Ever wish that Derek Zoolander had decided to open a night school? Or maybe opened a secondary school, so that once those kids that couldn't read good or do other stuff too well got better at it, they could go on to learn to do other things? What if Zoolander teamed up with the University of Phoenix, and offered online courses?
Your prayers have been answered, sort of. Gramlee is an online service for grammar checking and proofreading (and yes, there are definitely differences between the two). The idea behind Gramlee is fairly simple. You just cut and paste your writing into the Gramlee submission form, supply your email address, and an editor (yes, a live person) will proofread it for you and make revisions.
There's no word on what the Gramlee submission form does with smart quotes, but they do seem to heavily recommend a text editor (like Notepad) for document creation. There's no reason why you couldn't use Word, but we're having a lot of fun imagining editors using some colorful language when they get certain document formats.
To get you hooked, the first hundred words are free. You can buy additional words (up to 2,625) for varying amounts, or email a longer document for a price quote. Turn around time is allegedly about twenty-four hours on most documents.
The disclaimer here is that we didn't submit a piece to Gramlee. The "Examples" page shows some nicely edited pieces, complete with red ink mark ups. It would be endlessly cool if documents were revised with the revisions somehow marked. We fear they aren't marked, and that makes our linguistic spidey-senses tingle. So if you use the service, proofread the proofreaders, please. Even people who write good well make mistakes.
And of course, we needn't tell you that it's really not a good thing to submit your term paper to Gramlee for editing, right? Um. Right?
We can't deny some of us here at Download Squad love open source software. But there's not a damn fool here that will disagree with the statement: "Bill Gates is an extremely intelligent man." We won't disagree that he's done amazing things for technology as a whole. And yes, we even wish heartily we had the faith in ourselves to say if we had that much moolah, we'd be even half as charitable with it.
But right now we're all kind of standing around scratching our heads and saying, "Wha?"
Today Techdirt points out a nice little quote by the venerable Mr. Gates in a Wired article. It seems as though Gates says that open source created a licensing situation "so that nobody can ever improve the software." All right, now, that would be a self-defeating license, wouldn't it? What have the brain-sucking aliens done with the Bill Gates we all know and love whose intellect we respect greatly?
Of course, we're willing to throw poor Bill a bone. The Wired quote is not a complete quote. It very well could be out of context. They then quote him saying that pharmaceutical companies who invent drugs should be able to charge for them. Well, yeah. Duh. And people who develop open source applications can also charge for them.
Open source doesn't necessarily mean it's free as in beer. Conversely, just because the local brewery is giving away free lager, it doesn't mean you'll get anywhere asking for the recipe.
We're wondering if Wired slipped up, or if Bill Gates is truly puzzled about the distinctions between free software and open software? Has he read the GPL? There are quick versions on their site... so even those of us who aren't as smart as Gates can get the general idea.
As predicted almost a year ago, Microsoft has begun offering a free, advertising supported version of Microsoft Works, its office application suite for people too cheap to spring for Office. But it doesn't appear that there's any way to download and install Microsoft Works SE (Sponsored Edition) yourself just yet. Rather, computer makers are starting to install the software on new PCs.
Basically the program works just as well (read that statement however you'd like) as the full version of MS Works, but users will see a small advertisement in the program window, whether they're editing a spreadsheet or text document.
The new version of Works is available to computer makers for free. Of course, OpenOffice.org is also available for free, but you don't see PC makers including that on computers that ship with Windows yet. Works SE isn't available everywhere yet. It's apparently showing up on selected computers in the US, Canada, and a handful of European countries.
Have friends, relatives, or business contacts located in faraway lands? Internet telephony company Skype is launching its first plan that lets you make unlimited international PC to telephone calls, assuming you're calling a landline in one of 34 countries covered by the plan.
Most of Europe is covered, as well as the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.The $9.95/month plan doesn't cover calls to cellphones in all areas, but you can call mobile phones in the US, Canada, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Or you can just convince everybody you know to install Skype on their computers and mobile phones so you can make Skype to Skype calls for free.
There are currently two great software bundles now available for Mac OS X: the MacHeist Bundle and MacUpdate's Promo bundle. Both offer a collection of commercial Mac apps, and both offer great savings by purchasing the apps bundled instead of separately. Here is a quick breakdown of both bundles and our recommendation if you can have only one.
MacUpdate Promo The initial bundle costs $64.99 (USD) and includes the following:
Chances are, if you've searched the web for a universal video converter for the Mac, you've come across VisualHub (formerly iSquint). Now, the makers of VisualHub have brought the same conversion magic to audio with AudialHub version 1.0.
AudialHub can easily convert audio files to most any format of your choosing, including AAC, MP3, WMA, AIFF, WAV, Apple Lossless, 3G (cell phones), Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and Audio and MP3 CDs.
AudialHub brings the same simplicity-and optional advanced features-that VisualHub offers. If you want to use AudialHub for quick and dirty conversions, simply drop in some audio files, choose the output format, and hit start. That's it!
If you want more advanced conversion, you can look into the advanced settings, where you can set bitrate and channel, trim the audio file, add tags and comments, etc...
AudialHub also offers a Quick Preview capability, so you can instantly preview compression quality and trim settings before you convert. AudialHub also supports simultaneous conversions in separate queues, each with their own setting.
AudialHub is currently offered with a free trial; after that, it'll cost you $18.81 (you get a $4 discount if you're a current owner of VisualHub). AudialHub requires Mac OS 10.4.11 or later.
Tired of sending emails back and forth trying to decide when to hold your next team meeting, video game night, or birthday party? Well, while we generally recommend having your birthday celebrations as close to the actual date of your birth as possible, Jiffle can help with the rest.
Jiffle is an online scheduling service that lets users pick the times they're free and then share their calendar with other users. In other words, it's a lot like When is Good, but with a desktop client that works with Outlook to let you share your existing calendar online. A new version will add Google Calendar compatibility.
You can sign up for Jiffle for free, but we found that when we tried to download the client today we were instead greeted with a message letting us know that a new version would be available next week and we'd be notified when it was available. Jiffle is a commercial application, but there's a free version that will let users schedule up to 10 meetings per month. For $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year, you can schedule unlimited meetings. A few bucks more gets you a version with your company branding, and for $99.99 per month you can get the corporate edition with licenses for five users and no advertising.
Spend a lot of time reading web-based forums? Wish there was a way to sift through new articles without visiting umpteen sites every day and hitting refresh a few hundred times a day? Web Forum Reader is a desktop application that lets you keep read postings from a wide variety of internet forums. It also works sort of like an RSS reader or email client, in that you can keep track of read items and scheduled automatic updates.
You'll need to take a few minutes to set up each forum you want to follow, since Web Forum Reader doesn't necessarily know how each page is laid out. But the setup process is relatively painless. You just have to click a couple of links on a forum page and tell the program if it's doing a good job of recognizing the page elements.
Web Forum Reader lets you open multiple tabs for viewing more than one forum at the same time. And you can create groups to keep all of your tech forums separated from your Mandy Moore fan forums. The application will set you back $30, but there's a 40 day free trial if you just want to check it out.
StyleTap is an application that lets you run PalmOS software on Windows Mobile devices. The company has been working on a Symbian version of StyleTap since last year, and is now looking for beta testers. The test will begin on May 12th, and users can sign up by sending an email to StyleTap asking to be part of the beta.
In other news, while the company hasn't exactly committed to releasing a version of StyleTap for the iPhone, it's looking more and more likely that we'll see an official version at some point. In February, the team posted a video demonstrating an experimental version of StyleTap running on an iPhone. This was before Apple released the iPhone SDK, so the team obviously had to Jailbreak an iPhone to get the software running.
Now that the SDK is available, an official version could be in the works, but according to the StyleTap blog, developing the application isn't quite as easy as you might think, thanks to some "legal roadblocks." So StyleTap is asking anyone who'd be willing to pay for software that lets you run Palm apps on an iPhone to let Apple know.
Stardock today announced Object Desktop 2008 for Vista and Windows XP. Stardock products are essentially synonymous with Windows tweaking and customization, and Object Desktop is their flagship product.
For the first time, Object Desktop will be split into two versions: Regular and Extra Crispy...oops, we mean Ultimate. The Ultimate version is 20 bucks more, but from our vantage point it seems to be worth it; you get around 10 added programs for the extra Jackson (doesn't quite have the ring of "Benjamins," does it?).
Both version include WindowBlinds, a program to alter the look of the entire Windows GUI; IconPackager, a one-click icon manipulator; DesktopX, a desktop enhancer that adds widgets and more; and Deskscapes, a progam that allows you to run animated desktops on your Vista machine (not limited to Vista Ultimate).
Existing Object Desktop users get the Ultimate version for free. That makes us warm and fuzzy inside.
If you've never played with Object Desktop before, you should give it a shot; but only if you have countless hours to waste trying to find that just-so look for your machine.
In our experience, we've spent hours and hours adjusting, tweaking, repackaging, downloading, etc...just to slink back to the normal Windows GUI after the novelty of customization had worn off.
The security minded folks at Trend Micro have released a new tool that provides real-time protection from internet threats. The Web Protection Add-On monitors any HTTP request made by any program on your computer, so it's not simply an add-on for one web browser. Rather, it will scan every URL you visit and every file you download. If the program finds malware, it will provide a pop up warning message.
The program provides some level of protection against bots and other malicious code. You can also configure it to use a Proxy server. But it's meant to be used in conjunction with other anti-virus, anti-spyware applications. The Web Protection Add-On isn't meant to be a complete Windows security suite.
Trend Micro's Web Protection Add-On is available now as a 60-day free download. There's no clear indication of what the full version of the program will cost.
We all make mistakes. Sometimes we put too much sugar in our coffee. And sometimes we accidentally delete the manuscript for the book your spouse has been working on for the last two years only to realize that it was the only copy. Well, there's nothing we can do about the coffee, but Pandora Recovery might help you get that manuscript back. And when we say "might," we mean it. There are no guarantees here.
Pandora Recovery isn't the only free file recovery utility around. But it does have an extraordinarily easy to use interface. When you launch Pandora Recovery, you'll be greeted with a helpful wizard that asks if you want to browse your hard drives, search for files or file types, or perform a deep scan of your drive for files.
There's also a portable version of the application which can be run from a removable flash drive. But Pandora Mobile Recovery isn't free. It's part of the Pandora PowerPack, which costs $20.
Yahoo! Mail has been one of the most popular free web-based email services ever since its humble beginnings. Not too long ago, Yahoo! started to feel the pressure from the brazen upstart Gmail, which offers a gradually increasing mailbox limit. Not to be outdone, Yahoo! introduced an unlimited mailbox size, promising that users would "never need to delete a message again."
As many of us expected, there is a limit, and it has been found. The Wall Street Journal has found a bug in the system that renders a account inoperable if it has too many messages in one folder. According to their findings, 55,000 or so is the maximum that the system can handle. Yahoo! is working on fixing the issue (of course), but be sure to point and laugh in the mean time.
If it feels like the online storage and file sharing market is getting a little crowded, that's because it is. Just in the past few weeks, we've seen services such as Dropbox, AOL's Xdrive Desktop, Windows SkyDrive, and more, come into the market.
Now HP is dropping its hat into the ring, with HP Upline. HP Upline offers unlimited storage for as low as $59 per year. Features of Upline include:
Automatic Backup
1-click restore
Access from anywhere
Ability to share files with friends
HP Upline also offers upgraded packages for family and professional use. If you want to try HP Upline, you can sign up for a limited account with one measly GB of storage. The limited account expires in one year; after that, you'll need to upgrade to the paid service to access your files, or kiss them goodbye.
One other note: The Upline software requires Windows. Mac users, you're out of luck. Well, out of Upline, anyway.
It's nice to see that two formerly disparate services, online backup and file sharing, are slowly merging into one complete service, with the choice of several offerings from big players.
Experts such as Brian Livingston, editorial director of the Windows Secrets newsletter, say Microsoft is intentionally allowing a loop-hole to exist, which enables more advanced users of Microsoft's operating systems to upgrade to Vista SP1 without having the necessary previous versions of Windows.
The loop-hole exists in the Vista SP1 Upgrade Edition, which requires a previous install of Windows 2000, XP, or Vista but the upgrade edition will install even if they're absent. The Vista SP1 Upgrade Edition retails for about $110 less than the full version of Vista SP1, which means users can save money on upgrading to Vista by purchasing the cheaper upgrade box.
Livingston believes Microsoft supports the hole since the upgrade edition installs over itself in Vista SP1. Although it may seem absurd at first, Microsoft may benefit from such software pirates -- if they can be called that anymore.
The theory behind this is already at play and has been at play for many years. As more and more users install some version of Windows, others will see it as "the standard", and then they will buy it -- or they'll pirate it and indirectly influence others to buy it.
Ever wish that Derek Zoolander had decided to open a night school? Or maybe opened a secondary school, so that once those kids that couldn't read good or do other stuff too well got better at it, they could go on to learn to do other things? What if Zoolander teamed up with the University of Phoenix, and offered online courses?
We can't deny some of us here at Download Squad love open source software. But there's not a damn fool here that will disagree with the statement: "Bill Gates is an extremely intelligent man." We won't disagree that he's done amazing things for technology as a whole. And yes, we even wish heartily we had the faith in ourselves to say if we had that much moolah, we'd be
