Google has unveiled something new called Google Instant.

It is simply Google search on steroids. Lots of steroids.

Google Instant gives you search results as you type in the search box.

Search as you type. It’s a simple and straightforward idea—people can get results as they type their queries. Imagining the future of search, the idea of being able to search for partial queries or provide some interactive feedback while searching has come up more than a few times.

As you can imagine, searching even before someone types isn’t easy—which is why we are so excited today to be unveiling Google Instant. Google Instant is search-before-you-type. Instant takes what you have typed already, predicts the most likely completion and streams results in real-time for those predictions—yielding a smarter and faster search that is interactive, predictive and powerful.
Here are a few of the core features in Google Instant:

• Dynamic Results – Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
• Predictions – One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.
• Scroll to search – Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

The blog post explains the technology behind Google Instant. It looks like they added new caching systems, ability to adaptively control the rate at which the results are shown and optimization of page-rendering Javascript to bring this to life.

I think I am going to get used to this instant searching!

Try Google Instant

Check out this video about Google Instant

Google Instant Unveils Search As You Type - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/09/08 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

If you have your Google Voice number attached to your Gmail and use it to call people from within Gmail, Google Voice blog has a few useful tips

• Call screening: When you see an incoming call notification in Gmail and you are not sure who is calling you, you can just hit ‘Screen’. The caller gets your voicemail and you can listen in as they leave a message. You can just click ‘Join’ if you want to pick up the call.
  
• Switch calls between Gmail and phones: If you picked up a call on Gmail but you need to leave, just hit * on Gmail dialpad and your other Google Voice forwarding phones will ring. You can just answer that and pick up the call there as you walk out the door without disconnecting the call.
• Record incoming calls: For any reason should you want to record a call, just press 4 on the Gmail dialpad and the the call will be saved in your Google Voice inbox.
• Click to dial Chrome extension: If you use Google Chrome browser, this extension is a must have. This lets you click on any number on any website or in email and dial with Google Voice.
  

Do you have your own tips for using Google Voice within Gmail, share it with us in the comments or tip me in twitter @KIntheHouse.

{ via Google Voice blog }

Tips for Using Google Voice in Gmail - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/09/07 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

But, with Gmail and its filters and labels and stars and zillion cool labs features, I try keep my sanity when I am looking at my inbox.

And it works to a certain extent. Still a lot of the work in managing my inbox involves me spending a time deciding what is important and what is not.

Enter Priority Inbox feature in Gmail.

Gmail is good about marking spam mails but we sign up and subscribe and get tons of emails that aren’t outright spam but just serve to contribute to distraction and disrupting out productivity. Basically they are not as important as some other emails.

Priority Inbox basically tries to cull those and separate the important emails from the rest of the noise. It does so by analyzing who you email the most, which emails you open and reply and other signals.

Priority Inbox is like your personal assistant, helping you focus on the messages that matter without requiring you to set up complex rules.

Priority Inbox splits your inbox into three sections: “Important and unread,” “Starred” and “Everything else”:

As messages come in, Gmail automatically flags some of them as important. Gmail uses a variety of signals to predict which messages are important, including the people you email most (if you email Bob a lot, a message from Bob is probably important) and which messages you open and reply to (these are likely more important than the ones you skip over). And as you use Gmail, it will get better at categorizing messages for you. You can help it get better by clicking the or buttons at the top of the inbox to correctly mark a conversation as important or not important. (You can even set up filters to always mark certain things important or unimportant, or rearrange and customize the three inbox sections.)

Once this feature is enabled on your Gmail account, you will see a notification in Red on near the Settings link in Gmail. You can activate it from there. Google is rolling this feature out to everyone in the next week.

Once, activated you can customize the settings in a few ways. I have set it up to show Important and unread messages at the top, starred messages next, Important and read messages next and then everything else. You can also reset this in different order as well as set up the number of emails you want to see in each section independently.

Plus, you can also set if you want to see the regular Inbox or Priority Inbox on opening Gmail.

I love Gmail and they just keep adding more and more goodness to it!

Here is a video about this feature

{ via Google blog }

Gmail Priority Inbox Finds Your Important Emails - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/09/03 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

First off, Whistler makes a great line of radar detectors. Whistler XTR-695 has all the bells and whistles (pun intended) like

• 7-color backlit LCD tect display
• Filter mode
• Auto dim mode
• INTELLICORD Ready
• Real Voice Alerts
• Ka Max mode for improved Ka Band sensitivity
• 3 City modes/Highway mode
• Alert priority
• Quiet/Auto quiet modes

A quick check on Google Products shows that this is going for atleast $130 elsewhere and even more at reputable online outlets.

However, Amazon has the Whistler XTR-695 Laser/Radar Detector for $99.99 with free shipping. Of course, if you want to really go all out, don’t forget to check out the Whistler PRO-78 SE High-Performance Radar Detector with Blue Text Display.

Whistler XTR-695 Laser/Radar Detector with Voice Alerts $99 Shipped - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/09/02 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

However, when it comes to Android based phones if you start looking into the selection available to you, I guarantee that your head will start to spin.

The good folks at Portable Electronics Ltd, a New Zealand based electronics distribution company has built an amazing massive spreadsheet with all known Android devices!

The kind souls have shared this spreadsheet as a publicly available Google Docs spreadsheet.

The Android devices are separated based on the year of their release with the ‘Android mobile phones 2010’ as the first tab. You will even see other categories where Android is in use such as Netbooks/eBooks, PMP/MIDs, TV & even Cars.

The spreadsheet has information on processor, architecture, frequency, ROM, RAM, Internal memory, dimensions, weight, touch screen, 3G and a dizzying array of information about the devices.

Android Devices Comparison spreadsheet

So, before you start shopping for an Android phone make sure you compare the specs and features available as they can be hard to compare just by looking at them.

{ thanks to Portable Electronics Ltd }

Comprehensive Comparison Spreadsheet of All Known Android Phones - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/09/02 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

Something Roku HD has been doing well for a while.

AppleTV Features

• 1/4 the size as previous model
• Built-in power – just needs a cord
• 1 HDMI port
• Built-in WiFi
• Slim aluminum remote
• Rental model – no storage problem
• Streaming content from computer – no syncing needed
• Stunning photo slideshows
• Silent, cool and small
• First run HD movie rentals for $4.99 from iTunes – the day come out on DVD
• ABC/FOX – $0.99 HD TV show rentals
• Stream Netflix to AppleTV
• Watch Youtube videos
• Photos from Flickr & MobileMe
• Interface integrates Rotten Tomatoes reviews
• Switch playback from iPad or iPhone to AppleTV with AirPlay!

AppleTV vs Roku

With AppleTV poaching on Roku’s territory, you might be wondering what makes better sense for you. While AppleTV is new and shiny, it was kind of a bummer in terms of game changing devices Apple has been introducing lately with iPhones and Apple iPads.

Whereas, Roku has been a solid player in this market. What started as just a Netflix streaming device has become a versatile streaming device. Roku has around 50 channels and yes some of the content is paid only. Plus, it also lets you access over 45,000 movies and shows from Amazon Video on Demand.

Unless you are a house with full of Apple products, Roku definitely still stands out in terms of functionality.

In fact, you could take advantage of the recent price drop for Roku models across the board in light of AppleTV’s appearance.

• Roku SD Player – $59.99
• Roku HD Player – $69.99
• Roku HD-XR Player – $99.99 (with Wi-Fi)

So, which one of the above appeals to you? For me, my Sony Playstation 3 has me covered when it comes to movie/music streaming or Netflix streaming.

New $99 AppleTV vs $99 Roku HD-XR - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/09/01 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

TeuxDeux was popular for its easy to use AJAXified interface. It worked just like an online paper calendar. You can easily add tasks to certain dates on the screen. Each task gets scratched off as you are done. You can also move tasks by drag n drop.

TeuxDeux has undergone some nice changes since we look at it last earlier this year and added some new features.

Task management has gotten easier . We have a nice fast forward button to click and go a week ahead. Or you could pick a calendar frame to look at. A nice touch is an organizing column for your ‘Someday’ tasks so you can add non-dated tasks.

Check out this video on the new features in TeuxDeux.

TeuxDeux Part Deux from TeuxDeux on Vimeo.

TeuxDeux also has a companion iPhone app for $2.99 that syncs with your online account.

If you are not into GTD or don’t need an extensive task management system like ToodleDo task manager or Remember the Milk, the free web app TeuxDeux is edefinitely worth taking a look at.

{ via lifehacker }

TeuxDeux Online Task Manager Part Deux - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/30 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

Now they have added over 400 full length movies for us to watch free on Youtube.

YouTube had added a few free movies and TV shows last year. Before you get too excited, you are not going to find brand new movies but there is a wider selection of classics and movies now.

It is split into variety of categories and I was thrilled to find a bunch of Jackie Chan movies in action & adventure. Plus, there is a good selection of documentaries and even some Bollywood titles.

Thanks to Google, you can enjoy a nice collection of free movies if you are ever wondering what to do with the free time.

YouTube Adds 400+ Free Full Length Movies - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/27 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

They had added the ability to send free SMS messages right from within Gmail too. Now, they have added the ability to call any phone from within Gmail!

In fact, atleast for the rest of 2010, calls within US and Canada are going to be FREE!

Once you install the voice and video plugin for your browser, you will see a Call Phone button in your chat window. You can dial any number in the numeric keypad or just type in your contact name and pick a number you have attached to a contact.

If you have a Google Voice number associated with your Gmail account, then your outgoing caller id will have your Google Voice number automatically. You can also choose to receive calls to this number right inside of Gmail!

If you have a US based Gmail account, you will start seeing this feature in the next few days. My account already had it when I tried this afternoon.

Check out this video!

{ via Google Voice blog }

Gmail Adds Voice Calls - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/25 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

I just came across this Western Digital WD Elements 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive for $69.99 with free shipping from Amazon.

I have had good luck with Western Digital drives and this is definitely a great deal for 1TB. if you are looking to go bigger, Elements 2 TB Drive goes for just $119.99 with free shipping.

Western Digital Elements 1TB Ext Hard Drive $69.99 [Deals] - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/24 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

Flock has just released a new version of their social browser this time based on Chromium. Chromium is the open source browser project Google made Open Source when they released the Google Chrome browser.

Flock has ditched Mozilla’s Firefox and has moved over to Google Chrome as its base and totally re-engineered their social browser.

For those new to Flock, it is a social web browser where they let you add all your social networking accounts and provide easy access to them as well as nice integration so you can seamless share content with your friends as you browse.

Here is what I found on the Flock blog

These are exciting times around the Flock offices and in our wider community. As many of you know, we recently launched the New Flock Social Browser and the response from our users and people new to the Flock experience has been phenomenal. A core focus of the new Flock is to help users better manage the large volume of information and relationships they interact with online each day and we’ve been blown away to see that our first 20,000 new Flock beta users have viewed, managed and interacted with over 100,000,000 "activities" in the Flock sidebar in the first 3 weeks of using product! ("activities" include tweets, DMs, status updates, comments, feeds, requests, invites, photo upload notifications, etc, etc.)

Right now, the new Flock browser (beta) seems to support only Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. But, the integration is similar to the one before. You could see the Twitter, Facebook updates in the sidebar. Also, you could see them as a unified view if you use multiple accounts and just want to check them together.

You could also add your favorite RSS feeds in the mix.

Earlier, I believe they had integrated Delicious, StumbleUpon, Gmail, etc but the new motto ‘Built for Twitter and Facebook’ probably makes it clear on their intentions to keep things focused on these 2 powerhouses.

I have been using Google Chrome more and more lately for casual surfing and Firefox for Web development. I am giving Flock a try to see if it really aids my social networking seamlessly while working just like Google Chrome. if it does, we will have a winner here with most Google Chrome fans.

The new Flock beta is now only available on Windows and you can enter your email address to get notified for a Mac version.

Download New Flock browser

New Flock Social Browser Based on Chromium - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/24 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

You get a $999 state of the art laptop with the latest i5 Intel chip, a free $150 Amazon Gift Card and a free Netgear Wireless TV Adapter that costs $99. All of this for $989!! With free shipping!

To see this deal in action, do the following

• Add ASUS U43JC-X1 14-Inch Bamboo Laptop (10 Hours of Battery Life) to your cart. ($999.00 value)
• Add Amazon.com $150 Gift Card to the cart
• Add NETGEAR Push2TV TV Adapter for Intel Wireless Display PTV1000 (Black) to the cart. ($99 value)

You will see the final price in the cart after you have added everything from the above links.

A little about ASUS U43JC-X1 14” Bamboo Laptop

• Rich Bamboo cover, tactile aluminium-magnesium accents.
• Intel Core-i5-450M Processor 2.4GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.66GHz
• Nvidia G310M Graphics Engine with 1 GB DDR3 Dedicated VRAM and Optimus Technology
• 4 GB of DDR3 1066MHz DRAM (2 GB x 2 slots), 4 GB Max; Intel Wireless 802.11 b/g/n + WiDi
• 500 GB Hard Drive (5400 RPM); Super Multi Optical Disk Drive; Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit) Operating System
• 14-Inch HD (1366×768) LED Display; HDMI Port; USB 3.0 port; 8 cell 5600mAh battery (up to 10hrs battery life)

If you have been looking for a back-to-school laptop, this deal can make it happen and make you happy for a hunting down a solid deal!

ASUS 14” Bamboo Laptop + Free $150 Amazon GC + $99 Wireless TV Adapter for $989 - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/21 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

Well, Amazon has a great selection of Blu-Ray disks for under $15.

Some of the titles found there

• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Extended Version
• The Hangover
• Gangs of New York
• The Crazies
• Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince

and many more titles.

Check out these incredible Blu-Ray deals for just under $15!

Blu-ray Disk Deals Under $15 at Amazon - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/20 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

It looks like their search engine is actually powered by ITA Software’s Matrix engine. It also powers most of the major deal hunting websites such as Orbitz, CheapTickets, and lot of airline agents’ tools as well.

If you wanted to skip all the ads and additional promo’s built into these interfaces, you can directly go to the Matrix engine.

Matrix is no fancy pants and actually offers a no-frills interface to find flight deals. It is fast and gets you the fares almost instantly.

You enter your departing from and destination locations. Then you can enter exact dates or you can choose to see a calendar of lowest fares available. (best option to find the best deals)

Then you choose your length of stay and you get a flexibility of 7 days. You can start your search now or choose the More Options. Here you get to select the type of seats, number of stops, check seat availability, sales city, etc.

Once you hit go, it brings up a calendar (if you chose that option) of lowest fares with the lowest fares highlighted in Orange. You just hover over to see the number of nights and the date of return for that fare.

On the right of the calendar, you will see the airline with the lowest fare in Orange as well. Plus, you can filter the results by unchecking certain airlines if you have such preferences.

The interface may look bland but it has all the AJAX goodness that updates the data as you check and uncheck boxes on the fly. It worked blazing fast.

You can also click the Show Flights to see a listing of airlines and flights with timings. This view had a couple of interesting details for me. I could pull down the More Details link to see detailed flight timings. Also, it has an ‘Advisory’ section that warns you of overnight flights, long layovers, or even warnings like missing connection will lead to significant delays. I haven’t seen such information elsewhere.

Another surprising fact was that with international travels i have only been able to get good deals with a travel agent. In fact, I just bought the tickets from an agent for our upcoming travel and was surprised to see Matrix show me the same prices I got from an agent in the same airlines!

Next time around though, when I call my agent I have solid information of fares/itinerary available and compare the rates they offer. It is highly likely my agent uses the same Matrix software!

It looks like I couldn’t purchase directly from ITA’s software and I have option of calling my agent or the airlines to book the ticket!

Next time you fly, give ITA’s Matrix software a try before you jump on to other websites. You could have some solid information real fast without the bloat!

I still recommend Kayak for its amazing interface and it covers flights, hotels and rental cars! I will be adding Matrix to the best travel sites I frequent.

Visit ITA Matrix

ITA’s Matrix Offers No-Frills Flight Price Comparison Tool - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/19 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

Rapportive is a web solution that replaces the ad column in Gmail with a rich contact profile.

Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox.

You can immediately see what people look like, where they’re based, and what they do. You can establish rapport by mentioning shared interests. You can grow your network by connecting on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and more. And you can record thoughts for later by leaving notes.

Imagine relationship management built into your email. For free.

Rapportive is available as an add-on for Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Mailplane app. If you have tried Xobni for Microsoft Outlook, Rapportive does the same for Gmail.

The extension works by checking the email address of the person you are looking at with publicly available social network presences, pictures.

You can find what your contacts are upto in the social networks, connect with them in more meaningful ways and even add notes about them that will appear with their profile everytime.

After using it for a day, I found a few of my friends on Flickr which I never knew before, found a few contacts on Linked In, and some in Facebook and Twitter.

I can’t believe I didn’t have this before in my Gmail! I highly recommend trying out Rapportive right away!

Try Rapportive

Rich Contact Profiles Inside Gmail with Rapportive - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/17 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

There are probably a few dozen free and great software that you have found over the years and can’t live without.

FreeApps is a website that makes downloading the best of free and open source apps as a single bundle a breeze. FreeApps is easy, fast and safe to download.

Simply visit Freenew.net and click on the Get Installer to get the best of recommended free apps in a bundle. You could also create an  account and store your own favorite custom list at the site so you can come back to download the same set anytime. Or even share the list the with a friend or family you are playing the tech support.

You can browse through their directory in neat categories and pick the best of free software available. All the software in the bundle are tested to make sure they are free of virus, spyware, adware or any other threats. They are downloaded straight from the vendor’s trusted servers so you can rest easy knowing that.

Make sure you check out a similar free applications bundle site Ninite we reviewed earlier.

At the end of the day, having an installer like this makes re-installing Windows OS on any machine a lot less painful task.

FreeApps is Windows only. You can check out best free apps for Linux and best free apps for Mac OS X if you use those OS flavors.

Visit FreeApps

Download Best of Free Software As a Bundle with FreeApps - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/16 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

I use Google Contacts as my primary contacts source and even sync it to my iPhone. So, as you can imagine it was a little underwhelming to use Google Contacts so far.

Here are the new features/changes I noticed over the old Gmail Contacts

• New Contacts tab under Mail
• Contacts list fill the entire screen just like emails in inbox
• Contacts view lists name, phone number, address and labels if you assigned any groups.
• Clicking on a contact takes you to the edit screen.
• Edit screen layout is much nicer with a HUGE Notes area.
• Edit pane is much nicer as you just click on a field and start editing
• Contacts screen has a link ‘View recent conversations’ that’ll take you to a pre-filtered view of your mails with that person
• Keyboard shortcuts
  
• Sort by labels
• Custom labels for phone numbers and other fields
• Undo changes you just made
• Automatic saving of entries

For those who like and have a system with how Gmail works, the new Contacts will feel like home. I really like these changes and I am looking forward to more control when I sync my contacts with my smartphone. I would really like the ability to select groups of contacts like how we select the Google calendar sync with iPhone.

Google has made a lot of these changes so it is easier to use it from Android phones and it is definitely a step in the right direction.

Gmail Contacts Become More Useful - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/12 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

i have written a lot on why I trust them and will skip trying to convince you that it is secure. Instead, this post is for Passpack users.

Passpack works great on all major browsers but the web interface is very hard to use on smaller mobile smartphone screens.

Passpack has unveiled a mobile interface and it is delicious! But, before you complain about the little bugs there remember it is still a work in progress.

Here is what you can do right now

• Go to https://m.passpack.com and sign in.
• View, add and manage your passwords
• Send secure messages and read archived messages
• View and (partially) manage your shared users and groups
• Update most of your account settings
• Setup your mobile favorites (from desktop) and they will be unpacked as you login
• By default, it won’t unpack anything except mobile favs
• Select unpack all or choose a tag to unpack.

Here are a few things Passpack is still working on

• Autologin
• Sending & receiving passwords via email encryption deactivated
• Bulk edit & group management
• Better navigation
• A new cool way to access Passpack without the long packing key

Passpack Mobile has been tested on iPhone Safari browser and Opera Mini. If you have an Android phone, give it a shot and let me know how it works for you. It worked great on my iPhone!

Although I would love to see a Passpack iPhone app, the mobile interface is a great improvement over the current full blown site.

Passpack Comes to Mobile Phones - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/11 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

In my quest for a GTD workflow I can implement with the way I work, I needed an online tool that I can access anywhere including easy access on my iPhone. I also needed it to work seamlessly with Google Calendar.

ToodleDo is a web based task manager with a strong inclination towards the Getting Things Done concept. It can be a great tool for those trying to implement this to improve their productivity.

ToodleDo is available as a free version and a subscription based PRO and PRO Plus versions. We are going to look at the free version and then see what the extra paid options offer you.

ToodleDo Free Features

• Easy to use online task organizer
• Use folders, contexts, due dates, priorities, status, time estimates to your tasks
• Hotlist features that intelligently groups tasks that you should be looking at
• Email and SMS reminders for tasks
• Sort, slice and dice your tasks by different filters
• View by projects, contexts, due dates, status, priority, etc.
• Google Calendar integration
• Import your tasks from a variety of tools – Palm OS PDA, Microsoft Outlook, Apple’s iCal and even other online todo lists like Remember the Milk, Voo2do, etc.
• Public sharing of your todo list
• Short term and long term goals
• Take notes and keep them organized in folders
• History of your tasks – helpful when you need to fill in timesheets
• To-Do list booklet printer lets you print your todo list to fold and put in your pocket
• Excellent extensions for mobile phones, email import/export, Firefox add-on, Google gadgets, Twitter,  iCal, etc.

As you can see most casual users will be more than happy with the free features offered by ToodleDo. Yet, you can see if upgrading to a PRO will help increase your productivity.

ToodleDo Pro Features ($14.95/year)

• Subtasks, stats and scheduler
• Collaboration, Goal progress, secure encrypted connections
• Customizable booklets
• Full history (upto 2 years rentention_
• More sort options
• Enhanced reminders/alarms
• Longer tracking of account activity
• Priority support

ToodleDo Pro Plus Features ($29.95/year)

In addition to the Pro features you get,

• 5GB of file storage with tasks
• Completed tasks are retained forever

If you would like to compare ToodleDo with it’s competitors this chart put together by ToodleDo could help you a little.

I have owned PRO account in Remember the Milk just to get access to it on my iPhone. But, I kind of jumped shipped after being with RTM for a long time. I am going to give ToodleDo a try for a while.

If you have an iPhone you plan on using with the online tool, check out the ToodleDo iPhone app review in our sister iPhone blog. Pocket Informant iPhone app also integrates with ToodleDo,

I am using ToodleDo along with the Pomodoro technique and it is working wonders to my productivity lately.

If you are a Mac user and mostly use Apple products and services, we are going to look at a premium productivity tool – OmniFocus very soon here. stay tuned.

ToodleDo is A Great GTD Oriented Task Manager - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/10 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.

However, it lacks sorely in visual interface and it looks so drab and it can get really bulky if you get too plugin-happy.

Bend Editor for Windows is a new free, fast and elegant text editor.

Bend stands out with its simplicity and attention to letting you focus on the task at hand without distractions.

Bend is also rich on features and it hides its settings and configurations in a nice Zune like menu. In fact, it draws a lot of inspiration from that interface. Here is what Microsoft says about it

Bend is a modern text editor. Bend takes off after the Zune client, but doesn’t constrain itself to it.Find on page borrows from Apple Safari. Tabs are Google Chrome inspired. This text editor aims to be elegant, clean and a pleasure to work in. It exploits XAML / WPF to render beautiful hardware accelerated text, each feature is carefully selected to balance performance and style.

Bend is built on the .NET 4.0 platform and says Windows 7 is a prerequisite. But, I was able to run it fine on Windows XP with .NET framework 4.0 installed.

Some of the features include

• Tabbed interface
• Syntax highlighting (extensible and supports most popular code languages)
• Zoom ctrl+mouse wheel
• Find & replace on page
• Safari like search where text fades out so you find what you need
• Command line and Windows explorer integration
• XAML/WPF for hardware accelerated text rendering

Bend is in beta and is available as a free download.

I am not replacing Notepad++ for all my coding needs yet but Bend provides a nice refreshing change if I wanted to shift gears during the day.

Download Bend (windows)

Bend Editor – Sleek and Simple Windows Text Editor - Originally published at ShanKrila.com on 2010/08/09 (RSS)

Related posts

• No related posts.