Avoiding forgotten email attachments

How many times do I forget to attach a file to an email? Probably at least once a week. Always embarrassing, and usually when I am trying to project a professional impression. PC World has some helpful tips to avoid the problem, at least with Microsoft Outlook. It suggests several free tools that scan your outbound messages for keywords like "file," "attached," and "attachment." If they detect such a word but there's nothing attached, you get an alert - allowing you to attach the intended file and avoid future embarrassment.
Outlook 2007 users can grab the Missing Attachment PowerToy, or the more robust Forgotten Attachment Detector (which supports custom keywords and can even warn you about blank subject lines). If you're using an earlier version of Outlook, try Attached4Sure which supports all versions dating back to 2002.
I don't know of any similar tool for Outlook Express, but Google Mail users get the same service with its Forgotten Attachment Detector, with is a setting within the program.

Panorama photos

Back in February I posted about the difficulty of finding a good free program to create panorama photos. I use Serif Panorama Plus, which does the job of stitching several pics together very nicely, but it is a paid program. However, I have just come across an updated version of http://www.image-editor.net/Pos-Panorama-Pro-Panoramic-Image-Software.asp?RefName=PosPanoramaPro1.00, which used to be commercial but has now been turned into a free program. Having given it a quick trial, I can thoroughly recommend it. In fact it has a very good feature missing in Serif Panorama - the ability to create vertical panoramas. It also allows greater control over the way in which the pics are combined, and the resolution of the end product. I think I will be switching permanently.
Incidentally, did you realise that the average digital camera has a wide-angle lens? In the old days of film cameras, the average lens had a focal length of 50mm, so the resulting photograph was pretty close to how the eye sees things. But most digital cameras are more like 35mm. This means that you are getting a horizontally compressed photograph which is not true to life. To bring things back to better perspective, I suggest trimming either the top, bottom or both of the photo, which will give a semi-panorama anyway.

Fold a world record-setting paper airplane

Many years ago I was a journalist with what was then known as the BCNZ, the state corporation that controlled virtually all radio and TV stations, apart from Radio Hauraki and a couple of other new upstarts that were easing apart the bureaucratic log-jam. The Christchurch newsroom was on the top floor of the Manchester Unity building on the corner of Manchester and Worcester Streets, and on lazy, hot Sunday afternoons we had way too much time on our hands - so we made paper airplanes. One of my co-workers had developed a model that would just about hover, and we spent many fun hours pushing these out the windows to see how far they would go. With a decent warm updraft, on at least one occasion we saw the airplane top nearby Christchurch Cathedral. I am therefore delighted to see that a very similar version to Derek's design has appeared online, and there's even a video to show you how to fold it. (Note: the video at Lifehacker does not play properly, so use this link.) Now, if they can develop a radio-controlled model.......

The weirdest USB gadgets

From a dental microscope to electric ties, there's an astounding array of weird and wonderful gizmos you can plug into your computer, reports the Stuff website. There are so many bizarre USB (Universal Serial Bus) gadgets available that people didn't even blink when news of a USB chainsaw recently hit the tech websites.

Speed up your browser

There are many things that can slow down your internet browser. If you use Firefox, one of them is the way the browser keeps a track of what you are doing. Firefox automatically takes a snapshot of your browsing session every ten seconds. It does this so that if Firefox crashes, you'll be able to get back to where you were quickly and easily. But when you view Flash content (eg, YouTube videos), this default snapshot feature can make your video pause and buffer, spoiling your viewing experience. To fix this is not difficult, fortunately. All you have to do is adjust how frequently Firefox creates session restore save points. Doing this might mean that if the browser crashes, a recently opened tab may get left behind, but if you watch a lot of Flash video, this tweak may be a good compromise.
1. Type ‘about:config’ in to the browser address bar and press the return key. This will bring up a bewildering array of Firefox’s more detailed settings.
2. In the the filter box at the top of the page, type in the following command (minus quotes): "browser.sessionstore.interval" (or just scroll down till you find it).
3. Once you find the command, edit the value of 10000 (10 seconds in milliseconds) to something more suitable such as 180000, which is 3 minutes.

Are you already running Google Chrome OS?

There’s been a lot of discussion around the Web following Google’s announcement that it plans to introduce its own operating system, Google Chrome OS. It has thrown down a gauntlet to the three other main systems – Windows, Mac and Linux. Where Google plans to be completely different is that apart from a small system kernel (Linux-based), almost nothing will reside on your computer. Everything will be done in what has become known as “the cloud” – in other words, online. If the vision comes fully to pass, your computer will have no other software. All your documents will be stored online. No more buying Word, Excel, PhotoShop or anything else, or upgrading them at ridiculous prices every year or so. All those applications will be internet-based.
In fact, if you use Google Chrome and the web applications Google has already released, then you're effectively already running Google Chrome OS. Just maximize Google Chrome's window and imagine that each tab is an instance of an application. Gmail is your mail client, Google Calendar is the calendaring application, Google Docs is the office suite and the file explorer. Google Chrome's new tab page is the desktop, the dashboard that lists frequently used applications and lets you add widgets.
Besides those, there are hundreds if not thousands of other online applications, from image editing programs to media players (and not just YouTube).
By the time Chrome is released towards the end of next year, you will be so used to working in this way, you’ll barely notice the transition – or so they hope. The only two questions maybe left to ask: Do you trust the cloud to store all your critical data; and do you have adequate broadband at a reasonable price to cope with the traffic?

10 tips for Google image search

Google System Blog says Google Image Search could be used in many ways beyond the obvious. For instance:
If you want to know if a person is a man or a woman and the name doesn't help, do a search for the name.
It provides a better search for Flickr. Google uses information from other sites that link to Flickr photos, so you may find Google search better.
Find a new wallpaper for your desktop by restricting your search to large images. You can automate this using an application.
Find random personal pictures, using standard file names from digital cameras.
Type the name of a painter and you can take an art class.
Install a Greasemonkey script so you can view the original version of the image directly by clicking on the thumbnail. (Greasemonkey is a Firefox add-on that provides thousands of scripts to perform a vast range of functions not normally part of the browser experience.)