gasp* browsing for a certain title across multiple media providers. CanIStreamIt is the new answer to the question, “Where can I stream this from?”

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Can I Stream It?

URL to Email Inbox

Michael — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:02:38 +0000

If you use your email inbox to keep track of new internet finds, reading material and other to-do items, cc:to me will come in very handy.

I have been in the habit of sending myself an email when I have a link that I want to research or take a deeper look at. Yes, there are other tools like Read it Later that can be used for this. I make a somewhat careful distinction between read it “later”, however, and read it “someday.” The items that I put in my email inbox get acted on (and cleared!) within a day or two. Items that I want to read someday (a week, month, or year from now) I will put into Read it Later. The main difference is that my Inbox is in front of me daily. Other queuing tools have to be checked.

So… that’s a long preamble to say that this tool is for putting things in your Inbox and it does it with one click plus an optional description you can type in.
The website gives you a bookmarklet to install that, when clicked, sends the current browser URL to your email. Simple. Fast. Highly useful.

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URL to Email Inbox

Online Teamwork Made Simple

Michael — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:25:00 +0000

Sometimes I think everything needed has been created — that there is nothing truly essential that people need to make. Then I bump into something so elegant and useful that it takes me aback. That’s how I felt when I saw Trello.

Simple. Focused. Visual. Drag and drop easy. This is an elegant solution to hundreds of collaborative needs from planning a wedding to building a new clubhouse for the neighborhood. Brought to you by Fog Creek, makers of the famous Fog Bugz software.

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Online Teamwork Made Simple

Price Watch Helper

Michael — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:36:56 +0000

A we approach the big retail shopping season this year, my family was due for a TV upgrade. Decisions abound. What size? Go with 720p or 1080p resolution? The difference was at least $100 in the midrange. Plasma, LED or LCD? Do I need special connections to the internet? After I got past the overwhelming nature of the technology choices, then it was time to find the best price. This process alone can chew up hours in your week. ZingSale to the rescue!

Enter your item, set a price alert, and let ZingSale email you when the price of your item changes. They don’t cover everything (no foosball table today), but I have found most items that I wanted to track pretty easily. Huge time-saver if you are a deal shopper.

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Price Watch Helper

Fast Sequence Diagrams

Michael — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:30:50 +0000

For my fellow geeks out there. This is a very clever site that allows you to type in a conversation between objects and generate a sequence diagram on-the-fly. High tech imitates low tech and does so in real time.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been sitting somewhere and said to myself, “Self, why don’t you have a tool that allows you to write out a sequence diagram in English?” Another mystery bites the dust.

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Fast Sequence Diagrams

Find Apartments Faster

Michael — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 00:09:12 +0000

Have you ever been frustrated by trying to find a new crash pad? Do you abhor pouring through pages and pages of listings that are not even close to where you want to live? Here’s a great answer to that problem:

PadMapper is a web application that aims to make searching online for an apartment to rent less painful by letting you see where the apartments are on a big Google map, and using the filters located in the box on the lower left to eliminate listings that you’re not interested in.

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Find Apartments Faster

Update Contact Information Automagically

Michael — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:12:25 +0000

If you use Gmail or Google Apps, here’s a little gem that can help you keep up with the myriad of contact book updates coming your way.

The WriteThat.Name service looks at the signature of each incoming email and offers you (in manual mode) the opportunity to update your contact data when it finds a change. Very clever!

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Update Contact Information Automagically

NudgeMail – A Controlled Boomerang

Michael — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 20:49:05 +0000

Scenario 1: You put an event on your calendar… and on the appropriate day, the email arrives in your Inbox. But what if you’re not ready to act on it yet? Perhaps the person you wanted to call is on vacation and is back on Monday. Perhaps you know that the weather won’t permit the activity you had planned. But you don’t want to forget about it. It’s a pain to open up the calendar and change the date on it.

Scenario 2: You get an email from your friend Bob who wants to schedule coffee with you. You have a busy week ahead and cannot see Bob for a while. How do you keep track of this pending coffee until you’re ready to schedule it on the calendar?

Scenario 3: You’re deep in the zone working on a critical bit of writing when a pop-up from your calendar reminds you about your dinner with Jane. You hit Dismiss instead of Snooze and panic – now what? You’ve got another 15 minutes and you’ll have the piece perfect, then you can get dressed. But what if you drop back in the zone and let 30 minutes go by? Jane won’t be happy with you.

Welcome to NudgeMail… the electronic boomerang (my term) that helps you manage your short-term tickler file via email. In any of these situations, sending or forwarding an email to NudgeMail will help you remember that important event or stop time. Whether you need two hours or two days, you can toss the item over to NudgeMail and at the right time, NudgeMail will send it back to you as an email. It’s like having an electronic assistant and that you can tell, “Remind me about this in 20 minutes.” Here comes the email… still not ready? Hit the snooze and delete the email.

Similar services are listed here on MakeUseOf.com, one of my favorite sites.

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NudgeMail – A Controlled Boomerang

HTML Tables from Excel Data

Michael — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:34:22 +0000

Do you need to post data online that was sent to you in Excel? Then Tableizer is for you!

Transform raw Excel data with a simple copy & paste…

…into a clean HTML table without any hand-coding!

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HTML Tables from Excel Data

Pro Gmail Tips

Michael — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 13:12:33 +0000

Are you a Gmail fan who’s inbox is overrun?

Pro Gmail customers employ the following weapons to keep things under control:

Filters to automate actions
Process to manage items
Add-ins to make life easier

Read the full article here.

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Pro Gmail Tips