(* Source: Sean P Aune *) 

Sean says... 

With airfare on the rise, planning a trip can be expensive and complicated.

We’ve lined up over 30 tools that let you do everything from finding more affordable tickets to predicting the best time to buy them, and even using a 3d map of your plane to select your seat.

Domestic

CheapAir.com - Searches for all regular and sale fares at the same time and allows you to filter the results on the fly via Ajax so there are no reloading delays.

Momondo.com - Offers search for nearly 500 airlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline in nine languages.

Vayama.com - Uses an interactive map to help you choose your airports http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport . Also generates 3D seat maps for your plane to help you choose your seat.

CheapFlights.com - Also operates CheapFlights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheapflights .co.uk. In the US they assist you with finding cheap tickets via JetBlue Airline-Mergers , American Airlnes, Orbitz and Priceline amongst others.

CheapTickets.com - Offers up flights, car rentals, cruises and even train tickets.

Expedia.com - Besides being able to search all the major airlines, you can also book hotels, cruises and more.

Hotwire.com - Sells unsold inventory from major companies and offers them at a large discount by not showing you the name until after you book.

LessNo.com - Specializes in flights in the USA, the UK and Indochina.

Orbedia.com - A metasearch that allows you to check Orbits, Expedia, Travelocity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelocity , Hotwire, CheapTickets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CheapTickets and more in one shot.

Orbitz.com - Books all forms of travel from airline flights to trains & cruises.

Priceline.com - Name your own price for airfare, hotels and car rentals, and then see what they return to you to meet your bid.

Trabber.com - Searches 30 websites for the cheapest tickets for users in the USA, Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the UK.

Travelocity.com - Probably as famous for their spokes-Gnome as their booking, they do go the extra mile giving you phone numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number to speak to an actual human if you need to.

Wego.com - Focuses heavily on international flights by searching numerous foreign carriers as well as domestics.

Yahoo Travel - Search all the major airlines with only low booking fees.

Non-USA

Airline-Network.co.uk - A UK-based search that focuses on long haul flights to overseas destinations.

Cleartrip.com - Flight and hotel booking inside of India.

DoHop.com - Part-owned by CheapFlights.co.uk, gives you the ability to search over 660 airlines worldwide.

FlightChecker from MoneySavingExpert.com - Focuses on budget airlines, offers charts to show you which part of the month is the cheapest time to fly.

Ixigo.com - Cheap airline search limited to flights inside of India.

Jetcost.co.uk - Jetcost searches multiple ticket sites such as Expedia, British Airways and more to help you find the cheapest prices.

Kayak.co.uk - Searches over 140 airlines and travel agencies and gives you the tools to book directly through them.

Liligo.com - Offers localized search of hundreds of airlines for Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary and the UK.

Skyscanner.net - Leans towards broader searches for those with flexible travel dates. Also offers suggestions for those who just want to go somewhere, but can’t think of anyplace themselves.

Miscellaneous

AirlineQuality.com - A site for rating airlines, their seats, airports and their premium lounges. Also offers chat rooms for people to discuss everything related to the airlines.

Farecast.Live.com - Microsoft powered service to search multiple sellers and predict for you if you should buy your ticket now or hold off for a possible price drop.

FlightArrivals.com - Check on flight arrivals, departures and reschedulings in the USA and Canada.

FlightAware.com - Track all of the flights in the United States in real-time. You can also narrow it down by carrier and see exactly where a flight is at any time.

FlightStats.com - Check the status of airports in regions all over the world, flights, rate the airports and discuss on the forums.

FlightView.com - Get real time updates on flights and the status of airports.

FlyMyCase.com - A shipping company specializing in picking up and delivering your luggage to and from just about anywhere in the world.

SeatGuru.com - Detailed plans for different models of planes that gives you ideas of what each seat is like in advance so you can choose the best one for you.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 (* Source: Kevin Purdy *)

Writing your blog should be a fun way to stretch your mind and stay connected to trends, friends, and the greater world, not another computer task that takes far too long to get done. But that's exactly what it can feel like if it takes you more time to find your post ideas, tweak your markup, and make everything look right than to actually get your thoughts down. Being somewhat experienced at this blogging thing, your Lifehacker editors have pinpointed a few tools and tricks that make our posts go faster and smoother. After the jump, we round up 10 of them.

10. Skip the copy/paste with AutoCopy

Many bloggers quote passages from other web pages, and referencing those snippets of language usually requires a Control/Command+C, then Control/Command+V once you're at the exact right place in your markup. Not so with AutoCopy, a free Firefox extension that automatically adds whatever text you've highlighted in your browser to the clipboard, then pastes it when you middle-click anywhere in Firefox. If you're not using a quick-blog tool like Tumblr, it might be the closest equivalent to the kind of speed-of-thought blogging that keeps writing from turning into a chore. (Original post)

9. Copy links and their titles with CoLT

When it comes time to post a relevant link at the end of most Lifehacker posts, the uninitiated (read: me, a few months ago) have to first copy the URL of the link, paste it in the right spot, then head back, copy the title of the linked page (being careful not to click!), then paste it inside the link tags. Those who have discovered the magic of the Copy Link Text Firefox extension, on the other hand, have magic right-click options that make grabbing the URL, the text, or both parts of a link dead simple. Give your right-click a rest and get back to adding context. (Original post)

8. Make reusable templates for posts and images

A lot of posts are, at least structurally, very similar, with a certain-size picture up top, a certain formatting for IM pastes or photo dumps, or similar repetitions. To save your time for real editing, try using Wired's guide to automating Photoshop actions. For hand-coding HTML, it pays to create templates out of your common formats (tables, unordered lists, picture posts) and plug them into a text-substitution app (see below for links and ideas). If you're tinkering with your site's design or layout, why re-invent the wheel? Grab a free template for Blogger, WordPress, or one of 40 general CSS templates for use on any site,. Need more? Check out Gina's roundup of seven different free HTML templates.

7. Live-blog from your phone with Jott

Free voicemail-to-text service Jott can help you nail down post material while you're on the go with a phone call, but you can also use the service directly with a number of blogging platforms, including Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, Tumblr, and WordPress. If you're hosting your own blog, you can still use Jott's voice-to-email service in conjunction with your platform's email-to-post function to indirectly get your thoughts up online, even while you're miles from your keyboard.

6. Automate repetitive code with text replacement

If you've ever manually embedded a Flickr photo, created a custom headline or signature template, or searched out previously-used code to copy and paste for your posts, you need to add a text replacement app to your stable. Any of them—Texter for Windows, TextExpander for Mac OS X, or Snippits for Linux—can quickly paste, while also preventing common typos and misspellings. If you just want to speed up your HTML coding, try Adam's Markdown automation script, a stand-alone, blog-focused precursor to Texter.

5. Get topic-based post ideas sent to your inbox every day with Google Alerts

Whether you write about a team, a certain topic, or a broad trend, Google Alerts brings your post material to you. Use the same kind of advanced search operators you use on Google's main search site to laser-focus on a particular kind of web site, blog post, news story, or group post you're looking for. Decide if it gets sent as fast as Google's servers find it, or in a daily or weekly email digest. Using Alerts exposes you to a wider array of information than you'd get from a defined list of RSS feeds, and it's an easy way to keep your eyes on the web without really being at the search box all day.

4. Spend less time resizing images

Few blogs can get by with just words alone, but finding the perfect image to illustrate a post—and then making it fit right—can take more time than the post itself. If you're not committed to Photoshop or its open-source alternative, GIMP, free online image editing site Picnik is a good bet, both for its right-click Firefox extension and its integration with Flickr. If you've got a whole set of pictures to post up, you can try the Windows-only ImageResizer, or for an elegant solution, use the export-and-resize functionality of Picasa. (For more on finding reusable images, see our six ways to find reusable media.

3. Keep post ideas synchronized with Foxmarks

Great posting fodder can be found at all hours of the day, but you're not always ready to post it at that exact moment. Use the Foxmarks bookmark synchronizer, and your bookmarks toolbar becomes a universal idea space you can drag-and-drop your links onto. Anyone who likes more control over their backed-up bookmarks can synchronize with their own server, and it can be rolled into a portable Firefox to help you get blogging done with just a thumb drive and some spare time. (Original post)

2. Quick post media (minimum writing required) with Tumblr

A tumblelog—that is, a quick-post blog powered by the Tumblr webapp—makes posting your thoughts, IM chats, videos, photos, and other favorite media tidbits a lot less intimidating than the wide-open HTML spaces of Wordpress, Movable Type, and other platforms (which are still great for longer, text-and-links posts). The real time-saver is Tumblr's bookmarklet, which makes capturing and preparing a new post a one-click affair. Here's more on keeping up an instant, no-overhead blog with Tumblr.

1. Bookmark and track email and posts with Gmail

Adam showed us back in the day how you could set up Gmail as a bookmarking service (using the Gmail this bookmarklet), but with Gmail's 2.0 version, it's even easier to throw the emails that inspire you to get blogging with your other links, as they have short, human-readable permalinks that you can easily drag into a bookmark folder. And, assuming your blog inspires some kind of feedback, you can keep it separated and organized from your day-to-day mail using filters and persistent searches.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Compete *)

The song remains the same at the top of the Video rankings in March: YouTube continues to outpace the market, growing 7.8% while the video viewing sessions across the web grew only 2.3%.

Meanwhile Veoh narrowly maintained its spot in the Top 10, with phenomenal 23.8% monthly growth, edging out CBS Interactive by a very thin margin. The CBS Interactive division includes Sportsline.com, which scored a 154% gain as the prime spot for watching live streaming March Madness games.

Meanwhile Joost, which is backed by CBS, presented the games as a live streaming “experiment.” While Joost works via client, the March Madness offering did not bring much in the way of new visitors to the site to download the player.

Advertisers placed $545 million on TV for the 2008 NCAA Tournament, according to TNS, but just a tiny fraction of that followed online. With 8.5 million consumers watching next-day tournament highlights and interacting with NCAA Basketball content on the web, there was a huge opportunity to reach March Madness fans and perhaps to do it with more efficient media buys.

We used Compete’s BehaviorMatch, which can be customized for any demographic or behavioral segment, to call out the top video sites for March Madness fans.

While Sportsline came out on top in terms of Composition, predictably, some unexpected sports video sites like Runners World and The Golf Channel also scored high. Meanwhile, the largest sites like YouTube and MySpace aggregated the most eyeballs but had the worst Composition scores.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *) 

| View | Upload your own

Morgan Stanley’s Internet Trends report from last month takes a big turn from previous reports - the focus is nearly 100% on social applications and how they are taking over the Internet (Yahoo apparently read it). Key takeaways:

• YouTube + Facebook page views > Google or Yahoo page views (and may be bigger than both combined)
• 6/10 top internet sites are social (youtube, live.com, facebook, hi5, wikipedia, orkut); none were on the list in 2005
• YouTube has 258 million users, 50% visit weekly or more
• >50% of Facebook users log in daily, 95% of Facebook users have used at least one third party application
• Skype revenue is $1.67/user/year, up 9% Y/Y
• 14 million photos uploaded daily on Facebook
• Google + Yahoo = 61% of U.S. Online Ad Revenue
• Google: $4.4b ad revenue in Q4, paid out $1.4 billion to partners
• Yahoo: $1.6 billion in ad revenue in Q4, paid out $429 million to partners

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Henry Wok *) 

Henry says... 

We’ve been analyzing historical TechMeme data to dig a little deeper than the leaderboard information on the site that shows top blogs over the trailing 30 days. Mark McGranaghan and I are slicing the data in a number of ways and will publish it shortly on CrunchBase.

For now we thought we’d show a teaser - below are the top 100 tech bloggers/authors, based on the total number of headlines they have had on TechMeme from January 1, 2008 until today. The data isn’t 100% perfect as we’ve been grabbing it only once per hour, so a headline that was up for less than one hour may not be counted. But in terms of tracking the most popular bloggers, the data is meaningful. Since a lot of the top leaderboard blogs are multi-author, this helps to shake out who’s actually writing the popular stories.

Full list is below:

Posted by brian tiong at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *)

An excellent overview on the web today.

Erik says...

Today more than ever, the Web is a global game. Below are charts from a new State of the Internet report from comScore that paints a picture of global competition on the Web.

In 1996, two thirds of all people online (66 percent) lived in the U.S. By last October, that had completely flipped, with 77 percent of the online population living in the rest of the world and only 23 percent in the U.S. The U.S. still has the largest total number of Web surfers (162 million a month), but China is catching up fast (with 96 million):

In China, homegrown sites such as TenCent, Baidu and Sina all reach more native Web surfers than Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo:

In fact, the leading Websites in many big markets such as Russia, Japan, and South Korea tend to be homegrown as well:

Social networks are the fastest-growing category of sites (nearly 60 percent annually), but they still lag in terms of penetration (less than 40 percent) behind photo sites, entertainment sites, search, and portals:

The fastest growing of all social networks, of course, has been Facebook, which jumped from the second pack to where it is now running neck-and-neck with MySpace:

Drilling down into search, Google still dominates with 62 percent share worldwide:

And it dominates search even more in other countries than it does in the U.S., where it only commands a 53 percent market share (compared to above 90 percent in parts of Europe and Latin America):

Looking at the efficiency of its search ads, Google puts up an ad against only about half of its searches, whereas Yahoo puts up an ad 75 percent of the time. Yet for those searches where an ad is shown, Google gets 0.24 paid click per search compared to 0.18 for Yahoo and 0.14 for Microsoft. (Search advertising on AOL and Ask are also powered by Google and they show the same or better clickthrough rates).

For display ads, Yahoo and MySpace control the most market share, with 19 and 15 percent each, respectively. (Microsoft comes in a distant third with 6.6 percent):

The report also gives an estimate of the unduplicated reach of Microsoft and Yahoo. A combined Microsoft-Yahoo would have 173 million unique visitors a month across the globe, a 10 percent share of all page views, 32 percent share of search, and 24 percent share of display ads:

Both Microsoft and Yahoo each have about 260 million Webmail users (with duplication), with Google’s Gmail bringing up third place with 87 million (no wonder Google execs keep bringing up market concentration concerns in relation to mail and instant messaging):

Posted by brian tiong at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Henry Blogget *)

Henry says...
 

For the past few quarters, we've analyzed the amazing rate at which advertising spending is moving online. Now we're able to look at full-year 2007.

Specifically, we analyzed the change in US advertising revenue at 17 major media companies from 2006 and 2007. The companies included Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Time Warner (TWX), Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIAB), CBS (CBS), and Clear Channel (CCO). The companies span all the major advertising sectors: Online, TV, Print, Radio, and Outdoor.

Highlights:

• Total US ad revenue across all 17 companies grew 9% from 2006 to 2007, from $53 billion to $58 billion

• Online ad revenue grew 28%, from $14 billion to $18 billion.

• Offline grew only 3%, from $39.5 billion to 40.6 billion. This was helped significantly by the inclusion of affiliate fees and (and global revenue) at CBS, Viacom, and News Corp.

• Online ad revenue grew by $4 billion.

• Offline ad revenue--in all other media--grew by $1 billion.

So advertising revenue is flowing online at a frantic rate. That's the whole story? No. Let's look at how that online revenue breaks down.

• Online ad revenue grew 28%, or $4 billion.

• Online ad revenue at Google grew 44%, or $2.7 billion.

• Online ad revenue at Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL grew only 15%, or $1.3 billion.

• Google captured 2X as much revenue as its closest three competitors combined.

It is true that perhaps a third of Google's growth came from AdSense revenue, which is placed on third-party sites--so other companies are benefiting from this growth. But the growth on Google's properties alone still vastly exceeded the growth on AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

Another fun stat:

• The year-over-year growth of revenue on Google.com (US)--approximately $2 billion--was more than twice as much the growth of ad revenue in all of the offline media companies in this sample combined. This is such an amazing fact that it bears repeating: A single media property, Google.com (US), grew by $2 billion. All the offline media properties owned by the 13 offline media companies above, meanwhile--all of them--grew by about $1 billion.

For supporting details, please see our SAI Advertising Share Shift spreadsheet.  TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld runs some cool graphics on the numbers.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Dan Taylor *) 

Dan says...

Below are five apps which have particularly tickled my fancy in recent months.

Moody
http://www.crayonroom.com/moody.php



Moody is a small but perfectly formed desktop app (Mac or PC, although the Mac version is more fully-featured) which enables you to tag tracks in your iTunes library according to mood. The interface is a 4 x 4 multi-coloured grid with the horizontal axis representing a spectrum from Sad to Happy and the vertical axis ranging from Calm to Intense. So a track like Homesick by Kings of Convenience would most likley be tagged purple (bottom left - v. sad and v. calm), whereas Tubthumping by Chumbawamba would be tagged yellow (top right - relentlessly happy and intense). Arguably one for the Nick Hornbys amongst us as you need to put in a bit of tagging legwork to get maximum value out of it (it is possible to download other people's tags, although there's no saying their tagging criteria will match yours).

FIQL
http://www.fiql.com



What marks FIQL out from other playlist sharing communities is the recent addition of video, pulling in (mostly YouTube) videos to match the tracks in the playlist. Whilst its only ever as good as the tagging on YouTube, the random nature of the videos is strangely compelling - you never know if you're going to get an artist's official video or a bedroom cover version. Below is an embed of some of my favourite music videos of all time (see earlier post on Top 20 best music videos ever).



MeeMix
http://www.meemix.com



MeeMix bills itself as "Internet radio that gets you" and the homepage invites users to "start playing the soundtrack of your life, here and now". Soundbites aside, MeeMix is a decent personalised jukebox in the Pandora mold with a slick, if slightly cutesy, interface. You can create new stations by entering the name of an artist or track and then rate tracks using a Hot or Not slider. There's also a Mood Control panel with Pulse and Surprise Me sliders, enabling you to adjust the tempo and serendipity of the suggestions.

Mixaloo
http://mixaloo.com



Mixaloo is an online playlist creator, positioning itself as the digital successor to the analogue mix-tape. Users are invited to select between 10 and 15 songs (from a library of over 3 million) and then share/promote their mix (via a selection of embeddable widgets - see below) with the added incentive of a revenue share on any resulting purchases. Whilst 3 million tracks sounds like a lot, in reality the library feels frustratingly limited - mix-tapes by their nature tend to include more obscure tracks and Mixaloo's catalogue is decidedly mainstream. Still, it's nice to have an alternative to Apple's iMixes, with the added bonus that some tracks are available to listen to in their entirety (rather than just a 30-second preview).



Songkick
http://www.songkick.com



You wouldn't guess it from the name but Songkick is all about tracking tour dates for your favourite artists, which you can either enter manually via the site's 'Band Manager' or get automatically scraped from your music library by the downloadable Songkicker plug-in. Whilst it's potentially a bit of a one-trick pony, the site does offer an appealing alternative to sifting through multiple email updates from assorted ticketing companies (NB. Currently only covers the US and the UK).

Posted by brian tiong at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: The Guardian *)

The power of bloggers are increasing as the Internet grows.  The guardian has kindly put together a list of what they think are the 50 most powerful blogs today. 

Here is what they say:-

 

"From Prince Harry in Afghanistan to Tom Cruise ranting about Scientology and footage from the Burmese uprising, blogging has never been bigger. It can help elect presidents and take down attorney generals while simultaneously celebrating the minutiae of our everyday obsessions. Here are the 50 best reasons to log on"

 

Here is the list.  See if you are current with your blog reading...

Posted by brian tiong at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Shankar Ganesh *) 

Ok, you’ve got loads of music on your computer - but is that all cluttered, unorganized, unmanaged and simply not easy to access? May be you need to do something. Literally hundreds of free software let you play, organize, burn and do lots more with your digital MP3 music collection. Have a well tagged, sortable music collection that you can be proud of!

Here comes a carefully chosen list of free programs that might help you squeeze the best out of your MP3 collection.

Part I - Audio Players

The default audio player software on your Windows is probably not enough, when it comes to extensive features and customizability. Here’s a pick of the best media players that can let you sort through and efficiently play most audio formats on your Windows computer:

VLC Player - It’s more light on resources that you would imagine. VLC is a very versatile player - throw any odd format, and it plays them for you instantly (FLV included).

Winamp - Winamp has its own fans, it’s customizable to a large extent and can come as a great saver. If you listen to music every other day, you need to have Winamp installed. A similar player is Jet Audio.

Songbird - A feature rich application that has great looks, go for it if your Windows computer has got some memory to spare, it’s reviewed here. You can customize it by adding extensions (similar to Firefox).

Part II - Organizers/Taggers/Jukeboxes

Jukeboxes are music software that come with amazing capabilities. Go for them if you have huge music collections scattered all around - not just in your computer, but also in audio CDs.

Media Monkey - The best piece of software out there that you’ll love using. Tag editor, format converter, CD recording, iPod support, you name it - it’s got all the tools that squeeze the best from your tracks.

J River Media Jukebox - Very pretty, has good features. And might serve as a good jukebox.

>> I missed out Foobar, thanks for the heads up Ashwin!

MP3 Tagger - The best ID3 tagger out there in the market, that’s free as well.

Magic MP3 Tagger - Update: Oops, sorry guys this is not freeware.

Part III- Rippers, Converters

Audio Grabber - Fantastic audio ripping software, with FreeDB tagging support included. Another similar ripper is FreeRip. Another one a few commenters have mentioned is Exact Audio Copy

Part IV - Audio Editors

Trust me, as far as I know, there’s no free editor as much capable as the professional ones out there. But still if you’d like to do some basic recording and effects, you could try these:

Audacity - Open Source, and is very light weight.

Wavosaur - Comes with no installer, and is a single exe file that does the job. Supports WAV format

Part V - Other

Last.fm - A social networking site for audiophiles out there. Listen, get interesting tracks based on what you’ve played, and add friends! More such music sites here.

Tunatic - A song is playing on your head, but you just can’t get it’s title right? Then download this, install, hum the song through your mic and let Tunatic locate info on the song for you! Quite cool for show off as well

Audio Files GDS Indexer - Google Desktop Plugin - Install this one if you have got Google Desktop installed. Adds a bunch of functionality to the Desktop Spider to make it more friendlier towards Audio files.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Sean P Aune *) 

The Nintendo DS is the latest and possibly most popular handheld game system from Nintendo. As has become tradition with just about every game system, there is a large and active homebrew community making all sorts of tools and toys for it. We’ve gathered 20+ examples of some of the things your favorite game system for those on the move can do that you may never have known about.

Make sure to read the instructions for each as some require different homebrew installs than others. The DSWiki has detailed directions on how you can get in to the homebrew world.

Art

Animanatee - An animation program that allows up to 10,000 frames of animation, or until the memory runs out.

Colors! - A pressure sensitive art program that you can save your artwork via memory card or email it over Wi-Fi.

FlickBook - A simple animation program for making small animations.

Phidias - An art program that lets you create detailed images saved to the BMP format.

Communication

DS-AIM - A version of AIM for your DS.

IRCDS - Internet Relay Chat comes to your handhel.

SvSIP - A VoIP tool based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Still in development and only handles basic phone functions at thi time.

Emulators & OS

DSLinux.org - If it’s electronic, somebody stuffs Linux in it, and the DS is no different.

DSMouse - Turn your DS into a wireless mouse for your computer.
Emulator-Zone.com - A repository of several emulators for the DS.

Goomba - An emulator to run original Gameboy games on the DS.

SnezziDS - Away to run Super NES games on the latest iteration of the Nintendo handhelds.

Utilities

DSFTP - Allows you to set up an FTP server on your DS, also includes instructions to incorporate it it into other homebrew programs.

DSLiveWeather - A client to access Weather.com’s weather information.

DSOrganize - A lightweight organizer for your DS that also includes a RSS reader, file browser, web browser, IRC client, text editor, calculator.

DSReader - Another popular ebook reader that also allows you to turn the DS sideways to read it in more in the orientation of a traditional book.

DSVNC - A VNC tool to allow you to control a computer over a private network from your DS.

Image Viewer - From the same homebrew group behind Moonshell, uses an app on the computer end to convert photos for better viewing on the DS and then gives you a viewer inside the DS.

Moonshell - A popular media player that can use MP3, OGG, MIDI, AAC and other audio file formats. Can also show JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TXT files and some videos.

TextViewer - Can read several file formats and allows for text bookmarking so you don’t lose your place.

Treasures of Gaia - A Google Maps application that works both in French and English.

TxtWriter - This allows you to create simple txt files using a modified on-screen keyboard. Can be saved to a memory card for transfer.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Duncan Riley *)

Here is a round up of the winners of the Techcrunch 'Crunchies 2007'.  Happy surfing!

Duncan reports...

Best Overall: Facebook

Facebook revolutionized the idea of what social networking could be.

Best technology innovation / achievement: Earthmine

Earthmine picks up where Google Earth leaves off, bringing deep semantic data to 3D panoramas of the real world. Earthmine’s system can keep track of the objects found in the real world and attribute information to each of them, such as latitude, longitude, elevation, and other attributes.

Best Clean Tech Startup: Tesla Motors

Tesla’s green sports car has captured the imagination of a public who had come to expect electric cars to be dull are boring. Due to be released this year, the company has pre-orders from some of the biggest names in Entertainment and Technology.

Best video startup: Hulu

Hulu put television online. Their broadcasting system was modeled on the success of social video sites and drawn the praise of its previous critics.

Best user-generated content site: Digg

Digg’s simple voting system defined the emerging social media revolution. Getting “dugg” quickly became a badge of honor and established a coveted place in the geek lexicon.

Best mobile start-up: Twitter

Twitter, the new addictive microblogging platform. It wasn’t until after the South by Southwest conference that people realized the value of the incredibly simple microblogging platform.

Best International startup: Netvibes
Based in London, Tariq Karim and Freddy Mini’s Netvibes has made waves in the U.S. as a top personalized web portal.

Best consumer startup: Meebo
Meebo made instant messaging ubiquitous by bringing it online. They then developed it into a platform where anyone could add chat to their applications.

Best enterprise startup: Zoho

Zoho’s comprehensive online suite of 14 business applications ranging from document editing to CRM continues to lead the way in the move away from desktop computing to working in the cloud.

Best design: SmugMug

SmugMug is professional photo site. SmugMug’s attention to detail and design can command as much as $150 per year from their users.

Best new gadget/ device: Apple iPhone. See the Apple acceptance speech here.

Best business model: Zazzle

Looking for a Star Wars hat or memorable mug? Zazzle is an on-demand factory of consumer goods for top brands. It also lets consumers become producers by uploading their own images onto that T-shirt, mug, or mousepad. . Consumers can also receive a commission on products that they sell and design themselves

Best bootstrapped startup: Techmeme.
Founded and developed solely by Gabe Rivera, Techmeme serves as the front page of the tech blogosphere. The site’s advanced algorithms identify the day’s top stories by making sense of conversations across the web’s best blogs.

Best Startup Founder: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

Does this really need any explanation? At 23 Mark has built one of the world’s leading online destinations that has recently been valued at $15 billion. A remarkable achievement for anyone, let alone someone at the still relatively young 23. A well deserved award.

Best Startup CEO: Toni Schneider (Automattic)

Schnieder has lead the company from its roots as a open source alternative to Movable Type into a multi-million dollar enterprise that saves the world from blog spam and offers a free hosted blogging solution that competes with Google’s Blogger.

Best new startup: iMedix

iMedix combines search and social networking to change the way people find health information online. Users are encouraged to help each other by sharing health experiences and links from around the web.

Most likely to succeed: Automattic (WordPress)

The open source blogging platform that powers the long tale and turned into a multi-million dollar spam fighting and hosted blogging service.

Best use of viral marketing: StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon’s service lets users bookmark and discover new sites they love. With only a $1.5 million investment in 2005, StumbleUpon gew to over 4 million Stumblers and was bought by eBay in 2007 for $75 million

Best time sink site: Kongregate

CEO Jim Greer describes Kongregate as XBox live for casual games. This site hosts some of the webs most addictive casual games. Remember Desktop Tower Defense? Moreover, the games are not only played by users, but also created by them in exchange for a share of advertising revenue and other rewards.

Most likely to make the world a better place: DonorsChose

DonorsChoose.org is dedicated to connecting classrooms in need with individuals who want to help.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by brian tiong at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source : Mashable *)

Sean P. Aune says : 

Think the music industry is dying, and that it’s time to go independent? Or have you always favored smaller, independent record companies over huge bureaucratic institutions? Don’t worry, even if you don’t have dozens of spin doctors working for you, you can still promote your indie band online. We’ve got 25+ tools to help you do just that.

AmieStreet.com - A social network and music marketplace for indie artists. They give the artists 70% of the sale.

AnyGig.com - A place for musicians to get listed for small gigs, or find venues to play at.

Artistopia.com - An online venue for performers to give themselves an online presence with a profile and display their work.

BandBuzz.com - A social network where artists can set up a profile, upload their music and get reviewed and recommended by users.

BandChemistry.com - A site for musicians to find new members for their group or form a whole new band.

Bandwagon.co.uk - A social network for lovers of indie music where the bands can sell mobile content such as ringtones and wallpapers.

ChampionSound.com - Free mailing list manager for artists, promoters, and venues.

Elisteningpost.com - A way for musicians to upload their music and sell it just about anywhere they want such as MySpace and Facebook.

FireGigs.com - A site with the aim of promoting unsigned bands by arranging to get their music to be played in the background at cafes, coffee shops and more. Also promote you through a Facebook app and MySpace widget.

Fuzz.com - Lets performers upload their music sell it, as well as manage mailing lists and more.

HumbleVoice.com - A place for all types of independent artists, including musicians, to upload their work and promote it.

iJamr.com - Indie musicians upload their music and bloggers can display your songs on their sites for free, and if a sale is made, they blogger gets a cut.

Indistr.com - A company letting independent artists sell their music directly to the public and the musicians receive 75% of the sale.

mTraks.com - An online marketplace and network for indie artists to promote and sell their music.

Mubito.com - Allows you to set up a band website easily and sell MP3s. Two levels of stores with one of them being free.

Musicane.com - Promote and sell your music and ringtones.

MusicNation.com - A community of musician profile pages that engage regularly in competition for various prizes.

Panjea.com - Bring all yourclips from the web together and put them in to one player so they take up less space on your page, so you can promote all your music easily.

PocketFuzz.com - A place for musicians to sell ringtones of their works and notify their fans of news via mobiles.

Popfolio.net - A music widget provider for blogs that lets independent musicians upload their songs for inclusion, and possible sales.

PumpAudio.com - A service for indie artists to get their music licensed for television and film.

Ripple9.com - A site to help bands promote th