Sites like Digg specialize in social news, letting users decide what news stories are the most popular. Sites like NowPublic, on the other hand, help citizens become local and professional journalists, engaging them in the process of creating and publishing the events taking place around them. LiveLeak is a little of both, allowing users to create their own videos and stories and publish them for the world to see, while submitting and voting on videos captured from traditional media sources.
LiveLeak was one of the first sites on the web to have the cameraphone video of Saddam Hussein's execution, and drew fire in the UK when a BBC program took note of the graphic nature of some of LiveLeak's video content. The site encourages its users to report and upload footage from real-life events. That material often includes video from war-torn countries, car accidents, and other graphic scenes. The site doesn't censor the uploaded content, although it does have filters for family-friendly and graphic content.
It might seem like LiveLeak subscribes to the "if it bleeds, it leads," philosophy, but some of its content is generated by traditional media sources, and a lot of it is boring. Wire services like Reuters and the Associated Press generate the headlines, while user-generated content make up the features and the majority of the material in LiveLeak's categories. The site only posts a few headline stories from other news outlets. A lot of the "news stories" at LiveLeak are videos generated by users with webcams rambling about their favorite topic.
LiveLeak's categories revolve around the most popular social issues discussed on the site. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are categories, for example, and there's also a politics category. If those don't interest you, you can check out the entertainment, news, or celebrity categories, or start your own. Only the popular categories are listed on the front page, but any user can create a category on their favorite topic. If you dig deep enough you'll find categories about debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories, world music, women's issues, and even how to sport a mullet. There's also a Citizen Journalism category, where amateur videos that are actually newsworthy and produced with some measure of journalistic quality are posted.
LiveLeak users can upload anything they want, so you have to wade through a lot of Webcam manifestos and horrifying car crashes to get to material that's worth watching. You can browse by category to get around a lot of the nonsense, but it's still difficult. If you're looking for a site that's mostly entertainment and silly videos, LiveLeak can help you kill a few hours at the office. Unfortunately, if you're looking for serious journalism or in-depth reporting or analysis by everyday people who are passionate about the world around them, you're better off somewhere like NowPublic.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
FFFFound: Social Bookmarking for Images
Social bookmarking has been around for a while. Sites like del.icio.us and Furl have made it easy to take your favorite links from around the Web, tag them to keep them organized, and save them for future reference or share with your friends. FFFFound extends the concept to images. If you see an interesting photograph, a particularly beautiful piece of art, or just an entertaining photo somewhere on the Web, FFFFound allows you to link to it, tag it, and save it to retrieve later or share with the rest of the community.
The service also sports an engine that can recommend images for you based on your previous likes, dislikes, and the way those images have been tagged by the people who found them. Once you've found an image that you like, you can upload it to the service, link to it, tag it, and then share it with others. Once your image is visible, other FFFFound users can save it or flag it as inappropriate. FFFFound's recommendation engine generates similar images that you may like and displays them underneath the image that you uploaded, so if you see another image on the site that you like, you can click through to view more images of the same type.
Most of FFFFound's images are art, photography, and graphic design. FFFFound is currently in private beta, so you can't sign up to share your own images quite yet. Luckily, you can browse the uploaded images of the most recent and active members, and most of the images uploaded are viewable by the public. You'll find images from e-cards, photographs from Flickr, and even corporate logos and odd snapshots from around the Web. FFFFound provides an IE extension and a bookmarklet to make it easier to share images without having to copy and paste links.
With all of the buzz about copyright infringement and content ownership, FFFFound invites copyright holders to contact them if users upload copyrighted material that they'd like removed. FFFFound may have to be more aggressive about this policy when the service emerges from private beta. At the moment, the quality of the images at FFFFound is very high, but that probably has something to do with its limited membership.
FFFFound images range from the beautifully artistic to the offbeat and hilarious. The images on the front page change every time you refresh. At one glance, I saw an antique poster for a Broadway play, gorgeous black-and-white vintage photography, and a digital masterpiece that made a towering rock look like a modern apartment building. There's always something new to see.
The service also sports an engine that can recommend images for you based on your previous likes, dislikes, and the way those images have been tagged by the people who found them. Once you've found an image that you like, you can upload it to the service, link to it, tag it, and then share it with others. Once your image is visible, other FFFFound users can save it or flag it as inappropriate. FFFFound's recommendation engine generates similar images that you may like and displays them underneath the image that you uploaded, so if you see another image on the site that you like, you can click through to view more images of the same type.
Most of FFFFound's images are art, photography, and graphic design. FFFFound is currently in private beta, so you can't sign up to share your own images quite yet. Luckily, you can browse the uploaded images of the most recent and active members, and most of the images uploaded are viewable by the public. You'll find images from e-cards, photographs from Flickr, and even corporate logos and odd snapshots from around the Web. FFFFound provides an IE extension and a bookmarklet to make it easier to share images without having to copy and paste links.
With all of the buzz about copyright infringement and content ownership, FFFFound invites copyright holders to contact them if users upload copyrighted material that they'd like removed. FFFFound may have to be more aggressive about this policy when the service emerges from private beta. At the moment, the quality of the images at FFFFound is very high, but that probably has something to do with its limited membership.
FFFFound images range from the beautifully artistic to the offbeat and hilarious. The images on the front page change every time you refresh. At one glance, I saw an antique poster for a Broadway play, gorgeous black-and-white vintage photography, and a digital masterpiece that made a towering rock look like a modern apartment building. There's always something new to see.
Pingie Turns RSS into SMS
There are a number of apps out there designed to push RSS feeds from your favorite blogs and Websites to your mobile phone. The trouble with those services is that if you can't install software on your phone, don't want to pay for mobile Web access, or have a carrier that doesn't allow you to use those services, you're stuck. Pingie can help. The service allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds from your desktop, and then sends you text messages when the feed updates. It's quick, simple, free, and best of all works with most mobile devices.
Google Reader, Bloglines Mobile, and other services all bring news and updates to your mobile phone, but there's a catch: you have to have mobile Web access or you have to be able to install apps on your phone. That's fine if you have a smartphone like a Motorola Q or a Blackberry, but if you have a Motorola RAZR or a Samsung Juke, an app that runs on Windows Mobile or PalmOS doesn't do you any good. Worse yet, if your carrier is someone like Verizon (like many Americans), you may not be allowed to install software on your phone at all if it's not downloaded directly from your carrier.
Pingie gets around that whole issue by sending RSS feed updates to your mobile device via text message. A Verizon subscriber with a device like a Samsung Juke can get text messages, even if they can't install a news reader or don't have a cellular plan with mobile Web access.
Additionally, Pingie will send you a text message every time one of your RSS feeds updates. This is great for people who like being alerted when there's new content on one of your favorite blogs or sites instead of having to go to the site to check it yourself, or wade through pre-downloaded feeds.
[ via DownloadSquad ]
Google Reader, Bloglines Mobile, and other services all bring news and updates to your mobile phone, but there's a catch: you have to have mobile Web access or you have to be able to install apps on your phone. That's fine if you have a smartphone like a Motorola Q or a Blackberry, but if you have a Motorola RAZR or a Samsung Juke, an app that runs on Windows Mobile or PalmOS doesn't do you any good. Worse yet, if your carrier is someone like Verizon (like many Americans), you may not be allowed to install software on your phone at all if it's not downloaded directly from your carrier.
Pingie gets around that whole issue by sending RSS feed updates to your mobile device via text message. A Verizon subscriber with a device like a Samsung Juke can get text messages, even if they can't install a news reader or don't have a cellular plan with mobile Web access.
Additionally, Pingie will send you a text message every time one of your RSS feeds updates. This is great for people who like being alerted when there's new content on one of your favorite blogs or sites instead of having to go to the site to check it yourself, or wade through pre-downloaded feeds.
[ via DownloadSquad ]
BedJump: Making Hotels Fun Again
I love to travel, but staying in a hotel has lost some of its luster since I was a kid. Sure there's room service and if I'm lucky there's a mini-bar, but it's lost a little of its charm. BedJump on the other hand, makes me excited to stay in hotels again. Every couple of days, BedJump updates with hilarious photos of real people jumping on hotel beds, usually with the person in mid-air. Who says jumping on the bed is naughty?
The people at BedJump are right when they say that there's something luxurious and intoxicating about hotel beds. They're relaxing, they're usually comfortable, but best of all, they're bouncy. BedJump regularly posts photos of real hotel guests staying at hotels around the world, enjoying the bounciness of the bed they paid to sleep in. The site takes submissions from anyone who wants to send them, and posts nearly all the photos they get.
BedJump is actually part of the larger site Hotels By City, which helps vacationers find destinations for their trip depending on the type of vacation they'd like to take, the best hotels for their vacation type or the city they've visiting, and helps users book hotels and vacation packages once they've decided where they want to go. BedJump encourages people to explore the rest of the Hotels By City network of sites to book their vacations, and once they've found a hotel in which to stay, to take their best mid-air snapshots or hotel bed lounging photos and submit them to the site.
Extended features aside, BedJump is a lot of fun. You can sign up for e-mail updates when a new bedjumper's photos are posted. If you're interested specifically in bed jumps on cruise ships, entire photo sets of bed jumps, bed jumping videos, or even a tutorial on how to bed jump, you'll find links to each category on the sidebar. If you're in love with the site, you can even buy a BedJump t-shirt to wear while you're jumping on the bed during your next vacation.
The people at BedJump are right when they say that there's something luxurious and intoxicating about hotel beds. They're relaxing, they're usually comfortable, but best of all, they're bouncy. BedJump regularly posts photos of real hotel guests staying at hotels around the world, enjoying the bounciness of the bed they paid to sleep in. The site takes submissions from anyone who wants to send them, and posts nearly all the photos they get.
BedJump is actually part of the larger site Hotels By City, which helps vacationers find destinations for their trip depending on the type of vacation they'd like to take, the best hotels for their vacation type or the city they've visiting, and helps users book hotels and vacation packages once they've decided where they want to go. BedJump encourages people to explore the rest of the Hotels By City network of sites to book their vacations, and once they've found a hotel in which to stay, to take their best mid-air snapshots or hotel bed lounging photos and submit them to the site.
Extended features aside, BedJump is a lot of fun. You can sign up for e-mail updates when a new bedjumper's photos are posted. If you're interested specifically in bed jumps on cruise ships, entire photo sets of bed jumps, bed jumping videos, or even a tutorial on how to bed jump, you'll find links to each category on the sidebar. If you're in love with the site, you can even buy a BedJump t-shirt to wear while you're jumping on the bed during your next vacation.
Facebook 'Secret Crush' App Installing Malicious Spyware
Facebook: "You have a Secret Crush invitation"
OMG, OMG, OMG! Who could it be?!
Unfortunately, if you find this note on your Facebook page, it's more likely to be an undercover malicious spyware program than a declaration of love from your Facebook crush of the moment. Love is truly dead.
Security firm Fortinet uncovered a widget that disguises itself as a normal Facebook application but actually unleashes the "Zango" adware/spyware virus when installed. Users will receive an e-mail alert that they have a "secret crush" and upon signing into the social networking site will see an alert much like a friend or group request. Clicking on it asks users to install an application on their page, but also demands they invite five friends to join.
Having gone through the trouble to install the app, most people will invite their friends, making the widget a "social worm," researchers said. "Even after that step, no crush of any sort is revealed."
Instead you get a page that requests an additional download--a download that is in fact the Zango virus.
Fortinet said that as of January 4, approximately four-percent of Facebook users have installed the "Secret Crush" application, which also goes by the name "My Admirer."
UPDATE: "Facebook is committed to user safety and security and, to that end, its Terms of Service for developers explicitly state that applications should not use adware and spyware," a Facebook spokesperson said in an e-mail. "Users should employ the same precautions while downloading software from Facebook applications that they use when downloading software on their desktop. We have contacted the developers and have disabled the Secret Crush application for violating Facebook Platform Terms of Service."
UPDATE II: Zango issued a press release last week that denied any involvement in the "Secret Crush" application.
"At no point while adding the Secret Crush application to a Facebook profile did the widget attempt to install Zango software," Zango said. "The Secret Crush widget is neither a Zango application nor is it affiliated with Zango in any way. Zango does not own it, did not manufacture it, and did not bundle software with it."
OMG, OMG, OMG! Who could it be?!
Unfortunately, if you find this note on your Facebook page, it's more likely to be an undercover malicious spyware program than a declaration of love from your Facebook crush of the moment. Love is truly dead.
Security firm Fortinet uncovered a widget that disguises itself as a normal Facebook application but actually unleashes the "Zango" adware/spyware virus when installed. Users will receive an e-mail alert that they have a "secret crush" and upon signing into the social networking site will see an alert much like a friend or group request. Clicking on it asks users to install an application on their page, but also demands they invite five friends to join.
Having gone through the trouble to install the app, most people will invite their friends, making the widget a "social worm," researchers said. "Even after that step, no crush of any sort is revealed."
Instead you get a page that requests an additional download--a download that is in fact the Zango virus.
Fortinet said that as of January 4, approximately four-percent of Facebook users have installed the "Secret Crush" application, which also goes by the name "My Admirer."
UPDATE: "Facebook is committed to user safety and security and, to that end, its Terms of Service for developers explicitly state that applications should not use adware and spyware," a Facebook spokesperson said in an e-mail. "Users should employ the same precautions while downloading software from Facebook applications that they use when downloading software on their desktop. We have contacted the developers and have disabled the Secret Crush application for violating Facebook Platform Terms of Service."
UPDATE II: Zango issued a press release last week that denied any involvement in the "Secret Crush" application.
"At no point while adding the Secret Crush application to a Facebook profile did the widget attempt to install Zango software," Zango said. "The Secret Crush widget is neither a Zango application nor is it affiliated with Zango in any way. Zango does not own it, did not manufacture it, and did not bundle software with it."
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Hands On With Hulu
After waiting most of the day for approval from Hulu PR, I can now post a hands-on evaluation of the beta, which was officially announced at midnight Sunday night. (When registering, the terms of service repeatedly failed to load, meaning that I had no idea if Hulu would make me watch old episodes of The Littlest Groom if I posted content without permission.)
The verdict: Broad? Extremely. Deep? No. If you were hoping for some magical archive of TV episodes, forget it. This is why piracy is winning, people. But give Hulu credit: what it does, it does well.
Fortunately, the site has learned several key lessons from the Web 2.0 design gurus: keep it clean, keep it simple, and organize it well. While you won't find any user-generated video here, both studios have presented their gems, front and center. Take for, example, the once-lost version of Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday: The Chronicles of Narnia":
And that's one of the nifty things. Video can be embedded into blogs. Sure, you'll still end up watching the commercials, but that's the tradeoff. Oh, and design for widescreen.
Only the last aspect needs some more work. If you're looking for a certain show, clicking on the "Browse Titles" link at the top of the page will bring up a list of shows, each adorned by a small banner icon. No preference is given to either NBC shows or Fox properties; each is treated equally.
But Hulu made one mystifying decision: in the page marked "Popular Episodes," the user is subjected to a two-wide column of "favorites," with no indication whose favorites they are. Users? The site's editors? NBC executives, in a back-room deal with Fox? Some indication would be helpful. The same treatment is given to the bottom of the home page.
Playing a show is straightforward: once you click on the episode, a window opens with some interesting options: "Lower lights" turns the surrounding white background a dark gray, making extended viewing easier on the eyes. There's the standard "embed" and "share" options, as well as "details". For some reason, Hulu included both a "share" and "pop out" option, to give you two options to view.
There are ads, although the presentation isn't consistent; when I viewed a Simpsons episode Monday morning, the episode started with a short lead-in, and then 15- and 30-second ads played during the normal commercial breaks. (There are strange dots within the time slider that I believe correspond to commercial breaks.) However, on Monday afternoon, the ads were gone, even during a watching of the same episode.
The video is crisp and smooth, when it loads. For some reason, I received several instances of the following error message, one when trying to view an episode of House, and once when I tried to view The Blues Brothers: "Unfortunately, this video is not currently available in your country or region. We apologize for the inconvenience."
It's not quite clear what this means, since I'm sitting in Arizona right now. Has John McCain really ticked off Hollywood that badly?
The other problem is actually getting the video to load. Again, on Monday morning the experience was seamless: video loaded seamlessly, and everything worked as you would expect. At 3:15 PM PDT, it took about ten seconds to load a video page, perhaps fifteen seconds for it to actually begin, and even then the audio had a tendency to desynchronize -- evidence, it seems, of problems with the server load.
The sad thing is that Hulu will only archive the last five episodes of a current show, and a single season of a show that's off the air -- typically the first season, but not always. On the other hand, it's an excellent way to keep up with shows that don't quite make your DVR for reasons of scheduling or capacity.
Hulu suffers from two beta problems right now: an apparent lack of server capacity, and a deep stable of content. I have every confidence that Hulu will solve the first, and will refuse to solve the latter. Which, when you think about it, is just plain dumb. Yes, advertising is annoying, but it pays my bills. I'm willing to put up with it. But if the model works for the five most recent episodes of a given show, it should work for all of them. Let's hope this changes.
The verdict: Broad? Extremely. Deep? No. If you were hoping for some magical archive of TV episodes, forget it. This is why piracy is winning, people. But give Hulu credit: what it does, it does well.
Fortunately, the site has learned several key lessons from the Web 2.0 design gurus: keep it clean, keep it simple, and organize it well. While you won't find any user-generated video here, both studios have presented their gems, front and center. Take for, example, the once-lost version of Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday: The Chronicles of Narnia":
And that's one of the nifty things. Video can be embedded into blogs. Sure, you'll still end up watching the commercials, but that's the tradeoff. Oh, and design for widescreen.
Only the last aspect needs some more work. If you're looking for a certain show, clicking on the "Browse Titles" link at the top of the page will bring up a list of shows, each adorned by a small banner icon. No preference is given to either NBC shows or Fox properties; each is treated equally.
But Hulu made one mystifying decision: in the page marked "Popular Episodes," the user is subjected to a two-wide column of "favorites," with no indication whose favorites they are. Users? The site's editors? NBC executives, in a back-room deal with Fox? Some indication would be helpful. The same treatment is given to the bottom of the home page.
Playing a show is straightforward: once you click on the episode, a window opens with some interesting options: "Lower lights" turns the surrounding white background a dark gray, making extended viewing easier on the eyes. There's the standard "embed" and "share" options, as well as "details". For some reason, Hulu included both a "share" and "pop out" option, to give you two options to view.
There are ads, although the presentation isn't consistent; when I viewed a Simpsons episode Monday morning, the episode started with a short lead-in, and then 15- and 30-second ads played during the normal commercial breaks. (There are strange dots within the time slider that I believe correspond to commercial breaks.) However, on Monday afternoon, the ads were gone, even during a watching of the same episode.
The video is crisp and smooth, when it loads. For some reason, I received several instances of the following error message, one when trying to view an episode of House, and once when I tried to view The Blues Brothers: "Unfortunately, this video is not currently available in your country or region. We apologize for the inconvenience."
It's not quite clear what this means, since I'm sitting in Arizona right now. Has John McCain really ticked off Hollywood that badly?
The other problem is actually getting the video to load. Again, on Monday morning the experience was seamless: video loaded seamlessly, and everything worked as you would expect. At 3:15 PM PDT, it took about ten seconds to load a video page, perhaps fifteen seconds for it to actually begin, and even then the audio had a tendency to desynchronize -- evidence, it seems, of problems with the server load.
The sad thing is that Hulu will only archive the last five episodes of a current show, and a single season of a show that's off the air -- typically the first season, but not always. On the other hand, it's an excellent way to keep up with shows that don't quite make your DVR for reasons of scheduling or capacity.
Hulu suffers from two beta problems right now: an apparent lack of server capacity, and a deep stable of content. I have every confidence that Hulu will solve the first, and will refuse to solve the latter. Which, when you think about it, is just plain dumb. Yes, advertising is annoying, but it pays my bills. I'm willing to put up with it. But if the model works for the five most recent episodes of a given show, it should work for all of them. Let's hope this changes.
Hulu Beta Invites
You may remember AppScout's Hands On Hulu post, about the new online video service offering full-length episodes of some of your favorite TV shows. Well, recently I got my hands on over 2,000 invitations to the private beta version of Hulu, so now you can try it out yourself. To redeem your invite, check out this Hulu preview at PCmag.com.
5Min: Tutorial Videos in a Flash
We all want to learn new things and expand our horizons; in fact, one of my New Year's resolutions is to learn to cook some new dishes for friends and family. Thankfully, learning new things doesn't necessarily mean that I have to take a class or spend hours upon hours reading or studying. With 5Min, I can learn how to make a vegetarian shepherd's pie or a beef Wellington in just a few minutes.
5Min is a video site that specializes in how-to and instructional videos made by people with knowledge of their subjects. The best part is that all of the videos are short-form; none of them are longer than five minutes long.
Five minutes is all it takes to learn how to cross-stitch, to fold a t-shirt, or even to seat dinner guests. The videos at 5Min help you learn at least a little about a specific topic, and while you may not be able to learn everything there is to know about everything in five-minute snippets, you can certainly get started. The point of the videos at 5Min aren't to make you an expert, but to help you learn enough to get involved with a topic, teach you a quick tip or trick, or give you enough information that you can fill in the blanks on your own.
5Min videos are all created by the user community. The site staff and administrators provide the framework for the service and might contribute a video or two on their own time, but the bulk of the content is provided by 5Min.com users. Each user gets a "studio" where they can upload their videos in their areas of expertise. The service was founded on the principle that everyone's an expert in something, so everyone is invited to participate and share their knowledge with the rest of the community.
The topics at 5Min range from the arts, business, fashion, food, games, parenting to even sports and technology. You can find videos on how to check your HOSTS file for spyware on one page, and on another page you can learn about how scientists use DNA fingerprinting to catch criminals.
If you're not looking for a brain buster, you can head over to the Home category to get 10 Feng Shui tips for your home, or the "fashion" section to learn how to properly tie a do-rag. If the topic of the video is just too broad to cover in five minutes, you might find a series of videos on the same topic, each taking you through a specific step.
The beauty of 5Min isn't just that the videos are all short (the average video is about 3-4 minutes, and sticks very closely to a specific topic), but that the site reaches out to everyday people to share their knowledge with the world. You'll find videos on topics you didn't know you wanted to learn about, and after only five minutes, you'll find your life that much richer.
5Min is a video site that specializes in how-to and instructional videos made by people with knowledge of their subjects. The best part is that all of the videos are short-form; none of them are longer than five minutes long.
Five minutes is all it takes to learn how to cross-stitch, to fold a t-shirt, or even to seat dinner guests. The videos at 5Min help you learn at least a little about a specific topic, and while you may not be able to learn everything there is to know about everything in five-minute snippets, you can certainly get started. The point of the videos at 5Min aren't to make you an expert, but to help you learn enough to get involved with a topic, teach you a quick tip or trick, or give you enough information that you can fill in the blanks on your own.
5Min videos are all created by the user community. The site staff and administrators provide the framework for the service and might contribute a video or two on their own time, but the bulk of the content is provided by 5Min.com users. Each user gets a "studio" where they can upload their videos in their areas of expertise. The service was founded on the principle that everyone's an expert in something, so everyone is invited to participate and share their knowledge with the rest of the community.
The topics at 5Min range from the arts, business, fashion, food, games, parenting to even sports and technology. You can find videos on how to check your HOSTS file for spyware on one page, and on another page you can learn about how scientists use DNA fingerprinting to catch criminals.
If you're not looking for a brain buster, you can head over to the Home category to get 10 Feng Shui tips for your home, or the "fashion" section to learn how to properly tie a do-rag. If the topic of the video is just too broad to cover in five minutes, you might find a series of videos on the same topic, each taking you through a specific step.
The beauty of 5Min isn't just that the videos are all short (the average video is about 3-4 minutes, and sticks very closely to a specific topic), but that the site reaches out to everyday people to share their knowledge with the world. You'll find videos on topics you didn't know you wanted to learn about, and after only five minutes, you'll find your life that much richer.
Acorn: Power Image Editing without Photoshop
For many Mac users, buying a Mac and working with images in any application other than Adobe Photoshop is blasphemy. I can't count how many purchases for Macs I've seen that have the Mac on the first line and a license for Adobe Creative Suite on the second line. But if you want to do some basic image editing and photo manipulation, Photoshop might be overkill. Acorn on the other hand, is perfect. It's lightweight and affordable, and it incorporates most of the features a lot of people use in more powerful tools like Photoshop. It's no replacement for Photoshop, but it's simple, easy to use, and worth a look.
Tasks like editing and managing screenshots for blogs and technical documentation, basic photo editing, and image editing may not always require all the features and power of Adobe Photoshop or similar high-end image editing applications. Acorn combines a sleek and simple interface with power editing tools that will make most graphic designers happy that they saved some money by not choosing Photoshop.
Acorn has a number of features that Photoshop users will love, but also has a few unique tricks that come in handy. You can take screenshots using Acorn and immediately edit them, manage the opacity or blending of multiple image layers, and do auto image resizing just by changing the size of the image on your screen. You can create text styles and work with gradients all from within Acorn's simple interface. The app also allows you to write additional plug-ins if you're code-savvy and missing a feature that you'd like to see in the app.
Perhaps one of Acorn's greatest features is that it's completely powered by your graphics processor. That means no more relying on the CPU and no more slowing the rest of your system down while you do complicated image editing. Acorn is a universal binary and works on both PowerPC Macs and Intel Macs, but a Mac with a newer video card will really take advantage of Acorn's power. Acorn is only $39.99, and you can download it and give it a try before deciding to buy.
Tasks like editing and managing screenshots for blogs and technical documentation, basic photo editing, and image editing may not always require all the features and power of Adobe Photoshop or similar high-end image editing applications. Acorn combines a sleek and simple interface with power editing tools that will make most graphic designers happy that they saved some money by not choosing Photoshop.
Acorn has a number of features that Photoshop users will love, but also has a few unique tricks that come in handy. You can take screenshots using Acorn and immediately edit them, manage the opacity or blending of multiple image layers, and do auto image resizing just by changing the size of the image on your screen. You can create text styles and work with gradients all from within Acorn's simple interface. The app also allows you to write additional plug-ins if you're code-savvy and missing a feature that you'd like to see in the app.
Perhaps one of Acorn's greatest features is that it's completely powered by your graphics processor. That means no more relying on the CPU and no more slowing the rest of your system down while you do complicated image editing. Acorn is a universal binary and works on both PowerPC Macs and Intel Macs, but a Mac with a newer video card will really take advantage of Acorn's power. Acorn is only $39.99, and you can download it and give it a try before deciding to buy.
BurgerTime Delight: Build Behemoth Burgers on Your Mobile Phone
I didn't make it to CES this year, but there are plenty of e-mail blasts on product announcements from the show that it feels as if I'm actually there! One such e-mail came from Namco Networks, publisher and developer of mobile games. Yesterday, the company announced its newest mobile title, BurgerTime Delight, in partnership with Japanese developer G-mode. The game is a 25-year-old arcade classic (released in 1982 as BurgerTime by Data East), enhanced and updated into this mobile version with new level backgrounds, new characters, and mini-games. In BurgerTime Delight, you play Chef Peter Pepper, "whose goal is to build behemoth burgers by knocking each burger ingredient onto plates at the bottom of the screen." I love the idea already! On each level, Peter is challenged by being chased by his food nemeses Mr. Hotdog, Mr. Egg, and Mr. Pickle. Thankfully, you can "squash your enemies with falling ingredients, stun them with pepper from a collected peppershaker, or burn them with hot sauce."Namco Networks also announced that BurgerTime Delight includes two new food baddies, Mr. Garlic, described as a "clove of garlic who drops lingering morsels of his cloves behind him" and Mr. Carrot, who can "drill himself down a level to chase Peter." Other enhancements are a word collection mini-game.
BurgerTime Delight is available now on national carriers including Sprint and Verizon.
BurgerTime Delight is available now on national carriers including Sprint and Verizon.
Xinorbis: Get a Handle on Your Hard Drive
IYou can buy and install a 250GB hard drive on Monday, and by Friday it feels like you're already out of space. There's no shortage of applications to help you manage your drives and show you where all your space is going, but Xinorbis is one of the best that I've seen. Xinorbis can analyze a drive or set of folder and tell you what types of files are inside and how much space you're losing to what kinds of files, all from inside an attractive interface that puts other similar apps to shame.
Xinorbis can analyze entire hard drives, network shares and mapped network drives, and individual directories. If you're curious as to what's taking up all your hard drive space, you can use the app to scan your entire system; but if you're concerned just with exactly how much of your downloads folder is, for example music versus movies, Xinorbis can tell you. The app includes shell support and allows you to launch straight from a directory that you'd like to scan. Once Xinorbis completes a scan, it generates a report that you can save for future reference and comparison later.
Xinorbis has a few features that make it noticeably more effective than other drive analyzers. Not only will the app scan your drive and tell you how much storage is being used by what files and folders, Xinorbis can break down that allocation by file type. For example, Xinorbis can tell you that the bulk of your hard drive is being eaten by music or movies, as opposed to documents and programs. You can also sort by file type if you wish, and see how much of your available space is occupied by MP3s versus AACs.
The interface is intelligently designed and reveals a great deal of information in one view. For example, one display can show you the ratio of file types on the drive, a run-down of file sizes on the drives, and a graph of subdirectories and their contents. Similar applications can show you similar information, but not in the same view.
Fans of faster apps, such as WinDirStat and SequoiaView, will miss the ability to delete files straight from the application and won't be pleased with how long Xinorbis takes to analyze your drive or directories, but they'll be pleased with the multiple views and wealth of reporting capabilities. Xinorbis is free, and supports Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista.
[ via DownloadSquad ]
Xinorbis can analyze entire hard drives, network shares and mapped network drives, and individual directories. If you're curious as to what's taking up all your hard drive space, you can use the app to scan your entire system; but if you're concerned just with exactly how much of your downloads folder is, for example music versus movies, Xinorbis can tell you. The app includes shell support and allows you to launch straight from a directory that you'd like to scan. Once Xinorbis completes a scan, it generates a report that you can save for future reference and comparison later.
Xinorbis has a few features that make it noticeably more effective than other drive analyzers. Not only will the app scan your drive and tell you how much storage is being used by what files and folders, Xinorbis can break down that allocation by file type. For example, Xinorbis can tell you that the bulk of your hard drive is being eaten by music or movies, as opposed to documents and programs. You can also sort by file type if you wish, and see how much of your available space is occupied by MP3s versus AACs.
The interface is intelligently designed and reveals a great deal of information in one view. For example, one display can show you the ratio of file types on the drive, a run-down of file sizes on the drives, and a graph of subdirectories and their contents. Similar applications can show you similar information, but not in the same view.
Fans of faster apps, such as WinDirStat and SequoiaView, will miss the ability to delete files straight from the application and won't be pleased with how long Xinorbis takes to analyze your drive or directories, but they'll be pleased with the multiple views and wealth of reporting capabilities. Xinorbis is free, and supports Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista.
[ via DownloadSquad ]
Sony BMG Goes Digital, Misses the Point
The company that brought you the Great Rootkit Fiasco of 2005 has finally come around and decided to not only ditch DRM entirely, but to allow you to download music from artists on the Sony BMG label in MP3 format. Sony BMG recently unveiled its new MusicPass site, which promises fans unprotected MP3 downloads playable on any device. The problem? You have to go to a brick-and-mortar store to buy a card with a code you can redeem for your digital downloads.
It would seem to be good news that Sony BMG has decided to abandon DRM in favor of unprotected MP3s. One would hope that Sony got the message that its customers were tired of being treated like criminals and decided to change its ways. Unfortunately it seems Sony didn't get the entire message, or the company's suffering from a case of selective hearing. Sure, Sony's dropped DRM, but instead of understanding that people are interested in downloading tracks individually and buying music online, it has reproduced the old model of forcing people to go to stores to buy their music.
Now, if you want digital music from your favorite Sony BMG artists, you have to go to a physical store, buy a plastic card with the code for the album you're interested in, take it home, enter the code at MusicPass, and then you get to download the song. It's like buying a CD at your local department store, just with more effort required to actually get the music and less payoff: You get a plastic card and some MP3s for all your effort. At least a CD is a physical copy with liner notes and album art, and you can rip the CD to get the digital version.
Unfortunately, the entire project is proof that Sony still doesn't get it. It's catching on slowly but surely, which is good, but it managed to get the part that says people want electronic copies of their music while missing the part that says people want it to be convenient and worth their time. Sony is willing to concede that people want control over what they do with the music when they own it, but they're determined to have complete control over how people purchase and obtain their music.
There will be 37 albums available from a handful of artists via MusicPass when the program starts. The MusicPass cards will be $12.99 (almost the cost of the artist's CD, which will likely sit on the shelf next to the MusicPass card at the store), and will be available at Best Buy, Target, and a few other stores on January 15th. Look on the bright side--at least with MusicPass, the digital downloads won't come with a rootkit.
[ via USA Today ]
It would seem to be good news that Sony BMG has decided to abandon DRM in favor of unprotected MP3s. One would hope that Sony got the message that its customers were tired of being treated like criminals and decided to change its ways. Unfortunately it seems Sony didn't get the entire message, or the company's suffering from a case of selective hearing. Sure, Sony's dropped DRM, but instead of understanding that people are interested in downloading tracks individually and buying music online, it has reproduced the old model of forcing people to go to stores to buy their music.
Now, if you want digital music from your favorite Sony BMG artists, you have to go to a physical store, buy a plastic card with the code for the album you're interested in, take it home, enter the code at MusicPass, and then you get to download the song. It's like buying a CD at your local department store, just with more effort required to actually get the music and less payoff: You get a plastic card and some MP3s for all your effort. At least a CD is a physical copy with liner notes and album art, and you can rip the CD to get the digital version.
Unfortunately, the entire project is proof that Sony still doesn't get it. It's catching on slowly but surely, which is good, but it managed to get the part that says people want electronic copies of their music while missing the part that says people want it to be convenient and worth their time. Sony is willing to concede that people want control over what they do with the music when they own it, but they're determined to have complete control over how people purchase and obtain their music.
There will be 37 albums available from a handful of artists via MusicPass when the program starts. The MusicPass cards will be $12.99 (almost the cost of the artist's CD, which will likely sit on the shelf next to the MusicPass card at the store), and will be available at Best Buy, Target, and a few other stores on January 15th. Look on the bright side--at least with MusicPass, the digital downloads won't come with a rootkit.
[ via USA Today ]
Martin: FCC To Investigate Comcast Data Discrimination
Kevin Martin is raining on Comcast's CES parade.
On the same day Comcast CEO Brian Roberts gave the first ever CES keynote by a cable chief (with the Flight of the Conchords in tow, no less), the FCC chairman said at a separate CES panel that the commission would be investigating whether Comcast was involved in data discrimination.
"Sure, we're going to investigate and make sure that no consumer is going to be blocked," Martin was quoted as saying.
In October, AP conducted a test that it said proved Comcast was blocking access to peer-to-peer networks; an experiment that was later replicated and confirmed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Comcast accused AP and EFF of using too narrow a focus with its tests. The cable provider admitted to "delaying" certain P2P traffic, but denied that it was blocking access to any content.
Two months ago, the SavetheInternet.com coalition and several academics filed a complaint with the FCC calling on the commission to stop Comcast from violating customer rights.
A source within the FCC confirmed that the quote from Martin was accurate, but said that the FCC did not make any official announcement today about its plans regarding the Comcast complaint.
"We believe our practices are in accordance with the FCC's policy statement on the Internet," David L. Cohen, executive vice presiden for Comcast, said in a statement. "Comcast plans to work with the Commission in its desire to bring more transparency for consumers regarding broadband network management."
The interest groups who filed the complaint were predictably pleased.
"We hope the Chairman's statements, made two months after we filed our complaint, will lead to immediate and accelerated action at the FCC on the critical issue of whether Comcast, AT
On the same day Comcast CEO Brian Roberts gave the first ever CES keynote by a cable chief (with the Flight of the Conchords in tow, no less), the FCC chairman said at a separate CES panel that the commission would be investigating whether Comcast was involved in data discrimination.
"Sure, we're going to investigate and make sure that no consumer is going to be blocked," Martin was quoted as saying.
In October, AP conducted a test that it said proved Comcast was blocking access to peer-to-peer networks; an experiment that was later replicated and confirmed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Comcast accused AP and EFF of using too narrow a focus with its tests. The cable provider admitted to "delaying" certain P2P traffic, but denied that it was blocking access to any content.
Two months ago, the SavetheInternet.com coalition and several academics filed a complaint with the FCC calling on the commission to stop Comcast from violating customer rights.
A source within the FCC confirmed that the quote from Martin was accurate, but said that the FCC did not make any official announcement today about its plans regarding the Comcast complaint.
"We believe our practices are in accordance with the FCC's policy statement on the Internet," David L. Cohen, executive vice presiden for Comcast, said in a statement. "Comcast plans to work with the Commission in its desire to bring more transparency for consumers regarding broadband network management."
The interest groups who filed the complaint were predictably pleased.
"We hope the Chairman's statements, made two months after we filed our complaint, will lead to immediate and accelerated action at the FCC on the critical issue of whether Comcast, AT
Hands-On with Picaboo: Creating Photo Books
If you're a shutterbug, you probably have discs and folders full of photos to sort through. And many of them won't ever see the light of day once you've uploaded them to your computer. But photo services like the ones we profiled in our top 10 list of Apps to Preserve Memories make it easy to organize and preserve your pictures in book form.
I recently had the chance to test out Picaboo's photo service, and I knew right away that a photo book would be the perfect holiday gift for my dad. To call him a photography enthusiast is a serious understatement. In the course of our five-day trip to Paris, he rarely emerged from behind the viewfinder of his sizable HP camera. Needless to say, the photo album was the hit of my family's Christmas. My dad still shows it off to family friends! Though there were a few hiccups building the book with Picaboo's software, I was really happy with the final product. More on the creation process after the jump.
Similar to competitor MyPublisher.com, the actual building process occurs on your local system after you download the free software from Picaboo's website. Here's where I hit the first glitch: I own a MacBook, and Picaboo only works on Windows systems. I regrouped and brought the photos to the office on a flash drive, so that I could use a Windows machine. Unfortunately, the installation process still didn't run smoothly, and I kept getting vague error messages. I tried going to Picaboo's troubleshooting page, but it wasn't particularly helpful or straightforward. Finally, after turning off all other programs and restarting my computer, I was able to fully install the software, which ran smoothly after that.
Once I launched Picaboo and selected the "Create Book!" function, I was immediately prompted to pick a theme. I was pretty impressed with the options. The basic choices are all surprisingly tasteful and allow for a lot of flexibility. The program comes with 19 basic themes and more are available on Picaboo's Web site.
The next step is to choose the photos. The program loads thumbnails, so it's pretty easy to pick the exact pictures you want. In Picaboo, you can do some photo editing (including resizing, adjusting brightness/contrast, and removing red eye), but if you want anything more advanced, you'll need to tweak the photos before you upload. The upload itself doesn't take long (even on my clunker of a computer) and the little dancing Picaboo logo is enough entertainment to pass the time.
I wanted ultimate control of the layout, but I decided to try the Auto Create function just for kicks. I was actually impressed with the result it came up with. The program took Paris photos, along with shots of the beach by our house in San Diego and the ski slopes in central California, and combined them in a visually compelling way that I was actually tempted to use. If you don't want to lay out the book yourself, I'd definitely recommend this option.
It's a good thing Picaboo offers so may page layout options, because you really can't alter them in any way once you've made your selection. Building the page is simple enough. A pane underneath the main window displays thumbnails of all the uploaded photos; I just dragged and dropped each in the preset layout I selected from Picaboo's list. If you want to do any photo editing within the program, this is the time to do it. The photos are automatically placed with a drop shadow (which can be turned off) and white border, but you can select from any number of border or corner options, or no border at all. There are quite a few choices for captions, including a broad selection of fonts and styles and the opportunity to create custom colors if you don't like the program's basic palette. Unfortunately, Picaboo doesn't warn you accurately if your captions are running a little long or going off the printable page: There are dotted lines that show you where your caption is supposed to end. I wanted mine as low on the page as possible, so I hit return until it was resting just above the line. But in printing, it cut off all the tails on my letters (like the bottoms of p's, g's, and j's). So the dotted line wasn't quite accurate.
I opted to design my own cover, instead of the default linen and leather cutout covers the program offers. I was very happy with the results; my book had a lovely glossy, laminated cover. Ordering was simple too. One of Picaboo's greatest strengths is the breadth of book selections it offers, starting at $9.99 for the basics and going up to $49.99. Regardless of the price (which is largely determined by the cover option you select) each book can hold up to 20 pages for the base fee and 140 additional pages for a little more per page. Even if you don't opt to buy a printed version, the photo book exists on your account and can be shared with other Picaboo members.
Though I didn't test it, Picaboo also offers a soundtrack option, where you can upload songs from your computer or download tunes from eMusic.
Despite my complaints with the process, with a little time and tinkering I was able to get the result I wanted. I wish that Picaboo was compatible with Macs and that the installation had run smoothly, but once it was up and running I had few complaints. My dad's book looks fantastic on the coffee table, and that's what really counts.by Nicole Price Fasig
I recently had the chance to test out Picaboo's photo service, and I knew right away that a photo book would be the perfect holiday gift for my dad. To call him a photography enthusiast is a serious understatement. In the course of our five-day trip to Paris, he rarely emerged from behind the viewfinder of his sizable HP camera. Needless to say, the photo album was the hit of my family's Christmas. My dad still shows it off to family friends! Though there were a few hiccups building the book with Picaboo's software, I was really happy with the final product. More on the creation process after the jump.
Similar to competitor MyPublisher.com, the actual building process occurs on your local system after you download the free software from Picaboo's website. Here's where I hit the first glitch: I own a MacBook, and Picaboo only works on Windows systems. I regrouped and brought the photos to the office on a flash drive, so that I could use a Windows machine. Unfortunately, the installation process still didn't run smoothly, and I kept getting vague error messages. I tried going to Picaboo's troubleshooting page, but it wasn't particularly helpful or straightforward. Finally, after turning off all other programs and restarting my computer, I was able to fully install the software, which ran smoothly after that.
Once I launched Picaboo and selected the "Create Book!" function, I was immediately prompted to pick a theme. I was pretty impressed with the options. The basic choices are all surprisingly tasteful and allow for a lot of flexibility. The program comes with 19 basic themes and more are available on Picaboo's Web site.
The next step is to choose the photos. The program loads thumbnails, so it's pretty easy to pick the exact pictures you want. In Picaboo, you can do some photo editing (including resizing, adjusting brightness/contrast, and removing red eye), but if you want anything more advanced, you'll need to tweak the photos before you upload. The upload itself doesn't take long (even on my clunker of a computer) and the little dancing Picaboo logo is enough entertainment to pass the time.
I wanted ultimate control of the layout, but I decided to try the Auto Create function just for kicks. I was actually impressed with the result it came up with. The program took Paris photos, along with shots of the beach by our house in San Diego and the ski slopes in central California, and combined them in a visually compelling way that I was actually tempted to use. If you don't want to lay out the book yourself, I'd definitely recommend this option.
It's a good thing Picaboo offers so may page layout options, because you really can't alter them in any way once you've made your selection. Building the page is simple enough. A pane underneath the main window displays thumbnails of all the uploaded photos; I just dragged and dropped each in the preset layout I selected from Picaboo's list. If you want to do any photo editing within the program, this is the time to do it. The photos are automatically placed with a drop shadow (which can be turned off) and white border, but you can select from any number of border or corner options, or no border at all. There are quite a few choices for captions, including a broad selection of fonts and styles and the opportunity to create custom colors if you don't like the program's basic palette. Unfortunately, Picaboo doesn't warn you accurately if your captions are running a little long or going off the printable page: There are dotted lines that show you where your caption is supposed to end. I wanted mine as low on the page as possible, so I hit return until it was resting just above the line. But in printing, it cut off all the tails on my letters (like the bottoms of p's, g's, and j's). So the dotted line wasn't quite accurate.
I opted to design my own cover, instead of the default linen and leather cutout covers the program offers. I was very happy with the results; my book had a lovely glossy, laminated cover. Ordering was simple too. One of Picaboo's greatest strengths is the breadth of book selections it offers, starting at $9.99 for the basics and going up to $49.99. Regardless of the price (which is largely determined by the cover option you select) each book can hold up to 20 pages for the base fee and 140 additional pages for a little more per page. Even if you don't opt to buy a printed version, the photo book exists on your account and can be shared with other Picaboo members.
Though I didn't test it, Picaboo also offers a soundtrack option, where you can upload songs from your computer or download tunes from eMusic.
Despite my complaints with the process, with a little time and tinkering I was able to get the result I wanted. I wish that Picaboo was compatible with Macs and that the installation had run smoothly, but once it was up and running I had few complaints. My dad's book looks fantastic on the coffee table, and that's what really counts.by Nicole Price Fasig
PointUI Spices Up Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile isn't exactly the prettiest operating system on the block. Sure it gets the job done, but is it too much to ask for a little form with my function? PointUI, a free skinning application for Windows Mobile, wants to help me out. PointUI brings an attractive and elegant interface to Windows Mobile's clunky program list and home screen, and makes your Windows Mobile device a bit more of a pleasure to use.
I simply can't stand the look of Windows Mobile's default UI. I carry a Motorola Q around for work, and while the interface is simple and functional, it's just not pretty. The home screen tries to squash together my upcoming calendar appointments, number of unread e-mail messages, and other information on the same screen--and unfortunately makes all of it unreadable. PointUI replaces all of that with a few simple icons and a sparse home screen that shows me where to go to get the information I want instead of trying to put it all in the same view.
PointUI isn't for everyone. It doesn't work with some smartphones and PDAs. And because the app was designed for touch-screen devices, it didn't take too well to my Motorola Q, which has a directional pad instead of a touch-screen. You should definitely check the forums before downloading it to your Windows Mobile device and expecting it to work smoothly. The app is in beta, so there are still kinks to work out, but if your threshold for bleeding-edge apps is high and you dislike the Windows Mobile interface as much as I do, PointUI is worth a try.
PointUI skins just about every aspect of Windows Mobile. You'll have to see the traditional Windows Mobile interface some of the time, but the most often-used screens, such as the home screen and the settings screens, have been redesigned to be much more attractive and to scroll smoothly between views. Additionally, if you do have a touch-screen device, PointUI turns up the touch sensitivity so you don't have to use a stylus to click on items. Instead, finger-swipes (a la the iPhone) will work just fine.
The designers behind PointUI claim that their focus is simplicity, elegance, and ease of use. I saw those characteristics show through when I tried PointUI, and I'll wait patiently for it to support my Q; my friend with an AT
I simply can't stand the look of Windows Mobile's default UI. I carry a Motorola Q around for work, and while the interface is simple and functional, it's just not pretty. The home screen tries to squash together my upcoming calendar appointments, number of unread e-mail messages, and other information on the same screen--and unfortunately makes all of it unreadable. PointUI replaces all of that with a few simple icons and a sparse home screen that shows me where to go to get the information I want instead of trying to put it all in the same view.
PointUI isn't for everyone. It doesn't work with some smartphones and PDAs. And because the app was designed for touch-screen devices, it didn't take too well to my Motorola Q, which has a directional pad instead of a touch-screen. You should definitely check the forums before downloading it to your Windows Mobile device and expecting it to work smoothly. The app is in beta, so there are still kinks to work out, but if your threshold for bleeding-edge apps is high and you dislike the Windows Mobile interface as much as I do, PointUI is worth a try.
PointUI skins just about every aspect of Windows Mobile. You'll have to see the traditional Windows Mobile interface some of the time, but the most often-used screens, such as the home screen and the settings screens, have been redesigned to be much more attractive and to scroll smoothly between views. Additionally, if you do have a touch-screen device, PointUI turns up the touch sensitivity so you don't have to use a stylus to click on items. Instead, finger-swipes (a la the iPhone) will work just fine.
The designers behind PointUI claim that their focus is simplicity, elegance, and ease of use. I saw those characteristics show through when I tried PointUI, and I'll wait patiently for it to support my Q; my friend with an AT
Monday, September 21, 2009
MySpace Friend Adder Is Just Depressing
I love social networking. I think there's a lot of promise in tools that allow people to connect with one another across large distances, connect with colleagues and professionals, or even organize like-minded people for a common cause. But for all of the promise social networking sites and services offer, there are still people who use them for nothing more than marketing a brand or making themselves feel popular. That's where MySpace Friend Adder comes in. If your MySpace profile is a little lonely and you want to make more friends, just give the service your information; in return, it promises thousands of new MySpace friends.
There are two major target audiences for a service like the MySpace Friend Adder: marketing professionals who have a brand or product to promote and who have decided that MySpace is the perfect medium, and lonely MySpace users whose paltry handful of friends isn't enough to satisfy their desire to be one of the "cool kids." In both cases, it's somewhat sad and an awful reflection on what MySpace has become, now that everyone's attention has turned to Facebook instead.
The service is simple: Just give the MySpace Friend Adder your "friend code," a number in your MySpace profile, and the service presents you with a screen of friends you can automatically add to your MySpace profile. It's likely that all of those accounts are set to automatically accept friend requests, and it's likely that all of those users have also used the Friend Adder in the past. Either that or the service just mercilessly hammers random MySpace users with friend requests.
The service gives out "friend points" for using it and for adding friends who in turn add you back. What those points are good for is anyone's guess, but some people are apparently dependent enough on the service to bolster their friends lists that they've collected upwards of 150 points. (It's worth noting that the users with the most points are all marketing services.) You can shell out $3 to be a VIP for a day, and up to $60 to be a VIP for two months, whatever that might mean.
The MySpace Friend Adder proves that MySpace is either going down the tubes or that social networking of the MySpace genre is a sham. I'd like to believe that it's more the former than the latter, but I'm sure that you could argue both based on the existence of "friend adding services" as a genre.
There are two major target audiences for a service like the MySpace Friend Adder: marketing professionals who have a brand or product to promote and who have decided that MySpace is the perfect medium, and lonely MySpace users whose paltry handful of friends isn't enough to satisfy their desire to be one of the "cool kids." In both cases, it's somewhat sad and an awful reflection on what MySpace has become, now that everyone's attention has turned to Facebook instead.
The service is simple: Just give the MySpace Friend Adder your "friend code," a number in your MySpace profile, and the service presents you with a screen of friends you can automatically add to your MySpace profile. It's likely that all of those accounts are set to automatically accept friend requests, and it's likely that all of those users have also used the Friend Adder in the past. Either that or the service just mercilessly hammers random MySpace users with friend requests.
The service gives out "friend points" for using it and for adding friends who in turn add you back. What those points are good for is anyone's guess, but some people are apparently dependent enough on the service to bolster their friends lists that they've collected upwards of 150 points. (It's worth noting that the users with the most points are all marketing services.) You can shell out $3 to be a VIP for a day, and up to $60 to be a VIP for two months, whatever that might mean.
The MySpace Friend Adder proves that MySpace is either going down the tubes or that social networking of the MySpace genre is a sham. I'd like to believe that it's more the former than the latter, but I'm sure that you could argue both based on the existence of "friend adding services" as a genre.
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Latest Frontrunner?
Hillary Clinton and John McCain, at the top of the New Hampshire heap, are savoring their new labels as frontrunners. But apparently they have to share with another frontrunner, at least according to an eWEEK article by Steven Vaughan-Nichols. Is Network Solutions reveling in the label? Maybe not so much.
You see, in Internet lingo, "front running" means locking up a domain name as soon as somebody does a Whois search. A cynic might point out that if a person happens to search for a domain on Joe's registration site, and Joe immediately grabs the name, then anyone wanting to buy the domain will have to go to
You see, in Internet lingo, "front running" means locking up a domain name as soon as somebody does a Whois search. A cynic might point out that if a person happens to search for a domain on Joe's registration site, and Joe immediately grabs the name, then anyone wanting to buy the domain will have to go to
QiPit Turns Cameraphone Images to PDFs
I've often found myself in meetings where my colleagues and I fill a whiteboard with ideas but forget to write any of them down. When the meeting is over, we all run back to our desks, grab pens and paper, and come back to the conference room to try and make sense of our whiteboard notes.
With QiPit, we can fill up a whiteboard without worrying that we won't be able to leave the meeting with copies of everything we wrote. QiPit allows you to use your cameraphone to snap an image of a document, a whiteboard or chalkboard, or even handwritten notes and convert it to a PDF that you can e-mail, fax, or publish straight from your phone.
Whether you're sitting in a long corporate meeting, and you've filled up the whiteboard with ideas and bullet points, or you're sitting in a class where your professor likes to erase the board before you can write everything down, QPit can help. You can take pictures of just about anything with your camera phone, then send the image to QiPit, which will convert the image into a PDF document and send it back to you.
Qipit works equally well with chalkboards, written notes, whiteboards, and printed documents. The limiting factor is the quality of your camera phone. The service works with most major camera phones and offers a model selector that tells you what you can do with each type of phone. The service's basic features work best with whiteboards, handwritten notes, and printed documents, but the better the camera on your phone, the higher-quality images and PDFs it can produce for you. QiPit does some image clean-up for you--brightening up dark images to bring out the text, for example.
Once you have the converted PDF, you can store it on your phone or on the Web, e-mail it to yourself or your colleagues, fax it to a friend from your cell phone, and publish it to the Web. Alternatively, you can save PDFs in your QiPit account, tag them, and organize them. The service was designed to be used with camera phones, but you can use a digital camera as well and e-mail the photo to your QiPit account.
QiPit members use the service for ideas scribbled on napkins, class notes on chalkboards, and handwritten notes from meetings and study sessions. If you're the type of person who's always jotting down notes on random slips of paper, QiPit could be useful for you to get all of those ideas in one place. Best of all, the service is free.
With QiPit, we can fill up a whiteboard without worrying that we won't be able to leave the meeting with copies of everything we wrote. QiPit allows you to use your cameraphone to snap an image of a document, a whiteboard or chalkboard, or even handwritten notes and convert it to a PDF that you can e-mail, fax, or publish straight from your phone.
Whether you're sitting in a long corporate meeting, and you've filled up the whiteboard with ideas and bullet points, or you're sitting in a class where your professor likes to erase the board before you can write everything down, QPit can help. You can take pictures of just about anything with your camera phone, then send the image to QiPit, which will convert the image into a PDF document and send it back to you.
Qipit works equally well with chalkboards, written notes, whiteboards, and printed documents. The limiting factor is the quality of your camera phone. The service works with most major camera phones and offers a model selector that tells you what you can do with each type of phone. The service's basic features work best with whiteboards, handwritten notes, and printed documents, but the better the camera on your phone, the higher-quality images and PDFs it can produce for you. QiPit does some image clean-up for you--brightening up dark images to bring out the text, for example.
Once you have the converted PDF, you can store it on your phone or on the Web, e-mail it to yourself or your colleagues, fax it to a friend from your cell phone, and publish it to the Web. Alternatively, you can save PDFs in your QiPit account, tag them, and organize them. The service was designed to be used with camera phones, but you can use a digital camera as well and e-mail the photo to your QiPit account.
QiPit members use the service for ideas scribbled on napkins, class notes on chalkboards, and handwritten notes from meetings and study sessions. If you're the type of person who's always jotting down notes on random slips of paper, QiPit could be useful for you to get all of those ideas in one place. Best of all, the service is free.
FeedDemon and NetNewsWire Now Free Downloads
Fans of desktop RSS readers, rejoice! Newsgator, the company behind NetNewsWire for Mac and FeedDemon for Windows, has updated and released all its desktop and mobile RSS readers for free. NetNewsWire and FeedDemon are highly regarded and generally considered the best RSS aggregators that money can buy--and now, you don't have to pay anything for them.
All NewsGator's personal products are free now, including FeedDemon for Windows, NetNewsWire for Mac, NewsGator Go! for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices, NewsGator Inbox for Outlook, and NewsGator Online (its Web-based offering). NetNewsWire and FeedDemon were also updated to new versions, which NewsGator claims include improvements in stability and functionality.
The biggest selling points for NetNewsWire and FeedDemon have been their ability to work with the speed, simplicity, and customization options of a desktop client, but still remain connected to NewsGator's servers so you could access your preferences and feeds remotely. This way, you have the ability to choose when you refresh your feeds, manage your feeds on one computer and have the settings filter down to all the other clients you use, and still log in to NewsGator Online to read your feeds. FeedDemon, for example, is so robust that it earned an Editor's Choice award when FeedDemon 2.0 was released.
NewsGator has promised to continue updating and developing its desktop and individual products, even though they're now free. The company will instead turn its focus to its enterprise offerings, including its Enterprise Server platform, its widget framework and social networking software for Microsoft Sharepoint. The company is aiming to bring the success its had in the end-user market to the corporate arena.
[ via MarketWire ]
All NewsGator's personal products are free now, including FeedDemon for Windows, NetNewsWire for Mac, NewsGator Go! for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices, NewsGator Inbox for Outlook, and NewsGator Online (its Web-based offering). NetNewsWire and FeedDemon were also updated to new versions, which NewsGator claims include improvements in stability and functionality.
The biggest selling points for NetNewsWire and FeedDemon have been their ability to work with the speed, simplicity, and customization options of a desktop client, but still remain connected to NewsGator's servers so you could access your preferences and feeds remotely. This way, you have the ability to choose when you refresh your feeds, manage your feeds on one computer and have the settings filter down to all the other clients you use, and still log in to NewsGator Online to read your feeds. FeedDemon, for example, is so robust that it earned an Editor's Choice award when FeedDemon 2.0 was released.
NewsGator has promised to continue updating and developing its desktop and individual products, even though they're now free. The company will instead turn its focus to its enterprise offerings, including its Enterprise Server platform, its widget framework and social networking software for Microsoft Sharepoint. The company is aiming to bring the success its had in the end-user market to the corporate arena.
[ via MarketWire ]
As Lucasfilm Goes, So Goes HD?
First Warner Brothers announced it was going Blu, then the producers of blue movies started making similar sounds about a move to Blu-ray. Microsoft has even made some noise about the Blu-ing of xBox after the fall of HD DVD.
All this is all well and good for Sony's format (and welcome news for anyone who got a PS3 this holiday season), but it's nothing compared to the legions of geeks who're waiting--nay, clamoring--for the Star Wars saga to go HD. If that series of SF masterpieces (okay, call them blockbusters) went Blu, it would be a mammoth body-blow to the HD DVD format. Lucasfilm is officially "agnostic" at this point, but what do the series hardcore fans want? You know, the ones who dress up in wookie suits for the cons.
It's anyone's guess what will actually happen, but there is an interesting poll on the starwars.com site today, and the results are encouraging for Blu-ray owners. At the time I wrote this, Blu-ray was winning by a margin of nearly seven to one--68% for Blu-ray, versus an anemic 10% for HD DVD. As anyone who's following the Primaries knows, polls are probably only one step from damned lies and statistics. Still, the number of undecideds--those who haven't picked a format yet--is a bit smaller than independents in the recent contest in the Live Free or Die State, at 22%.
Granted, the correlation between gamers and Star Wars fanatics is probably quite high, so we're probably talking about a lot of people who use their game console as their main player, and for full HD that means PS3s (some, but not all, xBox 360s can handle 1080p signals, and that requires an aftermarket add on). It's hard to say how much of a predictor this is for the other high-def movie enthusiasts out there. Still, the Star Wars franchise has racked up phenomenal sales in every format in which it's been released.
It's early days for this poll, which runs until the twenty-second of this month, but things are looking Blu in the nerd camp. How will you vote?
Post by Sean Carroll
All this is all well and good for Sony's format (and welcome news for anyone who got a PS3 this holiday season), but it's nothing compared to the legions of geeks who're waiting--nay, clamoring--for the Star Wars saga to go HD. If that series of SF masterpieces (okay, call them blockbusters) went Blu, it would be a mammoth body-blow to the HD DVD format. Lucasfilm is officially "agnostic" at this point, but what do the series hardcore fans want? You know, the ones who dress up in wookie suits for the cons.
It's anyone's guess what will actually happen, but there is an interesting poll on the starwars.com site today, and the results are encouraging for Blu-ray owners. At the time I wrote this, Blu-ray was winning by a margin of nearly seven to one--68% for Blu-ray, versus an anemic 10% for HD DVD. As anyone who's following the Primaries knows, polls are probably only one step from damned lies and statistics. Still, the number of undecideds--those who haven't picked a format yet--is a bit smaller than independents in the recent contest in the Live Free or Die State, at 22%.
Granted, the correlation between gamers and Star Wars fanatics is probably quite high, so we're probably talking about a lot of people who use their game console as their main player, and for full HD that means PS3s (some, but not all, xBox 360s can handle 1080p signals, and that requires an aftermarket add on). It's hard to say how much of a predictor this is for the other high-def movie enthusiasts out there. Still, the Star Wars franchise has racked up phenomenal sales in every format in which it's been released.
It's early days for this poll, which runs until the twenty-second of this month, but things are looking Blu in the nerd camp. How will you vote?
Post by Sean Carroll
Last.FM Goes Windows Mobile
It may not be the long-promised Slacker player, but music lovers with a Windows Mobile phone will surely be pleased to hear about the introduction of a version of Internet radio service Last.fm for their favorite mobile OS.
Last.fm Mobile "scrobbles" music from Windows Media Player (basing playlists upon your existing music library) and offers "experimental radio functionality," according to Download Squad. The app works with Windows Media Player 5 or 6 and .NET Compact Framework 2.0.
Last.fm Mobile "scrobbles" music from Windows Media Player (basing playlists upon your existing music library) and offers "experimental radio functionality," according to Download Squad. The app works with Windows Media Player 5 or 6 and .NET Compact Framework 2.0.
RIAA Goes After Usenet Newsgroups for Copyright Infringement
Perhaps empowered by a recent $222,000 ruling in its favor, the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) is now going after Usenet.com, one of the companies hosting the distributed Usenet newsgroups, for "consciously and blatantly" facilitating the illegal downloading of copyrighted material.
The recording industry filed suit Friday in a New York district court and is looking to recover Usenet profits, $150,000 per infringement and attorneys fees.
The RIAA asserts in its filing that Usenet.com is "almost identical" to Napster and other illegal P2P file sharing services. Usenet.com, however, goes further to provide "enhancements that make the service more attractive" for those looking to share files illegally, according to the suit.
Usenet.com allows users to share data on its system like a message board. The service provides a variety of service plans, from $18.95 per month for unlimited access to $4.95 per month for 2GB of space.
The RIAA alleges that these fees encourage Usenet to support infringement. Usenet.com's "profits increase with the amount of infringement it fosters [because] binary files are significantly larger than text files," according to the suit. "The more copyrighted sound recordings users download, the more money [Usenet.com] makes."
The RIAA points to notices on the Usenet Web site that appear to encourage illegal downloads like: "Shh ... Quiet! We believe it's no one's business but your own what you do on the Internet or in Usenet. We don't track user activity."
Such statement could be problematic in court in the RIAA wants to invoke the Grokster ruling, in which the Supreme Court ruled against filing sharing services because it found that "each company showed itself to be aiming to satisfy a known source of demand for copyright infringement"
A copyright policy on the Usenet Web site prohibits the trading of illegal material, but the RIAA claims that Usenet nonetheless "expressly promises its users that it will not take action against them for downloading infringing material."
Usenet.com did immediately respond to requests for comment.
A quick perusal of songs being illegally downloaded by Usenet.com users, meanwhile, include selections from Ace of Base, Air Supply, Kenny G and Milli Vanilli, so perhaps this case should be an attack on musical tastes rather than Internet practices.
The recording industry filed suit Friday in a New York district court and is looking to recover Usenet profits, $150,000 per infringement and attorneys fees.
The RIAA asserts in its filing that Usenet.com is "almost identical" to Napster and other illegal P2P file sharing services. Usenet.com, however, goes further to provide "enhancements that make the service more attractive" for those looking to share files illegally, according to the suit.
Usenet.com allows users to share data on its system like a message board. The service provides a variety of service plans, from $18.95 per month for unlimited access to $4.95 per month for 2GB of space.
The RIAA alleges that these fees encourage Usenet to support infringement. Usenet.com's "profits increase with the amount of infringement it fosters [because] binary files are significantly larger than text files," according to the suit. "The more copyrighted sound recordings users download, the more money [Usenet.com] makes."
The RIAA points to notices on the Usenet Web site that appear to encourage illegal downloads like: "Shh ... Quiet! We believe it's no one's business but your own what you do on the Internet or in Usenet. We don't track user activity."
Such statement could be problematic in court in the RIAA wants to invoke the Grokster ruling, in which the Supreme Court ruled against filing sharing services because it found that "each company showed itself to be aiming to satisfy a known source of demand for copyright infringement"
A copyright policy on the Usenet Web site prohibits the trading of illegal material, but the RIAA claims that Usenet nonetheless "expressly promises its users that it will not take action against them for downloading infringing material."
Usenet.com did immediately respond to requests for comment.
A quick perusal of songs being illegally downloaded by Usenet.com users, meanwhile, include selections from Ace of Base, Air Supply, Kenny G and Milli Vanilli, so perhaps this case should be an attack on musical tastes rather than Internet practices.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Are Obama and Dick Cheney Related? Ancestry.com Could Help
The latest political bombshell (unconfirmed, so far as I know) is that Lynne Cheney is claiming that her husband, Vice-President Dick Cheney, is distantly related to Sen. Barack Obama.
Mrs. Cheney told MSNBC on Tuesday that it was "an amazing American story that one ancestor ... could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths." The common ancestor was Mareen Devall, who the Chicago Sun-Times said was a 17th century immigrant from France, according to Reuters.
Normally, given a chance like this, opportunism strikes. It just so happens, however, that genealogy site Ancestry.com's DNA service did not take advantage of this. So we're doing it for them.
Disclosure: I tried out the Ancestry.com service a few months ago, got hooked, and signed up. What I like about the site is that it's made for lazy genealogists like me: once I input a few key pieces of data, such as a full name and birthdate, the site instantly starts checking public databases in the background, to see if there's a match. That data includes the U.S. Census, which generally includes the names and ages of people living in a given household when the census was taken, which are extremely helpful clues to flesh out your family tree.
The service that Obama and Cheney might be interested in checking out is DNA.Ancestry.com, which allows you to submit a sample of your own DNA (a service that costs between $149 and $199) for Y-DNA (chromosomes that pass from father to son) and mtDNA tests (matching chromosomes that pass from mothers to their children).
In the coming months, DNA results will integrate with online Ancestry.com family trees. You can already add your DNA results to an existing family tree. (For privacy's sake, Ancestry.com hides all information on living members of your family, unless permitted.) A sample of what the tests might look like can be found here.
It's unclear how useful this will be, given that (thankfully) there exists no publicly accessible DNA record. It would seem that users would have to come forward and make their own DNA records accessible to determine if, say, I was actually related to the actor Gene Hackman. My understanding is that my rugged good looks are sheer coincidence.
Mrs. Cheney told MSNBC on Tuesday that it was "an amazing American story that one ancestor ... could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths." The common ancestor was Mareen Devall, who the Chicago Sun-Times said was a 17th century immigrant from France, according to Reuters.
Normally, given a chance like this, opportunism strikes. It just so happens, however, that genealogy site Ancestry.com's DNA service did not take advantage of this. So we're doing it for them.
Disclosure: I tried out the Ancestry.com service a few months ago, got hooked, and signed up. What I like about the site is that it's made for lazy genealogists like me: once I input a few key pieces of data, such as a full name and birthdate, the site instantly starts checking public databases in the background, to see if there's a match. That data includes the U.S. Census, which generally includes the names and ages of people living in a given household when the census was taken, which are extremely helpful clues to flesh out your family tree.
The service that Obama and Cheney might be interested in checking out is DNA.Ancestry.com, which allows you to submit a sample of your own DNA (a service that costs between $149 and $199) for Y-DNA (chromosomes that pass from father to son) and mtDNA tests (matching chromosomes that pass from mothers to their children).
In the coming months, DNA results will integrate with online Ancestry.com family trees. You can already add your DNA results to an existing family tree. (For privacy's sake, Ancestry.com hides all information on living members of your family, unless permitted.) A sample of what the tests might look like can be found here.
It's unclear how useful this will be, given that (thankfully) there exists no publicly accessible DNA record. It would seem that users would have to come forward and make their own DNA records accessible to determine if, say, I was actually related to the actor Gene Hackman. My understanding is that my rugged good looks are sheer coincidence.
World's Oldest Blogger Celebrates 108th Birthday
Google the words "world's oldest blogger," and you'll get no shortage of results. The bulk of the stories focus on folks in their mid-to-late 90s--mostly 95 and 96. Impressive, to be sure, but they've got nothing on Australian great-grandmother, Olive Riley. One would be hard-pressed to find someone who might be able to snatch the title away from Riley, who, in three days, will be turning 108.
Over at Riley's blog, The Life of Riley, they've already started the celebration--the home that Riley lives at insists that they hold birthday celebrations on Weekdays. But heck, she's already live 3,9417 days, so what's another three, right?
Born in 1899 in Broken Hill Australia (outside of Sydney), Riley started her blog--what she calls a "blob"--in February of this year. The entries consist largely of Riley's transcriptions to her friend Mike, consisting of her day to day events and stories for her 108 years of life.
Yep, sounds like a blog to us.
Over at Riley's blog, The Life of Riley, they've already started the celebration--the home that Riley lives at insists that they hold birthday celebrations on Weekdays. But heck, she's already live 3,9417 days, so what's another three, right?
Born in 1899 in Broken Hill Australia (outside of Sydney), Riley started her blog--what she calls a "blob"--in February of this year. The entries consist largely of Riley's transcriptions to her friend Mike, consisting of her day to day events and stories for her 108 years of life.
Yep, sounds like a blog to us.
ShowHype: Entertainment News for the Web 2.0 Crowd
There's something about the lives of celebrities that makes people obsessed. I'm not that type of person, but I admit that every now and again I like to know who Angelina is adopting and what Madonna is studying. For entertainment news provided by the community, check out ShowHype. ShowHype is a Digg-like social news site where the users and contributors provide the news and the community gets to vote on whether the story is worth reading. The site would be great if it stopped there, but there's more.
ShowHype is broken into three major parts. The front page contains all of the news submitted by the users. The Charts page tracks the most popular movies, television shows, and music. And the Community page is a place where users can create groups dedicated to specific celebrities and topics and discuss, interact, and submit stories.
All of the top stories are displayed on the front page, and users can vote on them from there. If you're interested in up-to-the minute entertainment news and celebrity gossip, this is where you'll spend most of your time. The news is broken out into multiple categories including the top stories, movie news, celebrity news, television news, and more. If you sign up for an account at ShowHype, you can rate the stories up or down depending on how you feel, or comment on them and interact with other users.
The charts section pulls information from services like Box Office Mojo and Nielsen Media Research to provide the top ten movies, television shows, and albums for a given time period. For more information on a given album, television show, or movie, click on the entry in the top five (the bottom five you have to click through to see) to be taken to the ShowHype story where the item is featured and participate in the discussion there.
In the community section, users can create groups based on their interests, and see if other members of the community share their passions. For example, a celebrity gossip group is the most popular group on the site at the moment, followed up by the group created to provide updates and obtain feedback from the site developers. There's also a group dedicated to paying attention to whether or not Britney Spears does crazy things for attention, a fan club dedicated to VHS and Beta tapes, and fans of the television shows The Wire and Prison Break.
Sure, sites like Digg and Mixx have entertainment sections, but they're usually poorly populated and the site depends completely on the readers and community to provide the stories. ShowHype cheats a little and scrapes a number of popular entertainment news sites and blogs for its hot stories, and the community then votes on them. This ensures a steady feed of news and fresh content, and the Charts and Community pages add even more features to an already attractive social news service.
ShowHype is broken into three major parts. The front page contains all of the news submitted by the users. The Charts page tracks the most popular movies, television shows, and music. And the Community page is a place where users can create groups dedicated to specific celebrities and topics and discuss, interact, and submit stories.
All of the top stories are displayed on the front page, and users can vote on them from there. If you're interested in up-to-the minute entertainment news and celebrity gossip, this is where you'll spend most of your time. The news is broken out into multiple categories including the top stories, movie news, celebrity news, television news, and more. If you sign up for an account at ShowHype, you can rate the stories up or down depending on how you feel, or comment on them and interact with other users.
The charts section pulls information from services like Box Office Mojo and Nielsen Media Research to provide the top ten movies, television shows, and albums for a given time period. For more information on a given album, television show, or movie, click on the entry in the top five (the bottom five you have to click through to see) to be taken to the ShowHype story where the item is featured and participate in the discussion there.
In the community section, users can create groups based on their interests, and see if other members of the community share their passions. For example, a celebrity gossip group is the most popular group on the site at the moment, followed up by the group created to provide updates and obtain feedback from the site developers. There's also a group dedicated to paying attention to whether or not Britney Spears does crazy things for attention, a fan club dedicated to VHS and Beta tapes, and fans of the television shows The Wire and Prison Break.
Sure, sites like Digg and Mixx have entertainment sections, but they're usually poorly populated and the site depends completely on the readers and community to provide the stories. ShowHype cheats a little and scrapes a number of popular entertainment news sites and blogs for its hot stories, and the community then votes on them. This ensures a steady feed of news and fresh content, and the Charts and Community pages add even more features to an already attractive social news service.
Hatebook: The Anti-Facebook
If you're tired of all of this social-networking nonsense, Hatebook might be the answer. Sure, it's a social network, but it's a social network dedicated to connecting you with new people to hate. Your visitors are called suckers, and you collect haters, not friends. People who comment on your profile send you warnings, and the eventual goal is to make enemies and take over the world.
Hatebook looks a lot likeFacebook. It's clean and fully featured, and the color scheme is red and white as opposed to Facebook's blue and white. Red is a passionate color, after all. On the front page, the Hatebook community encourages you to connect with the people you hate by uploading blackmail material, publishing lies, collecting gossip and hate points from the people who hate you back, and customizing your hate profile with photos and videos.
Hatebook has all of the features of a social networking service. You can customize your profile with video and photos, and you can invite friends to the service, add people to your enemies list (you even have a "homies" list for those folks who'll die last in your world takeover plan), add warnings to other people's profiles, and search for new people to hate. The community at Hatebook is pretty big, so you won't have much trouble finding someone in your area worth hating.
Hatebook, for all intents and purposes, is simply a parody of Facebook. But it's got its own community and its own users, so it works pretty well as its own social network. When you sign up, you give the service your zip code so it can place you on a Google map along with other haters in your area, and your profile asks you for movies that bother you and reasons why you're better than everyone else. My only warning to Hatebook users is that there are no real privacy controls, and the site is probably not safe for children and only marginally safe for work, so tread lightly.
Aside from that, if you're looking for someone to hate or you just think social networking is a laughable idea, Hatebook might be the perfect network for you.
Hatebook looks a lot likeFacebook. It's clean and fully featured, and the color scheme is red and white as opposed to Facebook's blue and white. Red is a passionate color, after all. On the front page, the Hatebook community encourages you to connect with the people you hate by uploading blackmail material, publishing lies, collecting gossip and hate points from the people who hate you back, and customizing your hate profile with photos and videos.
Hatebook has all of the features of a social networking service. You can customize your profile with video and photos, and you can invite friends to the service, add people to your enemies list (you even have a "homies" list for those folks who'll die last in your world takeover plan), add warnings to other people's profiles, and search for new people to hate. The community at Hatebook is pretty big, so you won't have much trouble finding someone in your area worth hating.
Hatebook, for all intents and purposes, is simply a parody of Facebook. But it's got its own community and its own users, so it works pretty well as its own social network. When you sign up, you give the service your zip code so it can place you on a Google map along with other haters in your area, and your profile asks you for movies that bother you and reasons why you're better than everyone else. My only warning to Hatebook users is that there are no real privacy controls, and the site is probably not safe for children and only marginally safe for work, so tread lightly.
Aside from that, if you're looking for someone to hate or you just think social networking is a laughable idea, Hatebook might be the perfect network for you.
Introducing Napster 4.0
Napster dropped its Web-based functionality when it acquired AOL Music Now earlier this year. Well, that feature makes a welcome comeback in its latest version, Napster 4.0, which has a Web-based interface that allows you to stream music online, no client app needed. The software is still there if you want to use it, but you'll probably spend most of your time listening to Napster's 5-million-plus song library right from your browser. As great as that sounds, bugs, DRM protections on all songs, and other irritating limitations hurt Napster 4.0's appeal. Is it still worth using? Find out what the PC Magazine software team thought about Napster's latest upgrade in this in-depth review.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Free Exorcism on Halloween
Has a Trojan or 'bot possessed your computer? Are lesser devils dragging down its performance? Is it haunted by inexplicable error messages written in eldritch runes? This Halloween call in the Ghostbusters - CyberDefender is offering free unlimited support all day on October 31st by email, phone, or live chat (though email may be too slow for this one-day offer). The offer starts at the witching hour, midnight, and runs to the next midnight (Pacific time). With your permission they can benignly possess your computer and remotely cast out its evil spirits. Of course, they hope to impress you so much that you'll sign up for a year of their unlimited support.
On ordinary days, when the gates to the underworld aren't open, CyberDefender can still help. The $59.99/year COMPLETE version offers to scrub your system squeaky-clean, eliminating all malicious software and even helping you get competing security products working correctly. For $99.99/year the ULTIMATE edition supports you with any problem you may have with software, hardware, or any device attached to your computer. And hey, don't forget that the price includes the CyberDefender security suite plus 2GB of hosted online backup provided by partner
SOS Online Backup.
Given the cost of a single paid tech support incident, those prices are almost scary!
On ordinary days, when the gates to the underworld aren't open, CyberDefender can still help. The $59.99/year COMPLETE version offers to scrub your system squeaky-clean, eliminating all malicious software and even helping you get competing security products working correctly. For $99.99/year the ULTIMATE edition supports you with any problem you may have with software, hardware, or any device attached to your computer. And hey, don't forget that the price includes the CyberDefender security suite plus 2GB of hosted online backup provided by partner
SOS Online Backup.
Given the cost of a single paid tech support incident, those prices are almost scary!
Windows XP Service Pack 3 Beta
For those of you Windows XP users who haven't made the jump to Vista just yet, Microsoft recently released a beta version of Windows XP Service Pack 3(SP3). This latest service pack pretty much rolls up all the fixes and updates you might've missed into one convenient package. Handy goodies like Media Player 11 and Internet Explorer 7 are included in SP3 as well as security upgrades that better secure your system. However, you'll need to know about the compatibility issues before applying SP3. PC Magazine software analyst Neil Randall shows you what you can expect from this latest service pack in this detailed report.
Heads Up: Microsoft Launches Popfly as Public Beta
Remember Popfly? We looked at it back in May. It's Microsoft's attempt to create a Web page designer for laypeople (and an excuse to liberally toss around the word "mashup"). The site was built on top of MS's post-Flash Silverlight platform and features, among other things, its own social network (Popfly Space) and a Google My Maps-like app.
We haven't heard much about the service over the past few months, most likely because it's remained in limited alpha all this time.
Popfly emerged into public beta today, boasting some new features that weren't found in the previous build. It now has Facebook/blog/Web site plugins, including games, slideshows, eBay auction trackers, and Halo 3 stat trackers. You'll also find "leverage blocks" from companies such as Twitter and Facebook, designed to "drive awareness of and traffic to your site." The new Popfly also includes the ability to create Web pages for groups.
I wasn't quite as impressed by the first version of Popfly as the Microsoft team very clearly thought I should be. Perhaps it's time to take another look.
We haven't heard much about the service over the past few months, most likely because it's remained in limited alpha all this time.
Popfly emerged into public beta today, boasting some new features that weren't found in the previous build. It now has Facebook/blog/Web site plugins, including games, slideshows, eBay auction trackers, and Halo 3 stat trackers. You'll also find "leverage blocks" from companies such as Twitter and Facebook, designed to "drive awareness of and traffic to your site." The new Popfly also includes the ability to create Web pages for groups.
I wasn't quite as impressed by the first version of Popfly as the Microsoft team very clearly thought I should be. Perhaps it's time to take another look.
Is China Redirecting U.S. Search Requests?
There have been some mixed reports coming from various blogs today reporting that the "Great Firewall of China," owned by the government, has been redirecting attempts by Chinese users to access American Web sites such as Yahoo! and Google. The target? Baidu.
So far, we have not seen anything definitive, nor has there been a consensus of opinion whether this is actually happening. Posters responding to this TechCrunch article as well as this Google Blogoscoped forum seem to indicate that many users are getting through, with YouTube being listed as one of the exceptions.
Baidu is traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Say what you want about Google's stock price, but Baidu's share price keeps increasing--it's at a lofty $320 per share as of this writing, almost quadrupling its value in a year. If its revenue (and as a result, its share price) has been in effect manipulated by a foreign government, however, I would think the International Trade Commission (the independent, quasijudicial federal agency that advises the government on matters of trade) might get involved, as well as the U.S. government itself.
So far, we have not seen anything definitive, nor has there been a consensus of opinion whether this is actually happening. Posters responding to this TechCrunch article as well as this Google Blogoscoped forum seem to indicate that many users are getting through, with YouTube being listed as one of the exceptions.
Baidu is traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Say what you want about Google's stock price, but Baidu's share price keeps increasing--it's at a lofty $320 per share as of this writing, almost quadrupling its value in a year. If its revenue (and as a result, its share price) has been in effect manipulated by a foreign government, however, I would think the International Trade Commission (the independent, quasijudicial federal agency that advises the government on matters of trade) might get involved, as well as the U.S. government itself.
Thousands of "Daily Show" Clips Going Online
Craving a little old-school "Daily Show"? You're in luck because Viacom is looking to make every single clip from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" available via the Web.
All 13,000 clips from 1999 onward will soon be featured on www.thedailyshow.com, according to the LA Times. Want to watch Lynne Cheney present Stewart with a Darth Cheney doll, Samantha Bee re-enact "Sex and the City" or Rob Cordry navigate the streets of New York in a stretch Hummer over and over again? It will all soon be available via a searchable database on the site.
Sound a little like the YouTube version of "The Daily Show"? Indeed. Viacom might be suing YouTube for copyright infringement, but that doesn't mean it can't steal the idea and pocket some ad revenue for itself. Stewart actually referenced the battle on the show this week, jokingly telling viewers they could watch Stephen Colbert's presidential candidacy announcement on the Web, just "not on YouTube."
If anything, I'll look forward to watching older videos from former "Daily Show" correspondents Colbert and Steve Carell, a few of which were re-aired during a recent anniversary special. I also (mercifully?) missed commentary from the first few months of President Bush's term while I was studying abroad in 2001, so I imagine there might be a few gems I have yet to view.
All 13,000 clips from 1999 onward will soon be featured on www.thedailyshow.com, according to the LA Times. Want to watch Lynne Cheney present Stewart with a Darth Cheney doll, Samantha Bee re-enact "Sex and the City" or Rob Cordry navigate the streets of New York in a stretch Hummer over and over again? It will all soon be available via a searchable database on the site.
Sound a little like the YouTube version of "The Daily Show"? Indeed. Viacom might be suing YouTube for copyright infringement, but that doesn't mean it can't steal the idea and pocket some ad revenue for itself. Stewart actually referenced the battle on the show this week, jokingly telling viewers they could watch Stephen Colbert's presidential candidacy announcement on the Web, just "not on YouTube."
If anything, I'll look forward to watching older videos from former "Daily Show" correspondents Colbert and Steve Carell, a few of which were re-aired during a recent anniversary special. I also (mercifully?) missed commentary from the first few months of President Bush's term while I was studying abroad in 2001, so I imagine there might be a few gems I have yet to view.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
TrekEarth: Sharing the World Through Photography
Travel and photography are two of my favorite hobbies. Fortunately, they often go hand in hand. I'm by no means a professional photographer, but I'm always looking for tips to help me get the perfect shot. Thankfully, I found TrekEarth, a social networking site whose focus is less on building a huge friends list than on sharing and commenting on photography and travel stories.
Saying that TrekEarth is a social networking site is almost an insult; it doesn't look or feel like other social networking sites that pride themselves on user profiles with horrible backgrounds, embedded flash music players, or a "how many friends can you collect" attitude. User profiles at TrekEarth are clean and simple, with a quick bio, some contact information, the type of camera that the user has, and links to featured photos, galleries, and the member's location. It's just enough information to make you curious about someone and willing to click through to their photographs and read their travel experiences, but it's not maddening or frenetic like other social networking services.
The front page of TrekEarth is a great jumping-off point for a new explorer. You can immediately browse featured travel stories or photographs, click on a map of the world to jump to photos taken in that area, or view photos from a featured artist or artist's workshop to see how they've taken one of their photos and touched it up.
TrekEarth's mission is to share the world through photography, and I can't think of a better way to do it. TrekEarth members have uploaded photos from all over the globe, from small villages in Pakistan to tourist beaches in Mexico, and their stories are there next to each one. Once you've created an account, you can connect with other members, add their photos to your favorites, or add the user to your favorite users list. You can critique other members' photos or open your own up to comment, so you can develop your skills and share tips and tricks.
Members can also set their accounts to alert them when new photos from their favorite parts of the world are uploaded, or when their favorite TrekEarth members upload new photos and stories. If you have your own photos to upload, and want to use them to narrate your travel experience, you can create a "travelogue," where you can sort photos into a chronological order and make a slideshow of your trip, narrated with text.
Another strength of TrekEarth is the ability for artists to create "workshops," where you can compare original photos and edits and show off your retouching and editing work. Other members can make suggestions and provide advice on how to further edit your photos or refine your Photoshop technique.
TrekEarth has a very large memberlist, yet remains a very close-knit community. It's proof that you don't need a huge community to be a success, just a dedicated one that believes in your purpose and needs a place to come together. TrekEarth takes you on a trip with every photo gallery, and the experiences of the members are reflected with every click.
Post by Alan Henry
Saying that TrekEarth is a social networking site is almost an insult; it doesn't look or feel like other social networking sites that pride themselves on user profiles with horrible backgrounds, embedded flash music players, or a "how many friends can you collect" attitude. User profiles at TrekEarth are clean and simple, with a quick bio, some contact information, the type of camera that the user has, and links to featured photos, galleries, and the member's location. It's just enough information to make you curious about someone and willing to click through to their photographs and read their travel experiences, but it's not maddening or frenetic like other social networking services.
The front page of TrekEarth is a great jumping-off point for a new explorer. You can immediately browse featured travel stories or photographs, click on a map of the world to jump to photos taken in that area, or view photos from a featured artist or artist's workshop to see how they've taken one of their photos and touched it up.
TrekEarth's mission is to share the world through photography, and I can't think of a better way to do it. TrekEarth members have uploaded photos from all over the globe, from small villages in Pakistan to tourist beaches in Mexico, and their stories are there next to each one. Once you've created an account, you can connect with other members, add their photos to your favorites, or add the user to your favorite users list. You can critique other members' photos or open your own up to comment, so you can develop your skills and share tips and tricks.
Members can also set their accounts to alert them when new photos from their favorite parts of the world are uploaded, or when their favorite TrekEarth members upload new photos and stories. If you have your own photos to upload, and want to use them to narrate your travel experience, you can create a "travelogue," where you can sort photos into a chronological order and make a slideshow of your trip, narrated with text.
Another strength of TrekEarth is the ability for artists to create "workshops," where you can compare original photos and edits and show off your retouching and editing work. Other members can make suggestions and provide advice on how to further edit your photos or refine your Photoshop technique.
TrekEarth has a very large memberlist, yet remains a very close-knit community. It's proof that you don't need a huge community to be a success, just a dedicated one that believes in your purpose and needs a place to come together. TrekEarth takes you on a trip with every photo gallery, and the experiences of the members are reflected with every click.
Post by Alan Henry
Wegor: Travel Together
I love to travel, and I think that everyone gets a bit of wanderlust now and again. The trouble starts when we get back from our travels and want to show off our photos to friends. Let's be honest: No one really wants to see all of your photos, and hear you drone on about your trip and who you met and what you did. If only there were a community dedicated to travel where people could share their photos, blog their experiences from the road, and join a social network of people who love to travel and are interested in reading and sharing one another's experiences. Wegor (pronounced we-go-er, partially a jab at all of the other Web 2.0 services that add an "r" to the end of their names) is aiming to be just that.
Wegor is relatively small and new, but it already has a fairly large and active user community. The list of members is a couple hundred strong, and many of the site's most active members blogging and sharing photos from different countries around the globe. Some of the featured members are from Sweden and Austria as well as the United States, and their photos are from their hometowns along with the places they've visited.
Accounts at Wegor are free, and each month you get 50MB of storage that you can fill with photos of your travels; you can organize the photos into albums. You also get a blog that you can update like a trip diary, and a personal map (using the Google Maps API) to update with your location, where you're going, and where you've been. I had some difficulty adding locations on the map that I had visited, but other members have their maps populated with destinations they've visited, so it might have just been me. At the same time, the ability to add your locations on a map that others can view is a great idea.
All of the other features at Wegor worked flawlessly, however. Editing my own blog was simple and easy, and although Wegor doesn't appear to have a method in place for blog updates or photo uploads from mobile devices, if your mobile device has Web access, you can update your Wegor account from the road. The site appears to be more about updating your blog and your photo galleries after your trip is over rather than keeping a travel diary. Some users do both, though; some of the blogs on the site appear to be updated with each step of the writer's journey, and others seem to be travel reviews of the places the author has visited and what they thought about the trip.
Either way, the site is easy to use and easy to browse. You can view members, read their travel blogs, and browse their photos with a few clicks, and featured members and their photos are listed on the front page. Some featured members have written about their visits to locations like the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, or posted photos of their trip to destinations as far away as India, Vienna, and Ibiza.
Wegor has the makings of a great social networking site for people who love to travel and love to hear about the journeys of others. The community is growing, but the site has a very insular feel, and the members regularly interact with one another by commenting on their travel posts. If you're looking for a community that's focused specifically on travel and people who won't roll their eyes when you offer to show them the photos from your last vacation, Wegor might be worth a look.
Post by Alan Henry
Wegor is relatively small and new, but it already has a fairly large and active user community. The list of members is a couple hundred strong, and many of the site's most active members blogging and sharing photos from different countries around the globe. Some of the featured members are from Sweden and Austria as well as the United States, and their photos are from their hometowns along with the places they've visited.
Accounts at Wegor are free, and each month you get 50MB of storage that you can fill with photos of your travels; you can organize the photos into albums. You also get a blog that you can update like a trip diary, and a personal map (using the Google Maps API) to update with your location, where you're going, and where you've been. I had some difficulty adding locations on the map that I had visited, but other members have their maps populated with destinations they've visited, so it might have just been me. At the same time, the ability to add your locations on a map that others can view is a great idea.
All of the other features at Wegor worked flawlessly, however. Editing my own blog was simple and easy, and although Wegor doesn't appear to have a method in place for blog updates or photo uploads from mobile devices, if your mobile device has Web access, you can update your Wegor account from the road. The site appears to be more about updating your blog and your photo galleries after your trip is over rather than keeping a travel diary. Some users do both, though; some of the blogs on the site appear to be updated with each step of the writer's journey, and others seem to be travel reviews of the places the author has visited and what they thought about the trip.
Either way, the site is easy to use and easy to browse. You can view members, read their travel blogs, and browse their photos with a few clicks, and featured members and their photos are listed on the front page. Some featured members have written about their visits to locations like the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, or posted photos of their trip to destinations as far away as India, Vienna, and Ibiza.
Wegor has the makings of a great social networking site for people who love to travel and love to hear about the journeys of others. The community is growing, but the site has a very insular feel, and the members regularly interact with one another by commenting on their travel posts. If you're looking for a community that's focused specifically on travel and people who won't roll their eyes when you offer to show them the photos from your last vacation, Wegor might be worth a look.
Post by Alan Henry
Scientific Research Made Easy with Scitopia
When I was studying Physics back in college, I spent a lot of time using the resources at my school libraries when I had lab reports and research papers to write. If I had Scitopia, I might have been able to do a lot of that research from my dorm room instead of a library computer lab. Scitopia indexes millions of documents from over 15 academic and research societies and government agencies and makes all of that information available for free.
Scitopia is a science student's dream. The service partners with over societies like the American Institute of Physics, the Acoustical Society of America, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Electrochemical Society for journal articles and scientific papers. Scitopia is enrolling more scientific societies and organizations and is hoping to expand its database of resources.
The service is very simple, and reminds me of Google. There's a search box in the middle of the page and not much else. Type in your search term and you'll be get results sorted by relevancy. If you click the Advanced tab at the top of the page, you'll see filtering options that will help you refine your search.
Scitopia's search results include research papers, journal articles, patents, and government documents. Scitopia doesn't aggregate documents or crawl the Web, either; all of its documents are provided by the scholarly societies and groups that participate. This means that you won't find someone's non-peer-reviewed opinion paper or rambling manifesto mixed in with your search results, and you can be sure that the documents you get have been reviewed by members of the scientific community.
The only downside to Scitopia is that the search results lead you to the individual sites of the organizations who own the paper. This means that once you click through, if you need the full text of an article, you may need to have a membership with that society, or be part of an educational or government institution that has access to those documents. Most colleges and universities provide this kind of access to their students, staff, and faculty, so if you're a student you're in good shape.
Even so, Scitopia is a great resource to add to your list of bookmarks if you're doing any kind of academic research. The search is speedy and the results are accurate and useful, something I can't always say about a Google search for a scientific term.
Scitopia is a science student's dream. The service partners with over societies like the American Institute of Physics, the Acoustical Society of America, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Electrochemical Society for journal articles and scientific papers. Scitopia is enrolling more scientific societies and organizations and is hoping to expand its database of resources.
The service is very simple, and reminds me of Google. There's a search box in the middle of the page and not much else. Type in your search term and you'll be get results sorted by relevancy. If you click the Advanced tab at the top of the page, you'll see filtering options that will help you refine your search.
Scitopia's search results include research papers, journal articles, patents, and government documents. Scitopia doesn't aggregate documents or crawl the Web, either; all of its documents are provided by the scholarly societies and groups that participate. This means that you won't find someone's non-peer-reviewed opinion paper or rambling manifesto mixed in with your search results, and you can be sure that the documents you get have been reviewed by members of the scientific community.
The only downside to Scitopia is that the search results lead you to the individual sites of the organizations who own the paper. This means that once you click through, if you need the full text of an article, you may need to have a membership with that society, or be part of an educational or government institution that has access to those documents. Most colleges and universities provide this kind of access to their students, staff, and faculty, so if you're a student you're in good shape.
Even so, Scitopia is a great resource to add to your list of bookmarks if you're doing any kind of academic research. The search is speedy and the results are accurate and useful, something I can't always say about a Google search for a scientific term.
Free Feature Idea: 'BackTalk' for Web Video
While trying to parse the ongoing tit-for-tat video battle between Gearlog and CNET's Crave, my reaction was something on the order of Scrubs' Dr. Cox saying sarcastically, "For cripes' sake, get back to work!"
But I couldn't really say that, either on YouTube or any of the other eleventy-billion video sites. So here's my idea: allow users to embed a small blurb of video, limiting it to ten seconds or less. Shrink down the video's size to give the visual clue that it's a response, allow it to be attached to the source video, and -- here's the kicker -- cache them while loading the original video, then trigger the clip through a mouseover.
Simple and pithy, sure, but that's the whole point. It doesn't replace comments or "video responses," and lends itself well to the snippets of video captured by cell phones and other devices. Call it a "BackTalk". (I liked "Snapback," but it seemed like that term's more commonly used.)
Is this a free idea? Not entirely. If you implement it, record a video with your development or management team singing an ode of praise to AppScout, to the tune of Ode to Joy. We'll link (or embed it) here.
But I couldn't really say that, either on YouTube or any of the other eleventy-billion video sites. So here's my idea: allow users to embed a small blurb of video, limiting it to ten seconds or less. Shrink down the video's size to give the visual clue that it's a response, allow it to be attached to the source video, and -- here's the kicker -- cache them while loading the original video, then trigger the clip through a mouseover.
Simple and pithy, sure, but that's the whole point. It doesn't replace comments or "video responses," and lends itself well to the snippets of video captured by cell phones and other devices. Call it a "BackTalk". (I liked "Snapback," but it seemed like that term's more commonly used.)
Is this a free idea? Not entirely. If you implement it, record a video with your development or management team singing an ode of praise to AppScout, to the tune of Ode to Joy. We'll link (or embed it) here.
Google Docs Goes Mobile
You think the browser and OS wars are exciting? Just check out what's going on in the world of online office apps. Granted the space isn't hyped as, say, Vista vs. Jaguar Ubuntu or IE vs. Firefox vs. Opera, but damned something exciting doesn't pop up, week in, week out.
Google is making their already terrific Docs and Spreadsheets that much better, by bringing it to the small screen, with Google Docs Mobile.
The app still suffers from some pretty key limitations, however. For one thing, users can only read docs--not edit them. Also, you can presently only use the service with a Blackberry or iPhone. If you want to open up a spreadsheet, you'll have to view it as an HTML document or download it as XLS.
Google is making their already terrific Docs and Spreadsheets that much better, by bringing it to the small screen, with Google Docs Mobile.
The app still suffers from some pretty key limitations, however. For one thing, users can only read docs--not edit them. Also, you can presently only use the service with a Blackberry or iPhone. If you want to open up a spreadsheet, you'll have to view it as an HTML document or download it as XLS.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Hands On: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Tested and reviewed by Alex Sanfilippo, age 13.
Are you ready to continue your epic quest? The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS begins right where our hero, Link, left off at the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. At first I was a little skeptical toward the game, because I enjoy playing games with consoles that hook up with the TV, but I have had a lot of fun playing this game. The Phantom Hourglass is the first Legend of Zelda game to be featured on the Nintendo DS; the graphics are very clear for a DS game, and the new controls are fun and easy to learn. Similar to previous Legend of Zelda games, Phantom Hourglass is a challenging game filled with adventures, puzzles, and quests.
In this sequel, Link sets sail with Tetra (who decided to stay a pirate) and her swashbuckling crew. The adventure kicks off with a search for a legendary ghost ship that disappears with whoever is brave (or foolish) enough to board it in search of its treasure. When they find the ship, Tetra, who believes the ghost ship is just some pirate crew up to no good, jumps onboard to get to the bottom of the mystery. Link heroically jumps after her, but he falls into the water--and the ship disappears.
Link wakes up and finds himself on an island. He meets a friendly fairy named Celia who has lost her memory. She takes him to an old man (who she calls Grandpa) to tell you about the ghost ship. Grandpa says to stay away from the ship, but (of course) Link doesn't listen. Now you have the entire island to explore and new skills to learn with the help of Celia and the island's natives.
The controls of this game are completely different from those of its predecessors: All the controls are activated by touch. To move Link, you just drag the stylus to where you want him to go. All sword combat involves the stylus too. When you draw circles around Link, he does a spin attack .To lunge at a bad guy than slash him, you just tap. For a horizontal slash, you swipe the stylus across your foe. To roll, you draw small circles where you want Link to roll to.
For some tasks, you may need to blow or talk into your DS's microphone. Conveniently, when you receive dungeon or island maps, you can draw on them with the stylus to mark important paths and places. You also use the touch screen to sail around and perform tasks while sailing. To my relief, sailing doesn't take as long as it did in Wind Waker. The controls are a new and fun way to experience The Legend of Zelda.
Link also has a stock of his classic weapons. Bow and arrows, the hookshot, bombs, boomerangs and more aid Link on his quest. They all perform the same functions as in previous Legend of Zelda games but have new controls on the DS. For example, you can draw the path you want your boomerang to follow, and tap exactly where you want to throw your bomb. You receive these weapons in dungeons; they're needed to defeat certain foes and perform certain tasks in the dungeons.
In addition to the adventure part of the game, there is a multiplayer mini-game. You can find opponents via Wi-Fi or just by challenging someone close to you who also has a DS. One person plays as Link, and the other player controls three phantoms. The objective of the mini-game is to get as many force gems on your side as possible while avoiding the phantoms. You have three chances to get as many force gems as possible. If you get caught by a phantom or time runs out you switch places with your opponent. You now control the phantoms, and your opponent becomes Link. Whoever has the most force gems at the end wins the game. This minigame can be a lot fun to play with friends.
The release date for the game was October 1, 2007. It is available at stores such as EB Games, Game Stop, Best Buy, and Circuit City for about $34.99, and it's worth every penny. The Phantom Hourglass is one of the best games I have played on the Nintendo DS. It has challenging puzzles, amazing graphics, and fun-to-solve dungeons. It is a truly unique game for the DS.
Are you ready to continue your epic quest? The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS begins right where our hero, Link, left off at the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. At first I was a little skeptical toward the game, because I enjoy playing games with consoles that hook up with the TV, but I have had a lot of fun playing this game. The Phantom Hourglass is the first Legend of Zelda game to be featured on the Nintendo DS; the graphics are very clear for a DS game, and the new controls are fun and easy to learn. Similar to previous Legend of Zelda games, Phantom Hourglass is a challenging game filled with adventures, puzzles, and quests.
In this sequel, Link sets sail with Tetra (who decided to stay a pirate) and her swashbuckling crew. The adventure kicks off with a search for a legendary ghost ship that disappears with whoever is brave (or foolish) enough to board it in search of its treasure. When they find the ship, Tetra, who believes the ghost ship is just some pirate crew up to no good, jumps onboard to get to the bottom of the mystery. Link heroically jumps after her, but he falls into the water--and the ship disappears.
Link wakes up and finds himself on an island. He meets a friendly fairy named Celia who has lost her memory. She takes him to an old man (who she calls Grandpa) to tell you about the ghost ship. Grandpa says to stay away from the ship, but (of course) Link doesn't listen. Now you have the entire island to explore and new skills to learn with the help of Celia and the island's natives.
The controls of this game are completely different from those of its predecessors: All the controls are activated by touch. To move Link, you just drag the stylus to where you want him to go. All sword combat involves the stylus too. When you draw circles around Link, he does a spin attack .To lunge at a bad guy than slash him, you just tap. For a horizontal slash, you swipe the stylus across your foe. To roll, you draw small circles where you want Link to roll to.
For some tasks, you may need to blow or talk into your DS's microphone. Conveniently, when you receive dungeon or island maps, you can draw on them with the stylus to mark important paths and places. You also use the touch screen to sail around and perform tasks while sailing. To my relief, sailing doesn't take as long as it did in Wind Waker. The controls are a new and fun way to experience The Legend of Zelda.
Link also has a stock of his classic weapons. Bow and arrows, the hookshot, bombs, boomerangs and more aid Link on his quest. They all perform the same functions as in previous Legend of Zelda games but have new controls on the DS. For example, you can draw the path you want your boomerang to follow, and tap exactly where you want to throw your bomb. You receive these weapons in dungeons; they're needed to defeat certain foes and perform certain tasks in the dungeons.
In addition to the adventure part of the game, there is a multiplayer mini-game. You can find opponents via Wi-Fi or just by challenging someone close to you who also has a DS. One person plays as Link, and the other player controls three phantoms. The objective of the mini-game is to get as many force gems on your side as possible while avoiding the phantoms. You have three chances to get as many force gems as possible. If you get caught by a phantom or time runs out you switch places with your opponent. You now control the phantoms, and your opponent becomes Link. Whoever has the most force gems at the end wins the game. This minigame can be a lot fun to play with friends.
The release date for the game was October 1, 2007. It is available at stores such as EB Games, Game Stop, Best Buy, and Circuit City for about $34.99, and it's worth every penny. The Phantom Hourglass is one of the best games I have played on the Nintendo DS. It has challenging puzzles, amazing graphics, and fun-to-solve dungeons. It is a truly unique game for the DS.
Is Web 3.0 Here? Is It Twine?
Radar Networks is hoping to have the first Semantic Web killer app in its just-announced product, Twine. In case you haven't been following Sir Tim Berners-Lee's pet technology, the Semantic Web will be better than the boring, old, plain-vanilla Web in that everything will be tagged using Resource Description Framework (RDF) and ontologized with Web Ontology Language (OWL) so that pages and content will be meaningful. The newly added meaning will make it possible for other computers to use the content intelligently: by giving you more-useful and context-aware search results, for example. Twine extends this to all of your information--email, sites visited, feeds--and will automatically generate the tags to "semantify" the data.
Radar's Nova Spivack treated PC Magazine staff to a phone-and-Web demo of Twines this past Wednesday, though we weren't able to start actually playing with the product yet. Spivak stressed the importance of the product's motto,"Tie it all together," and likened the Twine interface to "a Facebook, except for information." Each user of the hosted Twine service will have his own "twine," which analyzes and stores all the collected metadata for all of his information. Twine will offer several ways to enter content into its uber index of all your information--via a Web button, by importing from documents, receiving it from collaborators, or sending email to your twine. Connecting your twine to other users' will result in a network effect benefit to knowledge management, claimed Spivack.
Twine is a hosted service that uses open semantic standards RDF, OWL, and SPARQL (Simple Protocol and RDF Query Language), but will probably become available for large organizations. It will be free, supported by personalized advertisements, but premium versions will become available that have storage and admin options.
I'm skeptical of the idea that machines can find the meaning in Web pages without the page's creator specifying the information, as is Twine's proposed goal. Say a Web page for a product contains this data: "This is a consumer electronics product. Here's the product name. It's a television. It's a widescreen television. It costs $999. This is the description." Without someone supplying the metadata for each of these pieces of information, how can an algorithm know where on the page the relevant data is? Maybe that's just where Radar's secret sauce comes in, and you have to give the company credit for tackling this challenge.
Though even its creator seems to have given up the idea that the Semantic Web will replace our tried-and-true Web, there are rumblings in the developer community that the idea will still be used for something alongside the existing Web--most likely intra-organizational collaboration. Twine seems to fit that scenario, and seems suited to use by trusted team members who need to share knowledge for their projects.
Radar's Nova Spivack treated PC Magazine staff to a phone-and-Web demo of Twines this past Wednesday, though we weren't able to start actually playing with the product yet. Spivak stressed the importance of the product's motto,"Tie it all together," and likened the Twine interface to "a Facebook, except for information." Each user of the hosted Twine service will have his own "twine," which analyzes and stores all the collected metadata for all of his information. Twine will offer several ways to enter content into its uber index of all your information--via a Web button, by importing from documents, receiving it from collaborators, or sending email to your twine. Connecting your twine to other users' will result in a network effect benefit to knowledge management, claimed Spivack.
Twine is a hosted service that uses open semantic standards RDF, OWL, and SPARQL (Simple Protocol and RDF Query Language), but will probably become available for large organizations. It will be free, supported by personalized advertisements, but premium versions will become available that have storage and admin options.
I'm skeptical of the idea that machines can find the meaning in Web pages without the page's creator specifying the information, as is Twine's proposed goal. Say a Web page for a product contains this data: "This is a consumer electronics product. Here's the product name. It's a television. It's a widescreen television. It costs $999. This is the description." Without someone supplying the metadata for each of these pieces of information, how can an algorithm know where on the page the relevant data is? Maybe that's just where Radar's secret sauce comes in, and you have to give the company credit for tackling this challenge.
Though even its creator seems to have given up the idea that the Semantic Web will replace our tried-and-true Web, there are rumblings in the developer community that the idea will still be used for something alongside the existing Web--most likely intra-organizational collaboration. Twine seems to fit that scenario, and seems suited to use by trusted team members who need to share knowledge for their projects.
Is Web 5.0 Here? Is It Pizza?
Inspired by the quickly becoming pretentious definitions of various Web "generations," , I offer you "The Joy of Tech's take on the subject. It's not a bad webcomic; sort of a Daily Show take on tech news, in the way Penny Arcade treats gaming news. John Markoff at the New York Times offers his perspective.
(Thanks to Kara Swisher at AllThingsD for the link.)
(Thanks to Kara Swisher at AllThingsD for the link.)
On Beyond Vista: First Public Demo of Windows 7
Still hesitating about the big move to Vista? Maybe you're best off waiting for Windows 7, the successor to Vista, which Microsoft is already hard at work on. Want proof? Long Zheng, the Australian hacker behind the blog istartedsomething, has posted a clip from what I'm pretty sure is the first public demonstration of the forthcoming operating system. Sure, it's not scheduled to be released until 2010, but still, I'm confident that when it arrives, it'll be super neat--and well worth the wait!
So what can be gleaned from the video? The portion Zheng highlights is a discussion of the Windows 7 core, which turns out to be a relatively lean machine. In it, engineer Eric Traut shows off a streamlined app called MinWin--get it?--not a product itself but probably the basis for future products, he points out. The Windows 7 source code is about 25MB on disk, an interesting comparison to the 4GB that the full Windows Vista takes up. Oh, and there's no graphical system yet, which explains the ASCII logo.
There's also an interesting walk through the history of Microsoft's operating systems. You knew Vista was OS 6, right? And that XP was 5, and NT 4.0 was 4, and Windows 3.1 ... well, you get the picture. If Windows 7 doesn't interest you, watch the clip for a quick walkthrough of Windows 2 and 1 as well.
So what can be gleaned from the video? The portion Zheng highlights is a discussion of the Windows 7 core, which turns out to be a relatively lean machine. In it, engineer Eric Traut shows off a streamlined app called MinWin--get it?--not a product itself but probably the basis for future products, he points out. The Windows 7 source code is about 25MB on disk, an interesting comparison to the 4GB that the full Windows Vista takes up. Oh, and there's no graphical system yet, which explains the ASCII logo.
There's also an interesting walk through the history of Microsoft's operating systems. You knew Vista was OS 6, right? And that XP was 5, and NT 4.0 was 4, and Windows 3.1 ... well, you get the picture. If Windows 7 doesn't interest you, watch the clip for a quick walkthrough of Windows 2 and 1 as well.
Tutsbuzz: Design and Programming Tutorials
If you're a graphic designer or a programmer, you understand how important it is to stay on top of new technologies and why you need to learn the ins and outs of new versions of the programs you likely use every day. But time is usually of the essence, and sometimes you don't have a chance to read the change notes and play with new features before they're released and you're expected to use them. That's where Tutsbuzz comes in.
Tutzbuzz is packed with tutorials and demos that show you how to make the most of your favorite design and development applications, learn new programming languages, and find new uses for programs you may already have. Many of the tutorials are available in video, so you can follow along while watching the masters at work.
All the videos and tutorials at Tutsbuzz are aggregated from other sites, so the service is less of a tutorial builder than a place to find tutorials from elsewhere online. The community at Tutsbuzz ranks and votes on the tutorials that they find. You can rate one highly if you thought it was particularly useful, and also add it to your favorites if you need to come back to it. The tutorial descriptions are available in three languages--English, Turkish, and German--even though tutorials themselves may not be.
The tutorials at Tutsbuzz aren't just for graphic designers and desktop publishers. While there are dozens of tutorials and links for people wanting to learn more about Photoshop, Illustrator, and other Adobe applications, 3D graphic designers can find tutorials. Applications such as Maya, Cinema 4D, and Poser have tutorials available at Tutsbuzz. If you're into video editing with Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere, or audio editing with Sound Forge and Adobe Audition, there are tutorials for you as well. If you're a programmer or developer and looking to brush up on C , C#, Visual Basic, or even Ruby, you'll find resources that will keep your skills sharp. There's even a section for database administrators looking for training on SQL, MySQL, Access, and Oracle.
When you find a tutorial you'd like to take, simply click on it to go directly to the site that hosts it. If you're interested only in video tutorials, you can click the Video button on the left side of the page to browse search results that contain just video tutorials. The default search at the site includes both HTML tutorials and how-tos as well as Web video.
The only way I can think of to make Tutsbuzz better would be to include site-exclusive tutorials. (Actually, there are two available directly from the people behind Tutsbuzz; unfortunately, neither of them is all that great.) For now, the site's strength is in finding tutorials from around the Web and making them available to the public. If you have a tutorial of your own or from another site to submit, you can sign up for a free account and submit them, as well as rate others.
Tutzbuzz is packed with tutorials and demos that show you how to make the most of your favorite design and development applications, learn new programming languages, and find new uses for programs you may already have. Many of the tutorials are available in video, so you can follow along while watching the masters at work.
All the videos and tutorials at Tutsbuzz are aggregated from other sites, so the service is less of a tutorial builder than a place to find tutorials from elsewhere online. The community at Tutsbuzz ranks and votes on the tutorials that they find. You can rate one highly if you thought it was particularly useful, and also add it to your favorites if you need to come back to it. The tutorial descriptions are available in three languages--English, Turkish, and German--even though tutorials themselves may not be.
The tutorials at Tutsbuzz aren't just for graphic designers and desktop publishers. While there are dozens of tutorials and links for people wanting to learn more about Photoshop, Illustrator, and other Adobe applications, 3D graphic designers can find tutorials. Applications such as Maya, Cinema 4D, and Poser have tutorials available at Tutsbuzz. If you're into video editing with Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere, or audio editing with Sound Forge and Adobe Audition, there are tutorials for you as well. If you're a programmer or developer and looking to brush up on C , C#, Visual Basic, or even Ruby, you'll find resources that will keep your skills sharp. There's even a section for database administrators looking for training on SQL, MySQL, Access, and Oracle.
When you find a tutorial you'd like to take, simply click on it to go directly to the site that hosts it. If you're interested only in video tutorials, you can click the Video button on the left side of the page to browse search results that contain just video tutorials. The default search at the site includes both HTML tutorials and how-tos as well as Web video.
The only way I can think of to make Tutsbuzz better would be to include site-exclusive tutorials. (Actually, there are two available directly from the people behind Tutsbuzz; unfortunately, neither of them is all that great.) For now, the site's strength is in finding tutorials from around the Web and making them available to the public. If you have a tutorial of your own or from another site to submit, you can sign up for a free account and submit them, as well as rate others.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Green Deals Daily: Find Eco-Friendly Bargains
Shopping for environmentally friendly products from socially responsible companies doesn't have to be expensive (though it often is!). A lot of companies are lowering the prices of their green products and services to attract more buyers and get the products into mainstream markets. If you're looking for a deal when shopping for green goods, you might check out Green Deals Daily, a Digg-like social news site where users and editors post bargains and let the community vote on them. The site is brand new and just beginning to get attention.
Green Deals Daily uses the Digg model to rank and promote the deals and bargains posted to the site. Registered users (registration is free) and the editors behind the service post at least one deal each day, and the community votes on it. The higher the vote, the more people thought the bargain was worthwhile or at least worth being featured.
The service isn't just for new products and services, though; Green Deals Daily features a number of tips and tricks to help you reduce your environmental impact and make the most out of the products you already own. After all, it's important to reduce and reuse as well as recycle. Green Deals Daily does bring you bargains on products with socially responsible and eco-friendly companies, but just as often it suggests other relevant links and information.
To illustrate: On the home page today is a link to a credit card company that donates a portion of its profits (and each of your purchases) to eco-friendly organizations and environmental causes, five things you should know before buying LED light bulbs, and a site that'll help you find eco-employment if you're looking for jobs in Canada. If you're interested in older deals, just scroll down the page, or click the tag cloud to find specific stories on items that interest you. You can click on "new deals" to find the bargains and articles that have been recently added to the site. The most highly rated and popular deals (along with the featured deal of the day) make it to the front page.
Green Deals Daily looks to be new, and most of the articles and deals published on the site only have a few votes. But the site has a lot of potential to bring environmentally friendly deals and articles to the masses and provide a real source for people who are interested in reducing their impact on the environment.
Green Deals Daily uses the Digg model to rank and promote the deals and bargains posted to the site. Registered users (registration is free) and the editors behind the service post at least one deal each day, and the community votes on it. The higher the vote, the more people thought the bargain was worthwhile or at least worth being featured.
The service isn't just for new products and services, though; Green Deals Daily features a number of tips and tricks to help you reduce your environmental impact and make the most out of the products you already own. After all, it's important to reduce and reuse as well as recycle. Green Deals Daily does bring you bargains on products with socially responsible and eco-friendly companies, but just as often it suggests other relevant links and information.
To illustrate: On the home page today is a link to a credit card company that donates a portion of its profits (and each of your purchases) to eco-friendly organizations and environmental causes, five things you should know before buying LED light bulbs, and a site that'll help you find eco-employment if you're looking for jobs in Canada. If you're interested in older deals, just scroll down the page, or click the tag cloud to find specific stories on items that interest you. You can click on "new deals" to find the bargains and articles that have been recently added to the site. The most highly rated and popular deals (along with the featured deal of the day) make it to the front page.
Green Deals Daily looks to be new, and most of the articles and deals published on the site only have a few votes. But the site has a lot of potential to bring environmentally friendly deals and articles to the masses and provide a real source for people who are interested in reducing their impact on the environment.
TinkerTool Lets You Tweak Out Your Mac
Mac users familiar with Mac OS know that Apple hides a number of features and tweaks in the OS for the sake of usability and ease-of-use. They can be unlocked only by power users who know what they're looking for. But a lot of those features can really improve the user experience. Thankfully, tools exist that help open them up to the average user. TinkerTool is one.
Some of the features TinkerTool (completely free) opens up make the interface more attractive and customizable, and others improve performance by changing graphics settings and turning off animations. If you're looking for more control over your Mac, TinkerTool is worth a try.
The version of Mac OS you're running determines what options TinkerTool can uncover for you. The app works with OS 10.2 through 10.4, and its developer expects TinkerTool to be ready for 10.5 as well, when it's released later this month.
Among some of the best tweaks that TinkerTool offers are ways to turn off Dock and Finder animations, which occur when you open files, applications, select items in menus, and more. Turning off these options can help some Macs, especially those with less RAM or running on older hardware, perform a bit better.
If you're a Mac user who often works with Windows network shares or portable storage, you're familiar with the annoying .DS_Store files that Mac OS creates on those volumes when they move from system to system. TinkerTool can keep your Mac from creating them. Additionally, TinkerTool gives you more options to customize your Dock; you can place it at the top of the screen (a feature hidden in OS X by default), make the icons transparent, change the animations, add shadow to the icons, and more. And TinkerTool offers a world of customization options for Safari, the way the Finder handles network files, displays icons and text on-screen, and more.
If you love TinkerTool, you can keep it installed for free as long as you like. If you need to remove it, it can safely revert your tweaks and settings back to OS X defaults, or back to the way they were before you started tweaking.
Don't expect a tool that'll help automate processes and run regular disk checkups though; TinkerTool is meant to help you customize your user experience and get rid of some of the more annoying aspects of the OS, not to keep your Mac running smoothly. TinkerTool handles a number of things that I've heard Mac users grumble about in the past, like why Safari can't open PDFs inside the browser instead of launching Preview, and why you can't re-order login items. Tinkertool fixes both of those issues, and much more.
Some of the features TinkerTool (completely free) opens up make the interface more attractive and customizable, and others improve performance by changing graphics settings and turning off animations. If you're looking for more control over your Mac, TinkerTool is worth a try.
The version of Mac OS you're running determines what options TinkerTool can uncover for you. The app works with OS 10.2 through 10.4, and its developer expects TinkerTool to be ready for 10.5 as well, when it's released later this month.
Among some of the best tweaks that TinkerTool offers are ways to turn off Dock and Finder animations, which occur when you open files, applications, select items in menus, and more. Turning off these options can help some Macs, especially those with less RAM or running on older hardware, perform a bit better.
If you're a Mac user who often works with Windows network shares or portable storage, you're familiar with the annoying .DS_Store files that Mac OS creates on those volumes when they move from system to system. TinkerTool can keep your Mac from creating them. Additionally, TinkerTool gives you more options to customize your Dock; you can place it at the top of the screen (a feature hidden in OS X by default), make the icons transparent, change the animations, add shadow to the icons, and more. And TinkerTool offers a world of customization options for Safari, the way the Finder handles network files, displays icons and text on-screen, and more.
If you love TinkerTool, you can keep it installed for free as long as you like. If you need to remove it, it can safely revert your tweaks and settings back to OS X defaults, or back to the way they were before you started tweaking.
Don't expect a tool that'll help automate processes and run regular disk checkups though; TinkerTool is meant to help you customize your user experience and get rid of some of the more annoying aspects of the OS, not to keep your Mac running smoothly. TinkerTool handles a number of things that I've heard Mac users grumble about in the past, like why Safari can't open PDFs inside the browser instead of launching Preview, and why you can't re-order login items. Tinkertool fixes both of those issues, and much more.
Google Goes Black, Goes Back
Remember Blackle? The site, designed by Australian Web design company, Heap Media, was created as a "more energy efficient" alternative to Google, after reports claimed that a switch to a black background by the search giant would save 750 megawatts a year, worldwide.
Last Saturday, the city of San Francisco celebrated Lights Out San Francisco, which urged that everyone in the city turn off their lights for one hour--8-9:00 PM. Google, who has been making their own strides toward increasing energy efficiency, adopted a black background on Saturday, visible to all bay area users.
The move was more out of solidarity than anything else. Google reverted back to their old white background at the end of the day, reiterating their position that a move to a black homepage would in fact have little effects on global energy consumption.
Last Saturday, the city of San Francisco celebrated Lights Out San Francisco, which urged that everyone in the city turn off their lights for one hour--8-9:00 PM. Google, who has been making their own strides toward increasing energy efficiency, adopted a black background on Saturday, visible to all bay area users.
The move was more out of solidarity than anything else. Google reverted back to their old white background at the end of the day, reiterating their position that a move to a black homepage would in fact have little effects on global energy consumption.
Find Eco-Friendly Building Materials at Ecolect
If you're building your dream home, renovating your current home, or just starting a new project in your house, you're probably sensitive to how energy-efficient you can make your building plans. At the same time, many local and regional authorities are offering rebates, tax breaks, and other incentives to build with green materials or in an environmentally safe and friendly way. If you're looking for more advice on environmentally friendly building products and materials than you might get from the guy at your local hardware store, head over to Ecolect. The goal of the service is to provide a community where builders and developers as well as homeowners and renovators can learn about new building products and sustainable materials for their building projects.
The word "ecolect" is a coinage from a combination of the words "ecology" and "intellect," and that's exactly what the people behind the site bring to the table. The service aims to educate new and prospective builders on sustainable technologies and materials, explain how those materials are made and what makes them sustainable and environmentally friendly, and finally, tell you where you can go to get them. The people behind the site are designers, so expect more emphasis on materials you can use to design the interior of your home and less on insulation and such. At the same time, Ecolect is moving to include building materials with in-depth articles and reports on topics such as flooring materials and affordable solar panels.
The service has an extensive catalog of sustainable materials: paints and resins, flooring and roofing materials, and more. When you find an item you're interested in, click on it to read more details and to find out where you can order it and who manufactures it. Some of the products at Ecolect are available at your local building-supply stores, and others are specialty items you need to order directly from the manufacturer.
The editors at Ecolect have their own standards for sustainability, which are outlined on the site, so you can be sure that the products featured meet some standard of environmental responsibility. Additionally, the Ecolect editors keep a staff blog that follows company events, peripheral environmental news, and events in the industry. If you know of some eco-friendly building or design materials, you can submit them to the site and even submit your own business, if you're a seller of sustainable building goods.
I found the list of products at Ecolect remarkable for a site that, in theory, shouldn't have too much to write about. I rent my house, but I can definitely see myself turning to Ecolect when it comes time to build my dream home or renovate a fixer-upper that I might buy someday. Ecolect can save you money on your energy bills and qualify you for green building bonuses, not to mention reduce the environmental impact of your building project or home renovation.
The word "ecolect" is a coinage from a combination of the words "ecology" and "intellect," and that's exactly what the people behind the site bring to the table. The service aims to educate new and prospective builders on sustainable technologies and materials, explain how those materials are made and what makes them sustainable and environmentally friendly, and finally, tell you where you can go to get them. The people behind the site are designers, so expect more emphasis on materials you can use to design the interior of your home and less on insulation and such. At the same time, Ecolect is moving to include building materials with in-depth articles and reports on topics such as flooring materials and affordable solar panels.
The service has an extensive catalog of sustainable materials: paints and resins, flooring and roofing materials, and more. When you find an item you're interested in, click on it to read more details and to find out where you can order it and who manufactures it. Some of the products at Ecolect are available at your local building-supply stores, and others are specialty items you need to order directly from the manufacturer.
The editors at Ecolect have their own standards for sustainability, which are outlined on the site, so you can be sure that the products featured meet some standard of environmental responsibility. Additionally, the Ecolect editors keep a staff blog that follows company events, peripheral environmental news, and events in the industry. If you know of some eco-friendly building or design materials, you can submit them to the site and even submit your own business, if you're a seller of sustainable building goods.
I found the list of products at Ecolect remarkable for a site that, in theory, shouldn't have too much to write about. I rent my house, but I can definitely see myself turning to Ecolect when it comes time to build my dream home or renovate a fixer-upper that I might buy someday. Ecolect can save you money on your energy bills and qualify you for green building bonuses, not to mention reduce the environmental impact of your building project or home renovation.
MySpace Launches "Roommates" Web Series
What's the future of Web video? Lots of giggling blond girls, if MySpace has its way. MySpace TV just launched Roommates, the first original series created specifically for the site.
Created in conjunction with Iron Sink Media, the series revolves around eight attractive females who have recently graduated from college.
Roommates seeks to appeal to the large overlap of viewership between those who strive to be attractive sorority girls, and those who just like to look at them. Both demos should be sufficiently satisfied by the highbrow subject matter tackled by the series. Says NewTeeVee: "the first episode features one of the girls standing in her underwear scolding her dog, followed by some girl-on-girl farting."
You're going to have to take their word for that one. I didn't make it that far into the first three minute webisode.
The series is scripted, though MySpace seems to be positioning it as something of an even ditzier version of The Real World, leading some on the Web to mistakenly refer to it as a "reality series" (not that reality shows are ever especially real to begin begin with, of course, but let's digress from the moment).
The interesting thing here, however, is the interaction between the series and the Myspace community. Character profiles and vlogs aren't especially groundbreaking, but the fact that MySpace audience interaction will affect the storyline certainly gives the series something of an edge.
Roommates premiers today, running Monday through Friday, until December 21, for a totally of 45 glorious episodes.
Created in conjunction with Iron Sink Media, the series revolves around eight attractive females who have recently graduated from college.
Roommates seeks to appeal to the large overlap of viewership between those who strive to be attractive sorority girls, and those who just like to look at them. Both demos should be sufficiently satisfied by the highbrow subject matter tackled by the series. Says NewTeeVee: "the first episode features one of the girls standing in her underwear scolding her dog, followed by some girl-on-girl farting."
You're going to have to take their word for that one. I didn't make it that far into the first three minute webisode.
The series is scripted, though MySpace seems to be positioning it as something of an even ditzier version of The Real World, leading some on the Web to mistakenly refer to it as a "reality series" (not that reality shows are ever especially real to begin begin with, of course, but let's digress from the moment).
The interesting thing here, however, is the interaction between the series and the Myspace community. Character profiles and vlogs aren't especially groundbreaking, but the fact that MySpace audience interaction will affect the storyline certainly gives the series something of an edge.
Roommates premiers today, running Monday through Friday, until December 21, for a totally of 45 glorious episodes.
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