Chris Price
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Filed under: Photo, Web services, Yahoo!, Social Software
Flickr to require Yahoo! accounts on March 15th
The last time Flickr tried this there was such a backlash that they supported both the old Flickr IDs and corporate overlord ones. But that was then, and this is now...The Flickr News blog just announced that as of March 15th, the only access to your Flickr account will be via a Yahoo! ID. So, the last holdouts in denial of the acquisition will either have to quit the service or link to a Yahoo! ID. This official thread has been created to voice your concerns \ questions to the Flickr staff and community.
We're told that this change is in preparation for some large projects later this year (ohhh - anyone have any ideas??). We've seen this requirement already with the recent updates to Flickr Mobile and Yahoo! Go that only allow Yahoo! accounts.
The same post also mentions the addition of a couple of limits:
- Maximum number of Contacts will be 3000
- Maximum number of Tags per picture will be 75
Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Web services, Yahoo!, Social Software
MyBlogLog adds profile integration with Flickr
After the recent acquisition from Yahoo!, I only just got around to checking out MyBlogLog (My profile shows me registering on 1/26/2007). These days, most social services integrate with the Flickr API, so I thought nothing of it when I saw that I could set that up. However, according to a post on Mashable!, it looks like this is a shiny new feature (we love those here).
Further investigation finds a post on the MyBlogLog blog where the developers announce this new way of adding pictures to your profile.
The Mashable post gets into additional thoughts for Yahoo! property integration - Yahoo! IDs is a given, and del.icio.us makes sense also. I'd also like to add Yahoo! 360 - for those of us that use it, it'd be nice to incorporate the MyBlogLog tracking into the 'official' blogging service from 'Big Daddy'.
If you already use MyBlogLog, we'd love to see you in our Community.
Filed under: Internet, Windows, Yahoo!, Freeware, VoIP, Social Software
Yahoo! Messenger gets free 800 calling and new version
by Chris Price Jan 27th 2007
I could have sworn that Yahoo! Messenger already did this, but according to this post from the Yahoo! Messenger blog, you can call any 800 (or other typical free - 877 / 866 / 888 / etc. call) and not use any minutes from your Yahoo! Voice account.This announcement coincides with the upcoming Yahoo! promo for the movie "The Messengers", something to do with a 'click-to-call' (whatever that is) campaign they will be running. Hopefully, this isn't the start of getting ads played before you make a call.
In addition, the post mentions a new minor upgrade to v8.1.239. We're told that changes include voice quality improvements and minor fixes for it running in MS Vista (but why not just run the Vista version instead??)
The voice quality continues to be decent, certainly good enough that I've dropped long distance and international calling from my landline - preferring a combination of my cell & Y! IM to call around the world.
Go get it from the official download page.
Filed under: Internet, Web services, Yahoo!
Yahoo! Real Estate adds school information
If you're looking to move your family to a new abode, an important consideration is often the quality of the schools in the areas you are looking for.To help with the decision, Yahoo! Real Estate has added a nationwide school search feature to it's service. The schools are displayed on the embedded Y! Map, so you get all the zoom \ pan \ images that you'd expect.
Each school is linked to more information such as Student \ Teacher Ratio and even Parent Reviews. The data it uses comes from a partnership with GreatSchools.net and gives you the ability to search on District \ Level or Grade. Also, a neighborhood map of the school is displayed with easy access to local amenities - Grocery stores \ Parks \ Gas Stations, etc.
Combine this with the Zillow data that's available from the same service, you have a powerful way to research your next home.
Filed under: Internet, Utilities, E-mail, Yahoo!
Yahoo! Messenger opens up to corporate IM from MS & IBM
For all you corporate users that want to connect to the outside world, the Yahoo! Messenger blog just announced that Y! Messenger can now connect to users on MS Live Communications Server and IBM \ Lotus Sametime. This is in addition to the previously released support for MSN Messenger (now called Windows Live Messenger).I'm not sure how this functionality can be found - I pulled the current version of Y! Messenger from the official website, and it doesn't yet have Sametime or LCS listed - maybe I'm just a little impatient...
[Update: I just booted my PC and the options appeared auto-magically...]
Yahoo! Music Jukebox gets minor update
by Chris Price Jan 18th 2007 {6 comments}
The Yahoo! Music Blog has a post that informs us of an update to the Yahoo! Music Jukebox, bringing it to v2.0.2 While there are no new features, there are several performance and stability fixes:
Better management of memory
Crossfade works for everyone
Fatal Exceptions are (mostly) history
Proper shutdown of the executable
Improved CPU performance when starting
and 80+ other bug ...Yahoo! Research merges Maps, Tags and Photos
From the Yahoo! Cool Thing of the Day blog: Yahoo! Research continues working to merge several of it's social properties in interesting ways - this time with the upcoming release of Tagmaps. Tagmaps aim to integrate tags with Yahoo! Maps - with the tags overlaid on top of the map. As you Zoom/Pan the map, relevent tags get place on the display. Yahoo! has created 3 demo apps:
World Explorer - ...Yahoo releases new Toolbar for IE with integration to the new Bookmarks
Along with the release of the new Bookmarks service, Yahoo has also let out an update to its Toolbar for IE bringing it to Version 7.0. From the Y! Search blog post, this version adds:
Toolbar integration with the new Yahoo! Bookmarks
Type-ahead bookmark suggestions from the toolbar search box
The ability to create and use new buttons, even when you aren't signed in
It appears that the ...Yahoo unveils new Bookmarks site to replace MyWeb
Finally, Yahoo admits that it's venerable Bookmark service is in need of an update and is about to unveil a new beta version. To compete with the other big guys (Google Bookmarks & Windows Live Favorites), this release will bring the following:
Advanced search functionality
Thumbnails for quickly recognizing sites
Convenient drag-and-drop management
Organize bookmarks with folders ...Yahoo! Toolbar for Firefox upgraded
This morning, I opened up Firefox as usual and was greeted to a new button on my Yahoo! Toolbar: "Upgrade Now!" Hitting the button takes you to the Yahoo! Toolbar page and the download starts automatically. Before installing, I checked the Add-Ons dialog (in Firefox 2.0 RC3) and didn't see it listed as a possible upgrade - I'm guessing that Yahoo! hasn't hooked this version into the Mozilla ...
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
