Great Ways to Use Your Domain

So you bought your own domain. What now? Building your own website from scratch and getting it hosted can be too much trouble for some people. Instead, why not take advantage of the numerous great services out there and create your own web site complete with your very own email accounts, blog, etc.? Lifehacker shows us the many great ways to set up a "complete domain name backend for free."

Here are my top 3 "domain-friendly" free services:

Blogger.com - This is a very very very popular blogging tool hosted by our very own Google. It's very easy to set a blog using your own domain here instead of the generic blogspot.com domain. I'm using this service and I'm quite happy with it so far.

Tumblr.com - Instead of the usual textey and imagey blogs littering the nets, Tumblr features blogs that are short and simple. Got a link you want to share? Post it! Got a picture? Upload it! With Tumblr, there's no need for lengthy dissertations or introductions. Just post and go.

Google Apps For Your Domain - Google has done it again. They have released an amazing service that's sure to be a hit with the tech savvy people. With this service, you can host your very own versions of Google Apps right on your own domain. You could set-up your homepage to display your Google start page, and set-up up to 50 e-mail addresses that you can access using the Gmail interface.

Tired of Your Usual Mostly Text Blogs? Scrapblog!

I've just discovered a great web app. Check out Scrapblog.com and I'm sure you guys will like it too. This isn't an endorsement and I'm not being paid to say this, but I really like Scrapblog's concept.

Instead of the usual text-based blog apps, Scrapblog allows you to create scrapbook-like flash blogs that almost literally pops out of the page. You can post pictures and text like you would on a scrapbook using an very intuitive interface.

They also have loads of templates to choose from. Or if you're really creative, you can create your own designs from scratch. You can even post your creations to your flickr accounts.

The only problem I have with it is that it's a tad slow on my dsl connection. I expected the web-based app to be a bit quicker that it actually is. I really don't know if it's their server or my internet connection but it seemed like I was staring at the screen waiting for it to render more often than I would have liked.

Despite this, I would still recommend this service. Try it!

2 Great Web Apps

In these times when websites are all integrated and everyone's crazy about Facebook, YouTube and Digg, finding these two great sites gave me a huge breath of fresh air. Both are very useful and painfully simple to use. Check these out...

• drop.io - This is a file-sharing service minus all the complications. Just upload your file, type in a name for your "drop," add an optional password, set an expiry date, and "drop it." Its that simple. No sign-ups, no registrations.
  
• Vector Magic - This is an online tool that creates vector graphics from your .gif or .jpeg files. Everything is done on the site, there are no software downloads and no required sign-ups. But the best thing about this site is, the conversion results are surprisingly accurate.

Jaiku Acquired By Google

Jaiku, the Twitter-like web start-up that's not even open to new user sign-ups yet (you can only join if you're recommended by a current user) has just been acquired by Google. Wow, I personally think that Google is slowly taking over the world. But I think that's a good thing, as long as they use their power for good. Haha.

Anyway, according their FAQs about the acquisition...

We are excited to welcome the Jaiku employees into Google. While it's too soon to comment on specific products and development plans, we'll be working with the Jaiku team over the coming months to expand their technology in ways we hope you'll find interesting and useful.

Lucky Jaiky employees, I wonder if they got a pay rise... hmm, technology that's interesting and useful huh... I'm intrigued. What's also interesting is how this is going to impact the simpler but more popular Twitter. I guess only time will tell, but I'm 70 percent sure that this will bring Twitter down. Let's wait and see.

Tafiti Brings New Light To Searching

If you love pretty graphics and shiny interfaces you'll probably love Tafiti. It's an experimental search engine tool that was built on Silverlight, Microsoft's version of Flash. It works on any browser that supports Silverlight and provides the user a somewhat cosmetic solution to generic, boring search engine results and gives it a more stylish interface. Ironically, I would compare the experience of navigating Tafiti's interface to doing so on a Mac GUI. I got the same clean, shiny experience.

However, despite how nice it looks, I still think that it lacks the practicality and efficiency of a Google search. Keep in mind that Tafiti is backed up by Microsoft Live Search which I think is the crappiest search engine of the whole lot. It does have some potential though, as long as Microsoft keeps the interface quick to navigate and the seaches relevant.

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Yahoo Answers Your Questions

I'm a little obsessed with Yahoo Answers right now. This site allows you to participate in three ways: asking questions, answering questions and voting the best answers to questions. I personally like answering questions. I don't know, maybe there's a know-it-all inside me dying to get out. Questions range from thought provoking (How have you experienced the power of prayer in your life?) to practical (What is the best defense against mosquitos?) to "doh!" (Cole's and Diland phone number?).

It's a great time waster, although I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, if you know what I mean. Still, it's not such a bad place to find answers to your questions as there are a lot of people like me willing to share their expertise.

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5 Great Instructables Projects

I love projects. Finishing a project and admiring the product of my hard work just gives me great satisfaction. Not to mention showing it off to my friends (although I have reason to believe that more than once the enthusiasm they showed was less than heartfelt, haha).

Instructables is a great resource for all types of do-it-yourselfers. The projects range from piece of cake to what the heck?. Check out these great project ideas (great reasons to dust off your soldering iron).

• The Barbie Box: This is a camouflaged case/boom box for your mp3 player. I'm not sure what the inspiration of the author of this was, maybe the Hide-a-pod? Although, if it was up to me, I would definitely choose a different theme. I'm not a Barbie type of girl after all.
• LED Throwies: These are gorgeous in the dark. You can use them to decorate your garden or house for a party, or just throw them around for fun.
• NES Controller MP3 player: Another great mod idea for an mp3 player. The author of this instructable used a fairly cheap mp3 player and it looks very easy to do.
• Use an LCD Monitor as a TV Without a Computer: This is such a great idea. LCD monitors are considerably cheaper than LCD televisions it makes sense to try to use them as a tv display. Why didn't I think of this before?
• Turn Your Old Monitor into a Fishtank: So you've got an old monitor? Rather than throwing it to the dumpster, why not turn it into a fishtank?

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Web 2.0 Sites and Such

• If you love Web 2.0 sites like me, then get a load of Go2WE20.net. It's a nice visual directory of all (at least that's what they say) the Web 2.0 sites out there. And believe me, there are a LOT of sites in this directory. You'll probably need a whole day if you want to browse them all (and you probably will if you're a tech geek like me).

• Web 2.0 really is about sharing information. Listio is a Web 2.0 site that lets you share information and reviews about other Web 2.0 sites. They have also conveniently listed the top 100 sites according to users votes. Among the top are Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Reddit.


• Lastly, if you have a favorite website but would like to find others like it, then you'll definitely love Youlicit. It does exactly that... recommend other sites that are similar to a site you type on a text box. It works really well too. For instance, typing Engadget.com gets me these results. Nice.

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Create Your Own Facebook

These days, everyone's crazy about the online social network Facebook. However, if you're tech-savvy (and even if you're not), you'd probably want to have your very own profile page or site that doesn't limit you to the boundaries of Facebook or other social networking sites. This article from Wired How-To's shows you exactly how to do that. I'm free to share the article under their Creative Commons Licence so I'll do exactly that. Here's the full article...

With a little savvy, anyone can create a page that hosts all of the essential stuff one would find on a Facebook profile that can be set up with the same plug-and-play ease. You'll have to store all of your photos, videos, and contacts elsewhere, but at least you'll be able to get to your stuff.

Start by setting up a blog. Say what's on your mind. Unlike your blog on Facebook or MySpace, everyone will be able to read it. From there, you can pull in your photos from Flickr--> or Zooomr -->, show off your impeccible musical tastes hosted at iLike --> or Last.fm -->, share your favorite web bookmarks from del.icio.us --> or Ma.gnolia --> and put up a list of your most recent reads using Shelfari --> or LibraryThing -->.

All of these services have open APIs, making it easy for third-party developers to build widgets for displaying public data stored there. As a result, many such tools exist.

Need to keep up to date with your friend's activities? Pull in a feed from their blog
or from their Twitter page. The Upcoming --> event notification service has a dead simple code generator that will create a widget listing all of the events you plan to attend, as well as those your friends are interested in. Like to chat? Meebo -->
offers an embeddable widget for AIM chatting, and Jaxtr --> does the same for SMS. You can even drop in a Skype --> button that lets your friends call you with
one click.

One of Facebook's unique features is the "everything in one place" feed service (Mini-feeds and News Feeds), but you can build such a thing yourself. Just create an account at one of the many feed re-mixing sites like Yahoo Pipes -->, FeedShake --> or FeedBlendr -->. Plug in all the feeds from the various sources you want to track and paste the resulting URL into a widget on your site. Voilà.

The free blogging software from WordPress --> has all of the functionality to let you embed these widgets and RSS streams. WordPress also has a thriving plug-in ecosystem, so it's likely a developer somewhere has done much of the dirty work for you.

An even easier option is to use a sharable and customizable start page from Pageflakes --> or Protopage -->. Pageflakes in particular allows you to build a customized chunk of cyberspace that aggregates all of your desired content just like Facebook, which you can then publish publicly (Pageflakes calls this a "Pagecast"). And beyond a simple user registration, Pageflakes doesn't lock in any of your personal data.

Although it looks complicated, with all these Web2.0 services popping up, it couldn't be any easier. It's really a piece of cake if you think about it... the possibilites are virtually endless. So go ahead and create your own profile page. Have fun while you're at it too.

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YouTube Launches Antipiracy Tool in September

All the lawsuits are probably getting to YouTube. Being such a popular site is not necessarily a good thing in their case since they're always under the radar of the huge media companies. That's probably why they're now preparing to launch an anti-piracy tool "hopefully" by September. According to YouTube lawery Philip Beck,

“We hope to have the testing completed and technology available
by sometime in the fall, but this is one of the most technologically complicated
tasks that we have ever undertaken, and as always with cutting-edge
technologies, it’s difficult to forecast specific launch dates,” a YouTube
spokesman said.

According to Techspot, they will launch a video recognition tool that will allow copyright holders to provide them a "digital fingerprint" of their videos, which will then be used to scan all clips being uploaded. Hmmm, won't this make their upload process really slow? As copyrighted videos pile up, they'll have more and more "digital fingerprints" to check the upladed videos with. Then again, if they really have the "cutting-edge technology" they're talking about then they probably have solved this problem already.

I think this is a great step for YouTube. It will certainly free up a lot of disk space, with all the copyrighted videos off the site. If they do it properly, it'll be a good thing. But if it causes problems for people who upload legit videos, hmmm.

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Twitter Productivity Hacks

Aside from broadcasting to people you hardly know whatever you're doing or whatever you're thinking at a particular moment, Twitter can now do so much more. Thanks to integrations like GCal and Remember the Milk, Twitter is no longer just the micro blogging service we thought it was.

Remeber the Milk is a Twitter integration that reminds you of stuff you need to do.

Just send (Twitter user) rtm a direct message with the name of a task and
(optionally) when it's due. The task will be added to your inbox, and RTM will
remind you about it later.

pick up the milk

call jimmy at 5pm tomorrow

return library books in 2 weeks

(You can send a direct message on Twitter by posting an update with d rtm your message -- by SMS, IM, the web update box, or a third-party app like Twitterrific. So, you'd add a task with d rtm pick up the milk.)

GCal is a virtual calendar that lets you add events and appointments to your Google Calendar thru Twitter. Check Twittercal for more info on this.

To get started, just add gcal as your Twitter friend and grant it access to GCal. Now add any events by sending a direct message to gcal

d gcal meeting with paul tomorrow at 7pm

d gcal meeting with fred on monday, 25th of june at 9am

Source: Lifehacker.com

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