(Credit: CNET)If you're one whose search results lead you to a Wikipedia page nine times out of ten, you would do well to install the Googlepedia extension for Firefox.
This free, terrifically easy add-on pulls the Wikipedia article most closely associated with your search term into the right half of a Google search results page. Modest controls let you expand, shrink, or hide the article.
Here's the best part: clicking a link within the article feeds the term back into Google's search engine, and therefore back into Googlepedia's cycle of serving up Wikipedia articles.
Googlepedia will undoubtedly save you time if a quick search is all you need. If you're one to submit to Wikipedia's siren call of never-ending knowledge, download at your own risk.
- Topics:
- Browsers and extensions,
- Search
- Tags:
- Googlepedia,
- Google,
- Wikipedia,
- Firefox,
- search result,
- article
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Tilt-shift photography is a technique that requires a special lens to change both the perspective and focal field of an image. A similar effect can be created in PhotoShop and other high-end image editing programs, but it's a lengthy effort that casual photographers will probably find daunting. Web-based photo editor Tiltshiftmaker has automated most of this process, letting you achieve a similar effect right in your browser.
To do it yourself you can either upload a photo from your computer, or drop in the URL of one hosted online. From there you can adjust how much of the shot you want in focus. This is done by dragging a horizontal bar up and down the shot, the size of which can be increased or decreased to bring more of your picture into focus. There's also the option to blow out the saturation to make your shot look cartoonishly colorful.
The test shot I used of the street outside CNET's office turned out great (see it below), and only took a few seconds to put together. My only qualm is that the editor's preview, which needs to be refreshed between each edit to see changes, is a little bit small, making minute adjustments on larger photos a tad difficult.
I'd love to see this added in as an option in existing Web photo editing tools like Fotoflexer and Picnik.
(via DownloadSquad)
Tiltshiftmaker turns every day shots into tilt shift-esq photos. Click to see a much higher resolution version of this shot.
(Credit: CNET Networks / Josh Lowensohn)- Topics:
- Digital photography
- Tags:
- Photography,
- tilt shift,
- tiltshifter
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Assuming you're in a position of hiring new people to work for your company (instead of laying them off), there's a new productivity boosting service called The Resumator that launched early Wednesday. It's part job-posting tool, part paperwork reducer, and also manages to throw in a recommendation engine that tells you which Web job boards are worth posting to based on the kind of job you're trying to hire for.
Of all the features, I find the most attractive one to be the document organizer, which sorts submitted resumes into different buckets for each job. You can search through these and narrow them down into groups by keyword, making it simpler to see who has listed certain skills, schools, or workplaces. It uses Scribd to convert each file into a browser-friendly document, and throws in a few neat Webby features like a five-star rating system and optional checklist that lets you quickly give each applicant the yea or nay in a centralized location.
What I really like about this system is that it's collaborative. Say, for instance, you're involving a few people in your company with a hiring process, you can give each one of them access, and they can rate each applicant respectively. I had helped out with this in a previous job, and Resumator's system would have been a whole lot better than wading through paperwork, adding sticky notes, and marking up each person's printed resume.
Resumator costs $59 a month and lets you post and manage an unlimited number of jobs. If you're trying to hone your resume, also worth checking out is Razume where others can mark up your CV and tell you what areas need work (Disclosure, Razume founder and CEO Sam Blum is an old friend of mine).
Related: The spreadsheet of sunshine: Who's hiring
The Resumator lets you dig through uploaded resumes and view them right in your browser using Scribd. You can also grant other members of your team access to this listing so they can rate and comment on applicants.
(Credit: Charlton Ventures)- Topics:
- Commerce,
- Productivity and business
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LG Blu-ray players stream Netflix, CinemaNow, and YouTube
Two 2009 Blu-ray player models include a trifecta of online content options.
Read the full post at CNET's CES 2009 blog.
Opera's new SDK: Better browsing on the Wii?
Opera's updated software kit for consumer electronics could mean better browsing on the Wii.
Read the full post at CNET's CES 2009 blog.
Spanish news site Expansion reported Tuesday that Google plans to launch GrandCentral, an online voice communications service, in Spain sometime during 2009. According to the report, Google will allow voice calls to be placed for free, but each will be linked to the voicemail service. Currently, GrandCentral is only available in the U.S.
UGO Entertainment and its parent company, Hearst Corp., announced late Tuesday that it will acquire 1UP.com and its associated sites, GameVideos.com, MyCheats.com, and GameTab.com. A release from UGO asserts that with 1UP and the affiliated sites joining its own network of gaming properties, they will reach 40 million unique visitors each month. In announcing the sale, 1UP parent company Ziff-Davis Media noted that it will close its last remaining print publication, Electronic Gaming Monthly. The magazine was not included in the sale to UGO.
WorkLight, a company that provides Web 2.0 services for businesses, released a report Wednesday detailing how the enterprise is using widgets and social networks to generate business. According to the report, 87 percent of surveyed companies are planning to use online services to improve customer service and acquire new customers. It also found that companies are currently using widgets and social networks to identify and capitalize on specific business needs, as well as increase engagement and their reach.
Webcarzz, a company that's working to develop a virtual world that will target boys, has built an online tool that allows children to create their own 3D vehicles. Dubbed CarStructor, the app provides tools to customize 3D cars, trucks, planes, and motorcycles. Eventually, those models can be placed into the Webcarzz virtual world when it's released later this year. Developing vehicles with CarStructor is free with registration.
- Topics:
- Widgets and desktop enhancements,
- Social network and groups,
- Search,
- Audio and video,
- Chat and e-mail,
- Mobile
- Tags:
- Google,
- GrandCentral,
- 1UP,
- UGO,
- acquisitions,
- WorkLight,
- Webcarzz
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It was only a matter of time. Social network Facebook says it has hit the milestone of 150 million active users, just more than two months after reaching 120 million and about four months after reaching 100 million. The site hit 140 million in the middle of December.
The announcement was made on the Facebook company blog by founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Should Facebook sustain this rate of growth, the 5-year-old site could hit 200 million users before Zuckerberg reaches his 25th birthday this spring.
Nearly half of those 150 million members, Zuckerberg wrote, use Facebook every day. Most of the site's new members now come from outside the United States. "This includes people in every continent--even Antarctica," the post read. "If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia, and Nigeria."
But Facebook Nation wouldn't be a financial heavyweight just yet. The company has made it clear that right now, it's focusing on growth over revenues.
That can be precarious, especially during difficult financial times, when Facebook's deep-pocketed backers may find those pockets a bit shallower. As some critics have pointed out, server power and other infrastructure costs are not as cheap internationally as they are in the States.
Reaching a milestone like this is obviously a big victory for Zuckerberg and the rest of Facebook, and the company insists that it's in solid financial shape to handle this kind of growth. That said, it'll only escalate the speculation--did anyone really believe that gossip about Facebook would end along with 2008?
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Chegg lets you rent textbooks and save big bucks in the process.
(Credit: Chegg)While I sit here rotting--er, working happily--in the Cheapskate Labs basement, the lovely Mrs. Cheapskate is busily pursuing a degree in nutrition. That means lots of chemistry classes, which, in turn, means lots of insanely expensive textbooks. And I mean insanely expensive: for some classes, the books cost nearly as much as the credit hours!
Fortunately, we've discovered Chegg, which allows us to "rent" textbooks for significantly less than buying them new--and, in many cases, for less than buying them used.
For example, when Mrs. C needed Macroscale and Microscale Organic Experiments, 5th Edition, for an organic-chemistry class, the best price I could find anywhere (including the school bookstore) was about $125. Chegg's price: $79.57, including two-way shipping (the book arrives with a prepaid return label).
I particularly like this outfit because they work with various environment partners to plant a tree for every textbook you rent, buy, or sell (Chegg pays good cash money for any used, unwanted books you may have). So you not only save money, you also get that warm, fuzzy helping-the-planet feeling.
If you're taking classes at the college level, I highly recommend checking out Chegg for your textbook needs.
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- Content and publishing
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Cisco has debuted an iPhone application that can make use of the company's popular WebEx collaboration tool. The new app, available free from the App Store, allows users click to join and actively collaborate in WebEx meetings. A company statement reads:
"The online meeting experience gives users the ability to take advantage of simultaneous web and audio conferencing capabilities from Cisco on both the 3G mobile and 802.11 wireless (Wi-Fi) networks. The solution supports multiple telephony configurations including SaaS-based telephony from Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, premises-based telephony from Cisco Unified MeetingPlace, or telephony from Cisco's service provider partners. "
The company says that a future edition will allow users to transfer Cisco WebEx Meeting Center and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferences from the Apple iPhone 3G to an office environment and back, by transferring the audio to a Cisco Unified IP Phone and the web conference.
A video demonstration of WebEx for the iPhone is available at http://www.webex.com/iphone/.
Eye-Fi spies video on YouTube
What Eye-Fi did for photos it's now doing for video.
Read the full post at CNET's CES 2009 blog.
