Portent

Along with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and a few others there is now Chrome; an open source web browser project that aims to reinvent a leaner, meaner browser that is more robust and faster than other browsers. It’s a quick download and has worked flawlessly on all websites I’ve tried so far.

It’s multi-tabbed and all tabs run as separate processes so if one crashes, it only kills that tab not the browser. Memory management is also better; Firefox as much as I loved it has a bit of a problem in that area. What Firefox still have over Chrome is the add-ins, though with a plug-in architecture, it’s only a matter of time before we see lots of add-ins. I’m very impressed with Chrome.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

This application costs money (£3.99) but for me it’s worth it. If you are connected to your iPhone on a wifi network you can access files on the iPhone via a WedDav interface. This means for example that you can map a network drive in Windows or your Mac/Linux box to it and copy files by drag/drop. The screenshot shows it mapped on my PC with a gif file I copied there.

Other features include security via login+password (or disabled) and a quota set on the storage so you don’t take up too much room. Best of all is that files lets you view many file types including Office 2007 and graphics files like the gif file shown above. Copy Mp3 files and ‘view them’ plays them.

I like the clever use of transparency when you are viewing files. You get the full height of the display but touch the screen at the bottom/top and you can set a bookmark, move to the top/bottom of the file and of course delete it. You can also delete files from the list by the usual swipe to get the delete button up.

it’s a handy way to move files and doubly secure by only having access when the files app is running and if that’s not enough then having to login. It also (dare I say it) means I guess that a number of users might be able to swap files if they were all logged into the same wifi. You’d need a PC for that of course. It would be a nice touch to have iPhone <=> iPhone file moving as well (hint!) but that’s not currently supported. Recommended!

Link (to iPhone App Store)

Popularity: 1% [?]

This is a very clever bit of Flash programming. In fact the whole thing is pretty good. Normally when you look for books online you search rather than browse. It’s a way of life- Amazon have a couple of million books so how could you possibly browse them?

Well Canadian Chris Thiessen has worked out how, though at present there are only 21,000 books in his (I’d guess) Amazon affiliate store. The top one of the three screen shots show the whole bookstore at the top, each square is a rack. You can zoom in to see the individual racks (the middle shows one rack zoomed in) and clearly see the book covers. It always amazes me that it is book covers that attract people but it is.

The racks are laid out like in a conventional bookstore, but at least here you don’t have to worry about books in the wrong racks or trying to get to a book with people standing in the way! Just click on a cover and you get the cover plus details (shown in the bottom screenshot) with a link to buy from Amazon. I suspect the 21,000 selected for Zoomii are the top sellers which makes sense.

It’s a fast interface and works very well with a mouse wheel button for quick zoom in and out. I wonder if someone like Amazon would pick up this and use it. Could it be improved? Possibly. How about a pop-up that appears and vanishes (without clicking) giving a summary as you move over the book cover? That might eat up a lot of bandwidth of course! This site is highly recommended for being innovative.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

If you’ve ever wondered how much people get paid at small, medium or large companies then this is the site for you and it’s completely free. You can view companies (over 11,000) generally or enter your own and see a lot more.

What is quite surprising for example that at JP Morgan Chase a personal banker is paid between $30K and $48K with an average of $35K. That’s from 41 submissions. Not everyone who works in a bank gets paid well! It’s an interesting site but as it depends upon people submitting details, so you will get back more if you submit yours. Just be careful not to submit too much or you might accidentally provide enough for your employer to identify you!

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Popularity: 1% [?]

This is a clever application that uses anamorphic perspective with a constant viewing angle (35-45 degrees) and appears to make the object appear to jump off the screen.

This technique draws the image at an angle which when viewed at the 35-45 degrees viewing angle gives it the 3d look. It’s clever stuff and the video looks brilliant. How easy it is to make it into an application is another matter!

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Popularity: 1% [?]

I think this has been well thought out. Some levels are very easy whereas other take a bit more effort.

You get a set number of bombs on each level and have to propel the main character to the exit door. On some levels there are barrels which explode after a while or tnt which blows immediately. Add in crates and it gets interesting. As you can see I’ve reached level 19 so far. Not easy as on some levels you have only one bomb- eg level 16.

You don’t have to solve all the levels in one go. Once you’ve done a level you can restart anytime at that level. Nicely implemented with great graphics. Recommended.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Tube Status Screenshot

I bought an iPhone six days ago and this was one of the first applications to go on it. It’s what you’d call a “Does what it says on the tin” application.

If you travel on the London Underground (The Tube as we call it) and have an iPhone this is a must. It shows you the current status of all the London Underground lines and by clicking on the icons you can see what the problem is. You could use the Safari browser on the iPhone and get this info from London Underground but this packages it up nicely. Highly recommended.

There’s a similar paid app but I haven’t tried that yet.

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(Note: Links go to UK Apple App Store)

Popularity: 1% [?]

This comes from Sysinternals.com, a very reputable source and now part of Microsoft. (No, I’m not being ironic!). Its just a zip file with a single exe. This can be booted at switch on by default. it gives you up to 4 desktops and you can configure a key combination to switch between them. I use the Windows Key + 1-4. Before anyone comments yes I know you get this built into Linux (Gnome I think). For once Windows is catching up with Linux.

Depending on your screen resolution, colour (16 bit or 32) and number of monitors you may only get 2 or 3 desktops. The picture shows the desktop switcher- this pops up if you click the icon in the system tray. You can see I only have three windows. If I click 4 it complains about lack of memory. But it works very effectively and is brilliant value for money (as it’s free!). It also works very well as a “Hide it from the Boss” key. An excellent piece of software.

PS. If you need to remove it from memory use the Task Manager and kill Desktops.exe.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

I’ve seen of these before but this one looks good and is pretty well featured. It doesn’t do text but I imagine that that will come along some time. It handles multiple Windows and lets you do custom brushes which is pretty good.

My all-time favourite image editor (from over 15 years ago) was dPaint and anything that could replicate that would be excellent- I’d say this is 70-80% there. These days the comparison is more likely to be against fireworks or Photoshop but that is an unrealistic and unfair comparison. Both are way more complicated and this isn’t aiming to be either of them.

Thats a screen dump of a browser looking at Portent that i messed up. Pixlr is a very nice bit of Flash programming.
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Popularity: 1% [?]

So I bought an iPhone and there is a free Wordpress app from the App Store. Not sure about pics but I can type this at 3-4 characters per second on a touch screen.

Popularity: 2% [?]

As you’ll no doubt have noticed, I’m trying out a new look for the site. This is an ongoing experiment. I’ll add the site features like snap preview etc back later on.

Popularity: 3% [?]

When I first saw this I thought it was one I’d covered before and it is a similar concept to that of Qbesq. You get a set of drawing tools, can vary the thickness, colour, intensity etc.

As the first tool you open with is a five mirror image, first efforts sort of resemble a kaleidoscope (well mine do, but I have the artistic soul of a donkey!), artists will find enough to work with. there is some beautiful stuff here. Nicely implemented.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

i’m not sure how long this will last as it lets you search Google without returning other Google site results. Ie nothing back fron knol (the Google answer to Wikipedia), Blogger or Youtube.

It looks like Google and has Google in bold. it’s hard not to imagine Google’s lawyers sharpening their pens over this: copyright or maybe trademark infringement? Perhaps they should consider it in the spirit it is intended- that results from some Google site pollute search results. Hmm Look! A pig flying past…

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Popularity: 3% [?]

The Metropolitan Police are now showing crime figures in London, down to the sub-ward Level- i.e. how many crimes in an area that is just under 700 households.

Maybe it’s me but I get the feeling that this is done begrudgingly because the Home secretary wanted it. It would not take an awful lot of information to make this

• Available for Time Periods- eg say last 10 years
• Categorised by Nature of Crime eg minor (muggings), serious etc.

It’s a start anyway. Easy to see which areas are most crime ridden. Avoid Southwark!
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Popularity: 3% [?]

This is my mini city- not much to look at, but the more visitors it gets the higher the population becomes and then I can add industry, set up proper transport infrastructure, security, business and the environment. I’m not sure if they have to be unique visitors but would guess so or else repeat visits would clock up the numbers.

For once the link goes to my city called Portent999 rather than the site itself but you can set up your own free city and invite visitors. It’s a neat idea so long as people visit so come on everybody- turn my humble patch into a sprawling (but green!) metropolis…

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Popularity: 4% [?]