web

Freewebs' Pagii.com: The return of the personal home page?

Remember when you were in junior high and the ultimate way to express yourself was to line the walls of your locker with photos and notes from friends and magazine clippings of every variety? Well, here's the digital-age version. Web page creation veteran Freewebs (more coverage here) has just launched a new site, Pagii (rhymes with "cagey"), which it's calling a "social publishing network." It's a drag-and-drop service that allows you to put photos, text, shapes, videos, and external widgets into a free-form, JavaScript-based page. The end result is something that's essentially … Read more

Offline version of Gmail in the works?

According to the Hindustan Times, Google plans to release an offline version of Gmail. I think that it's safe to assume that it would run on Google Gears, much like Google Reader's offline feature does.

Obviously, the lack of offline e-mail reading is the one huge downside to using Web mail. If Google implements this correctly, it could be a pretty big deal, but we will see if the functionality of a browser-based offline solution can compare to an actual desktop client.

It should be noted that Windows Live also currently has its Live Mail Desktop client available … Read more

Amazon wooing start-ups to its Web Services

When I think of Amazon, I think of all the money I spend there buying books and CDs. But the company isn't just focused on selling Harry Potter books online to school kids anymore.

Amazon is trying to lure start-ups to sign up for its Amazon Web Services, which offers storage, virtual server, payment and other services on a pay-per-usage basis. This makes sense for young companies that want to focus on their core business and not have to spend money on expensive hardware.

Five years after it launched its first service, the company is making a name for … Read more

Plusmo: A backstage pass to the mobile Web

Plusmo's mobile widgets application is a cool way to read RSS feeds on your cell phone or PDA, but that's not the only reason it was named a finalist on the Webware 100 list.

In true Webware fashion, Plusmo's site offers hands-on excitement--the chance to publish and share widget mash-ups and create an iPhone widget from templates. Users can also make personal blogs available as a Plusmo widget, and can install a browser bookmarklet or Yahoo plug-in to snag feeds while they surf.

Getting started with Plusmo

Multiple carriers and platforms, small screen sizes, and a glut of information out there make quickly and easily accessing mobile content a downright challenge. That's why interestingly (and wisely), Plusmo steers clear of browser turf wars raging among third-party mobile browsers like Opera Mini (new review) and Minimo (hands-on review); a good move.… Read more

Amazon dangles seed money for Web services start-ups

Amazon Web Services is launching a program to entice start-up developers with money to build applications that use Amazon's utility computing services. A small company could even get seed money out of the deal.

A subsidiary of online retail giant Amazon.com, Amazon Web Services is a suite of services that let developers access hosted computing, storage, payment and other services and pay for them on a per-usage basis.

Company executives, including CEO Jeff Bezos, have singled out its Web services business as a potential area of future revenue growth and a way to expand into new customers.

Its … Read more

Frog: The toad that would be prince

From the many positive announcements written about Frog since May 2007, a fresh, interesting approach to accessing the mobile Web shouldn't have exceeded expectations, especially six months after the initial release. After all, GeekSugar, MobileCrunch, and The Boy Genius Report all gave Frog nods as a viable home page alternative. After trying it out for myself, all I saw of Frog were warts.

Unlike traditional browser solutions that optimize page viewing, Frog adopts a portal model for accessing the Web. Nine quick-launch buttons each take you to a Web site optimized for mobile viewing.

While creating a Frog account online, users can add button icons for favorite sites from scores of options (good.) Four, to be exact. The other five slots are chosen for you and won't budge if you try to swap them out (bad.) However, it might be less of a problem if you already use MSN Weather, Google, Orbitz, RestaurantRow.com, and Fandango steadily and don't intend to swap the orientation on the screen.… Read more

A power tube amp for the arch villain

We've long had a weakness for tube amplifiers, partly because they remind us those bolts of electricity flying around Frankenstein's laboratory. But the latest model from Ayon Audio updates that retro look with a chrome finish that's more Dr. Evil than Dr. Jekyll.

Proving that it's not just a pretty face, the hand-built "Sunfire" provides 30 watts per channel along with its brushed aluminum chassis. Audio Junkies says there may be some trademark issues involved with its name, but we'll leave that to the lawyers. This thing looks like it could pulverize its … Read more

AjaxWindows: Most interesting Web OS experiment yet

I still don't fully get the whole Web operating system concept. Why run an OS inside a browser when your browser is running in an OS to begin with? But AjaxWindows, a Web OS and application suite that launched today, makes a very good case for the Web OS. It's not ready yet for adoption by the world at large, but the idea behind it, and some of the features in it, are too interesting to write off as just yet another science project.

Ajax13, the company that makes AjaxWindows, was originally started to create Web-based applications. It … Read more

Meebo gets (tiny) file sharing

The divide between Web IM apps and the software versions is getting smaller, albeit with the help of improved bandwidth and technology like Adobe's Flash. In the same vein, Meebo, the popular Web-based multiclient chat platform is getting a handy update tonight. Users are now able to trade files with each other right in the chat window. It's not just Meebo users, either, it's anyone on your friends list. If your buddy has a file-transfer-enabled client, you'll be able to pass files back and forth freely.

However, unlike software IM clients, the caps for file transfer … Read more

Sidesplitting tech comics

Whoever said geeks have no sense of humor was wrong--laughably so. Some of the funniest comics out there are Web comics (or those rendered for the Web,) written by techies, for the techies who love them. Here's a bushel of geeky favorites, in no particular order.

1. xkcd Randall Monroe, physicist, cartoonist, and at-heart romantic, is behind xkcd, a Web comic whose name curiously holds no mathematically obscure meaning. In his own words, Monroe's stick-figure style "occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)." See? Funny.… Read more