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Posts with tag sports

Filed under: Fun, Macintosh

TrailRunner: your new outdoor sports buddy


If you're an avid runner, hiker or cyclist, you probably need some way to keep track of your routes and plan workouts that cover just the right distance. TrailRunner is an application that's up to the job. It keeps track of your point-to-point "tracks" using open-source maps, and lets you stitch them together into complete routes. It also works with a ForeRunner GPS, if you happen to have one, or with Apple's Nike+iPod kit.

TrailRunner keeps track of distances and elevations, and shows your routes in an attractive, very readable display. We didn't have any of the supported devices to test it with, but TrailRunner's basic features are easy enough to use that we're seriously considering buying one. It might take a while to build up a solid list of tracks and learn how to use the advanced features, but it could be worth the effort of venturing into the out-of-doors for extended periods of time is your thing.

Filed under: Web services, Social Software

Sporting Connections: social network for athletes

Sporting ConnectionsSporting Connections is a social network site for athletes, teams, and sporting-event coordinators that is designed to connect people based on sport interest. Teams can connect their team members via a team page and message board. Individuals can find teams to join or find other individuals to form a team.

The "Events" search function lets users search for events by sport, location, and date. Sporting Connections supports photo galleries, but does not currently support video.

The site lets users search for (and contact) other users making it easy to find, for example, a tennis partner. Sporting Connections is free to use when you register for an account.

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Blogging

Free localized sports--in realtime

One of the toughest things about being a local online sports fan is getting up-to-the-minute scores and play-by-play action on your favorite sports teams. Sure, you could watch the game on local TV coverage. But if you're a frequent traveler or just somebody who spends a lot of nights out, it's not easy to catch third-and-long every time it happens, especially when the team you follow is a high school football team, or worse still, a pro hockey team, whose games aren't often broadcast on the radio.

The answer? Your WiFi-enabled laptop, of course. Most large sports organizations like Major League Baseball and the National Football League now offer play-by-play game charts that are updated just seconds after each play. MLB's free online coverage (called "game-day" on your favorite team's home page) even gives you an animated field diagram with pitch-by-pitch updates, so even if you're in Timbuktu, you'll still get the realtime nittygritty on your favorite team.

Liveblogging has recently become a prevalent online outlet for local sports coverage, too. With many high school football games not being publicized until the next day, it's good to know some folks are liveblogging them. In the cab of your big rig on the way to Idaho on a Friday night, find a WiFi connection and you can still keep up on what happened in your kid's division II high school action. You'll be able to catch box scores updated in realtime if you know where to look.

Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Web services

Grab NFL data as it happens via RSS

get nfl updates via rssWhat do the NFL and RSS have in common besides three letters? Nothing, except for the fact they have just tackled each other into providing as-it-happens news, headlines, and summaries of NFL action.

The team behind the NFL website has just made grabbing NFL data both faster and easier. Forget about checking out and scanning NFL.com all day waiting for something to happen, just read it via RSS feeds. Users can select teams, events, authors to receive news updates as they happen. Don't feel much like reading? NFL has also dropped in a video RSS reader. Select a team, event and a show and you will get instant notification when a video is uploaded.

Signing up is so simple any armchair quarterback can do it. Almost any that is.

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

Leaked Hot Scoop: Yahoo buys Rivals.com

yahoo buys rivals.comIn a recently leaked story on a PR news site, Yahoo has announced its first deal since the CEO swapping fiasco. GigaOm's Liz Gannes caught sight of this timing error on an Associated Press story that could have Yahoo in the front of the line for the online obsessive sporting fan.

Under Jerry Yang's command its business as usual, and Yahoo is moving along by acquiring the hard core sporting site Rivals.com. The company charges between $10 and $100 per month to over 185,000 subscribers for their subscription based service, and with 2.57 million visitors last September alone, this site will be racking some coins in for Yahoo.

The Yahoo sports section is second only to ESPN.com's, and it looks like this move could be the one they are looking for to push them over the top in this vertical. The purchase price for Rivals.com is not being disclosed.

Filed under: Internet, Productivity, Google, Social Software

Google unveils Calendar gallery



Keeping track of calendars and appointments might say 'boring' to many users, but Google is aiming to change that stigma with their new Calendar gallery. With nary a 'Management Strategies' event in sight, this collection of subscribe-able calendars (which anyone can add to) is all about fun, travel, sports and the rest of life. Featured calendars include a Netflix DVD release schedule, Orbitz deals, presidential travel schedules and even specific TV show schedules.


Don't fret about the calendar subscribing process, as you won't have to deal with cleaning out schedules you never meant to follow. Clicking the name of any calendar offers a handy pop-up view of the entire month and all that particular calendar's events, allowing you to get a birds-eye view and decide before actually subscribing.

This is a great move for Google Calendar. Until now, users could only search public calendars, but not browse any kind of list, let alone see them organized into categories. Now that you can also view Google Calendar on your mobile phone, you never have to miss another appointment or actually interesting event again.

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Macintosh, Apple

Apple takes you out to the ball game, no mention of peanuts or Cracker Jacks

It's baseball season and this year Apple is getting in on the action announcing plans to offer 2007 Major League Baseball highlights in the iTunes store. iTunes will have two full-length "Games of the Week" available to download as well as a daily 25 minute re-cap show highlighting game highlights from the National and American baseball leagues.

Both "MLB.com Daily Rewind" and the Game of the Week" will run you $1.99 a piece. If you're a big baseball fanatic you can sign up for a month of rewind shows for $7.99 and/or a full season pass for the game of the week for $19.99.

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Video, Windows

Watch live streaming NHL games online (US only)

Stream live NHL games on Comcast hockey live
There was certainly a lot of fanfare when Google announced that they were going to allow people around the world to watch in-season full-length games on Google Video. Well, it seems that Comcast now allows anyone in the US to stream up to 2 live games a day. When Comcast and the NHL first made this announcement, the games were only viewable to Comcast High-Speed Internet customers. This year, anyone in the US can watch the games - even DSL subscribers - via the Comcast Hockey Live site.

Before you get too excited there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Local games are usually blacked out, and to watch the live streams you'll need a PC with Microsoft Windows Media Player 9.x or higher and IE 6+ or a similar generation browser. So Mac users are out of luck (shock).

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Text, Utilities, News, Windows, Web services, Commercial

mySI sports desktop client

MySI is a great app for all you sports buffs. It consists of a desktop sports news app with a full screen-saver built in. In minimized mode it is a small toolbar that sits above your taskbar. It doesn't take up too much space, and acts as a news ticker for (currently) up to three of your favorite NFL teams. It is ad supported by several notable companies like Miller, RadioShack, Comcast, Nissan, Circuit City. The ads are surprisingly unobtrusive, placed out of the way on the bar. MySI plans to release updates to include college and NBA basketball, NHL hockey, and many more. This is a must have for sports fans.

Read more →

Filed under: Web services

Flash visualizations coming to Digg: Stack and Swarm

Digg Stack and Digg Swarm

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington has the scoop on a couple fancy new visualization tools that will be launching next Monday on Digg. Both are Flash-based visualizations that let you keep tabs on Digg stories in an eye-pleasing way. The first, Digg Stack, shows recent stories as vertical bars and diggs as blocks that fall on top of them, building up each story's "stack." You can click on a stack to see just that story, where a recent activity graph is shown. Digg Swarm shows stories as a sort of galaxy of circles, bigger circles indicating more popular stories, and users as yellow satellites that appear next to stories as they are dugg. These both look pretty cool (and would make neat screen savers), but I don't foresee them being especially useful beyond simple novelty. In related news, Arrington says Digg will be launching a new Sports section in August, to complement the Science, World & Business, Videos, Entertainment, and Gaming sections it added earlier this month.

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Windows, Yahoo!

New Yahoo! Messenger Plugins rolled out

Y! Messenger PluginsThe new beta version of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice (version 8) lets users attach special use plugins. There were several available when the beta version was rolled out and today several more were made available in the Yahoo! Application Gallery.

Yahoo! Scribbler - It does just what the name says, it lets you scribble. When you and you chatting friend launch it, you can collaborate on a whiteboard. It also lets you drop in a photo from Flickr and doodle on it. And, if your work is worth it, you can save and store it to your Flickr account.

iTunes Remote - Erm, it's a remote for iTunes. Requires iTunes.

Yahoo! News - This plugin was one of the initial offerings. Maybe this is a new version? Gallery listing says it's only hours old. Lets you quickly browse news categories and zoom in on stories within Messenger.

Yahoo! Sports Gamechannel - This is my personal favorite. It lets you see the current US Major League Baseball stats and action within a smartly designed space. Cute animation and easy to read text tells you everything about the game being viewed. Also includes current scores and stats around the league. This was released a while back and is presumably an updated version. Lets hope it handle US football just as well.

And, by the way, plugins work in the Windows version of Y! Messenger but not the Mac version... yet.

Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Shareware

Roundup of fun NCAA tourney downloads

march madnessIf you follow NCAA basketball with any fervor, then March is your favorite month of the year. If you're a gambler or an office pool enthusiast, then March is also your favorite month of the year. The NCAA's basketball tournament has a soft gambling market that is unmatched by any other sport in terms of mass appeal. Wagering and pooling on the NCAA tourney is such a popular pastime that there's a ton of shareware supporting the habit.  These packages are designed to simplify the task of tracking tourney progress (and square ownership) to ease the pool manager's life.

These include Talleyware's FreeTrak, Custom Software's NCAA Tournament 2006, Leapy Dog's Pool Master, and  of course, the perennial favorite, Easy Pool. Happy pooling, and until the Final Four, may your square bear the winning team or score!  Hit the image link for the latest on college hoops action.

Filed under: Web services, Google, Freeware

Google Maps for your mobile phone

Google Local Mobile

Finally, what might be a compelling reason to upgrade my old 'n crufty phone: Google Local Mobile. Google has finally taken the next logical step and brought Google Local (Google Maps included) to mobile phones. Though I can't actually use it, from the tour it look fantastic. It has almost all of Google Local's features, including built-in local search, driving and walking directions, and even satellite images. Google Local Mobile will work on most Java-enabled phones and can be accessed by going to google.com/glm in your phone's web browser.

On top of that, Google has also added up-to-the-minute sports scores and schedules to Google SMS. You can it by sending a text message to 46645 ("GOOGL") with a school or team name. Cool.

Update: As sometimes happens, we missed Google Local Mobile when it was actually new. Thanks to Kaos for pointing out that it's been around for a few months.

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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