Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google, Googleholic, web 2.0

Welcome to Googleholic, your weekly fix of everything Google.

In this edition:

• Olympic madness
• Google Translate comes to the iPhone
• New Google Earth API resources
• Directly link to Google Mapplets
• Get your Picasa prints at Walgreens

Continue reading Googleholic for August 8, 2008

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Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, Browsers

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.

Continue reading Vyew My PC easy online desktop sharing for anyone

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Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Social Software, web 2.0

Microblogging options abound, most with drippy sounding names and many with half-baked functionality, having only been thrown together because Twitter was down again due to some kind of malfunction with the staffroom espresso machine. Rejaw, on the other hand, offers users a solid alternative with a number of excellent features. Without whales.

The basic idea's pretty much the same: shout and post something on your main profile page, whisper to send a private message to someone. nothing really special here yet, but bear with me.

Shouts, whispers, and replies are posted to the Rejaw servers almost instantly, so what you actually get is a more like an IRC/microblogging mashup than just another Twitter wannabe. The interface is nicely Ajaxed, and extremely responsive. Keep an eye on the status overlay at the bottom of your browser window, it'll let you know when new shouts and whispers are posted.

Continue reading Twitter - Fail = Rejaw

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Filed under: Windows Mobile, Mobile Minute

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!

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Filed under: Design, Photo

Although I don't read Japanese, I know how to use Google Translator well enough to tell you about this awesome photo effect at Wanokoto Labs. There are plenty of tutorials out there about how to create an "old photo" effect in Photoshop, but this site does it for you in one step.

The effect basically seems to desaturate the image, add some grain, and smudge it up. This results in something like an old newspaper photo. In case you have trouble with the Japanese -- and you probably won't, the layout is pretty intuitive -- the upload feature is the blue tab on the left, and the URL feature is on the right. To activate, click the button below the address of your photo.

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Filed under: Internet

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.

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Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Time-Wasters

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

You can use Windows Explorer to sort files by name, size, file type, or date modified. But for some reason Microsoft doesn't give you the option to sort by file extension. CPExt does.

In order to install CPExt, you need to download and unzip the installer to a temporary folder. Right click on the file marked CPExt.inf and select install. Once you reboot your system you'll be able to add an Ext column by right-clicking on a column in Windows Explorer and choosing "more" from the drop down menu. And then you can proceed to systematically delete every EXE file on your hard drive and make your computer practically unusable. So umm... proceed with caution.

[via gHacks]

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