Filed under: Internet, Google, Googleholic

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

• New Google Mobile homepage
• Improved search results for BlackBerry
• Free Google webinar for webmasters
• Google Finance data API released
• Google Media Server gadget

Continue reading Googleholic for June 27, 2008

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Filed under: Fun, E-mail, Yahoo!

The email subject line. The bane of our existence. Back when Download Squad was just a wee little blog, we used to communicate the old fashioned way, by sending letters in the mail and waiting a week for them to arrive. It may not have been the most efficient way to keep in touch, but at least we didn't have to write subject lines.

Fortunately, Yahoo! has a hidden feature designed for the creativity-challenged. Can't come up with a clever or appropriate subject line for that email you're about to send? Just hit the subject button in the new version of Yahoo! Mail. Yahoo! will throw in a quote, funny phrase, or who know's what?

Here are just a few of the things that we found. Keep in mind, somebody must have taken the time to actually type these in there.

• Do you use them for good, or for awesome?
• I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.
• Hazards of storing plutonium in Tupperware
• Why does Chinese food always taste better in front of a computer?
• Fwd: Re: FW[2]: RE: re: [FWD] joke

[via Lifehacker and WebWare]

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Filed under: Design, Internet, Web services, web 2.0

The world may not really need another online image editing application. After all, there's already Picnik, Adobe Photoshop Express, FotoFlexer, and dozens of others. One of our favorites is Splashup, which has a very desktop application-like feel. And for the life of us, we can't decide if Sumopaint is just a simple Splashup clone or just an incredibly similar web app.

The two web apps have extraordinarily similar user interfaces and you can apply a similar array of effects to images you upload. You can also import images from online various online accounts, although Splashup is the clear winner with the ability to import images from Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, and other web sites, while Sumopaint only supports Snap.

Check out an image of the two apps side by side after the jump and you be the judge. Separated at birth, or imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? After all, both look a bit like PhotoShop or the Gimp.

[via jkOnTheRun]

Continue reading Sumopaint: There's something familiar about this online image editor

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Filed under: Design, Web services

WiX is a web site creator that lets anyone design attractive (or not so attractive) web sites. You don't need to know the first thing about HTML or CSS to use WiX, because everything is drag and drop-based.

While WiX might sound a lot like Google Page Creator or Weebly, WiX pages are entirely Flash-based. That means you can use the WiX editor not just to create standalone website, but also Flash objects that you can embed in other web sites. There's even a MySpace tab in the editor in case you want to be one of those people who make ridiculously flash (and Flashy) elements that show up on MySpace pages.

WiX offers a fair number of templates that you can modify, but you can also create web sites and other objects from scratch. When you're finished creating a site you can publish it online, but the URL will start with www.wix.com. You can also generate embed code that will let you include anything you create using WiX on another web site.

[via WebWare]

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Filed under: Internet, Browsers

One of the great things about shopping on Amazon is that you can read through dozens, if not hundreds of user reviews. While expert and editorial reviews can give you a sense of whether an item is worth the sale price, user reviews will let you know whether you should expect it to fall apart the moment you unpack the box.

But who has time to sift through hundreds of reviews when you just want someone to tell you whether you should buy this digital camera or that one? That's where Pluribo comes in. This Firefox add-on will read through the user reviews in certain product categories and present you with a concise summary.

The plugin uses some artificial intelligence so you don't wind up with short, choppy, and unreadable reviews. Don't expect Shakespeare, but Pluribo will give you enough information that you might not need to read the individual reviews.

Right now, Pluribo doesn't work with products in every category. For example, digitial cameras seem to be covered, but video cameras aren't.

[via Digital Inspiration]

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Filed under: OS Updates, Linux, Freeware, Open Source, Canonical

If you haven't heard of Linux Mint by now, you probably aren't listening very well. Mint is a distro that is heavily based on Ubuntu, but has gradually evolved on its own, with unique management tools and a stunning set of artwork (no dirt brown here!). This latest iteration brings clarity and convenience to the newest Ubuntu base, 8.04.

The most obvious improvement on its parent distro is the fact that it actually contains codecs and Flash support out of the box. The desktop layout is more similar to Windows, making this a good migration path for Microsoft refugees.

For those already familiar with Mint, this new version may not seem very different at first glance, but one big difference between this release and pretty much every other Linux distro is the inclusion of Flash 10 beta. Flash on Linux has been a rather sluggish experience for a while now, but on our humble Pentium 4 testing machine, sites like Youtube and Hulu seemed to work just as well as they do on Windows. The rest of the changes are generally little tweaks and usability improvements.

Mint can be downloaded from any one of many mirrors provided on the site, but we found the Torrent they provide to be very active and well seeded, so that is probably the best choice for now.

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, Search, web 2.0

Ever wonder what FISA, NSA, or AFL-CIO stand for? Sure, you know they're acronyms, but each letter's supposed to mean something, right? Acronym Finder can help you figure out what acronyms mean. It's sort of like an online dictionary, but instead of typing in words and getting definitions, you type in a series of letters and get a series of words.

Of course, knowing that AFL-CIO stands for American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations doesn't necessarily help you figure out exactly what the organization does.

And like any good internet tool, you don't have to use Acronym Finder for its intended purpose. You can type in your initials and see what organizations or technical terms share a set of letters with you. There are more than 4million acronyms and abbreviations in the database.

[via MakeUseOf]

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, web 2.0

There are dozens of services that let you shorten long URLs so it's easier to copy and paste them into emails, instant messages, or micro-blogging services like Twitter. TinyPaste does basically the same thing -- but with chunks of text.

Here's how it works. Say you want to write a short book explaining in explicit detail everything you've done today. And you want to share it with all of your Twitter followers. Unfortunately Twitter has a 140 character limit. What do you do? You cheat by writing your diatribe into a TinyPaste text box and clicking submit. What you get is a short URL that you can paste into Twitter. Anyone who clicks will see the full text of your unreasonably long narrative.

Of course, you could also just write your story on a blog or other web site and use TinyURL or another service to shorten the URL. But what's the fun in using a full service blogging client with rich text formatting tools when you can use TinyPaste's plain text box?

In all seriousness, if you don't have a blog but want to share something with a bunch of people quickly, we can see how TinyPaste could come in handy. But it does seem a bit like a solution in search of a problem.

[via TechCrunch]

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Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Search

With all the social networking sites out there it's hard to keep track of who's on what site and what are they doing. Whoisi is attempting to bring everything together so that keeping track of your friends doesn't feel like a second job.

Just enter their user name and have it added to the whoisi database. From there add them to your "follow" list and every time you visit the site it will display their latest activities. Keep in mind that once added, anyone can follow them from the whoisi site.

An interesting feature of whoisi is the ability for anyone to edit information about any user. You can add additional sites that this person is a member of or delete the site. Currently whoisi supports information from Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, LinkdIn and rss feeds.

Once you get over that whole privacy thing of anyone can add you to the site, the convenience of being able to follow all your friends on a simple website is quite appealing.

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Filed under: Audio, Internet

There has always been a debate between audiophiles regarding downloadable music. Part of the camp claims that downloaded music will never sound as good as music purchased on a CD. Regardless, you can't deny the convenience of buying music online. Famed loudspeaker manufacture Bowers & Wilkins hopes to change the quality of downloadable music with the launch of the B&W Music Club.

The B&W Music Club is a subscription based service which provides its members with an exclusive album every month in Apple Lossless Compression. The idea is simple, record the album in one of the most advanced recording studio around and distribute it in a lossless format so that you can hear the music as it was intended.

A yearly subscription will run you around $67 which is about $5.50 an album which isn't bad considering the quality you'll be getting. And while we lacked the reference equipment to appreciate the work that went into making the recording, just the thought of having a file that wasn't compressed made is sound better.

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