Doree Dump – software, hardware, and more to ignore

I just read about this startup that is offering a free service that enhances photos you take of documents and sends them back to you in a much improved, clarified PDF file.  The service is will eventually have premium services that will not be free but say they will always have some level of free service. Depending on the price of the premium services, they may be well worth it. I can think of many times when this could have come in handy after a whiteboard heavy meeting.

alarm:clock: ScanR is Wicked Cool

ScanR, a startup out of Palo Alto raised some money today to support its product in beta. Backers include Trinity Ventures, Thomvest International and WS Investments. ScanR is a simple idea, but fun and productive.

• Top 7 PHP Security Blunders [PHP & MySQL Tutorials]
  A nice write-up on some common security based mistakes made in PHP programming.
  (tags: php programming web code tutorial)
• Photoshop Tutorials Blog » Blog Archive » Top 10 Photoshop Tutorials of 2005
  A collection of the best Photoshop tutorials from the past year.
  (tags: images pictures photoshop tutorial image web)

• Paris by night
  Cool 360 panoramic photo of Paris
  (tags: image photography paris panorama 360 picture)
• Background Image Maker
  online generator of background images for use on web pages.
  (tags: web design background generator image)
• A List Apart: Articles: Sensible Forms: A Form Usability Checklist
  A nice essay on doing web forms right
  (tags: webdesign web design forms html css javascript)

• Ruby off the Rails
  Another nice little tutorial from IBM, this time on Ruby. There’s so much focus on Ruby on Rails lately. It’s nice to see more on Ruby itself.
  (tags: programming code tutorial ruby ibm)

This has been a great week for Google launches. They have just launched a mobile edition of Gmail. So far I’m impressed. It is simple and fast loading. Navigation is generally good.

I would like to see some customization available. Perhaps there is some but I haven’t yet found it. For example, I’m a heavy label user; everything coming in gets filtered to an appropriate label. Mobile Gmail starts at my inbox and doesn’t give a list of my labels. You can get to your list of labels by selecting the option ‘more views’ at the bottom of this page. You are taken to a page with your list of labels etc., which is nice, but it would be better if they gave an indication of any and how many unread messages were in each label. Right now there is no indication. You select a label from the list and go find out for yourself.

All in all the service is a great improvement on browsing to the standard Gmail service on a mobile browser; I use a BlackBerry 7100 which has a fairly small screen. I am thankful for this latest offering from Google but there is still some enhancements I would like to see.

For more information, see the Gmail Mobile page: Google Mobile
To check out the service with your phone go here: Google Mobile

Boing Boing: Google launches Gmail edition for mobile devices

• Amortization Schedule Calculator
  (tags: code php loan amortization calculator free)
• Object-Oriented JavaScript: Building Real-World Examples
  (tags: javascript code ajax object oriented tutorial)
• YouTube – Woomba
  A great faux ad from the wonderfully twisted minds at SNL. From the makers of Roomba, Woomba!
  (tags: comedy funny humor humour snl roomba parody video)

Finally, more control over the Adsense for Search search box. I have yet to experiment with the changes but I’m hopeful.

Inside AdSense: The search for a better search box

It’s a big day for Google today. Unfortunately they didn’t launch the much anticipated and rumoured Google Calendar but they did launch Web Comments Extenstion and Safe Browsing Extension for the Firefox browser.

The Web Comments Extension is a handy way to see blog entries about the current web page you are viewing. It also gives provides you with the opportunity to add your own blog entry at the same time. Unfortunately it only supports commenting using their own Blogger application, which is understandable I guess. Hopefully they will soon add support for other tools.

I tried to install the Safe Browsing Extension, which attempts to warn users when they go to a page that appears to be a spoof or a phishing site. Unfortunately I was unable to install this extension. Maybe it’s just me but when I click on the Agree and Install button, nothing happens. I’ve tried a number of times without success. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I am using Portable Firefox 1.5?

GMail has also rolled out a new and long awaited feature. Without any fanfare they have added Contact Groups. I personally think this is a great new feature, though it should have been present long ago. You can now easily add contacts to custom ‘Groups’ and send an email to all members of that group by simply adding the Group as the recipient of the email. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now, where’s our calendar?!

UPDATE: After some brief digging around I managed to get the Safe Browsing extension installed. This site provides instructions on how to do so. I’ve used this technique to install extensions in the past but that is in situations when the web page provides a direct link to the xpi file. Google did not in this case. The page provided in this update shows what URL to use to get directly to the xpi.

Official Google Blog: New Firefox extensions

• CSS Beauty – SkillShare – My Top 12 CSS Articles/Tricks of 2005 (one for each month)
  - a collection of useful CSS tips / tricks.
  (tags: css tips design web)
• TouchAmp
  This looks like a cool app for controlling the music server via a Palm I’ve got a couple old Palms kicking around and this could be a great way to get that touch screen in the kitchen like I alsowas wanted! Unfortunately there is not yet support for USB connected or wireless Palms. I contacted the author and was told he’d contact me when any updates are available.
  (tags: music winamp touchscreen touch screen server)

I recently signed on to Yahoo! Messenger (via Meebo; meebo.com) for the first time in a long time. I was greeted with the following (xxx’s replace original text):

y_chat_account_dept_09: Hi, xxxxxxxx. I work for Yahoo-Inc. The Yahoo! abuse department has received multiple complaints concerning your account. This constitutes a violation of our Terms of Service Agreement. You must respond to the following complaints to keep your account from being deactivated. http://ru.rd.yahoo.com/login/ym/?http://xxxxxx

This is an obvious phishing attempt that could easily trip up the unwary/unsavvy user. I can imagine many people falling for this. I did a search for this in my favourite search engine but came up empty handed. I would love to bring this to Yahoo!s attention but I am too frustrated by how difficult they make it to actually communicate with a human there.