Surflizard » 2008

Scrabulous Take Down

Posted by Joe on July 29, 2008 · Comments Off

ReadWriteWeb has an overview of the Scrabulous shutdown. Don’t feel too sorry for the game’s creators — they were reportedly offered $10 million and the right to keep some version of their game — which is a direct copy of Scrabble — up on the web. But the guys apparently got greedy, holding out for a bigger payday.

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Cuil Not So Cool

Posted by Joe on July 28, 2008 · Comments Off

I played with over-hyped new search engine Cuil.com off and on throughout the day, and I’m amazed at how poorly and inconsistently it worked. There appear to be serious architectural flaws that resulted in inconsistent and unpredictable results. John Dvorak has a scathing review slamming Cruil for poor search results. And Juan Carlos Perez points out that Cuil’s poor first impression could do lasting damage to the brand the owners are trying to create. One interesting thing I noted was that as the day wore on, Wikipedia articles started suddenly appearing high up in the search results [...]

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Would You Like To Play A Game?

Posted by Joe on July 27, 2008 · Comments Off

War Games, the 1983 film that had kids all over America dreaming of cracking government computers, has finally spawned a sequel. I watched War Games: The Dead Code today, and it was better than I expected given the sacred ground it was treading on — not to mention the movie’s direct-to-DVD nature. I was worried early on…the first part of the movie has the feel of a second-rate remake or reboot more than a sequel. But eventually the plot heads back to the original source material and brings it up to date nicely. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot of silliness [...]

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Read Magazines Online

Posted by Joe on July 25, 2008 · Comments Off

Mygazines.com has an impressive selection of magazines available for online reading. Users upload high-quality PDF files that are then available for anyone to read, rate, comment on, and mash up into personal ‘mygazines’. Reading magazines doesn’t require registration. This is an amazing site…enjoy it while it’s still available.

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Zimbra Email CLient

Posted by Joe on July 24, 2008 · Comments Off

Version 3 of Yahoo’s Zimbra Desktop offline email client is now available as a free download. The software competes directly with Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc., and works with any POP or IMAP mail server. Although Zimbra is a stand-alone application running locally, it uses Java and Ajax just like many browser-based online applications. If you need offline access to your email or want to consolidate your various accounts into a single inbox, Zimbra may be worth a try — the reviews seem positive so far.

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TypoBuddy Turns Bad Spelling Into Bargains

Posted by Joe on July 24, 2008 · Comments Off

TypoBuddy helps you search Ebay and Craigslist for mistyped words, automatically searching for typos based on your search terms. Many people have been doing this on their own for years, and it really is a great way to find deals on ebay. TypoBuddy just makes things a lot easier.

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Yahoo! Advises Customers To Break Copy Protection On Music

Posted by Joe on July 24, 2008 · Comments Off

Yahoo is not only closing their music store, they’re advising customers to circumvent their copy protection by burning music to a cd and re-ripping the tracks without DRM: After September 30, 2008, you will not be able to transfer songs to unauthorized computers or re-license these songs after changing operating systems. Please note that your purchased tracks will generally continue to play on your existing authorized computers unless there is a change to the computer’s operating system. For any user who purchased tracks through Yahoo! Music Unlimited, we highly recommend that you back [...]

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Prison Needs Better Spam Filter

Posted by Joe on July 23, 2008 · Comments Off

Convicted spammer escapes from prison: Eddie Davidson escaped from a Colorado prison over the weekend. Davidson pleaded guilty to tax evasion and falsifying information in an email – he sent hundreds of thousands of unsolicited messages touting penny stocks; he altered the emails so they appeared to come from legitimate businesses. He was about five weeks into a 21-month prison term.

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Knol Wnats To Be An Authoritative Database Of Everything

Posted by Joe on July 23, 2008 · Comments Off

Knol from Google is a new wiki-ish knowledge base. Unlike WikiPedia (the comparison is unavoidable), a Knol article has a single author or group of authors that determine the level of community collaboration he or she wishes to allow. Interestingly, multiple articles can exist on the same topic. The content is pretty sparse right now — leaning heavily towards medical articles. However, with Google’s backing, content growth should be rapid. Another high-profile reference site should compliment WikiPedia, while the different format and methodology of Knol will provide some much needed [...]

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Live Mesh Synchonizes Files Without Fuss

Posted by Joe on July 23, 2008 · Comments Off

I’ve been looking at services that allow the synchronization of files across multiple computers. There are a lot of these services out there, but I decided to give the new Live Mesh service from Microsoft a shot. So far it’s been a good experience. I’ve got two PCs I’m syncing, with about 1.5 GB of data so far (Live Mesh offers 5 GB). The synchronized files can be accessed locally on either machine or can be accessed on the web from any computer. So far, everything is working great. The client software runs unobtrusively in the background, and files added to folders [...]

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Google Doing Digg Deal

Posted by Joe on July 22, 2008 · Comments Off

Google is pursuing an acquisition of Digg for a reported $200 million: Google’s on and off negotiations with Digg have been back on in a big way for the last six weeks, we’ve heard from multiple sources inside of Google, and the two companies are close to a deal that will bring Digg under the Google News property Digg was once a vital destination for anyone interested in technology news, but the quality has been sliding for more than a year. I don’t know if Google can turn that slide around, but it will be interesting to watch them try. By the way, I hereby formally propose calling this [...]

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Apps To Go — Lots Of Them

Posted by Joe on July 21, 2008 · Comments Off

App-Stick.com is an impressive directory of hundreds of portable applications that can be executed directly from a USB drive. The security section alone offers a treasure trove of invaluable apps for when you’re called on to perform tech support for friends and family. Offerings include Spybot Search And Destroy (spyware), Avast and ClamWin (antivirus), password managers, secure deletion tools, and encryption software. Note that many of the apps in the directory must be installed locally, but the program folder can then be copied to a usb drive and executed from any computer without worrying [...]

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Techcrunch Wants A $200 Web Tablet — Right Now

Posted by Joe on July 21, 2008 · Comments Off

Michael Arrington wants to design and prototype an open source web tablet that can be built and distributed for $200. It would run Firefox and maybe Skype on a minimal linux OS. I’d buy 2 or 3, for sure.

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iPhone 2.0 unlock tool released

Posted by Joe on July 21, 2008 · Comments Off

Tony Smith at The Register has tested the latest version of PwnageTool, designed to jailbreak and unlock the latest iPhone firmware.

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CherryPal Sips Power But Specs Are Weak

Posted by Joe on July 21, 2008 · Comments Off

The CherryPal “cloud computer” was announced today. The $249 pc uses only 2 watts of power at maximum usage, but the specs seem to be on the lower end of usability. Priced at US$249, the system includes a Freescale processor running at 400MHz, 256M bytes of RAM and 4G bytes of internal flash storage. It comes with the OpenOffice suite and the Firefox Web browser. By comparison, Asus Eee PC mini-notebooks have at least an 800GHz Intel Celeron processor, 512M bytes of RAM and 2G bytes of flash storage for about $300. Users have the option to store data online, a concept known as [...]

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Smaller PC Trend Worrying Manufacturers

Posted by Joe on July 21, 2008 · Comments Off

Can PC manufacturers make money on ultra-light ultra-cheap laptops? That’s the question: The personal computer industry is poised to sell tens of millions of small, energy-efficient Internet-centric devices. Curiously, some of the biggest companies in the business consider this bad news. “We’re sitting on the sidelines not because we’re lazy. We’re sitting on the sidelines because even if this category takes off, and we get our piece of the pie, it doesn’t add up,” said Paul Moore, senior director of mobile product management for Fujitsu. “It’s a product that essentially [...]

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Daughter Trades Broken RAZR For Working Smartphone

Posted by Joe on July 20, 2008 · Comments Off

When my daughter’s pretty pink RAZR took a four story fall at the St. Louis City Museum (see picture below) and ended up in peices, I loaned her my old T-Mobile SDA Windows Mobile smartphone. She likes it a lot, especially the ability to read ebooks on it. The phone has WiFi, but with no touch screen or qwerty keyboard, it isn’t much fun to use as a web browser. She just turned 13, and I’m anxious too see how much she explores the phone’s capabilities. Phone Drop Point

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Another WordPress Upgrade

Posted by Joe on July 20, 2008 · Comments Off

We upgraded our WordPress software from version 2.5 to 2.6. The new version came out 1 day after our major 2.5 upgrade. There shouldn’t be any issues, but let us know if you encounter any wonky behavior. If you’re interested in WordPress, here’s news about the latest release.

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Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta Browser Released

Posted by Joe on July 20, 2008 · Comments Off

CNet has a full review of the Opera Mobile 9.5 beta browser, released a few days ago. It looks like Opera may be the browser to beat for Windows Mobile devices — not a high target given the state of mobile IE. And Andrew Smith, blogging for the Dallas Morning News Techblog, has this to say: It’s only in beta, but based upon three days of testing I’m already willing to declare Opera Mobile 9.5 the best browser available for Windows Mobile phones.

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