This may have been around for awhile, but I only noticed it last evening. I received an e-mail announcing a concert on May 14. On the right-hand side of the message was a link to “Add to Calendar” (see image below). Clicking the link popped up an event entry box for Google Calendar, with the event name and date completed. I’m guessing Google used a natural language feature to extract the data from the subject line of the message.

(click for larger image)

I also understand the you can send an SMS to GVENTS such as, “Mill Creek Colliery Band concert May 14 at 7:30pm” and it will add it to your calendar. This feature is currently only available in the US.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

“I am constantly writing notes. Whether it be for my blog, work, meeting, new ideas, or just basic notes, I am always jotting something down. So I started thinking about all the services I’ve used for taking notes and thought it would be a good idea to share them with you and while I’m at it, to make a list of any others that I find. Now, when it comes to note taking, I personally look for quick and simple. If I have something on my mind, I don’t want to go through some advanced system and climb a mountain just to save a note for myself. There won’t be all the note taking tools out there on my list, but ones that I feel get the job done well.”

Fifty Ways to Take Notes » Solution Watch

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 05:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Dream. Design. Communicate.

SketchUp is a simple but powerful tool for quickly and easily creating, viewing and modifying your 3D ideas.

• Click on a shape and push or pull it to create your desired 3D geometry.
• Experiment with colour and texture directly on your model.
• Real-time shadow casting lets you see exactly where the sun falls as you model.
• Select from thousands of pre-drawn components to save time drawing.

SketchUp - Home

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Help Us Improve Recognition

Dear EverNote Users,

Periodically EverNote collects samples of handwriting to improve our recognizer technology. For this to be achieved we release some carefully crafted sentences and ask our users to help us by writing them out in their handwriting on a sheet of paper and submitting it to us.

In return for your efforts - we are willing to give a FREE version of EverNote Plus or ritePen 2.5 for all accepted samples.
Instructions

* Write the following sentences on a single sheet of paper (try to fit into a single sheet, but if you have to use 2 it is OK as long as you submit them as a single image)
* Please use a black-ink pen. We prefer that you avoid ball-point pens, because their ink is slightly reflective.
* Please start each sentence on a new line.
* A samples sheet can be seen here.

Sentences to write:

1. Sympathizing would fix Quaker objectives.
2. Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs!
3. The July sun caused a fragment of black pine wax to ooze on the velvet quilt.
4. How quickly daft jumping zebras vex?
5. Just keep examining every low bid quoted for zinc etchings...
6. The explorer was frozen in his 'Big Kayak' just after making queer discoveries.
7. Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dogs.
8. Jackdaws Love My Big Sphinx Of Quartz!
9. Six Big Juicy Steaks Sizzled In A Pan As Five Workmen Left The Quarry.
10. The Five 'boxing' Wizards Jump Quickly Up.
11. While Making Deep Excavations, We Found Some Quaint Bronze Jewelry.
12. Whenever The "Red Fox" Jumped, The Squirrel Gazed Suspiciously.
13. Quick Zephyrs Blow, Vexing Daft Jim.
14. ~45% #342a $87 €60 7*(2^3) = 56 {27/9}=3
15. Nora@comcast.net; www.slashdot.org; Cecil@hotmail.com; c:\temp
16. [94085] 12:45 +1 (924) 572-3601 © EverNote 2006

Submit Instructions

* Take a digital picture or scan it (at 200dpi) as an JPG and email it to us.
* Submit by email to: training01@evernote.com
* Please include an email where we can contact you with your reward.
* Let us know if you want free EverNote Plus or ritePen

EverNote - Recognition Training.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1. First-person experience.
2. Enthusiasm.
3. Specificity.
4. Sincerity.
5. Clarity.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Somewhere along the line I managed to miss this release when it came out. Congratulations to the gang at Qumana.

Wednesday April 5, 7:00 am ET

    Key features of the Lycos-Qumana Desktop Blog Editor include:
    * Insert keyword-specific ads in one click and customize ads to your blog
    * Edit old posts from any of your blogs
    * Offline editing to work at your own pace
    * One-click posting to one or more blogs
    * Seamless publishing and cross-publishing
    * Integration with all major blog platforms
    * Easy image uploading
    * Spell check and thesaurus

    Contacts:
    Kathy O'Reilly
    Lycos, Inc.
    781.370.3454
    Kathy.O'Reilly@lycos-inc.com

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

“…use a generic web browser and a set of online services to provide all the functionality needed by a computer user, removing the need for any application to be installed on the computer itself.”

I like the idea. I like being able to log on to the Internet anywhere and having access to a full suite of applications.

Looking at Ismael’s list at IT|Redux, I see a number of services I am currently using and pile more that I haven’t used or even thought about. Not all of the applications he lists are free. Being the cheapo that I am, that’s one of the qualities I look for in a online app. Then, if the service meets my requirements, I will make a donation, click an advertising link or pay for an enhanced feature set.

I’ve listed his choices below. The second, bold, line of each category, are the apps I am currently using.

• Desktop:  Salesforce.com
  Google Personal
• Email:  Gmail
  Gmail
• Feed Reader:  Google Reader
  Bloglines
• File Manager:  Salesforce.com
  
• Photo Manager:  Flickr
  Flickr
• Photo Editing:  PXN8
  
• Weblog:  WordPress
  Blogger
• Notepad:  Gmail
  Notekeeper module on Google Personal
• Word Processor:  Zoho Writer
  Writely
• Spreadsheet:  Zoho Sheet
  
• Presentation:  Thumbstacks
  
• Project:  DreamTeam
  
• Database:  Salesforce.com
  
• Contacts:  LinkedIn
  Gmail
• Calendar:  Salesforce.com
  Google Calendar
• Bookmarks:  del.icio.us
  del.icio.us
• Calculator:  Google Calculator
  Google Calculator
• Command Prompt:  YubNub
  
• Fax:  eFax
  
• File Sender:  YouSendIt
  

Ismael has also posted reviews of most of his choices and a comprehensive database comparing various applications available. And to round out things, an area of personal interest, Getting Things Done using Office 2.0.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Links to all Google Tools on one simple page — Simply Google

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It has been a while since Steve Rubel posted one of his hacks lists. Today he lists ten ways to optimize your FeedBurner use.

"FeedBurner is one of my favorite tools in my Web 2.0 tool-belt. The main attraction here is FeedBurner's rich metrics, which will tell you a lot about how many are reading your feed, what aggregator they're using, etc. But dig a little deeper and there's much more you can do with this outstanding tool. Here are my favorite ten FeedBurner "hacks." There are many more here."

From: Micro Persuasion: Ten Feedburner Hacks

[composed and posted with BlogJet]

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(click to see larger)

About three years ago, dive into mark put together a script that would take text from a blog (or any website with text) and generate a page of poetry tiles. (He received a cease and desist letter for using the words magnetic and poetry together.) You can then drag those word tiles around the screen to create your own blog poetry.

You run the script by typing http://diveintomark.org/magnetic/ into your browser’s address bar and then adding the address of the blog you want turned into poetry.

E.g.:

• Ian’s Messy Desk – http://diveintomark.org/magnetic/ismckenzie.com
• connexions – http://diveintomark.org/magnetic/theconnexion.net/wp/
• Rebecca Writes – http://diveintomark.org/magnetic/everydaymusings.blogspot.com/
• Laugh, Lament, Love – http://diveintomark.org/magnetic/lesliewiseman.blogspot.com/
• Etc.

 If you don’t like the set of words you get, refresh the page for a new set. Knock yourself out.

[composed and posted with BlogJet]

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 08:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Alex has released the first beta version of ecto for Windows 2.0.

"The first beta build of version 2.0 is now available for download! It has been a long development process, far longer than I anticipated or wished, but I think the result is pretty good. Although the application does not look much different outwardly, there are many code rewrite under the skins. As this is beta software, bugs are expected so please do not try this out unless you are comfortable with the possibility of errors and bugs."

What's new

• WYSIWYG editing.
• Upload caching and setting presets.
• Automatic download and installation of .Net Framework during ecto's installation.
• Many small UI improvement.

A new forum has been created for beta bug reporting and feedback.

[composed and posted with ecto]

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

After several months without updates, there's a new release available.

• ADDED....: Support to MSN Spaces;
• ADDED....: New Languages: Spanish, French (Canada), Russian;
• ADDED....: Button to import the xml file with the saved settings and accounts directly from the "Add Account" wizard;
• CHANGED..: The save post option now suggests the post title (when exists) as the .post file name;
• CORRECTED: Error "Invalid Tools Collection Index" during startup;
• CORRECTED: Error "Invalid Property Value" after selecting posts;

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 08:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A couple of days ago I made an on-line purchase from my laptop. At the end of the transaction the final screen told me to print the receipt as it would be unavailable after the window was closed. I wasn’t connected to a printer, so I right-clicked on the page and selected the “Add to EverNote” Firefox extension. A copy of the receipt web page stored in my EverNote database for printing, if needed.

EverNote is Free note-taking software that lets you easily store and quickly access typed and handwritten memos, webpage excerpts, emails, phone messages, addresses, passwords, brainstorms, sketches, documents and more!

EverNote Plus includes all of the above features plus handwriting and shape recognition, Advanced Note Recognition (ANR) and Ink-Note Search, for $34.95.

I have posted EverNote links a couple of times, but thought I’d like to collect the links in one place, that I use regularly:

• EverNote - A single place for all your notes!
• EverNote User Forum
• EverNote User Forum —Template Specific Questions
• Download EverNote Default Template Collection
• GTD Wannabe —EverNote user
• GTD Wannabe —EverNote Templates Page
• GTD Wannabe —EN Template Catalogue
• Nontrivial Exercises: EverNote
• Kids’ Turn Central: EverNote®
• Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal —EN Review
• I still dig EverNote » Slacker Manager
• EverNote and note management » Slacker Manager
• Technorati Tag: EverNote
• del.icio.us Tag: EverNote
• Using EverNote with GTD
• Getting Things Done Forum: EverNote
• Wacom Graphire Tablets: EverNote Plus

[composed and posted with BlogJet]

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been playing with the Writely document processor beta for about five months now. I've created a number of documents, imported a few MS Word docs and even used it to write my overview of Desktop blogging clients. I haven't tried sharing a document with another writer, but otherwise it does a good job of basic word processing.

Now, the word from Writely and from Google, tells us that Google has acquired Writely. I will continue to use and see where this development leads.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Automatic Flatterer (click the link and get your affirmation. )

Ian you are fabulous !!!
Ian you are fabulous !!!
Ian you are fabulous !!!
Ian you are fabulous !!!

... and we appreciate you for who you are.

Link from Liz at Successful Blog

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

To determine if the above paragraph is profound or just plain foolish you’ll need to visit Google Talk.

Use Google talk by entering three or four words. The system will search for the phrase at Google, find the next word and print that. Then it will remove the first word of the search string, add the found word and repeat. The result seems to be meaningfull sometimes. Other times it is giblish. But always fun.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

SF eyes dog doo as power source

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — City officials are hoping to harness the power of dog doo.

San Franciscans already recycle two-thirds of their garbage, but in this dog-friendly town, animal feces make up nearly 4 percent of residential waste, or 6,500 tons a year -- nearly as much as disposable diapers, according to the city.

Within the next few months, Norcal Waste, a garbage hauling company that collects San Francisco's trash, will begin a pilot program under which it will use biodegradable bags and dog-waste carts to pick up droppings at a popular dog park.

The droppings will be tossed into a contraption called a methane digester, which is basically a tank in which bacteria feed on feces for weeks to create methane gas.

The methane could then be piped directly to a gas stove, heater, turbine or anything else powered by natural gas. It can also be used to generate electricity.

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: SF eyes dog doo as power source.

Technorati Tags: Alternate Energy

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 04:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Seth Godin's at it again. He says, instead of throwing friends into a funnel and hoping some slide out the bottom as customers/donors/voters, flip the funnel sideways and make it a megaphone for customers/donors/voters turning them into salespeople/fundraisers/campaigners. Web 2.0 social tools (e.g., del.icio.us, blogging) have the possibility to unleash word-of-mouth buzz. Your critics know how to use it, so make sure your fans also know how.

He’s posted three versions for free download:

• Flipping the Funnel (pdf 1234 KB)
• Flipping the Funnel for Non-Profits (pdf 798 KB)
• Flipping Politics (pdf 892 KB)

Seth's Blog: Flipping the Funnel--new e-book

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 05:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just discovered —via Richard’s comment on my previous post— that the nanny filter on the Panera Bread bakery-cafes’ wifi network considers the content at Ian’s Messy Desk too racy for public consumption. Tinotopia experimented with RSS feeds and blog rolls and found forty-six web sites blocked by the filter. If you scroll down the list about halfway, you’ll see that Ian’s Messy Desk was filtered, not “merely” as adult/mature content, but all the way to the p – ography category?!?!? As the listing notes, “Utterly baffling. The site is about personal productivity, customer service, and the subtle spirituality of some guy in Edmonton.” (Not to mention, incredibly funny jokes.)

My apologies to my regular readers. Apparently, I’ve been leading you down the garden path. Talk about your subliminal content.  Well, Panera has no Canadian locations, so an outraged boycott by loyal readers is out of the question.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A picture is worth a thousand words. You can find “tens of thousands of words”, to enhance your documents, presentations and web sites, at the sites listed below.

Clipart collections:

• Barry’s Clipart Server
• Web Clip Art
• Designed to a T
• Animation Factory
• Free Animated Clipart

Free Photographs:

• FreeStockPhotos.com
• stock.xchng

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

“e-Sword is a fast and effective way to study the Bible. e-Sword is feature rich and user friendly with more capabilities than you would expect in a free software package. The fact that e-Sword is free is just one of the blessings and does not speak of the quality of the software. I make my living writing software and I believe I have put forth my best effort in this endeavour. The real work, however, was put in by the godly men and women who devoted countless years creating the texts that have been made available for our benefit.”

e-Sword - the Sword of the LORD with an electronic edge

Technorati Tags: Bible, Software, Freeware, Christianity, Study

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I wonder if Glenda would go for one of these in our living room?

The Ultimate Man Cave Couch

The Domino's Pizza Man Cave Couch has it all. It serves as a high-end entertainment and food-and-beverage center where everything is within hairy arm's reach.

The Domino's Pizza Couch features:

* Two flat panel screen televisions
* DVD player
* Mini refrigerator
* Xbox with three controllers
* Electric Red MP3 player
* XM Radio with one year of free service
* NEXTEL cellular phone and a NASCAR headset
* Two Domino's Pizza Heat Wave hot bags to keep your pizzas warm
* Coca-Cola beverage cooler
* Remote control caddy
* Bottle opener

All of the couch action can be captured with an included Kodak Easy Share camera. If that's not enough, guys can kick back and enjoy the special reclining option and head rests that double as paper towel holders. To ensure couch-sitters are respectable and presentable when they leave the couch, Old Spice has provided a year's supply of men's deodorant and body spray.

The Ultimate Man Cave Couch.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Using the Performancing Firefox extension.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

“The Complete And Beautiful King James Translation of The Holy Bible on a Key Chain!”

• Sliding switch on the rear of the bible slides out to expose the usb interface plug.
• Simply plugs into any Windows PC USB port (not Mac or Win 98 compatible).
• All sixty six books of the Bible can be read clearly on your computer screen.
• Offers a powerful search function, making the Digital Bible an essential reference tool.
• High quality leather look and feel with gold detail and chain.
• Makes a wonderful gift and keep sake.

USB Digital Holy Bible Key Chain

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Because you never know when you’re going to have to deal with a runaway camel.

• How To Survive A Riot
• How To Survive An Airplane Crash
• How To Stop A Car With No Brakes
• How To Find Your Way When Lost In The Woods
• How To Jump From Rooftop To Rooftop
• How To Survive A Volcanic Eruption
• How To Ram A Barricade
• How To Survive A Sandstorm
• How To Foil An Alien Abduction
• How To Cross A Piranha-Infested River
• How To Survive A Plunge Over A Waterfall
• How To Survive A Fall Through Ice
• How To Escape From A Car Hanging Over The Edge Of A Cliff
• How To Survive A Riptide
• How To Navigate A Minefield
• How To Control A Runaway Camel
• How To Survive In A Plummeting Elevator

From Popular Mechanics

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 08:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Advanced Insert Link window in the upcoming version.

Ping Default URLs feature in the upcoming version

BlogJet + Flickr and other new features

Protection for your work

Auto-replace feature in the upcoming release

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Blogging+Software, Desktop+Blogging+Clients

Related posts:

• ecto for MacOSX
• Thingamablog v1.0.3 Released
• Desktop Blogging Clients

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ecto for MacOSX 2.4.0

Adriann has released version 2.4.0 of ecto for MacOSX. ecto 3 is in the pipe, but there were a bunch of bug fixes he wanted to release. You'll find a list of these fixes in the History file that comes with the download.

[composed and posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: Software, ecto, Desktop blogging clients

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Thingamablog

Thingamablog v1.0.3 has been released. This version is primarily a bug-fix release. Although a few new features have been added.

See What's New for all the details.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 09:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

We've just added a handful of Blackberry 7250 handhelds at the office. I'm using Azure to post this from my BB.

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So small you can’t even see it and it holds 8 million songs.

Steve Jobs presents the iPod Invisa& on SNL - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Steve Jobs on SNL [MOV]

Technorati Tags: Humour, Humor, Steve+Jobs, Apple, SNL, iPod

Posted by Ian McKenzie at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I’m having trouble settling on a single desktop blogging client. The truth is, I have trouble settling on any kind of software. Even my blogging is all over the place. I manage seven blogs, three of them are powered by Blogger, two by WordPress, one by Movabletype and one by Thingamablog.

What type of features am I looking for?

• The ability to post to multiple blog clients and handle multiple accounts.
• Another important feature is the ease of creating and editing posts. Does the software have wysiwyg editing, with the ability to easily tweak the underlying code? Or, is it only HTML editing?
• How easy is it to upload and link to or display files, particularly image files?
• Can I easily add an alt attribute when uploading and inserting image files?
• Can I easily add a title attribute when creating a link?
• Does the software allow me to easily add social tags, either Technorati or del.icio.us.

I’ll admit, this is not an exhaustive list of features and they are the features that are important to me. Same thing with the clients listed, these are five I have tried and that come close to meeting my requirements.