Filed under: Internet, Mozilla, Mobile Minute

Want to know what the upcoming Firefox Mobile web browser will look like? So do we. And the video above may or may not give us an idea. Aza Raskin, the head of user experience for Mozilla describes the concept interface shown in the video as a "conceptual mockup" of an "experimental UI." In other words, there's no gaurantee that the final version of Firefox Mobile will bear any resemblance to the concept. But then again, it might look exactly like this.

In a nutshell, the concept UI shares some features with Firefox 3, including tabbed browsing and the "awesome bar," which shows you results from your browsing history when you enter a URL. But there are a few aspects that have been designed with mobile devices in mind:

• You can navigate a page by clicking and dragging it. There are no scrollbars, which means more screen real estate.
• There are also no back, forward, refresh, or other buttons on the main screen. The web page takes up the whole screen.
• You can find navigation buttons by dragging the screen to the right, which brings up a series of buttons on the left side of the screen, including back, forward, bookmark, and page info.
  
• You minimize a window by dragging it to the left or right and clicking the zoom button. You can then navigate between open tabs or open a new one.
• When you reach the bottom of a web page, there will be buttons for performing specific functions like submitting a page to Digg or del.icio.us or mapping an address found on a web page

Want to try the user interface yourself? There's a web-based demo available. And the code is open source if you want to check it out or contribute to the project.
[via Mozilla Labs]

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Filed under: Internet, E-mail

Online document sharing service Docstoc has launched a new product that lets you email files that exceed your email service provider's file size limits. Docstoc OneClick is a desktop application that lets you upload files up to 50MB to Docstoc with a little right-click magic.

Just select the file you want to email and Docstoc OneClick will upload it in the background and open up an email window complete with a link to the file. The recipient of the email will be able to either view your file online using the Docstoc viewer or download the file. You can make any file public or private.

Right now Docstoc OneClick is Windows only, but a Mac version is coming soon. There doesn't seem to be a way to configure OneClick to work with a web-based email service like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail. So when it launches an email Windows, it will load up whatever Windows thinks is your default email application, which might be Outlook, Outlook Express, or Thunderbird.

Docstoc OneClick doesn't work with all file types, just documents like Word, Excel, or PDF files. You cannot upload media files. File transfer service YouSendIt offers a similar application, but without the limitations on file types, and with a higher file size limit. But the advantage to using Docstoc is that users can view documents without downloading them.

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Filed under: Web services, Social Software

When Twitter users recently stumbled onto Plurk, it gained a big chunk of new users who like the interface, but want to remain active on Twitter as well. Now there's a solution, and it's called Feedtweeter. Right now, all it does is push your Plurks to Twitter, taking out any fancy formatting that wouldn't come across in a tweet. However, support is planned for feeding other services into Twitter, including Flickr, del.icio.us, and YouTube. Feedtweeter is currently in closed beta.

Plurking to Twitter is attractive because they're both the same type of service: microblogging. But even though something you write on Plurk might be perfect for Twitter, pushing every link you post on del.icio.us into a Twitter account might be, well, spam. We've seen this before with other services that post to Twitter via RSS feeds, and we don't really need another one of those. What's useful here is realizing that Plurks might have formatting issues that make them hard to feed into Twitter, and offering a solution to the issue.

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Filed under: Internet, News, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mozilla

Anticipation is high for the upcoming launch of Firefox 3, with the recent Release Candidate 2 scoring good reviews from the likes of Walt Mossberg. We at Download Squad are constantly receiving tips that the finished product is coming soon. Well, here's the scoop: according to Firefox's development team, RC2 for Windows and Linux was good enough that it's getting copied straight over into RC3. For Mac, things are a little bit different. The OS X version is getting a few fixes and going through more testing, to work out some problems introduced by the 10.5.3 update.

If you've been watching the nightly builds like a hawk and sending in tips, your wait is nearly over. The Firefox Group says there are only 17 more issues on the list, and they should be dealt with by the end of the week. We don't have a hard and fast date for the release yet, but we believe the folks at Mozilla when they say it's coming soon.

[via ZDNet]

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Filed under: Fun, Internet, Productivity, Web services, web 2.0

Bringing together a group of people can be a pain. Facebook events and groups, eVites, emails, text messages, smoke signals.

Mobaganda aims to make the gathering process that much easier.

Simplicity seems to be the new h0t on the web, and we like it.

As soon as you visit Mobaganda, you'll notice that you don't have to sign up for anything. Say what? Useless you say! I HAVE to put in my username/pass somewhere!!!! Nope.

All you have to do is name the event and set the date and you're off!

As soon as you create the event, a unique page is created like this one. After 60 days, the pages go away, so no worries about URL's being gone forever.

People can RSVP on the page, and an RSS feed is immediately available to track which cool kids are coming.

Simple, easy, that's it.

Manage the mob with Mobaganda and spend your time on more important things, like grabbing the keg.

[via epicfu]

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Filed under: Fun, Internet, Productivity, Web services, web 2.0

Bringing together a group of people can be a pain. Facebook events and groups, eVites, emails, text messages, smoke signals.

Mobaganda aims to make the gathering process that much easier.

Simplicity seems to be the new h0t on the web, and we like it.

As soon as you visit Mobaganda, you'll notice that you don't have to sign up for anything. Say what? Useless you say! I HAVE to put in my username/pass somewhere!!!! Nope.

All you have to do is name the event and set the date and you're off!

As soon as you create the event, a unique page is created like this one. After 60 days, the pages go away, so no worries about URL's being gone forever.

People can RSVP on the page, and an RSS feed is immediately available to track which cool kids are coming.

Simple, easy, that's it.

Manage the mob with Mobaganda and spend your time on more important things, like grabbing the keg.

[via epicfu]

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Filed under: Fun, Internet, Productivity, Web services, web 2.0

Bringing together a group of people can be a pain. Facebook events and groups, eVites, emails, text messages, smoke signals.

Mobaganda aims to make the gathering process that much easier.

Simplicity seems to be the new h0t on the web, and we like it.

As soon as you visit Mobaganda, you'll notice that you don't have to sign up for anything. Say what? Useless you say! I HAVE to put in my username/pass somewhere!!!! Nope.

All you have to do is name the event and set the date and you're off!

As soon as you create the event, a unique page is created like this one. After 60 days, the pages go away, so no worries about URL's being gone forever.

People can RSVP on the page, and an RSS feed is immediately available to track which cool kids are coming.

Simple, easy, that's it.

Manage the mob with Mobaganda and spend your time on more important things, like grabbing the keg.

[via epicfu]

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, web 2.0

Want to create a web page but don't know the first thing about HTML or domain registration and hosting? There are plenty of free web services including Google Page Creator, Lycos Webon, and SynthaSite. But Weebly, which we first looked at a few years ago is one of the easiest to use.

Weebly also recently rolled out tools for adding Google AdSense advertisements to a site. While you could always place ads on a page by copying and pasting snippets of HTML and JavaScript, now the process is even easier. All you need to do is drag and drop the Google AdSense box from the toolbar to a spot on your page. Then you can select from a list of ad unit sizes and shapes.

There is a small price to pay -- Weebly will take a hefty 50% cut of any money you earn from advertising on your Weebly site. Or you could, you know, just sign up for an AdSense account and copy and paste your code the old fashioned way.

[via VentureBeat]

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Filed under: Fun, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Shareware, iPhone

With the announcement of the new iPhone, we figure there will be some new interest in this bit of software that's been around for a while: Do you have a computer without one of those newfangled infrared spots and a remote control? Do you still want to be able to change tracks on iTunes or pause a movie from across the room? As long as you have an iPod or an iPod Touch laying around, Signal is the app for you. Its interface is almost indistinguishable from the regular iTunes player on those devices, which makes it a breeze to use.

Here's how it works: download Signal and open it up, then input the IP address it gives you into your iPhone or iPod. Boom! You can access all your iTunes media from your device. Signal lets you change speakers, adjust volume, turn on shuffle or repeat, and pretty much anything else you could do from within iTunes.

There's a full demo, so you might want to try it out before you shell out 25 bones, but here are a couple of things to consider:. If you're going to buy a standard remote anyway (like the Apple Remote, for example), remember that Signal will work with your iPhone or iTouch from anywhere your network reaches, so you can use it to shoot around walls. Also consider that Signal has both Mac and Windows versions, where some other remotes only work with one platform.

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Filed under: Internet, Video, Web services, Beta, web 2.0

TidalTV is the latest company attempting to demonstrate that online video doesn't have to look like YouTube. While Joost takes online video away from the web browser, and Hulu embeds high quality network video on a web page, TidalTV has taken another approach by creating a web service that looks an awful lot like an old fashioned TV interface.

When you first visit the TidalTV page, you'll see an electronic program guide with a schedule of currently playing and upcoming shows. In the corner you'll see a video box. You can click the video to enlarge it, or you can flip channels by scanning through the program guide.

If you don't feel like waiting until 2pm for a show to start, you can just click on it. While TidalTV does have a "live TV" feel, all videos are available on demand. You can also click the on demand tab to browse for programs.

TidalTV doesn't have as much content as NBC and Fox-backed Hulu, but the site does have several content partnerships in place which means that you might actually find something worth watching. So far, partners include CBS, National Geographic, DIY network, HGTV, The AP, NBC News, MSNBC, The Weather Channel, The WSJ, and TV Guide.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

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