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Filed under: Web services, Social Software, Troubleshooting

Confused about Google Wave? Now you can read the bleeping manual.

Google Wave is an innovative new communication tool, but part of innovation is that it's not always intuitive to use. Early adopters have been jumping into Wave with little guidance on how to take advantage of all its features. I guess you could watch the 90-minute Wave video, but that's not exactly a quick-start guide.

Well, there's a saying almost as old as computers themselves, and it goes: RTFM. Read the, um, flippin' manual. Now Google Wave has a flippin' manual that you can read, but it's not from Google: it's from Lifehacker's Gina Trapani and Adam Pash. Sounds a lot better than "watch the frickin' 90-minute video," eh?

Gina and Adam's guide is quickly making the rounds on the web, being promoted by the likes of Mashable. I'd like to add Download Squad's endorsement to the list. The Complete Guide to Google Wave is a straightforward, well-organized volume that goes a long way toward demystifying a new and complex tool. It's available to read online for free, but you'll be able to buy it as a DRM-free PDF soon, and in print in January.

Still don't have Wave? Go throw your name in the hat for Download Squad's Great Google Wave Invite Giveaway.

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Freeware

Man Viewer: view all installed man pages on Leopard

Man ViewerMan Viewer is a small application that does a simple job: it lets you view/export all of the man pages installed in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. Man (short for manual) pages are Unix documents that explain how to use Unix commands. The general command usage to display a man page in Unix is: man <command> as in man cp (to show how to use the copy command).

Man Viewer automatically finds your man pages and displays them in a searchable list. Clicking a specific page will display the contents on the right pane for easy reading. You can then export the document to plain text or post script.

[Via Apple Downloads]

Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services

Tech support by average joes with Fixya

fixya online technical supportHow many times have you been befuddled with a product, only to result to the dreaded 1-800 number in the manual to resolve your issue? Hours later only to find no resolution in sight.

Enter Fixya, a startup that has taken on the challenge of supplying online technical support, user guides and repairs by letting users help each other. In a few simple steps users get the help they need with their items by submitting product related questions from a catalog of over 700,000 current consumer products, ranging from baby items to electronic gadgets. Other users can then choose to answer questions to the best of their knowledge, with experts standing by. It's a very unique online service that I'm sure big brands would love to sponsor or be a part of. Can we say no more 1-800 in the neat future? Maybe!

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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