If you’ve been using the beta versions of the Firefox 3.1 browser, as I have, you know that it’s significantly faster than previous versions, and has quite a few new, useful features. Mozilla is out now with Beta 3 of Firefox 3.1, which you can download […] Read more »
Recently, PortableApps released an overhauled version 1.5 of its PortableApps.com Suite. I’ve written about PortableApps in previous versions, and several readers agreed that its suite is incredibly useful, especially if you like to carry around a USB thumb drive stocked with applications that you can use […] Read more »
AltSearchEngines has a couple of posts up that should be of interest to web workers who frequently travel. SeatGuru, a great site for planning out which airplane seat to sit in and which amenities your seat will provide, has been steadily adding site visitor reviews and […] Read more »
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While the web is loaded with expert sites that do hardware reviews, and many of us web workers rely on them to make our technology buying decisions, there is still merit in word-of-mouth recommendations. Additionally, in this economy, getting the right price is often a crucial […] Read more »
Netbooks — small, light and inexpensive portable computers — have become very popular in the past year, and come in enough flavors that many web workers may want to consider getting one. I use an Asus Eee PC netbook as a secondary machine for mobile work, […] Read more »
I’ve written before about optimizations for home and office Wi-Fi networks and how to keep public Wi-Fi sessions secure. Xirrus has long provided free tools for monitoring Wi-Fi performance, finding hotspots and more. Now, the company is out with Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector, and after giving it […] Read more »
If you’re a Firefox user, you undoubtedly already know that one of the huge advantages of the browser is the big galaxy of useful extensions you can use with it. Last year, we mentioned a drawing tool extension called Pencil that went on to get an […] Read more »
I’m always on the hunt for freeware and open source applications and utilities, and one of my favorite finds from last year, which I wrote about here, was Startup Delayer. I’ve been steadily using this utility, and recommend it highly to Windows users frustrated with slow […] Read more »
Several of the bloggers here at WebWorkerDaily are big fans of the free web conferencing application Yugma. It’s a free, full-featured online meeting tool that is particularly good for inviting other participants on-the-fly to join a meeting even if they haven’t downloaded the Yugma application. Windows, […] Read more »
Graphical and visual search engines are always interesting to me as alternatives to Google. I find that for certain types of searches, especially if I’m say, researching new hardware technology, or scanning headlines that happen to come from unusual sources, the extremely text-heavy way in which […] Read more »
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Over the weekend, I was talking about web application development to a retired friend who was once a top programmer. He doesn’t do a lot of programming anymore, and remarked that application development tools for the web are so fragmented that it’s difficult to stay on […] Read more »
In recent years, free, open-source content management systems (CMS) have become very powerful tools for building, deploying and managing web sites, blogs and more. You may be familiar with some of the top-notch names in this arena, including Drupal and Joomla. WebWorkerDaily’s sister blog OStatic was […] Read more »
This week on the OStatic blog, we reported on Mozilla’s intent to wrap its Ubiquity project into an upcoming version 3.2 of the Firefox browser. If you use Firefox and haven’t used Ubiquity, now is a great time to get to know it. It’s a very […] Read more »
Compete.com is out with its latest metrics on audiences for social networks, and web workers may find some surprises in the who’s hot and who’s not roundup. The top 10 list is seen below, and a full list of the Top 25 is available below the […] Read more »
If you’ve done much publishing on the web, you’re probaly already familiar with Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. However, many web workers stick with the same small handful of SEO tools. There are quite a lot of them available online for free, and testing keywords and […] Read more »
Recently, when I’ve written about the performance leapfrogging going on between the Firefox and Chrome open source browsers, many people have written in in the comments about how all the benchmark results going on around the web tend to leave Opera out. Opera has always had its […] Read more »
Are you a web worker with strong creative, design and online video skills? If so, you may want to look into some of the startup companies that are cropping up with ways to crowdsource grassroots video advertising spots. There are some interesting opportunities opening up in […] Read more »
VMware, which last year watched its stock plummet and replaced its CEO with a seasoned Microsoft executive, faces headwinds from two trends: 1) open-source virtualization offerings; and 2) free virtualization within operating systems. With that in mind, VMware today made its shrewdest possible: launching an open-source […] Read more »
Do you have a Windows PC that seems much slower than it once was? In my experience, that’s the natural life of most Windows-based machines. They collect litter in the Registry, on the hard disk, are prime targets for malware, and much more. I’ve written before […] Read more »
If you’ve used Google’s open source Chrome browser and appreciated the way it collects thumbnail versions of the sites you visit most on one handy page, but you tend to use Firefox most often, give the updated beta version of the Google Toolbar for Firefox a […] Read more »
I noted with interest the announcement of Measurement Lab, a partly Google-backed initiative to give Internet users and researchers free measurement tools that can help quantify what kinds of service they’re getting from ISPs, and much more. With all the arguments swirling about tiered broadband pricing, […] Read more »
I’m a big fan of open source software as well as freeware, but one of the problems these applications often have is lack of documentation and tutorials. It can be frustrating enough to try to wing it with a new, free software application that many people […] Read more »
On the OStatic blog today I covered some of the early benchmarking results appearing for Release Candidate 1 of version 8 of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. The speed results from ZDNet Australia that I discussed there are corroborated by other testers, including DownloadSquad. Depending on which […] Read more »
If you’re a web worker who appreciates some of the many good, free online video tutorials on applications and development tools relevant to your work, YouTube is definitely not the only place to turn. You can find a huge number of sophisticated, easy-to-digest video tutorials on […] Read more »
If you’re like many web workers, you’re increasingly working with video files. For some, the simple steps required to work with YouTube videos suffices, but if you need tools for more flexibility with the video you work with, there are many good free applications. In this […] Read more »
DownloadSquad has a short item today on QTWeb, an open source Windows browser based on the WebKit rendering engine (also found in Safari and Google Chrome). I’ve used the browser before, but decided to try out the newest version, which has quite a lot of enhancements […] Read more »
WebWorkerDaily has covered many time management, to-do list, and calendaring applications such as RememberTheMilk and Toodledo. There are many good applications in this space, but the tricky part with many of them is that they are intensely personal, and the way they work may not suit […] Read more »
Earlier this month I wrote about Whostalkin, a beta search engine that focuses on finding content on social media sites and blogs. It seems that the whole notion of expanding searches to social sites is gaining momentum. Today I’ve been experimenting with Twingly, from a Swedish […] Read more »
Early last year, I did a roundup called 12 Top Zen Apps to Keep You Focused. It focused on a number of free tools in the category of zenware–mostly applications that do away with the clutter you typically find on your computing desktop. Some of the […] Read more »
Many WebWorkerDaily readers use the Firefox browser, and if you do, today on OStatic we covered two extremely powerful Firefox extensions: Ubiquity and iMacros. Ubiquity adds a flexible natural language command line to Firefox, and is developed by the folks at Mozilla. iMacros sits in your […] Read more »
Despite the economic downturn, many of us web workers still travel frequently, and that means dealing with always unpredictable airports, airplanes, weather conditions at destinations, and more. I’ve written before about a few of the sites that can ease the whole process, and one of them, […] Read more »
We’ve recently covered opportunities for web workers who need work, including our interview with Gary Swart, CEO of online staffing marketplace oDesk, and resources for web workers who have recently lost their employment. Whether you’re looking for places to work, or looking to launch an entrepeneurial […] Read more »
Do you have a blog for which you’re unhappy with the underlying blogging service? If so, it’s not all that uncommon for the issue to arise. Blogging services play a game of leapfrog with each other, and even major blogs are moved to new platforms from […] Read more »
The other day, in my post 9 Ways to Get Better Battery Life, I detailed a number of steps you can take to greatly extend the time you spend with your notebook unplugged. As I mentioned there, quite a few of the tips collected came from […] Read more »
Free online meeting applications, such as Yugma, which I wrote about yesterday, have gotten very powerful in recent years, but they still don’t do all the cool things they could do. Few of them offer any sophisticated way to deal with video, especially high-definition video, and […] Read more »
Last month I wrote up the new version 4.0 of one of my favorite free online meeting applications: Yugma. This application is a favorite among many WebWorkerDaily readers and writers. Version 4.0 brings a lot of conveniences, but I still had a few things remaining on […] Read more »
If you do any blogging, reporting or electronic publishing focused on timely topics, take a look at Whostalkin, a social media and metasearch engine for blogs that has just come out of private beta testing. I’ve been experimenting with it today, and, for the most part, […] Read more »
Last summer, I did a post on the best ways to get the most battery life you can with portable computers. Since then, I’ve had a lot of good alternate suggestions come my way from readers, and I’ve had a chance to try some of the […] Read more »
It’s one of my favorite pursuits to try out bushels of open source and freeware applications, looking for gems. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose on the hunt, but there are definitely a lot of applications out there that cost nothing but pack powerful punches. […] Read more »
A while back, a friend of mine and I had an idea for a new e-commerce web site we were thinking of launching. We eventually shelved the idea after digging up a couple of sites that were too close in spirit to the same idea, but […] Read more »
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