New web apps often make a lot of claims that just don't hold up under testing. When I decided to put Quarkbase.com through the paces, I fully expected to be underwhelmed. After all, their motto is "Everything About A Website."
Holy information overload Batman, this one really surprised me.
Pick a domain and hit search, then give Quarkbase a chance to dig up its research. They say to wait about 30 seconds, though my successful searches worked more quickly. I did get a few failure notices because of high traffic, but I understand why. Quarkbase finds so much information about your website that it's mindblowing.
What does it find? The domain owner, registrar, creation date, primary language, similar sites (*yawn* so far), traffic rank, blog rank, countries in which it's popular, description and "official" contact info, people involved, incoming links, and more. Unlike the "similar pages" Google search returns, the Quarkbase suggestions were pretty much right on the money.
But wait, there's more. It'll track down numbers on Digg, Stumbleupon, Twitter, Technorati, Reddit, Delicious, and Yahoo Answers. Quarkbase even knows how many times the site have made Digg's front page. It also generates a list of the most popular recent page and five popular pages of all time based on these stats.
Quarkbase is an incredibly informative tool and undeniably useful for anyone working the web.
If you're a fan of the breakout mixtape-sharing service Muxtape, you've probably noticed that they've been down for a while, dealing with a complaint from the RIAA. Who knows how long that could take, or whether they're even going to be back up at all? What's a mixtape lover to do? Well, some ingenious Muxtape fans have cooked up an open source solution for hosting your own mixes, using an admittedly Muxtape-inspired interface.
It's called OpenTape, and you can host it easily on your own server, if you're running Apache and PHP5 (or some other servers the site doesn't specify, so give it a try for yourself if you're not sure.) There's a demo OpenTape up, and it does work almost exactly like Muxtape, although most of the features have been rewritten. The only code that's directly left over from Muxtape is the song reordering tool, and OpenTape is looking for someone to rewrite that, too. Long story short, this is a slick way to share music on your own site. Give it a look.
I rarely get as excited by a Web 2.0 app or service as I am by ProofHQ, which is an innovative and platform-independent way to manage the whole review and approval process for creative documents. At least for me, the most tedious part of the design process is getting feedback and approval. First you have to make sure the file is in a format that a client or collaborator can read (so that you don't accidentally send out a Word 2007 document to someone who is using Office 2003 and doesn't have the Office 2007 viewer software), then if you are sending something by e-mail, that the e-mail size isn't too large for their mail server. That process has to be repeated for every change or for every new element.
ProofHQ was designed to streamline the entire creative review process, making much of the above process unnecessary.This is how it works: You upload your proof, document or design concept to ProofHQ and enter in who you want to send the proof to. ProofHQ then creates a web-optimized, Flash-based proof that your reviewers or collaborators can view. They just click on a link in their e-mail and have access to the proof or document.
From there, they can add notes, draw in markup and immediately reject or approve a design. You can even embed a "Miniproof" in a blog or wiki, and any comments made either at that site or via the ProofHQ dashboard appear alongside one another. This makes it really, really easy to get feedback and collaboration from lots of different people. As the document creator, you can see who has reviewed or commented on a proof and instantly eyeball if something is approved or if you need to bug someone to give you an answer.
Once upon a time, it looked like MapQuest was on the same path that TiVo, Kleenex, and Xerox had taken before it. If you were looking up directions using any web site, there was a good chance you said you were "mapquesting it." But now the pioneer in online directions faces stiff competition from Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and others. But it looks like AOL (the company that owns both MapQuest and this blog) is trying to play catchup by rolling out many of the same features you'll find at those other sites, and a few new ones to boot.
The first thing you'll notice in the new MapQuest beta is that the company has finally added a map to the front page. You no longer have to enter your data and click to a secondary screen. The map will automatically show information based on your preferences or your physical location.
You can do all the things you'd expect with the map, like search for addresses or business, zoom in and out, or view arial images. You can also click on a weather link to overlay weather information, or click a gas link to pull up gas price information for various locations. There's also a traffic button that shows live traffic conditions for more than 85 cities.
Some of these features have been available for months. For example, MapQuest introduced live traffic information back in March. But AOL is really pushing the redesign now, by providing a link to the beta at the top of the main MapQuest page. The plan is to promote the beta for a few months before flipping the switch and killing the older version of the site.
At the beginning of the summer, a new sales tax law went into effect in New York State, requiring online retailers who have some sort of presence in the state (like shipping centers or affiliate programs) to charge sales tax on any item shipped to New York residents. Big e-tailers like Amazon.com and Newegg complied with the new law, although Amazon is still suing the state of New York, claiming the tax law is unconstitutional.
Today, Newegg, a favorite shop amongst Download Squad's staff, has decided to stop collecting those taxes. According to PC Magazine, Newegg wrote an e-mail to customers, explaining, "After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that we have stopped collecting New York sales tax, effective August 21, 2008."
Although Newegg will no longer be charging sales tax on orders shipped to New York, New York residents may still be required to pay sales tax for those purchases (usually when filing annual income tax statements). Much of the rationale for the tax bill in the first place, as I understand it, was to force businesses to do what residents were not doing: paying sales tax on online goods ordered from out-of-state.
It will be interesting to see if Newegg's decision has any trickle-down effect on any other shops that are currently complying with the law. Although I can't see Amazon following suite -- that could potentially harm its legal case -- perhaps retailers like Overstock.com, which temporarily suspended affiliate-agreements with New York residents as a way of avoiding the tax issue, will re-evaluate the situation.
Look out Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, Pownce, there's a new social network on the interwebs soon to take over all chatter channels - it's Fuelly, the social network devoted to tracking, sharing and comparing gas mileage.
If you engage in small talk at the water cooler about the rising cost of gas prices, and enjoy comparing odometer readings with your friends, Fuelly could be your next favorite social network.
Built over a 2 week period in July, Fuelly was designed so users can track their mileage between fill-ups and compare notes with one another. For added convenience, Fuelly has a mobile version.
Recent activity from the site shows various users either adding a car to their garage, filling up their car, reporting on their best tank ever, or newly joining. You can befriend people based on their car type, gas mileage and odometer checks. Man, this is fun!
Hot tips such as use cruise control often and keep your tires properly inflated are among the many not so obvious suggestions to keep you more gas efficient.
As of this writing, 5,389 Fuelly users have tracked 17,203 fuel-ups in 6,006 vehicles over 4,375,464 miles of driving.
There are many applications that allow you to snap snippets of text from web sites and mark, tag, and otherwise share them. It's not a new concept, and truth be told, I wasn't expecting to be too terribly impressed with Deepmemo.com. Their site seemed visually messy, and the mixture of Cyrillic and Roman character sets in the tag cloud area had me concerned, because it didn't seem to change when I selected my language.
The application and delivery of this service, though? Nicely done, guys. You changed my pig-headed mind.
So why does Deepmemo (DM) stand out from the pack? There are a few reasons. The DM toolbar can be used with Firefox, but...hold on to your hats... there is an IE7 version. I know more than a few developers who have no bones saying they'd love to port their add-ons to IE, but it ain't easy. This could be a huge advantage for the DM crew.
It also allows for logins with OpenID, Facebook, or any registered user name associated with a Google service. The caveat is that dm is a third-party application, and it asks for access to your Google (or Facebook) account. If that makes you uncomfortable, it is also possible to just register with dm directly.
If you're after torrent downloads, chances are you're searching Piratebay, IsoHunt, Mininova, and possibly a few others. Why not save yourself time and effort and search them all in one place?
USniff provides a nicely styled web 2.0 interface for multi-site torrent searches and allows you to query up to eight sites simultaneously. Results load extremely quickly, and I was pleased to see that they sort by number of seeds by default.
It's ajax, so filtering and re-sorting your results is almost instant. The design is totally clean so far, there's not even a single banner ad in sight. You'll still have to click through to the actual tracker, of course, to grab the actual torrents. USniff doesn't host anything...blah blah blah...insert usual torrent search engine disclaimer here.
For anyone looking for multiple options to download that new Ubuntu release (since you're all using torrents for purely legal downloads, of course!), take a gander at USniff.
Image sharing site Flickr has allowed users to view attractive slideshows of search results or image sets for a while now. But for some reason, up until now you had to rely on a third party service if you wanted to embed that slideshow on your own web page. Or you could create an iFrame and figure out how to create the code yourself. But who wants to go through the trouble?
This week, Flickr finally added the ability to share a slideshow with other users. Just click the Share link when viewing any slideshow on Flickr. You get two options: a URL that links to the slideshow you're viewing or HTML code that will let you embed a smaller version on your web page.
The slideshow embedded at the top of this post shows search results for the word "compiz."
Mygazines.com is a Flash based site where you can read most of your favorite magazines online for free. The big question is for how long, since this is copyrighted material after all, and as Folio reports, the magazine trade association MPA has already threatened legal action against the site.
Content on the site is uploaded by users and then displayed in a neat Flipbook reader with lots of tools like zoom, search, keyboard shortcuts, article directory, etc. You can also create your own magazine with content you supposedly own, upload it and share with others.
Since the site was registered in the Caribbean island of Anguilla, and is hosted by PRQ of Sweden, the same web host of Pirate Bay infamy, does the piracy theme apply? Although there are arguments aplenty for why publishers should be happy about their content being shared online - increased readership, more ad views, ability to go viral, etc., there is still that pesky copyright infringement argument that just won't go away.
If you're a heavy Twitter user, you've no doubt accumulated a huge collection of tiny text messages. Losing all that information would be a giant pain, but how do you save a copy for yourself? Have a look at Tweetake!
The interface is dead simple: enter your Twitter username and password, select what you want to back up, and press Get 'em! to release the hounds.
Within a few seconds Tweetake presents you with a CSV file containing all your valuable messages. Tweetake grabs the sender's name and screen name, their location and description, timestamp, and the tweet text, along with just about all the other info that Twitter stores.
How many of you back up the files on your PC regularly? I'd wager the number backing up online data (like Twitter) is even lower. Play it safe, and back up your tweets!
Online file sharing service Drop.io already provides one of the easiest ways to share documents and media files. Now the company is making things even easier with a Firefox addon that lets you drag and drop files to your browser.
Here's how it works. You install the somewhat cleverly titled Drag & Drop.io extension and create a drop point by visiting Drop.io. Then you can just drag any files from your desktop to your web browser and watch while they're uploaded and in some cases converted for easy online access.
Too busy to actually create a drop point manually? Just drag your files over the little red check box in your status bar. The plugin will automatically create a drop point and open it up for you. So you can be browsing your favorite web site (like, say Download Squad?) and uploading files at the same time, without bothering to visit the Drop.io web page first.
The plugin is cross-platform and works with Firefox for Windows, OS X and Linux.
KlipFolio is a desktop application that lets you access online content like RSS feeds, weather forecasts, Flickr slideshows, YouTube videos, and other web content. We first checked out KlipFolio more than two years ago when it was little more than a widgetized RSS reader. But the application has come a long way since then.
You can now use KlipFolio to subscribe to all sorts of content. Pretty much anything with an RSS feed is fair game, but you can also browse the KlipFolio web site for specialized "klip sets," including email notifiers, social network updates, or content from webcams. There are also klip sets that let you monitor shoutcast streams or see the latest updates to the iTunes music store.
KlipFolio 5 beta D also has a slick new interface. You can dock the application to the top, bottom, left, or right side of your screen or let it float free. You can rearrange your klips by dragging and dropping. And you can choose from a variety of customizable skins.
The Windows application is also pretty lightweight compared with other desktop widget engines, eating just under 10MB of RAM during my test.
