Even listened to the radio on your phone while you’re on the bus or just relaxing in the park – sometime it can get a bit boring. Especially for us geeky types who love to know what going on all over the world in the tech biz.
Well I found a cool app for your cell phone that may fix the problem.
Virtual Radio is a cool Java app for you Java enabled cell phone that allows you to listen to Internet radio stations in crisp high quality sound. The have lowered the frequency to 32kbps for the Java version so your GPRS connection can keep up with the content.
There are loads of different channels to choose from depending on where you’re located. You can also reprogram the tuner to play your favourite channels or simply find new ones.
The best this is that it’s completely free to download and use. One piece of advice that I’ll give you is to watch out for the GPRS costs. However, nowadays most network have deals on GPRS internet such 99c per day for unlimited usage or a set fee every month.
I though I’d share with you guys an RSS reader that I started using recently called Feedly. Basically it’s and add-on for most browsers including Chrome and Firefox which combines all your RSS feeds into one incredible place that by far surpasses generic readers such as Google.
Here is a screenshot:
What I like most about is that it also combines other services such as GMail and Twitter into the same package so you’re getting all of your information in the one place instead of having several tabs open.
It’s free and its easy to set up once you have installed it as an add-on. Click here to download Feedly.
It’s a great day when Internet giant Google open sources the programs it uses to build well-known favourites such as GMail, Docs and Google Maps. It announced on its blog that it will be making a lot of it’s own development software available to developers all over the world. This release comes as Google are undoubtedly upgrading their own tools especially with the upcoming launch of Google Wave.
The first of the three tools they released is called Closure Compiler which helps developers trim down code and optimize it for better performance. There is also a plug-in for Firefox released alongside this so they can view heir Java Script code in the browser.
The second one is called Library which is a tool to help build Java Script Apps. Here is what Google said on their official blog about the program:
The Closure Library is a JavaScript library that provides many features that are useful for building web applications across browsers. It helps to abstract browser differences and provides clean class and function interfaces for common tasks. Besides DOM interaction and UI tools, the library includes tools for arrays, objects, string manipulation and much more. The library also implements a name spacing and import standard, which helps keep scripts small and load fast when used with the Closure Compiler.
The third and final release until further notice was Templates. This is an app that is for creating HTML elements that can be used within Java Script.
Closure Templates simplify the task of dynamically creating HTML and have an easy-to-read syntax. They allow you to write templates for reusable HTML and UI elements that can be used within JavaScript or on the server side in Java. They also have excellent run-time performance because they are never parsed on the client side.
Over the next month or so there is undoubtedly going to be a big rush of new Java apps and programs onto the market thanks to the Google outsourcing. Be sure to stay in touch with Crenk to stay informed!
The vast majority of people have a single monitor. Even suggesting adding a second would baffle them.
‘Eh, why?’ they might ask while staring at you as though you just landed in a spinning saucer.
Here’s my answer.
‘Because productivity is increased, desktop size doubled and it looks AWSOME’.
For those of you who follow me on Twitter you’ll have noticed that I spent an hour last night hooking up a second 19” monitor in my office. As I write this post I currently have Microsoft Outlook and Trillian Astra running on the spare screen with my whole laptop screen available for work. If I want to check my e-mails I just move my cursor to the second screen and use it as though it was a different computer. Then just move it back to the left until it reappears on my laptop – then back to work!
Seriously, for anyone who is even a semi-hardcore computer user I would definitely suggest this quick tip. It’s as easy as plugging in the new monitor, going to display settings and setting the resolution of monitor number 2. Easy.
SPAM is one of my pet hates. In fact I think that everyone reading this hates those annoying e-mails, comments left on our pages, tweets and clearly misleading advertisements that promise you a months salary in a few hours. I really, really hate SPAM. It’s useless and in this day and age it achieves nothing with its instantly recognisable language format, strange links and oh yeah, the promise of a few million bucks for transferring money.
Twitter and Facebook hate SPAM too. At the same time, both of them published posts to their blog that clearly announce plans to go on the offensive against spammers on their networks.
Twitter is due to start crating tweets and organising the trending topics section. This could mean one of two things:
Either they’ll simply remove an entire trending topic if it becomes too spammed.
Or they’ll painstakingly monitor tweets in trending topics with the first filter being a computer and the last a human.
They told us that the changes may not be apparent immediately – but I can assure you, it’s happening as you read this post.
Meanwhile, Facebook are targeting SPAM and scam ads on their network. This is a really big problem for two reasons. Firstly it lets users make their own ads and publish them – with so many it’s hard to catch all the scams. And secondly, they’ve gotten into bed with some shady advertising networks recently and are having a spot of bother breaking the relationships. Although they have assured us they’re in the process of ending two of them.
Let’s all pray for a SPAM free Internet in the mean time.
Back in the early 90’s there was this song, “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…”. It’s this song that I sadly have to reference when mentioning the Twitter Peek. Unlike the song that had some redeeming qualities this doorstopper is the clunkiest piece of technology I’ve seen yet (a disclaimer, I do not own one).
This product is made by Peek. The same company brought you the horrors that were the Pronto Peek and the Meet Peek. I’m not sure why I would want any of these devices since my smartphone does it all, and when I’m not at my mobile, I’m at my desk.
Perhaps therein lies the truth. It’s not geared towards me, the tech savvy geek, but rather the Twitter uninitiated.Despite the millions of users, there are still many demographics who have not embraced it. What a simple bridge to get them to join.
Clever plan or failure upward? Too early to tell, but one thing is for sure, based on their past successes, the Twitter Peek might make a small splash.
The Twitter Peek can be purchased on their website or via Amazon.
Heard of Twitter? Sure the whole world has by now. Lone tribes on far islands have heard about Twitter. This massively immersive and widely used micro-blogging network has become a staple for both our personal and professional lives. The world seems to still be feeling the “Twitter effect” as industries adapt their existing messages to fit the fast paced world of this social network.
But do you ever feel like you’re being left behind? Perhaps not enough time to get the right message in a timely fashion? Now there’s a solution to that.
Twuffer presents itself as the buffer between you and your timed messages. By using the web application, you are able to preset messages on a timed schedule to be released on your network at the times you think most important. The possibilities of this type of functionality are as endless as your creativity.
The web app is easy to use and can serve you to better time your announcements, set reminders for yourself or others, engage in timed online activities, or, as the site suggests, make it appear as if you never sleep. The practicality of this app seems pretty straightforward.
The application is currently in beta, but your able to explore what it has to offer pretty seamlessly. I suggest you give it a try to announce regular days when your podcast or blog post will go live, or perhaps some other similar campaign to see if Twuffer is right for you!
Google has always been known to mark special occasions such as Christmas, St. Patricks Day, 4th of July and many others depending on what country you live in, by creating a new Google logo, or doodle as they have become known, for their homepage.
Well for two days in a row they have been celebrating the anniversaries of two famous children’s TV shows.
Yesterday they had a Wallace and Grommet logo to mark the 20th anniversary of their creation:
And today, Google.co.uk is displaying the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street to mark the 40th anniversary of the show.
I must admit that Im not much of a Playstation 3 person, more of a Wii person. However, this product is really making me want to buy a Playstation 3 and deck out my living room.
Stephane Perruchon is the designer of this glass topped table, with the base made up of two gigantic PS3 controllers. It’ll make your place look like the classiest dorm room ever! Which would be awesome if you actually still live in a dorm room, but otherwise, I’m not so sure.
GazoPa is an image search engine that allows you to scour the web for images not by entering a word – but by entering another image.
Its main function is to find similar images around the web to that of the one you entered. It’s like the service currently offered by Google Labs.
You can also draw a quick sketch of what you want your picture to look like and submit it so you get back photographs or artwork. You can then filter your results by colour, shape and size. The search engine will also bring back video content that is related to the images – it. If a picture is used as a thumbnail for a video on YouTube then GazoPa will retrieve the video as well.
Twitter’s Trending Topics is a great way to see what’s buzzing, what’s going one and what’s happening in the world. Often, big stoies are made publicaly aware on Twitter trends before they hit mainstream news. Several times I’ve watched BBC World News when the presenter used Twitter trends as a source.
Now Digg are launching a new trends experiment which will follow in the footsteps of Twitter. However it’s not just a carbon copy.
The trends feature will display stories that people are digging fast but only recently. The idea is to catch big stories in their initial phases before they hit mainstream media.
Here is what the official Digg blog reads about the new experiment:
Because there’s so much that happens beneath the surface of Digg, we’ve been working on new ways to expose the most interesting stories to more people. Today we’re launching a new homepage voting experiment called Digg Trends which will surface certain highly active stories as they’re trending to Digg’s homepage so people can vote on whether or not they feel the story actually belongs there.
How does it work? Digg Trends identifies and highlights upcoming stories that have a high volume of activity (think Diggs, comments, favorites, shares, etc.). When we detect a new trending story, it will appear on the homepage for ten minutes. Based on the Digg and bury activity in those ten minutes the story will either become popular or not. To make it easy to follow the action, we’ve setup a Twitter account to tweet out when a new Digg Trend is up for voting on the homepage. Here’s an example of what a Digg Trend might look like:
The goal of Digg Trends is to put high activity stories in front of the community quickly and to present a fun new way for people to express whether they like the story or not. We only show the most basic information for each story so as to ensure that voting is as unbiased as possible.
Today finding the music you want, when you want it has been channeled to using sites like the Amazon store or iTunes. Sometimes, when looming for an obscure song that is not mainstream, you’d be lucky to find it. This frustrating experience paired with the perceived greedines of corporate music labels has forced many of us to find our music on peer to peer networks or bitorrent sites such the Pirate Bay.
Songbeat360.com is an amazingly innovative way of integrating a music player with a music search. Now you can listen to your favorite songs while searching for more. You are essentially still building your own station, much like Pandora or Last.fm, but on this music player you have the ability to download your music immediately.
Bypassing the need to go to the likes of Amazon or iTunes may please some, but does the pricing compare? Based on the site, the application is an Adobe Air app, and comes with 25 free credits. Credits are used when a search is done, and searches are supposedly capable of returning up to 500 results, ensuring you will fond what you need. For further credits, those can be purchased via a stored credit card. For $15 you receive 1000 credits for more music, which breaks down to a whole lot less than $.99 per song on the iTunes store. This is of course assuming you find what you want in one search.
Is the next revolution to your music search? I’d say know, but it’s definitely interesting. The pricing alone is attractive, and if the quality is the same, I can see this web app becoming extremely successful.
Even listened to the radio on your phone while you’re on the bus or just relaxing in the park – sometime it can get a bit boring. Especially for us geeky types who love to know what going on all over the world in the tech biz.
For those of you who 
Heard of 
Today finding the music you want, when you want it has been channeled to using sites like the 
