Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on November 21, 2006 by CyberNet.

The Google PageRank is a ranking of websites on a scale from 1 to 10 with only a few prestige sites able to earn the perfect 10. Google only updates a site’s PageRank a few times a year and when they do people get excited to see if their sites are going to get ranked any higher. I check it every now and then but since I don’t have the Google Toolbar installed I will normally use this online checker.

Every page on your site isn’t going to be ranked the same though. If you don’t want to check all of the pages individually you can use this Visual PageRank Checker that will give you a hand in doing the work. It still won’t check every single page on your site but it does check every single link on the URL that you supply to it and displays it just as if it was on your site. Sites that link to a different URL other than your own are still checked but they are marked with an “EX” on the end of the image to represent an external site.

While you are at that site feel free to browse the other assorted developer tools that they have to offer. I did notice that if you don’t create an account they limit you to 5 queries per hour. With how much CPU usage that Visual PageRank Checker must take up along with the other tools this is certainly a fair limitation…especially since the accounts don’t cost anything to create.

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This article was written on October 31, 2006 by CyberNet.

Okay, I am going to have a few things here to keep you occupied for a little while. The first thing that I wanted to talk about was Google’s recent decision to start paying independent video publishers a share of the ad revenue that is generated from users viewing videos. It appears that anyone can signup to get accepted into the program but they recommend that you have 1,000 or more hours of video before putting in your application.

The first publisher that Google mentions that’s making money is EepyBird which made an entertaining video demonstrating what could be done with 502 liters of Diet Coke and 1,506 pieces of Mentos. Their demonstration is supposed to emulate the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, Nevada so I thought I would provide a video of the real Bellagio Fountains and then their rendition.

The real Bellagio Fountains:

The Diet Coke + Mentos Fountain:

Google needs to be moving quick on getting publishers because MetaCafe already has a very rewarding program setup to put money in the pockets of publishers. At MetaCafe for every 20,000 views your video receives you’ll get $100 which isn’t that bad. That does mean you have to have all the rights to the video so it can’t be something you grabbed from somewhere else, but that can be a good chunk of extra cash if you do have a unique movie.

The top rewarded video on MetaCafe right now is “Matrix – For Real.” I don’t know what is more jaw dropping, the fact that the publisher has made over $23,000 (over 4 million views) or the stunts that this guy can do. I feel like I need to go to a chiropractor just from watching this: 

I know Google intends to keep YouTube separate from Google Video but I think they definitely need to branch out the publisher’s program onto YouTube. People will probably start going where the money is which will affect how many movie hosting companies will be able to stay afloat.

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This article was written on July 17, 2008 by CyberNet.

Back in the beginning of June at WWDC, Apple announced that they would be replacing their .Mac service with a new service called MobileMe. They described it as “Exchange for the rest of us” and said users would have push email, contacts and calendars. It sounded impressive, but would cost users a subscription fee of $99 for 20 GB of online storage. For someone who really wanted push email, contacts and calendars, the $99 would be worth it. As it turns out, Apple is guilty of what we would call “false advertising” because MobileMe really doesn’t use Push technology. Apparently there have been enough complaints because they have instructed their sales teams to no longer use the slogan, “Exchange for the rest of us.”

Paul Thurrott wrote an extremely informative article over at his SuperSite for Windows website where he talks about a note that the Apple employees received. It read, “MobileMe messaging is being updated effective immediately. In order to set appropriate expectations with our customers, focus your sales discussion on “automatic sync” rather than “push.” Additionally, we will no longer describe MobileMe as “Exchange for the rest of us.” Exchange really does use push technology, MobileMe does not.

Thurrott also pointed out some of the other issues with MobileMe. He points out that an estimated 75% of Windows users still use Internet Explorer yet in IE 7 they’ll get a message saying that the browser isn’t fully supported and they should either switch to Firefox or Safari. Fine, if Apple wants to be that way they can, but then don’t you think Firefox should be a supported browser if you want to sync your bookmarks in MobileMe? It’s not. At that point your only options are Safari or Internet Explorer. None of it makes sense.

Given that a good chunk of iPhone users are Windows users, MobileMe will be a real problem for them, especially when they find out it’s not “Exchange for the rest of us” and they’ll have to wait about 15 minutes for that update they made on their PC to sync. If it were really “push,” it would update instantly.

It’s interesting to note that not many people have made a big fuss over this, at least not yet. If Microsoft pulled a stunt like this, their critics would be ALL over them. What Apple did by promoting MobileMe as “Exchange for the rest of us” and saying it supports Windows when it doesn’t fully, was not smart, and it’s disappointing. Thurrott wrapped up his article saying “Seriously, where is the outrage” and we second that, where is it?

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This article was written on July 09, 2008 by CyberNet.

As the web continues to evolve it seems as though more and more of our information is being kept online. This begs the question of whether your data will be available in your time of need.

Yesterday morning Google Docs suffered a 45-minute outage that left users separated from their documents. According to Webware the problem was with the servers that control the document workspace and home document listing, and it had no affect on the documents themselves. Free Google Docs users weren’t the only ones affected either… paid Google Apps users also felt the displeasure of the downtime.

For a majority of users the downtime probably went unnoticed, but I’m sure there were plenty of people who were pulling their hair out waiting for the service to come back up. Maybe you had a document you needed to hand out for a meeting, or a report that had to be turned in at school?

You know what this all reminds of? Remember the days before auto-saving when you’d lose a document you were working on because the computer crashed? It was a tough lesson, but you learned to frequently save your documents. Now the same kind of lesson is being learned from online services: you need to backup your data on to your computer, or else it might not be there when you need it.

What I think Google needs to develop here is some sort of tool that can sync a folder on your computer with Google Docs. When changes are made in one location they are replicated to the other, which means you’ll always have a version of your document available both online and offline.

[partial image credit]

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This article was written on September 01, 2006 by CyberNet.

Free For All Friday

You can’t but help remember the name, “Remember The Milk.” I’m sure we’ve all said something along the lines of “Remember ________” and without fail at sometime or another we’ve forgotten because we didn’t write it down. If you’re having trouble mentally managing your to-do list, you may want to check out “remember the milk,” a task manager in beta. Their slogan says: ”The best way to manage your tasks. Never forget the milk (or anything else) again.” They’ll be celebrating their 1 year anniversary in October and have made many improvements and updates to the service along the way.

– Getting An Account–

Signing up for an account is simple and free, and there’s nothing to download because everything is web based. This means you can access your list just about anywhere that you have an Internet connection.  I literally registered for my account in under a minute. If you don’t speak English, there are 12 different languages that they support. They are: Bosnian, German, Swedish, Turkish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch, UK English, French, Japanese, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

–Getting Organized–

Yes, there are lots of task managers out there, however this one is particularly nice because of a tabbed user interface that makes it simple to manage different to-do lists. You’re able to have as many to-do lists as necessary. Just like other such services, you’re able to share and publish your list. An additional feature that they offer is the capability to send your to-do list via text message to your phone. It makes getting organized simple and easy and leaves you with no excuses to be unorganized.

With one click you’re able to see what’s due today, tomorrow, or a week from today.  You’re also able to prioritize with a color coded/numbered method.  If a task is due today it is displayed in bold.  If it is overdue, it will have an underline.  You’re also able to estimate your time for tasks and postpone a task to a later date.

–Managing Tasks–

I’m all about using RSS to manage everything and make life simpler. RTM (Remember the Milk) allows you to receive your lists via RSS, email or instant messaging. Instant messengers services that are supported include Skype, AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN and Yahoo! You’re able to add tasks no matter where you are via email or from your phone. Another feature that I like is the ability to view tasks on my Google calendar (you can also view them with Apple iCal).

They offer a “Quick Add” which allows you to add important dates and times you find on the Internet to your account. This service is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. You could use this for online bill services, exam dates taken from an online syllabus, and the list goes on and on. Another example they offer is to keep track of an auction ending on eBay. You would highlight the date and time and then click the “add to RTM” bookmark. It’s as simple as highlighting the date and clicking, and your task has been added.

–Other Helpful Features–

Tagging seems to be the popular feature for any service to have lately, and RTM is no exception. You can create tags for different entries such as exams, grocery store, bills, etc.  This makes recalling important dates related to the tags easy and convenient.

They also have a good sized list of keyboard shortcuts (some of them pictured below) to save you some time.

-Overall-

Overall, Remember The Milk is a helpful to-do list service that has some great Web 2.0 features implemented.  If you haven’t tried out such a service and you’re still using the paper, pencil, post-it note method, check it out. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how simple, easy, and convenient services such as RTM can be. And of course, it’s free!

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