Let mail work for you (instead of the other way around) with Mailbox.
Dec 26Great tip from friend of the show @moonenmoonen : A mail client that does not dictate your life by pushing messages in your face constantly. We all know how we sometimes can becomes slaves of our own inboxes. On the IOS and Android side of things the email clients are mostly horribly “Basic” They do what they do best : Annoy the friggin frack out of you and have you quicky reply to an email … while you are on one knee, proposing to your girlfriend. How about an email app that DOESN’T do that. How about one with “procrastination” as a built in functionality ? Want it ? Love it … then wait for it ! Mailbox IS coming to IOS pretty soon but we will have to be a little patient.
Links : Mailbox
What is YOUR favorite email client on your portable device (and why ?) Tell us in the comments section.
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And this is what would happen if you got “On the edge” on Christmas.
Dec 25As you guys are stuffing turkeys down your throat, we at Knightwise.com are working long and hard on finishing the upcoming book “On the edge”. A compilation of 65 stories from 8 years of Knightwise.com. We have been asked why we did not release this book in physical form … on Christmas. We did a test run with the subject in the video below. This would be his reaction.
Obviously this just will not do and we cannot disturb Christmas celebrations througout the world in this manner. Thus the book will be available in the first month of next year. EXCEPT to those lucky few who donated using our Paypal link. They will get the book early AND they will get it signed ! Want to help out the show AND get the book ? Throw some change our way and we will give you an experience as described above !
Happy holidays !
So what did YOU get for Christmas ? Tell us in the Comments section.
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Save money and gain focus using the linux command line as a wordprocessor.
Dec 24For the life of me I cannot remember the link (nor find back the episode) to a Hacker Public Radio podcast episode that inspired me to do this post. The speaker in this little podcast talked about the way we use word processors. He mentioned a study where they compared several groups of students that were working on a paper. One of the groups used the latest version of MS Word, the other one used Libreoffice and another group used Wordperfect (The black and white command line version). When they judged the actual papers afterwards, the QUALITY of the CONTENT was the highest with the students who used … Wordperfect. It turns out, the FEWER distractions we have regarding to layout like ribbons and talking paperclips, the more our brains focus on CONTENT. The talk is highly recommended and whoever finds the link and posts it in the comments section gets extra geek points !
So, why not make our OWN version of Wordperfect using the command line interface on Linux.
Fire up a terminal and start using your favorite text editor like NANO or VIM.
When using Nano just start out by typing
nano yourfilenamehere.txt
Start typing and hit CTRL-X to save. Pretty easy. There are of course a lot more keyboard shortcuts you can use. I have linked to some posts here and here that give you all the fancy features in Nano.
If you are somebody that likes to use VIM (I’m sorry, I don’t use VIM a lot) but I have been told that VIM users are considered the Jedi among command line interface text editor users. (Now THERE is a title) You can learn the ways of the VIM-force here and here
Spell checking !
Ok, you’ve made your document but, like me, you do tend to make the occasional typo. My excuse is I’m not a native English speaker .. whats yours ? You can solve the problem by installing ‘ispell’
sudo apt-get install ispell
Next up just point ispell to your textfile
ispell yourfilename.txt
Diction.
Lets say your spelling is ok, but when you write stuff, you sound like master Yoda. You need diction control
sudo apt-get install diction
and point it at your file with diction yourfilename.txt
These are just a couple of very basic tools to get things done, but when you really want a distraction free interface, this might just help. I’ve tried this on an old Pentium1 laptop with just a command line linux install … and its a horribly effective experience. There is NO internet to distract you, no tweets, no other apps. Just you and your textfile. Great for focus or for punishing your child and making it DO its homework WITH a computer but without any distractions.
What is YOUR take on this ? What wordprocessor do YOU use and how to YOU make it work for you ? Tell us, in the Comments section.
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Control your Android device from your computer.
Dec 21
So todays softwarepick AIRDROID makes sure I do not foam at the mouth whenever a pairing between phone and computer is required. After installing the client on your Android device you are good to go. Use the browser on any device on the same Wifi Network. After slamming in the correct URL to your mobile device (the client will tell you) you can :
- File management: transfer files between your computer and your android device ( Files on the SD card )
- SMS management: send, read, delete SMS messages (For those of you who still do that)
- Photos: preview, set as wallpaper, slideshow, import/export
- Share clipboard between desktop and your Android device (very nice for long passwords)
- Applications: install, uninstall, backup (downloads .apk files), search (for those apps you ‘didn’t buy’ in the store)
- Contacts management: create contacts, search, check call logs (See who has been spamming you )
- Ringtones: import from computer, export, preview, customize ringtones for phone calls, notifications and alarms
- Music: import from computer, export, play, etc.
Airdroid helps out a lot when it comes to the hassle of getting content to and FROM your mobile device. It might not be as fast as the Millenium Falcon on the Kessel run .. but you still have a wired alternative if you are looking for that kind of data transfer rates.
Even on your broken phone.
Remember that HTC one X you dropped on the floor last week ? The one with the broken glass but the working touchscreen ? Or the old Galaxy SII that has the funky batter ? Why not plug it into the charger, hook it up to your wifi, install Airdroid and use it as a “sms modem” for the family ? You, your wife / kids / dog can acces the phone via a webbrowser and use it to send text messages. Huzzah ! Old broken hardware rescued from oblivion once again.
Airdroid is cool because it requires nothing on the client side except for a browser and gives you the convenience of managing a small device from the big screen of your laptop.
Links : Airdroid is available for free in the Google Play store.
How do YOU get content from and to your phone or mobile device ? Tell us in te comments section.
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kw407 : Storytime
Dec 20On the very end of the year we give you a preview of the upcoming book “On the Edge” that is about to be published by Knightwise.com. In this weeks storytime we read 3 stories from the book all centered around the very absence of technology. Chill out and enjoy this episode and don’t forget you can get your hands on an advanced signed digital copy of the book by sending a donation our way. Sit back, Relax .. its Storytime.
Shownotes
The “Making OF’ screencast of how this show was recorded.
