Productivity Sauce

Aug 12, 2009 GMT

When it comes to reading ebooks on your laptop or desktop machine, few ebook readers can rival FBReader. The same is true for the Android platform, too. The mobile version of FBReader called FBReaderJ offers pretty much all the essential features without sacrificing usability. Similar to FBReader, FBReaderJ supports several popular ebook formats, including EPUB and FictionBook.

Aug 07, 2009 GMT

While DokuWiki makes an excellent tool for lightweight word processing, it lacks one essential feature -- word count. Fortunately, this problem is easy to fix. The DokuWiki Tips page offers two simple scripts that add the word count capabilities to DokuWiki. The first script adds a simple counter to the text editing area, and the counter displays the number of words in the currently opened section as well as the total word count for the current page. The second... more »

Aug 05, 2009 GMT

Although WordNet comes with a graphical browser, it can only be described as bare-bones. The browser doesn't offer any kind of desktop integration, and there is no support for color coding, rich text formatting, or hyperlinking. But thanks to Artha, you don't have to put up with these limitations. This nifty little dictionary tool wraps the WordNet database into a user-friendly interface and offers a few neat features that can help you to make the most of WordNet.

Jul 29, 2009 GMT

You can optimize Firefox for use with your netbook by manually tweaking the browser's settings. But why bother... more »

Jul 24, 2009 GMT

Like probably any Firefox user, I have a few personal favorite features and tricks that help me to get the most out of my browser. The one I appreciate most is the smart keywords feature which allows you to search specific websites directly from the Firefox Location (aka Awesome) bar. The way it works is pretty simple. Say you want to look up words using Cambridge Dictionaries Online Web site. Navigate to dictionary.cambridge.org, right-click on the search box, and select... more »

Jul 21, 2009 GMT

The Android Market features a few tethering applications, so it should be easy to use your Android phone as a wireless modem. Well, that's how the theory goes, anyway. In practice, however, these applications require root access to your phone's system, so you have to "root" your phone before you can tether it. Rooting an Android phone is not for the faint of heart, though, and there is the ever-present risk of bricking your device. Meet Proxoid, a proxy server application that lets you use your phone as a modem... more »

Jul 17, 2009 GMT

Did you know that you can post Tomboy notes to your blog courtesy of the Tomboy Blogposter plugin? If you didn't know that, it's understandable, because this plugin is not installed by default. If you are using Ubuntu or any of its derivatives, enabling this functionality is rather straightforward. First of all, use the Synaptic package manager to find and install the tomboy-blogposter package (or run the sudo apt-get install tomboy-blogposter command).