+ Become a Mozilla ‘Weaver’ (News.com)
A basic set of web-based services and more from Mozilla Labs.
Direct to Weave ||| Direct to Mozilla Labs
+ Call for Demos: The 9th International Conference on Mobile Data Management (MDM 2008)
+ Call for Papers: Efficiency Issues in Information Retrieval
Top Hits of 2007 on Office Online
Here they are - the stars you created in 2007 - our most popular, most downloaded and highest rated templates, training, columns and more. See what customers like you rated highly this year.
Covers templates, help-how-to articles, downloads, clip art/media, popular columns, demos, training courses.
Source: Microsoft
The purpose of this application is to help employees to ensure that they do not have too much or too little income tax withheld from their pay. It is not a replacement for Form W-4, but most people will find it more accurate and easier to use than the worksheets that accompany Form W-4. You may use the results of this program to help you complete a new Form W-4, which you will submit to your employer.
…
Who Can Benefit From This Application?* Employees who would like to change their withholding to reduce their tax refund or their balance due;
* Employees whose situations are only approximated by the worksheets on the paper W-4 (e.g., anyone with concurrent jobs, or couples in which both are employed; those entitled to file as Head of Household; and those with several children eligible for the Child Tax Credit);
* Employees with non-wage income in excess of their adjustments and deductions, who would prefer to have tax on that income withheld from their paychecks rather than make periodic separate payments through the estimated tax procedures.
Source: Internal Revenue Service
First, if you’ve never used Loki from Skyhook Wireless, you should check it out. It uses wi-fi signals to find your location. For the most part, it’s always amazingly accurate. Often within a few feet. Loki is currently available for Windows, Mac, and now Windows wireless devices. We hope Palm devices are coming soon. 
Second, from this point use you can use it to find local places using various databases (for example, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and AskCity) and many other local info databases including:
+ Fandango
+ GasBuddy
+ Zillow
+ Amtrak
+ Zipcar
and MANY others.
Ideal for both when you’re at home and on the road.
NOW, the news is that a closed beta (register here for a login) is online. Register here for a login. Learn MUCH MORE HERE about My.Loki.
What is it? Facebook or RSS junkies, you’ll love this, share your location with your friends. Loki’s slogan, “Consider “Where are you?” a thing of the past.”
MyLoki automates location sharing and lets you choose how and where your location is displayed. Every time you’re in a new place, you’ll check into MyLoki, simply by opening your browser or manually entering your location. The MyLoki Facebook application will post all of your locations to your Mini Feed, showing your Facebook network where you are. Updates to your location will be displayed on the MyLoki RSS feed on your profile page and can also be integrated into applications like Google MyMaps or anything that supports GeoRSS. We’ve also hooked MyLoki up with badges, so that you can post a map or icon of your location to your blog, website, or email signature.
The blog post goes on to make very clear that the MyLoki user is in total control of who sees what.
The beta version of the Loki Toolbar with MyLoki functionality is currently only available for Firefox on Windows XP. We will be rolling out support for all other platforms shortly.
As soon as we get an invite, we will update this post.
New Web Service: Anywhere.FM
Another service (free) to:
1) Upload your MP3 files (only) and stream them to any computer. The company says more formats will be coming soon.
2) Discover new music using a social network service.
3) Learn more via this Facebook group.
4) Learn more from the FAQ.
See Also: Orb
See Also: Winamp Remote
Stream your audio and video to other computers and mobile devices.
What can we say, we love Firefox add-ons. This week, two add-ons (one essential favorite) and one add-on we just began using have received updated. Here’s the lowdown. Access and use of both add-ons is free.
1) The Essential Add to Search Bar (1.7) by Malte Kraus makes adding just about any search engine (even some library OPAC databases) to the Firefox Search Bar VERY EASY and VERY FAST. It’s something that can be mentioned at all classes about web browsers and search since no tech skills (except a few clicks) are needed to use it.
In our view, this is one of the most useful and important Firefox add-ons out there.
A) Download/Install the App
B) Go to the search engine you would like to add
C) Place cursor in search box, right click (CLICK #1) and select “Add to Search Bar” (CLICK #2)
D) Box Appears, with name and icon (both can be changed, up to you) (CLICK #3)
E) Now, the search tool should appear in your Firefox Search Bar.
F) So simple but still powerful and very useful.
See the operation in action by viewing this screencast.
Version 1.6 and 1.7 (just released) have added and improved a number of features including:
* all engines with /similar/ names can be added
* non-ASCII characters in parameters are encoded correctly
* HTTP Status Code 304 is successful as well
* corrected Spanish translation
* when an icon selected by the user is rejected, an error message appears that explains why
* engines with the same name can be added (or, in reality: spaces are added at the end)
* engineInfos.xul has IDs so it can have overlays
Btw, you might also find: Organize Search Engines by the same developer of value. We do!
Finally, a similar tool, to add engines to IE is available from MS. Look for the gold “Create Your Own” box.
2) We’ve been using Add to Search Bar for some time and we’re thrilled to see that it continues to be developed.
Recently, we began using another Firefox add-on that also updated this week. It’s named FireShot and integrates directly with Firefox.
It’s free to download and free to use.
We think it’s more than worthy of your attention.
Here’s how the company describes the product:
Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for web designers, testers and content reviewers.
Screenshots can be saved to disk (PNG, JPEG, BMP), copied to clipboard, e-mailed and sent to external editor for further processing.
Of course, we still have and use SnagIt on our computer for difficult screen caps, image editing, and more.
Software’s Future: Melding the Web and the Desktop
Until recently, most software ran entirely on the user’s computer. This so-called “desktop” software — which includes everything from Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office to computer games –relies on the processing power of the individual user’s PC and provides the ability to store files locally on the user’s hard drive. While desktop software still dominates, the web has given rise to a new breed of application — exemplified by products like Google Docs, the company’s online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software, and Salesforce.com’s enterprise sales-support products — that runs within a web browser. These “webtop” applications use the local computer only to run the web browser and a few basic extensions (like Adobe’s Flash Player) and use the processing power and storage of banks of computers accessed remotely over the Internet.
But as this drive toward hybrid desktop/webtop software illustrates, there are limits to both approaches, and the future for software may be a blend of the best features of both.
Source: Knowledge@Wharton
From the announcement:
The Met Office has launched a new dashboard of weather gadgets aimed at allowing users to add and customise information from the Met Office website. The suite of options are free to download and include localised weather forecasts, severe weather warnings, marine warnings and radar images.
The gadgets are mini-applications - available on the Windows Vista operating system or via a Mozilla Firefox browser - that allow users to have automatically updated weather information at a glance, while working on other tasks.
See Also: Met Office Weather Warnings RSS Feed
See Also: All Sorts of Widgets, Tools, and Feeds from Weatherbug Labs
The Firegoose, an extension to the Mozilla Firefox web browser, enables data transfer between web sites and desktop tools. As a component of the Gaggle integration framework, Firegoose can also exchange data with Cytoscape, the R statistical package, Multiexperiment Viewer (MeV), and several other popular desktop software tools. Firegoose adds the capability to easily use local data to query KEGG, EMBL STRING, DAVID, and other widely-used bioinformatics web sites. Query results from these web sites can be transferred to desktop tools for further analysis with a few clicks. Firegoose acquires data from the web by screen scraping, microformats, embedded XML, or web services. We define a microformat, which allows structured information compatible with the Gaggle to be embedded in HTML documents. We demonstrate the capabilities of this software by performing an analysis of the genes activated in the microbe Halobacterium salinarum NRC-1 in response to anaerobic environments. Starting with microarray data, we explore functions of differentially expressed genes by combining data from several public web resources and construct an integrated view of the cellular processes involved.
+ Full Paper (PDF; 1.1 MB)
Source: BMC Bioinformatics
+ CyberMonday Stats Begin to Hit the Web; More Holiday Online Shopping Stats Also Listed
See Also: Top Search Terms on BizRate.com
See Also: BizRate.com Top Products
See Also: Become.com User Searches
See Also: Shopping.com Top Searches
+ Opera Mini 4 mobile Web browser surpasses one million downloads in 10 days
+ Blinkx Partners With Kiplinger for Personal Finance Video
+ Foreclosures steal the spotlight in November Trulia Trends report
Firefox Add-On: Flagfox
Not only fun and interesting for the “flag geek” but educators might find this handy as a tool to actually illustrate just how global the WWW is by using flags to show where servers are located.
Flagfox is an extension for Mozilla Firefox that shows a flag icon in the status bar indicating the current website’s server location. It uses relatively little resources, and works by accessing an IP address database contained within the extension rather than relying on top-level-domain roots like “.com” or “.uk”. Clicking the icon loads Geotool, which provides a map of the location as well as more information such as the ISP and city.
Source: Firefox Add-On
Timelines: History of Flight
Search using categories, beginning and ending year, and keywords. Timeline data ends in 2003.
See Also: Centential of Flight Dictionary
See Also: Centennial of Flight Images
Source CentennialofFlight.gov
Zoho, the robust and powerful suite of web-based productivity tools (almost all free for the end user) has announced that their MS Office plugin has been upgraded. Key features in this release:
+ Of course, the MS Office plugin is optional.
Key enhancements in this release:
++ Multi-user Support
++ Offline editing of documents/workbooks
++ Added a new tab - Local Documents
++ Option to keep a local copy
+++ Download Plugin
+ Note from Gary:
Yesterday, I had the chance to use the Zoho Meeting (beta) to transmit my desktop (primarily live web-browsing) to various friends and colleagues. Setting up a meeting was fast and with only a very very few minor glitches (in most cases, due to a lack of knowledge about how Zoho Meeting works in the first place). Overall, the service operated very well. We also liked the “Switch To” drop-down menu at the very top of the page that makes moving to other Zoho apps quick and easy. It’s also possible with one click to allow users to take control and use your computer to show something. In other words, librarians and others who like to “co-browse” the web or specific sites/databases/etc. can do it with minimal effort. Getting full control back is just a click away. Btw, this feature might also be useful for road warriors who want to access their home computer while they are away. Remote access is either automatic (the others listening can just take control) or require the meeting host to grant permission. Obviously automatic is the way to go here unless, someone back at home will be around to grant you permission. More about Zoho Meeting here including some training videos. Also, a frequently asked question. Zoho does have a presentation (aka slide program) named Zoho Show and yes, you can create your slides using Zoho Show or import “decks” (10MB or less) created with PowerPoint or OpenOffice.
The price for Zoho Show? At least at this point, during the beta period, it’s free.
These domains, unless otherwise noted, are not “new” but have just been moved from non-Google name servers to Google name servers. Perhaps, an officially sactioned Google remote storage service is next on their agenda? We’ve seen several mashups that allow users to use their GMail accounts for storage.
Transfers
+ MyGoogleDrive.com
+ MyGoogleStorage.com
Prior to this change the domains were listed on name servers from Domaincontrol.com .
+ Earthviewer.info (Earthviewer.com also registered to Google)
Btw, OpenHandSetAlliance.com
This domain was registered on October 10, 2007 and expires on October 10, 2008. One might have thought they would registered it for a longer period of time.
See Also: Remote Storage/Sharing Services We Like and Use:
So many. We could list hundreds. What do we use regularly?
+ eSnips (5GB, Free)
Save a page, a file, whatever. The toolbar makes getting the job done easy. Keep it private, share with a select group, or make it accessible for all to see. Keyword search your saved content.
+ Mozy ($4.95/month, our primary remote back-up service)
+ MediaMax (25GB of space to store, pay small amount (per month) to download back to yourself).
+ OmniDrive
Strong integration with Windows.
Of course, Yahoo now offers unlimited space for mail and has provided unlimited photo storage for some time.
Thanks to Pete W. we decided to review and then gather all of the search bots we’ve posted about in the past that are still LIVE. Several are no more. In some cases, these bots will work with services like Meebo and Trillian but in other cases, you’ll need to use the native application. More to come.
MSN Messenger: BBCNEWSFLASH
Hourly headlines (5) from the BBC.
AIM Shopping Bot
Its been online since 2005. Add the name “ShoppingBuddy” to your AIM buddies.
AIM: AOLYellowPages
Send to AOLYELLOWPAGES; HELP for more info
Real Time Weather via WeatherBug
+ AIM (AOL Instant Messenger)
Add “weatherbugbuddy†to your buddy list. Here’s a list of what’s available. To get live conditions enter (L) and a Zip Code. For example: L 10036. For a weather forecast enter (F) and a Zip Code.
and/or
+ Windows Live Messenger
The bots name is WeatherBugBuddy@hotmail.com.
and/or
+ Skype IM
The bots name is ““weatherbug.†Add it to your contacts list.
AIM: WSJ
Search news and receive alerts and headlines. Service is free. Some content is only available to subscribers.
AIM: Hotspotbot
Local yellow pages directory and hotspot finder.
Headlines and News
AIM: Moviefone
Like the name says, showtimes. Search by stars, movie titles, and theater locations.
FeedCrier
RSS feeds delivered as IM messages as they are published. From the feed:
You can subscribe to just about any news site by saying “subscribe www.thesite.com”. If you want to get started, I can subscribe you to some popular news. Just say “news” “sports” “technology” or “business” to start.