Cubic Reality

Just this morning I found this program called EverNote. Basically it’s a program for writing notes and todo lists. It can handle many other formats besides text. For example, you can draw/write by hand and embed images or files. Probably the coolest thing is ability to copy content straight from web browser. Very handy when doing research.

Also there is support for note templates. Unfortunately there is no UI for creating them so you have to write the XML files by hand. The Plus version also supports shape recognition which is really cool for drawing diagrams. It’s just too bad that the drawing mode doesn’t have ability to create text fields. Writing with pen tablet is OK but using mouse is really not an option, at least not for me.

There’s 3 versions available (here’s comparison chart)
- EverNote Plus $49,95
- EverNote Portable $19,95
- EverNote Free

http://www.evernote.com/

This is a really cool tip I found from Lifehacker. I’m sure many of you (including me) have at some point needed to copy the message from error box. The only way I knew how to do it was to write it manually. Who knew that since Windows 2000, all you need to do is to hit Ctrl+C, and the content of the message box is copied into the clipboard .

via Lifehacker.

I thought I’d update the Lightbox script to 2.03.3 since it has some useful changes. The WP plugin I’m using is not updated to use the newer version so I made the changes myself. So here’s the Lightbox plugin for WordPress with the latest Lightbox script.

Lightbox2.03 Plugin for WordPress (41KB):
http://www.cubicreality.com/downloads/misc/WP_Lightbox2.zip

-Here you can find the original plugin made by Kjell Bublitz
http://www.m3nt0r.de/blog/lightbox-wordpress-plugin/
-And here you can find the Lightbox script itself and some info on the changes:
http://www.huddletogether.com/

Lots of new stuff added. Biggest ones I noticed are new look in the UI, inline spell checking and support for table editing. This is still beta and I had some issues with this release. Most of the issues seems to be with the confusion of different languages.

I went to the web site (http://writer.live.com/) to download the new build but I couldn’t find the download with my FireFox which is in Finnish language. After a while I tried to change the language into English and found the download. You are offered with different version of WLW depending of the language your browser has set. Some people have had problems with installing WLW if it’s different language version than other Live programs.
Read more here.

I’m using the UK version which brings me to the second problem. The problem was missing spell checker. It turns out that to be able to use spell checker, you have to run en-US version of WLW. There is a small program that I used to fix this issue and now the spell checker works fine.
Read more and get the fix here.

Anyway, apart from those problems this build looks good. I really like the inline spell checker. FireFox should have similar popup menu that offers you replacements for the faulty work. Also the new UI looks good.

Just found this application from Microsoft. Now, I’m not really a fan of M$ but this app is working very well. It’s easy to use and has some cool features. Basically WLW (Windows Live Writer) is a WYSIWYG blog editor for desktop. I’m using WordPress as my blog engine and until now I’ve done all posting inside FireFox through the web page. That works just fine but it’s a bit slow and uncomfortable.

I’ve looked for this type of (free) desktop blogging editor but none of them works as well as WordPress’s web editor. However, WLW comes very close. One very nice thing about it is that it can use the styles of the web site in it’s WYSIWYG editor. That way you’ll immediately see how the post is going to look once it’s posted on the site.

Here’s where you’ll find it:
http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

It’s still beta but I haven’t had any problems so far. Needless to say that this post it written with WLW .

Here’s a list of my Firefox add-ons.

Tab Mix Plus
This add-on let’s you customize how tabs are handled. Also it adds many new features to tabs. One of my favorite features is the “Undo Close tab”. It’s a real time saver when every once in a while you accidentally close tab that you still need.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122

NoScript
This add-on adds some extra protection by automatically enabling/disabling JavaScript. If you are visiting some dubious sites, I highly recommend using this tool.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722

CustomizeGoogle
This add-on let’s you customize Google sites. Very handy and also can protect your privacy a bit more.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/743

Finally it’s ready! It feels very nice and stable. Also there’s some nice new features like tags and advanced folder views. One very nice touch is the built-in support for GMail. Unfortunaly there’s still no tray icon, which I just don’t understand why. But I’ve been using Thunderbird-Tray which works just fine with this new version also.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

I just installed a plugin made by Kjell Bublitz. It enables you to use the excellent Lightbox script made by Lokesh Dhakar. This plugin was very easy to install (just upload and activate). It works very well and integrates into WordPress perfectly.

You can find the plugin here:
http://www.m3nt0r.de/blog/lightbox-wordpress-plugin/

Here’s few demo images:

Single image