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Filed under: Utilities, E-mail, Productivity, Social Software, Web

Re:Subj: threaded discussion via browser or email


While you're waiting anxiously for Google Wave to open to the public, you can find some similar features at Re:Subj, a site that integrates comments via email or the web into a threaded discussion. Re:Subj is quick and easy to start using, with no registration required. Just start an inbox by entering a subject and a message and some email addresses to send it to. Now any recipient can reply to the thread via email or in the browser.

Re:Subj does a lot of work for you, like removing quoted sections of the email replies so information doesn't get reposted again and again, and turning URLs into links with no need for manual HTML tagging. You can also control privacy settings, leaving your inbox readable by anyone, or restricting viewing to those on the list. If you want to use Re:Subj completely in the browser, you can uncheck a box to stop getting email notifications. It's a simple, unfussy way to get a thread going about something without requiring people to sign up to a group or an email list.

Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0, Web

Tweetboard turns Twitter into a comment system for your site



The trend of using Twitter for absolutely everything doesn't show signs of stopping. Tweetboard, the latest hot Twitter add-on, inserts Twitter as a comment system for your website. Conversation on the site is posted (neatly threaded, of course) in an expandable sidebar, and a user's comments also post to their Twitter account. To make it easier for people who are reading these tweets outside of Tweetboard, there are two shorturls "posted.at" and "inreply.to," that give readers a little context and a link to view the thread.

Tweetboard's design is relatively inoffensive: it puts a tab off to the left side of your site with the number of tweets a site visitor hasn't read. Fortunately, it's a pretty small tab, so it's not completely annoying to people who don't care about Tweetboard. Once expanded, Tweetboard is laid out with tabs for all comments or just the current thread, and there's a space at the top to post your own comments.

Judging by the Tweetboard's quick jump to the top of Twitter Trending Topics when it launched, you're probably going to start seeing it all over the place pretty quickly. It's hard to tell right now whether it's going to be a momentary fad or a lasting fixture. I can see the quick setup and ease-of-use appealing to site owners, but users might not go for Tweetboard. Some people just don't want Twitter accounts, and some people who have Twitter accounts might prefer that you keep your comments on your own site.

Filed under: Internet, Text, Windows Mobile, Freeware

TxtMan brings SMS threading to Smartphones

TxtMan brings SMS threading to SmartphonesSmartphone users jealous of the slick SMS threading that Treos have can turn that frown upside down. TxtMan is a new donationware app that brings SMS threading to Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphones. It's a pretty customizable app, offering a plethora of message layout options and your choice in ringtones and vibration alerts. It can also be set to run at your phone's startup to make sure it catches all of your SMS messages, but therein lies one catch: I may be new to the Smartphone platform, but I've seen some 3rd party apps such as Agenda One that seem to work in tandem with the phone's default PIM databases, whereas TxtMan needs to take over your SMS duties. You either send, receive and store SMSes in TxtMan, or you do it in WinMo5's default Messaging app - it's one or the other. The last catch I've found so far is that it requires Microsoft's bulky .Net Compact Framework 2.0, though that can be installed on an external storage card (it needs a surprising ~5MB of space) if you're limited on phone storage space.

Still, after tinkering for a bit, I think I'm sold, and I donated to Ben Hirashima, TxtMan's developer. I prefer the threaded SMS view, and TxtMan is pretty zippy on my Samsung BlackJack.

[via Smartphone Thoughts]

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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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