Karma Rogue

The Best Address Bar Search Engine: YubNub

In the past, a user wanting to search for “foxes” would type “http://google.com” into the address bar, press enter, arrive at Google’s website, type “foxes” into the search field, and finally click “search”.  Today, popular web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer have search built-in to the address bar.  To search for “foxes”, you’d simply type “foxes” into the address bar and get the results from your browser’s designated search engine.  But what if you wanted to search for the weather in Phoenix? Or for a list of movie reviews for a particular movie? Or go directly to a wikipedia article about foxes? It’s easy: YubNub.

Simply put, YubNub is a website with a social command line search.  That said, YubNub really becomes useful when used as the default search engine for your browser.  YubNub has instructions to make it the default search for each major browser.  Once integrated into your browser, you can easily and quickly search any site on the web using the format “command what-to-search-for”.  For example, “g” is the command for google.  So if you want to Google “foxes”, you would type “g foxes” into the address bar.

Other Google search engine commands are known by their initials: “gi foxes” will search Google Images for foxes, “gv foxes” will search Google Videos for foxes.  Want to grab the map for Chicago? “gm chicago”.  Want to grab the latest news about Obama? “gn Obama”.  In fact, most commands are guessable.  ”yt Foxes” will, you guessed it, search YouTube for videos of foxes.  ”wp Fox” will return the wikipedia article about the Fox.  Weather can be grabbed via weather.com or weatherunderground.com with “w 85022″ or “wu 85022″ respectively.  MetaCritic, which lists reviews of video games and movies, is “mc” – “mc Avatar” for the latest Avatar reviews.

This is a very small sampling of YubNub commands.  Regardless of what websites you frequently use, you will find YubNub useful.  This is because literally every major website is already integrated into YubNub.  And if you were able to find one that was not – you can add it! This is where the social aspect comes into play.  Seemingly the most underrated service on the web, I could no recommend using YubNub enough.

14 Best Twitter Web Tools and Resources

(If you enjoy this article, follow me @Cumberworth)

In no particular order, what follows are 14 of the best Twitter tools and resources on the web!

Just Tweet It – service described as providing Twitter users the ability to “find other Twitter users like you!” Just Tweet It is a “Tweeter Directory” and allows you to add yourself to directories based upon interests that consist of groups of like-minded Twitter users.  In addition, you can list yourself into relevant directories so that people will be able to discover you!

Mr. Tweet – service described as “your personal networking assistant/agent [that] helps you expand your network easily.”  Mr. Tweet aims to provide this service in 3 ways: by getting you relevant followers, helping you discover great people relevant to your current needs, and improve your Twitter usage via useful statistics.  To start, you simply follow @MrTweet

Twitturly – service “for tracking what URLs people are talking about as they talk about them on Twitter”.  Twitturly lists the top links as well as the active tweets that posted the link and is a good tool for discovering what is hot on Twitter.

Favrd – a service that displays the recent highly favorited Tweets.  It lists the tweet that has been favorited as well as a look into the Twitter users who chose to favorite the tweet.

Tweet Later – “productivity tools for busy Tweeple”, Tweet Later allows you to set up alerts and track keywords in the public Twitter stream, schedule tweets, send automatic thank you notes, manage multiple Twitter accounts and more.

TweetSum -  a tool aimed to help you investigate potential connections.  When somebody new follows you, you can use TweetSum’s tools help you decide whether this person is somebody you should follow back or not.

Twellow – “a service to help Twitter users find people to follow.  Twellow categorizes and organizes Twitter into hundreds of niches to make your searching easier.”  Twellow is a search engine for searching Twitter bios, names, and locations.

Twitterholic – a service that provides Top Twitter user rankings and stats.  More than anything, this service is amusing and provides you with interesting data.

TwitPic – a tool that “lets you share photos on Twitter”.  It is heavily used and many Twitter clients have built-in support for it already.

Twapps
– “archiving the best Twitter apps”.  A useful service for those Twitter users looking for new and/or unique Twitter applications.

Twittown – an alternative to, and perhaps better than, TwappsTwittown is “The Apps and Widgets Community and Forums” and serves as a great resource for discovering new Twitter Apps and Widgets.

Less Friends
– simply put, a tool that provides an answer to the question: “Do the people you follow on Twitter, follow you?”  This tool can be very useful for making sure you do not accumulate to many people on your Following list.  An alternative to less friends is FriendsOrFollow.com

Twemes
– a service that is “particularly useful for keeping up on the real-time activities associated with a live event”.  Twemes follows tweets that have embedded tags that start with a hashtag (#).

Top Twitter Clients from TwitStat – Provides live data on the top Twitter clients being used to manage Twitter accounts.  Very useful tool for discovering powerful Twitter clients.

Network Solutions Scam

Back in the day, Network Solutions was the only place to go to buy a .com or any other domain name for that matter. Now, however, they are a distant third behind market giants GoDaddy and eNom. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. Network Solutions charges over four times as much money as other industry leaders do.

Now comes word that Network Solutions is resorting to scamming people. Site’s like Network Solutions have a tool on their page that allows people to look for available websites to register. Now whenever anybody uses this tool on their site, Network Solutions will do more than report back to you whether the site is available or not. If it’s available, Network Solutions will register the domain automatically. In other words, they will say “Hey, yeah it’s available, and the only way you’re going to get it is if you buy it from me.”

Stay away from Network Solutions. You do not want to have to pay $35 for what you can get for $8 or less from other sites that provide the exact same thing! Shame on you, Network Solutions. Shame on you…

Thanks goes to TechCrunch for the scoop

How to Torrent Easy

Let’s cut the bullshit out, here is how to torrent; how to download music, shows, movies, games, whatever you want lightning fast and relatively safe (on Windows)

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South Park Videos

Comedy Central keeps rolling out their collection of free on-line video clips from some of their best shows. The collection of South Park clips kicks some ass. It is the perfect tool to loop up particular clips you’re telling your friends about. Best of all it’s very up-to-date and you can embed them right onto your site. Continue on for a clip from Imaginationland part II

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Mac OSX Trojan

Time and time again I’ve heart the claim that Macs do not and cannot get viruses or trojans. Well, I’m proud to announce that a rather nasty trojan has surfaced and is doing a pleasant amount of damage. Pretending to be a video codec that users need to watch certain pornographic videos, trojan OSX.RSPlug.A acts as a DNSChanger that hijacks web requests sent to eBay, PayPal, and several online banking websites.

Thanks to Mashable for the scoop. For more information check out the Intego Security alert.

OpenSocial: MySpace and Google

I must say that I did not see this one coming: MySpace and Google are working together to launch OpenSocial which officially launches tonight!

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Metaplace and MetaMarkup

What is Metaplace? From the official site:

“Build a virtual apartment and put it on your website. Work with friends to make a huge MMORPG. Share your puzzle game with friends. We have a vision: to let you build anything, and play everything, from anywhere. Eventually, anyway. We have to finish first.”

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Hulu

Like YouTube, Hulu seeks to deliver the web shows, movies, clips, and more. Unlike YouTube, Hulu videos are high quality. Additionally, Hulu has partnered up for the rights to show programs like The Office, Arrested Development, Prison Break, Heroes, and many more. Hulu has also partnered with content owners such as E!, FUEL, SciFi Network, and USA Networks. Hulu also allows users to share and embed videos. The only downside? It’s currently beta and thus only a limited number of people have access.

Hulu’s Site

Exploring an Idea or Project with Exploratree

Exploratree is a very nice tool when it comes time to explore an idea or project to the fullest. The site features a free library of thinking guides and an online application to visually arrange your project or thoughts.

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Facebook Knows

Facebook employees look at any profile they want to look at. They do so for fun; for kicks. And they can do more than just that. They can, for example, also see which profiles a user has viewed. One anonymous employee has made it clear: they have access to anything and everything. Employees consider this a job perk and many check such data for fun.

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Prism

The web application revolution keeps growing stronger. Yesterday Mozilla posted about their attempt to shrink the gap between a traditional deskptop and new web applications. Their solution, called Prism, is a web application that allows users to run browser-based applications from their desktop. They already have a prototype available for those of you that are interested in giving it a spin.

1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T Colbert now 1,000,000 Strong

It happened. Facebook group “1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T Colbert” has surpassed the 1,000,000 member mark! The group, just days old, has demolished the largest Hillary group which is sitting around 488,000 people deep. This comes right after the results of a recent survey suggests that Colbert has the support of 13% of the voters as independent running against Mrs. Bill Clinton and Mr. 911 Rudi Giuliani.

ChannelMe.TV Incorporates Ad Revenue Sharing Model

ChannelMe.TV is a network site where users can get their own .tv domain and create, essentially, their own channel. Now ChannelMe is launching an ad revenue-sharing system that is being extended to its users. Users will be able to select from three different categories of ads and even get a cut from the advertisement revenue that they generate for Channel Me. You may recognize this as being similar to Revver’s as indeed it is. YouTube is also in the process of providing advertising options for regular users.

Bottom line: Should be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Search Engines and Directories

Most people would not even consider switching from Google to a different search engine. However, there continues to be innovative alternatives out there. Don’t believe that? Try out this list of 140+ search engines and directories.

I admit that I had completely forgotten about SE’s like Lycos, Hotbot, Excite, and WebCrawler but apparently these old-schoolers are all alive and kicking. Oh and how about ChaCha – the search engine that uses live guides to help you search?

Bottom line: Interesting list. I’m sticking with Google.

OiNK.cd Admin Arrested

As if taking down TV-Links and arresting the site’s owner was not enough, British police are at it again. This time they have arrested a 24-year-old server admin and brought OiNK.cd down. They also raided the admin’s employer and the home of his father. Damn.

StumbleUpon Becomes More Helpful

Popular social-bookmarking Firefox plugin StumbleUpon has received a potentially helpful upgrade. StumbleUpon attempts to improve upon users’ Google results by adding speech balloons and star ratings next to results. These features will indicate to users the number of thumbs up and overall popularity of each Google result as well as links to discussion pages.

How To Get Free VoIP In-Calling Anywhere

Having an account with the Google-acquired GrandCentral and a free dial-in number from the kick-ass Skype alternative known as the Gizmo Project – you can combine the two to get unlimited, and more importantly free, incoming calls.

You will notice that in order to get a free number from the Gizmo Project you will have to settle on Nevada area code 747. This limitation is squashed by GrandCentral’s offering of a wide range of call-in area codes – also for free.

You will also notice that GrandCentral is in Beta and is only accepting a limited number of people. I would recommend you sign up as soon as possible if you want Google to send you the invite. Alternatively, I have some to give away if you contact me at ‘karmarogue {at} gmail {dot} com’.

Bottom line: no matter where you and your computer are, you will be able to receive incoming phone calls for free.

TV-Links Replacements

If you haven’t heard the crappy news about TV-Links, I’ll break it to you now: It’s gone and the guy running it has been arrested. How somebody can be arrested for linking to other sites is beyond me but apparently under some bullshit section 92 of the Trade Mark Act you can be arrested “on suspicion of supplying property with a registered trademark without permission.” Whatever. So where do we turn to now that obviously 18 new TV-Links style sites have popped up? Risking my freedom and begging for jail time – I will tell you where!

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Levi-Prodi Law: Italian Bloggers STFU

Italian bloggers and web site designers are going to have to deal with new regulations. Ricardo Levi, the undersecretary to the President of the Council, has worked up a law to shut the Internet up. Approved on October 12 after unanimous agreement, the Levi-Prodi law requires that anyone with a blog or a website must register it with the ROC, pay a tax, and produce certificates even if they have no intention of making money. Sounds like some real bullshit as having the ability to quickly start blogging is an important reason blogging is so powerful.

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