Which Date Works – Free online event planning software

Need to plan an event with a group of friends who live all over the country or all over the world? Maybe a baby shower or a vacation to Mexico? A good way to plan these type of events is to use event management software instead of email.

Which Date Works is a nitfy little online group planning and invitation management site that makes planning an event really easy.

Note that this kind of service is only useful if you have not already picked out a date for an event, but want to ask everyone which date works best for them.

Here’s how the whole thing works. First, you give you event a name and some details about the event such as the location, etc, etc.

Now you will go ahead and put in the email addresses of everyone who will be involved in this event. You can also quickly import contacts from Gmail, Yahoo! and other email services.

Next, everyone picks the dates on the calendar that they are available and the days that are not good.

After people start responding, you will be able to see which dates everyone picked. The calendar also has numbers indication how many people were available or not on that particular day.

Lastly, you finalize the date for your plans and Which Date Works will send out an email to everyone letting them know when the plans are taking place.

What’s nice about the service is that no one has to sign up, including you! You can do everything on the site without having to login or create an account, which is great!

Source: Online Tech Tips

Use Google Picasa to Face-Tag Your Photos

As you've probably discovered after years of taking digital snapshots, keeping a photo library organized can be a nightmare. Far and away your best ally: tags, which are little descriptors attached to each photo.

Unfortunately, it's a major hassle to manually assign tags, which is where the new automatic-tagging feature in the just-released Google Picasa 3.5 comes in.

When you first run the new version, it starts scanning your library for faces, automatically grouping those that look similar (and with impressive accuracy, based on initial tests).

To get started with face tagging, click the Scanning option under the new People section in the lefthand toolbar. (Depending on the size of your library, it might take Picasa several hours to complete its initial scan--but you can start tagging while it's working.)

You'll immediately see a batch of faces in the main pane. Click Add a name under any one of them, type the person's name, and then hit Enter.

In the dialog box that appears, click New Person, and then click OK. (You can also supply a nickname and/or e-mail address at this point; Picasa can sync these tags with your Picasa Web Albums.)

Repeat the process with other faces. If you want Picasa to ignore a face (you might not want to tag everybody, after all), just click the little x in the corner.

Each "new person" you add creates a tag in the aforementioned People section. Click one of those tags to see all the matches Picasa has detected. You can refine these matches further by selecting one or more photos, then clicking the green checkmark if they're accurate (i.e. the correct face) or the red x if they're not.

The more you fiddle with this feature, the more sense it will start to make. Keep in mind that all this scanning and tagging makes no actual changes to your photos. Ultimately, it's just a quick way to find all your photos of, say, Fluffy the Dog, or your Uncle Ed. Great stuff.

Source: Rick Broida, PC World

Get a free, disposable phone number from inumbr

Savvy online shoppers will often use disposable credit-card numbers (which are available from PayPal and some banks) to protect their privacy.

Here's a perfect companion: inumbr, which gives you free, temporary phone numbers. These throwaways are ideal for things like Craiglist ads, where you might want to include contact information--but not your contact information.

To use inumber, choose your closest city or area code (the service has roughly two dozen of them), then specify how long you want the number to last: an hour, a day, or a week.

Next, enter your real phone number, which is where inumbr will forward incoming calls. You'll also need to supply an e-mail address in order to activate the temporary number.

Once you've done that, you can log into the service and access a wealth of options, including extending the expiration date, adding a second number (in case you can't be reached at the first one), and even checking voicemail.

All this is free, believe it or not, making inumbr a must-bookmark site.

Source: PC World

Help Lost Gadgets Find Their Way Home

Have you ever left something in a taxi, on an airplane, etc. --and never saw it again? Perhaps the person who eventually picked it up wanted to return it, but didn't know how because the gadget had no identification attached.

Enter SendMeHome, a free service that helps reunite people and their stuff. All you do is register an item--any item, really, from electronics to sports equipment to luggage--then print a specially coded label and tape or glue it on.

If someone finds your item, they just visit the SendMeHome site (the URL appears on the label), enter the code, and send you a message. From there it's up to you to arrange the item's return.

That makes SendMeHome a bit different from StuffBak, a similar service that offers a toll-free phone number finders can call, covers their shipping costs, provides a reward (in the form of StuffBak labels), and so on.

Of course, you pay a few bucks (upwards of $30) for all those services, and you have to buy StuffBak's labels. SendMeHome costs nothing to use, though you can order a sheet of eight weather-proof vinyl labels, in varying sizes, for $4.

Obviously there are no guarantees that these labels will help you recover lost items--but at least you know that an honest person can easily return your smartphone, digital camera, and other gadgets.

Source: PC World

Sort Outlook E-mails with SenderOK Plug-In

Outlook users, have hope. SenderOK can help you dig your way out from your e-mail avalanche. This free add-in integrates directly into Outlook 2003 and 2007, and gives you a variety of tools for cutting through e-mail clutter. Spend just a little time with it, and you'll likely get a productivity boost.

When you first install SenderOK, it analyzes all of your sent and received e-mail. Based on the patterns of what it finds, it determines who are those most important people with whom you communicate, and what types of messages are most important to you. Based on that, it sorts incoming email into different folders depending on their level of importance: Routine, Important, and VIP. That way, you can see at a glance what e-mail you need to pay attention to. You can also give it specific instructions, such as to always put e-mail from your boss in the VIP folder. The program continues to learn from your behavior what is important and what isn't, so that the longer you use it, the more effective it becomes.

SenderOK does much more as well. It shows you a history of all of your e-mail exchanges--both by thread and by person--including attachments sent and received. It also alerts you to incoming mail, both with balloon tips, and with voice notification. You'll likely want to turn off the voice notification, because it quickly gets annoying. The voice itself is fine, but you use this add-in because your e-mail is already overwhelming.

Any Outlook users suffering from e-mail overload will want to give SenderOK a try--and that means most of us.

Source: Preston Gralla - PC World

Gmail offers 'undo' email option

The folks at Gmail Labs obviously dedicate a healthy amount of brainpower to the prevention of regrettable emails sent through their service.

Custodial hearts at Google who've brought us Mail Goggles to stave off late-night drunken e-correspondence have now introduced an Undo Send option to their web-based email lineup.

Gmail's User Experience Designer Michael Leggett illustrates the team's M.O.:

"Sometimes I regret sending a message the morning after. Other times I send a message and then immediately notice a mistake. I forget to attach a file or email the birthday girl that I can't make her surprise party. I rush to close my browser or unplug the Internet - but Gmail almost always wins that race."

Enabling the Undo Send option gives the user a scant five seconds to let wiser heads prevail. The catch is that Undo Send doesn't kill an email that's already been sent, but instead just holds the message while the five-sec clock ticks down.

To this reporter, that doesn't sound like enough time to dismiss an ill-sent email - but Leggett claims that even just five seconds does the trick for him and already has saved him several times.

Undo Send was developed by Yuzo Fujishima, a Google engineer in the company's Tokyo office.

Gmail users can switch on Undo Send in Gmail Labs under settings. The rest is pretty easy - if you're quick:

1) Click 'enable' on GMail Labs tab in settings.

2) Author regrettable email message.

3) Realize you've made a big mistake within five seconds.

4) OH %&@# OH %&@# OH %&@# ...phew!

5) Atone for your wicked, wicked ways.

Follow this link to enable Gmail's five-second grace period. ®

Source: Austin Modine, The Register

Never Lose Your Cellphone Phonebook

A new product by Spark Technology, called Cellstick, plugs in to your cellphone and backs up your phonebook contacts. According to the product description, Cellstick "works with virtually any cell phone. It'll let you backup, enter, edit and transfer your cell phone contacts. So no matter what happens to your cell phone, your phone book survives. "

The product received a positive review from Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal. According to Mossberg, Cellstick is "A smart solution that really works, and it's about as easy to use as possible... CellStik is a fast and simple solution that could save users from the frustrating ordeal of losing a cellphone and every name and number on it."

For more information and to see if it supports your model of cell phone, visit the website at: http://www.sparktech.com/

Easily Add Speech Bubbles to Your Photos

Adding "speech bubbles" to digital photos used to involve learning how to use a sophisticated graphics program. But now there is a free service called Kyolo that makes it easy.

With Kyolo, all you do is upload the photo, add your choice of speech bubble shapes, enter the text you want for each bubble... and that's it. Once you are finished you can save or e-mail the updated photo.

click here to go the the site

Source: Download Squad

Wireless Headset for Internet Phone Calls

Wireless Headset for Internet Phone Calls
By ROY FURCHGOTT
Published: March 27, 2008
The Logitech ClearChat wireless headset, which the company says is the first of its kind with Internet calling in mind, is also meant to be faux-pas-proof.

The addition of an unusual feature can keep you from speaking out of turn. When the headset is muted, the microphone glows red. This confirms that the microphone is off, so you won’t have to ask, “Can you hear me now?” They can’t.
This stereo headset, with a retail price of $100, has over-the-ear padded phones and a boom microphone. Compatible with Macs and PCs, it requires no setup, although a small receiver will occupy one of your computer’s U.S.B. ports.

The headset broadcasts over the 2.4-gigahertz band, just like many portable phones, and Logitech estimates that the signal will carry more than 30 feet. The microphone has noise canceling to diminish background sound, so people can hear you clearly when they are supposed to.

Source: NY Times

Different greetings for different callers

YouMail is a free service that lets you customize your cell phone voicemail messages. You can have one standard greeting and also a different greeting depending on who is calling you.

YouMail, Inc. (www.youmail.com), the mobile industry's premiere consumer voicemail service, announced in September the addition of two new voicemail features to greatly expand users' control over their cellular worlds. The features -- "smart caller ID" and "personalized away messages" -- allow voicemail to be a much more effective method for personal communication.

SMART CALLER ID
YouMail provides enhanced notification of incoming voicemail through text messages and/or e-mails. Now when voicemails are left, YouMail's "smart caller ID" automatically tells its users not only the number of who called, but also the caller's name, and the length of the voicemail message -- all without the need for any set-up on the user's part.
"Caller ID information has generally been very limited on cell phones, with mobile users knowing only the phone number that left a voicemail," said Ken Brickley, VP of Marketing for YouMail. "With YouMail, users know exactly who left them voicemail, allowing them to save time by retrieving only the voicemails that matter and help verify that callers are who they say they are."

PERSONALIZED AWAY MESSAGES
YouMail allows users to set up personalized greetings for their callers, whether for a single caller or a group of callers like family or friends, and they can record their own outgoing messages or choose from a growing library of thousands of pre-recorded greetings. Now users who will be unavailable can quickly and easily arrange away messages for their cell phone -- akin to the similar ability in instant messaging, but tailored to different groups of people in their lives.
"Cell phone users often find themselves knowing they'll be unavailable or out of coverage for a period of time," said Brickley. "Now a user can simply choose an appropriate message and with a couple of clicks let their friends know they're away on vacation or out surfing, and co-workers or clients know they're in a meeting or on a plane."

USER FEEDBACK
Both innovations were inspired by recommendations from YouMail user feedback.
"YouMail is about cell phone voicemail that truly satisfies its users," said Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail. "Whether it's knowing everything about who's leaving you messages or easily letting incoming callers know when and where you'll be out of reach, with the touch of a button you're in complete control of how you connect with everyone in your life."

About YouMail
YouMail replaces your cellular voicemail with a free and dramatically better voicemail system that helps you save time, simplify their life, and have fun. YouMail is transforming voicemail into something that's amazingly useful and incredibly fun, providing personalized greetings and away messages for individuals or groups of callers, a library of greetings uploaded by its users, and online voicemail access with the ability to share and save special voicemails easily. To learn more and sign up for the free YouMail service, go to www.youmail.com.

MagicJack - A Jack That Lets Regular Phones Take Advantage of Those Cheap Internet Long-Distance Rates

Computer-based phone services like Skype allow you to call friends and family free — as long as they have a PC with a sound card and a microphone. A little device called MagicJack will let you make calls from your phone to other phones in the United States for fractions of a penny a minute.

The device costs $39.95, a price that includes a year of unlimited domestic calls; additional years cost $20. MagicJack, which looks like a U.S.B. memory stick, plugs right into your Windows PC, which immediately displays a telephone keypad. (A Mac version is planned.) Each MagicJack is assigned its own phone number, and the price includes voice mail and call waiting. You can also use the MagicJack overseas to reach numbers in the United States and receive calls from there.

These sorts of Internet calling devices aren’t new. The MagicJack, however, has a real telephone jack on the side, letting you quickly bring almost any corded or cordless phone into the 21st century

Source: New York Times (By JOHN BIGGS)