AmoK Exif Sorter Organizes and Renames Your Photo Collection However You’d Like [Downloads]

By Kevin Purdy, LifehackerJanuary 04, 2011 at 08:00AM

AmoK Exif Sorter Organizes and Renames Your Photo Collection However You'd LikeWindows/Mac/Linux: Your camera defaults to giving your photos a numbered name, with a file date that can be changed. AmoK Exif Sorter sorts, names, and moves your photos however you’d like—by focal length, date taken, aperture, width, or other criteria.

In other words, it’s a dream for both control freaks and highly organized photographers (who may be one and the same, but we digress). You can use AmoK’s tool as an in-place renaming tool, or copy or move files into new folders with new names, sorting, and other criteria. Need a folder with just your 3072-wide shots taken in January? That’s the sort of thing AmoK excels at.

AmoK Exif Sorter is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. It’s a Java-based tool, so you’ll need Java installed to run it.

iHealth blood pressure iPod dock: another sort of Apple to keep the doctor away

By Ross Miller, Engadget RSS FeedJanuary 04, 2011 at 07:00AM

Back in March 2009 at the iPhone OS 3.0 debut event, Apple’s Scott Forstall pointed out medical devices specifically as one of the more interesting class of peripherals that could leverage the new custom app interface capabilities. And while it’s certainly an interesting concept — keeping tabs on your general health from the comfort of your own home — we haven’t really seen it catch on (only a couple of products come to mind). That isn’t stopping iHealth; the company’s blood pressure dock, available today from its online store (we’re told it should be filtering through Apple’s own channels later this month) ties in with a specialized iPhone / iPod touch / iPad app to monitor and track blood pressure from the comfort of your home, where theoretically there shouldn’t be a stranger in a white coat making you extra nervous. In our brief time with the device, the interface seemed fairly intuitive and the whole process simple and not at all intimidating. The cost of entry is $99.95 for the hardware; the free app should be hitting iTunes today. Press release after the break.

Continue reading iHealth blood pressure iPod dock: another sort of Apple to keep the doctor away

iHealth blood pressure iPod dock: another sort of Apple to keep the doctor away originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AliveCor case turns iPhone 4 into high-quality ECG

By (author unknown), MacNN | The Macintosh News NetworkJanuary 03, 2011 at 08:30PM

Seattle-based AliveCor is unveiling a wireless casing for the iPhone 4 called the iPhone ECG that, combined with an accompanying app, turns the device into a hospital-quality electro-cardiogram measuring instrument (ECG) at the Consumer Electronics Show later this week. The unit, which is expected to sell for around $100, can be used to monitor heart conditions and pacemakers, alert users of atrial fibrillation and print or email the results as a PDF file….


Ohio State’s push into personalized medicine: Q&A with Clay Marsh

By Ben Blanquera, TechLife OhioJanuary 03, 2011 at 07:18PM

If the promise of personalized medicine ever comes to fruition, Ohio State University Medical Center looks well-positioned to reap the rewards.

Five years ago, OSU established the Center for Personalized Health Care, which is dedicated to education and research to advance personalized medicine. Earlier this year, OSU joined the Seattle-basedInstitute for Systems Biology to create the P4 Medicine Institute, another organization aimed at advancing the field.

While a standard definition of personalized medicine may be hard to come by, the term generally refers to tailoring patients’ treatment regimens to their own genetic and molecular signatures. The concept is important because some estimate that about half the amount spent onprescription drugs in the U.S. is wasted because, for various reasons, certain drugs simply don’t and won’t work on certain patients.

click here to read more

 

The 6 Best Free Online Meeting Tools to Collaborate With Your Team

By Jessica Cam Wong, MakeUseOfJanuary 03, 2011 at 06:30PM

free online meeting toolsThe focus of web applications on collaborative efforts has been stronger than ever. You can hardly find a web-based application that won’t let you share a link to a public document or image, much less if it’s a productivity app. There are lots of productivity applications, particularly on the desktop, that seem to offer more and more collaboration features, but with the advent of web-friendly OSes, such as Google Chrome OS, Jolicloud and the like; there’s bound to be increased interest in web-based, collaboration-centric apps.

This round-up is a collection of incredible free online meeting tools that don’t skimp on features even when they are browser-based. Instead, they offer pretty fully featured suites for collaboration even to users with free accounts, but of course, most have additional paid offerings as well. Let’s take a look at the best free collaboration tools so far.

Free Project Collaboration Portal: TeamLab

free online meeting tools

TeamLab is a project management platform that allows users to import data from Basecamp, build teams and departments, assign tasks, schedule milestones, lead discussions, track time spent on project tasks, generate reports and backup data. TeamLab also utilizes social tools to keep colleagues connected with corporate instant messenger, forums, blogs, and Wiki pages, as well as bookmark, photo and file sharing (uploaded files can’t exceed 25MB). While there’s no indication of the limit of users or projects, the source code is available for deployment if your team wants to host it on your own servers, restore backups and have more general control. TeamLab’s current features are said to remain free, while future offerings, such as document editing and e-mail management, may be available for certain fees.

While TeamLab seems to have the best offerings, there are lots of similar services, including UbiDesk, Huddle and TeamBox, though they all seem to come with more limitations for the free accounts in user or project count.

Document Collaboration Tools: Sync.in & Twiddla

online meeting

Sync.in is a web-based word processor for people who need to collaborate on the same public document in real-time. It allows users to co-edit notes for brainstorming sessions, planning projects, creating outlines, etc, as well as chat in real-time, identify each others’ color-coded edits, undo unlimited saves, replay edits using an in-document time-slider, and mark versions as important. Sync.in also has a cross-platform launcher for users who want to create new Sync.in notes from their desktop. No sign-up process is required. Users aching for more features, such as selective public access, own team site at “yourTeamName.sync.in” and bulk export, can check out Sync.in Pro.

online meeting

Twiddla is a neat space for guests to markup webpages, documents and images. It can also serve as a collaborative whiteboard, text editor and chat service. While it also allows voice-conference, I couldn’t find the voice chat feature anywhere on the site. For storage, guests will need to buy accounts, but for general brainstorming and idea exchange, Twiddla has quite a bit of features.

Web-Conferencing Services: Tokbox VideoChatDimDim, Vyew

online meeting

While Tokbox has evolved into a business-friendly solution for web-based, video-conferencing, it still offers free, casual video calls for up to 20 users at a time. It also allows users to send video messages, text chat, share YouTube videos in-line, invite friends from Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, Windows Live, AIM, or via email, as well as embed video chat and recorder widgets. Tokbox offers a very user-friendly interface with virtually no learning curve.

group meeting online

If you’re itching for additional features, check out DimDim which offers public web meetings with a shared whiteboard, annotation tools, live document-sharing, as well as screen-sharing (via a downloadable plugin) and text chatting with up to 10 users (although only one user webcam can be enabled during a meeting).

free online meeting tools

Vyew is another great web-conference service that offers private rooms, webcam and voice chat for up to 10 users, a conference number you can call to join the private conversation, a whiteboard, screen-sharing (via Java authorization), and ability to leave voice notes in addition to text and annotations on workspace. Free accounts have an ad-supported interface, but I didn’t find any ads while testing in my session.

For desktop-based tools that allow video-conferencing for two or more users, check out the open-source OpenMeetings.

What free online meeting tools would you recommend to work with colleagues? Share your preferred applications in the comments!

Photo credit: deviantdark

 

 

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DriveMeCrazy Keeps Track of Bad (and Good) Drivers [Downloads]

By Arvin Dang, LifehackerJanuary 03, 2011 at 04:00PM

DriveMeCrazy Keeps Track of Bad (and Good) DriversiOS: DriveMeCrazy is like a “how is my driving” bumper sticker for anyone with an iOS device, letting you flag aggressive or bad drivers using voice recognition. It can rate and review any registered license plate to provide instant driving feedback.

The next time you come across a negligent or aggressive driver, warn them with DriveMeCrazy. The new iOS application lets you verbally speak a drivers license plate and record a brief message or rating.

The app also lets you track your or own personal license to see what others are saying about your driving, or follow closely with how others are driving near you. DriveMeCrazy doesn’t just offer a stick for bad drivers, but lets you provide positive feedback for good drivers as well. Additionally, the next time someone catches your eye at a stop light, you can flag them as “cute” and check back later to see if they saw your message.

Driver data collected by DriveMeCrazy is submitted to both insurance companies and local law enforcement. Hopefully, taking the anonymity out from driving will lead to less aggressive drivers and help to create safer roads.

DriveMeCrazy Keeps Track of Bad (and Good) DriversDriveMeCrazy | iTunes App Store

Create Visual Speed Dial Icons on Your iPhone Home Screen, No Hacking Required [Speed Dial]

By Adam Dachis, LifehackerJanuary 03, 2011 at 02:00PM

Create Visual Speed Dial Icons on Your iPhone Home Screen, No Hacking RequiredBack in October we showed you a way to create visual speed dial icons on your iPhone’s home screen, but the process required a bit of work. One resourceful reader simplified that process and created iSpeedDial, which works much better.

Reader John P., with a little help from soggy_cheerio, created a webapp called iSpeedDial that you can load in mobile Safari on your iPhone and create mobile speed dial icons. All you need to do is fill out a small form with the person’s name, number, and photo (which is optional, though it’s visual in visual speed dial so you probably want it). Once you submit, you’ll be prompted to call the number you entered. Cancel, then save the page to your home screen. It will create an icon with the picture you provided and tapping it will initiate a call.

Create Visual Speed Dial Icons on Your iPhone Home Screen, No Hacking RequiredIn addition to being pretty easy, the really great benefit of this mobile webapp is that the visual speed dial icons you create do not require an internet connection. This makes initiating the call quite a bit faster, plus it’ll work when you don’t have any data service reception (which you’ve probably experience if you’ve ever been inside of a tall building or driven through a rural area on a road trip).

iSpeedDial is free to use and Skype speed dial is a welcome feature that may be added in the future.

Create Visual Speed Dial Icons on Your iPhone Home Screen, No Hacking RequirediSpeedDial

You can contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011 [Resolutions 2011]

By Adam Dachis, LifehackerJanuary 03, 2011 at 12:00PM

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011Those important computer tasks—like securing, cleaning, and backing up—are like any other resolution: we all say we’re going to do them but rarely keep up with them all year. Here’s our simple guide to staying on track in 2011.

Keeping your computer in good shape gets to be tedious and annoying when you have to try to fit it in to your busy schedule. Rather than letting things slip through the cracks and watch your computer slow to a crawl, fall victim to a nasty virus, or crash and burn with no backups, we’ve put together everything you need to tackle to stay on top of all your computer maintenance tasks. Here are the four things we’re going to look at (feel free to click to skip to any of the sections):

Back Up Automatically

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011
Backing up our data is something we all know is important but many of us do not do. In the past you might’ve been able to get away with the excuse of inconvenience, but nowadays it’s so effortless that if you’re not backing up, you should make it your first order of business for the new year.

A good backup system will duplicate your important data in three places. One of them can be your computer, another can be an external hard drive that you keep in your house, but one of those three places should exist outside of your home. Local backups (like backing up to an external USB drive) protect you if a hard drive dies, but not if your house is robbed, catches fire, or you fall victim to any other incredibly fun disaster you can imagine. While these are rare circumstances, the effects are devastating. Since backup is so easy, there’s really no sense in taking the risk. First we’ll take a look at backing up to the cloud, which requires essentially no effort at all, and then we’ll consider your options for each specific operating system so you can have a local copy on an external drive as well.

Backing Up to the Cloud

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011As long as your work doesn’t consist of serious data creation, I’m of the opinion that you can use Dropbox for all your backup needs, especially now that it includes selective sync. I used Dropbox toorganize my home folder and sync my iTunes library to multiple computers and it works great. While Dropbox can take care of just about everything I want backed up and synced, it can’t handle your applications and system files without causing problems. Also, for reasons I don’t entirely understand (aside from the cost), not everyone wants to keep the majority of their stuff in their Dropbox. So, for those of you who aren’t sold on Dropbox being the golden egg of cloud backup, your other best bet for off-site backup is Mozy.

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011Mozy has become a Lifehacker favorite, especially with the speed boosts and its ability to also back up to external drives. In fact, its external drive backup options make it a cross-platform tool that can pretty much handle every one of your backup needs (cloud + local drive). While I wasn’t in love with Mozy when it first came about, it’s now considerably faster than it was in its early days and can handle everything from one application. That’s pretty tough to beat. For a full walkthrough, check out our guide to setting up a foolproof and fireproof automatic backup plan with Mozy.

Backing Up to a Local Drive

NOTE: While we’re not going to get picky about the brand of drive you use, make sure you get one that’s a bit bigger than your computer’s drive if you want to save multiple backups.

While Mozy can back up to an external drive nicely, you may prefer a backup tool with a larger feature-set that’s more tailored to your operating system. Fortunately, there is no shortage of backup software available for every operating system. We’ve narrowed down the pool and have a few options for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, that should cover all your local backup needs.

Windows

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011Built into Windows 7 is the Backup and Restore Center, which Microsoft debuted in Windows Vista and has since improved in Windows 7. While it’ll take more than a few clicks to set up, you’re given a good number of options to control how your data is backed up. You can choose what you want to backup, where you want to back it up (including network locations), and how often you want the backup to occur. While it may not be the perfect solution for all users, it’s built into Windows and pretty easy to set up.

Alternatively, you have the classic SyncBack. The SE version is free but you can pay for additional features. Nearly five years ago, Gina used SyncBack SE to set up an automatic backup plan that still works today. If Windows Backup Center doesn’t quite cut it for you, SyncBack SE is a great alternative.

Mac OS X

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011One nice feature of Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 is Time Machine, which lets you plug in a drive and just back up with no effort at all. Once it has a full copy of all your data, it will only backup the files that have changed since that original copy was made. If you want a file you lost, you can activate Time Machine and go back in time to retrieve an earlier copy of that file. Your Time Machine backup drive can also be used to restore lost data and set up a brand new Mac with all your files.

Time Machine pretty much does what it wants to do and that’s that, so if you’re looking for more control I’d suggest picking up Carbon Copy Cloner. It’s a free backup utility that makes a bootable copy of your drive (which Time Machine does not). I use it all the time and love it. It can be as simple as selecting the drive you want to copy, but you can also selectively copy certain files. Carbon Copy Cloner is very straightforward backup software, so you’re not going to find the bells and whistles you might with paid software, but if you want something simple that also offers quite a bit of control over your backup, it’s an ideal choice.

Linux

For easy backups on Linux machines, Back In Time is a good solution. You can get your backup plan set up pretty quickly, and it backs up using space-saving snapshots (much like Apple’s Time Machine). As far as Linux backup apps go, it’s pretty easy to understand and runs great on GNOME and KDE-based Linux systems.

Secure Your Computer and Your Life Online

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011
There are a number of ways your computer can get into trouble. Whether you’re dealing with viruses, online threats, or physical theft, here are some great tools to help keep you safe.

Antivirus Software

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011
For Windows, however, you don’t have to look much further than Microsoft Security Essentials. There once was a day when relying on third-party antivirus software was necessary, but Microsoft put those days behind us. MSE is great at ferreting out malware, performs very well, and is free. Mac OS X and Linux users generally don’t have to worry too much about viruses, so you get a pass on antivirus software. But you don’t get a pass on the next category.

Online Security

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011
We’ve take a pretty extensive look at how to stay secure online, so read through that and you should be in pretty good shape. Additionally, you’ll want to take a look at how to combat spam email, learn how to prevent someone from breaking into your Mac or Windows PC, and invade your own privacy to make sure your private information is secure.

Preventing (and Preparing for) Computer Theft

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011Prey is a wonderful, free, open-source tool that can help you track down and (potentially) recover your stolen Mac, Windows PC, or smartphone. If you’re like me and you’ve had your laptop stolen before, you know how devastating it can be. When you lose technology with personal data, the thief doesn’t only have access to your expensive hardware but a lot of information about you as well. Coming to this realization is not fun, so be smart and take the necessary steps to protect yourself from a potential theft.

For those of you with iPhones (or other iOS devices), you’re lucky enough to have free access to find my iPhone. Set it up and use it! If you’re don’t have a recent iOS device, we’ve got you covered. Here’s how to set up Find My iPhone on older iOS devices.

Run Regular Maintenance

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011With your data backed up and protected, you’re going to want a computer that runs smoothly. Performing regular maintenance can play a big role in keeping your machine in tip-top shape. Mac OS X and Windows 7/Vista will take care of defragmenting your drive for you—so no need to take care of it yourself—but if you’re running earlier versions of Windows you should check out our guides on setting up a self-repairing hard drive and setting up scheduled tasks to run your favorite cleaning tasks in the background. If you’re a fan of CCleaner (the all-in-one crap cleaner for Windows), check out this guide to automating your CCleaner sessions.

For Mac users, maintenance tasks are regularly scheduled by OS X and so, technically, you don’t have to do anything yourself. Nonetheless, it’s in your best interest to play a hand in your system’s upkeep. If you want a look at every possible option you have, definitely check out our guide on cleaning up and reviving your bloated, sluggish Mac. Alternatively, if you want to do a bit less, you can just schedule maintenance tasks in the Terminal and repair disk permissions. If you’re not familiar with repairing your disk permissions, all you have to do is go into your Applications —> Utilities folder and open up Disk Utility. Inside of Disk Utility, choose the First Aid tab and then click the Repair Disk Permissions button. It’ll take a few minutes and slow down the system a bit, but running this operation will help prevent little errors here and there. Running this once a month (and after any major software installation) will keep your Mac a bit happier and less prone to preventable issues.

Last, if you have a bad habit of letting your Downloads folder or Desktop get out of control, check out our guide to automatically cleaning and organizing your folders with Belvedere (or with Hazel if you’re on a Mac).

Create a Tidy, Attractive Desktop

Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011
Once your computer is backed up, safe, clean, and running smoothly, you ought to finish up with a little fun. Your machine is, ultimately, going to be more fun to use if it’s easy to navigate and looks just the way you want it to look. We’ve taken an extensive look at customizing your desktop, so be sure to check out those options to take on some serious customizations. Need inspiration? Check out our most popular featured desktops from 2010. If you’re just looking for some simple customizations, however, you can find some excellent, distraction-free wallpaper over at Simple Desktops and great free icons at the Iconfactory.


Hopefully now you’ve got a good plan to keep your computer in good shape this year. Is there anything you’d add to this list? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

You can contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

75 startup companies in Columbus

By Ben Blanquera, TechLife OhioJanuary 02, 2011 at 07:50PM

Well here it is – 75 tech startups, their principles, and urls.

I’m sure that I’ve missed a few that should be on the list and some may argue that some of the companies are past startup stage. 

Never the less ….drum roll please…..

click here to see the list – https://bit.ly/75cbusstartups 

Drop me a note to techlifeohio@gmail.com with any comments/feedback