Looking up the geolocation of an IP address is something that's simple to do because there are so many sites out there providing the service for free. One downside is that many services cap you at how many requests you can make each day to try and avoid having people abuse their systems.
Windows only Many computers these days are shipping with SSDs to improve the overall performance of the machines, but as a compromise we have to give up some of the storage space we've grown accustomed to having.
Windows only There aren't many instances when I have to print things these days, but when I do I feel like I'm wasting a lot of paper with the stuff I'm trying to print off. There is a free app called iPrint that tries to save your precious resources by helping you print multiple pages on to one single page.
UPDATE: The developer of the site has since taken the site down after I had already written the article. Thanks to everyone who sent emails and posted comments letting me know!
If you are one of the people that use dozens of extensions in Chrome then there is a good chance you're wasting memory that you don't have to be. Chrome lets you disable extensions on-the-fly so that they don't consume any resources until you enable them again. If you, for example, have some web development extensions installed you may only want them enabled when doing related work.
With the holidays right around the corner it is important to make sure you're getting the best deal for the gifts you are picking up. There are all kinds of browser extensions out there that can help you save a few dollars, but PriceBlink is one I always use.
There are some great tools out there for testing a website's performance including Web Page Test, Stella, and WatchMouse. Those are the three that I regularly find myself using, but the website monitoring service Pingdom recently updated their Full Page Test tool blowing many others out of the water.
I recently heard about a service called BrowserStack that I just had to try out. We've seen services before that let you view a screenshot of what your site looks like in other browsers, but nothing comes close to what this has to offer. You literally get hands-on time with your site in Firefox, IE, Chrome, Safari, and Opera with a wide array of versions supported.
I recently read about an incredible service called ifttt (If This Then That). It does something I never thought I would see happen… it integrate dozens of social sites together through the use of customizable actions.
Mac only Recently I had been noticing that each hour when my Time Machine backups ran there was an excessive amount of data being backed up. I could understand the data changing frequently given how much I use my computer, but the backups were still over 1GB even when the machine sat idle.
Windows; Linux Have you ever been in the situation where you've wanted to archive a website so that you'd have a copy of it exactly the way it was at that moment? If you have just one page you want to save that can generally be done with tools like this Chrome extension, but to create a copy of a site it can be a lot more complicated.
Windows only We've covered several Windows Explorer alternatives here on the site, and in general the ones that are free all leave something to be desired. The thing that I really like with NexusFile is that it has many of the features power users want, but without all the clutter that a lot of the other file managers tend to come with.
When the iPhone first came out there were no third-party applications allowed, and as a result users had to resort to "web apps" as a way to quickly access the tools they used the most. Apple tried to make this a little more convenient by letting them bookmark sites on the home screen, but in the end all that bookmark really did was open a new tab in Safari.
Windows only Microsoft added a lot of great features in Windows 7 that makes managing your windows a lot easier, such as Aero Snap and Aero Shake. For some users, however, these features may actually become even more useful if they are tweaked just a little bit. AquaSnap is a free program that adds a new twist to the way some of those things work:
If you're a web developer there is a good chance that you've had to mess around with a lot of CSS code. It's not the easiest thing in the world to work with, but there are tools out there that try to guide you along the way.
I'm sure there are a lot of times where you need to know your external/public IP address, and there is probably a specific site you always go to for that information.
I didn't realize how many different sounds our hands could make until I played with the American Heart Association's Hands Symphony site. They are using the site to promote learning CPR, and in doing so came up with a rather viral campaign.
Windows only If you are looking for a way to spice up your day a little bit maybe what you need is something that will play elevator music while programs are opening, files are copying, and your downloads are downloading. Instant Elevator Music is an app that will play, well, elevator music when those kinds of operations are taking place.
Windows only There seems to be all kinds of screenshot apps available for Windows, and many of them cater to different audiences. One of my favorites is Greenshot since it is lightweight, free, and has just the right number of features, but CaptureIt Plus comes in a close second.
A couple weeks ago I was trying to configure a TV antenna to get some of my local television stations in the over-the-air HD quality they broadcasted in. The problem was that in trying to figure out the best direction to point the antenna I realized that there had to be an easy way to get the optimal direction for the antenna to face. That's when I came across AntennaPoint.com.
