Growl for Mac keeps you notified

(Credit: CNET Networks)

When you’re working on your Mac, sometimes things happen in the background that you would like to keep track of while working in another application, such as when a friend comes online in your chat client, you receive a new e-mail or Skype call, or your CD is finished burning.

Several applications are already Growl enabled.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Fortunately, there’s a free notification system called Growl that has become a Mac favorite for its flexibility and elegant interface. You can configure Growl to notify you when a download is complete, when a DVD is finished ripping, when your FTP client is done uploading or downloading, or have it send you an e-mail at work when your Mac at home is finished backing itself up. Growl was designed to let software programmers easily tie into it, letting them build custom Growl notifications into their programs, so the instant you enable Growl, every Growl-enabled application on your Mac will immediately offer a whole new realm of features. The list of Growl-enabled applications contains more than 100 well-known programs, with the list growing all the time.

Choose from several different Growl notification styles.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Along with the added control of knowing when things are happening behind the scenes, you have complete control over what Growl shows you. A comprehensive display preference panel lets you customize the programs that work with Growl. This way you’ll never receive notifications you don’t want. Simply use the Growl preference pane to turn off any or all notifications. Growl offers a huge list of styles so your notifications can fit your overall desktop theme or display certain styles depending on the program. It’s your call, and Growl is easy to configure.

Growl already works with several popular Mac applications (listed here and category) more are on the way all the time. If you’ve been looking for a way to be notified when specific things happen behind the scenes on your Mac, Growl is the perfect application for the job.

Source: www.download.com

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OLPC Sugar OS takes on a life of its own, will anybody care?

Filed under: OS Updates, News, Windows, Linux, Open Source

The OLPC team yesterday announced plans to load Windows XP on XO Laptops in a handful of countries in June as part of a limited trial. By September, Windows could be available to any developing nation placing orders for XO Laptops. And today, Walter Bender, the former president of software for the OLPC Foundation says the unique software interface that was designed for the XO Laptop will live on. Maybe.

Here’s a little background. The XO Laptop was designed to be a cheap laptop that could be distributed in developing nations to help bridge the digital divide. The original plan for the XO was to use Linux as an operating system because it’s cheap, works well on low-powered devices, and because it’s open source anyone could write software for it easily. A unique desktop environment called Sugar was built to make Linux more user-friendly. But many governments have been reluctant to place orders for the laptops because they don’t run Windows, which is the desktop operating system used by most of the rest of the world. So the OLPC Foundation has been working with Microsoft to bring a low cost version of Windows XP to the XO.

But what does that mean for Sugar? Walter Bender says Sugar Labs, a new non-profit will develop new versions of the software. The goal is to continue developing open source software for the XO so that children in developing nations will be exposed to open source applications and ideals as they learn about computing. The question is, if Windows XP is available for just $3 more than Linux, will anybody buy the Linux/Sugar version? Yes, we know that many Download Squad readers would be more interested in the Linux models, but if the goal is to give school-age children in your country computer literacy, wouldn’t you want them to use the same software that most students in countries like the US are using?

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Facebook added comments to the mini-feed. Add a new comment?

Filed under: News, Social Software, web 2.0

Facebook is at it again, rolling out features in advance of the redesign we’ve been hearing so much about. The latest addition is comments in the mini-feed. Now when you find out that “Ashley changed her profile picture” you can click a little + icon next to that item and add a comment. This doesn’t go for all mini-feed items: it seems to be only for profile and status changes. At least you can’t comment on a mini-feed item about someone’s comment (yet.)

Well, ok. It’s one more way of communicating on Facebook, but what does it imply about the future of the wall? What used to be the main point of communication is now one of many, with photo comments, mini-feed comments and messages all in the mix. Will more places to comment make things easier for users? On the plus side for Facebook, users will stay on the site a few seconds longer to check one more place for comments, but is it a plus for you? Weigh in with your comments about comments.

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Growl for Mac keeps you notified

(Credit: CNET Networks)

When you’re working on your Mac, sometimes things happen in the background you’d like to keep track of while working on other things, like when a friend comes online in your chat client, you receive a new e-mail or Skype call, or your CD burning job is finished.

Several apps are already Growl enabled

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Fortunately there’s a free notification system called Growl that has become a Mac favorite for its flexibility and elegant interface. You can configure Growl to notify you when a download is complete, when a DVD is done ripping, when your FTP client is done uploading or downloading, or have it send you an email at work when your at-home Mac is finished backing itself up. Growl was designed to allow other software programmers to easily tie into it, allowing them to build custom Growl notifications into their programs, so the instant you enable Growl, every Growl-enabled app on your Mac will instantly offer a whole new realm of features. The list of “Growl-enabled” applications contains well over 100 well-known programs, with the list growing all the time.

Choose from several different Growl notification styles

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Along with the added control of knowing when things are happening behind the scenes, you have complete control over what Growl shows you via comprehensive display preferences customized for the programs that work with Growl. This way you’ll never receive notifications you don’t want. Simply use the Growl preference pane to turn off any or all notifications. Growl offers a huge list of different styles so your notifications can fit your overall desktop theme or display certain styles depending on the program. It’s your call, and Growl is easy to configure.

Growl works with several popular Mac apps already (listed here by category) with more on the way all the time. If you’ve been looking for a way to get notification when specific things happen behind the scenes on your Mac, Growl is the perfect app for the job.

Source: www.download.com

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Dashwire 2.0 improves phone-management software

Dashwire (review), a dashboard for synchronizing and managing the contents of your mobile phone online, has let loose with Dashwire 2.0 for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. Tuesday’s release enriches the syncing client application with photos and with Facebook and Twitter updates.

Sharing media and status messages makes Dashwire way more fun.

The previous version of the downloadable Dashwire app, which opens the syncing channels between the phone’s content and the online dashboard, was pretty much a blank placeholder–all back-end functionality and very little front-end personality. Now the screen displays your primary photo, status message, and a media ribbon of the photos and videos stored on your online dashboard.

The status entry field on the Dashwire client can easily become a direct artery to Facebook and Twitter. After a quick setup from the dashboard (”Your status”), status updates made from the phone can automatically supplant a user’s Facebook status, post to Twitter, or both.

Another addition sees the media ribbon along the bottom edge that serves as an on-demand photo and video gallery, but which also has new privacy and interaction controls. The content can now be titled, shared, or set as wallpaper directly from the phone. When privacy mode is on, photos are invisible to the public unless they’re given individual permission.

Privacy controls keep you in charge.

In another twist, photos will soon be able to climb up from the Mac or PC to the dashboard, then autosync to the media ribbon on your phone. When that happens, users will be able to upload full-size images through the Photo tile. Dashwire will then autosync a much smaller scale version of the hosted image, about 20 KB, to the client. The result is a neat feature that grants access to media not even stored on the phone. Translation: more precious memory for you. Unfortunately, it’s only running on Dashwire’s development servers at the moment, but is expected to bridge that gap with a general release within three weeks.

To get Dashwire 2.0, point your Windows Mobile browser to http://m.dashwire.com, and to sign up for an account, visit www.dashwire.com from your desktop. Support for Symbian S60 is expected to debut within the next two months.

Source: www.download.com

Memeo launches Share for sending photos to grandma

Tuesday morning software company Memeo launched a new product called Share. Aimed at people who don’t use photo- or video-sharing sites, Share lets you take what you’ve captured on your digital camera and beam it to friends and family members without clogging up their e-mail in-boxes with full-resolution shots.

The product is not aimed at the Flickr crowd, but instead at people who want to create small circles of people to share their shots with. That’s not to say there’s not a social element, since it can be configured to automatically upload your shots to Facebook. It can also slurp up your existing contacts from Web mail providers, like what you’d get using Plaxo.

The company is offering free licenses of the software to the first 1,000 people who sign up to use it. After that it will get capped off at 10,000 sign-ups.

Source: www.download.com

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Fav.or.it RSS aggregator launches. Will it change the game?

Filed under: News, Blogging, Social Software

Fav.or.it is a new kind of RSS aggregator, somewhere in between a pre-set collection of feeds like Alltop and a full-on Google Reader-style service. It had been in closed beta, but now’s it’s opening to everyone. It includes a set of 2000 of the most popular and interesting feeds, and provides recommended stories based on what you’re reading, how long you spend on it, and how you rate it. Basically, Fav.or.it tries to pay attention to what you’re paying attention to. Also, as we reported earlier, your comments show up in Fav.or.it and on the original story.

It’s no reason to abandon Google Reader, but if you’re not already reading RSS feeds, this is a good introduction to managing them. With it’s Top-Story-focused, categorized startpage, it reminds us more of Google News than Google Reader in some ways. Whether Fav.or.it gets a good user base is going to be depend on how happy people are with its recommendation algorithm. Even if you just think of it as site that exposes newbies to a couple thousand top blogs, it’s doing a useful service for the Internet.

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