co-ment: Document Collaboration and Annotation Tool

Apr 02, 2010 GMT

Google Docs is maybe the king among Web-based collaborative editing and document sharing applications, but the productivity suite from the all-mighty giant is not the only fish in the sea. An open source Web-based solution, co-ment provides an efficient document collaboration environment which offers everything you need to edit, annotate, and share documents. co-ment is not just a mere Web-based word processor, though. While you can use co-ment as a no-frills Web-based word processor, it's designed for easy and efficient document annotation. You can create documents from scratch in co-ment, or you can import existing documents. co-ment uses OpenOffice.org as its conversion back-end, so...

Scribble Away with OI Notepad for Android

Mar 30, 2010 GMT

When it comes to note-taking apps for Android, you can't go wrong with OI Notepad. At first sight, OI Notepad looks pretty bare-bones, but it does offer a few useful features. You can assign tags to notes and use the Tags drop-down list to quickly locate notes containing a specific tag. The real-time search feature finds matching notes as you type, and you can sort notes by date or alphabetically. To change the sorting order press the Menu button and choose Settings List -> Sorting Order. In the Settings section, you can also enable the Auto-create Links option which automatically turns phone numbers and URLs into clickable links. OI Notepad also allows you to share notes (long-press...

Prevent Your Computer from Falling Asleep with Caffeine

Mar 26, 2010 GMT

Tweaking the power settings on your notebook may help to squeeze out more battery life, but this can also turn your machine into a narcoleptic which abruptly falls asleep when you are watching a movie or reading an ebook. Caffeine is a simple utility that can prevent this from happening. To install Caffeine on Ubuntu, add the project's PPA using the following command: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:caffeine-developers/ppaUse then the sudo apt-get install caffeine command to install the utility. Once up and running, Caffeine adds an icon to the notification area. Using the tool is a doddle: click on the icon to enable Caffeine, click again to disable it. You can also enable Caffeine for a...

Practising the Pomodoro Technique with Pomodairo

Mar 23, 2010 GMT

Looking for a new way to improve your productivity? Try the Pomodoro technique. The idea behind this technique is ridiculously simple. You break down your workload into 25-minute chunks, called pomodoros (pomodoro is Italian for tomato). During each 25-minute working session, you focus on a single task. Once the time is up, you take a break and move to another pomodoro. To time pomodoros you can use either a kitchen timer or a more high-tech solution like Pomodairo. To use the latter on your system, you need to install the Adobe AIR runtime. Obviously, the key feature of Pomodairo is the timer, but the utility has a few nifty tricks up its sleeve, too. Pomodairo lets you maintain a list...

Gnome Gmail = Gmail + Gnome

Mar 22, 2010 GMT

Despite its power and convenience, Gmail has one serious limitation: the desktop integration. The Gnome Gmail tool solves this problem for users running the Gnome desktop environment. This little helper is available as .deb and .rpm packages, so installing it on your system is a matter of a few clicks. Once Gnome Gmail is installed, you have to adjust your system's settings, which is also an easy thing to do. On Ubuntu, go to System -> Preferences -> Preferred Applications, and select Gmail from the Mail Reader drop-down list. That's all there is to it. But what exactly does Gnome Gmail do? For starters, it uses Gmail for all mailto links on Web pages. Better yet, it supports the...

Simple OpenOffice.org-based Document Management Solution

Mar 19, 2010 GMT

If you're toying with the idea of creating a document management solution using OpenOffice.org Base, you don't have to start from scratch. Sergio Corato, the developer of the nifty FastMailMerge extension, has released a beta version of a simple document management database built with OpenOffice.org Base. Although this is a pretty bare-bones database, its core functionality covers all the basics. You can create multiple clients and attach an unlimited number of documents which are neatly organized into separate folders. Note, though, that the database doesn't store the documents, but only their absolute paths. You can also select any document and open it in an appropriate application (the...

Turn Your Wiki Pages into Web-based Presentations with S5 Plugin

Mar 15, 2010 GMT

If you happen to use DokuWiki, you don't need to use OpenOffice.org Impress or other similar tool to create a slick presentation. Thanks to the S5 plugin, you can turn any DokuWiki page into a simple and elegant S5 presentation. To turn a wiki page into an S5 presentation, simply insert the ~~SLIDESHOW~~ command into it. Use the H1 header to mark the initial slide and H2 headers for all additional slides. You can also use a horizontal rule to mark the end of the current slide, and any notes that come after that are treated as notes that appear only when the slide is printed.To run the presentation, click on the Slideshow icon in the upper-right corner of the page. The plugin also supports...