ignati [dot] com

Maybe some of us already know (or maybe using) about RetailMeNot or BugMeNot. The author always give us an unique services from others. And the new comer is PDFMeNot, the online books reader especially on PDF format and turns them into slideshows with zooming functionality.

With PDFMeNot you can preview the ebooks directly online from the browser before you download the whole books into your computer. It’s really help by not wasting your time and bandwidth. The easiest way to use it is just insert the PDF link behind http://pdfmenot.com/view/ and enter the whole address on your browser. Example if your PDF link is http://ignati.com/test.pdf, your address bar should be http://pdfmenot.com/view/http://ignati.com/test.pdf.

The other way is using bookmarklet, firefox extension, auto convert PDF links and embed the PDF books into your pages. You can view more details on PDFMeNot tools page. Currently this service is free without registration, it’s mean everyone can use without any limit.

Anyway, if your computer does not support PDF files but you want to read PDF books, you can also upload the books and read ir from the browser.

Tiny USB Office is a regeneration of FloppyOffice package, an office application suite in a small size only 1.44 Mb (floppy disk). And now Tiny USB Office has a many features than FloppyOffice so the file size now is almost 2.4 Mb (so small right?), maybe it’s the reason why the author changed the application name.

Here is an application list that included in Tiny USB Office:

• CSVed - Database application
• DScrypt - Data encryption
• NPopUK - Email client
• 100 Zipper - File compression utility
• HFS - File sharing utility
• FTP Wanderer - FTP application
• EVE Vector Editor - Flowchart application
• PixaMSN - MSN messenger
• Mempad - Tree-style outliner software
• PDF Producer - PDF creator
• XPass - Password recovery
• DSdel - File shredder
• Spread32 - Spreadsheet application
• TedNotepad - Text editor
• Kpad - Word processor
• Qsel - Program launcher

It’s really worth for an office suite in small size right? Just a note, this is not a replacement for your office application suite on your PC, but it’s perfect for you who really need a portable super-lightweight office application in case if your notebook still using an old specification. Tiny USB Office is freeware and run on Windows only.

Sometimes it’s hard to find subtitle for movies especially for non-english language. I can feel this because i have one website that providing subtitle in indonesian language but now i found an old tool from OpenSubtitles called SubDownloader, hope this tool can help me to find subtitles over the internet.

SubDownloader is an open source program written in Python with many features inside like automatic download/upload, recursive search and autodetect language. Free and available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.

Subdownloader allows you to easily find languages subtitles from any video file or DVD’s

The basic usage of this program is very easy, just select a movie file or a folder that contain more than one movie and then Subdownloader will do the rest automatically. Wait a second and all subtitle for the movie will be displayed. You can choose to instantly play the movie with your selected subtitle or download it to your computer. At this time this tool only support Mplayer or VLC (installed on your computer).

Check the official site for SubDownloader for the download links and installation procedure.

It sounds like interesting, the two top browser (Mozilla and Opera) has just released their update on the same day at April 2nd, 2008 and both of them is still beta version.

Firefox 3 Beta 5 are targeted to Web developers and testing community to gain feedback before advancing to the next stage in the release process. Includes more than 750 changes from the previous beta, improving stability and web compatibility, providing platform and user interface enhancements, integration with any platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux), organizer and speed. They claimed twice faster than Firefox 2 for web applications.

Opera Mini 4.1 Beta is talking about the speed. Claims to be 50% faster than Opera Mini 4.0 when it first launched in November 2007. Includes speed increase, page search, offline access and upload/download if your phone supports JSR-75.

JSR-75 is a specification for Java applications such as Opera Mini to access device internal storage and functionality within the phone.

Hmm.. i hope Firefox 3 Final will be release as soon as possible.

Google has added the official iGoogle themes on their gadgets directory a few months ago. Until now, there is so many themes are available to download, but you must open page by page to find what do you want. I know there is a search feature, but how if you don’t know the themes name? No categories at all, just a simple one and i think that’s not mean as a directory.

inThemes can fill that blank spot, so many option to find iGoogle themes on their site. Some of them are categories, popularity and browse by themes name or author. That is a real directory and the official doesn’t have it.

inThemes was created as an independent directory of iGoogle themes by Sterling Udell, one of the top developers working with the Google Themes API. Our goal is to give iGoogle users access to the best themes available by providing good search tools and carefully selecting every theme we list.

There is only 81 themes when i write this post, but i’m sure it will increase along with the time.

There is so many Lightbox JS alternative out there like Thickbox, Slimbox and Highslide JS. Each script provide a different features like animation, ajax, html support, etc. But here is the new lightbox alternative called FancyBox based on jQuery. Featuring automatic image fit, drop shadow, image sets and already tested with IE6, IE7 and Firefox (i’ve test with Safari and it worked). Overall size with images only less than 50Kb.

Inspired by many other lightbox-like tools, now made kinda different image zooming script for those who want something fresh. It`s powered by great javascript library - jQuery

The usage method of this script is similar like the others. Download, upload to server, insert code and give an id to your link. But i think it will be more efficient if there is a plugin, you don’t have to modify the source code and it’s easy for newbie.

Currently FancyBox is still in beta version and limited to images only when others can display html, video, etc. But the author has a plan to expand the features compare to the other lightbox-like. If FancyBox is ready like i said before, i will try to make a wordpress plugin for this script. I’ve done with Slimbox on my old site and i will post it again asap.

Anyway FancyBox animation is similar to Highslide JS, i don’t know why. Maybe the author is inspirated by Highslide JS.

Wowio is a new kind of online bookstore that enables readers to download copyrighted ebooks for free, using commercial sponsorships to compensate authors and publishers. Set up an account and you’re ready to download, but limited to 3 books per day and 30 books per month. All books are in PDF format, it’s mean you must have a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat Reader or Foxit Reader (i recommend this).

Readers get free ebooks. Sponsors get a powerful new channel to communicate their message to precisely the people they want to reach. Publishers get a new means of distributing their books, expanding their readership, and monetizing their intellectual property.

At this time, Wowio only available to U.S. residents due to licensing restrictions. All books from Wowio is compatible with any device even your mobile devices if your reader not using 40-bit encryption (Palm devices).

Do you need another resource for free ebooks? Check this ultimate guide for free ebooks. That site provide a list almost 50 sites that offers free ebooks from many categories.

PicMarkr is the online tool to protect or comments your images with custom watermark. It’s free and no registration needed. It’s support batch image processing too, maximum 5 images (less than 25Mb overall) when upload from your computer.

How it works? Import photos from Flickr or upload it from your computer, then choose 1 of 3 watermark types (text, image or tiled watermark) with the watermark position. The images will watermarked instantly and you can upload again to Flickr or save to your computer. Finished!

This tool produce a simple watermark but i like the final result, it’s more elegant. You don’t need to open your Photoshop just to embed a simple watermark like this. Saving more memory resources…

Like i said yesterday, now ignati [dot] com is using WordPress 2.5 and the upgrade process is very easy and smooth without any problem. Maybe you can’t feel the difference but i’m enjoyed when sign in to the admin panel.

There is one thing strange with the new wordpress admin design, the light blue color in this blog themes is similar (almost) with wordpress admin color. Because that i want to make a clarification, i swear i’ve this blog design before i know the new design of wordpress admin design. I’m using light blue because i like blue and also i’m a minimalistic web designer (own project only) so i choose light blue. That’s all..

In this post i also want to test one of many new feature at 2.5 branch. So here is the result about built-in galleries today:

Oh.. That’s my birthday party on year 2006. Can you guess where is me?

Update: It seems the media.php produce html error when showing gallery, i’ve already check on others test and got similar error too. First, strange p tag without the end tag. Second, too many linebreak (br) in this gallery and the latest without slash in the end of tag. Too many whitespace below the gallery.

After six months of work by WordPress community especially the development team, yesterday the WordPress 2.5 has been released to the public. It’s just 3 days after WordPress RC2 launched.

So what’s new features in this major milestone of WordPress? Both of user and developer got a lot of new features in this version. That’s why this version took a long time to be launched with some of delay from the schedule.

User Features:

1. Cleaner, faster, less cluttered dashboard
2. Dashboard Widgets
3. Multi-file upload with progress bar
4. Bonus: EXIF extraction
5. Search posts and pages
6. Tag management
7. Password strength meter
8. Concurrent editing protection
9. Few-click plugin upgrades
10. Friendlier visual post editor
11. Built-in galleries

Developer Features:

1. Salted passwords
2. Secure cookies
3. Easy taxonomy and URL creation
4. Inline documentation
5. Database optimization
6. $wpdb->prepare()
7. Media buttons
8. Shortcode API

Hmm.. There is so many features and it’s beside the fixing some bugs from the older version and also the admin themes redesign.

I’m interested but how to upgrade?
If you want to upgrade to this new version just use the standard upgrade instruction because the database layout isn’t changed from the earlier. The important thing is check your plugins because the most problem is coming from this area.

A small notes from me
I will upgrade ignati [dot] com to the new 2.5 and i hope everything is under control. But i will upgrade it at this night (in my time) so tomorrow everything should be fine without error. How about you, would you upgrade your blog?