Customize address title in Google Maps

When you search for an address in Google Maps, the result will be displayed with just the address. However, you can add a title to the location by including information in parentheses with your address:

10700 104 avenue nw, edmonton, ab (Where Trevor sweats and toils)

The result is a map with my own customized title:

Convert most files easily

I'm a big supporter of using PDFs over Microsoft documents when passing on documents - it ensures I'm not passing on viruses and I can be confident that people will see my document exactly as I created it regardless of their operating system.

Zamzar (numerous documents, images, music/sound, video and compressed files from one format to another. You can upload files from your computer or from the web and choose any number of formats to convert it to. New updates to the service allow you to convert files found on a web page, including YouTube videos, with just a click of a button. Although the paid version offers the benefit of priorizing your request
in the job que and larger file size uploads, the free version will
probably meet most users needs.

This is a great service for those odd files that you may run across but can't read. Watch the video and see how Zamzar can help you.

Keep files synced between machines

DropBox (https://www.getdropbox.com/) is a great tool to keep files stored between numerous computers. I'm planning a cruise soon, so I keep all my documents in my DropBox folder on my work machine, and it automatically uploads the files to the server, and then downloads the files to my work machine.

The free version provides 2 Gigs of storage, which is plenty for limited number of files I want to have synced. Note for 1Password users: you can use this to ensure your passwords are automatically synced between all your machines. Check it out the story in Lifehacker.

Free Screensharing Means Easy Troubleshooting

I'm always on the lookout for an easy way to help troubleshoot people's computers or to do online teaching. A new tool that will allow you to do that is dimdim (http://www.dimdim.com).

With your free account, dimdim allows you to host a meeting with up to 20 participants. Like many other similar services, you can easily share your screen, upload documents and work with a shared white board while providing video and audio streams. A nice feature is the ability to add up to 3 other users who can also share the microphone with you. This is great if the presentation calls for a discussion between 4 presenters.

Free Screensharing Means Easy Troubleshooting

I'm always on the lookout for an easy way to help troubleshoot people's computers or to do online teaching. A new tool that will allow you to do that is dimdim (http://www.dimdim.com).

With your free account, dimdim allows you to host a meeting with up to 20 participants. Like many other similar services, you can easily share your screen, upload documents and work with a shared white board while providing video and audio streams. A nice feature is the ability to add up to 3 other users who can also share the microphone with you. This is great if the presentation calls for a discussion between 4 presenters.

Free Screensharing Means Easy Troubleshooting

I'm always on the lookout for an easy way to help troubleshoot people's computers or to do online teaching. A new tool that will allow you to do that is dimdim (http://www.dimdim.com).

With your free account, dimdim allows you to host a meeting with up to 20 participants. Like many other similar services, you can easily share your screen, upload documents and work with a shared white board while providing video and audio streams. A nice feature is the ability to add up to 3 other users who can also share the microphone with you. This is great if the presentation calls for a discussion between 4 presenters.

Online Documents Done Right

Ever try to get a group of people to work on a single document? It involves a lot of e-mailing back and forth, and if they're not familiar with collaboration tools (such as the ones built into MS Word) it can become a confusing mess.

Google Documents (http://www.google.com/docs) is a fantastic way to create documents that you or others can access anywhere from the internet. Although not as powerful as a stand alone application, Google Documents can do most of the work. The collaboration tools easily allow you and others to work on the same document - without emailing it back and forth (check out this YouTube video which shows how over 200 students collaborated on a single document - start at the 1 minute mark). It automatically saves versions of the document as you and others work on them. And when you're done, you can save them in commonly used formats (PDF, Microsoft, etc) or just view it online.

Presently there are three types of documents your can create: wordprocess, spreadsheet and presentation (think Word, Excel and PowerPoint). Although not as powerful as the Microsoft software, there's lots here to get things done. You can even upload Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and work with them as Google Docs.

To get started, just create a Google account. Although you can do so using your existing e-mail account, I would suggest creating a Gmail account first (which you can forward to your regular e-mail account) which will give you access to Google Documents and other Google apps.