Typeracer: Test Your Typing Speed Against Others

Typeracer is a nifty little web game (appears to be AJAX) that lets you test your typing skills against others. It's quite fun, actually. My modest 99 wpm is nothing compared to the high scores of over 200+ wpm (wtf!) that some players are getting.

Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.0.4 Released

If you're a closeted Linux worshipper, the latest and greatest update to the best desktop Linux distro has been released.

Open Source Usage on the Rise in Canada

More evidence on the gradual commoditization of software development from Michael Geist:

Statistics Canada reports that open source software use is on the rise among Canadian private sector firms.  Seventeen percent report using open source software, up from 10 percent last year.

Writer

Writer is a cross-platform, web based writing tool, not unlike Writeroom, which I reviewed for the Mac last week. Did I mention it's free?

John Cho Interviewed in Wired

John Cho, that Asian guy from American Pie, is arguably the biggest mainstream Asian American actor who isn't famous for his martial arts moves. Wired interviews him on the latest Harold and Kumar buddy pic, as well has his involvement in the next Star Trek movie.

illegalsigns.ca

The illegalsigns.ca web site has seen it's share of controversy in recent days, but I never really bothered taking a look at it until Google Reader recommended it to me as a feed. It's a very interesting site, and definitely worth a look. I admire the courage in putting up a site like that. After all, enemies are made when you come between people and money.

Stitching Panorams

Lifehacker has a nice little explanation on how to create your own stitched panoramas using freeware.

Funes

Funes is a nice little freeware app for the Mac that allows you to rate your music from the menu bar. This is very useful for those of you who like to create smart playlists using ratings as part of your boolean criteria.

Wired Reader Macro Photo Contest

There are some eyepopping images among the ten finalists of the Wired reader macro photo contest.

RapidWeaver 4 Preview

Realmac Software gave Ars an exclusive preview of their upcoming Rapidweaver 4 release. Rapidweaver is the software that I use to publish this web site. While not perfect, it is effective for my workflow.

Missing from the new release is still the ability create a blog post from another app, which would have been nice, but I guess the biggest change is that the GUI has undergone a major facelift. My main quibbles have been the lack of a one-click publish (which is slated for the v4 release), the flaky cut and paste of graphics into a blog entry, and the SEO unfriendly hexadecimal hashed file naming of permalinked files. They have never been showstoppers for me, but definitely would have been nice to have.

Digital Camera Sensors Explained

Gizmodo has a very nice explanation on digital camera image sensors for the technically uninclined.

DIY SSD

Century has a CF-to-SATA adapter coming out soon. Considering how cheap high-speed CFs are, it might actually make a ding in the SSD market.

GearGripper

The Gear Gripper looks like a nifty little gadget that will make phone/ipod/pda charging on your nightstand a little easier.

Better GReader

Gina Trapani of Lifehacker has cobbled together a handy Firefox extension that should make your Google Reader experience a little better.

How to Avoid the George Costanza Wallet

Lifehacker has a bit on trimming down the crud in your wallet.

Device Charging Holder

The Driin Mobile Phone holder is a neat gadget if you only have one or two gadgets to charge and if the socket is in a convenient place. Not for me, but could be good for you.

Make Your Own Gorillapod

Instructables has a new entry on how to make your own Gorillapod.

PETA's $1 Million X-Prize

Looks like PETA has its own version of the X-Prize. $1 Million bucks to the lucky scientist who can create realistic fake meat.

Panamatic - Panorama Photography Made Easier

The Panamatic is an interesting device that makes it easier to create panorama photos without having to stitch misaligned shots.

Evernote Beta, Mac Version

Well, there is finally a version of Evernote for the Mac, albeit a Beta version. If you haven't signed up for the beta, now's a good time.

While not perfect, the developers have done a good job of Mac-ifying one of my favorite Windows apps. The new version of Evernote is ambitious - Evernote is attempting to go multi-platform, and I'm not just talking about Windows and Mac. There is a web version, as well as mobile flavors. This one of the first total solutions that I've seen for a consumer-level unitasker. When I refer to Evernote as a unitasker, I don't mean it in the pejorative sense either. It does its one task very well.

A welcome piece of functionality to the Evernote puzzle is tagging. While I would only say that the tagging feature is in its infancy, it is definitely a major step ahead of the hierarchical categorization of its predecessor.



On the Mac, there is no shortage of competition for Evernote: VoodooPad Pro (which I own and use, but not nearly in the same way that I use Evernote on Windows), Yojimbo (I'll leave it to the Mac zealots to wet their pants over BareBones' apps — I am not a fan) and DevonThink (I think I have a license from a previous MacHeist, but I was already using VoodooPad) are no slouches in the note-taking realm. While some may arguably be better than Evernote as Macintosh applications, none of them are cross-platform, syncing applications. A key distinction for any Mac user who lives in the real world.

A lot of Mac users among us are multi-platform computer users, with most of us being Windows users during the day, and Mac users the rest of the time. Plenty of us have non-iPhone smartphones also. Evernote makes a serious effort at bridging our multi-platform needs, and I commend them for that.

I've been using the Evernote Beta for the Mac, and I'm ready to say goodbye to VoodooPad. I've been waxing evangelical on Evernote for over a year on Windows — the free version is an indispensable tool for business. Now that Evernote is going to be a syncable, multi-platform application, there is good reason to pay for that premium feature.