http://www.crossloop.com/ - screen sharing for collaboration or tech support. free and simple.

http://www.calgoo.com/ - a calendar tool that adds social connections - manage multiple calendars, share them with others, and get a composite calendar of all that affects you. Could be interesting especially as it works with multiple existing calendar systems as well as generic ical.

http://www.payroo.com/ - uk payroll, free, via the web. Perfectly adequate for my needs!

http://www.joesgoals.com/ - very simple goal tracking, might actually work!

http://www.polarrose.com/ - helps “spotting” and recognising people on pictures. Very cool.

http://www.plum.com/ - looks like the next generation of web page snapshot/snippet site. I’m on the waiting list to test it.

http://pastebin.com/ - a way to share code snippets with others and collaboratively debug/edit them etc. Great for discussion in forums or irc channels, chat etc.

http://whatsitscolor.com/

upload a picture and get a palette of dominant and related colours - useful when wanting to design a site or interface elements to go well with an image

Some favorite lesser known links which I regularly read for ideas, inspiration, news or keeping up with friends

Links

Books & arts

• Emusic
• My library
• bookmooch list
• Endicott


• Me and my big mouth
• Words without borders

Ideas & more

• overcoming bias
• Road to the horizon
• Schneier on security
• Edge

Software

• Cybernet News
• Donation Coder

I have made such a list a few times in the history of this site. What is interesting is that about half that software has stood the test of time, the other half didn’t as my needs changed or I found a better alternative…

My Classics

Acronis True Image - I had DriveImage but it let me down, This is a lot friendlier as it lets you get single files out of partition backups and works most of the time without even a reboot. I am a bit annoyed as they totally changed their lineup and I went from having the “pro” version to only being able to upgrade to the “home” version. Not that big a deal except the “business” version has a feature I really want, the clever support for restoring on different hardware. And there’s the principle of the thing, so I might check the competition (paragon, O&O etc.) again
Total Commander - the tool i have owned the longest and still use. Does everything
Wirekeys - I dont use its features as much as i should. Lots of shortcuts and tools to simplify your life. I really should make the effort to add a new feature to my “learned” list every week
Object Desktop - lots of tools to customise windows. I have had it since OS2 times but might stop renewing this year as all the new transparency in almost all the toolsseem to cause problems on my ATI system (i tend to play games in a window!).
Penguinet - great little tool for ssh, scp. I have also used the freeware Tunnelier on my less used pc
Regrun - watches what is happening on my pc and blocks anythig suspicious
Ashampoo Burning Studio - I like it as a quick and easy CD/DVD burning tool
Ulead PhotoImpact - a good graphics editor that I find easy to use. Have had it since version 3 and about to upgrade to v12
Spinrite - disk failure insurance
No Hands Backup - i like the way that backup program thinks
Ace Money - simple financial program. Worked better than the commercial offerings for me
Jriver Media Center - my media player this year. Does a bit too much (i’d prefer it didnt try to “play” slideshows with my images) but has a few wonderful features such as the smarlists, good rename/retag options, and media server options.
Opera - my browser of the year. Just works ery nicely out of the box, no need for a million add ons to make it useful
Local Website Archive - web page archive capture. I use it all the time, for recipes, articles, software finds, order receipts… it’s the only one that works with opera, firefox and about every browser i have used. I just wish it could capture selected snippets only, and multiple pages at once, as the workflow is a bit clunky for me.
ACDsee - the best workflow I have found for scanning and tagging all my negatives
Flexible Renamer - the best renamer i have found, thanks to its preview function (http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA014830/FlexRena/)

other software I use:

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Finally! The scanner I bought, after much research and thinking and much temptation to spend £500, is the more reasonable Canon Canoscan 8600F. And here’s my first scanned slide, all the way back from 1988, at a market in Morocco…

To be honest this is my third scan of this slide since it actually had a few scatches. and i resized it a little as it was a bit too big for showing on a site…
If anyone is curious here is the scan file http://iphi.net/pics/photography/Scan10001.bmp - i did let the scanner do a medium amount of scratch correction, and here’s the first scan without any correction http://iphi.net/pics/photography/Scan10001_uncorrected.bmp . Both are 22Mb so download only if you are curious!
So far I am quite pleased with the canon software tool that came with it. It did a great job of detecting all 7 negatives on the 2 strips i put in, then scanned them all. With medium scratch/dust correction it took about 6 minutes per scan at 2400 dpi - I dont think i need to go that high for most of my slides. If you look closely you can see that it didn’t quite get the negative edges correctly, although I suspect that if I paid more attention putting the strips in and if i paid more attention when using the tool, I would get a better result.
I actually got a better result than with Silverfast SE which also comes with the scanner, but that could be wrong settings in SF. It insisted to scan only 600dpi so it was hard to compare. And it didnt have the scratch reduction tool, but again there might be a way.
I was told to give vuescan a try but vuescan didnt want to know about the 8600F just yet. oh well. in a few versions maybe.
Anyway, scanning tips and software suggestions most welcome

Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
Defective By Design
EFF
Andrew Sullivan
Lessig
Pacific Views
MousePrint
Alt Muslim

let me first quote:

Pentax MZ-M—This is a close runner up to the ME for the best Pentax bargain. It’s a stripped-down MZ-5n without autofocus, built-in flash or matrix or spot metering. However, it has all the great ergonomics and controls of the MZ-5n: manual shutter speed dial, easy exposure compensation, exposure lock, and depth of field preview. It is remarkably light, 324 grams for the body including batteries, and goes to 434 grams and fits in your pocket with a 40mm f/2.8 lens. Sure, it doesn’t have automatic flash or autofocus, which limits it in some situations, but for outdoor/ travel photography it is great. The one thing that it really lacks is the big viewfinder of the ME. Its viewfinder is actually quite bright, but its magnification is way smaller than the ME, which makes it harder to focus. On the plus side, its split-image central focussing area appears to be especially accurately calibrated. It has a plastic lens mount, which some people deplore, but I haven’t had any problems with it. There is a traditionalist prejudice in favour of metal, but as noted in regard to the ME and MX, metal bends. I have come across used cameras with metal mounts that have bent, making the lenses very hard to remove, but I have yet to hear of a plastic mount that has broken or worn out.

It certainly is light, I’ll see how it performs tomorrow

This has to be the tool i have owned the longest and still use (second to this would be Stardock Object Desktop, the third maybe slickedit).

And it is one of the first things I install if I reinstall my computer. This is a “Commander” style of file manager, and the best I have used. It’s not the prettiest, but it is fast to use.

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