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Posts with tag productivity tools

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, OpenOffice.org, Open Source

Go-OO: Stick a fork in it

screenie

Since before the dawn of time, open source projects have forked more often than Lindsay Lohan cheked into rehab. The Mozilla browser is a great example of a successful fork, it was once based on Netscape, but evolved on its own and eventually rendered classic Netscape obsolete. Many -- if not most -- forks disappear into obscurity. We aren't so sure this one will go so quietly.

Go-OO is a fork of OpenOffice that has quite a few impressive features which really ought to be in official OO, but for some reason or another aren't, such as support for OpenXML, better Microsoft Binary support, and Word Perfect Graphics support. It also boasts significantly better start times -- at least on our poorly equipped test machine.

Long story short, this is a fast, lean beast of an office suite with great compatibilty with Microsoft Office. The price is right at $0.00, but as with any community project you are both welcome and encouraged to donate to the developers for their efforts.

Filed under: Macintosh, Productivity

Put Check Off on your download to-do list

Elaborate productivity tools are great but sometimes it's easy to get caught up tweaking them instead of actually being, you know, productive. Check Off is a handy little Mac-only tool that docks a simple check-off list in your menu bar and opens with just one click to remind you of all the tasks you need to complete.

If you simply must tweak, then Check Off lets you do that too. Create folders for each area of your life -- work, home, kids, hobby, etc. -- and nest to-dos inside each one. You can color code each folder, name it anything you like, and display notes in global folders or inside each task. As an added bonus, Check Off lists can also be downloaded to iPods that support the notes feature.

Check Off may not be the most full-featured to-do list manager out there, but it's simplicity and usefulness is what makes it so attractive.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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