If you're like us, you have to read long blocks of text on a monitor all the time, and it's kind of a pain for your eyes. E-books and long PDF articles would be great if they could somehow get diced into neat, readable columns. Hey, it works for newspapers. Well, Tofu brings that pleasant reading experience to the Mac.
In a nutshell, Tofu cuts up what you're reading -- whether it's a PDF, a doc, or a chunk of text you've selected -- into columns. This is a good, because monitors are wider than the human eye is really comfortable with, and columns fit the text into your optimal scanning area for easy reading. Tofu's full screen mode and adjustable text size and colors are crucial, too. This app is good enough that we'll think twice before printing out something we can just read in Tofu.
Do you often repeat the same HTML code, form emails, or text? jfSnips might be up your alley then. With jfSnips you can manage all of the text you regularly paste over and over again, as well as re-use everything you've copied in a clipboard, much like Windows does. Except this is for all of you Mac OS X lovers out there.
You can place clips of text in whatever categories you like, so you could have one for PHP code, Javascript, HTML, or whatever tickles your fancy. Just don't tell us about your fancy tickling, that's way TMI.
Keyboard shortcuts make it even easier to insert text wherever you like. A simple SHIFT-CTRL-V pops open the jfSnips drop-down that sits up in your menu bar. Easy.
So if you repeat multiple email signatures that go a little something like "Sincerely, Thurston Howell IV" over and over and over, then give jfSnips a whirl. You can download it and give it a 15 day try or pay $15 for a full license. If you're looking for a free option, or a commercial utility with a different feature set, check out our recent rundown of clipboard applications for OS X.
That popular Unix and Linux text editor known as Vi is now the proud brother of an online clone that should run in most javascript enabled browsers. It's called jsvi, and now you can write your own programs and HTML code from anywhere!
Such remote locations include but are not limited to:
your local library
the internet cafe down the street from work
your aunt's house
those weird McDonald's locations with internet computers inside
the boss' laptop
Russia
On a more serious note, the Vi simulator works with nearly all the traditional keys and substitution commands, and you can copy/paste from the clipboard. It also includes a built-in spell checker for those long-night moments when you've stared a word for too long and can no longer remember how to spell it. Does that happen to other people, or is it just us?
DarkCopy is a web-based alternative to programs like WriteRoom and DarkRoom that lets you compose text files in full (or almost full) screen to eliminate distractions like instant messages, Flash games, LOLcats, etc.
You can type in a regular browser window, or go full screen to make most of your screen (except for the browser's toolbar) black with greenish text. When you're done writing, you can save the file to your computer as a plain ole' .txt file.
This is handy if you want to work on a blog post, business idea, school paper, or love note without your attention being lost to something less significant.
Safari always had an interesting and convenient way of searching for text: it dims the background and highlights text-matches throughout the page. It's too bad Firefox can't couldn't do that. It's now possible to easily add that functionality to everybody's favorite open-source browser thanks to a recent mozillaZine post.
The install process is pretty simple if you use the better set of instructions and files, and it shouldn't take more than a few minutes of copying, pasting, and mouse clicking to complete. The animation process in between "Next" clicks is also fun, and if you're still on the fence about it, you could check out a video or two on the custom feature.
Most word processors will give you some basic statistics about documents you're working on, like a word count. But what if you want to see how many words, paragraphcs, sentences, characters, and spaces are in a text-based document without opening it up in a word processor?
Text Stat is a lightweight, open source Windows application that will let you analyze any TXT or HTML file. In addition to those stats, you Text Stat will spit out a whole bunch of numbers that you'll probably never need to know, including the average number of syllables per word, the average number of words per sentence, and a Flesch score, which basically tells you how difficult the article is to read. [via gHacks]
You know how Google's been shaking up it's old fashioned search engine by adding image and video links to its formerly text-only results page? Well, according to the New York Times, the company's about to go one step further and introduce video advertising.
Google has reportedly already begun displaying video ads on a limited number of pages, but we haven't run across one yet. Eventually we may also see image-based ads and interactive map ads showing up on search results pages.
The idea is that the ads are tailored to the page you're seeing. When Google's search page was populated with text-only links, video ads would have stood out like a sore thumb. But now that you can find a bit of everything on a Google search results page, text only ads are pretty easy to ignore as your attention is drawn to images and videos.
In this day and age, who has time for reading? You don't -- obviously. There's this site out there called PimpMyNews and it reads blogs aloud for you using text-to-speech software. You can even listen to the stories on an iPhone or iPod Touch through the site, and the service will even let you transfer stories onto your regular ol' iPod.
Despite being perfect for those too busy (lazy?) to read blogs, the site could also work in favor of the blind and others unable to read regular text. And for the skeptics: the text-to-speech software does a surprisingly decent job at being very understandable and comfortable enough to listen to, but others may be annoyed by the non-human elements in the the voice.
First, a little experiment. What are the first three applications you think of when someone mentions text editors?
If you can only answer Notepad, Notepad and Notepad, there's help for you yet.
True, the ubiquitous Notepad is a text editor. People who regularly use text editors often find Notepad quite limiting. That's why there are so many alternative text editors available for Windows.
Linux text editors are a different breed, more closely akin to the uber-editors that you can add to Windows (in fact, many Linux-based text editors have been ported to Windows and OS X). Sure, you can use them exactly the same way you use Notepad, if you want. But you can do so much more: programming in languages from C to XML, annotating documents with notes, and even collaborative editing.
Google recently filed for a patent to protect a sophisticated search system designed to find text in images. The most obvious use of the the technology is to find text in pictures through Google Images, but that's just the beginning.
Currently, Google uses the technology in Google Maps Street View, but, as usual, the company would like to expand into other areas of money-making. It is currently putting together what may be called Google Product View, a service that could revolutionize the way we shop and revitalize walk-in stores.
Product View requires automatic machines to index the inventory of regular, walk-in stores. Consumers can search local stores or a specific location for rare items, preventing them from having to call individual stores and dealing with disgruntled 19 year olds. Google plans on integrating Product View with its other services including the company's advertising efforts and Google Maps.
Microsoft plans to launch a free plugin next year for Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007 next year that will add a "Save as DAISY" feature to the word processor.
What's DAISY? It stands for Digital Accessible Information System, and it's essentially a format for converting text to speech. This isn't one of those parlor tricks for getting your computer to say "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." Rather, DAISY is an open format used by computer programs and hardware devices like the PlexTalk PTN1 that blind people can use to listen to books and text.
Microsoft plans to host the Open XML to DAISY XML translator on open-source project management site SourceForge, meaning independent developers will be able to look at the code and come up with their own translators and plugins.
Text messages are normally easy to send, but what about when you're driving or occupied and want to get something complex across? Pinger is a service that lets users call into a service and leave a voicemail to a contact, that will in turn send a text message instead of a ring. Recipients then press a button and listen to your voice message and can reply or forward the message. It's a quick alternative service that makes voice messages easy without actually ringing up and interrupting a person. Recipients are presented with a message that shows who the message is from, how long it is, and when it was sent before they listen.
The Pinger service is free to use, but is only currently open to US residents. Instead of calling a number, Pinger has a special application for Blackberry and Treo that speeds up the process and allows for a visual preview of messages, list of last 10 Pinger messages and sharing between other Blackberry or Treo users.
After quietly launching SearchMash as a test ground for all things search late last year, Google is making the site a bit more Flashy.
SearchMash is a playground of sorts for Google to experiment with interaction and the display of search results. Now they have taken their simple search philosophy to the limits and added in a Flash interface for a more interactive look at results.
The new interface uses Snap previews of websites before they are visited and tabs that seamlessly switch between web, image and video searches. Keyboard shortcuts and mouse scroll wheel interactions have also been put into place for quicker navigation. A list of recent searches is conveniently hidden on the left side, with a portion of a window slightly sticking out. When moused over, a tray slides out and display the keywords. Not the best placement and surely not something that the average user would know where to mouse over. Then again, we have to pinch ourselves because this is after all just a test search interface for Google to play around with. Of course the HTML version of the site is still available if you aren't inclined to search with Flash.
What do you think of this little Google experiment. Would Flash interfaces fly for search efforts in the real world?
Text messages are all well and good, but the kids these days, they like graphics. So when Zlango launched a service to offer enhanced emoticons and icons for mobile phone and web use, we were suitably impressed. The company came up with a hieroglyphic-like "language," complete with 200 different icons, some of which hold multiple meanings.
While it's not a complete language, you can convey a lot of meaning with those 200 icons. But that's a lot of images to remember. Fortunately, Zlango has gone and offered a couple of new services, including Zlango Composer, an English to Zlango translator. Because you know, there's a wide demand for that kind of thing.
The application is Flash-based, and translates text into images as you type. You can then send messages to your friends, who will likely have a pretty tough time reading them if you turn the captions off. We can't say Zlango Composer is particularly useful, unless say, you're a company focused on icons and you're trying to attract users to your service. But it's certainly fun to play with for a few minutes.
Yahoo! has made a couple new major updates to its Yahoo! Mail application that enables people to connect in a few more ways.
The new version of Yahoo! Mail now includes some intuitive communication features that make it a little easier for contacts to stay in touch. The first is the ability to send instant messages from Yahoo! Mail to mobile phone numbers. Mail users can now choose to send IM's to mobile numbers in the US, Canada, India and the Philippines without leaving Yahoo!'s web mail interface. Users simply enter a mobile phone number, type a message and send it.
The second Mail integration is the ability to send instant messaging straight from Yahoo! Mail to Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger users. This opens up chatting to millions of other IM users, straight from the Yahoo! Mail interface possible. These new features make it easier to connect with friends by converting emails to instant messages to text messages.
Yahoo! Mail IM and mobile feature enhancements will begin rolling out to users worldwide today. And if you are into adding a few new colors to the interface to spice things up, there are six customizable color themes available.
If you're like us, you have to read long blocks of text on a monitor all the time, and it's kind of a pain for your eyes. E-books and long PDF articles would be great if they could somehow get diced into neat, readable columns. Hey, it works for newspapers. Well, Tofu brings that pleasant reading experience to the Mac.
DarkCopy
First, a little experiment. What are the first three applications you think of when someone mentions text editors? 
