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Filed under: Web services, Search, Web

Keyboardr: no need for a mouse on this launcher-style homepage


Some people just don't want to use a mouse. Sometimes site designers take this demographic into account, sometimes they don't. But if you're a keyboard-only person: Julius Eckert has built a homepage just for you. Keyboardr returns search results from Google, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Blog Search and others, and gives you a cursor to navigate the results entirely via arrow keys.

The experience of using Keyboardr is slick, but it could be better with one tricky little improvement. The list of results from each search engine seems to function as a separate element on the page, so hitting a right or left arrow takes you to the top of the adjacent list, not to the result that's directly across, as you would expect. This isn't a big deal, but it would make Keyboardr even faster if Julius could get around it. As more features are added (customization would be amazing), I'll give serious consideration to Keyboardr as my primary homepage.

Filed under: News, web 2.0

Newsified gives your favorite social news sites a new look


Newsified is a simple, but brilliant, idea. Take your favorite social news sites, the ones you normally read on the web or through RSS, and lay them out like ... a newspaper. It's an old-school approach that actually proves really useful when it comes to deep sites like Metafilter and Digg. You only see a small percentage of the popular content on the front pages of these sites, but Newsified gives a broader view at a glance.

Newsified pages exist for 6 sites so far: Digg, Reddit, Metafilter, Mixx, Delicious and YouTube. It takes the most popular front-page content from those sites and puts it in a prominent position at the top of the page. Then, as you read down, you'll see the deeper content that you might have missed, laid out in convenient capsule form for your consumption. It's a quick, fun way to read news. In fact, I like the concept so much that I'm giving it a try as my homepage this week.

Filed under: Internet, Yahoo!, Beta, Search

Yahoo! starts to roll out new homepage

New Yahoo!
Yahoo! is staring to roll out a new version of the Yahoo! homepage today. Only selected users in the US and UK will see the new page at first, (pictured on the right). But eventually the new Yahoo! will be available for everyone.

So what's new? First off, the list of links on the left side of the page has been replaced by a customizable menu that gives you quick access to information like email, stocks, and weather. And that email section? You it's not just for Yahoo! Mail. You can also link your Gmail account and in time Yahoo! plans to add other services as well.

Yahoo! also plans to make its homepage more social by adding the ability to keep up on what your friends/contacts are doing. That could include notifications when friends upload new pictures to Yahoo!'s Flickr. Or it could include updates from other non-Yahoo! social networking sites.

All this talk about making the new Yahoo! homepage more social and more useful is all well and good. But you can't fool me. The ultimate goal here is to make sure the Yahoo! homepage looks less like the AOL homepage. You know, until AOL decides to copy Yahoo! again.

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Mozilla, Browser Tips, web 2.0

Morning Coffee: why do we assume we only get one homepage?

Why do we assume we only get one homepage? For those willing to explore the potential of their browser, we'd like to show you a little out-of-the-box thinking in the form of Morning Coffee.

Though Firefox can set a series of tabs as your "homepage" (select "Use Current Pages" from the preferences menu), this free add-on (shout out to all the free software coders out there) gives you the ability to choose when to open which homepage.

Say, for example, you like to read the NYTimes on days when you work, but you prefer Google Reader on Saturdays and your church's weekly bulletin on Sunday mornings. This program, as you may have already assumed, does just that.

[via gHacks]

Filed under: Internet, Web services, web 2.0

Netvibes Ginger moves into private beta, lets outsiders peek in through the glass

Netvibes has just launched a private beta of its new iteration, Ginger. To those lucky few who were given an invite; now you must know how those kids who found Wonka's Golden Ticket felt. For the rest of us, Netvibes was kind enough to post a run-through of some of their pending and exciting features.

Netvibes has been one of the most popular and easy to use personal start pages for a long while (well, long in internet years; they're like dog years, you know). They offer tons of useful, ready to load widgets. Widgets include eBay, most popular online email accounts such as Yahoo! Mail and Gmail, Facebook, Digg, and many more. You can also insert any RSS feed and set up tabs for different content.

A few features upcoming in Ginger:
  • Added 150 Premium Widgets
  • Listen to your favorite web radio stations through Netvibes
  • 2 GB of free storage space for every registered user

Ginger also looks poised to springboard into the next generation of the social internet. You can tag interesting blog posts, pictures, and video from your Netvibes page and then share them with your friends and family.

The official release of Ginger is in January. For now, you can check out Netvibes current release or visit the Ginger preview page.

[Via Cybernet]

Filed under: Business, Internet, Video, Web services, Yahoo!

Yahoo! launches inline video player

yahoo inline video

Yahoo! has been quietly testing out a new video feature on its homepage: inline videos.

If you have wondered by Yahoo.com over the past few weeks you may have noticed videos such as Barry Bonds breaking the all time home run record, or exclusive Daily Show footage. These were embedded using a preview version of the new inline video player technology that Yahoo! has developed. The service has been rolled out in a new video module that can be found wherever there is a 'play video' button. It allows users to watch videos without leaving a web page. This includes in both email and IM.

Its great staying inside one browser window, especially to watch videos. We all know how tabbed windows seem to grow quite quickly. Yahoo! is the first portal to enable this video technology, with more videos scheduled to launch this week.

Filed under: Design, Internet, News, Web services, Google

Google Homepage introduces dynamic themes



Any user of Google's web based offerings probably won't leap at the chance to nominate it for some flashy design award. Let's face it: Google is definitely known for doing function, and doing it well, but the company tends to shy away from rich color and shiny rounded corners because, well, that's just how they roll. That said, you can imagine our surprise today to discover dynamic themes in Google Homepage. There aren't many of them, in fact: pictured above is just one (called 'Bus Stop') of six available themes, but they all bring a very unique, colorful touch to Google's flexible and widgetized landing page service.

A new 'Select Theme' link has been added next to 'Add Stuff' on the right, under which the theme widget will temporarily open at the top right of the widget area. Selecting any theme will change your homepage to match, and once you click 'save' to commit, you'll be offered a Location box to enter or change your zip code, as every theme dynamically changes based on your location, time of day and (for some) even local weather conditions. This is perhaps one of those over-the-top touches Google is known for, but it adds such an interesting layer of creativity to a functional service.

After the jump, check out screenshots of all the themes in action, though note that they were snapped at 7:23am Mountain Standard Time in the US; they should all look at least a little different depending on where you are and what time of day when you go to actually play with them yourself.

Read more →

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

Watch live TV on your Google homepage

live tv google gadgetDo you use your Google personalized homepage as much as you could? There are plenty of great gadgets that have been developed, including gadgets for weather, to do lists, gas prices, Pacman, and even Live TV.

A new gadget that has entered the field -- created by CamMap -- allows users to watch live TV right on a Google personalized homepage. The CamMap live TV gadget allows users to select from a comprehensive number of channels including News, Entertainment, Kids, Movies, Educational, Sports, Music, and Financial. With such channels as CNN, BBC, MSNBC, Cartoon Network, Animal Planet, Earth Channel, ESPN, MTV, Bloomberg and CNBC. With no downloads required, this is a Time-Waster must for adding to your Google homepage.

[via jjprojects]

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

Google Talk's new gadget

google talks new gadgetGoogle has unleashed a new Google Talk Gadget for use on your Google personalized homepage. The Talk client -- still only available for PC users -- can be semi-enjoyed by Mac users with this new Gadget implementation that resembles what PC users have been enjoying for quite a while, although it adds a few slick features.

The new Google Talk Gadget shares the functionality of the standalone application where users can see contacts online and chat with them, but has the added bonus of not requiring a download, being accessible from anywhere you have a browser and a connection. It's also embeddable into a blog or website with a single line of code.

The best new features of the Talk Gadget enables users to see previews of photos and videos in conversation windows when URL's from YouTube or Picasa Web Albums are pasted into chat windows.

Check out a video presentation of the Google Talk Gadget in action after the jump.

Read more →

Filed under: Web services, Yahoo!

Yahoo! knows what's best for you (no really)

My Yahoo
Personalized start pages are all the rage these days, but Yahoo!'s been providing users with access to a customizable "My Yahoo!" homepage for years. Hot on the heels of Netscape, Yahoo's launched a major upgrade to its My Yahoo! service.

First up, the new interface makes much more use of AJAX than the previous version. But essentially it works like the old My Yahoo! You can drag and drop modules including RSS feeds, weather forecasts, and TV listings across the screen to arrange the page the way you like it. You can add or remove those modules, and you can create multiple pages.

But perhaps the biggest change isn't what you can do. It's what you don't have to do. The first time you open My Yahoo! you'll find a personalized page designed just for you, based on how you've used Yahoo! in the past. If you frequently use Yahoo! to look up movies or TV listings, you'll have access to those items. This is a pretty handy feature if you don't feel like spending hours customizing your start page.

You can also share your start page with other users by sending a message through Yahoo! Mail or Messenger. If you don't see a link atop your My Yahoo! page asking if you want to switch, you can sign up for the new version.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Filed under: Design, Developer, Fun, Internet, News, E-mail, Productivity, Web services, Social Software

My Netscape gets Web 2.0 facelift



The beta release of My.Netscape drops tomorrow as a new, improved personalized start page. The enhanced UI is clean and clutter free with no ads (so far). You have access to almost 100 modules to customize your page, including our very own Download Squad module (shameless plug warning) and you can add your own RSS feeds too. There are however some "not yet's" you might find yourself wishing for, such as:
  • Personalized data from your old My.Netscape account, including your bookmarks (they are presently working on a migration utility).
  • Module developer docs (a development kit is promised soon).
On the whole, My.Netscape is a well-designed start page amongst a field of other well-designed Web 2.0 start pages. Developer documentation will help but, as for now, its functionality isn't nearly as wide ranging as competitors such as Netvibes or Pageflakes. Still, the new My Netscape has the potential to bring an infinitely customize-able start page to a whole new demographic, much as Netscape's social news site launch pushed that concept to an untapped audience.

[Thanks Jordan]

Filed under: Web services

Pageflakes plans to add 10,000 flakes (widgets)

Pageflakes
Personalized home page site Pageflakes allows you to customize a start page with flakes (the rest of the world calls them widgets, Microsoft calls them gadgets). Flakes include weather forecasts, email services, calendars, to-do lists, and RSS feeds.

Pageflakes has a repository of flakes, and it's about to get a lot bigger. CEO Dan Cohen says the company plans to offer a directory of 10,000 flakes starting next month. Now the thing about widgets that are embedded in web pages is that there's really only so many things you need them to do. Check your email, get maps, keep up on the latest blogs and news web sites, check stock quotes, etc.

I figure there's maybe a few dozen things I might want in a start page, tops. And once you put those few dozen things on a page it becomes cluttered and hard to read. Pageflakes gets around that problem a bit by providing you with tabs, allowing you to create as many custom pages as you'd like. Use one for work, one for checking stocks, another for reading your guilty pleasure blogs.

Some of the new flakes will let you do things like keep track of other users' MySpace pages or share photos. But still, 10,000 seems like an excessively large number of applications. My bet is that about 9,500 of those flakes will be RSS feeds for various web sites.

Filed under: Design, Developer, Google

Google Gadgets can now be added to any webpage

google gadgets for webpagesGoogle announced today that their specially designed gadgets can be added to any webpage. Google Gadgets were locked into Google Personalized Home and Google Desktop, but now with the breakout of the gadgets, websites are sure to get some nice dynamic and rich content additions.

Currently developed Google Gadgets include Google maps, date & time, jokes, games, news reports, flight status, webcams, and sports scores. Gadgets can also be developed from scratch with the Google Gadget API. I look forward to seeing some intuitive additions of Google Gadgets onto websites.

Filed under: Internet, Productivity, Web services

Sprinkling some Cinnamon onto Netvibes

netvibes homepageNetvibes has just undergone a new release. Netvibes is a customized home page solution, that allows users to develop personalized home pages and drop data feeds and other services from web 2.0 companies on a customized home page.

There are tons of new features in this new release called "Cinnamon." First off, the interface has received a nice work over, including the addition of some cool themes. A settings control panel is active, allowing for easy changing of themes, languages, local content, and general settings. Additions of new site modules have also been injected, and there is now most importantly better support for IE, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. Netvibes is a great startup page tool that allows for quick easy viewing of the important information you want to see, without having to visit 20 different locations. This new update makes it much more enjoyable to use.

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm, Web services, Yahoo!, Social Software, Unix

del.icio.us improvements - homepage thumbnails, tag UI, hints at more

del.icio.us improvements - homepage thumbnails, tag UI, hints at moredel.icio.us is at it again, and this time they've added site thumbnails to the popular links on the homepage. Unfortunately, this is the only place thumbnails exist, but it's at least a step towards catching up to some of their competitors in this particular department.

Also making (another) appearance on the homepage is the re-introduction of popular tags, along with (from what I remember) some minor new UI elements as well. Bookmark counts are now in a more striking blue box, and I just noticed the tag cloud now uses red to denote tags that you share with everyone else (is this new or not?). Finally, on their blog they also hint at "lots of plans" for the recently updated del.icio.us API, but they offer nothing as hints towards whether it'll be a kitchen sink or a bookmarking A.I. that 'marks things for me based on my mood and past bookmarks. I guess we'll just have to wait (im)patiently.

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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