Lisa Hoover
- http://
I'm a blogger for Download Squad, DIY Life, and TUAW.
Lisa Hoover
- http://
I'm a blogger for Download Squad, DIY Life, and TUAW.
Get your Buffy fix via podcast - Download Pod
If you named your dog Spike, dream of vacationing in Sunnydale, and never quite got over what happened to Jenny Calendar, then you'll love the gem of a podcast we've uncovered for you. Buffy Between the Lines is original fan fic written and produced by a group of volunteers who probably know more about Xander, Willow, and Buffy than Joss Whedon himself. Season One is, as they say, already in the can and all the episodes are available for download right from the site. All the usual suspects are featured, including some special appearances by Angel and his crew. The dialogue is snappy and spot-on, right down to the barbs Spike trades with, well, everyone.
Hurry up and get caught up with Season One. The cast is getting ready to start taping the second season and it should be available soon.
AOL acquires new properties
Download Squad's parent company AOL announced the acquisition of several small companies this week:Originally intending to sue for copyright infringement, AOL decided to instead purchase the rights to AIM for Lindsay Lohan, a forked AOL instant messenger app designed by fans of the popular but troubled star. ALL was conceived by three Michigan teens who say they cobbled the program together in an effort to raise money to "help Lindsay buy a day at the spa so she can, you know, relax."
AOL also purchased Yore Aviary, an online genealogy service for African Grey Parrot owners hoping to trace their bird's ancestry. Though there are currently only 16 registered members, they make regular treks to the jungles of Africa in an ongoing effort to footprint each bird for posterity. The group made news recently when a fistfight erupted between members arguing over what type of crackers to serve at its monthly meetings.
AOL also acquired Silicon Valley startup Basar Technologies, which specializes in direct mail via USB key. According to an AOL spokesperson, future plans for Basar include bi-weekly mailings of thumb drives preloaded with AOL 9.0 to every household in America. Additional free distribution of the keys are planned via 11 other channels, including free with gasoline purchase and attached to the neck of every 20 oz. Coke product.
AOL president Ron Grant could not be reached for comment, however his office issued a brief statement saying, "ALL Yore Basar belong to us."
Lip gloss alert: Yahoo! launches new Web site
Yahoo! launched a new site this morning called Shine aimed at women aged 25-54. All the news accounts we've read trumpet how Shine plans to package news and information of interest to females. When we visited the site, all we really wanted to do was scream. Oh, boy! According to Shine, all women care about fashion, beauty, love, and astrology! Geez, Yahoo!, stereotype much? So, what would the male version of this site look like? Would topics include cars, sports, tech, and beer? We know plenty of guys interested in treating acne and being better parents, and plenty of women who could code Yahoo!'s developers into a corner.
We guess what Yahoo! thinks passes for cogent topics of interest to women should come as no surprise since the site's editor-in-chief used to run Jane and Elle Girl, two print magazines that aren't exactly known for encouraging women to put down their lip gloss and pick up a book.
While we appreciate that Yahoo! is willing to dedicate a site to women, perhaps they could be a little less condescending. Women do change their own oil, build their own computers, travel, happily raise kids on their own, invest, and -- gasp! -- pursue lifestyles outside of what Yahoo! apparently considers "the norm."
Until Shine realizes that there's more to women than nail polish and a need to know the best way to hook a guy, this is one Web site we'll skip.
Download Squad talks with Jono Bacon about LugRadio Live 2008
If the idea of four Brits talking smack about open source, Creative Commons, and each other appeals to you, then you'll love LugRadio Live. In its fifth season, the Fab Four - Jono Bacon (of Ubuntu fame), Stuart 'Aq' Langridger, Chris Procter, and Adam Sweet -- produce regular podcasts that touch on all aspects of open source. While the Four Large Gents may be a bit irreverent (not always safe to listen to at work), they are always entertaining and fun.Always a popular show, it gained increased attention after the first LugRadio Live UK event in 2005. Billed as a "rock conference," the two-day show blends presentations from many widely-recognized names in the open source community, along with great music.
This year, LugRadio Live UK will get underway July 19-20 in Wolverhampton, UK, and the the first ever LugRadio Live US will be held in San Francisco, CA, April 12-13. Amazingly, tickets are only $10 bucks (£5 for the UK show). We caught up with Bacon to get the inside scoop on why to go, how to win t-shirts, and gong-a-thongs.
Continue reading Download Squad talks with Jono Bacon about LugRadio Live 2008
Learn a new language at Babbel, por favor
If you can't get enough of the English-language Weblogs, Inc. blogs, you can always check out some of the ones we serve up in other languages -- Autoblog Chinese or Engadget Spanish, for example. What? You don't know any other languages? Well, it's time you learned.
Babbel is a well-designed Web site designed to teach you a foreign language. It's part instruction, part wiki, and part social (isn't everything these days? What's next? A social network for wood stork enthusiasts? But we digress). Babbel incorporates a few different methods to facilitate learning one of the five languages they offer: Spanish, French, Italian, English, and German.
Gallery: Babbel online language trainer
Get smart with these educational sites
Parents know there are plenty of Web sites where children can Spelling City caught our eye because it's a nice departure from the typical shrill, flashy Web sites and doesn't rely on talking iguanas or silly voice-overs. It's got a bunch of different ways for kids to test their spelling chops, including interactive games, printables, and a tool that speaks any words kids are unsure how to pronounce. Spelling City has more than 25,000 words in its database but visitors can also create and save word lists of their own. C-O-O-L.
Timez Attack is one of the best free downloadable math games we've seen. A cross between Quake (without the violence) and Myst, players must solve multiplication equations to defeat monsters and get around the cave. Since most of us around here have already mastered our times tables, we tested the game on three kids, who declare it "awesome."
Starfall is a popular Web site for new or struggling readers. It uses Flash-based movies and interactive games to help kids learn phonics, vowel sounds, and other reading basics. In addition to word recognition, Starfall also teaches kids to read with tone, inflection, and expression.
Since there are about 70 gajillion educational sites out there, it was hard to narrow it down to only three. Parents, what are some of your favorites?
Feed your face at Open Source Food
Navigation is much more intuitive and background is minimalist so pictures of the delicious dishes really stand out (warning: some of the food pictures will make you want to lick your screen). More than just a Web site, it's a social network and members are encouraged to share photos, recipes, and meal ideas . Of course, tagging, voting, and commenting are also part of the fun.
The thing we really like about this site is that there are plenty of basic recipes for novices -- butter baked cabbage, chocolate chip cookies -- along with a ton of recipes for advanced cooks. Since the site's members are all over the globe, OSF also has the international flair thing going on. Hot Thai fish curry, anyone?
Bottom line: if you can't find a fabulous recipe somewhere on this site, then you're not really trying.
Open source pulse check on Twitter
Twitter doesn't have a grouping feature yet (even though they said 7 months ago it was "at the top of their list") but that hasn't stopped a group of open source aficionados from finding a way to form one anyway. Five Twitterers including SourceForge's Ross Turk and open source analyst extraordinaire Raven Zachary launched The Pulse of Open Source today, calling it a "collective stream of consciousness from the open source community." We just call it "cool."
All you need to do is bookmark and visit the site, or add it to your feed reader. As people the site follows update their Twitter feeds during the day, their tweets appear on the site or in your reader. The site follows a wide assortment of open source community members ranging from CEOs of companies like MindTouch, to community managers of projects like OpenSUSE and Hyperic.
The tweets don't always focus on open source, but we like that because otherwise the site wouldn't be as much fun. How else would we know how Zachary got those cool glasses?
Score an invite to the private beta of iubo
If you spend a lot of time in front of the computer, you probably collect dozens of little snippets of information each day: Web sites to visit later, documents you want to review some other time, contact info of people you want to catch up with next week, reminders about what to pack for your next trip. There are all kinds ways to track your stuff online (Del.ici.ous, Remember the Milk), but they leave your data segregated across several Web sites. There are also a few options for corralling and indexing all your stuff right on the computer (Google Desktop, Mac OS X Spotlight), but they don't help much when you're away from your desk.
The folks at iubo feel your pain and have designed a Web site where you can store online all the dribs, drabs, and what-nots you accumulate and then access them later, no matter where you are. Once you create an account, you can add and track information on pretty much anything you can think of: pictures, bookmarked Web sites, contact information, notes, documents, and so on. You can even add tags and color-code data for easier searching later.
Gallery: iubo
Continue reading Score an invite to the private beta of iubo
Kill IRC repetition with the xkcd ROBOT9000
If you're an IRC user, then you know the only thing more annoying than seeing the same comment repeated in rapid succession by four different people is seeing it repeated in rapid succession by 24 different people. The more members there are in an IRC channel, the more likely it is that someone just joining will ask a question that was asked moments before their arrival. Add to that the number of people "LOL"ing "+1"ing each other and the signal-to noise ratio quickly becomes deafening. In an attempt to stop the madness, Randall Munroe (of xkcd fame) and his friend zigdon have coded a rather awesome little bot and named it ROBOT9000. It's designed -- get this -- to mute the messaging ability of anyone who says anything that's already been said in the channel within the past two years (boy, those xkcd guys mean business.).
Randall and zig are still tweaking the code but you can snag the initial version if you want to try it out in your own channel. They've also set up an IRC testing channel if you want to just play around with the bot. Just don't say "hi all" when you log in. You've been warned.
Organize your IE7 Favorites
Recently, we told you about some ways to organize and manage your Firefox bookmarks, and one of our readers asked for similar suggestions to use with Internet Explorer. Since we want Michael and our other IE-using friends to loved too, we put together a few ideas for you.Favorites Box lets you add extra attributes to your bookmarks to make them easier to find and organize. Add comments, categories, tags, or login information or even set up a reminders. This one's free to try, but sets you back $19.95 if you want to keep it.
Favorites Finder is a free extension that adds keyword functionality to your bookmarked sites so you can access them in just a couple of keystrokes. Just type a few letters of the site you're looking for and Favorites Finder will search your bookmarks and find all the matches, including whatever's in your folders.
Power Favorites is a slick little extension that merges bookmarks from IE, Opera, and Firefox, then syncs them across multiples computers. You can annotate each bookmark with notes and tags, then view them by tag list or tag clouds. (Tag clouds? Are you listening, Foxmarks?) Power Favorites has a 30-day free trial, then it's $19.95.
When you finally decide to winnow down that super-long list of Favorites you've accumulated over the past two years, it's a pain to have to check each bookmark to make sure the site still exists. Use the free tool Favorites Inspector instead. It will plow through your whole list for you and alert you to any "404 error" pages so you can delete those Favorites instead of filing them.
Resolve to organize your Firefox bookmarks
If you spend a lot of time on the Internet then you've probably accumulated Bookmark synchronizer Foxmarks is a must-have if you like to access your bookmarks from multiple locations. Install the Foxmarks extension on your laptop and your desktop PC, and whatever Web site you add to your bookmark manager on one machine will automatically show up on the other. You can also access your bookmarks via the Web from any computer with Internet access, no download required.
People who use the Opera Web browser often rave about its "Speed Dial" function, which allows you faster access to sites you visit regularly than searching through a long list of bookmarks. Though similar functionality isn't available natively in Firefox, there are a couple of extensions that get the job done. Speed Dial for Firefox places a button on your toolbar; click it to bring up thumbnails of up to nine Web pages whose addresses you've pre-programmed. Adding a Web site to the list is easy: simplfirefox; ffy right-click and select "Set as Speed Dial." Fast Dial does the same thing as Speed Dial, and also adds middle-click functionality and keyboard shortcuts.
If you like your browser's address bar to do your thinking for you, then take a look at Autocomplete Manager. This little extension checks what you type in the address bar for matching bookmarked Web sites; it even checks page titles and names you've assigned to the bookmarks in your folders.
Want to give your boring old bookmark folders a face-lift? Use Favicon Picker to decide what icon you want appearing next to each bookmarked Web site. Once installed, simply open Firefox's Bookmark Manager and right-click on a bookmark. Choose "Properties", then the "Browse" button in the Icon section. Select a .jpg to replace the existing default icon and click "OK".
New to the whole concept of bookmarks? Then make sure this is the first site you save to your Bookmark Manager.
Mister Wong offers empty bottle for charity
Well here's an idea you don't see every day. Geekdom superhero Tim O'Reilly stopped by the shoomze-booth of social bookmarking site Mister Wong at the recent Web 2.0 Expo and the forward thinking gents at the booth snagged the empty water bottle he was seen swigging from. They decided that selling it would be a great way to raise money for a worthy cause and now it's up for sale on eBay. The proceeds will go toward Unicef's safe water campaign.No, seriously.
Look, we laughed ourselves right under the desk at first too. Then -- and maybe it's the heady sense of philanthropy talking -- it began to sound like a halfway decent idea. After all, where's the harm in it, y'know? Unicef is a worthwhile cause that could surely benefit from a few extra dollars and maybe there's someone out there who's been longing for a bottle that's known to have rested gently on the lips of the The Tim.
Let's just hope there's no backwash in it.
Five places to download free movies (legally!)
You've just laid out the scratch for a new 42" HDTV, hooked up surround sound speakers, and you're ready to tuck into a bowl of popcorn. Now all you need are some movies. Well, you've come to the right place.Here are five great Web sites where you can legally download free movies and burn them to a DVD to watch with your sweetie, family, and friends this weekend.
The Internet Archive - This is the motherlode for all kinds of free media (it's even got video games). The Archive has loads of old movies, foreign films, documentaries, and more. There's even a couple of movies about ice cream (hey, we just blog about this stuff -- we can't explain it either).
Emol - If comedy and cartoons are what you're after, Emol.org is the place to go. Here's where you'll find Charlie Chaplin, The Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny, and Popeye.
AngryAlien - Just because none of these sites are likely to have the latest box office blockbuster available, that doesn't mean you can't still watch Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, or Star Wars. In less than 30 seconds. Acted out by bunnies.
PublicDomainTorrents - Head here for B-movies "Like Attack of the Giant Leeches", "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" (wonder what that love child looks like?), and "Track of the Moon Beast". On the other hand, you'll also find "Night of the Living Dead" on this site -- so it's not all bad.
AtomFilms - There are some very creative films on this site made up of mostly user-created content. AtomFilms is a service of MTV Networks that serves up content to mobile phones and Web sites, but since they're partnered with Comedy Central and Spike TV there are a few gems on here if you poke around a bit.
Blabberize: Where the cows say more than moo
Blabberize is just another Web site that's silly, pointless, and serves no purpose.
We love it.
The premise is simple: upload a photo of a person or animal, use the capture tool to isolate its mouth, record 90 seconds of sound, and -- presto -- a talking picture. Think Clutch Cargo, only better. Dozens of talking dogs and goofy-sounding talking heads have already been uploaded, but if you take the time to sift through the cruft you'll find some truly funny snippets.
If you want to try your hand at making a talking picture of your own, the tools to create your own talking picture are rudimentary at best, so don't expect high-tech output. Once you make your masterpiece, you have the option of emailing it to your friends, or grabbing the URL or embed code to post elsewhere. (A caveat about embedding: The Flash widget we tried embedding in this post worked in Firefox under Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard, but not on Firefox under XP. Your mileage may vary.)
There's really no practical value whatsoever to Blabberize but any Web site that has a talking llama for a mascot is all right by us.
