Filed under: Business, Internet, Blogging, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Today, OneSpot has formally announced the commerical availability of its OneSpot publishing-as-a-service[TM] platform. This subscription service allows publishers and businesses to deliver relevant content from across the web to a targeted audience. Think of OneSpot as a white-label Techmeme, Sphere Netvibes and Digg solution.

For instance, if you publish a site about social media, OneSpot will provide related content from relevant sources that you can feature alongside your original content, in sidebars, headline widgets, RSS feeds and more, giving full credit to the original author and source. Thus, instead of having to populate an entire site with news stories and haphazzard links, you can focus on creating quality original content, while still linking to the biggest stories in your particular area.

OneSpot tracks over 200,000 web feeds to find content in a specific area; these feeds are from trusted sources and the user has full control over which stories are featured, approved or blocked. How content is displayed and how frequently it is published is all determined by the user. The net result is something similar to the New York Times BlogRunner service, with the additional ability to have a branded "Meme" tracker and the ability to enable user-voting a la Digg or Reddit.

We think that OneSpot is an interesting approach to content aggregation and syndication. Looking at their site, the way related articles are collected and aggregated appears both efficient and timely -- a problem with many related-content engines is that the sources are sometimes old or out of date.

For businesses or publishers looking to add extra value to their sites, OneSpot might be a viable solution.

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Filed under: Fun, Internet, Utilities, Mozilla, Open Source, Browser Tips

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Filed under: Internet, P2P

When Azureus launched the Vuze desktop video player with built in BitTorrent support last year, a lot of folks shrugged. A few checked out the new Vuze client, but many kept using the company's trusty old BitTorrent client. Now the company is killing off the standalone client and changing its name to Vuze. There's also a new version of the Vuze client which adds a few new features.

Probably the most significant change in Vuze 3.1 is support for searching multiple BitTorrent tracking web sites. Previously if you wanted to find a video, you could only search through the Vuze catalog of free and for-pay downloads. Now you can find a whole lot of results from other sites including Mininova and Sumotorrent as well. You can also add other sites to search simply by clicking the add/edit button.

Vuze 3.1 also adds some basic social networking features. Users can create profiles, add friends, and recommend torrents that they think their friends would like. There's no way to chat or see if your friends are online, so these social elements feel tacked on rather than tightly integrated into the experience.

When you install Vuze 3.1 you'll be asked to install a browser toolbar as well. Feel free to uncheck the box next to this option. The wording is a bit tricky since it makes it sound a bit like you need to accept the terms and install the toolbar to continue the installation. But this is not the case.

[via NewTeeVee]

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Filed under: Developer, Internet, Web services, Apple, Open Source

Since it was revealed that Apple's recently-announced .mac replacement, MobileMe, was partially built on something called SproutCore, the buzz around this hot new JavaScript framework has been growing. Although this is the first that many people will have heard about it, SproutCore has actually been around for a while, powering services like .mac's Mobile Galleries. Now it's getting so much attention that SproutCore.com has been unreachable all day, a week after the WWDC announcement.

So, why SproutCore? Daniel Eran Dilger, over at RoughlyDrafted, has a great rundown of things to love about this open source JavaScript framework: it will allow developers to build web apps that look more like desktop apps, function offline, and take advantage of modern browser features. Apple's using SproutCore to build a front end for WebDav and its own WebObjects, but other developments could easily add PHP, JSON or XML data to the mix, to name a few.

[via RoughlyDrafted]

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Filed under: Fun, Internet, Video

Here at Download Squad, Hulu has become our favorite way to watch television online. With ever-expanding content choices, good quality and a nice interface, Hulu is almost as good as TV (as long as you live in the United States, that is). One of the few downsides is the need to use a browser to access content. Paul Yanez has created a program that aims to to solve that problem and make Hulu even better.

My Media Player is an Adobe AIR app that is designed to act as a Hulu portal of sorts. Launch the AIR app and you can choose from a categorized list of TV shows and movies available from Hulu. There is also a search function located within the player window so that you can find episodes or shows by title and also clips from Hulu.com

You can resize the application so that it can be docked to the side of the screen (if you want to watch a show while also doing some "real" work) and Paul designed the application to scale to fit a 30" monitor.

One of our favorite features of My Media Player is the ability to search for shows without stopping the program. Instead, the show continues playing in a small window in the left side of the application screen.

We really like the concept behind My Media Player and think it has terriffic potential, but there are a few issues that will probably keep us from using it as our primary method to access Hulu. Because My Media Player works by using the embedded versions of the programs from Hulu.com (Hulu.com allows you to embed all or part of a show onto your own webpage), the quality isn't as high as it is accessing the show directly from the web. And although we really like the ability to dock a Hulu playing window to the side of the screen in a small, unobtrusive size, we wish we had the ability to view the program in full screen. As it stands right now, expanding the window to cover our entire screen is both kludgy and unattractive, due to the aforementioned embedded version issue.

Still, if you want a way to watch shows without having to use your web browser, give My Media Player a shot.

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Filed under: Internet, Security

Whether you're trying to keep the feds off your trail or you just want to keep your mom from figuring out what naughty web sites you've been visiting, xB Browser can help. This web browser is based on Firefox, but adds a ton of security features that allow you to surf the web anonymously and quickly and easily clear all your private data.

The browser evolved from the now defunct Torpark and is capable of connecting to the Tor network of anonymous servers that let you obscure your location and identity. You can also use xB Browser to connect to the XeroBank network, which is a commercial alternative to Tor. You have to pay for access to the XeroBank network.

XeroBank also provides severla other programs for anonymous internet access including xB Mail for sending encrypted emails and xB VPN for connecting to the XeroBank network to anonymize all of your internet transactions.

[via Shell Extension City]

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Filed under: Utilities, E-mail, Productivity, Google

Check this out y'all:

A NYT article says that Americans waste $650 BILLION dollars over-checking their email obsessively. BILLION. Not Millions. Not Thousands. BILLIONS. Crazier? We waste $650 BILLION dollars trying to get back into the groove of work after checking our email obsessively.

Why do we do it? Are we that afraid of missing something?

Some of us here can say that we too check our email obsessively. Even going so far as to click on the Gmail logo over and over to refresh the page. Does this sound familiar to you? If so, you're apparently not alone.

How do we stop? How do we combat this problem? Do we love email that much? We hear people complaining all of the time about information and email overload, so maybe we're trying to get a jump on controlling it before it controls us?

Many questions and not a lot of answers, but if these numbers from the NYT are true, oh boy do we have to change some things.

First things first.

Stop. Look, and Listen.

• Stop checking your email so often
• Look and notice that Gmail already refreshes itself
• Listen for emails to come in automatically via POP or IMAP
  

You won't miss something.

What's your favorite way to catch email? We find that checking email on the mobile slows us down a bit. Unless you get too obsessed with that...can you say Crackberry?

Lets hear your thoughts in the comments.

[via silicon valley insider]

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Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft

Now that Windows Vista SP1 has been out for a few months, there's no particularly good reason that you should be running an early release candidate of the service pack. But if you're too lazy to have uninstalled it, you've got about two weeks before Microsoft forces you to do so.

Starting June 30th, any machines running a release candidate of Windows Vista SP1 will only be able to run for about an hour at a time. Basically, you boot your system, it runs normally for an hour, and then the kernel shuts down and you get a message that says END_OF_NT_EVALUATION_PERIOD. At least it's fairly easy to understand.

But wait! Didn't Microsoft push Windows Vista SP1 final out through automatic updates? Well, yes, it did. But you can only install Windows SP1 if you've first rolled back any release candidates of the service pack. So if you haven't done that yet, there's no time like the present.

[via Flexbeta]

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Filed under: Audio, Macintosh, Commercial

In no way does TapeDeck claim to replace Garageband, Logic or any other full blown audio recording application. TapeDeck just does one thing, record audio from your built-in mic or any other audio input to virtual cassette tapes.

The application resembles a cassette tape recorder and the interface is as intuitive as it gets. Because of this, TapeDeck lends itself well to impromptu interviews, dictations and lectures. TapeDeck even allows you to transfer recordings to your iTunes library.

Tapes can be color coded and labeled to make them easier to find in their virtual storage rack. And just like recorders of the past, you can select recording qualities of High, Medium or Low. These settings translate to different bit rates and the amount of disc space your recordings take up. In our tests, the lowest setting was more than adequate for dictation and everyday use.

There are a few gripes we had with TapeDeck. First, each time you press record, a new "tape" is used. There are no way to continue from a previous recording. While some may see this as a safety measure, what if you wanted to continue a recording and not have it spread across a couple of tapes?

Another issue we had was with the search function. Labels and liner notes are fully searchable from within the application but only the labels are searchable via Spotlight. Maybe we're asking for too much but we love our Spotlight.

TapeDeck is definitely a great application and the issues we have are definitely not show stoppers. Plus the mechanical transport sounds it makes alone is well worth the asking price of $25.

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Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

Time wasting is fun, especially when things need to get done. For that purpose BioLabs: Outbreak! is perfect, because it offers the player a fairly repetitive task that is interesting enough that you can keep doing it instead of what you should actually be doing. That, coupled with a very forgiving learning curve, allows you to really take your time with it and get the most out of your time wasting investment.

The concept is simple: there is an outbreak of some sort (inside a purple rectangle of all places) and you must administer an antidote to contain and kill off all the elements of the outbreak. But there is a catch, of course. The quantity of antidote is limited and the outbreak continues to grow in size as you progress through the levels. You contain the outbreak by growing bubbles of antidote and surrounding the individual cells with those bubbles. If during the antidote-bubble-growing-process the antidote makes contact with the outbreak, the bubble breaks and wastes precious antidote. So, it is important to exercise caution when growing bubbles, especially in the later stages.

And that's about as deep BioLabs: Outbreak! gets, which is probably good since you really don't want to spend too much time with any one time waster. In the end, BioLabs: Outbreak! will have wasted a good bit of your day and will let you enjoy the hectic catch-up session that follows your time wasting exploits.

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