Desktop Earth ;viewdocsonline ;tidyread

[Peaches]

3 nice little helpers

Have some fun with a beautiful desktop wallpaper, an online document reader, and a tool to make reading web pages much, much easier.

Desktop Earth

As I mentioned in an earlier column (http://rlis.com/columns/column194.htm), I have the most boring desktop imaginable. You can probably guess that I am not a big fan of desktop wallpaper. But I know many of you are, and if so, you might enjoy Desktop Earth (http://codefromthe70s.org/desktopearth_dl.aspx). Desktop Earth is a wallpaper generator for Windows. It runs whenever your computer is connected to the internet and updates your wallpaper with an accurate representation of the Earth as it would be seen from space at that precise moment.

You can download Desktop Earth here:

Desktop Earth - http://codefromthe70s.org/desktopearth_dl.aspx

Once installed, you will see a stunning view of earth, which will change as the day/night progresses. You can tweak some settings, if necessary, to make the picture match the actual time of day more closely.

When you install Desktop Earth on Windows XP, you might notice a blue outline around the text for you desktop icons. If you want to remove that, follow these steps:

Right-click on My Computer

Click on Properties Advanced

Click on Performance Options Visual Effects

Select Custom

Select "Use drop shadows for icon labels..."

Click Apply

OK your way out

ViewDocsOnline

ViewDocsOnline is a great idea and a very useful site. It's a website that allows you to view the most common document types even if your computer doesn't have the program to read them. Simply browse to

ViewDocsOnline - http://www.viewdocsonline.com/

and follow the prompts to upload the document, or point to a document online. Once the file is open, you can save, print, or share it with others.

ViewDocsOnline will display Microsoft Office documents, including PowerPoint and Word PDF documents, and OpenOffice documents. A full list of the files supported is available on the website.

TidyRead

TidyRead eliminates the clutter found on many web pages, and makes the actual content easy to read. When you visit web sites, TidyRead will sense that there is text, and automatically present you with a nicely formatted version of the web page. Clicking on the TidyRead icon at the bottom of the browser lets you toggle back and forth between the TidyRead version and the actual page.

You can easily customize TidyRead's behaviour and appearance. I found the "automatic" part of this a bit too aggressive, and changed the settings so that I can turn on TidyRead only when I want it. It's easy to change the font size, too. Grab TidyRead here:

TidyRead - http://www.tidyread.com/

It will work on most browsers, and it will also work on an iPhone or iPod Touch.