slew

Apr 27 2009

Killer Sites

Before we get in to this week’s Freeloader, I’d like to remind you that the annual Freeloader Freeware picks episode is coming up in a few weeks. Send in your freeware picks to brian AT macmerc DOT com.

We’re going to take a break from downloads to look at a bunch of sites each with a kind of connection to free.

CMS Matrix

Those that know are aware of the slew of free blogging applications. This site lets you shop these by feature. By far, this site offers the most comprehensive examination of content management systems on the web.

Wikinews Beta

The group that brought you the Wikipedia free encyclopedia are testing out a new concept in community maintained news. The experiment in wiki news is viewable and waiting for your contributions.

Lulu.com

This new face in print-on-demand offers a no-cost way for you to bring your masterpiece to the masses. Lulu prints and ships your book, calendar or music to buyers you bring to your free Lulu hosted shop.

The Extension Mirror

This site hosts an exhaustive list of Firefox and Thunderbird extensions and themes, including hundreds not listed on update.mozilla.org. In fact, the folks at Extension Mirror even have instructions of updating defunct extension to work in newer version of Firefox and Thunderbird – and host many of these ‘revived’ extensions.

That’s it. Don’t forget to send in your suggestions for 2004′s freeware picks!

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Watch your USB for Free

When Apple had the insight to replace its proprietary ADB connectors with USB, the Mac community rejoiced – and rightly so. USB has brought a slew of 3rd party peripherals to the platform. USB has also brought some interesting new quirks. Fortunately there is a great piece of freeware that will put your hot-swappable world in order.

USB Monitor is a simple utility that identifies USB devices as they are plugged, unplugged or otherwise activated. This utility provides a great way to monitor your devices without having to launch your Apple System Profiler.

The install the application you move it to your hard drive and double click its icon. After that the system extra works in the background, waiting for some USB action.

USB Monitor can be downloaded here and is free.

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Free Blogware

Personal web logging is the Internet’s newest craze. To do it right you’ll want the best tools. Check out my picks for Mac blogging…

The Service

In order to blog, you’ll need to sign up for the service with one of several providers (unless you are on a server that supports scripting, then you can run your own). Blogger, arguably the best of the bunch, actually creates your blog and FTP’s it to your site. As an option, you can host your blog for free with them, but for an off-site blog I might look into Blog-City or tBLOG. They are both free, but won’t likely work with the software below.

The Software

While not required, client-side software can make posting content to your blog site quicker and easier. My favorite posting tool is BlogScript. This is a simple AppleScript that remembers your login information and quickly posts the contents of your clipboard to your blog.

For more features you may want to try BlogWorkz or iBlog. Both are more robust applications that allow easy posting to your blog, but I found them less consistent than the simple script.

Direct RSS

Blogging not your thing? How about creating your own RSS news feed? RSS feeds can be subscribed to by a slew of news readers. Direct RSS allows you to create and maintain your own RSS feed. It even takes care of the uploading (though that part didn’t work so well for me) and saves a local version of your .rss file to your hard drive.

Now that you’re all hooked up with the tools, you can express yourself with easy on the web. Now all you need is something to say. But I’ll leave that up to you.

Brian

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