Alright.. I usually don’t try to do many of these. But buy.com has another great sale going on. A Soyo Freestyler 500 headset for $10.99 - $10.00 for new Google Checkout users. Even though it isn’t the best headset in the world.. $0.99 is hard to beat!
Popularity: 56% [?]
(Pronounced “scribbed”)
I stumbled upon this site a few weeks ago and checked it out and it seems pretty cool. Essentially it is a place you can upload any sort of document you like and it will be stored in a flash reader right on their website.
According to them:
Scribd lets you publish and discover documents online. It is like a big online library where anyone can upload. We make use of a custom Flash document viewer that lets you display documents right in your Web browser. Part of the idea behind Scribd is that everyone has a lot of documents sitting around on their computers that only they can read. With Scribd we hope to unlock this information by putting it on the web.
In many ways you can think of it as the Youtube of documents. They support all major document forms, including Microsoft Office, HTML, PDFs, OpenOffice, JPG files and more. They also provide unlimited storage, so you can store as many as you like. Each document gets its own URL, and is easily embedded in a blog or website.
The process is pretty simple: You upload a document, which is then converted into their format for use in their Flash viewer. It is also converted into Word, HTML, plain text and PDF formats that anyone can easily click and download.
Another important aspect is that Scribd allows you to retain all rights to your documents, or allows you to publish them as public documents, so you don’t have to worry that by publishing a piece of work there that it will become public domain and you will lose any copyright.
Scribd does not allow edits, but does allow you to upload new revisions of your documents and more importantly it allows you to revert to old versions at any time while retaining all tags and comments.
A few downsides: Because if their java script, it is not currently compatible with WordPress blogs Also, documents can take up to 15 minutes before they are visible, so this is not the option to use when you want to show something immediately to a friend online.
UPDATE: It does work on WordPress blogs with a little help, as well as most others. Furthermore, most documents only take 1-3 minutes max to show up, if not faster! Thanks to Jason Bentley out at Scriptd for dropping by and letting us know!
Overall, however, I’ve found it pretty neat to play around with. You can upload anything you like and send the links to anyone. You can limit access to just yourself or your friends, or make it totally public. You can also just browse through various tags and documents to see what people have uploaded and read everything from well (and not so well) written fiction to major articles and informative text.
Head on over and check it out!
Popularity: 55% [?]
ComputerWorld reports that Apple’s US Sales accounting for 14% of the market in February - which is way up from 9% from February 2007.
I’m sure there’s a lot of factors to this. The MacBook Air alone accounted for over 20% of Apple’s sales, yet those numbers don’t cut into their normal sales, it was essentially an extra 20% right over the top. Then there’s Windows Vista. Personally I love it.. but for less technical people it was a bit of a mess when it came out. A lot of people buying new computers in stores were forced to use it and grow to hate it. Which provided the perfect opportunity for Apple to increase its market share.
What do you think? Are you a rabid Windows fan? Or a crazed iFanatic? Or a recent convert to one or the other?
Popularity: 23% [?]
A lot of USB Flash Drives these days are coming with a built in application launcher called U3. Many many people out there dislike it, and those who know how tend to immediately remove it as soon as they get the drive home.
But why do so many people hate it?
I would say generally because it does nothing out of the box. It is just a useless app that confuses people. U3 was marketed horribly (i.e. not at all) and there is no way for people to know what it is capable.
If you haven’t done it before, go check out www.portableapps.com - it is a fantastic site full of all sorts of free applications you can throw onto your Flash Drive and then run directly from it no matter where you are. How about an Instant Messenger and Web Browser that run directly from the flash drive and keep all their cache and logs right on it instead of on your work computer?
They have a bunch of applications they host themselves, as well as links to tons of them you can get elsewhere. But they’ve released something fantastic lately, a complete suite to install to your Flash Drive. It is less than 90mb in size and includes a plethora of useful apps you can bring with you anywhere you go. These include:
Not too bad for something that only takes up a small portion of the space on your Flash Drive. (You did order that one for $1.95 I posted the other day, right?) This leaves plenty of other space on the drive for more apps and anything else you normally want to carry with you.
Take it to work or school and keep all your personal information reasonably private.
All for the low low price of… FREE. Can’t really complain about that.
For reference, here’s a list of programs they host on their own site:
Head on over and check it out. You can also check out www.u3applications.net for more applications, including CC Cleaner and a few others.
So next time you pick up a new Flash Drive.. don’t be TOO quick to dump U3. It isn’t that bad once you whip it into shape.
(BTW, if you still really hate U3.. you can uninstall it by going here.)
Popularity: 24% [?]
I’ll keep it short and sweet:
Buy.com has a sale right now for a 2GB flash drive. The drive is $11.95 with FREE SHIPPING. It is also eligible for Google Checkout. I’m sure all of you out there are/can be new Google Checkout customers. That means you get a 2GB Flash Drive for $1.95 shipped.
Here’s what Buy.com has to say about it:
Popularity: 21% [?]
Gizmodo has a video of a Firmware 2.0 iPhone in action. It is unlocked and will run on any GSM carrier, but is not jailbroken using the current methods.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
(Video courtesy of Gizmodo)
When will Apple learn? People want to use their handsets their way. Apple keeps thinking that iPhones are just iPods with a cell phone in them. They are wrong. iPhones are a cell phone with iPods in them. And people customize their cell phones, and they do it any way they want. People will not let their phones be limited or controlled by the manufacturer, and they will continually find ways around it.
Get with it, Apple! Open up the iPhone and watch it prosper more than ever.
Gizmodo reports that 2.0 has the following changes:
Whats new? Visible changes are:
• Exchange Support
• Appstore
• Parental Controls
• SDK Support
• Calculator is more advanced
• CISCO VPN support
• Mail mass deletionFeatures not included:
• There is no spotlight icon
Shame about the spotlight icon. No searching. Still Apple? Really? Get with the 90’s.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Yet another sync tool is on the horizon.
The fabulous Windows Live folks have come up with this tool that runs on both Mac and Windows that will synchronize folders across multiple PCs. Beyond that, it also grants access to mobile devices, and has the ability to share them with your friends. It supports files up to 2GB in size, with no limit on file totals. The reason is because it synchronizes everything in real time.
(Photo courtesy of makeuseof.com)
Essentially FolderShare creates a tiny little network between all the computers you have configured. When you make a change on one, it sends the change to the others immediately (or next time both computers are available). Not bad at all for little things, although with a slow connection this could be rather cumbersome.
Still, though, for the price and convenience, it is a pretty nice feature. I’ve been using it to synchronize files between my laptop and my desktop when I’m away for a while now, and it is nice knowing not only do I have a backup, but I can access them from home when I’m too tired to unpack my laptop.
You can sign up for the Windows Live FolderShare beta program right here. It is worth checking out I think.
Popularity: 13% [?]
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