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Source:Mashable!

If you’re at all a fan of simple, minimalist publishing services like Tumblr, Streem or Posterous, the last one being a relatively new launch, Placefav is something you may well enjoy. Its utility is very specific, mind you. Can’t quite toss out anything you’d like for the wide world of friends and strangers to see. Information posted to Placefav is restricted to particular locations you’re fond of. Just as its name suggests. But that’s the fun of it. To serve one purpose and do it well.

Aesthetically, Placefav is something that follows in lockstep behind the likes of Flickr, Delicious, and countless other sparsely-laid, Helvetica-crazy Web designs. Except this one carries the see-no-mess mantra further than most. It’s like some kind of secret zen room in Ikea. The maxim of less is more, taken to the nth degree.

Function-wise, it’s something of a toss-up. If you’re looking for a utility such as this, to catalog your favorite dots on the map, it’s very nifty. On the other hand, its focus might not appeal to you. You get a bunch of blank spaces - a total of 12 spots per person, it seems - and you plot out some choice positions. An example could be your childhood home, say, or that place you go virtually every day for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Maybe some memory that you grow ever more nostalgic for. Whatever highlights you deem important, really. And after you’ve designated an address, you and anyone who visits your page can then take a look at some photos culled from another service called Panoramio. If you wish, you can upload images you yourself have produced. Also, users and visitors can click a link to Google Maps to visually pinpoint that favorite locale.

Yes, it’s true, Placefav is rather “Googley” in that sense. Panoramio, for the unaware, is a Google property. It recently received some accolades for a feature called “look around,” even. But these ties give Placefav some partial uniformity so far as its connections to the outside go. Of course, it would be quite nice if its creator, Kyle Bragger, would convenience users further by enabling expandable and collapsible maps, much like he’s done with the photography side of the operation. But overall, Placefav hardly lacks for elegance. Take a look at Kyle’s sample page. I think you’ll agree that it does the trick. And sign-up is a cinch.

Source:Mashable!

There are a variety of time tracking tools available today. The first type are the ones targeted at businesses and professionals for tracking amount of time spent on a particular project so they can bill their clients accordingly. The second variety are for net junkies with a need to track time spent on a particular activity online, say emailing, blogging, micro-blogging, reading RSS feeds, browsing, or just plain social networking. We searched the Web for the second variety and present below six very helpful tools to track your time spent online that are free and simple to use.

Which one is your favorite? Do you use any other time tracking tools? Let us know in the comments.

8aWeek

8aWeek is a neat Firefox toolbar that tracks your online browsing habits. If you feel that your social media participation is becoming excessive and want to restrict yourself, you can get this toolbar, see which sites you spend most of your time on, and set the restriction timings for each. You can also use the toolbar to save sites that you can check out later. This time tracking tool does the work automatically so you don’t need to add tasks manually. That spells a lot of convenience.

Wakoopa

Wakoopa is a desktop application that tracks the time you spend using various applications like your browser, RSS reader, email client, games, and more. It also doubles up as a social networking site. Setting up Wakoopa is hassle free and once installed, it runs quietly on your system tray and collects information automatically.

You have an online profile page where you can view your tracked activitiy records, upload your pictures, add contacts and form teams, and write reviews.  There are various widgets you can take advantage of such as ‘My top 10 software’ badge, ‘My recently used software’ badge, a Facebook application, etc. You can also view the most used software by Waakoopa users and check out other users’ stats. Wakoopa also displays interesting items such as ‘Software you might like,’ ‘People like you,’ ‘Reviews of your software,’ and ‘New versions of your software’ on your dashboard that you might find useful. When you go to a particular software’s individual page, you can see the software manufacturer’s details, versions, download url, usage stats by Waakoopa users, popularity chart, and reviews.

Rescue Time

Rescue Time is another feature loaded desktop application for Windows, Mac, and Linux that tracks your activities. What differentiate this from Waakoopa is that it helps you track not only applications but websites as well. You can set the number of hours you want to spend in a day on a particular site and Rescue Time will alert you on your email, RSS reader, or by SMS when you run out of time. You can create groups and compare your online stats with other users. There are Rescue Time widgets for blogs, iGoogle, and Netvibes. You can also create a white-list of sites that you want Rescue Time to pay attention to.

TimeTracker

TimeTracker is a simple Firefox addon that tracks the time you spend online browsing by running quietly on your Firefox status bar. You can see the time tracked by the day, since installation, or since your last reset. There are idle timeout, filter, and pause features as well. This addon basically shows your online browser time and doesn’t go beyond that, meaning you cannot track time spent on an individual site. However, for those seeking something simple, it might just be fine.

MeeTimer

MeeTimer is another cool Firefox addon like TimeTracker, but it also shows how much time you have spent on each individual website, in addition to showing your overall time spent online. You can also place site urls into various groups and configure MeeTimer to show you a warning message when you visit a particular group or site.

Online Stopwatch

Online Stopwatch is basically a neat tool that provides a timer and a stopwatch. The stopwatch creates an alarm bell after the countdown finishes. You can use Online Stopwatch on its site or as a Google gadget, Live.com gadget, or a Vista sidebar gadget. While it is as simple as any online timer can get and comes without any usage trends, the beauty is that you can use it in any manner you want, like setting a timer for your online browsing or monitoring how long it takes to draft a blog post.

[Image credit: Michel Filion (attribution)]

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Source:Mashable!

Although it’s probably the worst mistake you can make as a journalist, it periodically happens to big media publications. Earlier today, Bloomberg sent a 17-page obituary of Steve Jobs over the wire, quickly retracting it with the following message: “An incomplete story referencing Apple Inc. was inadvertently published by Bloomberg News at 4:27 p.m. New York time today. The item was never meant for publication and has been retracted.”

There’s nothing much to be said about the gaffe itself: it’s awful but it happens. However, knowing that Steve Jobs has been battling pancreatic cancer for some time, one has to wonder if the obituary was a complete mistake or was it perhaps based on some facts about Apple’s CEO? Gawker read the whole thing (you can, too, it’s over there), and they claim that it’s just a generalized text about Jobs’ life and achievements, containing no specifics about deterioration of his health, which is good news. We’ll all probably know more if Apple comes forward with an official statement.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:The Daily Poll: How Did You Follow the Steve Jobs Keynote?Steve Jobs Subpoenaed For Backdated Options CaseWill the Real Steve Jobs Please Stand Up?Could Fake Steve Jobs Be About To Go Away?Fake Steve Jobs Goes On TourFake Steve Jobs “Drama” Reaching The Point Of SillyBloomberg’s Online Video Push Won’t Get Past Windows

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 11:33 am and is filed under News, web, apple, steve jobs, Bloomberg, obituary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.