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ChrisPirillo posts

Filed under: Internet, Macintosh, Web services, Apple, iPhone, web 2.0

iPhone App Tracker - What's on Yours?

iPhone - What's on Yours?The Lockergnome brand and Chris Pirillo know their technology, and now they're opening the doors up to a new iPhone App tracking site just for you and run by you.

The idea is similar to Digg in that you can submit iPhone apps and people can vote them up or down, giving you a nice community snapshot of what app is performing, and what app isn't at any given time.

It also has implications for when new apps come out, and you want to be the first kid at school to get it.

Sure, you can read reviews in the Apple Store, but you don't get the full story like you do on a site with simplicity and ease of use.

It's rough around the edges but the idea seems clear. Submit, rate, and interact. But the difference here is that it's so granular and dedicated solely to iPhone Apps.

Chris gave us the early link to the Apple App Tracker too, and we'd like to see one for PC apps and maybe even Linux distributions. Since he can build communities, it'll be interesting to see how big of a community pops up around this new venture.

Filed under: Internet, Productivity, Web services, Freeware

urlTea - a shorter, customizable URL tool


Since its introduction, TinyURL more or less became the de-facto standard tool for shortening URLs to share across the web. You put a long URL in, you get a shortened version back, and everyone's happy - everyone, that is, except Chris Pirillo. As if already being a 'net celeb and go-to guy for all sorts of web culture and computer support, he's also consistently near the top of the Twitterholic list, often tweeting about one link or another.

Always one to voice a complaint when tools aren't quite getting the job done however, Chris tweeted a frustration with the way TinyURL works its magic, and Brett Taylor heard loud and clear. Thus, urlTea was born, a TinyURL-like service that brings some really unique features to the URL-shortening table. First, upon entering a URL at urlTea.com, it of course returns a shortened version but also immediately copies it to the clipboard (even on a Mac; nice). urlTea also offers a bookmarklet for instantly shortening any URL when you're far and away from urlTea's site, as well as an IM bot for the ultimate in keeping friendly tools close at hand. A very unique feature, however, is the ability to add any text to the end of a urlTea url with the inclusion of a question mark. This url for example: http://urltea.com/y3 can also be written as http://urltea.com/y3?coolest-site-evar, which offers a lot of flexibility if you want to add any relevant information for your lucky recipients.

As if this all wasn't enough innovation, the bottom of urlTea's about page lists quite a few features that are still to come. Not bad for a product borne out of a response to someone's twitterings!

Filed under: Windows, Microsoft

Windows Vista torrent shut down by Microsoft lawyerbots

Windows Vista TorrentIn depressingly unsurprising news, Microsoft's lawyers have cease-and-desisted Windows Vista Torrent off the face of the planet. The site, which was set up last week by Chris Pirillo and Jake Ludington, provided a BitTorrent tracker to take the load off of Microsoft's servers from downloads of Windows Vista Beta 2. The tracker was completely unauthorized, but provided an unaltered (i.e. downloaders still needed to legally obtain a license key from Microsoft before installing) copy of the beta for users who couldn't get through on Microsoft's servers. Nobody, least of all Pirillo and Ludington, were surprised when they received a not-especially-clueful cease & desist letter from Microsoft's lawyers, which you can read at the Vista Torrent web site.

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The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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