Paid Apps and the Freemium model

Over the years I have tended to avoid paying for applications because the up-front cost was prohibitive. So I either went without, used an older version that may have been given away with a magazine, or found an open source equivalent. However, I am now finding myself committing to a number of applications because of [...]

Netbook as a eReader

Always on the lookout for ways to extract the most from my Netbook and having eyed up the Sony’s eReader in Waterstones I thought I would see whether the former could act as the latter.
eBooks are all the rage at the moment, particularly in the states where Amazon’s Kindle seems to be doing a roaring [...]

Datz Music Lounge

At the Gadget Show Live recently was a company called Datz who were offering unlimited music download for only £75 per year – discounted from £99 for the show. I love music and am a regular downloader and so this sounded like a great deal – it would pay for itself in less than 100 [...]

How to minimize iTunes to the Windows Taskbar

I discovered something about iTunes today that I should have realised long ago must have existed – namely the ability to minimise it to the system tray. More than that it is also possible to put a little widget on the taskbar that allows you some simple control over the playing track and volume. [...]

Travellers Kit

Being away from home there is some kit that has proved to be essential while travelling, which you can see on the left here. What is also interesting is the software that I have come to rely on over the last couple of weeks while away.
The most useful item by far has been my Netbook [...]

Solving Problems with Windows Live Writer

I have long been a fan of Windows Live Writer. I tend to start blog posts and capture bits of information before creating a fully formed article to post to one of my Wordpress blogs (here or here). WLW lets me do this easily and with a little setup I can also share the draft [...]

Does Free Lead to Buy?

A fairly common practice for software providers is to provide older versions of their software for free as a taster to encourage you to go on and purchase the latest versions. This applies equally to online apps as it does to desktop – the delivery mechanism is different but the principal is the same.  But [...]

8th November 2008

Stories that caught my eye this week – 8th November 2008:

Remember the Milk Gadget Puts Tasks in Gmail’s Sidebar [Gmail]
Visualizing data in the cloud
MSI Wind 9-cell spotted in the wild
Gmail’s New Gadget Support Lets You Remember The Milk
Remember The Milk for iPhone and iPod touch Now Available [Featured IPhone Download]
Early Look at Firefox’s Private Browsing [...]

25th October 2008

Stories that caught my eye this week – 25th October 2008:

Do you have 16 boxes?
Create No Download Screencasts In Seconds With ScreenToaster
Planzone: A Collaborative Tool that Makes Juggling Easy
Please Fix The iPhone: A To-Do List For Steve Jobs
Five great things about being CEO in a tech recession
Sun PDF Import Adds PDF Editing to OpenOffice.org [...]

12th October 2008

Stories that caught my eye this week – 12th October 2008:

The Steps to Read Gmail Mouselessly
Google Spreadsheets Redesign
Picasa 3 Beta’s New Features
Google’s Super Satellite Captures First Image
Windows XP downgrade deadline extended to July 31, 2009
Gmail Labs Adds Advanced IMAP Controls
Startup Delayer Beats Boot Time Frustration
Is Microsoft finally close to snatching up RIM?

You can see [...]