AnAppADay posts

Filed under: Games, Internet, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Open Source

QuickKill, and app-killer's best friend

by Ryan Carter Oct 6th 2006

Any app killers out there? Do you perform the three-finger salute--you know, Ctrl, Alt, Del--every day? Even if you aren't an app-killer by nature, this app will give you the chance to be a maniacal grim app-killer, laying waste to any processes that stand in your way. Dana Hanna (the "Software Jedi") keeps cranking out winners in his An App a Day project. He is proving his ~~Ninja~~ Jedi skills by cranking out QuickKill, an app that will allow you to arbitrarily kill any unneeded tasks on your PC. Think of it as HijackThis for the real-time here-and-now, instead of on start-up. It is getting a lot of positive comments right now, so go check it out!

Tags: anappaday, Dana Hanna, DanaHanna, Hijackthis, quickkill, task

Filed under: Text, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Open Source

JediWPMConcentrate

by Jordan Running Oct 5th 2006

We've been following "Software Jedi" Dana Hanna's An App A Day for a couple months with much enthusiasm. Two interesting side-effects of his project to write a program every day for a month is that he's releasing a lot of open source code and inspiring a lot of people to make their own apps. One such person recently created a cool mash-up of two of Hanna's best apps, JediConcentrate, which darkens the screen outside of whatever app you're currently using, and WPM Tray, which monitors how fast you type. The mash-up, called JediWPMConcentrate combines the two by darkening the screen around the active window whenever you typing speed passes a certain threshold. That way, if you really get in "the zone" writing or coding or whathaveyou, all other distractions will fade out of view. Very cool. Like its parents, JediWPMConcentrate is an open source download for Windows.

Tags: anappaday, appaday, Dana Hanna, DanaHanna, free, freeware, gtd, jediconcentrate, jediwpmconcentrate, opensource, productivity, windows, wpmtray

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Text, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Open Source

Jedi Concentrate

by Ryan Carter Oct 4th 2006

Any Mac OS X Exposé fans out there? I thought so. Well, as part of the "AnAppADay" project as Jason wrote about the other day, and we told you about earlier, Jedi Concentrate is like Mac's Exposé (in a way). It basically toggles to make everything but your current window darkened so you can focus on the work you are doing at the moment. You could call it a stripped-down dark-room clone for Windows if you want to. Dana Hanna (self-proclaimed software Jedi) is jamming, kicking out a bunch of useful apps in 30 days. All of the apps thus far are available on his site. He has been on Digg and Lifehacker many times lately, and it's because his apps are cool and even useful. Props to you Dana!

Tags: an app a day, AnAppADay, concentrate, downloads, Jedi, software

Filed under: Text, Utilities, Windows, Blogging, E-mail, Productivity, Freeware

WPM Tray - monitor your typing speed

by Jason Clarke Oct 2nd 2006

WPM Tray is a new utility that was developed as part of the An App a Day project. As you all know, I love simplicity, and WPM Tray is simple, but fun. All it does is sit in your system tray, and monitor how quickly you type, giving a WPM number. Although the algorithm for determining your typing speed is admittedly over simplified, it's still very fun to see how you're doing as you're writing something. In fact, as I write this, I can't help but glance down to my tray to see how I'm doing. Right now it says I'm doing 96 WPM, but honestly that's only because it has a very forgiving algorithm, but I still feel pretty darn good about it!

WPM Tray can also give you a 15 minute rolling graph of your typing speed. There's no installer, simply unzip it into a folder and run it. Why not?

Tags: an app a day, AnAppADay, typing speed, typing speed monitor, TypingSpeed, TypingSpeedMonitor, wpm tray, WpmTray

Filed under: Developer, Fun, News, Blogging, Productivity

An app a day, his kung-fu is strong

by Ryan Carter Sep 13th 2006

Dana Hanna, self-dubbed "software jedi" will (attempt to) write an application a day for 30 days starting on Sept 15th. He is accepting ideas via email: "ideas at an app a day [dot] com." This is a feat that I know I myself, as a programmer, wish I had the free time resources and mental energy to attempt, and the ambition doesn't hurt either. There is no telling what Dana will come up with or what he has gotten himself into here (I don't think he knows either), but it should be interesting. I wish Dana all the godspeed and good luck in the world (that is if the world will let me borrow it) because this doesn't sound easy. This is a bit of harmless, pointless, and vicarious fun, at least for me.

[Via Digg]

Tags: anappaday, coder, developer, programming

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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