doc posts

DocMazy: a search engine dedicated to documents

by Jay Hathaway Jun 29th 2009

DocMazy is a novel kind of search engine exclusively dedicated to finding documents. Instead of returning websites, it digs up PDFs, DOCs, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and text files. DocMazy was designed to find information that gets buried in other search engines because documents often don't score well in search engine algorithms, or aren't indexed by search engines at all.

Once you find the doc you're looking for, you can download it or view it online. DocMazy uses iPaper, which opens a preview without making you leave the results page. All in all, it's a pretty nice tool if you're looking for the kind of longer, more detailed information that often isn't published in its entirety on a webpage.

Tags: doc, docmazy, document, pdf, powerpoint, search, search-engine

Filed under: Internet, Office, Productivity, Mozilla, Browsers

Nodobe Viewer adds bloat-free document display to Firefox

by Lee Mathews Oct 6th 2008

I've been using Foxit PDF instead of Adobe Reader for ages. I'm not a big user of PDF files, so I don't need whatever it is Adobe jams in to the 90-some-odd megs of disk space the new version consumes.

Vuzit's online document viewer is a nice service, but I want single-click document handling. I don't want to download a file, open a new tab, browse to Vuzit, then browse to and upload my doc.

The Nodobe addon does exactly what I want, adding a new option Firefox's right-click menu. Find a file you need to open, right click it, and Vuzit's online viewer will display it in a new tab.

My one complaint is that it doesn't add an option to the download dialog, meaning it can't handle attachments from my Gmail. OpenItOnline, my document handler of choice, does provide that functionality.

Those with privacy concerns will want to read Vuzit's policy first, just to be on the safe side. I like to err on the side of caution with my docs, so anything really important I'll still be reading offline. For manuals, spec sheets, and the like, the Nodobe Viewer is a great alternative.

Tags: doc, document viewer, DocumentViewer, firefox, pdf

Filed under: Business, Windows, Macintosh, Office, Productivity, Web services, Freeware

Converting .docx documents to .doc

by Jason Clarke Sep 24th 2008

Thanks Microsoft. No seriously, thanks. As far as I can tell, the new .docx default document format in MS Word 2007 and 2008 (for Mac) does nothing to make my life easier, but has certainly made it more of a pain. Although my office predominantly uses Office 2003, our users are starting to receive documents saved in the newer .docx format, and are unable to open or edit them. Since I happen to be running Office 2007 and 2008 on my machine (it's a Mac with VMWare Fusion for running Windows), I get to play the role of "mister file converter".

Well, no longer.

Thanks to our pals over at TUAW, I can now redirect my office mates to Zamzar's free online file converter. We've written about Zamzar before, but this is the first I had heard that it supports Office file formats.

Tags: doc, document-conversion, docx, docx-to-doc, excel, tuaw, word, zamzar

Filed under: Internet, Text, Utilities, Office, Web services, Social Software

Take and share notes online with stu.dicio.us

by Chris Gilmer Aug 10th 2006

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but for those readers that are in school, the new semester is coming up fast. So grab a hold of your laptop and check out stu.dicio.us.

stu.dicio.us has the potential to become a students dream. It's an online note taking site. Students can publicly save notes and manage class schedules. It's a dream to use. No thinking required, which comes in handy after late nights of studying or partying.

Schedules are easily entered, tracking class name, day, time, school, and professor. You can also input to-dos, which make it easy to remember things that you have to do for the day. The Notes section in stu.dicio.us is pretty powerful. Users can search for notes in the database based on their particular subject or class. Making it extremely useful if you forgot or missed something from a lecture. Notes in the system can be exported in HTML or DOC formats for viewing, storing and printing.

When more people sign up for stu.dicio.us and use it more to store notes, I can see this as an extremely useful and beneficial online tool for students worldwide.

[via solutionwatch]

Tags: doc, html, laptop, note searcher, note taker, notes, NoteSearcher, NoteTaker, professor, schedules, school, semester, student, students dream, StudentsDream

Filed under: Windows, E-mail, Office, Microsoft

"Please don't send me Word documents"

by Jordan Running Jul 19th 2006

Word documents can sometimes seem like an inevitability of modern business, but at least one person things that doesn't have to be so. Research scientist Tristan Miller has put together a page called Please don't send me Microsoft Word documents that explains to would-be attachment-senders why Word is a bad format to send to your colleagues and what alternatives there are. Though I'm sure some readers won't agree with everything he says, and some businesspeople won't buy a word of it (or just not care), if you hate getting Word files it's a handy link to give to their senders.

Tags: attachments, doc, email, microsoft, office, word

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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