Samsung Yepp U4 Music Player

Samsung is going to release its Yepp U4 Digital Audio Player (DAP). The official website shows only “Coming Soon” for this new music player and no much information are available right now, but we can expect a small screen.

Wrist MP3 Player

Introducing the wrist MP3 player designed for runners. Designed to be everything you wanted in an MP3 player, with the benefit of you not even knowing it’s there. On the surface of the player, an OLED is housed underneath a layer of polycarbonate. On the outer edge of the player is a jog wheel (with bumps), which is a tactile sensitive ring that can be rotated in either direction. This jog wheel controls the tracking of the song or the volume. The user can switch between volume and tracking mode via the button on the outside.

There is no headphone jack. The player would use Bluetooth headphone, eliminating the tangled mess of wires that conventional headphones have but adding to the sensation that you feel like you aren’t even wearing a music player.

Memory Infinite, Like Linking Rubber Bands

Memory Infinite has a USB male connector at one end and a female connector at the other, providing an “add up” concept for USB finger discs. By connecting one Memory Infinite with another to, you can grow the space you need. The user can choose to combine or separate Memory Infinites to share files and if you build a chain long enough, you can wear it. When plugged into a computer, the daisy chain appears as one unified USB drive.

Geeky Gambling

Snap! It’s a USB flash drive that looks like a domino but the disguise serves a purpose. Each white dot denotes 1 gig of memory used. Not sure how useful that is but at least you’ll be ready for an imprompt street corner game of dominos.

This Thumb Drive Has Real Buzz…

One of the biggest issues with USB peripherals is the protruding nature of any design. From a Bluetooth adaptor to the tiniest of Flash Memory Drives, they all stick out like a sore thumb(drive). This issue with these protrusions is not just aesthetics, but function. USB peripherals are constantly being accidentally ripped out, knocked off or jammed into your computer causing not only damage to the external item but the computer’s USB plug itself. Serbian designer Damjan Stankovic, believes that flexibility in design can solve this problem. His “USBee” Flash Memory Drive won the first prize at the MS Industrial USB Competition held by the Serbian Design Community forum DizajnZona™. Ergonomically designed to bend at life’s will in any direction, this USB flash drive features a vented housing for cooling(I did not realize these needed cooling), and a detachable protective cap that snaps onto the back end of the device when not in use. No word yet if this will go into production, so all claims of memory capacity are a moot point.

Because it can squeeze into really tight spaces between the computer and any other object it cannot cause any physical damage to your PC that happens when the USB is accidentally knocked over.

The electronics are located in an aluminum shell which is covered in yellow silicon/rubber. The bottom part of the USBee has breathing holes within the silicone so that the aluminum can dissipate through and keep device cool.

100 Portable apps for USB Stick(both Mac and Win)

This stuff can be installed on any portable drive, i.e. USB thumbdrive, PDA or an iPod. You can use them at work, school, or any other place where you can plugin your device. Check them out, you can either scroll-down for relevant category, i.e office software, email tools, messengers, games, etc. or get a ‘all-in-one’ package (all essential tools) . While there are more apps for windows users, I tried to include a mac version for each essential tool. All free. Enjoy!

What is a portable program ? : A portable program is a piece of software that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any other computer. It can be your email program, your browser, system recovery tools or even an operating system. The coolest part about it, is that all of your data and settings are always stored on a thumbdrive so when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind.

1. Portable Office Software
2. Portable Email/Calendar/ToDo Programs
3. Portable Text and Voice Messengers
4. Portable Media Tools (Audio / Video)
5. Portable Graphics Viewers and Image Editors
6. Portable Browsers and Web Tools (FTP, Feedreaders, Torrent clients…)
7. Portable Security Software
8. Portable Games
9. Other Portable Utilities
10. Portable Developer Tools (Techies Only)
11. All-In-One Packages
12. Portable Operating Systems (’HowTo’ Articles)
13. USB ThumDrive Tips

Portable Office Software

• Abiword [Win (6.3 mb) / Mac (9.5 mb)] - word processor (compatible with Microsoft word)
• OpenOffice [Win (65 mb) / Mac (127 mb)] - free alternative to Microsoft Office (fully compatible with Microsoft Office docs)
• PDF Viewers: Sumatra [Win (1.1 mb) ], Foxit PDF Reader [Win, (1.8 mb) ]
• Notepad ++ - feature-rich Notepad replacement.

Portable Email/Calendar/ToDo Programs

• Mozilla ThunderBird - [Win (6 mb), Mac (20.5 mb), Cross-Platform (Win, Mac)] - very good email client (built-in address book, import/export, tons of addons)
• Calendars: Mozilla Sunbird [Win, 5.6mb], Sunbird [Mac, 9.7mb], Lightning [Win, 1.3mb) - ThunderBird addon
• Mail [Mac] - requires locally installed Mail.app
• iCal [Mac] - requires locally installed iCal.app
• Address Book [Mac] - requires locally installed Address Book
• Quick Mailer [Win, 20kb] - tiny program for sending quick e-mail messages
• gDisk [Mac, 1020kb] - handy program that turns your gmail account into a portable hard drive. (More stuff for gmail)

Portable Text and Voice Messengers

• All-in-One (Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, etc.): Gaim [Win, 6.9 mb], Miranda IM [Win, 1.2 mb], Adium [Mac, 15.5mb], Trillian [Win]
• iChat [Mac] - requires locally installed iChat
• Newspeak [Mac, 1mb] - Newspeak Cocoa IRC client
• Skype - exlpains how to make skype portable

Portable Media Tools (Audio / Video)

• Audacity [Win (2.4 mb), Mac (5mb)] - simple audio editor and recorder
• VLC [Win (9.3 mb), Mac (24 mb)] - powerful media player that plays almost all popular audio and video formats
• K-Lite Mega Codec Pack with Media Player (resource unaccessible) - another powerful media player for playing all conceivable formats
• iShout [Mac, 7mb] - record and listen to your favorite internet radios.
• CocoaJT [Mac, 8.7mb] - stream live TV programs from major broadcast channels.

Portable Graphics Viewers and Image Editors

• GIMP [Win (8.6 mb), Mac (87.5 mb)] - free alternative to Photoshop
• IrfanView [Win, 1013kb] - fast graphic viewer with basic image editing features
• XNView [Win, Mac, Linux] - image viewer and converter (supports more then 400 image formats)
• Inkscape [Mac, 24.6mb] - scalable vector graphics editor

Portable Browsers and Internet Tools (FTP, Feedreaders, Torrent Clients…)

• Firefox [Win (5.8 mb), Mac (21.9mb), Cross-platform (Win, Mac) ]
• Other browsers: Camino [Mac, 16.2mb], Opera [Win], Safari [Mac] - requires installed safari
• Feedreaders (RSS, Atom …): RSSOwl [Mac, 5mb], Feed [Mac, 564kb], GreatNews [Win], Sage [Win, 0.2 mb]
• FTP Clients: Filezilla [Win, 2.3 mb], FireFTP [Win, 0.1mb], CyberDuck [Mac, 9.9mb]
• TrayURL [Win] - bookmark manager
• uTorrent [Win] - popular torrent downloader

Portable Security Software

• Antivirus: ClamWin [Win, 5.9mb], Dr.Web CureIt [Win, 5.5 mb]
• Keepass Password [Win, 1mb] - securely store and manage your passwords
• Omziff [Win, 0.5mb] - lets you encrypt/decrypt a file, using secure encryption algorithms. Also includes a password generator, file shredder, file splitter and some more tools.
• LockNote [Win] - simple text file that lets you store sensitive info with 256bit password encryption.
• RoboFor2Go [Win] - secure password manager and form filler
• Smart Sniff [Win, 57kb] - lets you inspect network traffic that passes via your network adapter.

Portable Games

• Sudoku - popular puzzle game
• Bricks2000 - popular tetris clone
• Logix - something similar to minesweeper
• Gem Drop - fast-paced puzzle game
• GeneRally - 2D racing game
• Nagaskaki - chess game
• NarkoMania - cool minesweeper clone
• NeverBall - part puzzle, part action game

Other Portable Utilities

• 7Zip [Win, 1.1 mb] - file archiver and compressor, supports 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR and more
• Registry Tweaker [Win, 1.52mb] - registry tweaking tool
• Restoration [Win, 229kb] - handy program for recovering deleted (or formatted) files
• YamiPod [Win] - powerful iPod manager (copy mp3/AAC files to and from your iPod, import/export playlists, search for songs, remove duplicates,..). More iPod tools
• Drive Manager [Win, 1191 kb] - quick summary for each local and removable drive.
• PStart - lets you organize and create menu-like list for quicker access to your portable programs.
• SyncPAppX - script that syncs preferences between portable and local applications.
• RQ Money - handy utlity to manage your credits and debts
• SIW - a system analysis tool that tells you almost everything you need to know about a computer, i.e. hardware, configuration settings, etc.
• WinAudit - one more analysis tool
• Convert [Win, 155 kb] - fast metric unit conversion tool (distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass…)
• UK Calender [Win, 321kb] - straightforward calendar with ToDo and reminders
• CPU-Z [Win] - provides detailed info about your processor and other components
• Country Codes [Win, 1358 kb] - a small database of country codes and additional information for all countries.
• TreePad Lite [Win, 866kb] - personal database program, lets you store all your notes, emails, bookmarks, etc. into one well-structured file
• StartupList [Win, 158 kb] - displays all items that are in any way related to your computer startup and are executed without any user interactions
• eTextReader [Win, 279kb] - read plain text files provided by Project Gutenberg in a book-like manner.
• Index Your Files [Win, 640kb] - provides an easy way to create index databases (of specified folders and drives) for quick file/term search
• RockXP [win, 768kb] - handy utility for retrieving Win XP’s product key
• WhoisThisDomain [Win, 42kb] - view owner and registration info for any domain name
• Converter - portable unit convertsion utility
• Portable Developer Tools (Techies Only)
• Nvu [Win (7.3 mb), Mac (12 mb)] - easy-to-use webpage editor. Simpler alternative to Dreamweaver and Microsft Frontpage
• Server2Go - apache webserver (no configurations needed)
• InstantRails[Win, 60mb] - contains Ruby, Rails, Apache, and MySQL, all preconfigured and ready to run.
• Putty [Win, 0.9 mb] - lightweight telnet and SSH client
• Follow-Me IP - displays your external IP address
• XAMPP [Win, 25/17 mb] - integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl. Just Unzip and Run
• HTTP File Server [Win] - simple and easy-to-use file server for personal file sharing.
• CurrPorts [Win, 46kb]- lets you view a list of ports that are currently in use, along with applications that use them
• FTP Servers: Quick’n Easy FTP Server [Win, 355kb], PureFTPdManager [Mac, 10.9mb]

All-In-One Packages

• PortableApps Suite [Win, 89.5mb] - includes 7 programs for essential needs (office, email, IM client, etc.) + cool Startup manager and backup utility
• FSuite [Mac, 668.3mb] - over 30 useful tools in one file (Office, Graphic, Audio, Video, Internet, Developer Tools and Games)

Portable Operating Systems (’HowTo’ Articles)

• Mac OS Classic 7
• Portable Linux: Knoppix, Ubuntu
• Win XP

USB ThumDrive Tips

• How to create a bootable USB key
• Never Forget your USB Stick
• QuickLaunch your USB workspace

That’s mainly it… In case you’re looking for something that wasn’t mentioned above, there are a couple of resources you may want to check out. These are Portablefreeware.com and Tinyapps.org

1 Awesome Gmail Tip

Let’s say that your email address is ‘GeorgeBush@gmail.com’, basically everything sent to any of the following email addresses will be forwarded to your primary email.

GeorgeBush@gmail.com G.eorgeBush@gmail.com Ge.orgeBush@gmail.com … … GeorgeBus.h@gmail.com

GeorgeBush@googlemail.com G.eorgeBush@googlemail.com Ge.orgeBush@googlemail.com … … GeorgeBus.h@googlemail.com

And that’s not all, you can place as many dots as you want, it can be even something like ‘G.e.o.r.g.e.B.u.s.h@gmail.com’ and you’ll still get it on ‘GeorgeBush@gmail.com’

Additionally, I just also found out that you can embed random text to your email ID using ‘+’ sign. That is to say ‘GeorgeBush+anythingyouwant@gmail.com’ can be used as your email address, as well.

Ok I got it. Now what ?

1. One email for every purpose

Instead of using different email addresses for various purposes (work, school, friends, etc.) you can use different variations of your Gmail and filter incoming mails by ’sent to’ address. For instance, all incoming mail sent to ‘Name.Surname@gmail.com’ can be put to folder ‘work’, messages sent to ‘NameSurname@gmail.com’ can be put to ‘friends’, ‘N.ameSurname@gmail.com’ can be used for newsletters, and so on.

2. Track/Block spammers

When signing up for some website, say thatwebsite.com, you can add thatwebsite to your Gmail user ID (eg. GeorgeBush+thatwebsite@gmail.com). This way you can block your subscription whenever you want and even identify those websites that distribute your email address to spammers.