Crenk » new

Googles New Look

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:21:56 +0000

Google’s minimalistic homepage has been a cornerstone of the internet for the past decade or so. Now, they’re testing out a new homepage which will take the word count from thirty down to one; ‘Google’.

Basically, it will look like the screenshot above with everything but the Google logo and search function being removed. This includes their famous ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button

When you move the mouse however near any area where buttons used to be they will appear. The thinking is that this new method will have the best of both worlds: minimalism and functionality.

However, they are only bucket testing the new homepage to see how it goes down so only a certain percentage of users will actually get access to the new design. For those of you who can’t, see the video below.

Facebook 3.0 – New App Here…Finally

Dean Sherwin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:00:29 +0000

So, after what seemed like an endless few weeks or fights, press releases, rumours and delays the Facebook 3.0 app is now officially released for the iPhone. I think a celebration is in order.

So, what are our first impressions here at Crenk? Well there good. Very good in fact. When I first started up the app I noticed a few things almost instantaneously that had changed from the previous app. For example, up the top left hand corner there is a button which when pressed it will give you a search bar and down the bottom the alerts feature which tells you what your friends are up to and if you need to respond to anything will pop up.

It is also more in touch with the actual web based Facebook. For example, you can RSVP to invitations rather than just being informed of their existence and you can also chat easier with friends.

Of course there are the new features that literally work with the iPhone. You can now call and send texts to your Facebook friends without having to leave the app. I think this is a cool feature and one that Facebook will not regret making as that’s what smart phones are all about – integration.

Finally, there is the web browser. At first I though this was a little unnecessary but then it became clear why they put it there. How many of your Facebook friends send you links or how many times do you decide to follow up a news story you heard from friends? Now you don’t have to exit the whole app and start up Safari just to follow a link!

Google Sponsored Satellite Captures First Image

Steven Finch — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:20:27 +0000

This bird’s-eye view of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania was the first image ever seen by the GeoEye-1, the world’s highest-resolution commercial satellite sponsored by Google, when it opened its camera door earlier this week.

The 4,300-pound satellite collected the image at noon EDT on Oct. 7 while moving from the north pole to the south pole in a 423-mile-high orbit at 17,000 miles per hour, or 4.5 miles per second. The spacecraft can take photos at a resolution of up to 41 cm – close enough to zoom in on the home plate of a baseball diamond, according to Mark Brender, GeoEye’s vice president of communications and marketing.

Even though the GeoEye-1 satellite sports a colorful Google sticker, its key customer is actually not Google but rather the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a U.S. government agency that analyzes imagery in support of national security. The NGA is paying for half of the development of the $502 million satellite and has committed to purchasing imagery from it. Google is GeoEye’s second major partner.

“This is the opposite of a spy satellite,” Brender said in a phone interview. “Spies don’t put info on the internet and sell imagery. We’re an Earth-imaging satellite, and we can sell our imagery to customers around the world who have a need to map and measure and monitor things on the ground.”

There’s one catch for Google: While the GeoEye-1 will provide imagery to the NGA at the maximum resolution of 43 cm, Google will only receive images at a 50-cm resolution because of a government restriction, Brender explained. However, Google’s partnership with GeoEye is exclusive, meaning the search-engine giant will be the only online mapping site using the satellite’s photos.

A second satellite, GeoEye-2, slated to launch in 2011 or 2012, will have a resolution of 25 cm, company representatives promised. However, Google’s satellite imagery will not likely get more detailed because of the 50-cm regulation.

Yahoo Search Ad Deal With Microsoft Imminent

Steven Finch — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:18:54 +0000

It has been reported that sources at a major client of investment house ThinkEquity say that the firm considers a Microsoft (MSFT) link-up with Yahoo! (YHOO) in the search business to be “imminent”. The comments were made by analyst William Morrison. ThinkEquity did not have an immediate comment.

Sources beyond ThinkEquity speculate that under the terms of the arrangement, Yahoo! will be paid $3 billion upfront and will get 11o% of the revenue that its searches provide after traffic acquisition costs in each of the first two years. In the third year, that figure would go to 90%.

Microsoft will then have control of 30% of the US search market if they can close the deal with Yahoo. Given that Microsoft’s own Bing is on the rise also, it will then only be about taking share away from Google. However, I can see how this deal with allow Microsoft to take marketshare from Google, Google has much better technology and a huge amount of brand loyalty. comScore put Google’s US June search share flat at 65%, Yahoo! at 19.5%, down .5%, and Microsoft at 8.4%, up .4%.

For Yahoo!, the transaction would give it the opportunity to lock in a substantial revenue stream from search and potentially save several hundred million dollars over the next three years by cutting development personnel and costs. If the transaction materializes, Yahoo!’s share could jump $4 or $5.

Nokia Deny Android Plans

Dean — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:50:29 +0000

Android devices seem to be the next big thing and are hotting up the market pretty quick with Google being the main warrior. However recently, there have been rumours that the old Finnish mobile giant Nokia were planning to jump into the Android platform and abandon its Symbian platform which the company actually owns.

The company bigwigs decided enough was enough and flat out denied any rumors that they would be releasing an Android phone onto the market at the Nokia World event in Germany this coming September. A report stating these predictions in The Guardian has been responded to by Nokia. “There is no truth to this story whatsoever. It is a well known fact that Symbian is our platform of choice for smartphones”, said Nokia in a statement to TechRadar.

For a company to make such bold statements about its own future in the mass media it’s almost a sure thing that Nokia won’t be using the Android platform anytime in the near (or distant) future, preferring to stick to its own developments. As for the meantime, Nokia are continuing in their development of a new platform of their own called Maemo OS for their internet tablets. Outsourcing is not one of Nokia’s favourite habits.

New Adobe Air Marketplace

Steven Finch — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:07:35 +0000

From blogs.adobe.com

Adobe AIR Marketplace is a central resource that allows developers to make their applications available to millions of potential users and makes it easy for consumers to find them.

The new AIR marketplace was launched a few days ago and features a brand new look and several new features. Do check it out!

Compete Launches New Interface for its Properties

Steven Finch — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:03:02 +0000

As we mentioned a few days ago Compete was releasing a new user interface on the 15th of April. The time has come and here is what the new interface looks like.

The interface has had a huge makeover, in which now combines all of Compete’s business elements in a much simplier way. All of Compete’s solutions can be now found in a simple hearder bar, which offers everything from Analytics to Keyword tools. The analytics tools has a much cleaner and easy to user interface, but Compete is still trying to push Pro accounts as much as possible.

Overall the feel of the site is much better than before, and with the cleaner finish the usability of the site increases. I just wish my traffic would increase!

Blah Girls: Why Isnt Ashton Kutcher Pushing It on Twitter?

Steven Finch — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:00:03 +0000

Over the last few days there has been a lot of talk and discussion surrounding Ashton Kutcher and CNN. First he manages to get almost as many followers on Twitter as CNN (almost 900K). Then he challenges CNN to a race to get to 1 million followers first. If he wins, he’ll “”ding dong ditch” Ted Turner’s house.

This made me think a bit about Ashton and his original tech startup the Blah Girls. Blah Girls launched with a lot of press and publicity (mainly due to Techcrunch and Michael Arrington), but now it seems to be a very basic gossip blog with a cartoon attached.

Blah Girls produce a weekly vidoe who is pretty much a catoon spoof. The videos are very well develop and quite cool. However, these videos and Blah Girls in general doesnt seem to be getting much traction at all. The Blah Girls Youtube channel has over 3,500 subscribers but each video seems to be lucky to get more than 1000 plays. Plus for some reason YouTube has given Blah Girls a partner page, but they dont seem to meet the requirements of being a YouTube partner (apart from the fact that Ashton is quite well known).

Back to the site itself it seem that is had an initial push at launch but then has been slowly growing at the same pace as a normal gossip blog. The site has a great design, but there seems to be a huge gap of white space between the video section and where the actual blog starts. Ashton I really think you need to take a look at the design and try to piece it all together a bit better. Additionally, Ashton why arent you twittering about Blah Girls on your Twitter stream? Im sure 1m followers will really help you in pushing your site to the next level faster, plus you have a benefit that no other gossip blog has, your already bloody famous!

Umbrella Today: Free Simple Weather Forecasting Service

Steven Finch — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:03:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered if you should take an umbrella with you to work? Well here is a very simple website that makes that decision for you, UmbrellaToday.com. With UmbrellaToday you just simply input your zip code (USA only service) then their service will let you know if you need an umbrella for the day. Its that simple!

Additionally, UmbrellaToday now has a opt in text and email service in which send you an update only when you need an umbrella for the day. If you are using the text option I’m not entirely too sure if the website is paying for the text message or you are, I’m guessing the later.

However, UmbrellaToday is a very simple idea and service that can actually help!

Crenk Launches Community News Which Helps Blogs Promote Their Own Content

Steven Finch — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:54:29 +0000

Today we have added a new feature on Crenk that we hope will help many other blogs promote their great content. This new feautre is called Community News. The Community News section can be found in our sidebar and it is basically a submission process that lets any user advise us of a great blog post.

The articles that will be shown in our Community News section will be related to startups and will either be great start lists or reviews. We hope that by adding links into our Community News section other sites will get some great promotion and traffic, while at the same time receive a linkback from our site.

Submissions to the Community News section is completely free and only takes a minute to submit. So please feel free to help us promote some of the best content on the web.

Google Chrome Releases New Beta

Steven Finch — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:02:56 +0000

Google has just release Chrome (its internet browser) to the world in beta stage. If you are interested in testing out this new browser then head here to download.

So, what does a Google Chrome beta bring? Speed, and lots of it. According to Google, it’s 25 percent faster than the stable build of Chrome, which is nothing short of amazing given that Chrome is already blazing fast.

Other new features are form autofill, full page zooming and autoscroll, as well as a way to get a side-by-side view by dragging out tabs to the side of the browser window, which you can see in the amazingly short video below.

To Do List Plugins for Wordpress

Steven Finch — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:00:47 +0000

There are so many sites out there that are based on Wordpress and have numerous writers, including Crenk. Here at Crenk we sometimes find it hard to keep track about what sites to write about and who is writing about these sites. Previously we used Our To Do List Wordpress Plugin to keep track of these tasks, but since Wordpress 2.7 launched we have had numerous issues with this software and we are interested to find out if there is an alternative.

With the Our To Do List Plugin we are currently finding that we can add new tasks but when it comes to removing or editing these tasks it just does work.

Are there alternatives to the Our To Do List Plugin?

26 New And Awesome Web Apps You Probably Don’t Know About

Keshav Khera — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:25:53 +0000

Ten years ago, who would have thought that most of our work would depend on the internet? The internet allows us to have easy access to our files, anywhere, anytime. We chat face to face with friends, meet clients virtually, process payments in a flash and much more. The internet is huge and you can’t get enough of it. It has no end.

While on the topic of the internet, you can call the current scenario, the Web 2.0 revolution, the next dot com boom. Web apps are torrenting the internet with their numbers and new ones pop-up everyday.

Today, I will talk about the latest additions to the pool, of course; the ones you probably don’t know about.

So, without further ado…

TinyChat

With TinyChat you can create your own chatroom and invite people through one simple link. Chat rooms are disposable and can be created within seconds.

KeepHD

With KeepHD, you can download the high defintion version of youtube videos and also fetch the FLVs and 3GPs for your mobiles.

Prezi

With the help of Prezi you can create maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs, drawings and present in a nonlinear way. Move beyond the slide, it only takes 5 minutes to learn how to use Prezi.

Wix

With Wix, you can create stunning flash websites for free, all from your internet browser! It offers you a simple powerful online platform to make flash websites, MySpace layouts and more. No downloads or programming needed.

Nice Translator

NiceTranslator is a fast, easy to use online translator designed with simplicity and functionality in mind. It is ajax powered, so you get the translations on the fly!

Task Five

A to-do list with a twist. It streamlines tasks in an elegant calendar view

Pizap

Pizap is a fun free photo editor that lets people easily create wacky images with their digital pictures. You get a very easy to use photo editor that lets you add photo effects, custom text or speech bubbles and much more.

whspr!

Need to receive a message by email, but can’t (or don’t want to) give out your email address? whspr! gives you a URL to share instead.

WobZip

WobZip is an online tool which lets you uncompress compressed files online. It supports many formats including the major ones as Zip, RAR, 7Z, Gzip, TAR, ISO etc…

Anyvite

Create an invitation in seconds, add entries from mobile, twitter, email, iCal, gCal or Outlooks. And of course, send them with ease from withing the app.

Fliggo

Fliggo is an out-of-the-box, all-in-one, solution for creating your own video website. It can be a video blog, a YouTube-like community or a private site for your company or family.

Yidio

Yidio combines over 200 million videos and offers one of the largest video search engines on the Web.

SlideRocket

SlideRocket is an online, flash based tool for creating slides and presentations. It brings together a complete package of online slide making with features such as an intuitive interface, themes, flickr integration and much more

Ziddu

Ziddu is a new free file hosting solution with features such as unlimited storage space, fast uploads and downloads, file management, a sharing community a referral program and the ability to earn money with your downloads.

Mufin

Mufin is your music discovery engine, that will let you easily discover new music among millions of tracks. With the sound that you dig!

YouTube Reloaded

YoutubeReloaded creates an embeddable playlist of YouTube videos that can be added to any website. Simply choose a playlist type to create your free youtube playlist.

FriendPaste

FriendPaste is a an online tool where you can paste code snippets of many different languages to share with friends. It sports and intuitive interface with support for syntax highlighting.

Survs

Survs is a collaborative tool that allows you to build, deploy and analyze online surveys. With a great user interface, Survs is currently in private beta, though a single request fetched us an invitation.

SendPhotos

With SendPhotos Mobile, Web and PC you can upload photos, edit them, create photos albums and share them online with whoever you want. Also available for Android, iPhone and BlackBerry.

BackupURL

BackupURL creates instant cached copies of web pages. The content of a web page stays the same while you share the link provided. The cached page can also be used for referencing or even mirroring data. The cached page will always be online (html,css,images) no matter whether the original site is up or down.

RapidStack

Rapidstack is a realtime Rapidshare link searcher. It scans the links before they are displayed as results and only working links are displayed.

CC:Betty

CC Betty organizes your message and its contents – photos, addresses, documents, links – and create a mailspace where everyone can track replies, view and add content. You just CC your messages to her!

Sigpad

Make your emails pop with signatures that reflect your personality and change with every email you send! Create signatures with your twitter status, flickr photos, blog entries, youtube stream and much more, all realtime.

FeedWeaver

Create your own RSS feed by combiningRSS feeds from your favorite websites, and use filters to choose what you want in it!

Twe2

Twe2 is a service which sends you your twitter replies, direct messages and custom searches that you specify free to your mobile as SMS. Available in more than 230 countries.

Markkit

Markkit is a web2.0 text highlighter. Drag’n’Drop the markkit yellow pen into your browser toolbar. Whenever you want to highlight text in a web page, click on the markkit bookmarklet.

So which ones are your favorites? Discuss in the comments, and dont forget to give it a digg

(By) An avid freelance writer and technology enthusiast, Keshav Khera is young geek from India. Fanatic about the web, he also writes a blog and makes unsuccessful efforts to avoid twitter.

iPhone App Reviews for Social Media News

Jordan Kasteler — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:16:14 +0000

There aren’t very many social media applications yet on the iPhones that are based around social news or social bookmarking. Digg has a an unofficial app which is much improved than the last unofficial app that was in the iTunes App Store which is no longer available. Delicious has quite a few apps that are decent but lack a few important features. Disappointingly, StumbleUpon doesn’t have any applications and neither does Mixx or Yahoo! Buzz.

Reddit is currently leading with three apps to make the mobile experience much more enjoyable. One of theirs is an official app from the Reddit creators themselves. Will Digg be releasing an official app soon?

I’ve taken the liberty to do a review of the three Reddit apps and Digg app that are in the iTune App Store. I am in no way associated with any of these apps, know any of the owners, or am promoting any of them in any fashion. This is merely a review from an avid Reddit and Digg user with a love for social news and social media.

Shovel – Digg App

Author: Scott Fitzhugh

Price: Free

Ratings: 147 Reviews – (at the time of writing)

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/d5yqhu

iTunes Description:

Shovel is an app that provides top stories from the social news website Digg.com in a native application. Browse the front page stories, or delve deeper into an array of topics and subtopics of interest.

Personal Review:

Shovel is a great application for viewing Digg.com content easily on the iPhone. Overall, the design and interface is pretty clean and simple. It gives you a variety of topics and listings to select to view so you can access all of the content on Digg.com. You can view:

Popular Stories
Top Stories
Movers & Shakers
Brand New Stories

All listings are applicable to any category or sub-category in Digg.com. If you select a Digg story you can then scroll down the commentary to see what people are saying, who’s replied, how many votes each comment has received, etc. After that, you can click further to view the story live on the Web. Which is nice about it is that it doesn’t load Safari as a separate app to view the content so there’s no back-and-forth between the apps.

Unfortunately, what you cannot participate in digging, burying, or commenting through this application. The developer disclaims, “Now we’ve gotten the message loud and clear that the one thing that would turn this 3.5 star app (currently 3 stars) into a 5 star one is the interactivity of the original Digg site. You guys (and gals) want to be able to Digg, comment, and bury, and who can blame you? Right now, however, there is no way to do this using the legitimate Digg APIs, and quite frankly, it makes us sad. I’ve been trying to court the help of Digg in making this app all that it can be, and if you want to help that along, you should drop them a line yourselves requesting the same!”

Another drawback is that you cannot personalize this application because there is no way to login. Therefore you can’t weed out content you don’t want to see, view your account profile, see your friend’s submissions, etc.

In doing some research the Shovel app used to be named “Diggerific”. Apparently, they have changed the name of it and redid the UI just a bit as you can tell from the video review of Diggerific below:

Overview

Pros

Easy to use
Clean interface
Ability to access all Digg content

Cons

Free of charge
Can’t Digg, comment, or bury content
No Digg account profile/community features or functionality

iReddit

Author: CondeNet

Price: $1.99

Ratings: 41 Reviews (at the time of writing)

Feedback Contact: http://getsatisfaction.com/reddit/products/reddit_ireddit

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/ce6tt2

iTunes Description:

The official Reddit iPhone app. Never be bored again. With this app, you’ll only be a tap (or shake) away from the most interesting stuff on the web.

All of your favorite Reddit functionality is here: view the hottest, newest, top, and most controversial stories of the moment, explore, individual subreddits, vote, comment, share, and save links for later. The entire commenting system has been optimized for the iPhone app so you won’t have any trouble contributing to an epic pun thread.

Save time by never having to reload the Reddit homepage. You can even use handy next/previous navigation to move between websites without going back to the main list. And those sites work in portrait and widescreen modes too.

It’s never been easier to be entertained. Just shake your iPhone to enter “serendipity mode” where you’ll be served a random, interesting site. Pro-tip: Turn on “play sound on shake” for a special treat with every jostle — the iPhone is an elegant phone for a more sophisticated age.

And if you’re feeling the economic downturn (what are you doing with an iPhone?) there’s a tree, ad-supported version to come.

Personal Review:

The Official Reddit application is pretty cool. You can input your username and password so that you can vote and comment on stories. Initially, you come to the Reddit homepage. Along the top you can choose between “Hot”, “New”, “Top”, and “Controversial” stories. When selecting a story, there is an overlay on the footer that allows you to upvote/downvote the story, go to the comments section of the story, save the story, and email the link.

Three subreddits will fit on the bottom bar overlay that you can quickly navigate to. You can edit the subreddits with the ones you want to use the most, but you only have a small selection of subreddit’s to swap out with. Those subreddits are:

Programming
Funny
Science
Tech
World News
Entertainment
Business
Comics
Gaming
Best Of
Economics
Cappuccino

It is the most expensive application but I feel it’s the cleanest and easiest to use. Unfortunately, you can’t browse all subreddits and there’s no search function. Nor is there a function to view your account’s saves, karma points, submissions, comments, etc.

I would recommend this app to anyone looking to quickly and easily view Reddit news, vote, and participate in the more popular subreddits. The free Reddit app doesn’t allow for this.

Overview

Pros

Easily vote on stories from the actual story page
Save links to view/read later
Comment participation
Customization of footer subreddits

Cons

Most expensive Reddit app
Not a wide-range of subreddits to customize on your footer
Can’t browse all subreddits
No search functionality
No personal account status functionality

Open Source Reddit

Author: Joseph Pintozzi

Price: Free

Ratings: 10 Reviews (at the time of writing)

Feedback Contact: reddit@pintozzi.com

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/cpjzvj

iTunes Description:

The Reddit application allows users to view the stories from www.reddit.com without having to deal with loading massive webpages. It displays the stories in a nice table view, providing details about each submission, and allows the user to easily view the submitted content. The ability to vote on a submission is currently being added.

Personal Review:

This app is very bare bones with very limited functionality. If you’re looking to vote on stories or participate in the comments this app isn’t for you. If you’re just looking to read “Hot” news from a select few subreddits then this is a good app for the cost of nothing. The included subreddits to choose from are:

reddit.com
bacon
politics
pics
WTF
funny
technology
programming

The nice thing about it is that it’s open source and the developer leaves it open for people to add on what they want to it. Hopefully, in the future, this will be a great application for Reddit.

Overview

Pros

Open Source
Free

Cons

No commenting
No voting
Can’t browse all subreddits
No search functionality
No personal account status functionality

Satellite Reddit

Author: 3Cube Technologies

Price: $0.99

Ratings: 8 Reviews – (at the time of writing)

Feedback Contact: satellite@3cubetechnologies.com or http://twitter.com/3cube

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/cx8eec

iTunes Description:

Satellite 2.0 is now available and brings a host of improvement to the mobile Reddit experience.

Change in this version includes:

Greatly improved performance
New, Controversial, and Top views are available for all subreddits
An overlay displaying the full article title and comments count shows while loading an article
The subreddit list is reorderable
A beautiful new icon and splash screen have been added
New lower pricing.

Satellite is a full-featured client for Reddit.com, a social link aggregation site. With Satellite, you can browse links appearing on the front page or drill down into the Subreddits you are subscribed to. When viewing an article you can vote the link up or down, save it to your Reddit account, or share the link with others. With the click of a button, you can shift into commenting mode to browse comments or post your own back to the Reddit page about the link. The interface provides a substantially more streamlined experience over the mobile Reddit site and incorprates the unique capabilities of the iPhone to make your day to day Reddit’ing much more fun.

Additional Satellite features include:

Shake the app at any time to explore random content from Reddit
Next/previous buttons are available at the screen edges to move through content without returning to list view
Full portrait/landscape modes, including upside down. Great for handing the phone across the dinner table to share your discoveries!
Returns to the content you were browsing at start-up. Pick up right where you left off when that call came in.
Highly addictive content discovery available anywhere, at any time!

Personal Review:

This app is definitely worth the 99 cents. After entering in your login information you can view ALL of your subscribed subreddits. It also gives you an option to edit your subreddits for your account. After selecting a subreddit you can choose between “Hot”, “New”, “Controversial”, and “Top” categories in the footer bar. Once selecting a story, it takes you to the story and overlays the story title, submitter, and point count. At the bottom footer you can choose to vote, go to comments, save the link, or email the link. Again though, there’s no search feature with this app either.

This app is a lot like the official iReddit app except it’s more personalized. You can also view your saved Reddits on your account to follow up on how your saves and submissions are doing.

Overview

Pros

Personalized
Nice User-Interface
Good functionality for voting and commenting
All Reddit content accessible through this app

Cons

Isn’t free
Can’t see your karma points
No search functionality

HAPPY BROWSING WITH THESE SOCIAL MEDIA APPS!

Regator: The Blogospheres Best Information Aggregation Portal

Steven Finch — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:22:22 +0000

Finding quality articles can be time consuming in today’s era where we are hooked to reading interesting and worthwhile info on topics we like. Regator is such an aggregator portal which searches and provides interesting articles and latest news and happenings in technology, health, entertainment, sports, and latest happenings in business and finance sector, all organized and categorized at one place.

Regator is a portal where you can find links to various interesting article published on web from time to time. So you don’t have to search and keep looking for an hour for something useful and interesting to read. The Site has various categories where you can find articles of that niche and click on the link to read it. Actually regator has a team of few people who work to search these articles from sites and blogs that provide quality content and put them at one place for people to read.

You can even search posts and articles on your favorite reality shows or episodes. There is a ’search’ and even ‘advanced search’ feature for you to search for specific reviews of products like your favorite ‘iPhone’ or cool new ‘Nokia N97’ and you will find tons of posts on it. Also you can register on site and rate the posts you read on regator and the highest rated articles are shown on the front page of regator, just like the other social bookmarkers like Digg. You can personalize a lot on regator including organizing, saving and rating your favorite articles and posts.

Not only does it have article search but also audio and video posts for those who like watching more than reading. If you specifically like reading content from blog, they also have that search category – ‘Blog results’ on front page. Regator has nearly 2 millions posts archived by them till now. Its actually archiving the best of weblogs content and presenting it in a organized and searchable way.

(By) An avid freelance writer and technology enthusiast, Sagar Trapasia from India. Fanatic about the web, he also writes a blog.

Accomedion: Keyboard Harmonica and Accordion iPhone App

Steven Finch — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:21:23 +0000

Accomedion is a new musical instrument application that combines a keyboard harmonica and an accordion.
Sound sources from keyboard harmonica are used, and chord buttons similar to the ones on accordion are attached. The wide range of tunes will be played as accompaniment.

Main functions
- Capable to shift between major chord and minor chord
- Capable to record and replay up to three tunes
- Five demonstration tunes are stored. Capable to play in accordance with the tutorial guide.
- You can play it like a real keyboard harmonica by blowing the microphone. (iPhone only)

You can download this application from the iTunes store here.

Skype 4.0 for Windows Launches

Steven Finch — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:12:32 +0000

The new Skype is here. Skype 4.0 for Windows have launched which offers full-screen video calling, crystal clear call quality and better usability. There’s also the usual free voice and video calls to other Skype users, instant messaging, SMS, and call to landlines and mobile devises at cheaper rates.

Additionally, a new built-in bandwidth manager ensures that consumers have the very best Skype video calling experience possible even on a low-bandwidth connection. If you have a fast enough connection (recommended 400 Kb/s or higher), a dual-core processor PC and a Skype Certified High Quality Video webcam, Skype delivers up to 30-frames-per-second High Quality Video.

MyBuxNetworks: Is This The Worst Ad Network You Have Ever Seen?

Steven Finch — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:46:26 +0000

I received a very interesting email this morning from a new advertising network called MyBuxNetworks.com. They are offering a CPM and a CPC solution with also a referral option. The network seemed interesting in the email, however it was a totally different story when I took a look at their website.

The site itself looks terrible and so amateuristic. However, that was the worst thing I saw on the site. Check out the video I have attached below, which is from a “member”. Would you go on this guys word?

Disclosure: Im CEO of Adphilia which is a site representation company.

Jango Launches Music Vertical Advertising Network

Steven Finch — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:42:10 +0000

US music site Jango announced the launch of Jango Music Network (JMN), dubbing it as the world’s largest and most targeted cost-effective ad network for the music vertical.

The current JMN inventory of music sites reach a collective total of 30 million unique monthly visitors in the US alone. JMN also features a unique methodology that maps brand preference to musical taste and uses it to help advertisers target audiences that will be particularly receptive to their brand.

Just Hear It: New Music Streaming Search Engine That Claims To Be Legal

Steven Finch — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:23:42 +0000

In the last week or so we have been really taking a keen focus on music streaming service and even posted a specific review about MixTurtle. Today we have come across yet another music streaming service that might be worth a look. This new streaming service is called Just Hear It. Just Hear It has been created by two college students Nicolae Ivanescu and Cosmin Panait.

Just Hear It is very similar to MixTurtle, Seeqpod and Songza. It lets the user search for tracks that are online and add them to a playlist. Just Hear It claims to be completely legal, following DMCA guidelines, and paying royalties to all of the major performing-rights organizations, like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. In the future, Just Hear It aims to negotiate licenses to share revenue with labels.

After playing around with the site it still seems to have the same issues as Seeqpod and Songza, every now and then you will find the track that you want to listen to, but it simply wont play or the file is corrupted or incomplete. Im not really too sure if there is anything more annoying than setting up your playlist and half the songs playing.

However, because Just Hear It claims to be completely legal, I’m very curious to see how this business develops. They need to have a very strong business model and I’m guessing that will be based on advertising revenues.

Build Better Relationships with Zentact

matt — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:54:49 +0000

Social networking is turning into a bit of a bramble patch. Whilst making loads of new contacts and keeping in touch with old ones, we’ve somehow lost the part of the networking that is the social – the sharing of information. Be it photos, music or words of wisdom, it’s not quite as easy to let those who’d like to, know.

A solution, however, is afoot. Zentact, brought to us by among others, Eric Marcoullier of MyBlogLog fame, aims to collate your contacts into one place and allow you to share bits and pieces as you browse.

After signing up and adding in a few personal details, you can simply import your contacts from Hotmail, LinkedIn, Gmail and Outlook via a CSV address book and after a few seconds, they are on your system.

Next, and I highly recommend this, download the Firefox extension, all will be revealed shortly.

Now, the genius part. Each contact is taggable with their likes and dislikes and when a web page which has tags that match your contacts, if you installed the extension, a smart little box will flash up in the top right hand corner of your screen with the list of contacts who’s interests are relevant to the site. You can then send them a link and be merrily on your way. Remember, social.

Now the one down side to this is that if you have hundreds of contacts, it takes ages to go through them all tagging away. I’d recommend doing it bit by bit, adding tags as you go – this will take longer but does two things:

It lets you see who you will really be sharing with – there’s no point in having 300 contacts if you only ever talk to six of them regularly anyway, which means you can quickly identify those defunct e-mail addresses you’ve not used in years or people who don’t share common interests.

Secondly, it makes the whole process a lot smoother – you may like a tag binge, but frankly I’d rather be spending my time actually looking at what I came to see rather than typing in long lists of keywords, especially ones that are tricky to spell.

Now, it will take a while for you and Zentact to get to know each other, but the more contacts you tag and the more sites sites you send, the better Zentact becomes at recommending what is suitable for whom. This is a great service and especially suitable for anyone who is on a lot of social networks but can’t quite keep up with what is going on with who. Now you can build your relationships easily and stay in touch better.

We are lucky enough to have a handful of guest invites so you can try the private beta version of this site and tell all your friends about, which you can get by clicking here. Incidentally, you can tell your friends about it via Zentact and you can then invite them to join in this most social of networks.

You Can Now Update to Wordpress 2.7 Just Like Crenk

Steven Finch — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:13:31 +0000

Here at Crenk we have updated our site to the new Wordpress 2.7 and it is better than ever.

It only took about five minutes to upload via FTP and it is so much better than the previous 2.6 version.

The interface is a lot easier to look at and the dashboard has so many features to use. Additionally, one of the best features has to be editing and commenting right within the admin dashboard. Brilliant.

If you haven’t already head over to Wordpress.org and download Wordpress 2.7 now.

Google Updates Their Account Page Layout

Steven Finch — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:55:10 +0000

Google seems to be making a lot of updates recently in a variety of areas. Last week Google Reader received an update, as well as YouTube videos getting a search tool, but today the change can only be seen when you log in to your Google Account. The change is a basic layout update for everyone’s Google Account.

As you can see from the new design it is a lot cleaner and easier to navigate. Previously, all the items were lined up in a single column down the page, and I for one are really happy they changed it, considering the amount of Google products I use.

Google Reader Changes Design But Not Sure For The Better

Steven Finch — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:35:12 +0000

Google Reader has for a long time been my RSS reader of choice. The design has been simple, easy to use, lots of customisation options, ability to group and more.

Last week Google released a new version of Google Reader and I thought I would take a little time and review it for everyone.

(old)

(new)

Key changes include collapsible navigation, updated look and feel, friends get promoted and more bundle feeds.

Friends get promoted

Shared items have grown up and gotten their own section in the navigation pane. You can collapse this entire section and use the title to see everything your friends have shared, or leave it open to track friends with shared items. (Don’t forget that you can add new friends in “Sharing settings“.)

More bundled feeds!

Previously Google has some default bundles that you could subscribe too, in a variety of areas. Previously this was very limited and there were only about 10 areas. Now they have added huge amounts of bundle feeds for pretty much every major niche. If you go to “Browse for stuff” then you can see bundles.

Collapsible Navigation

Each section of the navigation pane now has its own options menu and minimize/maximize controls. You can collapse each major section of navigation down to one line and focus on only the things you choose to use.

Updated look and feel

The look and feel has changed a lot in this new version of Google Reader. I personally would have liked it if there was an option to return to the old version or at least have a variety of versions. The new version is very neutral, with white and a very light blue being the main colours. However, I find post a lot harder to read in this new version. Recently Gmail received a variety of themes in which users could choose from, I really hope this isn’t too long in coming to Google Reader.
Overall

Overall the changes to Google Reader were needed, except in the case of changing the colour scheme. I think the colour scheme changes are definitely a step backwards, but this can be changed when hopefully they release a themes range to choose from.

Apple Macbook Touch Rumoured To Be Coming on October 14

Steven Finch — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:51:51 +0000

Apple is a company that always seems to have a lot of rumours about their upcoming product launches. Here is a new one to add to the group, the Apple Macbook Touch. Some sources claim that

Apple is planning to launch the new Macbook on an event that is to be held on October 14. At this stage there is no official word that is actually a reality, but I think that this is definitely a product that will soon be launched.

There are other sites who have already reported on this rumour, including Gizmodo and Sizlopedia. As Sizlopedia mentioned, I doubt however Apple will launch a revolutionary new product at such a small gathering, when they have Macworld Expo 2009 not so far away.