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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

AllSnap brings your Windows applications together - literally

AllSnapSometimes you want to look at several programs on your Windows desktop at the same time. So you resize Firefox, Word, Excel, and whatever else it is you're using, and then spend about 5 minutes trying to line them up to maximize your screen real estate. The whole process would be a lot easier if programs would just sort of snap together at the edges, wouldn't it?

AllSnap is a utility that lets you snap program windows together much the same way different parts of the music program Winamp snap together. We last looked at AllSnap more than two years ago. Since then, the developer has added an experimental x64 version, and added a "snap to grid" feature.

By selecting snap to grid, you can snap windows not just snugly against one another, but you can snap them to invisible lines on your Windows desktop, making it easier to line up applications that might not actually be touching. After all this talk of snapping, if you're still not clear what the heck we're talking about, check out the demo video after the jump.

[via gHacks]

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Filed under: Business, Internet, Blogging

Snap launches Snap Shares advertising platform

Snap Shot
Snap is launching a new advertising platform today based on the company's popular Snap Shot service. Blogs and other websites using Snap Shots have a little icon next to all outgoing links on the page. Hover your mouse over the icon and you can see a preview of the destination page or media from sites like YouTube an Flickr. In other words, Snap Shots help you decide whether a link is worth clicking on.

Now Snap is launching Snap Shares a platform that will allow bloggers to monetize their sites. Basically when you hover over a Snap Shot icon, you'll see the same image preview as before, but also some advertising at the bottom of the window.

In some ways, this is similar to the annoying pop-up advertisements you see from services like IntelliTXT. The difference is Snap Shots windows only pop up for links that a web publisher has intentionally put on the site. And Snap Shots windows show actual, useful content and not just advertising.

Snap matches ads with content by using machines and people to classify websites. Advertisers can also choose to publish ads on specific ad types like MovieShot, ProfileShot, and MapShot.

The service goes live today.

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Productivity, Web services

View site content without clicking, using iReader

ireaderiReader lets users preview a links content before clicking on it. Unlike the somewhat annoying Snap, iReader is a browser extension that can be turned on and off by the user. Site previews can be really helpful in speeding up web surfing, and this application helps simplify them. iReader can give a list of text when links are moused over. Weeding out the good sites from the bad ones that you really don't care to visit, and speeds up your reading by decreasing load times. The iReader gives users a bulleted list of content for the website link, called an intelligent summary. Although still a little buggy, iReader is useful in deciding whether to click on a link or not.

iReader is available for both PC and Mac users running IE or Firefox.

Filed under: Web services

How to get rid of Snap's obnoxious link previews

Snap Preview Anyway Be Gone!If you've seen them, you've probably been annoyed by them. I'm talking about Snap's "Preview Anywhere," a little gizmo people can stick on their web site or blog that, when the visitor rolls the mouse over any link, will pop up a big bubble with a thumbnail image in it, giving them a preview of the destination site. Sounds kinda cool, right? Yeah, in theory. In practice, however, Snap Preview Anywhere is bloody obnoxious. It disrupts the browsing experience without actually adding any value--in the words of Performancing's Nick Wilson, "It's bling, a silly little shiney thing designed specifically to increase awareness of Snap.com." Just say no to bubbles.

So how does an interruption-averse web surfer get rid of it? Conveniently, Snap's SPA FAQ has the answer. Just click on the link provided in the FAQ and your browser will be imbued with a cookie that will banish those bubbles from your view. As long as the cookie lasts, at least. An additional step you can take on behalf of your fellow web surfers is to email the folks who put these things on their sites and register your displeasure.

[Via kottke.org]

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Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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