New iPhone Ad | Stalking made easy

Yet another reason to get an iPhone. Among the thousands of apps in the store, there are a few to help you stalk your ex. Enjoy.

Windows Live Messenger is awesome... NOT!

Favorites, Groups, Categories
WLM added Favorites and Groups in their latest releases to make it more interactive. Basically, Groups are something used by an elite who can appreciate it while Categories are what we formerly knew as Groups. Favorites is just a star above your contacts.

Invitations
If anybody ever sends you an invitation in WLM you're destined to have a very nice banner on top of your contacts panel. Even if you go to your MSN site and accept or reject the invitation the banner will show up.

Cool. If you noticed I belong to a 'group', I mixed up while trying to create a 'category'... Now it's just there.

Ads
WLM features nice ads under the contact list and conversation windows which make up for nice eye-candy.

More memory = more features?
Right now I am running both Digsby and Windows Live Messenger. WLM is offline and wasting 68MB while Digsby is online and connected to my MSN account, two Twitter accounts and my GMail account and uses 42MB.

Definitely WLM has some cool hidden feature that takes up the extra RAM.

Need to create a new user to access a site? Not anymore

Some time you must have had to create a new user just to download a file or access a forum. It's quite annoying and can get your mailbox full of spam. BugMeNot offers usernames and passwords to access several sites.

Search for the site you want and you will see a list of logins and their success rate. The best combinations are at the top. If you create a user and want to share it, scroll down to the "submit a new account" box.

Photosynth

Photosynth is one of the few Microsoft projects I like because it takes photo sharing to a new level. On the site, you can search for a location and it will display matching 'synths'. A synth is a collection of pictures of the same place that make a larger picture:

What I like about Photosynth is you can compare your pictures with others' and see places you already know from different perspectives. Check out these synths

The different pictures are uploaded by users around the world using the Photosynth app, Windows only. To watch synths, however, you can use both Windows and Mac. The web application runs on Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and IE and requires that you install Silverlight

How to: download YouTube videos (the simple way)

1. Open a YouTube video.
2. In the address bar, add 'pwn' before 'youtube':
3. You should be redirected to a site where you will find two files. One is an FLV and the other an iPod/iPhone friendly MP4. Click either link to download.

Filesharing, seriously?

Over the last few months there's been quite a fuss about the RIAA winning some millionaire trials. Apparently, they are going hard after file-sharers.

Today I came across an interesting article that compares file sharing to other crimes. The following seven crimes amazingly have a lower fine that file-sharing.

1. Child abduction: fine is about $25,000.

2. Steal a CD: fine is $2,500

3. Rob your neighbor: fine is $375,000

4. Burn a house down: fine is just over $375,000

5. Stalking: fine is $175,000

6. Start a dogfighting ring: fine is $50,000

7. Murder: maximum penalty is $25,000 and 15 years in jail.

In comparison, Jammie Thomas has to pay $1.92 million for downloading 24 songs.

The war on piracy is going too far and I wish there was more we could do to do to stop the RIAA and other big organizations. In the meantime, we can keep our anonymity on the web. There are a few apps that address this issue but 'it's hidden' is my favorite. It is very easy to use and requires no installation. To set it up you must create a username on the site and follow the instructions provided. In Windows, you just have to create a custom connection. With it's hidden, your computer will send the data to a safe server which in turn will connect you to the web. At all times your browsing and sharing will be kept private.

It's hidden

Platforms: Windows | Mac

Fotosketcher

FotoSketcher turns your photos into drawings with very little effort and yet impressive results. Launch the application, drag a picture onto the interface, go to Edit -> Drawing Parameters (or hit F10), pick a style and hit the 'Draw' button. Fotosketcher is for Windows only.

Digsby integrates IM + Social Networks + Email

What is Digsby?

An instant messaging client that integrates social networking and email. It allows you to add several IM accounts as well as the most popular social networks and email accounts.

Why use Digsby?

Digsby has a very nice simple interface. It allows inline replies making it easier to multitask and helps you avoid the browser for those Facebook and Twitter updates.
Digsby features tabbed messaging which I have found very useful paired up with the inline reply system. You can also drag a tab outside of the conversations window to separate an important chat. Digsby has no ads and is customizable with skins.

Download

Platforms: Windows | Mac | Linux

WolframAlpha answers your questions

WolframAlpha is an online answer engine that puts artificial intelligence in our browsers. You make a question and WolframAlpha answers it by gathering (mainly) numerical data and displaying it neatly in categories.



It is very accurate and helps you discover interesting facts. WolframAlpha is not intended to replace traditional search engines but can be very useful when searching for statistics and numerical data.

At the same time, WolframAlpha is a very powerful mathematical tool and has some interesting uses: caffeine vs. aspirin, cheese nutritional data, taylor series, piano, earthquake mapper, weather, growth chart.



In the end, WolframAlpha is an easy to use answer engine and calculation tool that has a great look and feel.