Yahoo Buzz, a Digg-type site where users can rank stories from a pre-approved set of publishers, is open to all users now. In the past only the invited few could post buzz-worthy content but now it's open to the rest of us.
Basically, you sign in with your Yahoo ID and "buzz up" stories that you like causing them to move up in ranking. Stories are ranked on what people are searching for on Yahoo and voting for on Buzz. There's not much more to explain. Stories that make it to the top of the list will be featured on the Yahoo homepage potentially driving serious traffic to the site.
You can submit stories or join the mailing list to find out when Yahoo will add new publishers to the network it pulls Buzz content from.
When I looked, top stories were about weight fluctuation in Hollywood stars and USA Gymnastics. Not the most newsworthy in my opinion but if you're tired of Digg you might enjoy it. Maybe it will improve once they add more publishers to the list of pre-approved sites.
Holy hashtags Batman! Some Chinese Twitter fans want to make sure that even Twitter isn't safe from the deluge of Olympic tidbits you'll no doubt tire of in the next two weeks.
Steven Lin, one of the originators of the #080808 hashtag said it's "just for fun, a way to write down the day," according to the New York Times.
They even have a nifty buddy icon template you can download and personalize.
Vyew My PC is a flash-based instant desktop sharing product with a lot of fun features.
Basically, go to the Vyew My PC web page and click start sharing my desktop. You will be given a unique, unguessable URL. You can then share that URL with anyone you'd like to share your desktop with. There are some features you need an account to use, but the basics are usable by anyone.
You can upload files to be shown on the Vyew My PC desktop, use the whiteboard features, chat and with registration, use audio/video features. You cannot however, view anything outside the Vyew My PC desktop area. So, if you want to switch to a new window and show a web page you are viewing, it's not going to show up unless you take screenshots and present those.
It moves smoothly and all the features seem to work. Now, I didn't go in and have a full-fledged sales presentation to a CEO or anything but I did show a powerpoint to two of my friends who logged in from two seperate locations.
My main concern was about security. Showing a powerpoint to my friends is quite a bit different than important company information. So, this is what I found out; the packet data for your session is not encrypted but the URLs seem to be unique enough that someone wouldn't just stumble into your meeting without being invited. SSL encryption is not offered publicly but could be a possibility for some clients.
Privus Mobile is a nifty new program for Windows Mobile and RIM phones that gives you a more traditional caller ID experience. Instead of just seeing the names of people already in your phone book it gives you the name associated with any number calling.
Or at least, it's supposed to. I downloaded the app on my AT&T Pantech Duo phone and had a few people call me from random phones that were not already in my phone book. Just like any other time, all I saw was the phone number calling. Fellow Download Squadder Christina Warren added the software to her phone and also didn't have any luck knowing it was me when I called her.
You can download the free three day trial or pay $24.95 for three months of service. If you're interested in this bit of technology, I'd definitely try it before signing up for the paid service. And have lots of people call you to see how it works for you. Maybe you will be more lucky than I was.
You could just do what I do. Answer calls from your friends and anyone local. Ignore the rest!
There are certainly plenty of blog directories and Digg type websites that tell you what the most popular or "best" news of the day is. Regator wants to join the fray.
Regator is a combination of a lot of different methods of news aggregation. Actual people do a lot of the work, reading through and finding blog posts they think are interesting to read. Those posts are sorted into almost 500 channels. Users can also submit items of interest and move things up the food chain by viewing, commenting and rating sites. The What's Hot list is then created with algorithms based on what users are looking at.
I found some really interesting stuff I hadn't seen so far in my daily web surfing by going into the Beijing Olympics Channel.
You can also use Regator as a feed reader, to make audio playlists and to share with friends on Facebook, etc. by registering for a free account.
If you don't already have a favorite place to find news or you're looking for a change, this might be something to check out. And, if your blog isn't on Regator, you can nominate it for coverage.
So here at Download Squad we've been into wasting time lately. Here's another time waster, this time all about physics.
You can visit Phunland and download Phun which is a 2D physics sandbox type game. Basically you have your toolbox of gears, levers, springs, boxes and more to build whatever your heart desires. You can start with a preloaded scene that has some pieces already there or go from scratch to build whatever you want.
I chose a wagon and added some springs to make it keep smashing backwards into the wall. I am more of a word nerd than a physics nerd so this was about the extent of my capabilities.
The media page has lots of YouTube videos of phun physics in action as well as a movie explaining phun and even playing the phun theme song. So if you need some phun fun check it out. If you're one of those people who finds physics enjoyable it just might get your creative juices moving on a boring afternoon.
TripSay is hard to explain. It combines travel information, social networking, maps and reviews of places. As someone who enjoys traveling, I think it has potential.
Basically, you log in to TripSay and build your world by entering places you have traveled. Each place you enter can get a rating from a smiley face to a butt (really!) and a short tip or comment for which you can, thankfully use more than 140 characters. You can join groups with similar travel interests like a particular place or type of travel.
Based on your rating of places you will get recommendations on the map that match what you have indicated you enjoy. Most of my recent vacation have been to beaches, so the majority of my recommendations were for beachy places. Tripsay uses a recommendation engine to generate your results.
If you want to look for something different, you can click on different icons on the main map to see mountains, shopping, cities, etc. that have been rated by other users.
TripSay calls itself an intelligent social network (that) delivers highly targeted travel information, recommendations and tips based on one's unique preferences and social network.
I think if TripSay gains a large user base and lots of information it could be really useful to find interesting restaurants and out of the way places that guidebooks don't cover. But, it will really depend on the amount of users the site attracts.
Slingbox from SlingMedia is one of my favorite things to use. Being rather addicted to watching the Food Network and TLC's What Not to Wear it's great to just grab my laptop and check out what's on wherever I am. My favorite time to use Slingbox? In the car on long road trips.
Normally to watch your cable or satellite box you have to be there, in front of your TV. With a SlingBox you can shift your viewing to any PC after downloading the SlingPlayer and entering your administrator password. A SlingBox can range in price from $129.99 to $229.99.
Today the SlingPlayer for Windows 2.0 was released with some nice updated features. First, and my favorite, a new program guide. Simply click view, choose show program guide and you no longer have to remember what channels are your favorites from memory. You can scroll through the program guide, just like on your home TV. This makes things much nicer to use in my opinion. You can finally find movies with just a click of the mouse.
Another new feature is the live buffering feature which works like a DVR or Tivo in the sense that you can pause, rewind and record up to 60 minutes of TV. Great for when you need a break to go to the kitchen or also if you are getting a crappy signal for some reason you could record a large protion before playing it so things wil run more smoothly.
The third major new feature is the use of Sling Accounts. Basically if you have a SlingBox and you set up an account you can then use your SlingBox on any computer with SlingPlayer. I can see how this could be useful when I visit some of my relatives who don't have cable TV.
This is a simple and quick time waster for you word nerds from Lunchtimers. Or even for those of you that always like to slip a naughty word into a scrabble game.
Remember those refrigerator magnets you had when you were a kid that were all letters? Letters is the same concept in your browser with one fun twist. Instead of just you playing with the letters you have to share with whoever else is logged in. When I tried it there were 12 people sharing letters.
Every time I got close to spelling out "Download Squad Rules" someone kept stealing my letters, moving them around and trying to put them into their own words. Of course when someone named Kevin tried to proclaim he was god, I took the time to change it to goofy which seemed to annoy him since the next thing he came up with was who?
There were plenty of people using their letters to spell out naughty words and plenty of others who would immediately try and change those naughty words into something nicer.
See what you can spell before someone steals your letters.
Invotrak is a simple to use, online invoicing tool for small businesses or freelancers produced by Draconis Software. While we have covered it before some new additions make it worth another mention.
Basically this is a simple invoice app that you can use to create and track invoices and time sheets for yourself or your small business. You can use limited services for free or pay for three levels of account depending on how many invoices you plan to send.
Updates features include: the ability to upload invoices you have created yourself, add line items from time sheets to the invoice and adding reports to your invoices. You can also save your invoices as PDF or TXT files.
You can also read the Invotrak blog to get tips on using the new features and general small business tips - like how to get paid on time.
Some days it's all good and you're enjoying reading the news for the masses on Digg or Reddit. Other days you want something with a bit more substance. Maybe you're having dinner with your future in-laws and you need a good, solid, grown-up conversation starter. Check out Polymeme, which bills itself as the "experts' take on what's important on the web."
Polymeme tracks information in 20 areas, from Green & Energy to Books & Poetry with things like TV & Cinema and New Media thrown in for good measure. Top news stories are gathered from Polymeme's database of 25,000 blogs using algorithms that monitor the most viewed and linked to stories in each of the 20 categories.
By having the 20 different areas of news to monitor, Polymeme is able to find the hottest articles, blog posts and information from mainstream, alternative and citizen-driven media sources in each area instead of just the hottest news on the web as a whole. Site information calls it the "wisdom of clusters and not just the wisdom of crowds."
If you enjoy reading articles from places like Scientific American, MSNBC and Slate or you just need to step up your RSS feeds, Polymeme might be just what you're looking for.
chosr is a web based bookmarking and productivity tool. It uses a Quicksilver type interface and apparently, if you're a Quicksilver user it's very intuitive. If, like me, you're not, it takes a little bit to get the hang of the interface. (More about Quicksilver).
The idea is that basic keystrokes move you through a three panel screen. So if I want to search for Download Squad in the first box I would use the period key to open my text entering mode and type in Download Squad. I would then press the tab key to move to the next window where I would again press the period key to enter text. You can type in various search methods like Google, wikipedia, YouTube, etc. Tab over to the third square and the default for searching "in new window" will probably already be there. Press enter and a new window with your search results will open.
Want to bookmark it in your chosr file? Copy the url, paste into the first box, after hitting the period, tab to the second box and type bookmark and you will be ready to go. Then you can bookmark all your daily sites, tab through them and basically eliminate your mouse for some things.
I have not used Quicksilver before so it seemed very awkward to me. For example at one point I got to a list where one of the options was to change the background. I was happy about that since the normal background is rather ugly. I couldn't get the right combination in the right boxes to actually make it work though, which was frustrating.
If you're a regular user of Quicksilver and you enjoy it, you should definitely check out chosr. If you're looking to use your keyboard more and have a few minutes to play with it, then check it out. And if you can change the background, let me know how!
If you, like us, capture and edit a lot of screenshots, the new version of SnagIt might interest you. We have covered past versions so let's focus on what's new with 9.0.
Version 9 adds a sequential capture feature, automatic or custom tagging, visual bookmarking, ribbon-based menus, multi-image capabilities, a quick access toolbar and other features. The TechSmith web page lists better work flow as one of the main new features. You can decide if you want to capture everyhing and edit later or capture one image, edit, capture another, edit, etc.
The version is free to try and $49.95 to purchase.
In our last installment the XForce was busy keeping you safe on the Internet. In this episode it's XForce versus the evil spam.
Spam, as we all know, is a pain in the rear. The XForce report covers a lot of ground on spam and phishing.
Some of the things the report covers (that I won't):
What happened to image-based spam?
How much spam is phishing?
How much spam is PDF spam?
Where are the web pages contained in spam messages hosted?
So, here are the interesting spam nuggets from the report. The XForce reports that Russia sends 11% of spam, Turkey sends 8% and the US sends 7% of worldwide spam. Can you believe that Turkey is beating us in spam?
The XForce report also lists the most common subject lines for spam and surprisingly, there is not a mention of Viagra in any of them. The most popular spam subject line, at .67% of the world's spam is - Replica Watches. I know, boring, isn't it? The second and third most popular subject lines are about more risque topics.
If all this talk of spam has that lovely Monty Python song stuck in your head, go try the spam-a-lot game. But if you're at work you might want to turn your speakers down (or off)!
The XForce won't save you from a burning building but, they just might make your surfing safer. The XForce is IBM's team of Internet Security Systems researchers and they've just released the midyear report for 2008, listing all kinds of facts and figures on internet security. If you're really into data, go read the report for yourself. It might also be good for insomnia. I'll give you the quick highlights here.
The first part of the report is about computer threats and vulnerabilities. Top five companies with vulnerability disclosures (when they publish information about a security problem) in 2008 so far?
Apple
Joomla!
Microsoft
IBM
Sun
And a surprise at the bottom of the list, Wordpress, which is new on the list this year.
The most exploited vendors so far in 2008? Apple, HP and Microsoft. Not surprising targets since that's what most of us use in our daily life.
More worrisome is the increase in web application vulnerabilities. There has been a 51% increase since 2006. That means we, the people who are online all day, are being targeted more often. Some of these threats come from malicious websites which most of us have learned to stay away from. But some also come from web facing applications, like WordPress
The XForce won't save you from a burning building but, they just might make your surfing safer. The XForce is IBM's team of Internet Security Systems researchers and they've just released the 
