I'm trying out the beta of the latest version of the Flickr Uploadr, and I'm already tempted to say: "Great job, chaps". Sure, it's beta code, and there are still known bugs, but it seems to fix most of my issues with the Uploadr.

This is a complete rewrite of the old Uploadr, using a completely different set of technologies. The biggest visible change is a cross-platform UI built using Mozilla's Xulrunner. The result is an application that looks very similar to the site's recently updated web-based uploading tool, but with many more features.

My favourite feature so far has to be batch tagging, the ability to select a group of images, and quickly apply the same tags, descriptions, and titles (as well as other basic image settings). That's the big win for me - it makes uploading a day's images a lot easier, and reduces the time taken tagging. Group management has been improved too, and if an upload fails, tags and targeted groups are saved for the next attempt.

The result is a big improvement in work flow. I can get a batch of images tagged and uploaded in a few minutes, when using a mix of the old Uploadr and the web UI took at least three times as long...

Recommended.

I have a lot of bookmarks, and it's always been a pig to keep them under control. Then I found this little Windows application - it'll work with both IE and Firefox. It'll find and clear out the dead links, and it'll also keep your favicons up to date.

Quite useful indeed.

(at least until the 6^th of September 2006)

Pop along to the Daz web site and download Bryce 5.0 from the link there. Macintosh and Windows versions are available...

It may not be the latest version, but it's still one of the best landscape generating and rendering tools around...

[Update fromautopope: "Does not run under Mac OS/X 10.4 and above".]

One thing missing from Skype is the ability to record calls.

As a journalist, I often need to make recordings of phone interviews - and getting them on my PC in digital format makes it easier to transcribe interviews (and hopefully soon, to search them). I have a small Sony recorder, but that uses a proprietary variant of ATRAC, and you need their software. It'll plug into a phone line, with a bit of kit from Maplin, but the recording quality, err, sucks. This device from Olympus looks good for the future, but I need something now!

Luckily, while doing some research for my Office column, I came across an Outlook plug-in called Skylook that not only integrates your Outlook address book with your Skype address book, so you can call people using Skype Out or Skype-to-Skype, but also records conversations as MP3s, ready for archiving and editing. There's even a built-in answerphone that adds calls to an Outlook folder. Microsoft may have made a splash earlier in the week with their unified messaging announcements, but Skylook's there already. Tie it in with the Skype-Salesforce.com integration and you've got a very interesting set of CRM tools...

The recording quality is good, and the size of the resulting MP3 isn't too bad either. Skylook's a rather useful piece of code. Businesses can use the recordings as part of any compliance procedure, while the rest of us can quickly turn them into podcasts (or should that be "skypecasts"?).

There's a 14 day trial, and the final registration cost isn't too bad either. A nice bit of code from our Aussie cousins...

I had a couple of hours to kill yesterday afternoon, between meetings, so I sat down in a Starbucks to do some work. Unfortunately the files I needed were on a PC at home, and working with a VPN over GPRS is tedious to say the least...

No need to worry - I'd left the PC on and running Foldershare's satellite - so I could fire up a browser session, connect to my account on their web site, and copy the files I needed onto my PC. I was able to get what I wanted written, and still have time for a venti chai latte and some lemon ginger cake...

Foldershare used to be a pay for service, but after Microsoft bought it, it switched to free. There are OS X and Windows clients, so you can copy between OSes happily - and you can have more than one PC associated to your account. You can use it to automatically sync files between machines, but I'm sticking with just using it as a low bandwidth VPN solution.

A useful widget.

...and no spyware or adware either

The official Google Toolbar for Firefox is now out. There's support for Windows, OS X and Red Hat Linux, so you should find a version that suits you...

It'll add a spell checker and a basic translator to your browser, as well as the usual search tools (and the controversial AutoLink feature - though you can disable this)

It is a beta, so the usual caveats apply. However it's working fine on my PowerBook...