Download Squad

MindBites launches Screencast 4 Cash contest

Christina Warren — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Developer, Video, Education, sxsw

At SXSWi 2008, Grant and I met Jason Reneau, the founder and CEO of MindBites, a platform and marketplace for video lessons. We were really impressed with the MindBites vision last year. When we met up with them this year, it was awesome to see how far the community, the site and the market for quality video tutorials has come.

Today, MindBites is launching the Screencast 4 Cash contest in conjunction with Techsmith's Jing Pro and Download Squad (that's us!). Entrants can submit an original screencast to be eligible to win a Grand Prize of $1000, plus a copy of Snagit/Camtasia Studio. There will also be a People's Choice Prize, determined by popular vote, and the winner will get $500 and a copy of Snagit.

Every vote cast in the contest will yield a $0.10 US donation to the Youth for Technology Foundation, which exposes children in underdeveloped parts of the world to technology through instruction and staffed technology centers. So just by voting, you can help underprivileged kids get access and instruction to technology.

Screencasts are a great way to learn, or teach a specialty. We covered some iPhone-specific screencasts last month and found the medium really, really ripe for learning or supplementing other forms of instruction.

If you've got a great idea for a screencast, enter the contest! Grant and I are two of the judges and we can't wait to see what stuff gets submitted! You can read more details on deadlines and voting dates over at MindBites.

Want to know more about MindBites? Check out this video from SXSWi 2009!

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MindBites launches Screencast 4 Cash contest originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009: Contxts lets you share contact details via SMS

Nik Fletcher — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Utilities, Web services, Beta, web 2.0, sxsw

Each year at SXSW, there's that one service that people go mad about. This year, most people seem to be loving foursquare - however one of the neatest services I discovered (perhaps unsurprisingly at one of the many parties) is Contxts. Currently in public 'alpha', the service lets you share contact details using just your mobile phone and an SMS.

Once you've registered (for free) on the Contxts site, people will be able to request your details by simply sending your username to 50500. The service replies with the 140-character business card you set up - normally just a name, address and phone number. Another nice touch is that the Contxts website notes each request for your card - noting usernames if the requester's phone is already registered with the service - letting you keep track of who's getting your number. You can also beam your profile to any other phone number from your registered number by simply text 'send' followed by the recipient's number. Simple!

I've been using it a little over the last week in Austin, and whilst the service is handy it's still far to early to use everyday. The distribution of your contact details needs a little more control, and it'd be awesome if the service allowed you to both upload a vCard that you already have - and make it available to registered users via the website or email. That said, for grabbing people's phone numbers in passing at a party, it's a great little service - and hopefully one that'll soon become a little more feature-complete.

SXSW 2009: Contxts lets you share contact details via SMS originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009: Talking Alltop with Guy Kawasaki

Nik Fletcher — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Web services, web 2.0, sxsw

At last year's South by Southwest Christina caught up with technology super-hero Guy Kawasaki to talk about his venture Alltop (which we've previously covered here at Download Squad). This year, we were fortunate enough to chat with Guy about the new MyAllTop area that lets you build a custom collection of your favorite feeds that are listed on the AllTop site on your own personalized page.

The Alltop site also provides a few selected users' profiles to show you the customization at work and since I started using the MyAlltop service a couple of days ago, I've grown to love the passive feed-reading that it offers. Instead of becoming overloaded with RSS items in NetNewsWire, setting your MyAlltop page as your homepage lets you easily dive in and out of news without the pressure of an ever-growing unread item count.

Be sure to check out the video after the break!

SXSW 2009: Talking Alltop with Guy Kawasaki originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009 : Where's Chrome for Mac?

Christina Warren — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Google, Browsers, sxsw

When our own we met up with Darin Fisher of Google's Chrome team, we had exactly one question on our mind, "Where's Chrome for Mac?"

Darren shares some answers, encourages you to try out nightly builds, and laments the lack of Chrome for Linux (coming soon-ish.. ) in this short interview.

SXSW 2009 : Where's Chrome for Mac? originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009: Regator crawls the blog trash to find blog treasure

Jay Hathaway — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Video, Features, Blogging, Search, web 2.0, sxsw

Regator is a portal to the hand-curated blogosphere. There's an awful lot of crap out there on a lot of worthless blogs, but Regator sends actual human beings with editorial experience out to find the stuff worth reading in the blogosphere.

In this interview from SXSW, Grant finds out some things you might not have known about Regator. For example, it's so selective that its rejection rate is above 80%! All that, and it's still run by three people out of one house. Extreme bootstrapping and quality blog content, all in one place!

SXSW 2009: Regator crawls the blog trash to find blog treasure originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009: Nova Spivack talks Twine and the semantic web

Jay Hathaway — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Video, Features, sxsw

Twine is a service that lets you track your interests and discover new content that you care about, based on the bookmarks of the other 100,000 users who use it. On top of that, there are a million people who just read Twine every month, which means it's on track to be bigger than Delicious soon. Learn more about the human-curated web straight from Twine's Nova Spivack at SXSW.

SXSW 2009: Nova Spivack talks Twine and the semantic web originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009: Blinging your blog with JS-Kit

Jay Hathaway — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Video, Features, Blogging, web 2.0, sxsw

Chris Saad tells Grant how JS-Kit works as an advanced commenting system for your blog, including stuff like OpenID and Facebook Connect. But it's also more than that: it provides widgets for comments, ratings, polls and chat across a network of 600,000 blogs. Basically, JS-Kit is an all-purpose system to cross-pollinate your comments and other info across sites in the network. These aren't all small sites, either: I Can Has Cheeseburger and Jetblue are some of the well-known sites that are on board with JS-Kit.

SXSW 2009: Blinging your blog with JS-Kit originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009: Catching up with DataPortabiity

Jay Hathaway — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Video, Features, web 2.0, sxsw

Grant Robertson catches up with the Data Portability project to see what they've accomplished in the past year. Turns out it's quite a lot. Internal governance mechanisms are in place, so the project can go forward and get more sites on board with its vision of interoperability and user control of data. If you don't know what Data Portability is and does, this video is a good primer.

SXSW 2009: Catching up with DataPortabiity originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009: Meet the small business web with Shoeboxed, Freshbooks, Outright and Batchblue

Jay Hathaway — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business, Video, Features, Productivity, sxsw

Download Squad's fearless lead blogger, Grant Robertson, has got his hands full in another interview from SXSW. Grant gathered a group that represents everything you need to run your small business or freelance practice, from tracking your expenses, to invoicing clients, to managing your contacts. Check out this interview to learn more about what Shoeboxed, Freshbooks, Outright and Batchblue can do for you.

UPDATE: Check the comments on this post for some excellent clarification from Ben Curren of Outright about how all these services work together. Thanks, Ben!

SXSW 2009: Meet the small business web with Shoeboxed, Freshbooks, Outright and Batchblue originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009: Rudder is not Mint, here's why

Jay Hathaway — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business, Video, Features, sxsw

Grant talks to the team from Rudder, a new financial-tracking service that sounds a lot like Mint.com. The Rudder guys tell him how they distinguish themselves from Mint by focusing on planning for the future instead of tracking the past. Learn about the cool features that let Rudder turn finances into a game that you play with yourself. Can financial management seriously be fun? Find out in this video.

SXSW 2009: Rudder is not Mint, here's why originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009: building web communities, Threadless-style

Jay Hathaway — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:15:00 EST

Filed under: Video, Features, sxsw

Threadless is more than a t-shirt company, as Grant Robertson found out when he chatted with Jeffrey Kalmikoff. Jeffrey explained how Threadless works, and how they've managed to build a community of nearly a million people who submit and vote on awesome new shirts. And that's just registered users, not including the thousands who just use Threadless to buy the hottest new designs. Stay tuned to Download Squad for more interviews straight from our team at SXSW.

SXSW 2009: building web communities, Threadless-style originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009: talking about blog-fueled search with Lijit's Micah Baldwin

Jay Hathaway — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:45:00 EST

Filed under: Video, Features, sxsw

Download Squad's Grant Robertson has been interviewing up a storm down at South by Southwest. He just hooked up with Micah Baldwin of Lijit to talk about how blogs and trusted friend networks can lead to more relevant, more personal search results. The biggest surprise to me was that Lijit isn't supported by Wordpress yet. Micah's encouraging everyone to email Automattic and get them to change that.

SXSW 2009: talking about blog-fueled search with Lijit's Micah Baldwin originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2009 : Take back your inbox with OtherInbox

Grant Robertson — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Features, E-mail, Productivity, Web services, sxsw

We're bonkers about our email. We sort it, we massage it, we organize it. Or, really.. we don't. We'd like to, but who has the time? OtherInbox, a service we've written about in the past, is live and open for business.

I caught up with Joshua Baer to talk about what makes OtherInbox so useful, and why I'm so excited to ditch my filters and find email bliss.

SXSW 2009 : Take back your inbox with OtherInbox originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Download Squad are in the house at SXSW!

Nik Fletcher — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: sxsw

It's that time of year again when the techworld descends on Austin, Texas, for the South by Southwest Interactive festival. Our crack team of bloggers (Grant, Christina, Chris Ullrich, Victor Agreda, Chris Clark and yours truly) will be going to as many sessions, parties, after-parties and panels as humanly possible, bringing you news and videos throughout the next six days.

If you're in Austin for SXSW, be sure to come say hello and grab a pint of Shiner Bock with us - you can keep up with what we're doing on Twitter (links below) - and if you've got any interesting tips be sure to get in touch and let us know!

Twitter Links: Download Squad - Grant - Christina - Victor - Nik - Chris Ullrich - Chris Clark

Download Squad are in the house at SXSW! originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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