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Download Squad Week in Review

Download Squad logoStill trying to figure out if you want to raise your bid for Yahoo! or if you'd rather just buy Jerry Yang some flowers, apologize, and then see if Google is busy Saturday night? Well then, you've obviously had so much on your plate that you might have missed a few other stories this week. So without further ado, we bring you some of our favorite stories from the past 7 days:

  • Shady business practices work: Apple dramatically increases Safari users
    Apple got a lot of bad press a few weeks back for bundling the Safari web browser with its software update utility for Windows. Many PC users who thought they were just updating Quicktime or iTunes found themselves with a new web browser they never asked for. But you know what? It looks like it may have worked, because Apple tripled the number of Safari users on Windows.
  • Flipping the Linux Switch: Xfce, the hidden gem of desktop environments
    Sure, GNOME and KDE get all the attention. But that's because they hog the limelight, while unassuming little Xfce toils away in the background doing what needs to be done. Xfce is a simple desktop environment for Linux that includes everything you need, and nothing you don't.
  • Digsby adds support for Facebook Chat
    Facebook recently launched a chat service that lets you communicate with other Facebook users in real-time -- but only when you're visiting the social network's web site. Now you can use desktop chat client Digsby to chat with your Facebook contacts whether you're on the web site or not. You can also use it to keep up with your AOL, MSN, Yahoo! AND Google Talk contacts.
  • Gramlee - Website for people who can't write good
    If the automated spelling and grammar checking features in your word processor aren't enough to make your text readable, Gramlee can help. The web service is staffed by real people who will whip your prose into shape. Just remember, submitting your crappy 10th grade English paper and paying someone to rewrite it for you is wrong. Easy, but wrong.
  • Michael Dalesandro, CEO of Where I've Been - DLS Interview
    "Where I've Been" is both a popular Facebook application and a popular web site that lets users share their travel experiences, find travel tips, and plan future trips. We caught up with CEO Michael Dalesandro to ask him a bit about the site's success.
  • TypeRacer: Competitive typing test - Time Waster
    TypeRacer could be the best online typing test ever. The web game turns the typing test into a game, and pits you against a handful of other players. Sure, it's not particularly accurate. The tests are too short to properly gauge how many words you can crank out in a minute. But you'll be amazed how quickly you can type when you see another player hot on your tail.
  • Wrongcards: e-cards for the insensitive
    If you're the sort of person who always has a hard time finding Hallmark cards that adequately express your feelings, you might want to check out Wrongcards. The site specializes in e-cards that are just... wrong. But funny. But oh so wrong.
  • Del.icio.us releases Firefox 3 beta plugin
    Firefox 3 beta has been making the rounds long enough now that we know many Download Squad readers have started to use it as their primary browser. But there are a ton of useful plugins for Firefox 2 that don't yet work with Firefox 3 beta. And up until this week, the popular del.icio.us plugin was one of them. But you can finally cross that one off the list of incompatible plugins, because it's back, and it's better than ever.

Gramlee - Website for people who can't write good

Gramlee text editingEver wish that Derek Zoolander had decided to open a night school? Or maybe opened a secondary school, so that once those kids that couldn't read good or do other stuff too well got better at it, they could go on to learn to do other things? What if Zoolander teamed up with the University of Phoenix, and offered online courses?

Your prayers have been answered, sort of. Gramlee is an online service for grammar checking and proofreading (and yes, there are definitely differences between the two). The idea behind Gramlee is fairly simple. You just cut and paste your writing into the Gramlee submission form, supply your email address, and an editor (yes, a live person) will proofread it for you and make revisions.

There's no word on what the Gramlee submission form does with smart quotes, but they do seem to heavily recommend a text editor (like Notepad) for document creation. There's no reason why you couldn't use Word, but we're having a lot of fun imagining editors using some colorful language when they get certain document formats.

To get you hooked, the first hundred words are free. You can buy additional words (up to 2,625) for varying amounts, or email a longer document for a price quote. Turn around time is allegedly about twenty-four hours on most documents.

The disclaimer here is that we didn't submit a piece to Gramlee. The "Examples" page shows some nicely edited pieces, complete with red ink mark ups. It would be endlessly cool if documents were revised with the revisions somehow marked. We fear they aren't marked, and that makes our linguistic spidey-senses tingle. So if you use the service, proofread the proofreaders, please. Even people who write good well make mistakes.

And of course, we needn't tell you that it's really not a good thing to submit your term paper to Gramlee for editing, right? Um. Right?

[Thanks for the tip, Mark!]

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