Feb 02

Reverse Phone Lookup with Sullr

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on August 28, 2007 by CyberNet.

Ever wonder who’s calling you when it’s a number you don’t recognize? I’m one of those that really won’t answer my phone if it’s not someone I know, but then I’m always left curious of who it was that called, especially if they don’t leave a message. There are a handful of different reverse phone lookup services available out there, but there’s another fairly new one called Sullr that does more than just give you the name of the person who called.

If you’re familiar with reverse phone lookup services, you know that you just have to enter in the area code and phone number, and it will return who called. With Sullr, you’ll start out doing the same thing.

Sullr2

After you’ve entered in the number, it’ll go to work searching various sources for the number. If it has found a match, it’ll display the name, but also offer to view a map of where they are located. If you click to view the map, it’ll pull up a Google Map with the address marked.

Sullr3

The addition of mapping the address for the number you’ve entered is nice, and something that other reverse phone lookup services don’t offer. Just like other services, they currently don’t have the capability to look up cell-phone numbers but hopefully that will be something available in the future.

What I like best about Sullr is that it has an attractive interface that’s easy to use and it gets the job done quickly. They also make great use of Ajax which helps to speed up the process. My only complaint is that the name isn’t one that I’ll easily remember when I’m wanting to lookup a number. For some reason, I just don’t connect Sullr with a phone lookup service. Regardless, if you’re wondering who’s been calling you, give Sullr a try.

Source: AppScout

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments
Feb 01

Viacom Turns on YouTube, now Greets Joost with Open Arms

Posted in: Today's Chili, videos, Web Sites, YouTube

This article was written on February 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

JoostWhen Viacom pulled out the carpet underneath YouTube, I’m sure YouTube wasn’t expecting it was because there was someone else coming into the picture. Viacom left, and headed on over to Joost which is just getting their start. On the Joost site, they say that they’re a new way of watching TV on the Internet with channels, programs, and adverts.

So now just a couple of weeks after Viacom ordered the 100,000 videos be removed from YouTube, Viacom has made a new deal that involves the licensing of hundreds of hours of programming from networks like MTV, Comedy Central, Spike, and even movies from Paramount.

What makes Joost more appealing for Viacom is that users aren’t able to upload content themselves.  That may not be very appealing for some users who’d like the option for uploading their content, but what is appealing is that Joost will be running full episodes, and to boot? High-quality resolution, which is something you wouldn’t find from YouTube.

No financial deals about the agreement have been disclosed yet, however, typically Viacom has gotten two-thirds of ad revenue for their compensation.

Joost has a sign-up if you want to get in on the beta testing. They say that they’re getting thousands of applications a day, so it may take time for them to get to you. Sign-up is here, and just requires basic info.

A couple of interesting facts: Joost was started by Niklas Zennstrm and Janus Friis. Recognize those names? They were the two founders of file-sharing service Kazaa, and Skype. They swept up $2.69 billion when Skype was acquired by eBay, so clearly they’re not running into problems financing the Joost deal.

Source: Reuters [via Gizmodo]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments
Feb 01

Facebook Users Not Keen on Change

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on September 11, 2008 by CyberNet.

Facebook users are once again showing that they aren’t too big on change. With Facebook getting ready to “force” all users to use the new design, there’s been some people speaking-up about their dislike for the new design. Many have opted-in to this new design over the last several weeks by choice (and you could go back to the old if you didn’t like it), but now within the next several days, everybody will be required to use it.

One way people are speaking-out about this is via a Facebook Group titled “1,000,000 against the new Facebook layout.” As of writing this, they have over 1.1 million people who became a member, and that number is likely to increase over the next several days when people will have no choice but to use the new design.

new facebook petition.png

As a side note, whoever created the group must not be THAT devoted to the social network because they would have known that it was “Facebook” and not “Face Book” as they wrote two separate times in the group’s description.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg knows that people will have a rough time with the change. He was quoted in an Associated Press article saying “Any change can be a big deal to our users because this is how they connect with their family and friends. So when you move things around, it can be perceived as being not a positive thing even when it’s a positive change.”

I’ve been using the new design for several weeks and initially, it was confusing to use because it was different, but it only took a few days to get used to it and now I prefer the “new” over the “old.” I think this will be the case with most users as well. For those of you already using the “new” Facebook, what do you think of it?

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags:
Feb 01

Zune Software Gets an Update

Posted in: Microsoft, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites, zune

This article was written on May 06, 2008 by CyberNet.

The Spring update for the Zune is launching today, and several new features have been added. One of the biggest changes is that now the video store has expanded to include TV shows. They’ve got about 800 TV shows available and each show is priced at $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points) per episode. Content comes from a handful of different networks like Comedy Central, MTV, NBC Universal, Nikelodeon, and more. While Apple offers many more TV shows, this is a start for Microsoft and we all know it took Apple a while to get to the point that they’re at.

zune software update.png

The Zune has also gone more social with features like being able to transfer a friend’s Zune Card right to your device. The really cool thing about that is if you have a Zune pass (unlimited download service), you’ll be able to get the full tracks of the songs your friends recently listened to, their favorites, and their top played songs. If you know a friend has similar tastes in music, this will be a quick way to get your hands on new music that you’ll probably enjoy. If you don’t have a Zune Pass, you can still view the info on a friend’s Zune Card but you’ll be required to buy the tracks if you want them.

Other features which people have requested for quite some time include:

  • gapless playback
  • meta data editing
  • auto playlists
  • improved syncing controls

Now that they’ve added TV shows, maybe movies will be next?

Source: Channel 8

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments
Jan 30

SuprNova is Back!

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on August 21, 2007 by CyberNet.

SuprNova

It’s hard to believe that after being shutdown for 3-years SuprNova is back up again. Thanks to the Pirate Bay I’ve since been reunited with this long lost friend, who has even been spruced up a bit since I had used it last!

SuprNova is making it easy for first-time BitTorrent users by implementing a Java Applet that lets you directly download the files without installing a program. It’s using the BitLet tool that we reviewed a few weeks ago, which isn’t the most extravagant thing but it can come in handy.

Astoundingly SuprNova already crawls more than 26,000 trackers, has more than 1,000,000 torrents in its database, and 10,000,000+ seeders. On the old SuprNova site finding what you were looking for would probably be difficult since it didn’t have a search feature, but the new site does! And if you’re looking for TV shows you’ve got to checkout their dedicated section just for that.

Head on over to Suprbay if you’re wanting to chat with other SuprNova fans. The relatively new forum is filled with 17,000+ posts and has nearly 7,000 members.

If you can’t tell I’m pretty excited about this. Thanks Pirate Bay!

SuprNova Homepage
Read up on the History of SuprNova

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments
Jan 29

Get Your Five-Minute Multiplayer Game Fix with OMGPOP

Posted in: Games, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on October 16, 2009 by CyberNet.

Have a few minutes to spare for a quick online game? OMGPOP has over ten different multiplayer games (and counting) that have one thing in common: they’re excellent at getting your productivity down a notch! And thanks to the site’s obligatory social networking features, it’s really easy to challenge your friends to a Bomberman game over the internet. Here’s a selection of some of their best games.

Hover Kart Racing is a 3D racing game. Even if you’re not good at its more advanced counterparts such as Need for Speed, it’s pretty easy to get the hang of this game. Watch out for mines, bombs and other Super Mario Kart-ish dangers. Expert tip: to cut corners, use the Shift key to drift.
How to play it: Up accelerates, Down brakes, Left/Right steers, Shift jumps or drifts, Space activates power-up.

hoverkart.jpg

Balloono is an excellent Bomberman clone, with a small difference. Instead of dropping bombs to blow up your opponents, you have to use water balloons. On the plus side, you no longer need to share your keyboard with your friends to play against them.
How to play it: use the arrow keys, hit the spacebar to drop bombs.

balloono.jpg

Ballracer is a 2D racing game. Every time you play it, you’ll be dropped in a random level from Ballracer’s large level set. There are plenty of speed powerups, hidden shortcuts and pitfalls to separate the men from the boys.
How to play it: use the arrow keys, press Up to jump.

ballracer.jpg

If you consider yourself a button masher, you might like Hit Machine. The concept is no different from Guitar Hero or Tap Tap Revenge: when a note hits the bottom of the screen, you have to hit the appropriate button. The music in Hit Machine is limited to unknown songs, so if you’re looking for Lady Gaga’s newest hits or that old Beatles classic, you’re out of luck. The multiplayer element of this game is limited to a leaderboard.
How to play it: use the letters ASDJKL on your keyboard.

hitmachine.jpg

oldblockles.jpgIn the early days of OMGPOP, their games were largely cool adaptations of popular games. You used to be able to play a killer Tetris clone with power-ups called Blockles on OMGPOP but – you guessed it – the lawyers from The Tetris Company weren’t too happy with that, so OMGPOP had to kill it. The current version of Blockles is a Dr. Mario clone. A few other “clone” games such as Tracism (Pacman with a fun twist) seem to have shared that same fate.

Fortunately though, most games that are worth playing are still available so play ‘em while you still can! Be careful though… don’t get caught visiting this site at work. ;)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments
Jan 27

The Revival of Napster…Again? 6 Million Song DRM-Free Library

Posted in: Music, Newly Released, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

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

napster ipod-1.pngI swear that Napster is as close as it gets to a cat with 9-lives. In 1999 it started off as a file sharing service that exploded with popularity. People could share and download songs freely, but the service was doomed to failure since it used central servers to connect one user to another. That made it easy for the RIAA to shut it down, which is exactly what happened in 2001. Napster then turned to a subscription-based model for music in hopes of recovering some of the $36 million they had to pay in the settlement.

They’ve been alive ever since, but not doing all that well. What they’re hoping to do today is make it easy for people to purchase DRM-free music that can be played on nearly any music player, including the iPod and iPhone. Their library consists of over 6 million songs, and for $0.99 per song (or $9.95 per album) you’ll get an MP3 that’s likely encoded at 256Kbps, and includes high-resolution album art.

Napster also has a web-based store available, which means that users on any operating system can sign-up and purchase songs with ease. You can also browse their collection of music without needing to create an account first, which is nice. The question is whether they’ll be able to compete with with the other big names offering DRM-free music, such as Amazon. Is this finally going be the formula that provides financial success for Napster?

In case you’re wondering Napster is still offering the “unlimited” music plans, but the songs you get from those are in a WMA format that is still plagued with DRM. Bummer!

Napster Homepage [via Yahoo!]
Thanks for the tip Omar!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags:
Jan 27

Customize your YouTube Player

Posted in: Google, Today's Chili, videos, Web Sites, YouTube

This article was written on July 19, 2007 by CyberNet.

We had heard about a corporate version of YouTube coming, but all of a sudden YouTube launched a new feature for everyone that lets you customize the YouTube player. It’s definitely a unique aspect that I think some sites will really grasp onto, but as it stands right now it looks as though you can only choose from a few default themes.

I tried it out (as you can see above) and it is actually pretty nice. It makes it easy to embed an entire playlist of videos (from some you’ve uploaded or added as a favorite), and you can even have it show the playlist along side the video so that people can easily navigate between them. This is actually really useful for when videos are broken up into a series because each video wouldn’t have to be embedded separately. If you decide to choose the standard-looking player, which I used above, users can navigate between the different videos using the thumbnails at the bottom which normally represent the related videos.

It will be interesting to see what route Google decides to take on this, and it really has me wondering whether users would be able to completely customize the theme later on. I guess that could be one of the perks for the corporate users though.

And if you haven’t seen the "Quick Change Artists" video that I embedded check it out. It’s pretty cool, although I can’t quite figure out how they do it.

Source: Google Operating System

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments
Jan 27

Earthlink Introduces Social Bookmarking and RSS Reader

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on July 15, 2006 by CyberNet.

Reader

Earthlink, which is probably most well known for affordable internet and phone services, has just joined in on two of the latest internet trends. RSS readers like Bloglines and Newsgator, and Social Bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and Yahoo MyWeb have become quite popular and a good way to stay organized with the news and web content that interest you the most! Earthlink has unveiled their versions of both a RSS reader and a Social Bookmarking Site.

Their goal with their RSS reader, myReader is to

‘expose the idea of reading feeds instead of web sites to many more people than know about it today, and do it in a way that doesn’t give anybody nightmares.’

They also note the fact that one size may not fit all in terms of an RSS reader. Different readers are going to have different features and a different user interface. One of their features is that it shows you only the new articles since your last visit versus showing you all of the unread articles. Another feature is that you’re able to easily add items directly from your reader to your social bookmarks.

TITLE

Earthlinks’ Social Bookmarking, myFavorites is similar to del.icio.us and Yahoo MyWeb in that you are able to tag and share your favorites. The whole concept of Social Bookmarking is ingenious. The web is full of a lot of great sites, but keeping track of them can be difficult. Despite the fact that there are great social bookmarking sites available, Earthlink saw this

as a tool that could be helpful to a much wider set of users than even necessarily knows it exists right now.

Good idea Earthlink!

According to their blog, Earthling, these new additions to Earthlink are still a work in progress. They’re still working out some of the kinks. I think it’s a great addition and a way for the not so tech savvy to get involved in Web 2.0.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments
Jan 25

Add Google Calendar Events via Google Talk IM (Google Voice Required)

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on January 25, 2011 by CyberNet.

One of my favorite features in Google Calendar is the “quick add” capability which lets you create new events using a more natural language rather than filling out a form. The number of formats it can handle are pretty extensive, and after you start using them you’ll probably find creating events any other way to be tedious.

What some people may not have realized is that you can add events to Google Calendar through SMS thanks to the quick add feature. If you have a Google Voice account you can do this for free by configuring the mobile section in your Google Calendar settings to use your Voice phone number. After you add your phone number a verification code will be sent as an SMS to your Voice account, which you’ll then enter in the required field:

google calendar voice.png

So now you can add events to Google Calendar using the free SMS through your Google Voice, but you can also take it one step further. About a month ago we covered a free online service called GVMax that will let you respond to an SMS message through Google Talk as if it was an IM conversation. You can also use this kind of configuration to add events to Google Calendar through an IM, which you can see in this example event I created on my calendar:

google calendar event add.png

If you decide to go this route I recommend setting up GVMax (if you haven’t done so already), and then hooking up your Google Calendar account to your Google Voice phone number. That way you’ll get the verification code as an instant message, and a Google Calendar contact will be added to your Google Talk contact list at that time. Otherwise you can always add your first event through the Google Voice interface, and it will automatically respond saying the event was created which accomplishes the same thing. Why do you need to receive a message from Google Calendar to get started? By doing that a special GVMax contact will be created in your contact list that you can use to add events on-demand in the future.

This isn’t the most elegant solution to adding events to your Google Calendar, but I must say that it’s proven to be incredibly useful for me since I keep Google Talk open most of the day.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: