tools

Rider 8 Tools may have been written by a lawyer with other lawyers in mind, but the well-designed text-searching application is versatile enough for anyone who frequently authors or refers back to long or technical documents--business professionals, academics, researchers, and so on.

The application bundles four search tools into one to search one or more documents for specific words and characters within a number of parameters, and within one document or many. Fast. You can limit the search for a whole word, case, or root (wild card); a dates bracket, even part of the file name.Rider 8 Tools will … Read more

If you can't decide where to move but want to live close to where you travel every day, Optimal Home Location ( via EcoGeek) suggests a spot. If you hope to shrink your carbon footprint, reducing your commute time can be a key factor.

This Google Maps-based tool integrates with real estate site Zillow to display a given area's home prices, taxes, and the percentage of households with children. I plugged in six addresses for the places I visit most around San Francisco, including work, where friends live, and my favorite restaurants and grocery store. The site computed the … Read more

Every so often, I buy myself a new "hot glove" at the 99-cent store. Invariably, of course, I discover that my bargain has an unsung benefit--the ability to not protect my fingers from heat at all. Since it's not actually fun to burn myself repeatedly, I went looking for a new solution.

And I found it in the iSi Get-it silicone potholder. The Get-it features a funky finger knob designed to give you a firmer grip on whatever you're holding. And, as you'd expect, the flexible silicone can wrap around hot handles and odd-shaped casseroles. … Read more

Web-based blogging tool WordPress.com is getting a big update in a few hours with the release of version 2.7. The update is going out to all WordPress.com users at 5 p.m. PST Thursday, with a release for self-hosted WordPress.org users to follow later this month. Brave beta testers who want to get an early jump on 2.7 early can install the latest release candidate which has been available since Monday.

Version 2.7 brings a host of changes, with the biggest one being a complete overhaul of the blogging tool's dashboard interface. Instead … Read more

Nothing less than a boon for users looking to manage their file menus, freeware utility FileMenu Tools focuses on function with a simple interface. Most users should have no problem quickly learning to use FileMenu Tools to bend Windows to their will, but a detailed Help file is available for novices.

Operating FileMenu Tools merely means manipulating select pull-downs and function icons. Users choose a menu and use the Actions function list to add commands, submenus, or separators. Deleting and moving menu items also takes only a click. Clicking a menu item displays basic function descriptions and properties when available. … Read more

The iPhone 3G brought changes in shape, function, features, and so on, but to the dismay of many cell phone photographers, the device retains the same 2-megapixel camera as the first iPhone. Apple enhanced the camera via software improvements by coupling the camera to the GPS feature of the iPhone 3G to enable photo geotagging, but this did little to calm the complaints about the camera's resolution, lack of flash, and other features available on a few other phones. However, users have developed exciting ways to use the camera, and there are several innovative third-party applications to help along … Read more

Brightcove, the maker of online-video tools, released its new Brightcove 3 video publishing platform on Monday.

Some of what the new package offers is improved work flow for media companies, a video player that is easier to customize and greater bandwidth delivery, the company said in a statement.

Among the companies using Brightcove 3 are Showtime, Lifetime and FearNet. The platform serves 135 million visitors per month.

Yahoo on Wednesday announced the rebranding of IndexTools as Yahoo Web Analytics (beta). Currently an enterprise product, the move brings it closer to being a consumer and small business tool, although it's not available to everyone just yet.

Yahoo acquired IndexTools back in early April and promptly made it a free service. Its big advantage over Google Analytics is that the information is updated within a few minutes of user activity. In comparison, stats from Google tend to take about 24 hours, however anyone can sign up for it. Both products feature colorful, easy-to-read charts and graphics for data reporting, deep tie-ins with each company's ad services, and a single-service user log-in that works with other company properties.

According to a post on Yahoo's blog the updated version of the service is already out to advertisers and third-party application developers, with Yahoo Small Business users to follow. If you try to sign-up on the new site, there's simply a wait list where you can subscribe to updates. Yahoo's Director of Data Insights Dennis Mortensen says the easiest way to get your hands on this before Q4 is to become an advertiser.

You can read more about the changeover here. I've also embedded a five-minute overview of what the service did (five months ago) after the break.… Read more

I resisted the lure of silicone baking tools for a long time. I have friends who won't bake in anything else these days, but I didn't see the allure for quite some time.

Then my husband brought home a silicone brush for painting egg yolk on breads or brushing turkey, and I tried it once. Wow. If you've ever spent a frustrating 20 minutes trying to get egg yolk or greasy junk off a regular basting brush, you know what I'm talking about. So I began exploring other silicone treats, cautiously, but with less disdain than … Read more