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StoryCorps app helps preserve family stories for posterity

StoryCorps is a terrific nonprofit organization dedicated to recording, sharing, and preserving stories told by friends and family members. If you listen to NPR's Morning Edition, you've almost certainly heard some clips.

The StoryCorps app for iPhone lets you listen to some of these stories, then learn how to record and share interviews of your own. Unfortunately, the app falls short in one key area: it can't actually record.

The Stories tab is pretty straightforward: scroll through the list of available stories, tap one that sounds interesting, then listen to the streaming audio. If you like it, … Read more

Zip on the fly

Zipping files is a great way to compress them and make them easier to transport, but the actual zipping process can sometimes be a pain. FireFly is a simple utility that brings drag-and-drop simplicity to the file zipping process.

There's not much to this clever little tool. It appears as a small rectangle, hovering on your screen, and its opacity can be adjusted so that it doesn't interfere with whatever else you're working on. When you come across a file you want to zip, simply drag it to the rectangle and drop it in. You can do … Read more

Mail quick tip: Archive messages in a text document

If you have a huge amount of Mail messages that you would like to archive as a simple, single text document that includes attachments, this tip will show you how. Here is a quick and simple solution to creating a text document archive of your Mail messages.… Read more

First Look: WinZip gets ribboned

Archival stalwart WinZip introduces a new look and some new features in version 14.5. The interface is big news for two reasons: it finally gets a lot of WinZip's advanced features out from the menubar and into the open where users can actually see them, and it's WinZip's first design redo in years.

The new features are fairly sharp, too, introducing extensive Windows 7 support and archiving tools to make getting into and closing up your ZIPs easier than before. Take a quick tour of WinZip 14.5 in this First Look video.

Windows 7, ribbon interface come to WinZip

Perhaps the most recognized name in all of archivedom, WinZip 14.5 debuts a new look cribbed from Microsoft Office and several new features, including advanced Windows 7 compatibility and archive management tools.

The interface is the most radical change to the program. For years, WinZip flirted with variations on its big-buttoned skin, but adapting the ribbon concept to its tools makes sense for two reasons. First, controversy for the ribbon toolbar aside, it makes the program instantly recognizable to anybody working with Microsoft Office. Secondly, the old WinZip was inadequate for the breadth of tools that the program offered. … Read more

Justin.tv's live video comes to the iPhone

Live streaming and video archiving service Justin.tv is headed to the iPhone in app form.

Justin.tv uses Adobe's Flash player for its video content, which as we know is currently incompatible with the iPhone, making the app (iTunes link) a welcomed feature for users who wish to watch live or archived content when away from their computer.

The app can display live content, along with user chat. The chat can be viewed alongside the video while it plays, however typing in your own messages to other channel viewers obstructs the video.

Other features include being able to … Read more

Clear dot-underscore files to fix Finder Archive hangs

In OS X, the Finder comes with a handy archiving option (called "Archive" in OS X prior to Leopard, and "Compress" 10.5 and above) that is available in the contextual menus as well as in the File menu. This feature will compress all selected files and folders into a ZIP archive for easy transfer to hard disks, network shares, or internet folders. In Snow Leopard, some people have had problems with the archive process, where it will pause indefinitely and fail to complete the compression.… Read more

Bring Usenet into the present

Unison 2 is a major update for this popular Usenet client, providing a much more modern interface to access one of the oldest and most arcane corners of the Internet.

Fans of Usenet typically come in search of discussion groups and binary downloads, and Unison's all-new, iTunes-style interface makes navigation easy, with a friendly directory system, threaded messages, and an immensely useful search bar. And given that downloads are a priority for so many Usenet users, Unison also has some thoughtful integrated features, like audio preview, automatic unarchiving (with unRAR and unPAR), and automatic skipping of unneeded files. Unison … Read more

Amazon touts top products of 2009

The Kindle e-reader, the Nintendo Wii, and an Asus Netbook were among the top tech items for Amazon customers in 2009.

The retail giant touted three "Best of 2009" lists on Wednesday, revealing the best selling, most wished for, and favorite gift items chosen by Amazon consumers for the year. The company also introduced its Bestsellers Archive, which can show historical popularity among several categories, including print books, Kindle books, music downloads, movies and TV shows, and video games.

Amazon has been relentlessly proclaiming the popularity of its Kindle device, though it just as steadfastly has declined to … Read more

Buzz Out Loud Podcast 1106: A tall drink of moon water

Turns out when we blew up the moon a few weeks ago, we found water! Yay! The bottled water companies are presumably planning their trips now. THIS is how we motivate us to get back to the moon! We also hear more from old man Murdoch on blocking Google from indexing his newspapers, and Dell launches a smartphone. Does anybody want it?

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 1106

Rupert Murdoch to remove News Corp’s content from Google ‘in months’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/6559694/Rupert-Murdoch-to-remove-News-Corps-content-from-Google-in-months.html… Read more