Decaflon

They'll be installing toolbars and displaying pop-up ads next. Scumbags.

iTunes continues to get worse. It's bad enough that it's bloated and gets slower and slower with each release and comes with Quicktime whether you like it or not, it tries to install Safari by ticking the box to say I want it by default in the update routine and not only that, it installed an icon in my control panel for my Mobile Me preferences.

Why on earth do I need Mobile Me preferences? Surely that only needs installing for the small minority of people who want to pay for it. I thought we'd got past the point of installing software against your wishes. Even after the outcry about Apple ticking the 'I want Safari' box in the Apple Update program you get with iTunes (you don't choose to install that either), it remains like that months afterwards.

There's definitely room for somebody to make something better without repeating all of these mistakes.

That Windows Search makes Outlook search much better - you don't have to wait any more, it just filters the message list as you type. The default download if you click on that yellow bar could well have been the previous version of Search too, so if you go back to Outlook, I'd grab the new one (should install on XP SP2 - it's listed as being compatible).

Well, Outlook Search uses the underlying Windows Search which exists in Vista but doesn't exist by default in XP. Normally Outlook displays a yellow notice above your message list about downloading it if it's not there.

When it's installed and indexed, usually the results are instant and do actually work. Fairly recently, version 4 of this search was released and it's quicker than the previous version so it's worth getting for that reason alone.

The other thing is controlling what gets indexed. Under Vista, all of the options for that are in the Control Panel (I'd imagine installing Search for XP puts it in the same place) - the icon for Indexing Options stores that - inside there, you will see Outlook amongst the list of locations indexed - you might find that it is only indexing 'Personal Folders' - the default local folder set, and not your IMAP folder set - so that's worth checking.

Well, the combination of Remember the Milk and the Google Apps start page has sorted me out really. The Google Apps start page isn't the pretiest of things but it does give me nice overview of mail, calendar and tasks. I ended up using the AdBlockPlus Element Hider add-on to collapse the enormous header to make the page more useful.

I really like what Remember the Milk have done to integrate with Google. That Gmail add-in works beautifully.

Flickr for me too. Uploading and sharing photos is just the façade, it's had a major impact on me socially and that is the part of it I find the most valuable and would miss the most.

Additionally: Gmail, Remember The Milk, Joe's Goals, Traineo, del.icio.us (especially with the latest version of the Firefox/IE plugin).

It's a fair cop

Link for anyone who can't use google :p ;)

Well, it's amazing what you turn up when you look!

I remember a while back Remember The Milk added a Google Calender option to add tasks to the calender - that worked alright, but what I've just found is their firefox extension to add them to Gmail

This is quite impressive after an initial look around.

I look after IT for the organization I work for. Traditionally we've used Windows machines and will continue to do so. Any alternative is just a huge list of problems we could do without.

Despite the press and general anecdotal remarks Vista gets, from my point of view the Vista machines are far easier to manage than their XP counterparts. As a home Vista user, you tend to concentrate on the bits you can see and things that behave differently to what you were used to before with XP. But at work, Vista (we use almost entirely Vista Business 64bit) is the most stable and reliable our desktops and laptops have even been, and they're now better managed and looked after than ever before thanks to improvements built in to manage them and improved tools for doing that at the server end.

Anyone who needs to compete with Windows in business environments needs to get a whole range of facilities in place before it can be considered.

As a home user, you can pick and choose your OS and computer based on your own needs and preferences. At work it needs to do whatever is needed for your job - and these days that most likely means Windows related software unless you're in a niche of some kind.

I used to be a programmer and worked on a product that was multi-platform - DOS, Windows and various flavours of Unix. There were hundreds of customer sites using the Windows version, a few still used the DOS version and I was only ever aware of two running the Unix version. The Unix sites were harder to support due to the relative lack of skills compared to the amount of Windows knowledge you could find quickly. In all of this time (last 10/15 years), I was only asked once if any of the software we work on would work on a Mac and that was in the last two months.

If you start a business up and need some business software to manage it, using Windows will give you the choice of the best stuff. Using Windows also means that a fair proportion of the users will be at least familiar with Windows so get off to a flying start when learning to use the software.

Another problem is that with Apple, you're putting all of your eggs in the basket of one vendor. Nobody wants a dependency like that. Getting hardware, software and the operating systems from different places gives you a lot more buying power and options.

I'd love to see a working Mac network that actually runs some decent business software and is easily managed and maintained. I really can't imagine how that would be beneficial to anyone involved though.

It's much worse in the UK, Quicken isn't developed for the UK any more and Microsoft Money hasn't had a version out since 2004/2005 and support for that stops this month.

Flickr.

It isn't just a place to store photos. It's a major contact point for friends. There's nothing else like it for me.

One thing I find slightly awkward is that clips seem to be the default view rather than notes so every time I move from one category to another within one of the sites, it changes back to clips and I have to click on the notes button again.

It'd be handy to have a user preference tick box for which of the two they'd prefer to be the first choice.

Or is there a navigational trick to avoid what I'm doing?

If it were a tree Chawlk would be the trunk and the other sites would be the branches

That's a very nice description :)

I'm quite impressed that it uses XMPP / Jabber and I've heard that it's going to be opened up so that you can use a regular client for it.

Hopefully between this and Google Chat (that is bundled in with Gmail so lots of people have it), an open standard for instant messaging will take over and eventually force the hand of the old closed networks.

I'd love to just use Jabber for everything and not have to worry about friends with accounts locked in to MSN or similar.

@shadowsun7 - I wrote this in February not long after I got it:

http://publicenergy.co.uk/ricoh-caplio-gx100.html

I meant to follow it up but I haven't got around to it. But, if anything I like it more now that I've settled in and found my way around more.

Well, ever since I bought my Ricoh GX100 I've loved it. I've got a Digital SLR and to be honest, a lot of other cameras that I enjoy using for different reasons at different times, but this thing is just so much fun to use.

I can see why carmodyarc mentioned his G9 - it's probably around the same size and has a similar affect on him. I think cameras like this are hugely underrated - but it might be a camera geek thing really!

Regardless. Love it!

If it hadn't been for the date (2014), this could have been plausible. Virgin already have Virgin Galactic and an aspiration to go to Mars doesn't seem that mad.

However, on documentaries I've seen, even a manned mission to Mars seems unlikely for the foreseeable future for all sorts of quite horrible technical reasons. Some people reckon it could be doable in 50 years though. definitely not in 6 or 7.

Google is weird though, didn't they slip the original Gmail announcement out on April 1st a few years ago? You do wonder amongst all of these announcements if one of two really bizarre but true stories got lost in the mix! :)

I'm currently testing out SlideShowPro.

I've knocked up a test gallery - it's actually 3 albums within a gallery.

The thing I'm impressed with is that once you have got your flash gallery in place, you can use their director product to manage the images within it instead of having to rebuild it.

One of the reasons I liked it so much was the ability to have a full screen slideshow as an option.

I use FeedDemon. I have used BlogLines and Google Reader for large amounts of time in the past, but I find FeedDemon much faster and versatile for me.

The Synchronisation feature through Newsgator means you don't read the same thing in multiple locations. My podcasts are handled like all of the other feeds (and downloaded automatically on my schedule to use off-peak broadband).

I just find it quick to go through feeds, put various entries in different 'bins' depending on what I want to do with them later. Easy controls for blogging from them, posting to del.icio.us or whatever.

I also love the report views it has, being able to see the most popular items out of your feeds that everyone else who uses those feeds has been looking at is almost like having TechMeme just for your own feeds.

Basically though, use whatever you're happy with - I've pretty much had a go on all of the online ones trying to find the perfect one and never finding it. FeedDemon does it for me though - and it's free now which is a bonus :)

The beta version that this panic button came from was released today, and it looks like all of the Newsgator products are now free.

I want a light on my stereo that lights up when a friend sends me a last.fm track or album recommendation - I want to press that button and listen to it. I want to press another button to buy it if I like it.

I'd like to park my car at home and for it to use a wireless internet connection to connect to my house network, download any new music and podcasts while it's just parked there so when I start the drive to work in the morning I have new stuff to listen to all of the time.

I'd like to receive a text message when I walk to to a book store with a reminder that one of my favourite authors has a new book that came out 2 days previously and if I ask in this particular store, they have signed copies available.

I'd like to go in to a music store, buy something and have it put in to my online music account that is shared with my home and my car and synced whenever either of them can get internet access to do it.

Routers need to have trusted and guest routes and traffic limits so that it's ok for strangers to use your connection without ruining it for you.

I want RFID tags in most things I buy and a scanner built in to my bin, my fridge and my cupboards so that they all know what's new and what's on the way out - I want my supermarket shopping list calculated automatically and ordered. I went to be able to set rules that say even though I'm buying buscuits and putting them in the cupboard, don't let me order them, and if I add them manually, take them out of the basket again - change things for well reviewed healthy alternatives, or for the cheapest, based on preferences.

I want a button on my mobile phone that sends my position to somebody during a call or while sending a message - that they can view on map on their hand set and get directions from their current position - also with an idea of how long it will take on foot, by car, or what public transport options there are and how to find them.

Snag It 7 is now completely free with an option to upgrarde to 8.x half price.

Jing has been updated with more options - upload to FTP, Flickr etc... - this is much better because you don't have to rely on their hosting when sharing like you did in the earlier version. You even create templates so that it automatically puts the embed code in to your clipboard.

Actually, on windows pressing ALT-Print Screen captures the current window so it's not as bad as all that. There are free better tools available though.

Windows Vista has a screen capture utility built in that includes highlighting tools - just type snip in to the start area to find it. That allows you to draw around the area you want.

I mainly use Jing. I just have to turn off their horrible edge of screen shortcut bar thing - I mapped it to the print screen key and it works very nicely.

I had a quick scan of the important stuff then hit it, set it mark everything as read so I'm now sat on a nice zero.

Regarding the feeds not being email remark, Nick Bradbury's blog has some interesting insights in to feeds and the attention you pay to them (He's the bloke who wrote Feed Demon and now works for Newsgator).

I ran a trial of What's up Gold and it does lots of great stuff but was weak for inspecting workstation setup - software installed, serial numbers etc...

I did discover Spice Works and so far this looks great - especially considering it's free.

I think in the end, a combination of things will probably be used, as What's Up Gold looked stronger on monitoring problematic network traffic and stuff.

I have exactly the same set-up and usage pattern as dreamweaver - no probs at all.

I did have a problem with Firefox crashing a lot a long time ago (when I was using XP I think) - all I did was created a new Firefox user profile and destroyed the old one and that cleared out some crap and it worked fine afterwards.