Blog Archives

Zinepal Makes You The Editor [Ebook]

Posted on August 12, 2009
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Planning an unplugged trip but want to take some of your favorite blogs with you? Create printable PDFs and ebooks full of your favorite online content at web site Zinepal.

Creating a zine is simple. Add the URL to a blog or blog feeds, select the entries you wish to add to the zine, preview your content, customize to your heart’s content, and you’re all set.

Delivery options include having it emailed to you (with new stories added), reading it on the site itself (or on any ePub/Mobipocket compatible reader), or having it sent directly to your Kindle by adding your Kindle email address.

Looking for a zine to read? Zinepal.com also offers a search function of zines created by other users, ready to be downloaded and read.





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Best PDF Reader: PDF-XChange [Hive Five Followup]

Posted on August 4, 2009
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Last week we asked you to share your favorite PDF reader and then we rounded up the results and put it to a vote. Now we’re back to share the results.

Taking home more than half the votes and cementing a very solid lead, PDF-XChange garnered a lot of praise for speedy load times, tabbed files, and a variety of small but handy features—like its ability to place text outside of forms. Following PDF-XChange's strong lead was Foxit and the original itself, Adobe Reader.

For more information on the winners check out the full Hive Five.





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Zilla PDF to TXT Converter Plain-Texts Your PDF Files in Bulk [Downloads]

Posted on May 20, 2009
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Windows only: We’ve covered a variety of tools for converting PDF files, but if you need to bulk convert a folder full of them, Zilla PDF to TXT Converter gets the job done quickly.

If you only need to extract the text from a document or two, some of the solutions we’ve covered should more than suffice, such as emailing the PDF to Adobe’s automatic converter or using PDF-to-Word-Converter.

If you have lots of PDF files you need to extract text from, Zilla PDF to TXT Converter makes batch extraction a breeze. The freeware version is limited, as the name would suggest, to converting PDF files to plain text. You can specify the page range and whether or not to acknowledge page breaks on a file by file basis. The commercial version, PDFZilla, is $29.99 and offers batch conversion of PDF to Word, RTF, TXT, and HTML among others formats. Zilla PDF to TXT Converter is freeware, Windows only.





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Business Card Star Makes At-Home Card Printing a Snap [Free]

Posted on April 24, 2009
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Think about the per-card cost of most commercial business card printers, and you’ll likely feel a bit taken. Business Card Star makes designing and printing a professional, eye-catching card at home a viable alternative.

The site's main function is a step-by-step design and print flow, giving you a choice of dozens of templates—"Elegant," "Geometric," and the like—that don't look cheesy or scream "I just graduated from Print Shop Pro!" After moving through the Flash-based design app that has only the buttons you need, you're asked if you want to send your design off to the site's commercial printing partners, or—since you came this far—print them yourself. The output PDF file you'll download is compatible with a whole host of Avery-brand card stock packages, both 8 and 10 cards per sheet. And that's it, assuming your printer can turn out decent material on its high-quality setting.

Business Card Star is free to use, requires a sign up to save your finished cards on the site.Thanks Susy!





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Know How to Spot an ATM Skimmer [Security]

Posted on April 21, 2009
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If you've seen warnings lately about ATM "skimmers"—data-reading devices added onto machines by thieves—you might be wondering how you could tell if one's been rigged up to where you're about to insert your card. The Consumerist blog hosts a PDF copy of a PowerPoint explainer from an Australian security firm (that still applies to U.S. machines). It might not cover what your specific bank's teller machines should look like, but it does point to warning signs to look out for—like the flashing lights on a card feeder being obscured. [Consumerist]





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FoxitPDF Preview Handler Loads PDFs in Outlook 2007 [Downloads]

Posted on February 14, 2009
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Windows only: If you’re in need of a light-weight PDF previewer for messages in Outlook 2007, you can now plug FoxitPDF, the speedy and free PDF viewer, directly into it.

Tim Heuer, software developer behind the Method of Failed blog, found that loading up Adobe Acrobat to do a quick preview of a PDF in his email was entirely overkill. To speed up his email workflow, he put together a plugin for Outlook 2007 that loads PDF files with FoxitPDF.

The following animation shows the quick preview in action:

The plugin works in both Windows Vista and Windows XP. One minor caution—more of an Outlook issue than a plug-in problem—if you double click on the document you're previewing instead of single clicking it, you'll skip right past the preview and launch the file with whatever application is your system default. If Foxit isn't your default PDF viewer, it will launch Acrobat and defeat the whole purpose of the quick preview. FoxitPDF Preview Handler is freeware, Windows only. Thanks Caleb!

FoxitPDF Preview Handler [Method of Failed]






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MergePDF Combines PDF Documents for Free [PDF]

Posted on February 2, 2009
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If you don’t have access to Adobe Acrobat or other PDF manipulation tools, MergePDF is a quick and hassle-free online tool for combining your documents.

There are a small number of limitations on the tool, which shouldn’t be deal breakers for most people in need of a quick PDF merge. You’re limited to ten files that are 5MB or less for each merge you perform. Once you finish the merge and download the combined document, the original files are deleted. While the process wasn’t as fast as combining them on a local computer with professional software in our tests, it was fine for deadlines that aren’t in two minutes. The file merge pictured in the above screenshot took thirty seven seconds from the time the merge started until the file was downloaded to my computer.

If you find yourself merging PDF files frequently, a free desktop solution might be in order. Previously reviewed PDFSame is a Java-based cross-platform tool that merges, and separates, PDF files in short order.

MergePDF is a free to use, doesn’t require registration.






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Ubuntu Pocket Guide Available as a Free Download [Ubuntu]

Posted on January 26, 2009
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In the midst of the current financial crunch, the popular, free Linux distribution Ubuntu has never looked more attractive. If you’ve considered switching, a free copy of the Ubuntu Pocket Guide is the perfect place to start.

Written by Keir Thomas, author of Ubuntu Kung Fu, Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference covers all the beginner-to-expert knowledge you’ll need to make the move to Ubuntu.

We’ve featured excerpts from Thomas’ Ubuntu Kung Fu two times at Lifehacker, and the Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference offers the same level of Ubuntu expertise to anyone interested in or already living the Ubuntu life.

  • Focuses on core competencies and background knowledge needed to be an expert Ubuntu user;
  • Readable, accessible, and easy to understand—even if you’ve never used Linux before;
  • 100% new and original! Written from the ground-up to cover Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10.

Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference is available from Amazon for $10, but—best of all—the book is also available as a free PDF download from the official web site. Can't go wrong with free.






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Download Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan Free This Week Only [Personal Finance]

Posted on January 8, 2009
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Financial planning guru Suze Orman's latest book—Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan—is available as a free download from Oprah through January 15th.

The book—normally $10 if you get it through Amazon—covers everything from credit, savings, and spending to retirement, paying for college, and real estate. Here's the low-down from the Amazon product description:

If in late 2007 you were told that over the next twelve months housing would crater to 20% below it’s all-time peak, unemployment would rise from below 5% to nearly 8%, stocks would fall nearly 50%, and a gallon of gas would spike to more than $4 (and then drop below $2) you would probably have shrugged it off as just a whole lot of doomsday-scenario crankiness. But that’s exactly what we all had to live through and continue to grapple with in 2009.

My 2009 Action Plan is designed to make sure you are ready for the unexpected—this year and every year forward. I most certainly hope things get better for us all, but in the meantime I want to make sure you have a plan in place that will protect you no matter what “what ifs” lay ahead.

While you’re grabbing free ebooks on surviving the recession, be sure to check out Leo Babauta’s previously mentioned Thriving on Less.






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