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Posts with tag WEB2.0

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Where is your username registered? Find out with Usernamecheck

UsernamecheckThere are a lot of advantages to using the same username for all your online services. It's easier to remember, and friends can find you more easily. If you're someone who's in this habit, you might want to take a look at Usernamecheck, a site that tells you which sites your favorite username is registered at.

Usernamecheck scans 60+ different networks, from 12seconds to Zooomr, and tells you if your name is taken. The sites on the list are some of the best, most useful places to have an account, so it might remind you of something you've been meaning to sign up for. Or, if you're an Internet addict like me, it might remind you of sites you signed up for and forgot about. Either way, it's worth a look.

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Search, web 2.0

MiaMia : Ask Anything, Get Email or SMS Answers. Sometimes.


No, I didn't edit that image, that's actually the first question that pops up on MyMiaMia's flash intro banner. While I'm not certain it's a reference I would make when trying to flog my awesome new web app, it did make me stick around and try it out.

It's a slick concept. Visit the website and type in your query, get an answer sent to your email or cell phone via SMS. Your answers will probably arrive with a short, ceontextual ad at the end (at some point - right now it's just a placeholder).

I figured their example of a dictionary word was child's play, so I threw them a curve: Who played Ash in Army of Darkness? To my amazement, here was the reply: "Bruce Lorne Campbell an American actor, producer, writer and director, best known for his starring role as Ash in the Evil Dead trilogy of horror/slapstick movies."

Read more →

Filed under: Developer, Utilities, web 2.0

Flexigrid: slick Web 2.0 data grids with jQuery

Flexigrid is a jQuery based way of making flexible data grids, either by inputting fresh data or grabbing it from an existing table, XML, or JSON source. The "flexi-" in Flexigrid refers to its resizable height, width and columns. Flexigrid also now has a toolbar, a search function, and its own API.

Although the API isn't documented yet, there's enough there to figure out how to do the most important things Flexigrid does: collecting and sorting your data. It'll use Ajax to populate your new grid from an XML source, and there's an auto-resizing function so you don't have to mess with your columns too much right off the bat. The CSS should also be editable, so you can hack in your own theme if you're ambitious.

Filed under: Internet, Social Software

See your del.icio.us bookmarks in a new way

Favthumbs takes a visual approach to your del.icio.us bookmarks. Instead of the usual text based links found on the Del.icio.us web site, Favthumbs displays image thumbnails of your bookmarks giving them a Web 2.0 look and feel.

No setup is required to use Favthumbs, simply enter in your del.icio.us user name and Favthumbs will generate thumbnails of all your bookmarks in either a grid or carousel (think cover flow) layout. You can further narrow down your bookmarks by clicking on your tags to the right of the screen.

We found that it took a bit longer to display our bookmarks on Favthumbs than using del.icio.us directly. This delay may be the result of Favthumbs fetching the images. But if thumbnails are your thing then you might want to give Favthumbs a try.

Filed under: Fun, Social Software, web 2.0

Guilty conscious? It's ok i4Giveu.

Ever did something that you wish you could take back? Maybe you snuck out of the convenience store without paying for that pack of gum or never returned that past due library book. Whatever the case maybe, why not voice it to the world and get it off your chest with i4Giveu.

i4Giveu is not just a sounding board, its members judge your confessions, rate them and ultimately decide if your confession is worthy of forgiveness. Of course, you too can dish out a bowl of moral soup if you're feeling a bit high and mighty.

Oh, Internet... is there anything you can't do?

Filed under: Video, Web services, web 2.0

Give those home movies a makeover

Video camera equipped mobile phones are great simply because you're more likely to have it on you than a traditional video camera. The only downside is that the quality of the recording is anything but stellar. That's probably the reason why the people at MotionDSP created fixmymovie.

We're not going pretend to understand the technology behind the service but what we can tell you is that their technology does work. All you need to do is send them your video in one of 3 ways: upload to their website, email or directly from your phone via MMS. From there, fixmymovie will analyze your video attempting to clean up as much as possible and produce a video that will look a lot better than the original.

Once completed, fixmymovie will display it on your My Movies tab on the site as well as email you a link to the video. You can then share this with your friends and family members or download a copy directly to your computer.

The downloadable video comes in 2 versions: free and premium. Free downloads are limited to 640x480 and are watermarked with the fixmymoive logo. Premium downloads cost $2 and are up-scaled to 4x times the original resolution and are logo free.

We would suggest that you try out the free service first before purchasing the premium download and inspect the processed video and if you like the final results spring for the premium service!

Filed under: Search, web 2.0

Yoozila: Google's Hot Cousin?


Ok, ok, we know that when something is as powerful and useful as Google that looks shouldn't matter, but come on. Would it really be too much to ask for her to doll herself up a little? Just a little. Throw us a bone!

Fortunately, Yoozila has arrived on the scene, all AJAXed up, and shiny web 2.0 graphics to top it all off.

The results page can be quickly - and usefully - customized. Turn thumbnails on or off, filter your results by region, language, file type and license type (though it doesn't work that well on some searches yet), and of course you can search within your results.

The thumbnails can be incredibly useful; they're a good way to spot scam sites before you get suckered in to visiting or give you a visual reminder of sites you're visited before.

It's built on Google code, so you'll get the same web, image, blog, news, and other results either way. Yoozila's done an excellent job updating the old, saggy Google interface.

Filed under: Fun, Internet, web 2.0

Fake Name Generator Creates Your Alter Ego


Anyone who has gained super powers through radiation exposure, cosmic rays, or scientific experimentation gone wrong knows how painfully difficult it can be to conceal your identity after the fact. Fortunately, there's a web site that will help you make the process much, much simpler.

Fake Name Generator does so much more than what its moniker implies. Not only will it create a (usually) convincing new name, but it'll also give you a corresponding address, phone number, mother's maiden name, phone number - even a social security and visa number. Though we're not entirely sure it's a good idea to go passing those around.

The clever engine will even piece together an email address and domain name for you AND check to see if they're available. Now that's useful. If you're going for a safe, secondary online identity you may as well have a convincing email to go along with it.

At last we're safe to use our powers for good without fear of being discovered by our nemeses!

Filed under: Photo, Web services, web 2.0

Picjuice - another online imaging software

Web based image editors have been popping up for some time now. Even the de facto image editor Photoshop couldn't resist setting up shop. But sometimes you just want to simply resize or crop a photo and not be inadated with a multitude of tools and swatches. Enter picjuice, an online image editor with simplicity in mind.

As soon as you pull up the site it's clear that "ease of use" was the main objective here. The only tools available are Crop, Resize, Flip, Rotate and Adjust.

The controls for each tools are simple as well, depending on the tool selected you either get an A or B option, a slider or in the case of the Crop tool, a cross hair to select the area you want to use. These simple controls will aid in a shorter learning curve over the more feature rich sites.

In our testing we actually found the resizing tool here better than the one available from Photoshop Express. In Express, the resized image looked jagged but not in picjuice . However, the site seemed to be only compatible with JPG or PNG files as when we tried a GIF file picjuice would hang when we tried to edit the image.

Currently in beta, picjuice joins the already crowded online imaging arena. Hopefully, its limited get down to business attitude will help to differentiate itself from the competition.

Filed under: Internet, Social Software

I heart it, you heart it, we all heart it!

Weheartit is a fun way to share photos or videos you've seen while browsing the Internet. Others can see what you find interesting and also comment on them as well.

Weheartit works by bookmarking their I heart it bookmarklet and as you visit websites, images and videos are outlined in pink with an "add to my heart" text above it. Clicking on this link adds the image to your heart page where you can add tags, mark it NSFW or unheart the image. From there the image becomes viewable to all Weheartit members so that everyone can see what's hearting you.

The only issue we had while using the service is that it outlines all the potential images in pink and makes everything look like its February 14.

Filed under: Text, Social Software, web 2.0

Witness the powers of mind mapping!

A mind map is a graphical representation of words or ideas that are linked around a central theme. Putting down your ideas on a mind map really helps to concentrate your efforts to ensure you stay focus. But while mind maps are generally helpful, assembling one on your computer may require a map of its own.

Instead of figuring out how to put one together yourself, text2mindmap has developed a site where you can enter in your ideas in an outline format and Text2mindmap will generate a fully interactive map. You can move the segments of the map around to see how each word or idea is connected to another.

The site is in beta and configuration options are limited to font, color and sizing. What would be nice for future updates, is the ability to download your map to some sort of self contained application that will allow you to retain all the interactive aspects of the map instead of the static image download option currently available.

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Web services, web 2.0

Trusting your data to the clouds

If you're a subscriber to Amazon's Web Services then you know how important it is to make sure your data is not only safe but accessible at all times. And while Amazon provides a site dedicated to advising you of the status of their network, what if you wanted to know if the issue was with a particular service or if the sky was indeed falling.

CloudStatus hopes to provide just that. Instead of just globally monitoring Amazon's services, CloudStatus deploys their Hyperic HQ agents inside and outside Amazon's clouds to help determine if the slow down you may be experiencing is due to the entire infrastructure going down or just to a particular service.

In addition, CloudStatus also provides matrices so you can see how each of Amazon's services have performed over time. This is particular useful to those that are considering making the jump to cloud computing and want to base their decision off empirical data instead of marketing propaganda.

Filed under: Design, Photo, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Create panoramic photos and more at MagToo

Sites like Flickr and Photobucket already have services that let you build slide shows, MagToo takes it a step further by also letting you create great panoramic shots to share with others.

Creating a panoramic image does require some thought before you start uploading. In order to get a quality panoramic image, MagToo recommends that your photos overlap by at least 20-50% and that you try to keep the camera level as possible. Once you've uploaded the photos, it's just a matter of clicking the "Stitch Photos" button and letting MagToo do the rest.

The main issue we had with the service is that Internet Explorer is required for the creation of the image. Hopefully in the future, the developers will add content creation support for other major browsers as well.

Filed under: Design, Fun, web 2.0

Befunky, for those of us who can't draw.

Stylized cartoon images are great, but what if you're not artistic enough to make one. That's where sites like Befunky can lend a helping hand.

Befunky takes images from your computer, webcam or on the web and with some input from you, creates a cartoonish effect that you can share with others. You're free to adjust the amount of sketching, color and pencil strokes applied to get the look you're after. If you want to further customize your image a host of borders and speech bubbles are available as well.

What's really interesting about Befunky is the use of layers to make editing so much easier. If you're familiar with imaging software like Photoshop or Gimp the ability to use layers is a must. While Befunky doesn't list the layers out, you do get the ability to send the active layers back or to the front which helps when you're trying to get that heart shaped frame just right.

Currently, the site supports the creation of images and avatars. Video effects are currently under development.

Filed under: Video, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Produce informational videos with Viddix

Instructional videos or online reviews can sometimes be difficult to follow. Depending on watch you're watching it might be nice to have a second video displaying additional information that would aid in the presentation. Viddix may have found the answer to this in the form of their iPanel.

Once you've uploaded your video to the website, you'll need to add cuepoints. These cuepoints allow you to add text, links, photos, html pages, charts or other media rich files that your viewers can read and interact with. Viddix also provides cuepoint presets to ease the production of your video.

From start to finish, the production concept is straight forward and the average user shouldn't have many issues with producing their own videos.

While still in beta, we find the concept very useful, especially since we've started taking guitar lessons.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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