Now with Pogoplug you can easily access your USB flash drive or USB connected external drive from any PC that is connected to the web. You may also share the contents of your drive with family, friends, or co-workers. The device is a small white brick—little bigger than a regular AC adapter—that can fit just about anywhere.
The setup is so easy and does not involve configuring ports, routers, IP addresses, firewalls, or any other complicated setup. All you have to do is:
Plug your Pogoplug into a wall socket or power strip.
Connect your Pogoplug to your router with the supplied network cable.
Connect any external hard drive or memory stick to the USB port in your Pogoplug.
From your computer, go to my.pogoplug.com and type in your unique Pogoplug registration code
The drive is now online and ready to use.
Pogoplug costs $99 and is available for shipping only to the US and Canada.
Google Releases Top Searched Terms of 2008 In UAE & 36 Other Countries
Yesterday, Google announced its annual Zeitgeist, a look at 2008 through the collective eyes of the world on the web. The 2008 Year-End Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year's major events and hottest trends based on global searches, as well as searches conducted in UAE and 35 additional countries.
In the UAE the fastest rising lists of 2008 proved to be quite interesting with the Beijing Olympics, Sheikh Nasser Bin Zayed and the Atlantis Hotel rising to the top ten searches for this year. We also looked at what the top 10 most popular search terms related to the economy and the fastest rising lists of vacations, famous people and restaurants residents of the UAE are searching for.
In addition to telling us what people are curious about in the UAE, Google Zeitgeist tools also offer insight into which topics were of interest across the globe. This year, for the first time since its inception in 2001, we have taken a deep dive into global search information across more than 30 countries and published our findings all in one place: the Google Zeitgeist 2008 website. This year's global fastest rising searches show interest in global events such as the Beijing Olympics and Euro 2008, with a number of American politicians and international social networking sites showing up as well:
Google reveals the internet "Zeitgeist" (German for "the spirit of the times") through an exploration of the millions of search queries we receive every day. In addition to the Year-end Zeitgeist, which highlights the top trends of 2008, we also have several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. Google Zeitgeist tools can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur over time. These tools are available year-round for you to play with, explore, and learn from: www.google.com/zeitgeist
Muxlim Pal: World’s First Virtual World for Muslims
A trial version of the world's first Muslim-friendly virtual world was launched yesterday, where users can create an online persona, design their own rooms, buy virtual items and interact with others. Called Muxlim Pal and created by the Finnish-based company Muxlim.com, the English-language site caters primarily to Muslims living in western countries who long to reconnect with other Muslims and Muslim culture.
"Muxlim Pal is just another channel for our users to socialize, have fun and express themselves using social media in a safe and friendly atmosphere," Muxlim chairman and CEO Mohamed El-Fatatry.
Mohamed El-Fatatry: Chairmain & CEO of Muxlim.com
"We are not a religious site, we are a site that is focused on the lifestyle ... This is for anyone who is remotely interested in the Muslim culture and the Muslim lifestyle," he said.
On Muxlim Pal, which is free of charge to join, users can shop for clothes for their avatar at the mall, hang out at the beach cafe, pray at the mosque or go to concerts. What makes Muxlim Pal different from other popular websites such as Second Life is that content portraying violence, drugs, sexual references or profanity is not allowed.
The company plans to launch the full version of the virtual world next year after tweaking the trial product with help from users.
Google Friend Connect: Making Sites More Interactive & Social
A week ago, Google announced the release of the beta version of Google Friend Connect. This is what Mussie Shore, Google Product Manager, had to say about the new released service:
We're pleased to share that Google Friend Connect is now available in beta to any webmaster looking to add a "dash of social" to his or her site. This service lets webmasters add social features to their sites by simply copying and pasting a few snippets of code — no advanced coding or technical background required.
The following YouTube video explains the concept of Google Friend Connect:
The main two types of gadgets you can add to your site/blog are Members Gadgets and Social Gadgets. Members gadget allows visitors to join your site, sign in and out, see other members, and use other social features. You may also use a more minimal, simple sign-in gadget, on multiple pages on your site to ensure that visitors can sign in and out as desired. Once you've installed one of these, visitors can start joining your site.
On the other hand, Social Gadgets include wall gadget and review/rate gadget. Wall gadget allows viewers to post comments, or links to videos on your site. Review/rate gadget allows viewers to rate a page, or a section of a page. Viewers can use this to rate videos, articles, books, photos, songs, or anything else. You can put multiple Review/Rate gadgets on one page, one for each item you want viewers to review.
Google Friend Connect is a service worth implementing in sites and blogs. It's free and will help making your site more interactive and social.
Test Your Web Design In 73 Browsers With Browsershots
If you have a web site or a weblog and you want to see how it looks like in different browsers and operating systems, then Browsershots is going to save you time and effort.
Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.
I think this one is currently the best, it's free and it generates screenshots of your web design on a wide number of Windows, Mac, and Linux browsers. Enter your address and press submit and after 10-45 minutes (depending on current loads) you'll get screenshots of your site as displayed on a variety of different Windows/Mac/Linux browsers.
It's available on other languages too and the one of the best things here is that you can enable Java, Flash and JavaScript.
Darbb: Delivery Service From The People & By The People
Darrb is an online community where people can ship items and get better rates and faster services than conventional ways. In an auction based marketplace, members work together to offer their competitive charges for shipping items to locations they choose.
Darrb, which means "way" in Arabic, is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. it is a platform that connects people willing to send items from one location to another, with people willing to deliver these items and earn an income as a return.
The following is a brief introduction by Murshid Aljanahi, co-founder of Darrb.com:
In order to ensure quality, competitive rates and speediness, senders are able to rank the service of the deliverers (Darrbers) once the deal is done. This ranking system allows public to see how other people, that have used the service of a specific Darrber, found the quality, price and speed of the delivery.
Who might be interested?
Individuals that have free time can earn money by offering their delivery service within an area they desire.
Individuals that drive on a daily basis to another city and/or remote location and would want to earn money by picking up a delivery from his place and drop it to an agreed destination.
Delivery and logistics companies that want to increase their operational marketshare would find people willing to send items from any country in the world.
People willing to send items with a lower cost than average delivery charges.
People looking for instant and fast deliveries to a local destination.
Through Darrb, people can compare the delivery services of a huge number of service providers to select the suitable, cost effective, quality provider.
Ayna Launched First Online Map Service For The Middle East
On July 13, 2008 as part of its Idrissi “Rabat Release”, Ayna launched a beta version of Ayna Maps, a service that provides interactive maps of places and businesses for all major Arab capitals in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Ayna is known for being the first Arabic search engine in the region. Its new street level map service will cover 26 cities in 17 countries and presented in Arabic and English.
Ayna maps provides street level detailed mapping that is not available through any other online service, including Google, Yahoo, and MapQuest. With the launch of Ayna Maps, businesses and individuals will be able to easily locate and add points of interest. As of the launch, Ayna Maps are preloaded with over fifty thousand searchable points of interest available in Arabic, English and French to meet the needs of local audiences.
Real-estate, banks, retails stores, hotels and tourism services will greatly benefit from Ayna Maps by marking their point of interest on a map to guide their customers to their physical location. Ayna makes it easy to embed the marked map in any web site along with contact details, such as name, address, phone, email, and a descriptive summary. The CEO of Ayna, Mr. Adonis El Fakih, describes the ability to view where Ayna is located in Beirut with his favorite line, “a picture is worth a 1000 words, and I will not get lost driving to work anymore.”
Ayna search engine is the only service that provides a geo-referenced (GeoRSS) news feed in the Middle East and North Africa. This allows users to view what is occurring in their part of the world by clicking on map markers. This feature enhances the offerings of online news providers in the region and provides an alternative way to access news.
Ayna Maps future releases include providing routing and directions, updating map data, and publishing submitted points of interest for businesses in the region. A mobile version of the map service will also be available soon.
Do you speak English and you want to learn Arabic the fun way? Then I would recommend to you ArabicPod. With ArabicPod, you can learn basic things like greetings, weather, and ordering food. ArabicPod is creative and attractive way to learn basic Arabic language by listening to conversations between Ehab Saleh (25 from Jordan) & Mohammed Moshaya (26 from Saudi Arabia). Ehab & Mohammed are also the creators and maintainers of ArabicPod. They are currently students at Brighton University (80 miles south London).
Early of 2007 Mohammad has started learning Chinese via podcast & found out that podcasting is a great method to learn languages. Mohammed & Ehab recorded their first podcast lesson in March 2007. You can watch their first lesson below ...
"Everyone who is interested in learning Arabic is our target, we found that people learn Arabic due to heritage where learners wants to learn their fathers language, others learn Arabic for business and work purposes, also people learn Arabic for religious reasons and some people say that they love the sound of the language and that’s why they want to learn it. We have learners from all over the word", said Ehab Saleh, co-creator of ArabicPod.
"We are looking forwards to seeing ArabicPod as a big company teaches Arabic for the entire word, the internet has no borders and we are hoping that this effort that is made totally by two Arabs in their 20s would reach high level and be a source for everyone wants to learn Arabic."
Microsoft Reveals Live Mesh: Connecting Applications,People and Devices Online
Microsoft has begun testing technology that brings together a person's pictures, documents and other data scattered across a growing number of machines with the goal of allowing people to access their information from anywhere and at any time.
Microsoft's "Live Mesh" program, which uses the Internet as a data hub, synchronizes files across computers, phones and other devices so a digital picture frame at home could show a picture minutes after it was taken by a cell phone.
Initially the program will be limited to 10,000 U.S. testers and computers running its Windows operating system, but Microsoft said it plans to extend Live Mesh over the next few months to mobile phones, computers from Apple Inc and other devices connected to the Internet.
The project is the brainchild of Ray Ozzie, who replaced Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as chief software architect, and underscores the company's carefully balanced online strategy, which aims to capitalize on the reach of the Internet without cannibalizing its cash cow software business.
Live Mesh embraces the industry trend toward "cloud computing" in which information is centrally stored on Web sites rather than on local devices, giving users easy access from any computer. Industry analysts said the product may signal a watershed moment within Microsoft to embrace a technology that the company viewed as a threat in the past.
The software will also let friends and colleagues collaborate and share documents more easily. For example, if a shared document is changed on a work computer, those changes will be instantly updated and available on any device or computer that the user has registered with Live Mesh.
Users will have 5GB of personal online storage and unlimited peer-to-peer data, for synchronising information between devices. Microsoft plans to release Live Mesh in a widely-available test, or "beta" version before the end of 2008.
Microsoft made a bid to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion, seeking to join forces against Google in what would be the biggest Internet deal since the Time Warner- AOL merger.
In its boldest-ever acquisition move, Microsoft sent a letter to Yahoo's board on Thursday night to offer $31 per share in cash and stock, a 62 percent premium over the Internet media company's Nasdaq closing stock price that day.
Yahoo would give Microsoft dominance in Web banner ads used by corporate brand advertisers. It also attracts more than 500 million people monthly to sites devoted to news, finance and sports, and Yahoo Mail is the No. 1 consumer e-mail service.
Yahoo said on Friday its board will evaluate the unsolicited offer. Its shares shot up 47.45 percent to $27.29, while Microsoft shares, which have a market capitalization of about $300 billion, fell 6.38 percent to $30.52.
Hmm ... (US $44.6 billion) is about (4.69 x UAE Federal Budget in 2008)!
BigString: For Self-Destruct, Recallable, & Trackable E-Mails
Bigstring.com allows you to take control of your email. Until now, email messages that you send stay as a permanent record on countless mail servers, inboxes, delete boxes and more. Bigstring.com's patent pending technology allows email users to recall, modify or set an expiration date for emails that have already been sent. These emails can be erased, modified or expired even if the recipient has read them. The email is not "deleted" from the recipient's computer. The message that the email refers to is dynamically generated, and therefore you have full control over it.
And just few days ago, BigString announced the beta release of video email that can be programmed to self-destruct after a specific number of viewings or a set time.
"This self-destructing feature allows individuals and companies to maintain control of their intellectual property,"stated Darin Myman, President and CEO of BigString Corporation. "For individuals it can prevent the forwarding of personal videos that can become embarrassing fodder for the Internet. Entertainment companies and musicians can now send a once-viewable video of a performance or song. Videos that are time sensitive can be set to self-destruct at a specific time or day."
