Have you ever stopped to think that your e-mail inbox is a lot like a petrie dish? And not just because you haven't disinfected your keyboard lately. Carolin Horn did her MFA thesis at the Dynamic Media Institute in Boston in 2007, on the ecology of the inbox, with the result: Anymails, the animated life of your email. Do your friends or your enemies take up more of your e-life? Anymails eats them both. [GT]

Anymails [via Josh Spear]

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ContentBarrier X4, from Intego, is for those of us who aren’t happy with just a Mac or just Windows, but who want both, and then some. This is designed for all those people who have a Mac and then add software which makes it run Microsoft Windows when they want to. Best of both worlds, if you like. The downside of this is that it makes protection for your software and your users a bit of a nightmare. Mac protection’s not enough; Windows protection’s not quite the right thing. Enter ContentBarrier.

Talk about multi-purpose gadgetry! If your phone, PDA, UMPC and other handbag contents can’t cobble together at least a diary, a bit of email access and some sat-nav-ery, well, I don’t know how you can hold your head up in society, to be honest. But there might be a solution for you in Purple Ghost’s iGadget software.

It’s an iPod software package that lets you access most features of Outlook – that’s email, appointments, tasks and contacts – on your iPod. You can also use it for driving directions, weather reports, RSS, text files, all on the iPod, making it a truly convergent, web 2.0 device to be proud of. Oh, and there’s something about putting music on it too. At the current sale price of $15 it seems a very worthwhile investment if your other gadgets leave you using – Heaven forbid! – a pen and paper.

Product Page [via Gearlive] $20/$15

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If you don't have a mentor to teach you about risk management the alternative is DecideIT, the software that helps you figure out if you're doing the rational thing. "It is based on unique algorithms that make it possible to deal with and analyze complex decision-making situations, even in cases where precise information is not available. It is often sufficient to use probabilities, utility values, and weighting in the form of comparisons or intervals, but the tool also informs the user where more resources should be used to obtain a better basis for making a decision." [GT]

DecideIT [via Gizmag]

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Alex distorts herself in the name of software testing when she attempts to turn a still image into a video...

Reallusion Crazy Talk 4

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Paper shredders: so good for people who'd like some privacy in their lives, but so very, very bad for those who enjoy the odd rummage through other people's rubbish every now and then. And while helping people read things they're not supposed to read is absolutely not the purpose of this new software, which reassembles shredded documents, you have to admit, it'll help. The software takes scans of the documents in question, analysing color, shape, handwriting, texture and typeface, then, like all the king's horses and all the king's men, it tries to put them together again. The current plan is to use this to restore shredded documents from communist East Germany's secret police files. Now that could be worth doing...

[via Gizmodo]

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HP are ever so excited about mscape. They reckon this new technology which allows you to get media on your PDA or smartphone which is relevant to your GPS position is going to have us all creating our own personal 'mediascapes'. I had a go, and learnt lots of interesting things about Shanghai.

For more on mscape, click here.

Mscape. HP are pretty chuffed with themselves that they’ve come up with this. It’s in Beta at the moment, but the idea is you can use any Windows Mobile PDA with GPS, to collect relevant information about your surroundings. So, depending on where you are, you can play games, listen to music or watch videos, all of which are relevant to where you are. It’s already been tested at the Tower of London, where people could play games relating to the site (presumably involving beheading royalty). HP is going to provide a toolkit which can not only be used by professional developers, but also consumers, so you can create your own experiences.

While toying with room designs for my house, I was delighted to discover IKEA’s marvellous kitchen planner, which allows you to input your room dimensions, place and rearrange the entire kitchen range, change colours, handles, appliances with a single click, and view it all in 3D, from any angle, at any height, as you go along. It was so much fun that at 1.30 pm I was still there, comparing an oak counter with a cream door, moving the sink left a bit and the hob right a bit.

So you can imagine how excited I was when I found out MFI had a bedroom planner! Armed with a cup of tea, I settled in for the evening, to be bitterly disappointed. My first suspicions were aroused when presented with a square room and boxes in which to input dimensions. Don’t worry, I thought confidently, I’m sure I can put the bay and the chimney breast in later. But no, it turns out that MFI only caters to square or rectangular rooms. Any other shape, any features, nope, sorry, no can do. Determined to make the best of it, I soldiered on, only to find I had to choose a furniture range immediately, without seeing it first. Perhaps I can change it later, I reasoned. Only after I had plopped in a few items from the very limited range, using a black-and-white bird’s eye view of the room, was I able to click a button labelled ‘3D view’. In anticipation, I clicked, and waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually, I was rewarded with a midget’s eye view of the room, the midget apparently standing halfway behind a wardrobe. Three other views were available, one of which was precisely half filled with a piece of white something and the other half with a piece of brown something.

Seems all Important Marketing People have been struck by the beautiful weather, since not only have we seen the launch of Lastminute.com's language dictionary today but now, Blackberry are launching the B-List, designed to let you know where's hot and where's not around the world. With guides available for downloading to your Blackberry covering everywhere from the Notting Hill Carnival to Ibiza, they've recruited top celebrities to share their secret spots (Or at least top celebrity PAs to do some Google research). Dita Von Teese, Trevor Nelson and Lisa Snowdon are all part of the 'B-list' (oh, the shame).

Product page: The B-List

You know what us Brits are like. In order to be understood in a foreign country, our best tactic is to speak English ver-y slow-ly and loud-ly. But now, Lastminute.com has come up with an even simpler solution, creating a number of phrase books for your mobile phone. You can download them, and then when you need to ask where the nearest vodka bar is, you just pick the correct phrase out of the 300 provided. Your phone then parrots it out, complete with authentic accent. Stick it to the ear of the foreigner, and then just look perplexed when they deliver the directions. It's available in French, Spanish, German, Greek, Italian and Portuguese, and flippancy aside, might help you out of a bind on your travels this summer.

Product page: Lastminute.com/Cool Gorilla

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I'm all for a quick nap at work - I'm a strong believer in taking 10 minutes out of your day to recharge, rather than spend 8 hours feeling like crap. In fact, we have a sofa in Shiny Towers for that very purpose.

The Pzizz software promises to create you an audio programme based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming. You can choose how long you want to sleep for - 10 minutes, 30 mins, 8 hours, whatever. You then sit yourself comfortably, at your desk or on the Shiny sofa, stick on some headphones, and relax.

The run-on: we've all had it. It happens when you try to print out what you think will be a one page document, but what actually turns out to be one page plus one line of logo, signature or legal disclaimer - totally useless to you, and not so great for the planet either, come to think of it. Well, Greenprint is here to wage war on the run-on. It's a nifty little piece of software that'll help you eliminate those un-needed pages, giving you a handy print overview to let you decide whether you really do need to print that extra line or if both you and the world can live without it. It'll even tell you how much paper and money you're saving as you go. It costs $35, but there's a 14-day free trial, too. For more green good things, check out Hippyshopper.

Product Page | [via The Red Ferret]

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Now this is a bit of a complicated one. What exactly is fring? Well, firstly it’s a clever combination of the words free and ring, leading those tuned-in to the 21st century world of made-up-words to form a vague impression of what it is – a way of making free mobile calls.

After that, it gets a bit complicated. fring leverages the Internet connectivity traditionally used for mobile email retrieval and web browsing to provide mobile-VoIP communications so users can talk and instant message for free. That means that, since your internet minutes are not counted as call minutes but as something else, if you use your internet minutes to talk to your friends, it doesn’t get counted as calls. What fring does is make it possible to talk using VoIP (Voice-over-IP) to other fring users. fring dynamically adapts itself to work in the best way depending on the characteristics of your network and handset, and works over 3G, GPRS and WiFi networks, between mobiles or mobile to PC. You can IM other fringers for free too using similar technology.

It’s happening. We are finally being replaced by robots. MyCyberTwin is a scary new piece of software which will literally chat for you on your countless computer chatting devices when you don’t have time to keep up with all the IMs you’re getting. It’s based on chatterbot software, but also stores the results of detailed questionnaires you fill in about politics, religion, and sex, as well as the answers to any questions you might anticipate it being asked, like "What are you doing on Saturday?"

The following is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry for chatterbots:

A good understanding of a conversation is required to carry on a meaningful dialog but most chatterbots do not attempt this. Instead they "converse" by recognizing cue words or phrases from the human user, which allows them to use pre-prepared or pre-calculated responses which can move the conversation on in an apparently meaningful way without requiring them to know what they are talking about.

The list of what you can learn online at Lynda.com reads like the bestsellers shelf of a computer software shop. By which I mean you can learn almost any top computer software there. You don’t pay per course, but rather per month or year, and at less than a dollar a day, it’s far cheaper than any ‘real person’ course where you’d presumably have to go to the extra expense and hassle of getting dressed, finding your way there, interacting with other people, etc etc. Still, there’s the added pressure that you might not get value for your money, compelling you to squeeze in as much learning as you can in your paid-for period – or, conversely, not learning and feeling guilty about the missed opportunity and money laid out, much like the gym.

But it is the cheapest and least tecchie online software learning website I’ve found, and there’s even a free sample training so you can check if you approve before you commit. I don’t see it written anywhere on their website, but I do hope you don’t come out looking like the woman – presumably Lynda herself – on the site logo.

Product Page, $25 per month, or $250 per year

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I remember the days when you didn’t want to be spotted with Tesco Value potatoes in your trolley, and if anyone saw you with Value loo roll, they’d know you were poor. But thankfully, we’ve all come to our senses and started buying Tesco Value and other own-brand products in abundance. Why, just last week I was chopping veggies on a very nice Value chopping board, thank you very much, and I’m proud of it.

To take this to the next level, Woolworths are following Tesco in producing a value software package, designed by Formjet and a steal at £17. Available soon, the package includes word processing, spreadsheets, and database management, and like all good alternative software, it’s compatible with the king of the jungle, Microsoft. In true Own Brand style, it’s basic and doesn’t do much that’s fancy, but for typing the odd letter, sending a few invoices and, er, recording some data now and again, it’s perfectly sound and much better value than some.

So, when are we getting Own Brand Mortgages for 99p a month?

Product Page [via WebTwitcher] £17.00

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I’m not one of those anti-Microsoft-monopoly types. I like it that all my programmes use the same shaped buttons and the same symbols to mean the same things. You get a Microsoft-instinct for how to do things you’ve never done before. But the nice thing about Mozilla’s Thunderbird free email client is that, unlike my expectations of a non-Microsoft product, it looks vaguely familiar. The buttons, while not being quite the same, are similar enough that you can use your Microsoft-evolved brain to work out what to do easily enough. It’s a bit like speaking British English in America – you get by perfectly well, and there’s a lot more available.

Of course, Thunderbird is also free, as are its upgrades, and it gives you offline access to your email, both of which are more solid reasons to go with it. Version 2.0 has the added advantages of tabbed mailboxes, better privacy, better spam filtering, and a personal history navigation that lets you go back and forth among your recently viewed emails. You can run Thunderbird on Mac, Windows and any GNU/Linux flavour.

Product Page [via boingboing]

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I've just had a chat with someone from Norton, and whilst I wouldn't say computer security is now one of my favourite pub chat topics (I prefer 'What's your favourite keyboard shortcut'. No. Seriously), I do have a new appreciation for how important it is to practice safe geeking. Say you have a PC worth around £400, right. Say you add 100 albums, at £12 each. And then a load of irreplaceable photos. And then your CV. And then your entire DVD collection. Do you know how much your computer is now worth? A million pounds. Well, close enough, and you get my point.

Norton 360 is Symantec's new security software, which aims to provide you with an answer to every security worry you might have. As well as the traditional anti-virus annual protection, it protects you against phishing and transaction fraud, by monitoring for suspicious website behaviours, although only if you use Internet Explorer. But there's more...

In a smooth Pinky/Brain manoeuvre, Wayfinder have inked a deal with one of the world's top five handset manufacturers to embed Wayfinder software onto new GPS-enabled phones. In one swoop hugely increasing Wayfinder's target audience, it is also a clear step forward from previous preinstallation deals where users still had to take the extra step of adding GPS to their non-compatible phones.

Few could argue that deals like this are good news for the company in question; when software is ubiquitous it tends to become the automatic program of choice. A quick trawl of online reviews suggests that Wayfinder is, in any case, the brand of choice thanks to its reliable functionality, although it is still an expensive option. Perhaps increased sales through agreements such as this will lead to dropping prices too.

Wayfinder

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