Hasta La Gadget!

Dec 01

WrapUp: I Want Sandy Closes, Share a Printer Over the Internet, and More

This article was written on December 01, 2008 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

I Want Sandy & Stikkit Close
Two popular online productivity applications, I Want Sandy and Stikkit, have announced that they will be shutting down soon. Both services are run by the same company and recently got acquired by Twitter. It was hinted that some of the technology would be integrated into Twitter later on.

Google Admits to Breaking App Store Terms
After a little searching around a group of individuals managed to find out that Google had used undocumented API’s in their iPhone application, which is against Apple’s SDK rules. There’s been no word from Apple yet regarding whether Google will have to change how their program works.

eBay’s Traffic Plummeting
According to some data eBay’s traffic in the U.S. has been sharply dropping. In October 2007 they were receiving 13.5 million unique visitors, but in October 2008 they received just 9.1 million unique visitors. And it continues to drop from one month to another. Will eBay be able to come back?

Apple Finally Got Safari Right on the iPhone
Looks like I’m not the only one noticing a dramatically improved Safari browser on the iPhone 2.2 firmware. I used to see Safari crashes several times each day, but haven’t had a single hiccup since the iPhone 2.2 firmware update. Yay!

Google Maps Updated
Google has updated their maps service with a refreshed interface, and spruced up the Street View a bit. Now when using Street View the imagery will take up the entire map area on the screen instead of being contained in a bubble. This is a dramatic improvement for anyone that uses the Street View regularly.

G1 Gets Visual Voicemail and Opera Mini
The T-Mobile G1 powered by Google’s Android operating system now has two long awaited apps: visual voicemail and Opera Mini. The only downside is that the visual voicemail service is run by a third-party, but it is still free.

Watch Out for the New Digsby Installer
I’ve been a huge fan of the Digsby instant messenger client ever since it became available, and have managed to get dozens of friends, family, and co-workers using their software. Now, however, they are doing something I’m not all that fond of… asking users to install toolbars and other things during installation. I’ll continue to recommend their software, but I’ll be sure to warn people about the things it will try to install.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Lunascape Browser Uses 3 Rendering Engines
Lunascape is a new browser available for Windows that lets you view websites using the Trident (Internet Explorer), Gecko (Firefox), or WebKit (Safari/Google Chrome) rendering engines. You get to pick and choose which rendering engine you want to use!

Zenbe Brings All Communication Into One Place
Zenbe is truly on the bleeding edge of email and communication innovation. Their email client will let you do things like manage tasks, sort through your calendar, post to Twitter, view Facebook updates, and much more from one central interface.

Share a Printer over the Internet
There have been times where I’ve wanted to print something when I’ve been away from my home. This freeware app will let you do just that by using your Internet connection to share your printer.