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Oct 24

DuckDuckGo is a Power User’s Search Engine

This article was written on March 29, 2011 by CyberNet.

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed when using Google is the additional information they will provide you with at the top of your search results. The list includes things like weather info, calculation results, sports scores, and more. All of this means you don’t have to turn to another site just to find the answers to these quick questions.

The DuckDuckGo search engine is another great resource that puts data from dozens of third-party sources at the top of your results. When it is relavent DuckDuckGo will show information from sites such as Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster dictionary, WolframAlpha, and dozens of others. All of this should mean that you won’t have to sift through results to find the answer to some of your basic questions. Too lazy to look out the window? Just ask it if it is raining and it will use its location-aware skills to see if it is raining in your location.

Aside from that this is a search engine, and that is where this may be hit or miss for some of you. Instead of being powered by Google this uses Bing for the search results. Some of you may prefer that, while I’m sure others won’t even consider using it for this very reason.

If you do decide to give DuckDuckGo a try you’ll want to sift through the settings because there are a lot of things you can customize. You can change the appearance/colors, remove ads, take a look at keyboard shortcuts, configure auto paging so that you can continuously scroll through results, and much more. You’ll also want to check out these resources to see what kind of calculations and special searches are possible:

General Searches: basic calculations, dates, facts, geography, IDs, properties, random numbers, time, and more.
Math/Programming Searches: advanced calculations, conversions, computing, formulas, physical properties, transformations, and more.

The one thing I really love is the way this brings in WolframAlpha data… because there is so much info available on that site but I frequently forget to use it for my searches. Since I’ve started using DuckDuckGo I’ve noticed that there are even more answers available on WolframAlpha that I didn’t even realize they had.

DuckDuckGo Homepage

Oct 24

SlideRocket: Amazing Online Presentation Creator

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on March 20, 2008 by CyberNet.

(Click to Enlarge)

Omar tipped me off yesterday to a rather amazing presentation creator currently in private Beta called SlideRocket. It’s completely Flash-based, and the interface I would say is one of the best out of all the competing products.

I tinkered around with it for quite awhile, and I was impressed with the number of features it includes. Not only can you upload media such as pictures and videos, but you can also search online sites such as Flickr and Yahoo for media to add to your presentation. Other standard items like charts, shapes, and tables can also be added.

There is also a plugin system that I think will really help attract users. In a few clicks you can search and add a famous quote, word definition, or Yahoo map to a presentation without ever leaving SlideRocket. It’s still quite limited at this point, but if they build up the number of plugins it would become a very attractive service.

The thing that I enjoyed the most, however, would have to be the varying slide transitions that are available. I’ve embedded one of their presentations below so that you can see what I’m talking about:

There is just one problem…there are too many of these darn online office applications out there! At this point SlideRocket isn’t even publicly available, and it won’t be until this summer. If I start creating all of my presentations with them how do I know that they’ll be here tomorrow? I guess you don’t really know that with any of the online alternatives out there, but there’s a little more reassurance when using Google Docs or Zoho since they have become well established in their field.

My inquiring mind is now wondering that if a better online office suite emerges are you less inclined to use it if it’s not coming from someone that is well established?

SlideRocket [via TechCrunch]

Oct 23

Stream Videos from Your Phone to the Web with Qik

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on July 21, 2008 by CyberNet.

We like to think of a service called Qik as “live YouTube.” It’s a video service that allows users to stream live video feed from their mobile phones to the web. Qik launched a private alpha release not too long ago and people like Kevin Rose and Robert Scoble have really helped to create some buzz about it. The Qik team has just taken another big step by launching into public beta, and now the masses will be able to test it out and take advantage of all that it offers.

Before we get into some of the features and improvements that come with the public beta of Qik, one of our initial concerns with this public beta is whether they can handle the increase in traffic. There’s going to be a lot of people wanting to try out this service, so hopefully they are prepared. Already this morning we were having trouble simply getting their site to load. The next several days and upcoming weeks will really put Qik and their infrastructure to the test.

Now on to Qik and what it’s all about. Qik is primarily for those who want to stream video from their mobile phones. Those who don’t have this capability on their phones do still have the option of signing up for an account if they want to make comments of videos that others post. Broadcasting using Qik works with mobile services like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint which means just about everybody in the United States should be able to take advantage of it, assuming their phone has the video capability.

VentureBeat sat down with Qik co-founder Bhaskar Roy and talked about the service. Roy pointed out how Qik is the quickest online video streaming service because their latency is down to a half-second to 3 seconds, something other competitors aren’t able to claim (latency is the time it takes from when someone starts capturing video to when it appears live on the Internet).

Here you’ll find a list of all the mobile phones that Qik supports. You’ll notice that there are A LOT of supported Nokia phones, a couple of Motorola’s and two Samsung phones. Not on the list currently is the iPhone, although there is a working alpha version of Qik available for a first generation iPhone that is jailbroken. Their goal is to eventually get a working version available for the iPhone 3G.

We’ll be keeping our eye on Qik to see how well it does now that it has launched into public beta. It looks and sounds like a promising new service, and it’ll really be interesting to see if it turns into the YouTube of live video streaming.

Oct 23

Peekvid Gets Revamped With Web 2.0 Style

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on February 15, 2007 by CyberNet.

We discovered Peekvid towards the end of January, and found it as a pretty useful source for finding some of your favorite movies. They aggregate videos from YouTube and DailyMotion, and make an organized list of links so that it’s easy to find what you’re looking for.

Shortly after we wrote about them for the first time, they went into a private beta, but it didn’t last too long. They have just re-launched as a public beta with a revamped look including Web 2.0 elements. The interface looks great, and the larger text makes everything easier to read.

One of the first things that I noticed on the new site besides the entirely new look, is the disclaimer at the bottom that reads: “Peekvid does not contain any content on its site, but is merely an index of available links on the Internet. Peekvid is committed to an industry solution that will provide a mechanism to compensate artists that create the work you enjoy watching. Peekvid would like to be part of the long term solution.”

I think it’s interesting that they made it a point to say that they don’t host any of the content, instead they just provide the links. So far, the site is running a bit sluggish, but hopefully that will be improving soon.

Oct 22

Access SkyDrive in Windows Explorer

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on November 11, 2009 by CyberNet.

skydrive windows explorer.png I love the fact that Microsoft gives users a free 25GB of storage for files through SkyDrive, but I think they’re able to do that because they don’t provide an easy way for people to upload things. That way most people will never come close to hitting their 25GB limit, but that may change with the free SkyDrive Explorer app.

As the name implies this will make your SkyDrive account accessible right there in Windows Explorer… exactly what I’ve been wanting. From there you can drag-and-drop files into any of your SkyDrive directories, or copy down files that you’ve already uploaded. Once you’ve uploaded a file or folder you can then right-click on it to grab the URL that can then be used to send to other people you want to share it with. This is perfect for sharing music or photos with friends and family! It’s fast, simple, and makes it so that you never even have to visit the SkyDrive site.

Here’s what you can do with SkyDrive Explorer:

View the structure and contents of folders in SkyDrive
View files information (type, size, creation date in GMT format)
Create new root folders and subfolders
Copy files into the storage
Delete files and folders
Copy files from the storage to the computer
Copy folders and subfolders from the storage to the computer keeping their structure
Use Drag & Drop for files operations
Rename files and folders
Create links to SkyDrive folders on your computer
Copy URL of the selected object(s) to the Clipboard

The one downside is a limit of the SkyDrive service itself… and it’s that you can’t upload files larger than 50MB. What would be cool is if a future version of SkyDrive Explorer would automatically split files up into 50MB chunks! It’s an awesome app even without that functionality though.

SkyDrive Explorer Homepage (Windows only; 32-bit or 64-bit; Freeware)

Oct 21

Zoho Sheet Supports VBA! Crazy!

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on April 28, 2008 by CyberNet.

(Click to Enlarge)

One of the things that I’ve felt online spreadsheets have really lacked is support for Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). I use VBA macros quite frequently in my spreadsheets as a way to analyze and process data that can’t be done with formulas. Well, Zoho has decided to step up to the plate in a big way.

Today they’ve announced a huge update to Zoho Sheet that includes the ability to import and create VBA macros in your spreadsheets. Besides Excel itself they are one of the only other Office solutions in both the desktop and online realms that can boast this. Granted they only support about 50% of the functionality at this point, but it is a remarkable feat regardless. A full list of what they do support right now can be found here.

What about those people who don’t know how to code VBA macros? Unfortunately they don’t have a recording tool, but they say it’s on the way. In the meantime they have setup a Wiki where users can share macros that they have created so that everyone has a chance to benefit from them!

There are about a dozen or so other new features for Zoho Sheet listed below, but here’s a video to show off their support for VBA macros in addition to pivot tables:

Isn’t that crazy? I have to admit that Zoho is pretty impressive when it comes to bringing features from desktop office suites into the online world.

As if supporting VBA wasn’t enough they have also added more features:

Pivot Tables: Pivot tables and pivot charts can be created using a simple drag and drop interface.
Support for Named Ranges: Names can now be assigned to a cell or a cell range. These names can then be used in formulas / macros to refer to a range of cells. To define a name, select the cell range and then use the “Name this Cell” menu item in the More Actions menu or in the right click context menu.
Multiline Support: Multiline support inside a cell has been added. You can use Ctrl+Enter or Alt+Enter to insert a line break inside a cell.
New Publish Options: New publish options have been added to control use of your public spreadsheets in Zoho. You can now restrict users from exporting your public spreadsheet. You can also hide formulas used in your public spreadsheet from your users. This is useful if you want to prevent users from viewing the formulas you have used.
Support for large spreadsheets: You can now load upto 100,000 rows of data when imported as CSV files. You would need to select the Tabular Data option while importing. We will also make our application scalable for other data formats too.
Auto-Filter: We support auto-filters when imported as CSV files. Again you would need to select the Tabular Data option while importing. Filters for normal spreadsheets will be supported later.
Freeze Panes (partial support): While importing CSV files containing structured data, if you choose the Tabular Data option, the top row will be freezed and you can apply freeze columns on any of the columns. However we haven’t supported freeze panes in our normal sheets. This will follow in a future update.
TSV File Support: Import and export of .tsv files (tab separate values) is now possible.
Set as Text: Use the Set as Text icon in the toolbar to set the cell format as text. This icon is available in the drop down next to the comma icon in the toolbar. If you want to enter data like 00002345235 without trimming those leading zeros or enter 4/4 without needing to automatically convert it into date, then you can set these cells as text or you can prefix the cell value by a single quote (‘) and it will be marked as text.
Performance Improvement: Some performance improvements have been done in loading sheets and range selections. More improvements on the way.
Keyboard Shortcuts: Many shortcuts have been added. Refer Keyboard Shortcuts which is available under the Product Links at the top.
Optimal Width and Height: You can double click on the column and row separators to set the optimal width and height.
Cell selection in Formulas: We now support selecting cell regions using keyboard while typing in formulas.

Oct 17

Read RSS Feeds in IM’s

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on November 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

Have a hard time keeping up with your favorite RSS feeds? Feed Crier is here to help you. It’s a free service that requires no registration, but with it you can get notified of new items in some of your favorite RSS feeds.

If your’e using AIM, MSN, Jabber, or Google Talk you just need to add the following bot to your list of friends:

FeedCrier on AIM
feedcrier@feedcrier.com on MSN, Jabber, and Google Talk

After Feed Crier has been added as a friend in your instant messenger you can send it one of the following commands to manage your feed subscriptions:

subscribe [URL] – Subscribes to the web site at URL.
unsubscribe [URL] – Unsubscribes from the web site at URL.
list – Shows all the sites you’re subscribed to.
help – Shows this list of supported commands.

I tried it out and it’s actually pretty nice. As you can see in the screenshot above each feed item includes the title, hyperlink, and a brief summary of the article’s content. You definitely won’t want to use this for any highly active sites because it will be popping up with messages all of the time. If you only want to track a site that posts a few times a day it shouldn’t be too bad.

Feed Crier [via Lifehacker]

Oct 15

Songza Adds Option to Save Playlists

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on March 05, 2008 by CyberNet.

One of our favorite options for listening to music for free online with no strings attached is Songza. We did a review of it back in January and one of the things we liked most about it was its simple interface and the option they offer to create playlists. As you may recall, Songza really is just a nice-looking front-end for YouTube and a handful of other sites but it works, and thus far, they haven’t really run into legal issues. Just recently the founders of the service were interviewed by Download Squad and they talked about some of the improvements that they’ve made over the last several weeks.

songza

First on the list of improvements is that users who have signed up for an account can now actually save playlists. Previously playlists could be created, but users were not able to save them. When you go to add songs to the playlist, just be sure it’s a good copy before you actually add it. Some of the songs fail to load or have other issues which is a problem that I ran into while creating my playlist. To access the songs that you have saved, just click on “My Profile” (assuming you’re logged in to your account) and then your playlist will be shown on the right side of the page.

Other changes you’ll notice are with the interface and the new opportunities to make sharing songs with friends even easier. When you click on a song and the menu pops-up, the share options include to link to the song, twitter it, embed it on your site, or email to a friend. The addition of being able to Twitter a song is great and gives you yet another reason to have a Twitter account. 🙂

Overall the changes they’ve made are welcome, although I did come across what seemed like a lot of songs that failed to load. I don’t remember have as many issues when we initially reviewed it back in January as I did today. This is just one of those issues that comes along with the service because of the way they get their songs. For a free service with no strings attached though, I’m still impressed.

Oct 15

Find Free Music Online

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on December 04, 2007 by CyberNet.

We’re all familiar with the basics of how a search engine works – you type in a query and it retrieves relevant links to places around the web. It’s simple, easy to use, and helps us find what we’re looking for. Given this, I think you’ll enjoy a site called BeeMP3. BeeMP3 is a search engine for finding MP3 files on the Internet. Much like a regular search engine, they don’t host the files but direct you to them. This makes finding songs that you want easy.

Whether you’re looking for a song, an album, an artist, or you want to browse between all three, searching takes just seconds. When you visit the site you’ll see a big search box where you’ll enter in what you’re looking for. I typed “Kanye West” into the search field and it returned 322 different results. Several other searches turned up the results I’d expect as well.

beemp3

BeeMP3 certainly isn’t unique – there are a few similar services out there. What is unique though is that they will show you the bitrate of the file which some of you will really appreciate. A bitrate over 128,000 (128KB) tells you that the quality of the song will be good. Just yesterday when I tried the service they weren’t providing the link to the download, you’d just click on the file and the “download file” box would appear with your option to save it. When I checked back today, they now provide the link so that you can paste it into a new window should the download not start automatically.

As you might expect, there is loads of copyrighted content that it aggregates, so download at your own risk.

Source: Lifehacker

Oct 15

Amazon Working on a PayPal Competitor?

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on June 20, 2008 by CyberNet.

amazon payments.png Rumor has it that Amazon is planning to launch some type of e-commerce business to allow payments and money transfers which will compete with PayPal. Some of you probably know that Amazon already has their Amazon Payments service that allows you to send and receive money, and shop with your mobile phone, but it’s limited to Amazon and “their partners.”

From the sounds of it, Amazon’s solution would be more widely used around the web than the current Amazon Payments, or at least that would be the goal. Analyst Derek Brown talked about it recently and said that Amazon “may soon launch a PayPal-esque payments service for use by consumers and merchants across the web, potentially siphoning growth and/or profit from eBay’s crown jewel.”

We’re not sure exactly what Amazon will do to expand Amazon Payments and compete with PayPal but it might be welcomed. Some people are frustrated with both eBay and PayPal for various reasons and are looking for an alternative way to make payments online. With a name like Amazon backing a service, they could potentially gather-up some loyal users.

Analysts say the service could launch late Summer or early Fall, so we’ll be keeping our eye for more details in the coming weeks…

Soruce: TechCrunch

Hasta La Gadget!

DuckDuckGo is a Power User’s Search Engine

SlideRocket: Amazing Online Presentation Creator

Stream Videos from Your Phone to the Web with Qik

Peekvid Gets Revamped With Web 2.0 Style

Access SkyDrive in Windows Explorer

Zoho Sheet Supports VBA! Crazy!

Read RSS Feeds in IM’s

Songza Adds Option to Save Playlists

Find Free Music Online

Amazon Working on a PayPal Competitor?

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