The biggest time saver you can implement in your coding practices is some sort of searchable database of all the data you need when you’re working on a project. I mean code snippets, images, data sets, tips & tricks, whatever you use a lot and can be copy pasted. A great way to manage these is a personal Wiki.

TiddlyWiki is one such wiki, which you can download as a single file to your hard drive, or your can host it online using TiddlySpot. I recommend you visit the site and download a copy for yourself, there are easy to follow instructions, and no real set up is required.

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Tags: snippets, tiddlywiki, wiki
Categories: Security, Tools, Web Development

Recently I have gotten back into gaming, which means a huge 2 hours a week about, but nevertheless, it is a good way to blow off some steam. If you want to run some very modern games though you might need to squeeze every last bit of memory and CPU power out of your laptop or desktop PC, and Gamebooster is a big help in that.

Essentially it does what you could do manually, it finds the services and apps running that you don’t really need, and switches them all off with the push of a button. It switched off Launchy for me, the Aero theme for Vista, which apparently eats away at the CPU, some tablet services I didn’t even know I had running, etc., so it does quite a good job.

I actually didn’t notice a huge increase in performance, but the difference is there. I tested on GTA 4 which runs away on my system, but not very well. On minimum spec I can play pretty well, with only a few effects added. In very intense areas I noticed some performace issues were less prominent, like less lag and jittery camera, so it definitely did help. The best thing about this app is that it is so easy to use, no need to go through 20 services and shut them down, but even better, they can be restarted with the same one click action. This is also great for trips to prolong battery life!

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Tags: gamebooster, gaming, performance
Categories: Games, software

I think I just found the best screen capture software ever, or at least the best looking one. The aptly named PrtScr is originally intended to fill the void created by the Windows snipping tool which can only be found on tablet Vistas and some other select distributions. It has the same basic functionality, with some added extras and much better looks.

You can invoke the tool by pressing the print screen button (you can bind it to anywhere else), and the tool will pop up. It has a great mechanism because you can draw on your desktop before you create the “snip”, so depending on what you draw you might decide you need a bigger area. You can then use a box or a freehand tool to select the area you need and snip it.

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Tags: prtscr, screen capture, screenshot, snip
Categories: Tools

I sometimes run into an application that’s not hugely new, but it has such great handling, ease of use and functionality that I start to really like it. One such discovery today is Quotepad. Officially it’s positioned more like a copy-paste clipboard tool, but it is much more, offering checklists, reminders, timestamping and more.

You can use a simple key to add a quick note, just select any text and press ctr+shift+q. Your note will be instantly created, which you can then edit, add a subject to and save. This is not so new, a lot of apps offer this functionality, but the little things that Quotepad offers add a lot of extra to the program.

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Tags: copy paste, notepad, notes, quotepad
Categories: software

I know you’ve all seen it, naughty people, you download a game for example, and the crack file says something like “Our cracker team does not support piracy, if you like the game, buy it”. So do you? I don’t know about you guys, but while I was “coming of age” I probably wouldn’t have bought stuff like this after I saw it, played it, but now that I am “coming of age” and I have income, this model would work for me.

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Tags: economics, Games, movies
Categories: ask the readers

It seems that Gmail is set to read your mind, it now suggests recipients to your emails! No, Mr Brin and Page are not inside your head, the application simply monitors groups you frequently send emails to. If you frequently send emails and sometimes there are some “crossovers”, this is a handy feature which can make sure you don’t leave anyone out.

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Tags: contacts, Email, gmail, google-mail, suggest
Categories: Email, Google, Tools

I’ve been searching for a Photoshop replacement for a while, and the obvious choice was GIMP, although I never really liked it much. I am 100% sure that GIMP is an awesome application, but to me it just doesn’t feel right.

So instead, I gave Paint.net another go, an application which I have tried before, but gave up because I heard GIMP was so awesome. Paint.net is a graphical application just like Photoshop, but without many of its fancy tools. If you just need some cropping, resizing and positioning action for images in your blog, Paint.net will be great. At around 6Mb in size, it doesn’t take a toll on your system either.

For me it works quite well for basic web design too, simple gradients, some web 2.0 style reflections, nothing too complex. The two things which I miss most about Photoshop though is the text capabilities and vector graphics. Text capabilities in both GIMP and Pain.net are shabby compared to PS, and Paint.net doesn’t really have great pen tools either. If you need way more power than the simple Windows Paint, but way less than Photoshop, Paint.net is a solid, well built, lightweight image editor for you.

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Tags: gimp, image editor, image-editing, paint, paint.net, photoshop
Categories: Tools, software