Filed under: Design, Features, Web services, web 2.0

I rarely get as excited by a Web 2.0 app or service as I am by ProofHQ, which is an innovative and platform-independent way to manage the whole review and approval process for creative documents. At least for me, the most tedious part of the design process is getting feedback and approval. First you have to make sure the file is in a format that a client or collaborator can read (so that you don't accidentally send out a Word 2007 document to someone who is using Office 2003 and doesn't have the Office 2007 viewer software), then if you are sending something by e-mail, that the e-mail size isn't too large for their mail server. That process has to be repeated for every change or for every new element.

ProofHQ was designed to streamline the entire creative review process, making much of the above process unnecessary.This is how it works: You upload your proof, document or design concept to ProofHQ and enter in who you want to send the proof to. ProofHQ then creates a web-optimized, Flash-based proof that your reviewers or collaborators can view. They just click on a link in their e-mail and have access to the proof or document.

From there, they can add notes, draw in markup and immediately reject or approve a design. You can even embed a "Miniproof" in a blog or wiki, and any comments made either at that site or via the ProofHQ dashboard appear alongside one another. This makes it really, really easy to get feedback and collaboration from lots of different people. As the document creator, you can see who has reviewed or commented on a proof and instantly eyeball if something is approved or if you need to bug someone to give you an answer.

Continue reading Easy web-based proofing with ProofHQ

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Filed under: Features, Windows, Linux, Open Source

I have been a Linux user for quite some time -- about eight years. My husband and I have known each other since we were twelve, when our school's only computer was an Apple IIe attached to a dot matrix printer. We grew up together, bought our first computer together, and built our first home-grown computers together.

He has never used Linux. Sure, he's played Frozen Bubble a few times. He's shut down my computer during thunderstorms. That's it.

His desktop Windows machine is older, and truth be told, he uses it for games and web surfing. He just bought an MSI Wind for work and school, and plans on keeping most of the "work stuff" on there.

He is a Windows user, but Windows irritates him on regular basis. He has said (for years) he'd be happy to use Linux for internet and document creation, but he can't part with a couple of games.

Now, the time has come. He is ready. He has asked that his computer be set up as a dual boot machine. How did he reach this conclusion, and what needs to be done to get his computer ready for the Linux invasion? And if you find yourself in this same position, what do you need to do?

Continue reading Flipping the Linux switch: Countdown to the dual boot

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Filed under: Internet, Features

Here's a question for all our elderly readers: Do any of you remember the primitive era affectionately called 1995, and hearing your college professors speak hopefully (or possibly lament) that soon all the information and media ever created would be up on this web thing and easily accessible and available free of charge? Do you remember how many people went out and bought those state of the art 486s and bleeding edge Pentium I computers, and signed on with AOL or Compuserve or Mindspring to fire up Netscape, stumble on to Yahoo! only to discover the truth.

Even back then, there was a lot of stuff online that was technically information or visual/audible media. It was free, much of it, anyway, as well. I spent way too many hours watching an oddity called a webcam update at shockingly fast one minute intervals, as it delivered grainy black and white stlll images of some forgotten webmaster's painted turtle in California to my desktop in Northern Virginia.

As far as exotic, fine art work or rare, priceless tomes of great knowledge went -- it wasn't all accessible online, or necessarly free if it happened to be available. But for a good portion of the '90s, people who hadn't been online much, or were in denial, insisted it was out there.

There dawns the new century, and the myth of "it's all there, free" started to fade away with the old beige Pentium I and II computers. Things went the other way, though. Every day there was more information on the internet from all sorts of sources, and some of it (shock, awe) was free, or at least accessible to some degree. Is it irony or karma? Who knows? Many people are floored, now, to discover how much useful, cool, credible information is available online free of charge.

So just in time to go back to school (or to impress your friends with your innate intelligence), I've found a few sites and tricks for getting really great information online without additional tuition fees.

Continue reading Five free ways to grow your most important organ

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Filed under: Audio, Video, Features, Linux, Open Source

The plain truth is I don't like working with media files. Watching them, or listening to them, sure, I'm just as into that as the next girl. When it comes to actually converting them from something captured off an external device or my screen, though, my stomach turns. It's not an aversion that's peculiar to Linux. I hate using the Windows for those same tasks. Since I don't have access to a Mac, I can't vouch for the ease of media conversion on them, but I can safely say that as ubiquitous as Quicktime is, I have very little luck working with (or viewing) Quicktime files on any machine with any operating system in my possession.

Linux presents special challenges with media file conversions. The good news is that though some of the tools might be a little tricky to decipher, they do a great job with conversions and tend to encompass a wide range of file types. Some tools can be used with GUI front-ends, and some I've found are just a lot faster and easier to bang out a command in a terminal window. Many of these tools are either installed by default in a number of Linux distributions, or can be added with a few clicks through the distro's repositories.

So I admit it was with a whole lot of fear and loathing that I decided to include screencasts in a recent post on KDE. My video grab software was working wonderfully, but it saved my files as .ogv. That wouldn't be a problem if I weren't hosting it elsewhere, and if the conversion software on that site didn't require it be in a format other than .ogv. And Ogg files, being funny beasts, aren't always the easiest things to convert.

And certainly, they aren't the only things you'd want to convert in Linux. So let's shake down how it's done.

Continue reading Flipping the Linux switch: ZOMG! ffmpeg!

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Filed under: Features, Windows, Commercial, Freeware, Analysis

If you frequent our site (and you do, because you're cool), you've probably read this article about the 5 most annoying apps on your PC. Well, it's time for another installment - this time with alternatives that offer the functionality you want without the annoying, fetid bloat that you don't. Note: before the gripes start, to compare apples to apples I'm only offering apps that need to be installed - no portable apps, no web apps.

Ahead Nero
There was a time when Nero wasn't an overblown pig of a recording application, but over the years it's been "improved" to the glorious state of excess you see it in today. What sucks about Nero today? Well, let's see. First, it tries to install the Ask toolbar during setup. Then there's the hundreds of megs of DVD templates it piles on (none of them particularly attractive). Last but not least, there's Nero Scout. Has anyone ever found this useful? I don't know about you, but click and drag or browsing for files has always worked just fine for me.

The Alternative: CD Burner XP
I want burning software to burn discs, not transcode video, play media, serve it over my home lan, print labels, and scour my drives constantly for files I may want to burn. Not only is CD Burner XP free, it's also miniscule when compared to Nero, installs in seconds, not minutes, and doesn't bring any excess crap along with it. Launch it, and you're given clear choices: data, music, iso, copy, erase. The dual pane view makes creating compilations drag-and-drop easy, as does the totally slick dropbox.

Continue reading 5 Apps You Run That Suck, and 5 Replacements That Don't

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Filed under: OS Updates, Features, Linux, Open Source, Beta

When KDE 4.0 was released that fateful day in January, it unleashed an unholy boatload of controversy. Was it a final release? Was it really a final release? And just because the developers say it is a final release, but that it isn't, it's just numbered as such, and we shouldn't worry if things don't seem finished -- does that mean we shouldn't be concerned if things don't work?

We stand by the statements we made originally. KDE 4.0 is pretty and showed a lot of potential. We knew it would get better, but what would the cost be to the desktop environment? Would they be able to get the desktop environment to a stable, workable condition in time to keep alive the interest of those who opted to stay with KDE 3.5 at the time, or even moved to GNOME or Xfce?

The KDE 4.1 final release has become what many hoped the January release would. It is as stable on our OpenSUSE 11.0 system as our GNOME desktop. It is much faster and less weighty than a KDE 3.5 install. It is, of course, still really pretty. But better than that, it is functional. It can be configured to work the way you work, and even make your work easier. We can finally set our default desktop to KDE4 on login, and use it on a daily basis.

And yes, it is very different. And where we might not understand the reasoning behind every change (and some may even puzzle us a bit) we are really excited about the way things are shaping up.

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Filed under: Design, Developer, Internet, Features, Linux, Open Source

Have you ever looked in a real DIYers toolbox? Or maybe even the toolbox of someone who's pretty handy, but who has a messy streak? So all the hammers might be together, or all the screwdrivers will be together, maybe even with some sort of arrangement as to Phillips or Torx heads... but there is almost inevitably, in some corner compartment of the toolbox, or some drawer (and maybe several of them, even) an area set aside for what amounts to a whole lot of miscellaneous "everything" bits. These pieces might logically be found with hammers, or dry wall tools, or about a million other things... But they aren't quite the same, and they aren't always used in the same manner. So they end up in a big pile, that you hope stays manageable enough you can find them again.

This week's Linux switch, the last of the web development stuff for a bit, is like that compartment. These are all nifty little tools, and great when you need them. But they are mostly small, and have a strange distinction of not always being associated with any one particular type of task.

Some, like FTP programs and plugins, are associated with other programs. But what if you love your editor and hate the uploading functions it has? Image maps can be a nuisance to set up, and we think that's probably part of the reason why you don't see a lot of them. But sometimes, they just fit the project at hand.

And you know how we said we'd go easy on the editors? Seriously, we meant it. However, there's one more editing tool we want to mention that's probably beyond most casual users, but will make Linux users who want to develop SWF9 applications pretty happy. We are not covering it in any great depth, because we are not any sort of whizzes with Flash development -- but we have to point it out. It's been a long time coming!

So welcome to our odds and ends compartment of web tools!

Continue reading Flipping the Linux switch: Linux web tools - Pt. 6

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Filed under: Internet, Security, Utilities, Features, Windows, Freeware

Everybody knows the big names in the battle against malware - Adaware, Spybot, HijackThis. Today we're going indie, focusing on lesser known ways to avoid and remove all that bothersome software that your "friend" crapped up your rig with!

First things first. Try not to get infected in the first place.

It's common sense that if you can keep malware from getting its nasty little claws on your OS you won't have to bother with fancy removal tools anyway. But how to do it? Sure, real-time scanning will catch a lot of garbage, but why not give your PC a little extra help? Here are two really simple methods.

Outfox malicious sites using a hosts file. By making use of the lmhosts file win Windows, you can trick your computer into never seeing sites where a lot of malware originates. Our favorite is MVPS.org's; it's one of the most complete, frequently updated files you'll find on the net. All the nefarious domains are redirected to 127.0.0.1 - good ol' localhost - so any links to their evil apps just won't work because chances are pretty good that your PC isn't serving up WinSuperSpyRemover 2008. Gold.

Continue reading Lesser Known Weapons To Trick Out Your Malware Arsenal

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Filed under: Internet, Features, News, Social Software

Continue reading 10 + tools to pimp out your Friendfeed

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Filed under: Features, Blogging, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Only a few months after its last major release, the WordPress crew has just unleashed WordPress 2.6 into the wild. While the changes with this update aren't as visually sweeping as those ushered in with 2.5, but they do add some great new options and optimizations. WordPress encourages users to upgrade, as the old 2.5 branch will no-longer be maintained, and they have outlined the upgrade process here or you can use the fantastic automatic-update plugin.

We've been playing around with 2.6 on our local installs since the first beta was released, and we think this is a very, very solid release.

The WordPress team posted video showing off some of the new features:



Read on for our take on the new WordPress!

Continue reading WordPress 2.6 released

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