Oct 31

Microsoft Experiments with New Live Search Homepage

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

This article was written on July 31, 2008 by CyberNet.

There are a variety of tactics that search engines can use to draw people in, and it looks as though Microsoft’s tactic with Live Search is to throw up a nature scene of someone in a canoe, add some hotspots, and then hope people are intrigued enough to stay for a while. Below is a screenshot of what the Live Search homepage looks like while hovering over one of the “hotspots”:

Live Search example.png

The hotspot we hovered over in the image above says, “Is that a lily pad or a crocodile” and then clicking on it takes you to an image search for African Crocodiles. They are trying to show off some of their features in a unique way which makes the Live Search homepage a place of discovery. It’s something different, that’s for sure. We haven’t seen any other search engine take an approach like this which could draw in some users.

Now that Microsoft may draw some new users in, they just have to make sure that they provide great results. We’ve already talked a little bit this week about the importance of search engines providing quality search results. This came up with that whole Cuil situation because while the site may look nice and they’ve been able to talk it up quite a bit, the results are terrible. We wouldn’t say Microsoft’s Live Search results are terrible like Cuil’s, but they do still have some work ahead of them.

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Oct 31

Google Docs Takes More Apps Offline

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

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

Over the last several months we’ve seen a lot of growth in the web-based office applications arena. Between Zoho and Google Docs, all kinds of features have been added which make using the applications even easier and more second nature. The team over at Google Docs has just gotten done adding yet more features to their suite of online apps, including offline capability for more of their applications.

Back on April 1st, we wrote about how Google had finally added offline capability to Google Docs. We said “finally” because Zoho had already been using Google Gears to take Zoho Writer offline. At the time, we wondered who would be first, Google or Zoho, to add offline support for either spreadsheets or presentations. The answer to that is Google. On Friday they made the announcement that they finished rolling out offline support for Google Docs and now they’ve moved on to Spreadsheets and Presentations. For now, it’s view-only offline access, but it’s a first step and can only mean editing will be soon to follow.

Another feature that they announced on Friday for Presentations is the option to include speaker notes (something you can do in PowerPoint) and YouTube videos. Those speaker notes can be printed so that you’ll be able to use them while giving your presentation, or you can have them appear in a separate window on your computer while you’re presenting, to read from.

If by chance using a YouTube video in your presentation would help you make a point, by all means, insert the video! Now you can insert multiple videos right onto your slides and then the videos can play while you’re making a presentation. Once again, PowerPoint has a similar feature. While you can’t insert YouTube videos, there is the option to insert a movie that you have saved on your computer. Just look for the “Insert Video” link at the top of your Google Docs Presentation page.

Insert Video Google Docs.png

As you’ll see from the image above, once you click “Insert Video” a box will pop-up so that you can search YouTube for the video that you’re wanting to insert. Once you find the video, you’ll just click the box next to the video and click “Insert Video.” That’s all there is to it.

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Oct 31

Yet Another MyBlogLog Trick

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on January 25, 2007 by CyberNet.

There has been at least one other known spamming trick with MyBlogLog, and now there’s another.  This time, the trick will get people to join your community without your knowledge in just one click. LoveDeep Wadhwa found this trick, and here’s how it would work:

  1. Open your MyBlogLog Community page.
  2. Right click on the thumbnail image of your website
  3. Choose “Save Picture As”
  4. Don’t actually save the image, instead copy the file name that appears in the “save as” dialog (a bunch of numbers).
  5. Take the numeric part (first 12 characters) and place them in the following URL, replacing FILE_NAME with those numbers.

    6. http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/join_conf.php?ref_id=FILE_NAME
    &ref_method=s&ref_er=www.mybloglog.com/buzz/community/FILE_NAME/

After completing those steps, you’d have your spam URL ready to use.  Some people have been leaving messages on other communities saying something like “Nice Blog. Recently I’ve started my own blog community. Please check it out.” And by clicking that link, you’d automatically be added to their community without consent. [Warning, by clicking you will actually be added to the CyberNet Community] For this to work, the user would have to already be logged into their MyBlogLog account. 

Clearly, a confirmation page needs to be put in place, or LoveDeep suggests (MyBlogLog name: freakitude) that it should be session based. I’m sure plenty of people are playing around with this trick, and unsuspecting people are being added to communities left and right unknowingly.

Source: Freakitude Technology and Digital Inspiration

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Oct 28

YouTube Sharing the Wealth with Original Uploaders

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

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

YouTube is continuing their quest to promote creativity. The rumor has been floating around the Internet for quite some time now, and finally Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube has confirmed that they plan on sharing advertising revenues with users who submit original videos. Good news for inventive users, bad news for those who just post copyrighted material.

And speaking of copyrighted material, You Tube is also working on an “audio fingerprinting” technology that would help identify copyrighted material. This has become a real issue lately that needs to be dealt with.  Currently the Fox network is trying to get their hands on the user who posted unbroadcasted upsides of 24 and The Simpson’s. Hmm.. if Fox ever did get their hands on that information, I bet someone at Fox would be in some pretty deep trouble.

Details for sharing ad revenue has yet to be announced. Hurley says that they’re [YouTube] is still “working out the technology and processes involved – both for the rewards system and the video clip advertising system.” He also mentioned not to count on one big release, rather features will be rolled out one at a time over a period of few months.YouTube isn’t the first one to dive into revenue sharing.  Revver, another video upload site as well as Metacafe offer rewards for submitting great, original videos.

So, if you’ve got creativity and a video camera, you might be able to make some $$$ in the coming months with YouTube (assuming you have full copyright to the video you’re uploading).

Source: BBC

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Oct 25

Create Animated GIF’s For Free With Gickr

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on November 26, 2006 by CyberNet.

Gickr Gickr is a very creative service because it lets you easily create animated GIF’s from any photos in your Flickr account. Actually, it doesn’t even have to be from your Flickr account because the animated GIF I put together to the right was done just by searching for “dual monitors” from all of Flickr.

After it searches for images you just have to check the boxes of the ones that you want. The animation that I have in the image here is on the slowest setting and I think it is a little too fast for a nice slideshow but if you wanted to create an animated object, such as a car driving by, it would be great on one of the faster settings.

One thing that I did notice is that the images it generates are pretty large. My “slideshow” consists of 11 photos that I selected and it is about 1/2 MB. That may not seem like much but it could quickly eat up your bandwidth if you receive a lot of visitors. Gickr has taken care of that problem as well because they will host the image for you and after the animation is generated they will provide you with the URL that is needed. All you have to do is live with the small “watermark” that they place in the upper-left corner. I’d say that is fair.

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Oct 25

Switch to Yahoo! Mail from Gmail and Hotmail

Posted in: Email, Today's Chili, Web Sites, Yahoo

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

If you’ve been looking to make the switch to Yahoo! Mail then I’ve got the tool you need. Yahoo! has a partnership with a company called TrueSwitch which is used to transfer emails, calendar info, and contacts from one account to another. So for no additional costs you can switch to Yahoo! Mail from any of these providers: Hotmail, AOL, Gmail, Comcast, Yahoo!, Cox, Earthlink, MSN, Netscape, Netzero, Juno, CS, Optonline, and Worldnet.

The process looks like it is extremely painless, and it’s kinda funny that I just found this. My brother recently switched from Gmail to Yahoo! Mail because of the better support for his Blackberry, but he had troubles getting all of his stuff moved over. I’m sure knowing about this tool would have made it a lot easier! Here’s a video on how it works:

Also, it appears that Yahoo! Mail has upped their attachment size limitation to 20MB, thereby matching what Google offers. They’re even adding 24-hour mail support via IM, as well as a few other things. Yahoo! might be on a roll here.

Thanks for the tip netster007x!

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Oct 23

eBay and Kaboodle Join to Create MyCollectibles!

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on June 10, 2006 by CyberNet.

Kaboodle is Up and Running--Collect and Share on the Web!
 

Monday will be a big day for eBay and Kaboodle! Powerhouse eBay has joined together with Kaboodle to form a new service called “My Collectibles”. eBay is well known as the world’s online market with thousands and thousands of transactions occuring daily between people around the world. Kaboodle is an emerging free service that allows anybody to join; the idea being that people can collect information on the web ranging from shopping and traveling to collectibles. The information that people collect is then available for others to see and comment on. The information gathered could be used to plan a trip, or find the store with the perfect set of sheets you have been looking for. Both eBay and Kaboodle rely on people like you and I to keep the business going!

On Monday, MyCollectibles will be accessible from both ebay.com/mycollectibles and from mycollectibles.kaboodle.com Both buyers and sellers on eBay will be able to use Kaboodle to organize and keep track of their collections to share with family, friends, and even other collectors. This new service will give collectors a convenient way to view other collections from around the world. People viewing the collections will be able to leave comments, and also rate the collection.

eBay is partnering up with a lot of people these days! Any ideas on who they will be partnering with next?

News Source: TechCrunch

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Oct 21

Mint Takes on Investments Next Week

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

This article was written on April 30, 2008 by CyberNet.

mint money-1.pngIt’s been a little while since we checked out what Mint had to offer, but it looks like they are progressing quite well. One of the things that really makes them stand out is their ability to connect to your bank and download new transactions. Up until now they have supported (in the U.S.) 2,520 banks, 1,621 credit cards, and starting next week on May 6th they’ll have 2,381 investment accounts added to the list.

That’s right, not only will they keep track of your bank accounts and credit cards, but now they’ll also manage any brokerage, IRA, 401K, and 529 assets that you have. There’s no doubt that a lot of people were waiting for them to start supporting investment accounts, and I expect that this will attract a lot of new users.

I do have to give credit where credit is due, however. When we previously checked out Mint I was skeptical about how secure their system was, and whether they would be able to withstand the test of time. Well, the site has been up and running since September 2007 without any publicly disclosed vulnerabilities having been found. Bravo!

Am I still a little weary? Sure, but they definitely have to be winning over the confidence of the users. What about you? Is taking your finances online something you foresee doing now or in the future?

Mint Homepage [via TechCrunch]
Thanks to Omar for the tip!

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Oct 19

iGoogle Catering to Stalkers, too

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on April 22, 2008 by CyberNet.

google social.pngI’m guessing that a fair amount of you detest the social networks like MySpace and Facebook. Do they really have a purpose? I don’t think that really matters to be honest. There is obviously value in letting one user stalk connect with another, and it has warped into an online phenomenon.

Those of you thinking that Google was going to sit on the sidelines are wrong. They are currently working on an iGoogle Sandbox which is a developer-specific release of the iGoogle personalized homepage. Sounds interesting, I know, but it seems as though they are going to be bringing an even larger social aspect to the personalized homepage. Pictured above is an example of a new gadget that will be available, and with it your friends will be able to see what you’re up to. As Garett Rogers pointed out this is extremely similar to Facebook’s News Feed.

There are, however, some things that social network haters will love in the iGoogle Sandbox. One thing in particular is the ability to “maximize” a single gadget so that it occupies nearly the entire screen. This would be particularly great when reading news or feeds, but developers have to explicitly make their gadgets compatible with this mode before it can be used.

I’m assuming that if Google decides to go through with the new social aspect of iGoogle that they will offer options to maintain your privacy, but only time will tell. Here’s a video that shows how most of it will work, and even gives developers a heads up as to how they can develop gadgets that play nice with the new social system.

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Oct 18

How Far is the MPAA Willing to Go?

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on October 22, 2007 by CyberNet.

mpaa logo Stopping piraters from downloading movies illegally is at the very top of the MPAA’s task list.  Given that, they have gone to some great lengths to enforce their zero tolerance policy, and an exclusive article over at Wired today points this out.  The article starts out “Promises of Hollywood fame and fortune persuaded a young hacker to betray former associates in the BitTorrent scene to Tinseltown’s anti-piracy lobby.” This situation involving Robert Anderson is just one of many examples of what the MPAA is doing to try and stop piracy, but does it really do them any good?

Just a couple of months ago, a teen was arrested for a 20 second transformer movie clip that they recorded in the theater. The MPAA’s zero tolerance policy meant zero tolerance and the young 19 year old girl was arrested for recording the clip to show to her younger brother. While it wasn’t a wise decision to bring a video camera into the theater, she faces jail time. In this situation, is the zero tolerance policy really helping the MPAA?

Another great example of the lengths the MPAA will go was revealed back in July when they hired a company called MediaDefender to help them stop piracy. MediaDefender is the leading provider of anti-piracy solutions, and so to help, they set-up a fake video download site called MiiVi where users could download movies. The catch was that they were  infested with spyware that reported back on any stolen videos found on the users computer. The MPAA was caught red-handed when a whois search found that MiiVi was registered to the company.

The incident involving Robert Anderson who was recruited by the MPAA in 2005 with an enticing offer to become “rich and powerful” confirms that the MPAA is willing to spend big money and do whatever it takes to stop illegal downloading. They offered him a house, a car, a “good” paying job, and anything else he needed after he told them he could provide inside information on TorrentSpy. Part of the inside information that he had was the source code for TorrentSpy’s back-end software which Anderson said the MPAA wanted to use to create a fake Torrent site of their own.

Anderson obtained the information that he did illegally by programming TorrentSpy’s mail to relay email to a Gmail account that he created and accessed regularly is one of many problems in this situation, and he also “ratted out” his own colleagues that he was once a part of. This situation illustrates that the MPAA is willing to go pretty far to get back the “billions in lost sales each year” that they claim they lose from BitTorrent networks. Would those who download these movies actually go buy the movies if there was no other way to obtain it? At this point I’m wondering what else the MPAA has up their sleeve, and if the money they spend to entice people like Anderson ends up being worth it in the long run.

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