clean posts

Filed under: Text, Utilities, Web services

Readability 2 makes webpages printable, pasteable and uncluttered

by Jay Hathaway Oct 30th 2009

I've written before about the Readability bookmarklet, a handy way to make cluttered sites more easily readable (and printable). Well, TUAW blogger and talented designer Brett Terpstra has made some improvements that result in an even more minimal page. Print/email links and logos are cut out, and only essential images are included. For most sites, that means you'll be left with some nicely-formatted text, and nothing more. This new-and-improved version is aptly called Readability 2.

If you need to copy-paste an entire article without grabbing images or accidentally copying weird formatting tags, Readability 2 is just the ticket. Code and pre tags are also preserved, so Readability 2 won't destroy the formatting of code snippets on a webpage. Mr. Terpstra points out that it's also great for getting text ready to be grabbed with capture tools like Evernote.

(and yes, the image above is a screenshot of this post, after using Readability 2.)

Tags: brett terpstra, BrettTerpstra, clean, formatting, readability, readability 2, Readability2, text

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

FlexTK Makes File Management Easy

by Lee Mathews Jul 4th 2008

If you're like us, your hard drive is anything but tidy. That's because us power users can't be bothered to keep things organized - there are just too many awesome things out there to download, extract, and forget about because half of them turn out to be garbage.

FlexTK for Windows helps make short work of cleaning up after yourself, offering a full complement of file management tools in one handy package. Folder sync, duplicate file search, temp file cleanup, storage utilization, search, and an advanced organization module are all included. Navigation is handled beautifully in an explorer-like manner, tweaked by the addition of breadcrumbs and a "bookmarks" pane that allows you to quickly link your favorite locations.

Tags: clean, cleaning, duplicate files, DuplicateFiles, duplicates, file management, file manager, FileManagement, FileManager, synchronization, syncing

Filed under: Business, Developer, Internet, Web services, Social Software

Facebook - Spring cleaning in January with extended profile

by Romeo Wahed Jan 16th 2008

Facebook made an announcement earlier and promised a clean up tool that would make profiles visible again under the clutter of applications. Well, the tool is here now, most likely to the dismay of developers trying to monetize Facebook, but it does make profiles a lot "tidier."

Now, you have option to move your application boxes to your extended profile - allowing you to essentially keep both a sane and insane version of your profile. Nicely enough, you can choose which applications you want to move to the extended profile, so you can keep your basic profile as stuffed or as trim as you like. And, you can always change your mind by scrolling to down and clicking "Edit Extended Profile" on your profile page.

After you've made your choices, people that come to your profile will first be greeted by the sane version with an option to see the insane version which you've got stuffed with all those extra goodies.

If only cleaning the house was this easy.

[via Mashable]

Tags: clean, extended profile, ExtendedProfile, facebook

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Keep your PC clean with nCleaner

by Brad Linder Sep 10th 2007

If you run Windows, your operating system, web browsers, and other applications have a tendency to tie up system resources with all sorts of "temporary" files that never seem to get deleted. nCleaner helps you remove thousands of unnecessary files in one fell swoop.

Like other system cleaners, nCleaner lets you clear disk cache, user history files, and also invalid Windows registry settings. But unlike our favorite system cleaner, CCleaner, we're not sure we'd recommend nCleaner for computer novices. Some of the options selected by default could erase user data that you might actually find useful.

For example, if you use the password manager in your web browser, there' s a good chance you'll accidentally delete all of your web site logins the first time you run nCleaner if you don't pay close attention to all of the options. And there are a lot of options, so it's easy to miss a few.

All told, we were able to save a few gigs of space on our test rig with nCleaner, and when we ran CCleaner afterward, it only found a handful of files missed by nCleaner.

[via TechnoBuzz]

Tags: ccleaner, clean, cleanup, nccleaner, registry, system cleaner, SystemCleaner

Filed under: Utilities, E-mail, Freeware

Clean up messy emails with Email Stripper

by Lisa Hoover Sep 2nd 2007

Haphazardly forwarded email is huge annoyance for many people. We're not talking about the ones with subject lines like, "OMG! Check this out!!!!" or "Microsoft is giving away a million dollars!!!!" (though those are super-annoying too). No, we mean the emails that have already been forwarded 37 times and land in our inbox looking something like this:

>>>>>>>>>The company party will>>>>>>>>>be this >>>>>>>>>Saturday>>>>>>>>> at the
>>>>>>>>>Pavilion. >>The CEO will bring the beer and >>>>>a lampshade, a sign-up sheet for
>>>>>>>>>desserts is in>>>> the break room. Plan on a limbo>>contest and Jello >>>shots, dress
>>>>>>>>>casual.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The spiffy free download Email Stripper 2.2 (Windows and Linux under WINE only) rescues emails like this by yanking all the stray symbols and weird spaces, then restoring it to its original easy-to-read format. Simply paste the wonky email (that's the technical term for it, you know) into Email Stripper, click a button and -- presto -- the text is cleaned up and ready to be cut and pasted into a new email.

>>Piece>>>of>>cake.

[Via MakeUseOf]

Tags: clean, email, forward, strip, stripper

Filed under: Blogging, Freeware

The best minimalist WordPress themes

by Jordan Running Aug 30th 2006

Is your WordPress blog too cluttered? Too dark? Too boxy? Take a look at plaintxt.org's list of the Best Minimalist WordPress Themes. Minimalism isn't quite so in vogue as it was last year, but it's definitely still going strong, so if you're looking for something clean, airy, and uncluttered, these 10 themes, with names like Barecity, Way Too Clean, Zen Minimalist are for you. I'm particularly a fan of Simpla and The Simple Life, both of which have a bit more color than the others.

Tags: best, clean, free, minimal, minimalism, minimalist, themes, top10, white, wordpress

Filed under: Design, Internet, Photo, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Web services

Clean up your images with Tourist Remover

by Chris Gilmer Jul 24th 2006

You're on vacation, you snap some pics of a nice monument and building, and some snaps of your family in front of the monument and building. When you arrive home to download the pics, you notice to your dismay that there are a bunch of people in your picture. Just standing beside your family. What do you do?

Get SnapMedia's Tourist Remover, that's what you do! The trick is: you are required to take a bunch of pictures of the background location of where you are shooting. The less going on in the picture the better. So try to get it with as few people as possible. Try to keep the lighting the same as well. All you have to get started is sign up, and upload your images. SnapMedia's system will handle the image manipulation.

I have yet to try this app out, but it sounds pretty cool if it really says what it does. If anyone has any experience with SnapMedia's Tourist Remover, drop a line in the comments and let us know if it really works.

[Thanks Mike]

Tags: clean, digital pictures, DigitalPictures, edit, image, images, photo, photo editing, PhotoEditing, photos, picture, pictures, remove, tourist remover, TouristRemover, travel

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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