Sizlopedia - Web Apps, Gadgets, Software, Tips and Tricks. » Web 2.0

Privnote: Send Self-Destructible Private Notes

Dj Flush — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:24:50 +0000

Privnote is yet another not-so-interesting online notes sharing service that is perhaps perfect for users seeking extra security while sharing information.

It works quite similar to TinyPaste (reviewed by us) but perhaps with an exception i.e. notes get deleted/destroyed once read by the recipient.

The interface is simple and very easy to use. Just visit their website and enter your note and email of the recipient and click Post it.

A secret URL will be generated for the note which when clicked by the recipient displays the note and destroys it thus burying it forever.

TinyPaste: Share Text Clips using Short URLs

Dj Flush — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:08:47 +0000

TinyPaste is a service like TinyURL that creates short URLs out of large text clips which can be shared anywhere on the Internet.

It works by generating a short random URL out of the text that you paste in the text box. The URL generated will lead to the text clip whenever someone clicks on it.

The service can be used by users to share information and code in a fast manner. Instead of sharing text files through email with one or multiple users, one can simply generate a TinyPaste URL and share it with anyone instantly.

TinyPaste has also got an excellent Firefox extension which lets you generate a TinyPaste URL for any select piece of text by right clicking it and selecting "TinyPaste selected text".

Facesaerch - Search for Face Images and Find People

Dj Flush — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:04:46 +0000

Well recently I got an email from the creators of Facesaerch about the amazing new image search engine they have created.

Facesaerch basically helps you find face images of people and celebrities. It is powered by the Google Face Search technology which was unveiled by Google in July last year.

The image results are highly accurate and animate in a fancy cover-flow style which you might have experienced while using a Mac or iTunes. Other than celebrities, Facesaerch works good for finding pictures of common people too.

Facesaerch also has a Facebook app called FriendlyFlow which lets you browse your Facebook friends visually and receive live updates of what they are currently doing.

Make Interactive YouTube Videos using Video Annotations

Dj Flush — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:45:38 +0000

YouTube has introduced a new feature called Video Annotations which will now allow YouTube users to make interactive YouTube videos using annotations and bubble messages.

Flickr users would already be familiar with this feature as Flickr allows users to do the same with static images but of course annotations in videos would definitely be more fun and would make the video more interactive and appealing.

Here you can watch an Interactive Card Trick video which is one of the very first YouTube videos to feature Video annotations.

To add annotations to your videos simply login to your YouTube account, go to videos and click “Edit Annotations” button to the right of the video. YouTube gives you the liberty to add commentary, messages and even hyperlinks to your videos using this new feature. Once you are done adding annotations, just click “Publish” to reveal your annotated videos to others.

Video annotations are enabled by default on all YouTube videos but for those who think this feature is a little annoying, they can turn annotations off through the “Menu” button on the bottom right of the video player.

Find Image Duplicates on Web using TinEye - Get Free Invites

Dj Flush — Sat, 31 May 2008 19:34:41 +0000

TinEye is a new revolutionary web 2.0 image search engine by IDEE that lets you search the web for images with an image. More clearly I would say, TinEye does for Images what Google does for text. Here is how it works.

You give TinEye an image by either uploading it or providing its URL on the web. TinEye searches the web for images that highly match the image you have provided in terms of pixels and gives you results in descending order of their relevancy.

Basically it helps you find image duplicates on the web by providing you location of each and every copy of image found. Alternatively, TinEye can be used to find high quality versions of a specific image. The great thing is that it also detects and displays image alterations in the search results. For example I used TinEye to search the web for the Mona Lisa image on the right.

Surprisingly, TinEye even found altered forms of the Mona Lisa image and displayed them in the search results.

TinEye is currently in a Private Beta and has indexed over 500,000,000 images. It even has a Firefox plugin which makes searching for images on the web as easy as a pie. Below you can see a live video demo of TinEye:

Free TinEye Invites

IDEE is giving free TinEye invites to some Sizlopedia readers so if you want to get your invite, just tell me why do you think TinEye will stand out among all other image search engines in the comments below.

I will hand-select some of the best comments and they can go image-hunting right away!

Get Jobs Done at Microsoft Task Market

Dj Flush — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:44:21 +0000

Microsoft has introduced a new service called Microsoft Task Market which connects small businesses with skilled freelancers for marketing and other document help such as graphic design, writing and editing, document translation, and creating or enhancing presentations and spreadsheets.

In short and easy words, Task Market allows you to post a job in order to find someone who can do it for you or search for jobs for which you can get paid in return.

This service is very similar to other famous job boards like GetaCoder and GetaFreelancer but with Microsoft on its backend, Task Market looks quite promising.

The interface is very easy and simple and you can easily login using any of your Windows Live accounts. Users have their own profile where they get rated on the amount of jobs they have posted/solved. All payments are done using Paypal.

Good and quite useful service and I am hoping to see more of it in the coming future.

How to Find the Font from a Logo or Image

Dj Flush — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:46:13 +0000

There is a very cool service called WhatTheFont which lets you detect the font used in a logo or image by just uploading it.

For a test I uploaded the Sizlopedia logo and after a quick scan the service gave a list of almost 20 closely matching font styles. Google OS used the Google logo as a test and WhatTheFont successfully detected its font at once.

WhatTheFont supports some common image formats like GIF, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, but you can’t upload images bigger than 360 x 275 pixels. It is a useful and handy service that can be used by designers to find the font from a logo or image on the fly.

Get Free Orkut Themes

Dj Flush — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:41:37 +0000

Orkut has released a set of 10 themes for Orkut users which they can apply on their profile to make it look more beautiful and pleasing. However the sad part is that Orkut themes are available for selected users only and the feature has not yet been rolled out to everyone.

Thats where OrkutPlus comes to the immediate rescue by introducing userscripts of each of the 10 Orkut themes. Userscripts are small bits of Javascript used to customize a webpage at the user end.

Userscripts can be applied using the famous Greasemonkey Firefox Extension and you need to have Firefox Web Browser to use these Userscript Orkut themes.

Orkut themes can be installed using the link provided at the end of each screenshot:

Install Theme 1 - Beach

Install Theme 2 - Country

Install Theme 3 - Season

Install Theme 4 - Bus Stop

Install Theme 5 - Autumn

Install Theme 6 - Tiger

Install Theme 7 - Winter

Install Theme 8 - Jr001

Install Theme 9 - Snowman

Install Theme 10 - Tea House

Free iPhone-Like Web 2.0 Icons

Dj Flush — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:36:48 +0000

I love icons and mostly everyone loves good-looking web 2.0 icons so here is a good set of them provided by fasticon.

They have got a good iPhone-Like icon look and can be best used on your blog for social bookmarking or you can use them on your desktop to make it look more web 2.0′ish.

Icons can be downloaded from the link below:

http://fasticon.com/freeware/index.php/web-2-icons/

Thanks to Hack Wordpress for the heads up. Don’t forget to take a look at our tutorial on How To Integrate Web 2.0 Social Bookmark Icons to your Blog.

ReadAir: Google Reader Desktop app on Adobe Air

Dj Flush — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:00:20 +0000

The reason I do not like Google Reader much is because of the reason that it does not come as a standalone desktop app. However this is about to change with the new Adobe Air app called ReadAir.

ReadAir is an OSX Themed Desktop Client for any operating system that can run the Adobe AIR platform (Mac, Windows or even Linux). It synchronizes with your online Google Reader account to provide you the latest news and articles through RSS feeds.

This app is open-source and hosted on Google Code. The developer has promised that the app will soon feature some unique themes and keyboard shortcuts. The great feature of this app is that it retains the qualities of other apps built on the Adobe Air platform i.e. light size and simplicity.

Something tells me that FeedDemon by NewsGator (currently the most-used desktop RSS reader app) is going to get a tough competition with ReadAIR.

Install ReadAIR

Linux/Ubuntu users can read our guide on How to Install Adobe AIR on Ubuntu to enjoy using this app on Linux

Google Friend Connect Brings Social Networking

Dj Flush — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:31:08 +0000

Google Friend Connect is a new service by Google thats allows site owners to grow traffic by easily adding social features to their website. With just a few snippets of code, webmasters get more people engaging more deeply with their site.

In order words, this service will help non-technical site owners add social features to their website by using small snippets of codes and widgets. Google Friend Connect will enable users from other social networks like Facebook, Orkut, Hi5 to interact with other sites participating in the program.

Webmasters can even add OpenSocial apps to their website which add more interactivity and features. The basic purpose of Google to introduce this new service is to open a gateway of endless possibilities where webmasters can do more with less coding.

For more information on Google Friend Connect, visit this page. If you are developer or site owner you can also signup for the preview release to test how this service actually works.

The most interesting question here is how this new service by Google will integrate with blogging platforms like Wordpress and Blogger.

Alert Thingy: Adobe AIR app for FriendFeed

Dj Flush — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:41:09 +0000

Sometimes it amazes me how I miss reviewing some of the best web 2.0 tools and services. FriendFeed is one such web 2.0 service that launched this year and has created a lot of buzz around the web 2.0 world. The service basically lets you keep a track of your friends’ activity around various social networks like YouTube, Flickr, Twitter etc.

Here what we have is probably the first ever web app created for FriendFeed. Alert Thingy is a web app for FriendFeed, built on the Adobe AIR platform, which brings all of your friends’ activity to your desktop. Just like FriendFeed itself, Alert Thingy will give you alerts and notifications about what your friends are doing around different social networks.

Webware thinks that application might not be that much powerful like the online service itself but can serve as a better desktop tool for users who want to track their friends’ activity around Twitter only. The application good chances of making it to the 10 most useful Adobe AIR applications.

To install the application, simply visit Alert Thingy and give it a go.

We also have a guide for Ubuntu users on How to Install Adobe AIR on Ubuntu.

Twitlinks: Latest Tech news from Twitter

Dj Flush — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:47:53 +0000

You know Twitter is great for sharing articles and links with your friends and followers. Thats exactly what top tech twitter users do, they read and discover some articles from web and then share the best of them on Twitter through their tweets. Now we have a service that will do the same but in a much more organized manner.

Twitlinks is a Twitter related service that claims to bring you the latest links from the worlds top tech twitter users. The service is created by @garazy and by the looks of it seems very useful and informative.

The service works in two easy steps:

Tech people talk about cool stuff
Twitlinks makes it look nice and publishes those links

This way you can always read new interesting articles related to tech first hand instead of relying on other services like Digg etc. Plus there is no fear of missing any important tweet from a famous tech twitter user as Twitlinks is there to archive all of the links.

Twitlinks is following some of the top people on Twitter who talk and share knowledge about tech and it even has a RSS Feed to which you can subscribe to get the latest links directly in your feed reader. iPhone users can also enjoy reading articles on a special mobile version which can be accessed at Twitlinks iPhone.

Wikirage: Find Hot Topics on Wikipedia

Sujith — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:57:45 +0000

I always thought about how wonderful Wikipedia is. Where else can you find faceless, nameless humans sharing their knowledge for someone they don’t know in some distant land. Internet makes ideas that seems weird bring to reality. Now coming back from philosophy to reality: Wikipedia is cool and none of us can think without living it anymore.

There are many tools out there that will help you keep updated with latest happening around the world and today I want to share you with Wikirage which is one such similar tool. I assume that name didn’t get a clue of what it is. So here we go:

Wikirage is a service that will tell you about the latest updated pages from Wikipedia. It lists the pages in Wikipedia which are receiving the most edits per unique editor over various periods of time. Popular people in the news, the latest fads, and the hottest video games can be quickly identified by monitoring this social phenomenon.

You can sort the pages by many criteria including Quality Edits, Unique Editors Total Edits, Vandalism Reversions, Undos etc.

So, what will you do with such a service, here are some of my thoughts:

Just for random browsing
Increase your knowledge
To glitter ideas about a posts, if you are having writers block

If you are a blogger you will really appreciate this one for the last point alone. Wikirage has got XML feeds also, so fire up your feed reader and subscribe to one of their feeds.

Twubble: Find Interesting People on Twitter

Dj Flush — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:12:20 +0000

The Twitter-tool database just keeps getting better and better everyday. Daily we get to see some new Twitter related web services and its hard to pick out a unique one. Twubble is one such web service for Twitter users created and hosted by @crazybob that helps them find interesting people.

Twubble searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow. This is for lame Twitter users like me who don’t like to follow much people as they can’t find people of similar interests. Twubble will help you choose who to follow or not based on your Twitter friends statistics.

The service is easy to use. Just go to Twubble, and click “Find some Friends” to get started!

Adobe Media Player is Here for Download

Hacker — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:08:01 +0000

Adobe just launched the Adobe Media player which enables users to play back video in the Flash format. Adobe Systems is announcing, April 9, the immediate availability of its Adobe Media Player 1.0 software, a customizable, cross-platform media player that is an Adobe Integrated Runtime application.

With Adobe Media Player, Adobe plans to bring viewers and content owners closer together with an experience that doesn’t constrain them by platform or proprietary software application.

Adobe Media Player provides playback of streamed, downloaded or locally stored video in the Adobe Flash format, and you can download video outside the browser in the Adobe Flash format, which can be viewed in 1080p, 720p or 480i video display resolutions.

Another great thing about Adobe Media player is that Users can also subscribe to television shows and other online video content and then automatically receive new episodes of the shows as they become available. To help viewers discover new content, a searchable catalog of shows from leading media companies and networks is available.

Download Adobe Media Player

TweetStats: Tool to Graph Twitter Stats

Dj Flush — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:28:42 +0000

Here comes TweetStats, another Twitter tool that is going to give you detailed statistics about your tweets and will provide you with a graphical analysis of what platforms you have been using to post updates at Twitter and who have you been replying to the most.

Above is a graph of the platforms I have been using the most to post updates @DjFlush generated by TweetStats and the graph is quite accurate and well-sketched (Yes! I love TwitterFox)

TweetStats is really accurate and extremely simple to use as all you have to do is go to TweetStats Homepage and put in your Twitter username to get all statistics about your Twitter profile or more simply just add your profile name at the end of http://tweetstats.com/graphs/ just like this:

http://tweetstats.com/graphs/DjFlush

The tool is extremely informative and fun to use so do give it a try!

Phoenix (Web-based Image Editor by Aviary)

Dj Flush — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:15:17 +0000

Today I got an invitation to try out Phoenix by Aviary. Lately Aviary has been creating a lot of buzz as it seems to be one of the most promising set of online tools and web applications that would over-throw the use of desktop apps like Photoshop and Word which mainly intend to allow the user to create new documents and process and create new images.

The most amazing thing about Aviary is that it offers no less than 20 web apps and tools each one of which has a unique name (based on a bird) and offers a complete unique functionality. The tools range from image editor to vector editor, audio to video editor, word processor to desktop publisher and from the amazing seam carving image resizer to the time machine photo warp. All of these tools are in their alpha stages and a detailed information about them can be found at Aviary tools.

I managed to get my hands on Phoenix by Aviary (Web-based Image Editor) and I was delighted to know that I may not have to use Photoshop anymore. While Photoshop is a desktop tool, Phoenix is a online flex-based free web application that can be used anywhere in the world. It offers the same tools and functionality of Adobe Photoshop and allows you to create, publish and share collaborated image documents.

Aviary is more of a cross between social networking and web applications and tools. Once you register, you have your online profile page where other users can comment on the images you are working on and likewise you can share and collaborate documents and images with other users.

I have 5 Free Phoenix invitations with me so if you want to try it out just leave a comment. As soon as I get my hands on new Aviary tools, I will review them too.

Create Image Signature of your Latest Tweet

Dj Flush — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:14:51 +0000

Twitter is the most fun and exciting way of letting people know what you are doing at any given instant. You have your own personal homepage where users can see your latest activity and can also interact with you by following you or by posting replies.

But just imagine how cool would it be if there was a dynamic image that would display your latest tweet in emails and on forum signatures? Well! TwitSig is the ultimate solution for that.

TwitSig is a service that will generate an image signature out of your Twitter profile, displaying the most-recent tweet. This image can then be shared as a signature within your email or on forums and blogs.

To generate your Twitter profile signature simply use the following URL scheme:

http:///twitsig.com/profile.png

where profile is your actual Twitter profile name. For instance, take a look at the Twitter sig of one of my favorite and most active Twitter friends.

This image will update itself dynamically as the user keeps posting new tweets.

Easily add Speech Bubbles to Photos and Images

Dj Flush — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:58:13 +0000

I am sure most of you would already be using some online tool to make your digital photos and images more fun and exciting. PicBite is one such tool which allows you to add speech bubbles or bubble comments to your photos and images.

The special feature of this great online tool is that it is very simple and easy to use. It works in a 3-step way (upload, transform and share) and does not even need any sort of registration.

The service allows you to add unlimited number of square-shaped bubble comments to your photos so you can make photos and images more exciting with active dialogs. Plus it lets you share your bubble-commented photos and images on social network sites or blogs using the sharing links it generates for you on the fly.

Give it a try, I bet you will really like the service just like I did. Also suggest any alternatives in the comments and don’t forget to take a look at what Kareena has to say about PicBite

Sizlopedia - Web Apps, Gadgets, Software, Tips and Tricks. » Web 2.0

Privnote: Send Self-Destructible Private Notes

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