Friday TechTips

Friday TechTip – Growl (also get a free MP3 from Amazon)!

Today’s tip highlights Growl, a unified notification system for both Windows and Mac. Us Mac fanboys users have had Growl to keep us company for a long time and alert us anytime an IM arrives, email lands in the inbox, a new track starts playing in iTunes, etc. Growl for Windows is now up to version 2.0 and there’s a new beta version out. Growl is handy because it allows you to turn off the default notification system (assuming one already exists) in your favorite application and channel all notifications into Growl. This gives you one utility to alert you to new system events. Did I mention that you can customize Growl’s appearance? There’s even a plug-in giving Growl the ability to use text-to-speech to give you a voice alert, perfect for your cubicle mates! All kidding aside, I really like Growl and appreciate it’s low profile appearance versus the default Outlook notifier.

Growl’s Home – http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/default.aspx

App Plug-Ins – http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/apps.aspx

Growl Displays (skins) – http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/displays.aspx

Bonus Tip!

Amazon is currently giving away a free MP3 of your choice in recognition of gaining over 1,000,000 followers on Twitter (http://twitter.com/amazonmp3). To claim your MP3, go the celebration site and follow the directions. You’ll need to press a button which brings up a pop-up box where you enter the code (FIRSTMIL) which is displayed on the page. This gives you a credit to then go purchase your song.  Why not download your favorite song to kick off the weekend?

Free MP3 site – http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=dm_tw_firstmil?ie=UTF8&gcIsProcess=1&gcpcCode=FIRSTMIL&&docId=1000420651

Tags: growl, mp3, system notifications

Tip for March 27, 2009: Anniversary Extravaganza!

It’s hard for me to believe, but Friday TechTips is now one year old. It began with an email tip highlighting the sync abilities of Microsoft’s Foldershare (which has since been re-branded Windows Live Sync). Since then we’ve covered photo management, IM and video conferencing, and other online “cloud-based” services to name a few. Before today’s tip, I’d like to give you an opportunity to provide feedback about the topics you’ve found helpful (or not) and topics you would like to see covered in the future. Please take just a minute or two to complete this short survey. My goal is to tailor each post to be informative, helpful, and fun!

Take the survey! – Friday TechTip Anniversary Survey

Finished? Then proceed to go, collect $200 and advance to today’s tip! Do you often need to quickly get group consensus over a project or decision and find it cumbersome to make duplicate phone calls or bounce emails between multiple recipients where there’s always one participant who forgets to hit “Reply to All?” If so, here’s your solution: TinyChat! You’re probably familiar with the URL shortening service TinyURL, which lets you convert long URLS to much shorter and manageable versions. TinyChat let’s you build on-the-fly private chat rooms and provides you with a short URL which you can email or instant message to everyone you need to bring together and get input from. Once invitees click the link, they’re immediately brought into the chat room (all done in the browser) where they can enter their name and report in. This will let all members see each other’s responses and ideas in real time and allow for immediate feedback. Are you wondering what happens when you’re done chatting? So was I. Here’s their official policy:

“After you leave the chat room, all the chat data is gone, so its perfect for secure chats.”

TinyChat also offers the ability to save the chat log before closing out in case you need to document everyone’s thoughts. You also have the option of inserting the chat window into a webpage for quick interaction with multiple users. If you’re interested in TinyChat and would like to test it out, feel free to create a room and send me the link!

TinyChat

Bonus Tip!

Are you still using one of the default Windows or Mac wallpaper images? If so, it’s time to try something new! InterfaceLIFT is my personal wallpaper site of choice. All the images come from professional or amateur photographers and many of the images are simply stunning. All standard monitor resolutions are available for each image, so you’ll be able to enjoy the full image no matter what setting you use. They also provide dual-monitor wallpapers allowing the full image to “stretch” across both of monitors providing a panoramic view. Who knows, you might find yourself inspired and more creative with an updated desktop!

InterfaceLIFT

Tags: Add new tag, desktop, interfacelift, monitors, tinychat, wallpaper

TechTip for March 28, 2008 – Skydrive

Last week I told you about Foldershare from Microsoft, an easy way to synchronize folders and files between computers. This week, I want to tell you about another fresh-out-of-beta service from Microsoft called Skydrive. In simple terms it’s a 5gb online storage locker, again offered to you at no cost. You can use it to store important files and share them with others if you choose. It’s quite fast and since it’s online, you don’t have to worry about losing your files as you would if you misplaced a USB storage device. Give it a try at:

http://skydrive.live.com

To register, you will need either a Windows Live login or Hotmail address. Ok, that will be all the free Microsoft promos for a while and we’ll look at something new next week!