Different board games make the transition from table top to computer/handheld with varying levels of success. Chess, partially because of its structured nature and partially because it is a classic geek game, handles the transition extremely well. The sheer number of chess programs that are available for Windows Mobile devices is staggering. Rampart Chess ($12.95 from the WMExperts Store) is one entry into the field that is built by Rampart Games. When I’m looking for a computerized Chess game, there are some standard features that I’m looking for as well as some others that would be nice to have....
Music and browsing mashup Songbird has kicked the remnants of its shell to the curb. With the release of version 1.0.0 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, the program's main emphasis as a music browser couldn't be more clear. Songbird's familiar layout should make it easy for many to combine their browsing and music playback in one tool.(Credit: Pioneers of the Inevitable) If you looked at some of the earlier beta versions, Songbird's interface borrowed heavily from Firefox. More recent versions took their cue from iTunes, with Web browsing occurring in a second tab. Although toggling between your music library...
Whether you want to advertise your business or share news and photos with your family and friends, having a website just makes sense. Many people realize this, but they don’t know how to go about creating one. SnapPages solves this problem by giving anyone the ability to create a great looking site in very little time. SnapPages has two plans to choose from: a free plan and a premium plan, which costs $50 a year (about $4 a month). The free plan gives you access to lots of great features, but if you want to use your own domain or...
Bloggers can now add text-to-speech capabilities to their site with new tools such as Odiogo, allowing readers to actually listen to blog posts on the website, and even on iTunes (as well as iPods and iPhones) as a podcast. While this is a cool feature for readers, it could be a very valuable tool for the visually impaired. These tools also provide benefits to readers with learning disabilities like Dyslexia. As a demonstration of how easy it is to setup this text-to-speech technology, we’ve actually gone ahead and helped Rachel from Why Not Rachel setup Odiogo for her blog. Why...
This article is part of the Open Web Awards, an open, international contest for the best websites and services. Although Google recently pushed out some seemingly unpopular changes to its personalized homepage service – iGoogle – it’s currently leading the pack when it comes to votes in The Open Web Awards. It’s followed closely by two search engines – Yahoo and Google itself – as many users clearly still start their Web experience by simply loading up their favorite search engine. Here’s a look at all of the finalists: Alltop - aggregates thousands of blogs in hundreds of topics in...
The little orange guy in Google Maps as most people know is the character you see in the Street Views function. The recent update to the Google Maps service definitely puts greater emphasis on this. For example: The Street Views icon (i.e. the orange guy) is now directly on top of the zoom slider… …and yes it’s functional. While zoomed in on a map you can click the orange guy, drag and drop and you’ll get the Street View. While dragging a thumbnail appears before you drop (nice touch). Where’s the "Street Views" button? Gone. You have to know...
If you're tired of hearing about Windows 7's upcoming features while you sit and stare at your aging XP or Vista desktop, take solace in a few free apps and themes that can give you a taste right now. While it's true that Windows 7 isn't much different from Windows Vista (inside and out), a few neat features are worth trying out, and you can do it without installing the Windows 7 Preview. Here are a few free apps and alternatives that simulate Windows 7's built-in features. Pin Items to Your Taskbar Windows 7 lets you pin programs and...
File sharing service Drop.io has undergone a front page redesign which gets rid of everything unnecessary and focuses on really simple file sharing. Additional options like password, permissions and expiration time are now available via a hidden menu below the file upload form. Other new features include right click context menus which are now implemented across the entire site, a more powerful file uploader, an improved commenting system and several new views for uploaded files. Despite its simple appearance, Drop.io actually has a number of advanced features such as geo-tagging, drag-and-drop file uploads via Firefox add-on, and support for Scribd’s...
Filed under: Fun, Internet, Video, Beta I can't remember how many times I've had a seemingly great idea for a skit with one of my coworkers. Sadly, most of us don't have the time or resources to produce our own animated shorts.A beta web app by Xtranormal aims to level the playing field by making movie creation drag-and-drop simple. If you can write dialog that makes sense and click a mouse, you're well on your way to creating a digital masterpiece.Choose a character, type in a block of text, and drag in facial expressions, actions, and sounds. The speech is...
TextFlow, a new way to collaboratively edit documents, is opening up to everyone Monday morning. Instead of going the real-time route like Zoho and Google Docs, the service opts to let a master editor corral multiple versions of the same Microsoft Word document inside of one file. Each editor sends in their copy of the file (presumably via e-mail), and the master editor drags and drops all of them into a single bucket. The application then divides the edits the document edits into sections, letting the master editor pick whatever revisions make the most sense. When finished they can output...
Folks living in the browser will appreciate this quick-and-easy tidbit of a feature shown over at Digital Inspirations. You can now share a Google Doc simply with a drag-and-drop right in Gmail. First, you'll need the Google Doc gadget that we mentioned back in October so that your Docs will appear in your Gmail sidebar. Once you have it there, simply drag the document link into an e-mail and you've got an active hyperlink that will share the doc with your e-mail recipient. It's a small touch, but definitely handy for sharing docs. Note that you could already search...
Windows only: If you are looking for ways to merge a bunch of MP3 files into one larger file, and don't like the command line solution I wrote about earlier this week, try Merge MP3. The application is tiny, the interface familiar, and it will allow you to drag-and-drop MP3 files onto a playlist, change the order, preview the audio, and then mix them all down to a single MP3 files along with APIC images and ID3 meta-data. Perfect for creating a mix or joining files from an audiobook you've ripped from multiple CDs. Merge MP3 is a free download...
After a couple of years in development, Yahoo! officially launched their BrowserPlus plugin at a party on the Yahoo! campus today. BrowserPlus is a new cross-browser plugin from Yahoo! that enables what they’re called “in-browser desktop applications,” which is a fancy way of saying that it allows developers to add desktop-like functionality to web-based apps. The BrowserPlus approach is a bit different from Gears (a Google-led open source project), which is a desktop wrapper for web apps with local data store, and Adobe’s AIR, which recreates a web environment on the desktop, though there is some overlap. BrowserPlus offers developers...
It was probably inevitable given what Google did with Gears, but Yahoo said Tuesday it's releasing BrowserPlus software as open-source software. BrowserPlus and Gears are aimed at improving browsers' native abilities so Web applications can better match those running natively on a computer's operating system, and Gears already is open-source software. Yahoo announced its intent to make BrowserPlus open-source software on its Yahoo Developers Blog on Tuesday. "Openness is a key initiative and a major theme for Yahoo this year and beyond, and open-sourcing BrowserPlus is part of that commitment," said team member Lloyd Hilaiel. "This will allow developers...
Windows only: Convert videos from DVD or downloads into the format and size you like with Automen, a simple but powerful tool that's small, free, and relatively easy to use. I say "relatively" compared to Mencoder, the command-line utility it provides a user interface for. You will have to edit the program's INI configuration file in Notepad to get it working, so if drag-and-drop is more your speed it might not be right for you. You can choose from a variety of input and output formats (including XVID, FLV, WMV, and MP4), specify the output dimensions and even target...
