With the number of laptops I reinstall Windows on every day constantly on the rise, I’ve been looking for applications that might help boost my pitiful short-term memory - for some reason, my boss frowns upon me playing Brain Age at work.And since 6AM isn’t the best time to be shouting at something in my house (toddler, wife, etc.), I need something a bit more quiet to help me practice. Speed Read may be just the app for the job.The idea is very simple: display the number of words you choose at a specified interval to improve your ability to recall groups of words and maintain attention to (Read the full post about ‘Speed Read : Improve Your Reading and Retention Skills’…)

Image sharing site Flickr has allowed users to view attractive slideshows of search results or image sets for a while now. But for some reason, up until now you had to rely on a third party service if you wanted to embed that slideshow on your own web page. Or you could create an iFrame and figure out how to create the code yourself. But who wants to go through the trouble?This week, Flickr finally added the ability to share a slideshow with other users. Just click the Share link when viewing any slideshow on Flickr. You get two options: a URL that links to the slideshow you’re viewing (Read the full post about ‘Flickr finally launches embeddable slideshow widget’…)

If you’ve ever used a keyboard app launcher like Launchy, Executor, Quicksilver, or Gnome Do you’ve probably asked yourself, why doesn’t Microsoft build something like this into Windows? Now Microsoft Office Labs has released a free keyboard launcher called Speed Launch. Speed Launch adds a little bull’s eyee to your desktop. To add a frequently used program, file, or document, to Speed Launch, just drag it to the target. You can then activate Speed Launch by hitting Win+C to bring up the program window. You can either hit the buttons to perform specified actions or type into the box. In (Read the full post about ‘Microsoft finally gets into the keyboard app launcher biz with Speed Launch’…)

Firefox is like a box of chocolates–No, let me try that again. Firefox is one of those applications that’s so hard to write about, because there may be little tricks and shortcuts I’ve been using for some time, and someone will discover one and say, “Hey, that rocks! Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Then light dawns over my marblehead that it is a useful trick, and I should have pointed it out.So Sean Privitera kindly reminded me that searching Google on Firefox is easier than it appears. Ever been reading something on the web and you have no freakin’ idea what the word or phrase means? Select (Read the full post about ‘Dogs hide bones, Firefox hides useful tricks’…)

If installing a program like Trust No Exe isn’t your style, you can always use registry edits and policy changes to lock down PCs. That can be a little tiresome, but Nawras PC Supervisor makes it as simple as checking a few boxes.PC Supervisor gives you control over just about everything you might want to restrict. Control panel access can either be blocked completely or limited to only those options you want displayed. Hide drive letters and features like “run as,” network connections, and the places bar.Use it to disable everything from registry editing and task manager to display settings (Read the full post about ‘Nawras PC Supervisor Configures Local Security Controls’…)

Vyew My PC is a flash-based instant desktop sharing product with a lot of fun features. Basically, go to the Vyew My PC web page and click start sharing my desktop. You will be given a unique, unguessable URL. You can then share that URL with anyone you’d like to share your desktop with. There are some features you need an account to use, but the basics are usable by anyone. You can upload files to be shown on the Vyew My PC desktop, use the whiteboard features, chat and with registration, use audio/video features. You cannot however, view anything outside the Vyew My PC desktop area. So, if (Read the full post about ‘Vyew My PC easy online desktop sharing for anyone’…)

TripSay is hard to explain. It combines travel information, social networking, maps and reviews of places. As someone who enjoys traveling, I think it has potential. Basically, you log in to TripSay and build your world by entering places you have traveled. Each place you enter can get a rating from a smiley face to a butt (really!) and a short tip or comment for which you can, thankfully use more than 140 characters. You can join groups with similar travel interests like a particular place or type of travel. Based on your rating of places you will get recommendations on the map that match (Read the full post about ‘TripSay like Twitter… with a map… for travelers… sort of’…)

Without a doubt, WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms currently available for people who want to install and maintain their content management system on their own server. I mean, what’s not to love? Free, powerful, and easy to use - it’s the whole package. But for all of its positive attributes, WordPress certainly doesn’t get everything right. Take, for example, the email notifications that the blogging platform generates. They’re ugly, right? Full URLs make for a muddy reading experience. To be honest, I really wasn’t aware how ugly those emails were until I saw what a (Read the full post about ‘Clean Notifications - WordPress plugin’…)

Louis Suarez-Potts, the community manager for the open-source Open Office project, says software piracy also hurts the open-source community, and though it can be argued that open-source is bad for innovation, most of us love the open source community. So does the occasional pirated piece of software really hurt our beloved open source projects?Suarez-Potts thinks it’s bad for everyone including the open source community since pirated software theoretically takes “customers” away from open source projects. For example, a college student may never end up downloading Open Office since he (Read the full post about ‘Does software piracy hurt the open source community?’…)