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Bring your project into the center ring

Circus Ponies Software's NoteBook is a versatile organizational application that can help you create electronic "notebooks" to track, manage, and work on almost any kind of project. This program uses the metaphor of a traditional paper notebook to reduce computer clutter and keep you organized. The power of NoteBook comes from its ability to pull together information from multiple sources--e-mails, PDFs, spreadsheets, Web pages, and the like. For example, you can automatically "clip" content from any Safari or Mail window into a NoteBook page, while NoteBook remembers where the information came from, so you can … Read more

The tax app

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

Verizon is going to sell the iPhone with a $30 per month unlimited data plan

Barnes & Noble may be discontinuing the 3G Nook

Facebook mandates that all games use Facebook Credits

Mobile Gmail users can now print from their mobile devices

The IRS launches an app that lets you track your tax refund, get daily tax tips, and follow the IRS on Twitter

A new site challenges you to do nothing for two minutes.

Stylish to-do list

Download.com is jam-packed with to-do list programs, and most of them are more or less the same. To-Do DeskList surprised us by delivering a fresh, unusual design and just the right number of features. If you're in the market for an unobtrusive but flexible task manager, this just might be the one.

To-Do DeskList's interface is sleek and attractive. The program appears as an icon in the system tray, and when you're ready to create a new task, you simply right-click on the icon and select Add To-Do from the menu. The program lets you set … Read more

Google's Chrome browser gets do-not-track feature

Google just released a new extension for its Chrome browser that will make it easier to avoid ads on the Web.

"Keep My Opt-Outs" stores the settings that users lodge with ad industry opt-out programs like the Network Advertising Initiative and the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising in one place, ensuring you don't have to rely on cookies to track those preferences. It's a nod to the Do Not Track movement that has been gaining a little steam, which Google acknowledged in a blog post announcing the extension.

"A better "Do Not Track&… Read more

Mozilla offers do-not-track tool to thwart ads

Mozilla, acting on a U.S. Federal Trade Commission proposal, has offered a detailed mechanism by which Firefox and other Web browsers could prevent Web pages from tracking people's online behavior for advertising purposes.

With Mozilla's do-not-track technology, network data packets from the browser would signal to a Web site that a person doesn't wished to be tracked. Then comes the tricky part: getting Web site operators to cooperate.

Alex Fowler, Mozilla's global privacy and public policy leader, said that with the mechanism, the browser would alert a Web site during basic communications that use the … Read more

Mobile industry group wants new privacy rules

A trade group for the mobile-phone industry is calling for new privacy guidelines to help address consumer complaints over how and what information is gathered through mobile apps.

Made up of mobile advertisers, publishers, and media companies, the Mobile Marketing Association said yesterday that it's working on a new set of privacy guidelines to supplement its current Global Code of Conduct. Created in 2008, the Code of Conduct established that mobile marketers must ensure that consumers can opt in and out of ads and that information gathered through ads be used responsibly.

But with ongoing concerns about online privacy, … Read more

'Do not localize' corruption in Displays system preferences

In several recent versions of Snow Leopard, including OS X 10.6.4 and 10.6.5, a few people have had an issue crop up when adjusting display properties (resolution, multiple monitors, etc.) where sometimes changing settings will result in the loss of all display modes and switch the display to 640x480-pixel resolution with the text "<<do not localize>>" in the list of display resolutions.

Though this can happen when adjusting resolutions and other properties, it may happen immediately when opening the Display preferences, indicating some cache and settings files the preferences use … Read more

FTC wants voluntary 'Do Not Track' for the Web

The Do Not Call list easily tops the list of the Federal Trade Commission's popular successes, with one official joking that that it became "the most popular government program since the Elvis stamp."

The FTC now hopes to build on that unusual success with a Do Not Track concept that would restrict certain types of Web marketing, a concept that the agency broadly endorsed in a 122-page report (PDF) released today.

"Most of us on the commission believe it's time for a Do Not Track mechanism," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz told reporters today, though … Read more

FTC to release 'do not track' report on Web privacy

WASHINGTON--The Federal Trade Commission is ready to release a key report on online privacy and the concept of a "do not track" approach to Web marketing, but it will probably have to get Congress involved to see any meaningful change, a FTC commissioner said today.

David Vladeck, head of the bureau of consumer protection at the FTC, told attendees at Consumer Watchdog's Future of Online Consumer Protections conference that the agency plans to release the report later this morning that will lay bare the FTC's commitment to giving U.S. consumers greater choice when it comes … Read more