Archive for the ‘Online Services’ Category
Track Your Computer Program Usage With Wakoopa
Seeing what programs you or your employees are running and actively using is valuble knowledge. For one, you can find habits in, say, how long you really sit down and play a short game of Team Fortress 2, or how much time StumbleUpon is really wasting away from your life. You could also find newer, better programs to replace your current ones; for example, upgrading from Internet Explorer to Firefox. Wakoopa gives you the power to do that and more with its easy-to-install and monitor application for both Windows and Mac (Linux coming soon) to help you track your apps.
Wakoopa recently began to track web apps as well as desktop apps, so websites like Zoho will show up in your tracked software. Funnily enough, the guys who run Wakoopa noticed that web apps seem to slowly be overtaking their desktop counterparts, likely because of laptops that have limited hard drive space and peoples’ attempts to speed up their computer by running less software.
So if you’re looking for a free desktop and web tracking application that comes with a pretty interface, give Wakoopa a try.
Scour+ Makes Search Results Pretty
Scour is a great concept for a search engine. Bring together the results of Google, Yahoo, and MSN along with user ratings and comments to make sure that the first page of results is the only page you’ll need. But the results are clogged with ads and extra spacing that you don’t need.
Scour+, developed by myself, solves two problems with one script. It makes Scour have a fixed width, meaning that widescreen users have an easier time reading the search results. It also removes any and every sponsored ad, making Scour better than every to search with.
Before and After:
To use Scour+, you’ll have to be using Firefox with the Stylish installed, which is an awesome addon that lets users customize the way their browsers view webpages, and it can modify Firefox itself too. You can view more styles at Userstyles.org, where Scour+ is hosted.
Battle.net 2.0 Features Announced
Battle.net, for those of you who don’t know, is Blizzard’s online matchmaking portal and community for games including the Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo series. To put it simply, you can go online with your specific game, whether it be Diablo II or Warcraft III Frozen Throne, and play user-made maps or Blizzard maps with friends. What’s intriguing about Battle.net is the popularity of it. For Warcraft III Frozen Throne, its attendance strictly from Xfire is 16,000 or so per day, making it Xfire’s #6 most played game. For not being updated since 2003, and being made in 1997, I would have to say Battle.net is a very great system.
I personally think Battle.net is good enough to last us another 10 years, but with the release of Diablo III and Starcraft II, some technical and visual updates are of course necessary. Blizzard has not released the dates for the conversion to Battle.net v2.0, but we know it will be soon, with the release of Diablo III (not for sure) and Starcraft II somewhere in 2009, hopefully not much longer! Among some of the features of Battle.net II are:
- Excellent Ping (fast connections)
- Channels and Chat in-game
- Ladders and Rankings, secured against cheating.
- Extended stats, with possibility to see who D/C etc (source)
- Automatic/Anonymous Matchmaking
- Avatars, Images and Icons to represent yourself
- Diablo III Hardcore mode
- Friends/Ignore Lists with advanced management (see accounts below)
- Clan Support
- Automated Tournaments
Here are some screenshots of games that currently use Battle.net:
Scour – The Social Networking Search Engine With A Bonus
Out of the top 5 most visited websites in the world, three of them are search engines. All of them show results for the same keyword differently though, based on different techniques to show you what they think is the most relevant to your search. But what if you could see the results from those three websites in one place? Scour is the answer. Scour takes the results from the search engines and displays them when you search, giving you the “perfect” search. What separates Scour from other sites like Dogpile are the social networking aspects of it. Scour lets users rate and comment websites, and the ratings are factored into future searches. Scour also gives users points for searching, rating, and commenting. After reaching a certain amount of points (like 6,500), you can get $25 bucks in cash sent to you via Paypal or a prepaid Visa card.
The great thing about Scour is how you can earn money for searching exactly like you used to with Google, and the results are better too. Scour makes money by sponsored links like Google does, but instead of keeping all the money to themselves, they want to say thanks to their loyal users with a little cash present.
For Firefox users: If you would like to make Scour your default search engine in the URL bar, type in “about:config”, search for “keyword” in the filter bar, then change the “keyword.URL” value to “http://scour.com/search/web/” without the quotes. Have fun with Scour!
Access Your Computer Anywhere With LogMeIn
Let’s say that you are at school and you couldn’t print that paper that’s due in a few minutes. How are you going to get onto your computer, get the file, and print it out in time? LogMeIn is the answer. LogMeIn allows people, both Mac and PC users, to access their home or office computer for free, unlike other such services like GoToMyPC. Just because LogMeIn is free doesn’t mean that it’s cutting out any great features like:
- Change color settings for better response time
- Chat with Host Computer
- Remote Reboot
- Clipboard (Paste) Sync
- and many more features with LogMeIn Pro
If you are worried about your computer’s safety, then you shouldn’t be, because LogMeIn has 256-bit encryption during use and you have to have a separate password than your Windows login password to access your computer with LogMeIn. After sign up, you can optionally use LogMeIn Pro for 1 month, although I wouldn’t recommend it because you’ll miss some of the features that come with it. If you really want to stick with LogMeIn Pro, it’ll cost $12.95 a month or $70.00 a year. You can take off $20 from the yearly subscription with the coupon code FTZZ-GLDC entered during checkout.
Check back soon at The Pxl Lab to read a review about LogMeIn Hamachi, the free software that easily creates a LAN network over the internet with your peers!
Giveaway of the Day Gives You Free Stuff
Giveaway of the Day is a site devoted to putting free software into hands of people both young and old. The software, which ranges from $9.00 to $50.00 or higher, is completely free and available for download over a 24 period. After that period is up, the program is no longer available for download. Also, after the period is up, you aren’t allowed to install it, so you must activate the program in the 24 time slot. The reason it is unable to install is that they have a 24 hour key associated with the file. They do this to ensure that no one shares the files, and only those that have directly downloaded the software can install it. They also might not allow the free software to receive updates, which is certainly a dilemma. The reason that companies put their shareware software on GotD is for public exposure, hoping to have downloaders tell friends about their product.
The software that Giveaway of the Day provides is varied every day. Some days there may be a game, various converters, 3d screensavers, or even photo organizer applications. Every day there is something different. The programs are usually not mainstream, and will not be recognized immediately. No Photoshop or Microsoft Word 2007 will be found at Giveaway of the Day, but it certainly does offer amazing programs for absolutely no cost at all! Make sure to check them out.
Scan Your Files For Viruses Online
The Jotti Malware Scanner is easy enough: upload a file, wait for it to be scanned by all of the scanners listed on the left image, then see if your file is infected or not. The simplicity of the Scanner is what makes it so useful, because instead of having 3 or 4 different virus scanners on my computer checking for viruses, you can have a website scan the file with 20 Anti-Virus scanners at once.
Of course, having an online virus scanner does not mean that you shouldn’t take advantage of a normal virus scanner on your computer. I use Avast! Antivirus (used by the online scanner, as it happens), which scans my files on a daily basis, checks emails for viruses, and looks for phishing websites while I browse the internet.
So, if you need to scan files from an office computer or a computer without antivirus, try using The Jotti Online Malware Scanner to scan files one at a time. If you are looking for a great desktop scanner though, Avast! is the way to go.
InstantAction Brings 3D Gaming to the Web
Have you been looking to play some great-looking games without leaving the comfort of Firefox? Look no further than InstantAction, a website created just for that purpose. Made by GarageGames, the leader of independent game design, InstantAction brings quality games like Think Tanks and Marble Blast to you for free, with micro transactions helping to keep the site in business. InstantAction takes advantage of being a web-based service by letting you easily join groups/parties of up to 8 people to play games and chat. Currently only one game has a single-player option, which is Marble Blast; however, more games should have that option once the service is stripped of its beta tag.
The only thing I don’t like about InstantAction is that I seem to lose connection to the party leaders right before a game starts, so I have to try and find another host to play a game. Other than this, I think that InstantAction will shape up to be a really great online gaming service in the coming months as it grows in popularity.
See If Your PC Can Play A Game, Before You Play It
YouGamers is an online services built for gamers: You choose a game, the site scans your computer hardware, and then displays whether or not your computer can play the game. If your PC doesn’t meet the requirements, the website will give you some advice about what you should upgrade in order to play. Attentive users will notice that the scans are run with 3DMark, which is the industry standard for computer hardware scanning and evaluation. So, if you’re wondering about Crysis crashing your machine, just check with YouGamers.
See If Your Computer Can Run A Game Before You Play It!
I used YouGamers to see just how well it worked, and I have to say I love it. I knew that Assassin’s Creed had high system requirements, so I went tried seeing if my computer could handle the power. After a quick 2-minute wait, during which I could still browse around the internet, YouGamers had scanned my computer and told me that I beat the minimum requirements to play Assassin’s Creed, but if I wanted to see its full glory, I should get a new videocard. I declined because I’m poor right now, but at least I knew that my machine could take the game when I got around to buying it.
Woopra Brings You Super-Cool Site Stats For Free
Have you ever wanted a stats system for your website that collected a ton of data and presented all of it in a beautiful desktop client? Woopra is your answer to that. It has live tracking and web stats, displaying your viewers in real-time and even letting you start a chat with them if you fancy. Woopra displays all your data on a desktop app that they are planning to be skinnable by all the graphic artists out there. Now, because Woopra tracks and displays live data, allowing admins to respond to sudden spikes in traffic. Woopra also lets you track multiple blogs/websites on one account, making it easy for larger companies with lots of websites to track everything easily. Another cool feature is the search bar, letting you search through things like geographical views, IP addresses, and visitor incoming links. You can also see custom notifications for things like traffic spikes, certain users visiting, or ad clicks.
To get Woopra working for you, just sign up for Woopra, install the appropriate plugin for your site (Wordpress, vBulletin, or general Javascript), and lastly download the client (see below).
