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Filed under: Developer, Web services, web 2.0

Start your own URL shortener with awe.sm

Seems like everybody's starting their own url shorteners these days. There's the Diggbar, Amazon's shorturls, and a whole plethora of other shorteners all competing with one another. Well, now you can have your very own -- for a fee -- from awe.sm, which is a pretty great shortlink service in its own right.

The service offers a hosted URL shortener on a domain of your choosing, along with access to awe.sm's already existing traffic anaysis tools and developer APIs. It'll run you $99 a year, with enough capacity to handle all the redirections you'll probably need -- if people create 10,000 of your new URL in a year, you're doing pretty well. Between the time it takes to code your own shortener, and the hosting costs of dealing with the traffic, awe.sm's prices look pretty reasonable.

Filed under: Design, web 2.0, Web

Start.io delivers a customizable start page engine


Start.io is an engine for creating customized start pages, with the added bonus of letting you know when your favorite sites have updated. It comes equipped with a drag-and-droppable interface for adjusting and grouping your links, and several nice-looking preloaded layouts to choose from. On top of that, the CSS is entirely customizable, so you can modify existing layouts, or build your own from scratch.

The first thing I wondered about Start.io was why it just lets you know that one of your links has updated, instead of using RSS to show you exactly what the updates were. The answer (explained on the about page) makes a lot of sense: you don't come to your start page when you want to read a bunch of RSS feeds. You go there when you want to click through to the sites themselves, not Google Reader or your standalone RSS app. If you want an RSS reader as your start page, there are other services you can check out, but I haven't see a complete start page engine like Start.io anywhere else.

What's your start page? Do you like Start.io, or do you have a better alternative? Let us know in the comments.

Filed under: Developer, Fun, Internet, Utilities, Web services, Google

Build Google Maps online with Click2Map


So you want to create your own unique mashup with Google maps, well, imagine a no fuss way to program your own pinpointed trail through a Google Maps application. Click2Map is an easy way for users to create Google Maps with their own customized points of interest, all without knowing or writing any lines of code. Everything is done online through a simple to use online editor built for Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Marker points can easily be set by either entering co-ordinates, or physical addresses. A quick add mode allows users to simply click anywhere on the Google Map and drop in a point, this will automatically set the longitude and latitude for the point. Users can then create different groups and change colors on markers to differentiate locations. It looks like in the near future Click2Map also has plans to integrate the importing and exporting of map markers, and a search feature.

The site is still under development with a target date of May-June 2007 for a full release. Check it out now for a limited feature release.

Filed under: Internet, Macintosh, Mozilla, Open Source, Browser Tips

Optimized Firefox 2.0.0.1 for G5 and Intel Macs

bonecho custom firefox build for g5 and intel macsAfter you unwrap your new Mac this holiday (or maybe found a great Boxing Day deal) be sure to install the very latest version of BonEcho, the G5 and Intel optimized version of Firefox.

The new builds also include:
  • an overhauled version of the aqua form widgets
  • the user agent has been changed so that the browser will identify itself as Firefox rather than BonEcho
To help Neil (the gentleman who creates these builds) avoid having to answer the same email over and over, please remember that the Firefox name and icon are copyrighted and cannot be used with non-official builds. These are non-official builds, so they cannot have the official branding (hence the BonEcho name and icon). However, if you read through the comments on this TUAW post, you'll get all the info you need to give BonEcho a total Firefox makeover.

via digg

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Kids, Time-Wasters

ImageChef - Today's Time Waster

Do you want to play a game?ImageChef is a family-friendly site that allows you to create custom images for your blog, forum signature or general amusement. Without having to register any kind of account, you can modify text in a variety of image templates. The resulting pictures can be easily saved or emailed to friends.

ImageChef will host your pictures if you're a registered user (registration is free), and provide the snip-its of code so that you can embed your artwork in your MySpace, Friendster or TypePad account.

Though sometimes cheesy, the provided image templates do allow for some creative Tom Foolerly. If you find yourself wasting a lot of time, please feel free - no, encouraged! - to post a link to your creation via the comments.

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Mozilla, Freeware

Tiny Menu: Save Firefox screen real estate

Tiny Menu the Firefox extension
Exactly as its name implies, the Tiny Menu extension allows you to compress your entire Firefox menu bar into one item. And, thanks to a recent update, that item is now even smaller. Setting up Tiny Menu isn't entirely intuitive, so I'll outline the steps to save you a bit of time:
  1. Download and install Tiny Menu (don't forget to restart Firefox)
  2. Click your 'new' menu (the M) and then select View > Toolbars > Customize...
  3. One at a time (not that you have a choice) drag the items from your Navigation Toolbar into your menu bar until there's nothing left in the Navigation Toolbar
  4. Click Done to return to the main Firefox window
  5. Again, click your new menu and this time choose View > Toolbars > and then uncheck the Navigation Toolbar
  6. Bask in the glory of your newly free pixels

Filed under: Business, Developer, Text, Utilities, News, Windows, Linux, Productivity, Open Source, Unix

FPDF: Make custom pdfs from your site

FPDF
If you want to make a PDF from your web pages for visitors to download, use FPDF, a very simple, powerful PHP class that is free to download, and easy to configure. There are several tutorials on the FPDF website on how to use the class, and the manual makes all the functions easy to use and modify. FPDF makes controlling every aspect of your PDF creation simple, including adding an image or logo, margin, auto-pagination, printing, preview, font, embedded links, and tons of other options. It takes less than an hour to setup and begin using it, which isn't too shabby for all the options you can set. All you need to use it is a fairly recent release of PHP on a web server. The test template that comes with the package is easy to modify for whatever uses you may need, without having to learn what each function does. If the code doesn't already exist in the file you download, FPDF.org has all kinds of examples and code references, some written by the fpdf community that you can cut and paste to wire up whatever you (or a client) may require. FPDF is great for pulling dynamic content from a database since it contains a simplistic HTML parser by default. Feed FPDF one HTML string (from a database, or static HTML) and it will polish off your PDF for you in grand style. For even more fun, you can setup fpdf to receive variables from a GET or POST form then insert them in the script to be displayed in your pdf as well. FPDF is powerful, fast, flexible, and very nearly fun. Not bad for FREE.

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Text, Utilities, Productivity, Web services

Devlisting.com's cool organization idea

Devlisting.comDevlisting.com is a great site that lists a ton of web development links. I realize that there are a lot of these sites, and you have probably built your own, but this one has a cool feature I like which helped me organize which links on the page. Once you are on the site, click the little green buttons next to the link. It will toggle between green, a pushpin, and a delete icon. You can customize the site the way you like, then come back to see only the links you like. This is a rising trend among websites. I only wish that more sites would do things like this, so I could customize them on a whim. For some reason, many sites still think it is all about them. Too bad, I'll go somewhere else. This is one thing I love about Web 2.0. Most of the sites, no matter how long they will be around, will cater to what I want as the user. This site is a good example of a small idea to this end.

Filed under: Fun, News, E-mail, Web services

AOL to offer free personal email domains

AOL My eAddressAOL not only plans to offer 5GB free online storage space to web users in September, but also free personalized email domains (one per user). According to the press release on Time Warner's home page, AOL will be giving out free email domains, where you can setup up to 100 aliases to use with your domain. The service will be called the "AOL My eAddress" service, and users will be able to use .com or .net domains to customize their email addresses. This service will apparently tie in with AIM, AIM Pages, and other AOL services. Looks like AOL is trying to integrate all their services and give users one easy way to identify themselves outside of the AOL.com and AIM.com domains. AOL is leading the way with this. Other services out there have a "managed custom domain" area like Gmail and Windows Live. AOL is the first I know of to hand them out. Woot!

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Web services, Google, Freeware

Google Toolbar officially taken out of beta, custom button feature added

Google Toolbar out of betaGoogle's been busy lately. First they give gTalk a much-needed update, and then they quietly announced that the Google Toolbar has been taken out of beta by introducing a new 'roll your own buttons' feature. Users can now right-click in the search field of any site and chose 'Generate Custom Search' to add it to their Toolbar. Even more advanced features can be had by checking out Google's guide here, while a 600+ button gallery is here.

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Microsoft

Windows Live adds macros for custom searches

Windows Live Search MacrosWindows Live has added an interesting feature called Search Macros that let you "create your own search engine." It's a bit like what Rollyo does: It lets you save a specific set of sites that you want to search among. To create you macro you use operators (that will look familiar to power users) like "site:" to indicate a site to include and "prefer:" to indicate keywords and sites that you want nudged higher in the search results. In this way you can "create" a search engine that's tailored specifically toward a particular subject matter. If you're still confused, you should check out Zachary Gutt's overview at the MSN Search Blog (see if you can spot the hidden jab at Google), where he explains the operators and shows how to create a macro.

Featured Time Waster

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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