Productivity Sauce

Nov 23, 2009 GMT

ConnectBot turns your Android device into a powerful tool for accessing and controlling remote Linux machines. Using this SSH client app, you can reboot your Linux server at home or connect to a desktop machine at your office directly from your Android devices when you are on the move.

Nov 20, 2009 GMT

Bookmarks can come in handy when working with long and complex documents, but the way this feature works in OpenOffice.org is not particularly intuitive. The bookmarks you add to the document are not visible, and you have to use the Navigator to view the bookmarks and jump to a bookmarked place in the document. The VisibleBookmarks extension offers a simple solution to the problem. Once installed, the extension adds a dedicated toolbar containing a couple... more »

Nov 19, 2009 GMT

Dropbox is without doubt an extremely useful service, but it has two major drawbacks: it uses proprietary software and -- as with any cloud-based service -- you leave your data at the mercy of a third party. So why not roll out your own solution that replaces Dropbox and runs on your own server? If you like the idea, then the Fak3r blog provides step-by-step instructions on how to set up your own file synchronization server. The main ingredients in Fak3r's recipe are the OpenSSH... more »

Nov 18, 2009 GMT

Here is a genuinely useful Web-based application -- SimpleText. It is, indeed, a rather simple online note-taking application that is positively light on features. It doesn't offer any fancy text formatting tools, and you won't find any advanced sharing capabilities in it either. So what's so "genuinely useful" about it, then? Again, it's simplicity. I find it particularly useful for drafting articles and blog posts. It allows me to quickly jot down ideas, save useful links and text snippets without much fuss. Since I spend most... more »

Nov 16, 2009 GMT

When it comes to organizing and tweaking photos, digiKam and F-Spot rule the roost. But if you don't need all the bells and whistles of a full-blown photo management tool, then you might want to try Shotwell.

Nov 13, 2009 GMT

While the Recent Documents command under the File menu gives you quick access to the previously opened documents, this feature has a few serious limitations. For example, you can't change the number of documents it keeps and there is no way to delete entries you don't need. The History Master extension aims to solve these problems and adds a few other creature comforts that make it easier to keep tabs on your documents. When installed, the extension adds two menu... more »

Nov 07, 2009 GMT

Using date and time stamps as file names makes it significantly easier to manage your photos, and tools like Rapid Photo Downloader can automatically rename photos on the fly when downloading them from the camera. But what if you already have hundreds or even thousands of photos? In this case, you can rename them using a few simple command-line tools. The first one is the more »