Posted by admin | Posted in Financial, Software | Posted on 28-09-2009 | Views: 56
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I’m a self-employed freelance writer. Many of the editors and contributors here on MUO are in the same position. Being self-employed has tons of plus sides such as freedom, non-stop creativity and no commute to work. However, in my opinion the biggest downside is running what is effectively a business. Accounts, tax, invoices, creditors and debtors can be overwhelming to someone whose forté is writing, designing or consulting.
To make matters worse, it’s a recession out there so work is getting thinner on the ground. Not many of us can afford to, or want to hire, an accountant to take care of the books. I struggled with ledgers and taxes until I discovered a piece of free accountancy software that does it all for me – TAS.
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Tags: budget, business, finance, money, taxes, tracking tools
Posted by admin | Posted in Twitter | Posted on 28-09-2009 | Views: 119
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Here’s an interesting tool for all of you who like to use your IM (chat) programs for everything. Now you can use chat bots to search Google, Yahoo, Bing and Twitter – without having to go to the sites.
Although this seems to work fine (and I used it all day today for searches), you seem to be limited to the first four search results only. So this wouldn’t be something that you could use for deep searching.  But if you are looking for the correct URL of a website, the Wikipedia entry for something, basically anything that would – in theory – show up in the first few results, then you could use these bots instead.  No different from Google’s “Are You Feeling Lucky?“.
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Tags: chat bots, google search, instant messaging, search tips, Twitter, twitter search
Posted by admin | Posted in How-To's, Tips & Tricks | Posted on 28-09-2009 | Views: 62
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Mouse gestures and keyboard shortcuts both provide a simple way to speed up your workflow. Power users would attest to the fact that switching between keyboard and mouse slows them down. When you know the important keyboard shortcuts for an application, say Photoshop, you won’t go to the toolbox each time to pick a tool, you would simply hit the b key for brush, v for the move tool and so on without moving the mouse away from the work area for a moment.
Likewise it is true for times you are working with the mouse, you want to be able to do the maximum amount of work with your mouse without having to switch back and forth. The very idea of being able to run commands and perform custom actions at the flick of the mouse pointer is inviting. This can be done easily with mouse gestures.
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Tags: mouse, mouse gestures, productivity, shortcuts
Posted by admin | Posted in Software, Twitter | Posted on 28-09-2009 | Views: 79
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Twitter has really become a part and parcel of our life. So much so that often there are times when you just can’t resist tweeting a line or two. Having a good day at the office or just came up with an idea for the next big thing, your followers ought to know about it!
But then there are considerations of not wanting to be seen tweeting while at work. Now we surely encourage you to do your work with all the required zeal, but it is always nice to know a tool or two that may be used in such a situation or are simple and plain fun to use otherwise as well.
Here are two of the ‘Undercover Twitter clients’, which give you an interface that people don’t generally associate with Twitter.
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Tags: adobe AIR, command line, desktop client, Twitter, twitter client
Posted by admin | Posted in Software, Utilities and Drivers | Posted on 28-09-2009 | Views: 93
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We’ve posted a lot of information here in the past about backups and file synchronisation, but I’ve been doing some work recently moving a huge quantity of data and ensuring that it has actually arrived, and it’s great to find something that just works.
I’ve been using both Vista and the Windows 7 RC, and the official recommendation for those platforms for raw copy tools is to use Robocopy, rather than the rather dated XCopy.
Robocopy has a GUI that leaves a lot to be desired, and Microsoft have been quietly pushing a free tool called RichCopy, so you would think there were plenty of options, but I’ve had an awful time with everything except for the barbaric option of running Robocopy from the command line, so I was really on the hunt for something less official.
FreeFileSync (FFS) takes the sting out of synchronising local backups. I’d still go some other places for Internet backups, and this isn’t the tool for scripted synchronisation either, if you’re headed down that path. Robocopy is great for that.
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Tags: Backup, files, synchronize
Posted by admin | Posted in Desktop Enhancements, Software | Posted on 28-09-2009 | Views: 83
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Flickr’s website is functionally easy to use but it doesn’t offer an optimal viewing experience for browsing photos. Here on MakeUseOf, we have previously covered DestroyFlickr to use Flickr from your desktop. It has not been in active development for a year however, and a better alternative has come on the scene with some cool new features.
Flickroom is the new Adobe AIR kid on the block that will change the way you interact with Flickr. Flickroom lets you browse Flickr in a beautiful charcoal colored interface that is soothing to the eyes, allows easy photo uploads and downloads, gives you real-time notifications for comments and faves on your photostream, and more. The app is still in beta and new features are being added at a rapid pace.
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Tags: adobe AIR, desktop client, Flickr, Image Search, photo sharing, photos
Have you ever had a installation of something that you wanted to reinstall but you couldn’t? Have you ever lost a software serial number or key code? How about something that was pre-installed on your system – how do you reinstall that? I have had issues with all of these situations and I know a lot of other people that have had these issues as well.
What can you do to solve them? How can we grab the information we need from the registry? That’s right – all of that information is in there if you know where to look for it and here is a program that can do that for you automagically!
It is a neat little piece of freeware called LicenseCrawler.
Once you download this little gem you can use it to scan your machine for serials. The program is 100% free – make sure you do not pay for it! Some of the download links ask for money – don’t use them! Use the free links! The author wants the application to be free, so lets keep him happy!
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Tags: license, serial number
