Automatically disable your touchpad while you type with TouchFreeze originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: Livescribe Store

Continue reading Livescribe's Pulse smartpen store hands-on

Livescribe's Pulse smartpen store hands-on originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Keeping notes, todo lists, or just anything you are writing synchronized between computers can be a hassle. Some solutions, like using DropBox, require you to install software on computers that you regularly use. If your needs aren't that heavy, but you'd like a free way to keep your text available wherever you are, check out SimpleText.ws.

SimpleText.ws is an open-source, very light text editing environment that allows you to create and manage documents in a web service, and access them anywhere. It uses Google for authentication, so if you already have a Google account, signing in is as simple as clicking the Sign In link.

The fact that SimpleText.ws is open source means that if you're not comfortable hosting your text on someone else's server, you can grab the server code and host it yourself.

There is also a public API available for SimpleText.ws, which means that developers can write applications that synchronize with it. Currently there is only one, but it's a good one: Hog Bay Software's WriteRoom for iPhone.

How do you keep your text files available no matter what computer you're working on?

SimpleText.ws is a dead-simple online text editor originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Who doesn't love a superficial pop-psychology tool? Analyze Words purports to reveal the personality of Twitter users by analyzing their recent toots tweets. The resulting analysis is broken down into three main categories: Emotional Style, Social Style, and Thinking Style.

Each main category consists of three or four ratings; for example, Emotional Style consists of Upbeat, Worried, Angry, and Depressed. Social Style's ratings are Plugged in, Personable, Arrogant/Distant, and Spacey/Valley girl, and Thinking Style's ratings are Analytic, Sensory, and In-the-moment.

Unfortunately, Analyze Words doesn't do any intelligent filtering - for example, retweets are analyzed along with regular tweets, so if you happen to retweet a lot of other people's content, the analysis won't really reflect your own words. But maybe I'm just being touchy because Analyze Words told me I'm a worried, arrogant / distant sensory thinker. Or something like that.

Analyze Words - analyze Twitter users based on their toots originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I don't often need to send ultra-secure messages to people. There's just not all that much highly-sensitive information I need to communicate. If I did, though, Norbt would be a slick way to do it.

Norbt (not to be confused with Eddie Murphy's epic film character) uses client side, browser-based cryptography to secure your transmissions. Your recipient must correctly answer the secret question. Once they do, your note is decrypted and displayed for their eyes only.

You also need to provide a password when creating your Norbt - just in case you need to go back and change some of the details.

Even if you don't have a practical reason to use a service like Norbt, it's still a fun way for you and your pals to feel like you're part of some elite spy network.

This post will self destruct in ten seconds.

Send stealthy, encrypted missives via the web with Norbt originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Amazon Kindle for PC: Now delivering books to your desktop originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Have you ever received a PDF file in an email that contained information you need in text form, but the PDF doesn't let you select the text? Sometimes this is due to access restrictions on the document, but more often it's because the person creating the PDF did so by simply scanning the document. This creates an image of the document, but does not embed the text information.

To extract the text, you need to use optical character recognition (OCR) software. Most scanners come with OCR software, but if you don't have ready access to it, you might consider using the Online OCR service.

Online OCR lets you upload a PDF file and it returns plain text that can then be copied directly into the word processing tool of your choice.

Obviously there are security concerns with uploading and storing copies of your documents on a 3rd party's site, but if that's not a concern to you, Online OCR might be just the trick to solve your OCR needs.

[via Lifehacker]

Online OCR extracts text from scans for free originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mac users that have been spoiled by text editors like TextMate often find themselves frustrated when moving to a Windows machine. While there are lots of text editors for the Windows platform, it's hard to find one with the clean design sensibilities that TextMate offers.

Well, there's a new editor in town, and its name is Sublime Text. I don't mean to equate it too much to TextMate since they are very definitely different products; it's more the feel of using the products that drives the comparison.

Sublime Text prioritizes a slick user interface and features under the hood that make it a power-user's tool. For example, it sports the ability to give you a Minimap, which for developers gives you a 10,000 foot view of your code.

The best text editing tools seem to be powerful enough for programmers to use, yet incredibly useful for writers of prose. Sublime Text is no exception.

Unfortunately, Sublime Text is a commercial app - you have to pay for the quality, and it doesn't come cheap. A single user license will run you $59US. An evaluation version is also available.

Sublime Text brings Mac-like text editing to Windows originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Readability 2 makes webpages printable, pasteable and uncluttered originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Do you remember learning what an anagram was in school, then spending countless hours trying to figure out what your name could be an anagram for? And if I do, does that make me an incredible nerd?

Okay, so now that confession time is over, I have one more thing to confess. I was never able to come up with anagrams that were any good for my name, and it turns out that there's a pretty fantastic one. How did I find it? Best Name Anagram is a simple web app that takes text input of any kind, and determines what the best anagram is that can be created using those letters. It seems to favor resulting anagrams comprised of longer words, but some names, like Download Squad, don't really have a great resulting anagram.

I probably had a little too much fun punching in my family's names, and then friends and co-worker's names. They say simple things amuse simple minds, and I can't really argue that fact.

Oh, and what does my name come out as? The not-at-all-embarrassing-I'm-totally-cool-with-it-no-really CARNAL JOKES. Nice eh?

Best Name Anagram - what's yours? originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It seems like I can't walk down the hall in my house without tripping over note-taking apps. It's the first thing that new programmers tackle when they decide to make an actual program, and as such there are thousands of options available when looking for a note taking app.

It's a bit harsh to say so, but the honest truth is that the vast majority of note-taking apps out there are utter crap. Most don't even do a reasonable job of differentiating themselves from what comes preinstalled on your computer. The Mac app Notational Velocity, on the other hand, is very useful.

A couple of caveats here: Notational Velocity is for people that need to take notes on their computer, but don't require access to them on a mobile device. It's not web based, doesn't sync with the cloud, and doesn't have a companion iPhone app.

Notational Velocity also isn't for people that need a complicated categorization or tagging structure to organize their notes. Simplicity and speed are what NV is all about.

If I haven't turned you off, there's a good chance that you'll find a lot to like in Notational Velocity. The app is cleverly designed to make adding and finding notes incredibly quick. The app has a single search field at the top of the app's window that allows you to search for content, or instantly add a new note simply by pressing Enter. Searching filters down your list of notes based on content and title with title taking precedence, and the filtering happens instantaneously even with thousands of notes stored in the app.

The app's makers suggest using Notational Velocity to create many very specific (and therefore shorter) notes instead of a few long-form ones. That allows you to more quickly find what you are looking for later on.

Here's hoping that cloud syncing and an iPhone version are just around the corner.

[via Daring Fireball]

Notational Velocity is a Mac note taking app focusing on speed originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

URL shorteners, while convenient, are bad for the web. They hide the true destination that they are pointing to, giving bad guys yet another tool in their arsenal, while conditioning web users to blindly trust the links they are clicking on. Further, as the debacle with tr.im showed us, URL shortening services aren't necessarily permanent.

It's no coincidence that the rise in popularity of URL shorteners closely mirrors the rise in popularity of Twitter; Twitter's 140 character limit is the special ingredient that makes Twitter so compelling, but it's also what made short URLs valuable. Some of you will say that short URLs are useful for other reasons - for example, in print. True, but Twitter is by far the place they are used most.

So, with a 140 character limit, how could Twitter eliminate URL shorteners? Well, first, let's look at the reason for the 140 character limit in the first place. It was chosen because Twitter expected SMS messages to be the primary way that users would interact with the service. While there are many users using it that way, their numbers are far eclipsed by the number of users using Twitter on its native web site, or using one of the plentiful Twitter client apps that are available for both desktop computers and mobile phones.

Continue reading Should Twitter really count URL characters against you?

Should Twitter really count URL characters against you? originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

WordPress gets a better spellchecker, After the Deadline originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Convert text into unsearchable images with TxtNinja originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Snailmailr: send physical mail from the web originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Translation Party achieves hilarious results using Google Translate - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Stupid Windows trick: disable shift + delete to avoid accidental obliterations

Stupid Windows trick: disable shift + delete to avoid accidental obliterations originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

WriteRoom for iPhone: distraction-free writing, easy sync originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Adobe Wave pushes web notifications to your desktop and noms your ram originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ok, so maybe you don't have access to all the necessary equipment to pull this off, but if you did...It would look a lot like the contents of this Flickr gallery.

Professional race driver Stef van Campenhoudt, typographers Pierre and Damien of PleaseLetMeDesign, and interactive artist Zachary Lieberman collaborated to create iQ font using a compact Toyota hatchback and an array of computer and video hardware. You can watch things unfold in a Vimeo clip after the break.

The resulting font is actually quite good, with a hand-drawn, script look to it. You can view sample images of iQ font and download it from Toyota Belgium's web site.

Scriptiness is fine and dandy, but let's see if they can pull off something with a nice, scholarly feel to it like Book Antiqua.

Thanks for the tip, Ramin!

Continue reading Weird Wednesday: how to make a font with your car

Weird Wednesday: how to make a font with your car originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.