Now Upload Excel 2007 Files to Google Docs

This may seem like a minor improvement but would certainly help lot of Google Docs users who frequently exchange spreadsheets with people who use Microsoft Office 2007.

If a person on the other side sends you a spreadsheet saved in the newer Excel 2007 format, you neither have to ask him for a previous xls version nor do you need to upload that "sensitive" data on to a third-party website for online conversion.
That's because you can now upload Excel 2007 files (saved as xlsx) into Google Docs and it will import all cell data and formulas though the formatting was not preserved as you can notice from the above screenshot.
XLSX is the only format currently supported by Google Docs. You still need the help of other services for converting Word & PowerPoint 2007 files in a format that Google Docs can understand. Even Gmail can process Office 2007 files.

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Read Web Articles in a Beautiful & Distraction Free Environment

Language classes Individual+groups
Distraction-free writing tools transform your cluttered browser in such a fashion that you can focus on writing - everything else on the desktop screen stays hidden so you have nothing else to do but write.
Now something that applies the same concept to reading websites - it removes the clutter from web pages so it becomes easy to focus on reading.

This is possible through Readability - a brilliant browser bookmarklet that can format any web page on the fly without reloading the page.
Readability removes all the distracting elements (like sidebars, graphics, navigation, etc) from a web page and makes reading more enjoyable by changing the background colors, font styles and page margins to match that of an eBook, Novel or a newspaper - these are all documents that are designed for reading purpose only.
Technically, this is like switching the stylesheet of a site but without installing extensions or using any geeky hacks. And while the converted format may sometime resemble a printable version of that page, Readability isn't using the default print stylesheet as it did turn up a few unexpected results at certain times.
Here are some sample reading layouts as rendered by Readability - it's a bookmarklet and not an add-on so should work in all browsers including the latest Google Chrome and Safari. Don't miss it.

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Download FLV Video Editing Software for Free

The video clips that you download from YouTube are often encoded in Flash Video (FLV) format and therefore not compatible with Windows Movie Maker and other video editing software.
Another problem with FLV videos is that they won't play on most mobile phones so you'll first have to convert them into 3GP or some other popular format before transferring the clips to the phone.

FLV Video Editor Pro - Screenshot
The FLV Editor Pro software from Moyea has all the tools you need to edit an FLV clip - it can be used to crop selected portion from a video, for joining multiple FLV clips into one, for extracting still images from FLV videos or for converting FLV into other video formats like 3GP, Quicktime MP4, Windows Media, etc.  FLV Editor can also help you extract MP3 audio from a Flash Video clip.
You can go to this Give Away page and grab a software license for free. Update: The offer has expired but you check the FLV Video Editing Guide for more solutions on editing FLV videos.

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Convert Excel data to HTML Table

MXF tools, files and demonstrations Multiplatform and comprehensive SDK
Tableizer is a simple tool to convert data from Excel or any other spreadsheet software into HTML table code. You just copy the data and paste it into Tableizer, and it generates the HTML code that can be used on your blog or website.
Alternatively, you can download a copy of Windows Live Writer and copy-paste the Excel spreadsheet table into the Writer window. Now switch to the "HTML Source" view in Writer and you should see a nice formatted HTML table that can you copy-paste anywhere else.

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Open docx Files in Firefox without Office 2007

If you like to open .docx files without Office Word 2007, there's a new Firefox extension from Microsoft that should help. Available for Windows as well as Linux machines.

Open DOCX files as an HTML document in any web browser
Called OpenXML viewer, this plug-in (download link) lets you read docx files inside the Firefox browser just like any other HTML web page while retaining all the text formatting and layout.
There's a command-line version of OpenXML viewer (download link) available as well for converting docx documents into HTML files that you may then open in any other web browser.

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Get a Log of your Online Activity as an Image with FriendFeed

FriendFeed recently added an image based feed widget that lets you export a log of your online activity as a still image. This is helpful if you like to include your lifestream in an email message or need to embed it in a site that doesn't support JavaScript (e.g. MySpace & WordPress.com).

To get started, simply login to you FriendFeed account and go to Embeddable Widgets. Uncheck the Logo, Comments and Subscribe option to remove all the FriendFeed branding.
While there are enough services already convert feeds into images, the feed widget from FriendFeed is far better because it supports image thumbnails and you also have more control over the output image.
For instance, you may choose to convert either you full lifestream into an image or  selected service like pictures uploaded on Flickr, items you wish to buy on Amazon, your blog entries, LinkedIn updates, etc. The width of the image can be customized as well.
See some sample images (they appear still but will update automatically if new content is posted) - Blog, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube.

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Convert DOCX and other Office 2007 files to HTML with Gmail

Use Gmail as Office 2007 to HTML converter
You need no hacks to read those Word 2007 files (docx) files without Office 2007.
Just mail all the Office 2007 document(s) to your own Gmail account and click the View as HTML link near the email attachment to convert those files into text / HTML format that can be viewed in the web browser itself.

Gmail retains Docx formatting in HTML
This easy conversion method retains the document formatting (no images though) and works with docx, pptx and xlsx Open XML formats

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