Well I have been mumbling for a few weeks now about this "Flo" project and so far I have gotten a ton of encouraging feedback. For those of you who don't know what Flo is, here is a gentle introduction. Flo is a multi-platform mind mapping program. I have been interested in mind mapping for some years and have written an application that can help express mindmaps and translate them into various document formats. Mind mapping for those of you who don't know about it is a way of brainstorming. One of the main ideas of Flo is to take...
Nisus Software announced the immediate availability of Nisus Writer Pro 1.2 on Thursday. the update for the word processing application gained a new file importer with improved support for Microsoft Word files, along with the ability to export Word and Open Document formats...
Issuu just announced it has raised $5 million in a Series B investment from Sunstone Capital, which had already provided Series A funding to the amount of $1.25 million in early 2007. The Copenhagen, Denmark-based startup has also added a slew of new features to its existing product and launched a premium version for professional publishers. When we first came across Issuu, which turns uploaded documents into interactive online publications for free, we said it was one of the first service of its kind that didn’t suck. In addition to the funding announcement, the company is also releasing a major...
O3Find is a standalone Open Source application for Windows that can be installed or used as a portable application that can perform full text searches on Open Office and Star Office documents. To offer even more choice the application comes as a GUI and command line version. The application supports searching multiple folders and files and can search through document metadata such as author or properties and the text in the documents. Besides that it can also search for other document formats like plain text and Microsoft Office files. The graphical user interface looks pretty much like the Windows 95...
Founded nearly a decade ago on patents for printing active-matrix electronic display panels on thin, flexible plastic substrates, Plastic Logic spent the ensuing years developing a lightweight plastic screen that mimics the look — but not the feel — of a magazine or newspaper. And this morning the company uncrated it. Thinner than a typical pad of notebook paper, the Plastic Logic Reader boasts a 8.5- by 11-inch letter-sized touch-screen capable of displaying not just newspapers, periodicals and books, but a full range of business document formats as well. Like Amazon’s Kindle, the Plastic Logic Reader uses a highly legible...
Personal Backup is definitely not the most comfortable Windows backup software but it does have a few aces up its sleeve that might make it interesting enough for users who are looking for a specialized backup software. The software comes in an English and German version and is compatible to all Microsoft Windows operating systems from Windows 98 to Windows Vista. The interface seems to have received its last lift in the last century which would not be that of a problem if there would not be so many buttons and menus available. It takes a while to get used...
Online PDF creation services are getting quite common now. They eliminate the hassle of installing applications on your computer and let us create PDF files online using web apps. PrimoOnline is a totally free PDF creator that provides a super-fast way to create PDF files online, without the need to install any PDF software. This service is actually a converter that creates PDF files out of your existing documents. It supports up to 300+ file types that can all be converted into PDF format documents, including Microsoft Word to PDF, as well as most other popular office document formats like...
Gmail has this nice feature where you can open PDF files and Office documents directly in your Google Docs account bypassing the need of any desktop software like Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Office. If you find this Gmail feature handy, you’ll probably also enjoy using the "Send to Google Docs" extension for Firefox. This extension (download link) lets you read online documents directly in your Google Docs account with a simple right click (see screenshot). It works with popular file formats like PDF, Excel, Word, PowerPoint and all Open Document formats. "Send to Docs" can also import HTML web...
Portable Document Format (PDF) has been widely used for electronic documents in our daily life, either in work or personal file exchange. According to Adobe, PDF has been around for more than 15 years, with more than 250 million circulating on the Internet. But why PDF, and not the typical text files, docs, etc? Adobe has a good answer for that - Multiplatform, Extensible, Trusted and reliable, Rich in file integrity, More secure, Searchable and Accessible. Click here to read more about Adobe PDF. We present you 80+ Free Tools, Tips and Resources to help you master and get...
PDF is the standard format for transferring documents online. Microsoft’s Office Open XML and Open Document formats are rather irrelevant. It’s a software developer’s dream come true. But as we all know, Adobe is not the only company offering PDF readers and writers. There is no question that better, free alternatives to the ever so (un)popular Adobe Acrobat Reader exist. One example is the Foxit Reader. To be fair though, we have to recognize that Adobe’s Acrobat Reader has come a long way. It may appear slow because it comes with many great and some not so necessary features. On...
Twiddla, a free service that lets users draw and annotate webpages with their peers, has launched a new version of its site that introduces a number of new features. Compared to enterprise-grade collaboration software, Twiddla falls a little short - there’s no screen sharing or video chat, and the software seems a little buggy. But for ease of use and compatibility it can’t be beat: the browser based AJAX software is platform-agnostic, requires no plugins, and is free for everyone. Twiddla launched earlier this year with the intention of helping website designers better communicate with their employers. Instead of...
Online self-publishing firm Lulu and social document sharing site Scribd have just announced a partnership in which Lulu will begin using Scribd's iPaper viewer to display Lulu's free e-books online at the lulu.com web site. In addition to making it easier for users to gain access to these free publications, Lulu will also be using Scribd's unique feature that allows for displaying AdSense within iPapers to monetize the free content being provided by the e-books' publishers. The iPaper format was designed to be sort of a YouTube for PDFs and other standard document formats. With iPaper, publishers can easily upload...
