TextOpus: the Swiss Army Knife Tool for Text

Kevin Tea — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:52:26 +0000

If only text documents were as easy as they looked. Whole documents typed entirely in capital letters, content cut and pasted from web sources complete with all HTML tags, random use of spacing – it can be a nightmare to clean up into coherent copy. TextOpus rides to the rescue with a comprehensive collection of web-based text tools ranging from the simple lower-casing of all capital letters through to encrypting information with the BlowFish 448 algorithm.

Modules also include cleaning text so “This is cool,really!!Can you believe it?” is changed to “This is cool, really! Can you believe it?” in seconds. It also arranges lines alphabetically through ascending or descending order (invaluable if you are indexing) and deletes duplicate lines and reverses lines.

For the more technically minded TextOpus also boasts a good range of two-way conversion tools covering hexadecimal, octal, binary and ASCII. Encryption and hashing are comprehensively covered ranging from simple Base64 through to more advanced systems such as BlowFish.

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Pocketmod is Where Origami Meets the Digital Age

Kevin Tea — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:00:57 +0000

If you have a desire for those days when diaries were made of paper but still want to keep a foot in the digital era then Pocketmod could be the answer for you.

Pocketmod is a hybrid between a digital PDA, a traditional “Filofax” style organiser and origami! In essence, it is a series of templates covering modules such as a calendar, contacts, organiser, notes, writing guides, task lists, contacts, food diary, conversion lists, SuDoku and other games, plus much more.

You arrange the modules in an order to suit yourself and print out. Then you complete the modules in good old pen and paper stlye, cut it up and fold into sections to form an eight page booklet with all your information. Just the thing if you have promised your partner a weekend away without your usual plethora of gadgets!

To run Pocketmod you will need to have Flash on your computer and the creation of the booklet is carried out by simply dragging and dropping elements from the module list into pre-ordered pages on the right of the screen. Once these are full you then print the booklet off, slip into origami mode and brace yourself with a pair of scissors. And if the thought of cutting up the booklet worries you there is even a short demonstration on YouTube!

Pocketmod is still in beta and this rather whacky, retro approach isn’t helped by a lack of a comprehensive “how to” guide, but there is an online forum which answered many of my novice queries and enabled me to create my first Pocketmod easily.

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TextOpus: the Swiss Army Knife Tool for Text

Pocketmod is Where Origami Meets the Digital Age