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28 09 2008

MySpace Music launches (yawn)

Posted by: in Services

Filed under: Audio, World wide web, Web services, Social Software

After months of planning, MySpace has rolled out MySpace Music, a new advertising-supported streaming audio service backed by the four major music labels.

There are a few things that make MySpace Music worth checking out. You can stream all the songs for free. And you can add songs to a custom playlist and post that list to your MySpace profile, making it simple for people to find new music. And finally, if you find a song you like, but you want to play it on a portable device or when your computer isn’t connected to the internet, you can click the Purchase button in the player to buy the a DRM-free copy of the track from Amazon MP3.

But I’m still not particularly impressed. I was able to find MySpace pages for most of the artists I searched for. But not each song was available for buy from Amazon. And for many artists you could find one or two albums, but not every album, and certainly not every song.

Since MySpace Music is basically a streaming audio website, it’s hard not to compare it to similar services like Last.fm or even SeeqPod. And I have to state, while the audio player is nice, and the social aspect could be useful, the music selection isn’t very impressive.

28 09 2008

eBay to ban checks and money orders in late October

Posted by: in Services

Filed under: Business, World wide web, Web services

There’s no question that PayPal is one of the easiest ways to send and receive payments for items bought on eBay. But since the on the web auction site was founded, users were able to send checks or arrange payments via other methods if they were more convenient. Now all that’s about to change.

Starting in about a month, eBay will stop allowing users to send checks or money orders as payment for items bought on the US version of the site. You’ll only be able to pay using PayPal, ProPay, credit or debit cards (if the seller has an internet merchant account), or pay for the item upon pickup.

In January, eBay will make sure all of these options are easily available in the checkout section. For example, you’ll be able to enter your credit card information to complete a buy if a seller is authorized to accept credit cards.

eBay tried to issue a PayPal-only requirement in Australia earlier this year, but regulators ruled that the move would be anti-competitive.

[via Ars Technica]

27 09 2008

Converting .docx documents to .doc

Posted by: in Services

Filed under: Business, Windows, Macintosh, Office, Productivity, Web services, Freeware

Thanks Microsoft. No seriously, thanks. As far as I can tell, the new .docx default document format in MS Word 2007 and 2008 (for Mac) does nothing to make my life easier, but has certainly made it more of a pain. Although my office predominantly uses Office 2003, our users are starting to receive documents saved in the newer .docx format, and are unable to open or edit them. Since I happen to be running Office 2007 and 2008 on my machine (it’s a Mac with VMWare Fusion for running Windows), I get to play the role of “mister file converter”.

Well, no longer.

Thanks to our pals over at TUAW, I have the ability to now redirect my office mates to Zamzar’s free on the internet file converter. We’ve written about Zamzar before, but this is the first I had heard that it supports Office file formats.

27 09 2008

HoaxCall: A Web site for bullies who never grew up

Posted by: in Services

Filed under: Internet, Web services

Apparently, the owner of the Web site HoaxCall is unable to determine just what it is his site actually does. According to a press release, he needs help answering the following question: “Is HoaxCall.com the Latest Form of Cyber-bullying”

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Grow up.

In the release, founder Marc Waesche explains, “I created this site with the prankster in mind. I can remember doing prank calls as a child and wanted to give prank calls a high-tech makeover.” Well, here’s a thought. If something is funny when you’re nine then chances are, it isn’t when you’re twenty-nine.

Here’s HoaxCall’s schtick. Pick a prank call scenario, then dial any phone number right from the browser. Listen as a pre-made audio clip plays for the person you’ve called, and wait for hilarity to ensue. The three options available at the moment are “The Annoying eBay Buyer,” “You’re on Air [sic]!” and “Yeah, Who’s This Then?” Evidently, there are more coming soon.

Before dismissing the site entirely, I listened to two different scenarios and they were predictably bad, over-acted, and just downright silly. In fact, the “funniest” part of any call would be if someone was actually tricked into thinking they were speaking to a real person other than a recording.

The only thing this Web site got right is that it won’t let you dial the same number more than once every two weeks. I wasn’t able to verify that claim, however. According to the FAQs HoaxCall collects phone numbers in a database and I wasn’t about to offer mine up to them.

While the site is no doubt sophomoric, the most troubling thing about it is the glib references to the very serious issue of cyber-bullying. Well, that and HoaxCall’s attempt to provide “an outlet for the prankster in each of us.” I don’t know about you, but I grew out of making prank calls right about the same time burp jokes stopped being funny.

Judging by the terrific sense of humor I see in Download Squad readers, I’d say you’ve grown up, too. So, who’s up for some real fun?

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27 09 2008

Hulu adds channels for sorting videos by genre

Posted by: in Services

Filed under: World wide web, Video, Web services

On the internet video site Hulu now has more than 900 TV and movie titles from over 100 content providers. And to be perfectly honest, it was starting to get a bit tough to find what you were looking for. Now Hulu has rolled out a feature it probably should have had all along: channels.

Channels let you sort videos by genre, including action and adventure, anime, science fiction, comedy, news, and home and garden.

Hulu has also rolled out a few other new features including the capability to conduct searches by actor and discussion forums for particular programs or episodes.

26 09 2008

Share lists with Zenbe Lists iPhone app

Posted by: in Services

Filed under: Internet, Productivity, Web services, Apple, Freeware, iPhone

My wife and I both have iPhones, and we want to be able to share grocery and honey-do lists with each other. Most task list applications are not very well-suited to sharing lists, and most of the internet solutions we tried weren’t much better. But then we came across Zenbe Lists (iTunes link), which is an iPhone application that synchronizes with a web-based version. But even superior, Zenbe Lists grants you to share your lists with other Zenbe Lists users.

Voila, my wife and I have the ability to share a few easy lists, and now when I’m on my way home from work and need to stop at the store, I can swiftly check to see what we need and pick it up. Rather than a list pinned to the fridge that’s never with you when you need it, it’s right in my pocket (and her’s) all the time.

26 09 2008

MediaScrape Aggregates News Videos from Around The World

Posted by: in Services

Filed under: Internet, Video, News, Web services

News buffs will want to bookmark MediaScrape.com, a Canadian site that aggregates video news reports from a host of international sources.

Feeds from AP, Reuters, BBC News, CBC Television (Canada), ANI (Asian News), and many others are available for viewing. Since MediaScrape is all about news for the visually inclined, there’s also a Google map view that geotags videos. Clicking a marker on the map pops up a thumbnail and link to the video.

Video transcripts are also available, a welcome feature for writers needing to reference a report. Registering gives users the ability to customize MediaScrape’s feeds to include only their preferred networks, regions, and topics.

One thing I found a bit bothersome was the proliferation of Adsense ads. Video pages display two text blocks, and the video itself gets an ad overlay - you can close it, but it’s an annoyance nonetheless.

Still, there’s a ton of great news content to view and most of you are probably running Firefox and adblock anyway. If not, sites like this might convince you to install it.

25 09 2008

StackOverflow - software development questions and answers

Posted by: in Services

Filed under: Developer, Web services, Freeware

Talking of Joel Spolsky, it turns out that he recently unveiled a new on the internet community for software developers to ask and answer questions. Well, Joel didn’t do it himself; he partnered with Jeff Atwood, another well-known developer.

The concept behind Stack Overflow is that it is a focused arena where developers can help each other, with a digg-like voting scheme to try to bubble the good stuff to the surface. The homepage at Stack Overflow certainly reminds us of digg, but hopefully the level of discourse isn’t similar.

Stack Overflow has been criticized for solving a problem that does not exist, and for having a questionable reputation system. Developers looking for answers typically turn to Google, so why the need for a new site? I think Stack Overflow could turn into a bit of a nexus for developers looking for quick answers. A clearinghouse, maybe.

StackOverflow is currently in public beta.

25 09 2008

Instapaper iPhone app

Posted by: in Services

Filed under: Text, Web services, Commercial, Freeware, iPhone

We first mentioned Instapaper back in January of this year. Back then it was certainly an interesting tool, but one of many. Now, with the introduction of an Instapaper iPhone application (iTunes links), this site has gone from “interesting tool” to “must-have utility”.

Like other read-it-later type bookmarking tools, Instapaper lets you use a bookmarklet to flag articles that you’d like to read later, then gives you a web-based interface to go back and find those articles. The Instapaper iPhone app goes one further - it syncrhronizes offline duplicates of your saved articles so that you can read them even when you’re not on the web.

Instapaper comes in both free and pro versions on the iPhone. The free version has met my needs perfectly so far, but I imagine if I was to go on a long flight, I would pony up the $10 for the full version, ~~as the free version only synchronizes 10 or so articles at a time~~.

[Update] Marco, the developer of Instapaper for the iPhone, chimed in in the comments to let me know that I was mistaken about the 10 article limit. I just re-tested on my copy, and sure enough there are 24 articles in there right now. My apologies, and thanks for letting me know, Marco!