Yesterday while browsing through my RSS Subscriptions I chanced upon TeuxDeux thanks to John Gruber(Daring Fireball) who described it as Clever, simple, date-based online to-do app. I immediately signed up and I’ve been hooked to it ever since.

As you can see from the Screenshot the interface of TeuxDeux is very clean, minimal and simple. Its the kind of UI that most of us normal users need, rather than the complex UI’s of other GTD apps.

The best thing that I like about TeuxDeux is the fact that it kinda resembles your personal diary, in which you jot down stuff you need to do.

How Does it Work?

To add a task, you just need to type into the textbox. It’ll be automatically be added to the todo list. To remove a task hover over the task and click the cross button. And the best thing, if you don’t complete a task today it will automatically be added to tomorrow’s tasks. Tasks can be drag dropped from different days, which makes it flexible.

The Days that are already past are in light faded Gray, while Today is in Red, and the future dates in the deep black. A simple but clever presentation idea.

Here’s a demo video that shows how TeuxDeux works :

So if you are finding it difficult to keep your life in order, and need to remember things to do, you must try out TeuxDeux.

TeuxDeux (A Swissmiss and FictiveKin Product) | Photo Credit : tracitodd

With today’s Beta launch Boxee aims to enter newer territories with the launch of a dedicated Boxee Box in partnership with D-Link. What’s more important is a totally revamped and redesigned interface for Boxee, that makes using it even more fun. The UI changes aren’t the only changes though, Boxee beta brings about many major under the hood changes that will allow for less resource intensive playback of your media.

Boxee for Windows will shift from using the OpenGL graphics engine to DirectX runtime, along with support for Nvidia’s cheaper but faster Graphics chips. I believe these are major steps for Boxee, because for so long it has remained in the confines of Mac and AppleTV users, with Windows/Linux Adoption being almost negligible.

Before I tell you about the Dedicated Boxee box, lets have a sneak peak into the new Beta interface. And I have to say the new UI is a marked improvement over the old one, and I can’t wait for the nice people at Boxee HQ to give me access to the beta

This is the new Home screen. The most visible change is the shifting of the navigation from Left to top center. Along with it comes a new centralized hub for all your content. You can now see recommendations from friends on Boxee, Facebook or Twitter (via RSS feeds), recommendations from Boxee’s staff and partners (Featured) and the latest episodes from your favorite shows or things you’ve saved for later (Queue).

The new global menu, makes Navigation even more easier than it was before. This menu makes it easy to access helpful resources (TOP – Logout, Settings, Now Playing, Queue, Feed, History), the main menu (MIDDLE – Photos, Music, Movies, Home, TV Shows, Apps, Files) and shortcuts (BOTTOM) to your favorite Apps, TV Shows, Movies, or folders. This has to be my favorite new feature of the Boxee Beta. Makes me feel that the old navigation was boring and slow!

The screenshots above show the new TV Shows Library and Photos in action. The new sidebar on the left, makes searching/sorting etc. even more easier than it was before.

The New Boxee makes sharing even more fun and easier. After all the entire Boxee experience is a social experience. So now you’re gonna have an endless amount of media to consume thanks to your friends.

At the heart of the new Boxee is the Queue that runs thorough out the software. As you browse your library, you can continuously queue up items. So the next time you don’t have to remind yourself that you wanted to catch up with the latest episode of “How I Met Your Mother”!

There’s a lot more that’s changed in Boxee beta, which I can’t talk about, because I don’t have direct access to the Beta. But looking from the screenshots already posted on the internet, I’m already in love with the new Boxee.

Now coming to the Boxee Box from D-Link, here’s what Senior Marketing Executive Daniel Kelley at D-Link had to say :

“By pairing Boxee’s innovative social entertainment platform with D-Link’s technology we’re able to create a solution that introduces people to what TV should be. Additionally we’re bringing a new level of social interaction to the living room.”

The Boxee Box will have HDMI, SPDIF and RCA Audio connections, Plus two USB ports and it will work on both 802.11N. The price isn’t known yet, nor are the other technical details. What we all know is that Boxee will debut it during at the CES 2010. However rumors point to sub $200 price point which I believe will be very attractive to many home users.

Looks like 2010 will be the year when Digital Media finally makes the transition into our Living rooms. Thanks to Boxee, this is a space that we are all excited going into 2010.

Image Credit : Phil Campbell | Screenshots via Boxee Blog

But to fret no more, the built in Windows Media Center can also do the same, thanks to a third party app that lets you download Trailers from iTunes and other websites, Media Info, High Quality pictures etc.

To begin with download MediaBrowser, and install it on your PC. Once you are done, fire it up and you should be looking at a screen like the one shown below.

Add the required folders to your media collection, and Media Browser should then do all the dirty work for you. Alternatively you can also add/configure various plugins for Media Browsers. To do select the plug-ins tab.

There’s also advanced configuration options that lets you personalize your Media Center experience. For more of this, click the advanced option in Media Browser

All said and done, start Windows Media Center and select “Media Browser” from the home screen.

Windows Media Center should now be presenting you, your entire media library in its full glory. Click around to enjoy.

What do you think of Media Browser? Finally I believe that Boxee has a decent competitor but yes the Social features of Boxee will be hard to replicate. For those of you who enjoy Media Center already, Media Browser is a worthy extension to your Movie Watching experience.

Image Credit : lanuiop | Via : Addictive Tips & Announcement on Official Blog

Google Chrome OS, the Operating System being currently built by Google for people who would like to work in the cloud has been in the wild as public test builds. It wasn’t isn’t that easy to get Google Chrome OS running on your machine keeping in mind the limited hardware support, and the relative complexity to get it installed.

However if you still want to try out Google Chrome OS, don’t fret Chrome OS Diet is here. The biggest change is the 300 MB download, a far cry from the 8 GB that “real” Chrome OS consumes. The small download size means that Diet Chromium OS much easier to get hold of.

Diet Chrome was built by developer Hexxeh in his free time. What’s even better is that he’s managed to add some more hardware support in his builds, which means the chances of Chrome OS working smooth on your system is even greater.

Here’s how you get Chrome OS Diet up and running on your system. Won’t take much of your time I promise.

1. Download the Diet Chrome OS torrent (or alternatively get a direct download mirror from here)
2. Download and extract Image Writer for Windows.
3. Extract .tar.gz archive using your favorite software.
4. Launch Image Writer and write the newly freshly extracted image file (the one with .img extension) onto a 2GB or better USB Pen Drive
5. Voila that’s it. Just boot into Chrome OS from your System by restarting.

I tested this on my Dell Inspiron 530s and everything worked perfectly. Chrome OS booted up from the USB drive in like about 6 seconds. There’s isn’t much to play around with at the moment, so I got bored by it pretty fast.

You might want to have a look at Diet Chrome OS FAQ here : http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/faq.html

If you don’t want to reboot and boot into the USB Pen Drive, you can use MobaLiveCD to run Diet Chrome directly in Windows.

I am not really sure if Google Chrome OS will manage take off in the real world, because the demand of an always available Internet connection isn’t any bit easy to achieve. Its a long way ahead for Google and its ambitious plans for Chrome OS.

Have you tried out Chrome OS? Tell us about your experiences in the comments.

Diet Chrome OS

Browser security has become a raging debate these days, with the myriad of plugins and extensions you can install on your computer to customize your internet experience. However plugins like Java, Silverlight, Flash etc. are powerful stuff that if found vulnerable can give hackers multiple attack points targeting a huge audience.

So what Mozilla is trying to do is trying to make plugin management as easy as managing extensions in Firefox is. Though the plugin check page is limited by what it can do at the moment, it will be fully utilized starting Firefox 3.6 to update plugins just like extensions do so now.

For now the scripts on the page will check for installed plugins and compare the version of the installed plugin with the latest version that is available. At the moment some of the plugins supported are (among others) Apple Quicktime, Shockwave Flash, Adobe Acrobat, Java, Silverlight, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player plugins.

The Plugin Check page will show you a Green “Up To Date” button if you are running the latest version of the plugin, a yellow “Update” button if a new version button is available, and a red “Update Now” button if you are running a version that has a critical security exploit fixed in the latest version.

It is hearty to see Mozilla taking these steps to ensure a safe browsing experience for all of us. Looks like Firefox 3.6 will be an awesome release! Looking forward to it

Mozilla Plugin Check

Till date Firefox along with FEBE satisfied all my needs, but doing backups using FEBE wasn’t easy and had its own share of disadvantages. Also over the years Chrome, Safari also have started to contribute quite a lot to my browser share. So what do I do?

I download and run the portable app FavBackup on my machine. In short this is what FavBackup does:

FavBackup is a simple solution for you to backup and restore web browser settings and other data on Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 systems. No installation required.

FavBackup supports IE 6-8, Firefox 2-3.5, Opera9 or 10, Safari 3 or 4, Google Chrome 1-4, Flock 2.0-2.5.

Here are some screenshots of FavBackup in action :

See how simple FavBackup makes the process of doing browser backups? So the next time you reinstall Windows, or accidently delete some data, FavBackup will always be there for you. In its current incarnation here are some of the known bugs in FavBackup.

• General: Restoring backups directly from DVD/CD drive can give error. Copy backup to your PC first.
• Windows XP: When using low screen resolution, scrollbars might appear.

Download FavBackup | Image Credit : John Loo | Via HowtoGeek

Mozilla Labs Jetpack – Intro & Tutorial from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

For those of you not aware with Jetpack is all about. Jetpack is a Mozilla Labs project that enables anyone who knows HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create powerful Firefox addons. The goal of Jetpacks is to allow anyone who can build a Web site to participate in making the Web a better place to work, communicate and play.

Jetpack Gallery is for Jetpacks in the same way as Mozilla Addons is for Firefox. Till today people installing Jetpacks had to either depend on the Wiki page maintained by Mozilla. However with the launch of the Gallery the floodgates have been opened and I expect to see some interesting uses of Jetpacks in the days to come.

Want an example of what Jetpack can actually accomplish?

• Adblock Plus the immensely popular addon for Firefox : ~25,000 Lines of Code
• Unad a Jetpack that does the same thing : ~80 Lines of Code

That translates into roughly 99% savings. Now would you were a developer what would you choose?

As of now I guess Mozilla is approving each Jetpack on an individual basis considering that Jetpacks are still in the experimental state and not ready for the real world yet. But the true power of Jetpack in my opinion lies in the fact that Addons are installed without the need for a restart of Firefox.

So those of you waiting for addons without a reboot, Jetpack is the best you can get right now. Head over to the Gallery to install the Jetpack add-on and try out some Jetpacks like JetWave (a Google Wave Notifier) and JetStatus (a Twitter client).

Jetpack Gallery | Jetpack – Mozilla Labs

But the one thing that I didn’t like about Connectify is its interface. It just doesn’t blend with the interface of Windows7. Have a look at the screenshot below that shows Connectify in action :

What Connectify does is create a Virtual WiFi connection that anyone can connect to, just as it were a access point. Today I came across another app called Virtual Router that does the same job, but albeit in a much more intuitive way.

To start just install the app and fire it up. Enter the name for the network, a password and choose the connection you want to share and just hit start Virtual Router. And moments later you should have an active Wireless network you can share.

Virtual Router is Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 only, because only they have the new built in Wireless Hosted Network(a.k.a Virtual WiFi) technology. It uses WPA2 Encryption for ensuring security and this encryption cannot be turned off.

How is Virtual WiFi different from Ad-Hoc? Ad-Hoc is best suitable if you are connecting two computers and can be used to share files, while tools such as Connectify and Virtual Router allow you to share the internet connection with multiple number of computers.

Sidenote : Mac OS.X has had this feature built in for many years now.

Download Virtual Router [Microsoft CodePlex] | Image Credit : Roger Bits

Version 1.x released a few months back just does the basic Email notifications thing, but the upcoming 2.0 version will see Notify do a lot more. Features like viewing messages from multiple accounts (not restricted to GMail and Google Maps only), inline replies of emails, support for deleting mails and marking them as read etc.

Setting up Notify

Getting Notify up and running is quick and easy. Visit Vibealicious’s website and download the latest version. Once download simply drag the application bundle into your Applications folder and open it. Notify will now appear in your menu bar.

When you first open the application, you are greeting with what’s shown in the screenshot above.. Click Sure! to go ahead and add your first GMail account into Notify.

Notify in its current incarnation is nothing more than a EMail Notifier… It might look like a waste on your desktop, but the upcoming Notifier 2 will make it a compelling choice for anyone who wishes to manage their email like an expert.

Notify 2.0

Currently under beta testing, Notify 2.0 brings a lot more of new features to the table.. Here’s a preview of some of them.

The biggest new feature is full in-app message and reply creation. Something that I sorely missed in the first incarnation of Notify.

In Notify 1.x we had to click through to see and read any email bigger than 200 characters. With 2.0 it is now fixed with a Quicklook type UI. You can easily view full HTML messages.

Final Words

At the moment Notify is a solid application that seamlessly fits into the Mac Experience. Notify 2.0 will bring a lot more to this already beautiful app and help us manage email better rather than depending on complex applications like Mail.app etc.

Download Notify | Images via Notify Blog

XP Quick Fix Plus is a tiny portable application that provides fixes to 40 common Windows XP problems. Its Portable, small and fast, and is a must have on every computer.

The essential thing to be noted here is that the application is all about registry fixes since on Windows majority of the problems arise in the registry. However I suggest you create a system restore point before you proceed with any of the fixes.

What if there is no way for you to run XP Quick Fix Plus from Windows or if you need to run the fix from a batch file or script? There’s a small (~38KB) batch script that provides some of the most common fixes like :

• QFC /t – quick enable the Task Manager
• QFC /r – quick enable the Rgistry Editor
• QFC /f – quick enable the Folder Options
• QFC /e – quick restore the Run Dialog
• QFC /p – quick restore My Computer Properties
• QFC /x – Quick fix Windows can’t run exe files

So essentially XP Quick Fix Plus is a tiny and portable application that does its job perfectly well. A must have for any Windows XP user.

Download XP Quick Fix Plus | Via Download Squad | Image Credit : gui.tavares