YouTube, the mayor of New Orleans, and the governor of Louisiana have publicly invited the presidential candidates to participate in a presidential forum this September. Since this is not an official debate, it is unknown if any of the candidates will actually show up. Either way, the event should prove successful -- here's why.

It's been quite some time since New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Katrina, but the city is not done suffering. There's about 86,000 evacuees stuck in Houston, Atlanta and 40 other cities, and there the government currently has no plan on how it will bring these people home (not to mention the city's other 921,332,437,208 problems). So even if the candidates don't show up to the debate, the publicity stunt should help to remind government officials that it's not over yet. In other words, it's a giant call for help.

Despite that many may dismiss YouTube as a time-waster, this isn't the site's first dive into the presidential race. Last year, YouTube allowed its users to record and send in questions, which would be answered by the candidates on TV. And though we know the Google owned site gets a lot of great publicity out stuff like this, we can't help but tip our hat for the good work.

[via Silicon Alley Insider]

The internet: How can a medium so conceptually full of potential win attract so many people full of utter lose and fail?

Wired reports that "griefers" (which is a polite euphemism, I suppose, for a term Weblogs Inc really wouldn't want me to use) lodged an attack on the non-profit Epilepsy Foundation last weekend.

Epilepsy is one of those really fun conditions that can vary wildly in seizure type and severity. About 3% of people with epilepsy have visual triggers. Griefers first put up a few GIFs that flashed, and then begin using links (with legitimate sounding names) to entire pages with flashing lights and color patterns.

There were seizures of various types and migraines reported from the event. Ever had a true migraine? Not a bad headache, but a true migraine? It's something you wouldn't wish even on a griefer.

Sorry, but why would anyone find this particularly amusing? And before anyone (again) ventures the comment spotted on Wired ("Why didn't the EF disable GIFs?"), really, let's think about this. How freaking low do you have to be to do this sort of thing? Hello? Maybe they should have disabled GIFs. And maybe we should all have some personal freaking responsibility to each other as, you know, people.

Full disclosure. As a person with a neurological condition (not epilepsy) I've found the internet is a lifeline in meeting other people with the same condition. I learn things from them I can not learn from my doctors. Doctors are very good, but they don't have the experiences I have. When these sites have issues, real live people do suffer. Sometimes not medically, but definitely in terms of support.

I don't believe any Download Squad readers are, or aspire to be, griefers. Our readers are way too cool for that. But restore my faith in the citizens of the interwebs. Do something nice to someone, anyone, online today.

[via Wired by way of Slashdot]

Twing is a new search engine that indexes almost 5,000 online forums, on subjects ranging from the very general (arts and entertainment) to the extremely specific (Scottish Snooker). On top of its search features, it also has a 1990's-Yahoo!-style directory organized by topic, and a collection of trends and toplists called the Community Buzz Directory. Does Twing actually have a finger on the pulse of online trends? We noticed that the video most linked from forums is Rick Astley's infamous "Rickroll," which is good enough for us.

If you follow any forum regularly, Twing could be useful to you. You can narrow your search down to one message board, which might make a good substitute if the built-in search is faulty in your community of choice. Another promising feature is the ability to sign up for an account to keep tabs on the threads you're following.

Even if you're not active on a forum, Twing has some interesting tools for tracking the hottest links and conversations. Most popular links, threads, and forums are all ranked, and RSS feeds are available for each. Twing says that the most popular thread on the Internet right now is called "longest ever thread." While we don't doubt this is accurate, we'll leave it up to you to decide how practical you find it.

Tangler is a web service that lets anyone create a pretty nifty discussion forum. It takes just a few seconds to sign up and create a forum which you can then invite your friends to participate in. But the word forum doesn't really do justice to Tangler.

Sure, you can create topics and respond to comments left by other users in each topic in the forum. But unlike old fashioned forums or bulletin boards, Tangler updates its forums automatically. No page refreshing required. So a Tangler forum is really more like a cross between a traditional forum and an instant messenger, complete with buttons for embedding images, links, and online videos in your comments.

Now Tangler has added the ability for users to embed a forum topic on any web page. You can't embed the entire forum, just a single thread. But this can come in handy if you want to add an enhanced comments section to a particular blog post. Say you want to let people comment on your latest podcast, or live-blogging an event. Wouldn't it be nice if people could leave comments and respond to other users' comments in real-time?

Effectively, an embedded Tangler topic works much like a Meebo chat room which you can also embed on any web page. The difference is that an embedded Tangler topic is part of a larger forum which you can direct visitors to in order to participate in conversations on other topics.

You can check out a demo Tangler topic after the jump.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Computer geek superstore Newegg launched a new user forum this month called the EggXpert Community. The forum caters to Newegg's core audience of hardcore computer users who:

• Open their computer cases more than their manual
• Upgrades their PC every six months because they can
• Need perfect lighting in every family photo

And so on. Basically, this is probably just a tactic to get users to interact with a Newegg website on a regular basis to build brand loyalty and increase sales. But if you're looking for a discussion forum to discuss overclocking, system building, gadgets, and bargains, you could probably do worse.

The site launched earlier this month and already has more than 21,000 members and nearly 15,000 posts.
[via DailyTech]

ForumMatrix is a handy comparison matrix to check if you are thinking about running a public forum and aren't sure what forum software to use, or if you already do run a forum and want to switch to a different package. You can select different packages from their list and compare the details (license, features, cost, etc.) side-by-side in a easy to follow table.

If you aren't sure where to start ForumMatrix has a handy Choice Wizard that will ask you a few specific questions about what features you may be looking for. I can see this as especially helpful for people new to running a forum. It filters results down to flat versus threaded, license type/cost, storage type (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL, etc.), attachments, and more. If you still aren't sure and need advice from other users, you can also drop by their own forums and consult others on their own opinions.

A forum member named Lorfoul over at the Revision3 forums posted a list of his preferred free Windows downloads that are less than 2MB in size. Many of them have been covered here before at Download Squad, and we've definitely covered longer lists. I like this one in particular though, specifically for its brevity. It's a nice short list of useful Windows programs all in one place. It won't take you hours to sift through, but gives you direct access to the download page for some good freeware. Nicely done.

Download Squad readers - do you have different preferred utilities? Post your lists here in the comments!

Vanilla advertises itself as "an open-source, standards compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web," and on Saturday it saw its 1.0 release.  Vanilla will run on any web server equipped with PHP 4.1+ and MySQL 3.23+ and its Ajaxy bits work equally well in any major browser. To see Vanilla in action, head over to the official forums, or head straight to the download site for the less than 700kb package.

In related news, a couple weeks ago venerable web forum app phpBB reached the 3.0 beta 1 milestone. phpBB 3 features a whole boatload of changes and new features that have been long in coming. There's too many, in fact, for me to even list the highlights here.