typing

TypeRacer tests your typing skills, patience

This past week at the Web 2.0 Expo has been a great chance to meet up with other bloggers and come face to face with some of the companies we write about every day. It's also a great time to see how other people work, as we're all packed into small seats in large auditoriums, or scouring rooms for the last remaining outlet to get the necessary wattage to keep writing.

A side effect of that was seeing our own Caroline McCarthy in action, typing away. In case you're wondering part of the reason she's … Read more

Casio G'zOne Type-S now sports push-to-talk

Casio showed off its new G'zOne Type-S for Verizon Wireless in black and silver at the UTStarcom booth here at CTIA. It's almost exactly the same as the original rugged clamshell, but it now supports push-to-talk capabilities. The rest of the Type-S Casios will have this feature as well, it's just that the black and silver version is the first out the gate with it. It's saddled with only a VGA camera, but a rugged phone like this doesn't need a lot of bells and whistles. Verizon is offering it now for $99.99 after … Read more

A tool for forced labor on the desktop

If you find yourself seriously considering one of these items, it's time to leave your desk and get out in the real world. Now.

This USB speedometer may look like a retro dashboard instrument, but instead of gauging miles per hour it's designed to measure "wpm"--words per minute. That's right, it's a device that tracks how fast you're typing. It does require some software but, other than that, it's just plug and play, or type. Technabob says it tops out at 260 wpm, which is 48 words faster than the world's record … Read more

Six Apart launches Activity Streams

Six Apart is releasing a new plugin for Movable Type this morning called Activity Streams that let MT users create a news feed and add it to their blog. Similar to the FriendFeed, which I checked out back in October, MT users can plugin their various affiliations with other social services and present all the information in one place where they are already publishing content--their blog.

MT's creators said the plugin is different from services, such as Plaxo Pulse, because you host it, not a third party company. Hosting it yourself keeps your login information in your hands. MT … Read more

Webby typing tester Keybr improves your finger dexterity sans software

This blog was created to cover cool Web apps, and one of the more interesting trends to follow is that of desktop software that has transitioned to the Web. Keybr, which surfaced a couple of days ago, is a typing tester, the same kind you might have suffered through in school. The goal of these apps (Keybr included) is to give you a scored typing test that rates you on your typing speed and accuracy.

The entire time you're typing, the app will keep track of your speed and accuracy with a live chart of your efforts. Things progress … Read more

Blogging company Six Apart to focus on social networks

Six Apart announced last night that it has sold off its free blogging service LiveJournal to Russian Internet company Vox, the blog publishing platform TypePad, and the professional-level blog software product Movable Type. LiveJournal was brought into Six Apart through an acquisition in 2005.

LiveJournal will be run by a new company, LiveJournal Inc., out of San Francisco, but owned by SUP. LiveJournal's seven employees (transfers from Six Apart) are currently working in the Movable Type offices.

What can we expect from the remaining three products at Six Apart? Alden wants his company to focus on building "community … Read more

Porsche unveils homage to 1960s racer

Porsche announced plans for an unveiling at the 2007 Bologna auto show next week that evokes nostalgia for 1960s racing.

The Boxter RS 60 Spyder (left) will be offered in limited edition. It's meant to be an homage to the Porsche Type 718 RS 60 Spyder (right) that won 12 Hours of Sebring in Florida in 1960. The car will offer the same type of GT Silver metallic paintjob , Carerra red interior and stainless steel door trims as the original. Other features that distinguish this car from the 2007 Boxter S will be 19-inch wheels positioned higher within the … Read more

Six Apart is fixing forums

Six Apart, which makes the Movable Type blogging platform and hosts the consumer blog sites Vox, TypePad, and LiveJournal, is releasing a new and very interesting update to its professional-level Movable Type 4 software: Integrated forums.

There are other forums tools for sites and blogs (see Jive Software, for example), but the Six Apart product, called the Movable Type Community Solution, is the first that I know of that integrates this tightly into a blogging platform. With MTCS, users logged into the blogging platform for commenting will automatically have a login for a site's forums, and they will be … Read more

MovableType's movable feast gets more definition, more open source

Six Apart announced some time ago that it would be open sourcing its excellent blogging platform, MovableType. However, it has moved dates around a few times, and originally intended to do a semiproprietary model with the software.

No more. As noted here, MovableType will be 100 percent open source, and will be released in December:

This is really good for open source community, but it raises questions for commercial users--what will be the benefit of purchased commercial version (apart from professional support)? Now it looks like new idea is not to remove anything from open source, but instead add something … Read more