ReadNow – Great Looking ReadItLater and Instapaper Client for Mac

Posted in Mac, Reviews, Software

ReadNow – $4.00

Some applications that you can get on the Mac manage to redefine the software scene all on their own. One of those applications is called Reeder, an RSS newsreader with a gorgeous sophisticated interface. Since it came out numerous applications have modelled themselves on it, not all successfully.

ReadNow is a client for bookmarking services ReadItLater and Instapaper. It aims to provide the same slick environments for reading longer form articles that reader does for your RSS newsfeeds. Its usefulness or otherwise thus depends entirely on how often you bookmark interesting articles with ReadItLater and Instapaper. It’s worth pointing out at this stage that ReadItLater is free, while Instapaper is a subscription service. For what it’s worth I’ve been more than happy with my free ReadItLater account.

There’s little doubt, that Readnow gets closer to the high standards of Reeder than any other app has so far. It utilises the same triple column display, combined with excellent on-screen text rendering and a sophisticated article layout. On the left of the screen you can see your ReadItLater and Instapaper feeds, along with any tags you attached to them. In the middle pane is the actual article list, which can be arranged in date, title, URL or tag order. To read an article simply click on in the middle pane and it’s downloaded and rendered in the viewing pane on the right of the display.

There are several viewing styles for the viewing pane, but the best looking for my money is the default paper style. As you’re reading your chosen article, you can utilise the built-in gestures to move backwards and forwards through your bookmarks, archive bookmark or move backwards and forwards through your folders. If you want to, you can also send the article onwards again, to another service such as Twitter or Evernote.

I was initially unconvinced by the need for an app like ReadNow, but having spent a few weeks using it, I have to admit it’s one of my most regularly used applications. It’s a beautifully designed and eminently useful application that sits well alongside applications such as Reeder, Raven and Reddit HD. Its usefulness stems from the fact that you can differentiate those longer articles that take a bit more time to read and absorb, from shorter links such as news articles. If you’re a word junkie like me, then you’ll find it far nicer to use than the browser based versions of ReadItLater and Instapaper.

Update: Just noticed that Michael Schneider, ReadNow’s author, has pulled it from the app store for now due to an infringement letter. I’ll leave this review online in the hope that Michael resolves his legal difficulties and the app’s put back online.

streamWriter

Posted in Music, News, Software, Windows

It’s only in the last couple of years that Internet radio stations have started to come into their own. In fact I listen to Internet radio in my car all the time thanks to TuneIn Pro (also an excellent web service, incidentally). However there are occasions where you’re not going to have internet access and it would be nice to listen to some radio broadcasts off-line. What you need is a decent stream recording application that can tune in and save your favourite shows.

streamWriter is a flexible Internet radio recording application for Windows. It can record multiple streams and can record according to a schedule so you can get those late-night shows. More interestingly, it can also split a recording into tracks and name them accordingly. You can add tracks to a wishlist, track saved songs and even edit them in-app. streamWriter is free and can be downloaded here.

Windows Firewall Control – Enhance the Functionality of the Default Firewall

Posted in News, Software, Utility, Windows

So, as we all know, the firewalls built into operating system police the flow of data through ports in and out of your computer’s connection. The one that’s built into Windows 7 is acutally pretty good, but it’s not the most flexible part of the operating system. Windows Firewall Control aims to improve that situation by affording you the opportunity to finetune your firewall to your heart’s content.

WFC is a small, free application that gives you speedy access to your firewall c/o a system tray icon. You can quickly toggle between filtering modes (none, low, medium and high) with the former being an open-house and the latter being a total lockdown. You can quickly and simply set up rules for new applications or modify existing ones whatever the protocol type or port.

TFI Friday TimeWaster – Cut The Rope

Posted in Gaming, News, TFI Friday Time-Waster

The ever-popular iOS game makes it into the browser c/o HTML5. Play it, here.

Growl Would Like to Notify You That It is Available for Windows

Posted in News, Software, Windows

Growl is an open source notification application for Mac that enables suitably considerate applications to send you on-screen notifications. This very popular Mac app is available on the Windows platform in the form of Growl for Windows. Like its Mac equivalent it is totally free to download and use and comes recommended.

The main difference between the Windows and Mac version is that the Windows version is considerably clunkier to use. To add an application to your Growl notifications you have to download a separate application and install it, so for instance to get Gmail notifications running you have to download the Gmail notifier app, install it and then have it running whenever Growl is. In every other regard it works just as well though, with configurable balloon alerts appearing on screen according to your preferences.

Look Away Now – This is What Happens To Your Body Within An Hour Of Drinking A Coke

Posted in Lifestyle, News

Who doesn’t like a cola when you’ve got a thirst on? Well, me actually, I prefer a Red Bull, which could well be as bad as a cola, but ignorance is bliss. Anyway – here’s what happens after you drink a can.

• In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.
• 20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)
• 40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
• 45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
• >60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
• >60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.
• >60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

[Via Nutrition Research Center]

GeoSetter is a slick Geo-Tag Utility for Windows

Posted in Lifestyle, News, Photography, Software, Windows

As powerful as DSLRs get, there’s one feature they’re missing which even your average smartphone has – GPS photo tagging. If you want to incorporate this information into your images EXIF tags for future reference,  and you don’t fancy splashing out on a  Eye-fi card, then you have to do it manually.

GeoSetter is a free EXIF tagger that enables you to incorporate full geographic data into your images. It can read and write all standard image formats, including JPEG, TIFF, DNG, CRW, CR2, NEF, NRW and RAW. To set the location data for your images, you simply find the location on the embedded Google map and then store it in the image. GeoSetter is available for download here.

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