Jun 15

Microsoft Steps Into The Video Arena With Soapbox

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on September 19, 2006 by CyberNet.

Microsoft Video Service: Soapbox Microsoft is stepping up to YouTube, Google, and Yahoo by offering their own video sharing service called Soapbox. At this stage it is only open by invite only but you shouldn’t be disappointed if you don’t get in right away. Why? CNet’s initial review concludes by saying

In sum, Soapbox is disappointing. It’s a slightly better sharing service than YouTube in some small technical ways, but it doesn’t help users make money from their content like Revver does; it doesn’t have granular privacy controls like Vox; it won’t post directly into blogs for you like VideoEgg; and it won’t show videos from other networks like Yahoo Video. Given Microsoft’s position in the video sharing market (dead last), I expected a more aggressive product.

Soapbox is not looking like an attractive solution for users but here are the features that CNet pointed out:

  • Tag videos
  • Comment
  • Browse videos while watching one (this is kinda cool)
  • Any length of videos as long as the size is less than 100MB
  • Uses Windows Media Player in Internet Explorer and Flash in other browsers

I think that the only way their video service will become popular is if they make it easy for people to integrate it into their Windows Live Spaces. Other than that I think Google and YouTube will still hold the crown for video sharing services.

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Jun 14

Netvibes Adds Meebo Instant Messaging, Alexa Modules

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

This article was written on July 27, 2006 by CyberNet.

Netvibes Adds Meebo Instant Messaging

Netvibes, the popular custom Ajax web 2.0 home page service has announced that they have added Meebo (helps you chat with your friends with an online interface) and Alexa (the website tracking service) modules to enhance the customizable online home page.

The Alexa module will display colorful graphs and provide you will traffic information for up to five sites. You can view daily traffic rank trends, daily page views (per millions), or daily reach. Configuring the module is easy. You just have to enter the URL of the sites you want to add and click okay.

The Meebo module will create a new tab automatically so there’s enough room to chat with everyone! You’re able to switch between tabs, and will be notified by a blinking Meebo tab when you have a new message. It will be available to chat with people on AIM, ICQ, Jabber, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo.

The addition of the Meebo module in Netvibes is just another way for both of these startups to get a boost in popularity. It is always good to see Web 2.0 companies integrating their services together!

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Jun 13

Woah! Two Billion Photos Uploaded to Flickr

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on November 14, 2007 by CyberNet.

Over at Flickr, they’ve been sitting and waiting over the last week for the two billionth photo to be uploaded. This is a huge milestone for them and they were obviously pretty excited about it. The Flickr team even made bets on the exact date and time (the winner guessed November 11th) that the photo would be uploaded. It finally happened, and the lucky “winner” was a user named “Yukesmooks” who uploaded a picture (shown below) of a gum tree taken in Chinatown in Australia.

Don’t feel bad if your photo wasn’t the “winner” though, because Flickr didn’t even give Yukesmooks a prize (like a free year of a Pro account?)! All they did was create a quick post on the Flickr blog documenting the two billionth milestone. The user did end up getting a bunch of congratulatory comments on their page, so I guess that was the “prize.”  As Mashable pointed out, at least the photo was a nice clear picture instead of a blurry picture that didn’t deserved to be uploaded in the first place, or one of something… less appropriate.

flickr two billionth photo

While Flickr is celebrating (and rightfully so), I can’t help but chuckle at the fact that Bill Gates still has more dollar bills than Flickr has photos.  When you think about the thousands and thousands of users who upload photos left and right, it’s hard to believe that all of their efforts combined still don’t amount to what Bill Gates has in money. I know, I know, photos and money are two separate things, but it’s still a funny thought. So congratulations to Flickr… May you one day have as many photos as Bill Gates does money!

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Jun 09

Glitch Shows Microsoft’s Stock Selling at $100,000 Per Share!

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

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

If you own Microsoft stock, at one point today you probably could have been a millionaire! A glitch today with the NASDAQ market showed that stocks were selling at $100,000. The screenshot below is from Yahoo Financial which still hasn’t corrected the day’s range.

Microsoftstock

Source: Neowin Forum

Also interesting is that several sites are reporting that a computer glitch triggered the sudden plunge in the Dow Jones yesterday which is why  it ended as the worse day since the first day of trading after the September 11th attacks.

They realized that their computer system was not handling the massive amount of trading the way it should have been, so in late afternoon they switched over to a backup system.

And as you can imagine, all the jokes are flying around like “did they just upgrade to Vista?”

Source: Neowin Forum

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Jun 08

Microsoft Actually Releases a Firefox Extension/Plugin?

Posted in: Apple, Firefox Extensions, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

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

I had been wondering what the latest news on Photosynth was so I just jumped over to their blog to find out that almost two months ago they released a Firefox extension/plugin for the service. Previously Photosynth was only available for Internet Explorer but now it can also be used in Firefox with the help of the extension.

When downloading the extension it requires that you are using either Firefox 1.5 or 2.0 and for me the download was 5.5MB in size! That was pretty big, but after that I was all set to play with my new Firefox toy.

Firefox PhotoSynth

Everything seemed to work just as well as the Internet Explorer counterpart, and there is no doubt that Photosynth is quite a remarkable tool. The whole point behind it is to take a bunch of 2D photographs and assemble them together to form a 3D world. The downside, however, is that the technology is still very new and takes at least a few hours, or even days, to produce the desired output for a relatively small area. For this reason the Photosynth team have not begun to let users upload their own photos and utilize the service.

Microsoft has embarked on quite a task that could revolutionize the way we view the pictures we’ve taken. Being able to reconstruct a 3D world from 2D images is something that will probably become an everyday thing in a few years, much the way video sharing has evolved. They are definitely on the right track, so now it is just a matter of optimizing the system so that it is more efficient.

PhotoSynth Homepage

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Jun 06

MyPunchbowl Helps you Plan your Party from Start to Finish

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

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

I’m not quite sure how many of our readers are partiers, but with the Super Bowl coming up, chances are some of you will be throwing a party.  Released just in time for your party is MyPunchbowl to help with all of the planning. To sum up MyPunchbowl in just a sentence, it’s an easy way to plan a party with a different interface for each stage, and allows you to plan and socialize with party goers before, and after the party. Accounts are free.

I created an account to play around and see what it was like.  The screenshot below gives you an idea of what you’d see if you were the party planner.  One of the first things that you’d do after creating a new party is either send a “Save the Date” to your guests, or a “full invitation.”  The save the date feature is perfect if you’re planning the event well in advance and want to give your guests a heads-up. When creating your guest list, you can either manually enter in guests and email addresses, or you can import them using the Plaxo widget.  This makes it easy for you if you use Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook, etc.

They also made good use of Flickr.  When setting up your party, you can select an image.  You can either upload your own, or search Flickr.  Another way Flickr has been integrated is for the photo section.  After the party, you or your guests can upload pictures from your Flickr account to share with other people at the party. It’s a very simple user interface that includes all of the important aspects of planning a party.  Using Google, you can create a map for the party location.  They also use Google to search for party stores in your area.  When the search results appear, it will list the store, along with its’ address and phone number for easy access.

Other features that I haven’t mentioned yet:

  • Ability to create customized invitations to send to family and friends
  • Stress-free RSVP to ensure a more personal interaction between host and guest
  • Party message board to network and socialize before and after the party
  • “after party” features to reminisce and share party memories

MyPunchbowl is a pretty comprehensive service that guides you through the party planning process and turns it into a complete online planning experience. I really like the customization options, and the fact that it guides you from before the party all the way through until after the party.  It just launched today, and again, it’s free. Go check it out and get your Super Bowl parties planned.

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Jun 06

Get Ready for a New Yahoo! Homepage

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

This article was written on September 18, 2008 by CyberNet.

After a quick visit to Yahoo’s Blog, Yodel Anecdotal, you’ll see that they are testing, testing… a new Yahoo.com. Millions of people visit the Yahoo Homepage every single day which means the staff given the job of redesigning the site had a pretty important job. It’s not easy to please everybody, and people are resilient to change, so was Yahoo able to develop something that the masses will love?

Well, we’re not quite sure yet. Reuters described the changes as radical. See for yourself what it will look like:

new yahoo homepage.png

Probably the biggest change is the column you see on the left side of the page. This is where a user who is logged in will be able to link to 10-20 of the services they use most (Yahoo and non-Yahoo services will be offered). In a way they are combining their plain ole’ Yahoo search page with My Yahoo. They are calling this column the dashboard area.

At this point they aren’t going to push it out to everybody. Only a small percentage of visitors from the United States, the UK, France and India will start seeing the page tomorrow. Aside from the dashboard area, it looks like they are including all of the same elements of the current page like featured content up at the top and news items at the bottom, with Yahoo Services listed off to the right.

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May 30

Fake Steve Jobs is Closin’ Up His Blog

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

This article was written on July 10, 2008 by CyberNet.

fake steve jos blog.pngRemember Fake Steve Jobs? He’s got a blog, it’s a parody, and acts as Steve Jobs. We have mentioned him a few times already because some of the content he writes is just hilarious. Last year about this time was when everybody was trying to figure out who he was. At one point people were thinking it was a man named Andy Ihnatko from the Chicago Sun Times, but as it turned out, it was a man named Dan Lyons from Forbes magazine. Once the true identity of the Fake Steve Jobs was discovered, Lyons’ blog became even more popular, and he also got a book deal out of it. Everybody has enjoyed the humor, and the Fake Steve has probably enjoyed writing it, but he has decided to retire the blog.

What’s interesting is that he decided to retire the blog right before the launch of the iPhone 3G. Launch day along could have given him all kinds of writing material, along with all of the new Apps. ValleyWag speculates that Day Lyons is retiring the blog because of Steve Jobs’ health. They say, “Lyons concluded that posing as a guy recovering from cancer just couldn’t be humorous for much longer.” Now we knew that Steve Jobs had been diagnosed with cancer back in 2004, but according to Jobs in a speech he made at Stanford back in 2005, “it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.”

We hadn’t heard anything recently about Jobs’ cancer returning, other than people speculating about his thin appearance at WWDC back in June. Whether he’s receiving treatment again or not, and that’s the reason Lyons is retiring the blog, we’re not sure. What we do know is that the days of the Fake Steve are over and Lyons is planning on starting and authoring a blog under his own name in the future. I don’t know if anything he writes under his own name can be as entertaining as what we wrote as the Fake Steve Jobs, but it could be interesting.

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May 30

OpenOffice.org Redesigns Website, Launches Version 2.4

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

This article was written on March 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

openoffice website

As we pointed out yesterday in our Daily Downloads the new version of OpenOffice.org 2.4 has been released, and here’s an overview of the new features. In my opinion that is not the most exciting news though. To go along with the new release they’ve also revamped their website, and I have to say that they did an incredible job with it.

The screenshot above is what the homepage looks like now, and it is extremely straightforward. Instead of just providing links to support, downloads, and the other areas of the site they have created several different action items. When a user visits the site all they have to do is select what they want to do and they’ll be taken to the proper page.

Why is this so handy? If you were new to OpenOffice.org and saw the “Extend” tab would you click on it? It’s likely that you would have no idea that OpenOffice.org has extensions, and so maybe you would think this is an area just for developers. The same page in the action item list is called “I want to do more with my OpenOffice.org,” which will likely catch the eye of a lot more users than just saying “Extend.”

They still have the one-word navigation tags located near the top of the page, but these action items take the guessing game out of where the user should go depending on what they’re looking to do. From my perspective I would say that the OpenOffice.org team really hit this dead on.

OpenOffice.org Homepage

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May 28

Wikipedia Seeking Funds, Receives $286,800 Donation

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on December 28, 2006 by CyberNet.

Wikipedia, part of the Wikimedia Foundation is raising funds. They don’t have any advertisements or sponsors, so they need to make their operating costs somehow! They have a site all set up with options to donate using PayPal/Credit Card, Moneybookers, Check, or Direct Deposit. Recently, a transaction from an “anonymous friend” appears on the live contributions for $286,000! It also appears that each day, a new organization is matching the donations that is received. That means that the one donation could potentially have brought Wikipedia over a half million dollars.

Most donations range from $5.00-$50.00, so this donation really stands out. I love Wikipedia and find it very useful. Sure, the content isn’t 100% accurate all the time, but there’s a lot of good reliable information. If you find it as useful as I do, you can head on over and make a donation. Today, any donation that is received will be matched by Virgin Unite. You can view the live contributions here.

Any guess on the “anonymous friend” who happened to have $286,000 to give away?

News Source: Digg

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