emudir

We’ve all got PDF creators now. Libre Office and IBM Lotus Symphony can both create PDF files, and there’s an element of importing PDFs in Libre Office as well. But the job they do – well, let’s put it this way, the document might look OK, but the styles are hard to modify, and it’s just not quite right…

Enter Nitro PDF’s “PDF To Word” converter. You can either use the service online for free, or download it as a (paid for) desktop application – which adds support for directly coverting other file types to PDF, batch conversions, and so on. …read more »

If you use Google Mail, as we do, you’ll no doubt be wowed by the priority inbox, delighted with its ability to handle huge volumes of mail effortlessly and perpetually wondering what “shva” means in the address bar…

Of course, the one thing that Gmail lacks, compared to traditional email clients, is the ability to request “read receipts”. Now this is something that’s in the email specifications – and has been for years – it’s just that Google didn’t see fit to implement it. …read more »

When was the last time you were online and needed a dictionary? Quick, think… I’ll guess it was more recently than you think it is. And the same goes for a thesaurus, too.

Firefox users will already know all about this, because it’s built in as one of the default search engines, but Chambers 21st Century Dictionary and Thesaurus are both available online, and searchable too.

Not enough? …read more »

A while ago we featured Spotify, which is a streaming music platform for the desktop. Blip is altogether different.

Blip.fm is a kind of community radio station; every user is a DJ. Blip doesn’t host the music itself, but aggregates it from various sources, including YouTube, although you can filter out videos to save bandwidth. …read more »

If, like me, you’re terrifically disorganised, there’s several ways round this. One (perhaps non-optimal) way is to tattoo everything you will ever need to know onto your own body, as seen in the film Memento.

Another, probably more sensible way, is the online service Google Calendar. …read more »

I love reading, I like the look and feel of a book and I like to see the words on the page. I won’t buy a Kindle or any other type of electronic reader because, to me, it wouldn’t be the same. I like the cover of the book, I like to see them lined up on the bookshelf when occasionally one will jump out and just beg to be read again. And I always oblige.

Sometimes though, being read to is sheer bliss. On a car journey the short stories on radio 4 are usually in serial form or just too darn short. So there is a gap to be filled.

Enter audiobooksforfree.com. …read more »

Obviously if you are reading this you have a computer. The odds are very high that you also have a printer. Because they’re cheap now aren’t they? Mass manufacture, captive clientele, multiple outlets all combine to make owning one very attractive. So you get it home and hook it all up and everything works just fine. But the ink runs out very quickly: this is because most manufacturers only put part filled cartridges in the box. So you go to the shops and buy some more and what do you find? They are darn expensive! …read more »

The Grateful Dead were perhaps the classic example of the “counter-culture” band, allowing fans to tape their concerts and swap the recordings, playing free gigs, while simulatenously using marketing savvy and word of mouth to earn a living playing some great, mellow tunes.

This Anchorage, Alaska concert, recorded in June 1980 by The Grateful Dead themselves …read more »

Greetings, and happy Halloween spooky folks.

We’ll be presenting a few spooky freebies the next few days, but I thought we’d kick off with the Zombatar.

Launched a few years ago to promote the game Plants v Zombies, the Zombatar allows you to make your own zombie character to use as your profile picture on Facebook, MSN messenger… anywhere you’d use a picture of yourself on the Internet, really.

Read the terms and conditions and you’ll find you’re not allowed to do anything, well, naughty with it. But other than that – fire away.

Oh and remember, when you do become one of the walking dead? Even zombies have to eat healthily..