Extend your wireless range

Cool Tech Tool of the Week: Wi-Fire Range Extender

... At http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/002045.php One of the blogs I subscribe to, Cool Tools by Kevin Kelly, featured a great range-extender for the wireless card in your laptop. Weak wireless signals, no more!

Unlike a Wi-Fi antenna (which requires special cabling and connectors), the Wi-Fire simply uses a standard USB cable.

The manufacturer, hField, claims that the Wi-Fire actually allows you to access a wireless connection from up to 1,000 feet away, which is approximately three times the range of standard internal wireless adapters.

You can learn more about the Wi-Fire here: http://tinyurl.com/2mwkh8.

Awesome Brower Downloads of the Week: Zoom, Recover, Resize

• Zoom — With ZoomIt, you can use an assigned keyboard hotkey to quickly zoom to any portion of your screen. ZoomIt is a free download and a great tool for anyone who’s ever wished they could view the contents of their monitor in more detail. Learn more at http://tinyurl.com/2xv7eu.

• Recover — The Asterisk Revealer download for Firefox lets you reveal the contents of ANY password field (you know, those fields where the text is hidden by a string of asterisks). My guess is that at some point in your online ventures you’ve stared at a line of asterisks on your screen wishing you could see through them, not remembering the password you chose … If my guess is right, download this tool and keep it around; it’ll likely come in handy for you in the future. Learn more at http://tinyurl.com/2mtxyf.

• Resize — Ever run into a pop up window on the web that was too small? Did you try to resize it … but found it was too stubborn and wouldn’t budge? If so, the free Windows download, ResizeEnable, is the tool for you. It’s way tougher than those “no-we-won’t-let-you-resize-us” windows but just sits quietly in your system tray until you need it. Learn more at http://tinyurl.com/378gpa.

Grab Bag: Five Links of the Week

• www.jimdenevan.com — Absolutely lovely art. No paint involved.

• http://www.iwantsandy.com — Free automated virtual assistant that’ll send you reminders, keep track of to-do lists, and keep you organized.

• http://tinyurl.com/j4vd4 — Flowers. Leaves. Grass. Fruit. Colors. Trees. Snow. A rainbow of nature screensavers for you to choose from.

• http://www.boxcloud.com — Very affordable, super simple online file-sharing. No more e-mailing huge files or dealing with ftp logins and passwords.

• http://tinyurl.com/2p7duo — Two GMail Easter features that few people know of that’ll help you make your inbox spamproof.

And that wraps it up for today.

Have a great week, and see ya next Monday, everyone.

Based in Frisco, eRin pheiL is the primary creative force behind timeforcake (www.timeforcake.com). She can be reached via phone at (970) 668-0709 or e-mail at info@timeforcake.com.