Mind maps have become a pretty mainstream way to brainstorm. Children as young as grade one are being taught how to create mind maps on paper as a brainstorming technique. If you've been interested in using mind mapping, but have been turned off by the surprisingly high cost of the commercial mind mapping products, you might want to check out XMind.

XMind is a free and open-source desktop mind mappping tool that is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and even as a zip file that contains self-contained portable versions for all three platforms.

XMind also offers a commercial version called XMind Pro which offers business-focused features like Brainstorming and Presentation mode, additional security, Gantt chart view, and the ability to export to PDF, Word, PowerPoint, MindManager, and Freemind. XMind Pro costs $49US for a one-year subscription.

LogMeIn has been around for quite awhile now as a very useful free remote access tool for casual users, as well as a commercial remote access tool for corporations. They've now taken the obvious step of putting their technology to use in the form of a screen sharing application called LogMeIn Express.

The idea here is that you can quickly share your Windows computer's screen with up to 100 viewers by sending them a short 12-digit code and directing them to the LogMeIn Express website. Entering the code will then open a Flash-based page containing the contents of your computer's screen. As the presenter, you need to install a small piece of native Windows software, but the installation process is quick and painless, and offers 256-bit SSL encryption.

LogMeIn Express competes with more full-featured commercial screen sharing tools like GoToMeeting and WebEx, and though it's a much more simple implementation, it stacks up well. GoToMeeting is significantly faster than most competitors due to it being based on Citrix's Terminal Services technology, but LogMeIn Express competes well with WebEx. It doesn't currently include conference calling features which both of the commercial options do, but it does include an in-session chat module, and the ability to pass control of the host computer to one of the viewers.

LogMeIn Express is still in beta, but is free for both commercial and non-commercial use.

Demonoid, one of the most popular torrent sites on the web, went down due to hardware failures and data loss back in September. Although this left a hole in the hearts of many torrent aficionados, there was a glimmer of hope in November, when Demonoid's tracker came back online. Now, more good news: as of yesterday, Demonoid's website is back up, and registered users can sign in. Servers are busy, so the site might be inaccessible at times while things stabilize again.

The site is reportedly back to the way it was in early September, when it went down, except that a couple hundred new torrents have already been uploaded. Old torrents are still there, and users' upload:download ratios seem to be intact. RSS feeds are still down, and the site isn't taking new registrations right now, but it does seem to be alive and well. Happy holidays, torrent fans!

[via TorrentFreak]

You knew the trend toward transparency on the web would reach this point eventually: there's now an app that lets you automatically publish every credit card purchase you make to the web, where friends can comment and interact with them, Facebook-style. It's called Blippy.

The idea of showing your friends everything you buy obviously raises some privacy concerns. Some purchases are embarrassing, and sometimes you might just want to be off the grid. Blippy suggests using a separate credit card for the service, so you have control over which transactions show up and which don't. On the other hand, Blippy makes location-based social networking almost automatic: if you share your purchases in real time, your friends know your location in real time, no check-in necessary.

Blippy will also integrate with other sites, like iTunes and Amazon, to show more details of what you bought. That's pretty cool, actually, because it's more than my bank and credit card websites show me. Sometimes it's easy to forget what you spent that $40 on at Amazon. Even if you're not cool with sharing your whole retail life with the Internet, that extra information might make a private Blippy account worth having.


What do you think, Download Squad readers? Will Blippy catch on? Would you use it?

[via TechCrunch]

When Google opened the doors to its Chrome Extensions Gallery the other day, there were some interesting questions to be answered: Would ad blockers be allowed? What about YouTube downloaders? They're some of the most popular Firefox add-ons, but it looked as though Google wasn't about to let them in to its own Gallery.

In their program policies for the Extensions Gallery, Google states "We don't allow products or services that violate third party terms of service, or products or services that enable the unauthorized download of streaming content or media."

One has to wonder what they were thinking when they approved the YouTube Downloader extension. In addition to breaching the developer terms of service, it's also in violation of the YouTube TOS:

Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only and may not be downloaded, copied, modified, produced, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, translated, published, performed or otherwise exploited for any other purposes whatsoever without the prior written consent of the respective owners.

Further along, it states:

Accessing User Videos for any purpose or in any manner other than Streaming is expressly prohibited.

Now, unless YouTube Downloader has some massive archive of written letters from the clip uploaders themselves, I think it's pretty clear that this extension does things Google claims it isn't going to tolerate.

It will be interesting to see what the next step is -- I wouldn't be at all surprised if the extension gets pulled in the very near future. If they want to keep major content providers happy, they don't have a choice: they must pull it now. Google can't afford to appear permissive when it comes to violating content-protection provisions. It would seem like a crazy move while hardly a day goes by without news of Google courting yet another big deal with a large-scale media publisher.

update: the extension's page now displays an error. It would appear as though the banhammer has fallen.