calculator posts

Filed under: Business, Fun, Web services, Freeware, Web

Stimator - "real" website value estimator

by Jason Clarke Apr 7th 2009

$timator is a site that purports to estimate the true monetary value of your website. Simply enter a URL, and $timator goes to work, analyzing things like search engine placings, back-links, and site structure to come up with an ultimate dollar value.

$timator examples When I tried it for my 5 year-old personal blog, it came up with a relatively modest $1979, which to be honest feels a little generous (but I'll take it). However, Download Squad is apparently worth well over $31 million, which seems more than slightly absurd, particularly considering that based on this screenshot google.fr is valued at just over $18 million.

These "your website is worth x amount of money" have to be taken for what they're worth: a fun tool to play with and dream about how you could buy a few extra cases of beer if you were to sell your site. If Download Squad were for sale, can you imagine the party we could throw if we sold it based on $timator's valuation? You're all invited.

Tags: amount-of-money, backlinks, calculator, dollar-value, estimate, monetary-value, money, search-engine, site, stimator, web

Filed under: OS Updates, Microsoft

Windows 7 comes with an updated, oh-so-pretty calculator

by Brad Linder Sep 22nd 2008

There've been numerous reports over the weekend that Microsoft has released another test build of Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista. While I tend to take leaked screenshots with a grain of salt, I'm a sucker for video - even if it doesn't show that much. So today I bring you a video of the integrated calculator that may ship with Windows 7.

For the most part, if the leaks are to be believed, Windows 7 will look and feel a lot like Windows Vista. Microsoft has been working on under the hood changes to the OS, not tweaks to the user interface. So while 7 will reportedly have a few noticable changes, most will be pretty subtle. A slightly tweaked start menu, for example, and the same type of ribbon user interface used in Office 2007 could show up in other applications like WordPad.

The new calculator actually looks kind of useful. ~~It will have a scientific mode, which is nice~~. But I'm more excited about the history feature. There's nothing as annoying as adding a bunch of figures and then forgetting which number you started with. OK, maybe a few things.

[via Gizmodo]

Tags: calculator, ribbon-ui, windows-7

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity

eCalc offers new Windows desktop version

by Christina Clark Aug 25th 2008

Last month we told you about the new web calculator eCalc. Now you can not only use the calculator on the web, but also on yourWindows desktop.

The download and install is extremely fast and simple - I had my calculator up an running in under 90 seconds. The calculator can be used by clicking numbers and functions with a mouse or using them on your keyboard. The only thing I found that threw me off was that using the equal sign on my keyboard did not work. I had to press enter instead.

The desktop version is always on top unless you minimize it and takes up a good chunk of the side of your screen. If you need a scientific calculator, pressing the scientific mode button on the desktop version takes you to the web calculator and its' scientific capabilities.

I hope this won't make me sound too old but I found it easier to use than the regular Windows calculator because of the bigger buttons. It also features a lot more functions beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Tags: calculator, desktop calculator, DesktopCalculator, ecalc, free

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, Web services, web 2.0

1 + 1 = 4? Wait....Ecalc please

by Drew Olanoff Jul 8th 2008

Some of us aren't good with numbers. The whole addition, subtraction, division, it's just not our forte.

Sure Windows and Macs have built in calculators but we're web people so we need something on the web to make us not feel like we're totally mathstupid.

Ecalc to the rescue. It's not just any calculator though.

It's pretty and webified.

They also have a scientific calculator for those who are past just trying to add up this months shopping list with the rent, which is as far as some of us go.

All kidding aside, scientific calculators are expensive...so it's pretty cool to have this tool available online.

They also have a rundown of all types of calculators if you're really into that.

So go be a mathematical genius...we're counting on you.

Get it? Oy.

Tags: addition, calculator, scientific, subtraction, web

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Freeware

Calq: quick calculator access for Mac or Windows

by Todd Ritter Mar 19th 2008

Calq is a free, lightweight, shortcut-key accessible calculator for both Mac OS X 10.4+ and Windows 2000/XP. The idea is to give you quick access to math functions without launching another program just to do simple calculations.

Calq can run in your Mac menubar or Windows tray, but you can just have the program run in the background with no icons. You can select a hotkey to launch the calculator, and when you press that hotkey, the Calq window displays for you to enter your calculations.

The program has a few customizable options besides the hotkey combination like screen location of the calculator window, fade effect, and transparency.

[Via MacUpdate]

Tags: calc, calculator, math

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Browser Tips, How-Tos, Troubleshooting

How to surf the web even if Internet Explorer is disabled

by Brad Linder Jan 3rd 2008

Ever find yourself sitting in front of a computer that's been locked down by an overzealous IT administrator who won't let you install any software or even open Internet Explorer or Firefox? If that PC is running Windows XP, there's a good chance you can still visit Download Squad (or other sites if that sort of thing appeals to you).

All you have to do is launch a Windows application like Calculator, and then click the Help button. Under Help, click "Help Topics," which will bring up a help window. Next, all you have to do is right click on the title bar and select "Jump To URL." Now you can type in any web address you like, but make sure to include "http://" at the beginning. Basically what you're looking at is Internet Explorer 6 inside a help window, but this version of the program isn't quite as smart as IE6. It won't automatically add the http:// for you. And of course, there's no bookmarking feature.

Tags: calculator, help, IE6, Internet-Explorer

Filed under: Business, Fun, Web services

Calculate what a waste of time your next meeting is with Meeting Miser

by Brad Linder Nov 8th 2007

Time is money. And every time you have to sit down with your boss, coworkers, and some random consultant thinking what a big waste of time this meeting is, you could also argue that it's a waste of money.

Meeting Miser helps you figure out just how much money. The little web app works by pulling in average salaries for various job types and determining what their time is worth. So next time you sit down at a meeting, just open your laptop and pop in the job titles of all the attendees. Click the start button and watch the dollars rack up.

Somehow we doubt you'll actually show the total to your boss as proof that you should be allowed to skip the next meeting. But at least you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that your boring meeting has been scientifically shown to be a complete and utter waste.

[via New York Times Bits Blog]

Tags: calculator, meeting-miser, meetings, money, time

Filed under: Business, Internet, Office, Web services, Google

Peepel Online Office Suite

by Chris Gilmer Apr 4th 2007

Could this online office suite steal people away from the popular Google and Zoho? It seems far from likely that Peepel will ever take market share away from the online office application space. However, they might look a little amateur, but a lot of development work has gong under the Peepel hood, showing how serious people are indeed trying to get into this space.

Peepel has just announced their beta release for their online office suite of products that are currently not running head to head with Google, Zoho and Thinkfree. Peepel's suite includes a spreadsheet, calculator, word processor, help system, and a file manager. The Peepel workspace manager is a feature that saves the desktop as you have left it, and will open with everything where you were when you login the next time. A Task manager lives on the screen and shows everything that is open and active. In Peepel, users can have many different applications and files open at once, all overlapping in resizable windows. The big claim to fame by Peepel is the claim that they are the only competitor offering a true multiple window system in an online desktop, and not just a bunch of stacked popups. Some neat features, but nothing out of the ordinary that is going to make users want to switch.

Aside from the fact that there is currently no importing or sharing files, as well as limited storage sizes, Peepel does have a very welcome offline work mode. It's not up to standards with their competition, but if they are serious about success, they do have potential to grab a tiny share of the market space. We will hold off on storing any major files here yet, but our radar will be following Peepel's further development.

Tags: calculator, file manager, FileManager, google, office, online, peepel, spreadsheet, thinkfree, word, zoho

Filed under: Web services

Calc5: Quick online graphing calculator

by Jordan Running Dec 12th 2006

What does the 5 in Calc5 stand for? I have no idea. Rest assured, though, that this slick Ajax calculator does support most numbers, including those greater than five. At first blush there's not a lot to set Calc5 apart from the crowd. It works as advertised. But then you get into the advanced math and graphing functions, and that's where Calc5 really stands out. While it's distinctly lacking in documentation, the built-in samples will get you started. You can use unlimited variables, you can do derivations, you can find derivatives, and more, but most impressively you can make fast, attractive graphs, both 2D and 3D. The 2D graphs are very cool--smooth lines, and a Google Maps-like interface that lets you pan and zoom with the mouse. The 3D graphs aren't quite as cool--they lack the pan and zoom features--but still. 3D graphs will always be cool. The site automatically saves your previous calculations (via cookies), which is handy, but there's no built-in permalink system for sending calculations or graphs to your friends and colleagues. I can only assume this functionality is coming.

There are a couple undocumented features (well the whole app is undocumented, so take that how you will) I discovered that you might find useful, though:

Pressing Ctrl+Enter is equivalent to clicking the "OK" button. Very handy.
You can link to an equation by putting it after a pound sign following the URL. So if you wanted to help your friend solve, say, 2+2, you could point them to calc5.com/#2+2. Your friend will still have to click on the "OK" button (I hope this changes soon), but it works. First person to send me a Calc5 link for the Valenzetti Equation gets a free trip on Oceanic Airlines.

Calc5 is fairly powerful, especially with those graphing features, but it's clearly still very beta. Once they get some real documentation in there and some more convenience features, it could become indispensable. For now I'll probably stick to Google Calculator for the easy stuff, and Instacalc for the more complex stuff--unless I need to do some advanced graphing.

Tags: ajax, calc5, calculator, graphing

Filed under: Business, Finance, Utilities, Office, Productivity, Web services

Instacalc: Quick, powerful, shareable calculator

by Jordan Running Nov 2nd 2006

Instacalc just blows my mind. It's such a simple idea, brilliantly executed: It's sort of like a Web 2.0 mini-Excel, allowing you to quickly create a calculator for anything--body mass, loan repayment, YouTube valuation--with simple or complex calculations, and then share them with your friends, colleagues, or the world. It knows lots of mathematical operations and functions, understands things like "3 billion" or "8 kbps," and even does some basic programming-like operations.

Unlike a full-fledged spreadsheet, Instacalc just has rows, and in each row you can enter a number or bit of math, and the result will be shown at the end of the row as you type. You can refer to values from other rows by their row number (e.g. 5 + R1), or you can give a row a name by putting "rowname =" before it and then refer to it by name (5 + rowname). You can click on the result at the end of a row to hide the row and show only the result, and you can put "//" before a row to make it into a comment, i.e. a text label that doesn't do anything but give information to whoever's using your Instacalc. If you've ever done any programming, all of this is probably sounding pretty familiar, but even if you haven't Instacalc is easy to use. On top of all the various operations, you can also quickly create bar, pie, and line charts, like this country population chart.

But wait, it gets better. Like any good Web 2.0 service, Instacalc lets you embed your calculator in any web page with a snippet of HTML.

Obviously, I'm very impressed by Instacalc and am shuffling it straight into my bookmarks. Head over there and check out some of the sample calculators to quickly get an idea of what it's capable of. Once you've played around a bit, post links to your Instacalcs in the comments.

Tags: calculator, chart, excel, graph, instacalc, math, programming, web 2.0, web20

Filed under: Finance, Windows, Office, Productivity, Microsoft, Freeware

Microsoft Calculator Plus 2

by Jason Clarke Jun 27th 2006

Chris Pirillo points us to a freely downloadable calculator from Microsoft that is head and shoulders beyond the default Windows calculator in terms of features. Of course, as with most downloads from Microsoft these days, this one requires Windows Genuine Advantage certification. If that makes you nervous, steer clear, but if you're looking for a new calculator application that gives you conversions including currency exchange conversions (it can even download exchange rates), give this one a try.

Tags: calculator, free calculator, FreeCalculator, microsoft calculator, MicrosoftCalculator

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