Ping.fm has a Wordpress Plugin. Boy, this could save you some time.

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Ping.fm has a wordpress plugin & yes, forgive me,  i’m excited.

If you haven’t used Ping.fm, it essentially a way for you to send one message out to update your status on multiple social networks like twitter, facebook, friendfeed…

The idea behind the plugin is simple, write your blog - and ping.fm will automatically send out a message to all your subscribed social networks & notify them. Why am I excited? Well, anything that makes my that little bit slicker is a big plus for me.

The PingPress.fm Plugin is a must have for anyone who hosts their own Wordpress blog and uses multiple social networks.

Tumblr launches Version 4 Beta

Tumblr, the great tumblelog/blogging platform has launched the beta of their latest update.

They announced the news on their company blog & are looking for feedback. In my opinion, I can’t see much improvement & it definitely feels a little off in terms of styling..but hey, those are just my personal thoughts.

To check out the beta, just login with your normal login details at www.tumblr-beta.com.

Online Outliners - The Best of What’s out there

Being an outliner fan, I am constantly looking for new & better online options to compete with the beloved Omni Outliner for the Mac (who have just released a newer version by the way). Why I love outliners so much & find them so useful - i’ll explain in another post. For this post however, I’d like to give a good overview of what’s out there at the moment & what, I believe, you should be using.

If you’re not familiar with outliners, they are typically used for collecting and/or organising notes, todo lists, codes and/or ideas - and are called Outliners because they are organised in outline fashion or as a tree-like structure. Still unsure? Read on - you’ll soon get the idea!

Sproutliner
Potentially a great but currently out of date, unsecure to use on their site (which really is just for demo purposes) - the downloadable currently open source version needs a major update before I would recommend usage in any sort of work environment.
No import or export or strong collaborative sharing functionality. Fast & great use of shortcuts but all in all best to give this one a miss until someone decides to give it an update.

Todoist
What I currently use as my todo list - although I may be moving. It’s undoubtedly a great tool, superb use of keyboard shortcuts, fast, gmail integration, quicksilver & launchy integration, igoogle/netvibes gadget & mac/yahoo widgets. Drag & drop works brilliantly. Great search facility, however only available on premium subscription which is only $3 a month. This also brings a cool tagging feature & reminders.

No easy way to import or export. I can’t embed images or video into it which is frustrating. Mass changing of tasks / lists is difficult. No mobile/iphone version & no sharing/collaborative features. My major qualm is the little new added features recently & are a bunch of requests- no surprise considering the developer is lead developer at Plurk.

Checkvist
New to the game is checkvist & it looks very promising - potentially a bigger & better todoist. Ability to create multiple outlines very easily. Clean & simple to use.  Ability to share outlines & strong commenting feature which makes it ultra special in my book.  You can embed images or video into it which is very cool. Currently no due dates or other add-ons (email/calendar integrations) - but it’s early days, they just launched 5 days ago! …Click Here to Read The Full Post »

2 Cool Ways to watch the Olympics on Your Mac [Mac Tip]

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A POST ABOUT WAYS TO WATCH THE OLYMPICS ON YOUR MAC, NOT THE PLACES TO WATCH IT. (although, I can show where to do that :) ).

For those who are having to carry on working at their mac’s yet want to keep their eye on the Olympics. Here are two great ways to do it.

Irrespective of which way you choose, make sure you visit wired for an ever growing list of ways to watch the Olympics online.

Before I explain the two options:

i. Download Fluid which essentially lets you create a browser for a specific website & gives you lots of cool to use for each.
ii. Add whichever site you’re planning on watching the Olympics on to the field that becomes available to you when you open Fluid.

Now here are your two options:

1. Keep the Olympics running in the top/bottom corner of your screen.

Download afloat which when installed will allow you to keep most of you mac windows above the others (if you set it to obviously). The menu bar will look like the image on the right.

Resize your browser window & keep the olympics running in the top or bottom corner of your screen as you get on with what else you need to do. Works particularly well if you have a large screen.

[TIP: Change your new Fluid browser's appearance in "appearance" in the preferences to chromeless which completely removes the outer bar from the window - more info on Chromeless view here .]


2. Convert Fluid into a Menu Bar SSB

This works great if you’ve got a smaller screen because it will essentially keep the window out of sight but just one click away.

To create a menu bar SSB (site specific browser) - just click on your new SSB name, in my case it’s BBC and then click convert to Menu Extra SSB as the image to the left.

You can see a screenshot of how it the final view looks below:

What Had Other People Accomplished by Your Age?

I came across an interesting site today which essentially allows you to input your age & then gives you concise overview of what other people had accomplished by the same age.

If you feel disappointed, try and flip it, reverse it and get inspired!

You can also support the tool by sending in your own (or other people’s accomplishments) WITH AGES to curatorATmuseumofconceptualartDOTcom .

Things other people had accomplished by your age [Museum of Conceptual Art]

How to Improve your Handwriting

I can’t speak for you but my handwriting has suffered, truly suffered, since I became a full time computer user & almost completely abandoned the art of writing. It actually sometimes feels awkward to write & when I do - i’m highly embarassed.

Well, handwriting expert PaperPenalia’s Dyas A. Lawson comes to the rescue with a wonderful piece full of tips & tricks to improve it.

Tips to Improve Your Handwriting [paperpenalia.com]

2 Really Easy Ways to Add Ringtones to Your iPhone

Let’s get straight to it shall we?

i. For songs that are DRM Free.

  1. Right click on the song you are going to make into a ringer and select ‘Get Info.’
  2. Go to the options tab and go down to the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” check boxes. Check both boxes and input the time you want your ringer to start/stop. The ringer has to be 30 seconds or less. Click OK when you’re done.
  3. Right click on your newly shortened song and select “Convert Selection to AAC.”
  4. After the song is done encoding, drag the new file to your desktop.
  5. Go back the song on your desktop and right click on your song and chose “Get info.” Go to the name and extension section and change the extension from .m4a to .m4r (or you can just change the extension right from your desktop)
  6. Go back to iTunes and delete the shortened version from your iTunes library (It won’t delete it from your desktop, it will only remove it from iTunes).
  7. Now simply double click on the .m4r file on your desktop (or drag it to itunes) to add it to your iTunes library under the ringtones section.
  8. Sync your phone with iTunes and you’re done!

Remember to go back into iTunes and uncheck your custom start and stop times for the original version of your song.

For a more visual representation of the above steps - watch the video below. I would highly recommend watching it fullscreen because - well, you’ll see.

Popout

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ii. For DRM Songs.

This is using garage band and unfortunately the, apple only. Before we get started, please make sure you have the latest version of Garage band. …Click Here to Read The Full Post »

Kuku Klok: Your Online Alarm Clock

A simple yet fun & elegant tool designed to be your alarm clock ‘online’ - although what’s very cool, it works offline too once the page has been loaded.

The time is easily set & it gives you a number of different real life sounds to play with too. If nothing else, it’s also beautifully designed.

Check it out at www.kukuklok.com

What we do with our free time…is changing.

In this short talk, Clay Shirky illustrates wonderfully how the dynamics of our “found” or free time has changed dramatically. It’s a really poignant talk & something I highly recommend watching or listening to. If you’d rather read it - here’s the transcript.

via Warren Ellis.

How to Tie Your Shoe Laces…with Style

Sneaker (trainers) site Sneaker Freaker have put an awesome post together entitled “Guide to Lacing” which gives a wonderful overview of the various styles & methods to tie your laces.

They were fortunate to have Ian Fieggen (Professor Shoelace) from shoe-lacing.com (yep, there’s a blog for everything!) entertain & educate sneaker lovers in the fine art of lacing.

Learn his personal favourite ways of rigging rides, including helpful diagrams. Then learn how to modify your aglets to the correct length and tie Ian’s very own ‘ian’ knot, the world’s fastest way of shackling sneaks.

Read more at sneakerfreaker.com .