Cozi.com is basically an all-in-one organizer for your family.  You can enter all of your family members (even if they can’t use the computer…) and enter a color-coded schedule that allows you to see where everyone is at all times.  You enter your grocery lists, or any other kinds of lists you can think of and every member of the family can pitch in.  You can send messages to members and get reminders for anything that is in your calendar.  For the author in you, there is even a blogging feature, called a family journal, that lets you chronicle anything and everything that goes on with the family, including pictures.  The features as listed by Cozi are:

• Family Calendar
  
  

  The Cozi Homepage

• Family Journal
• Customizable Lists
• Photo ScreenSaver ( requires a Download)
• Reminders and Messages
• Cozi and Outlook Sync
• Mobile Access

I can tell you first hand that Cozi is a very useable tool if your family is on the go.  There are no excuses for your tech-savvy kids not to use the site as well because they can get everything on the move.  Cozi offers mobile web access, SMS and even lets you call-in through a toll-free number to have your lists and schedules read to you.  All of these features will let you work with your iPhone and any Smartphone.

If you also like to use smartphones with Outlook, Cozi offers a plugin for outlook that will let you synchronize everything in your Cozi account with your Outlook.  This can be very useful if you don’t always have an available internet connection.

Aside from all the cool features and the nice way to implicate my family in my techno-crazed lifestyle, the interface and ease of use are the things that have caught my attention the most.  This is a great example of a very well done Web 2.0 application.  You get a framework that lets you do exactly what it was designed to do, and your data isn’t trapped inside of it.  You can access everything in more than one way.

Even without a family, Cozi can help you or any group get organized.  If you live with someone, you may want to give this one a try!

Have you ever missed an album of one of your favourite artists only to discover it by accident weeks after the release? Do you spend a lot of time on official websites looking for release announcements? With Muspy you will save time and won’t miss any releases.

After you sign in, you may add the artists you want to follow. You can add them one-by-one, copy the list of artists from your Facebook profile, or import the top bands from your Last.fm profile.

When one of the artists releases a new CD, you will receive a short e-mail notification with the album name and release dates. You can also see the new releases on the website sorted in the chronological order, or subscribe to the rss feed and receive release alerts using the feed aggregator of your choice.

Muspy.com is one of those great little services that make the internet such a useful tool.  It’s free, simple and does exactly – and only – what it’s supposed to do.  If you are a music lover and like knowing about album releases before it’s been out for 3 months, then Muspy is something you may want to take a look at.

Favicon Maker is a very easy to use web site to help you create your own icons. Simply upload an image that you want to use and it will be converted for you to the correct format.  A favicon is always 16×16 so that’s the size that will be used, but you can also specify if you want the file to contain a 32×32 and/or 48×48 icon.  What’s the use for that you say?  Well, basically the favicon.ico is a simple icon file and icon files can contain more than one size for the same icon.  For example, in windows you will see the same icon in more than one size if you look at a file on “details” mode and in “thumbnails” mode.  It’s the same icon file, but you see a different size.  If you are only going to be using that favicon for your site though, don’t bother getting the other two size as they will only make the favicon larger to download every time.

Once your file is created, simply download it and upload it to your website.  Most blogs and Content Management Systems support favicons right away, but you may need to modify the template you are using or the html files if the favicon doesn’t show up.  Just make sure that the HEAD section of your page contains the following code:

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”/favicon.ico”>

Make sure the path to the file is modified accordingly and you should be good to go!  The website also explains this pretty well.  Feel free to drop me a line if you need help with this.

]]> http://www.techforlunch.com/how-to-create-a-faviconico/feed/ 6 http://www.techforlunch.com/google-chrome-in-beta/ http://www.techforlunch.com/google-chrome-in-beta/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:46:06 +0000 Pascal Roy http://www.techforlunch.com/?p=234 If you haven’t been hearing about Google Chrome all over the place since september 1st, then you probably didn’t go on the internet since because that’s all everyone is talking about.  Just like every other blog out there, this is our mandatory Chrome post ;-)  Google Chrome was released in beta yesterday and has already received quite a few reviews.

Chrome, is Google’s new Open-Source browser, which has been in the works for the last 2 years now. It combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.  It offers many features that are very interesting.  Here’s a quick list of new features:

• One Box for Everything: Web search. Web history. Address bar. Suggestions as you type. One unified box serves all your browsing needs at the top.  You simply type in that box and results begin to appear as you go.
• New Tab Page: Every time you open a new tab, you’ll see a visual sampling of your most visited sites, most used search engines, and recently bookmarked pages and closed tabs.  I like this feature very much.
• Application Shortcuts: Use web apps without opening your browser. Application shortcuts can directly load your favorite online apps
• Dynamic Tabs: You can drag tabs out of the browser to create new windows, gather multiple tabs into one window or arrange your tabs however you wish — quickly and easily.
• Crash Control: Every tab you’re using is run independently in the browser, so if one app crashes it won’t take anything else down.
• Incognito Mode: Don’t want pages you visit to show up in your web history? Choose incognito mode for private browsing.
• Safe Browsing: Google Chrome warns you if you’re about to visit a suspected phishing, malware or otherwise unsafe website.  That’s not really new, but it’s implemented directly in the browser.
• Instant Bookmarks: Want to bookmark a web page? Just click the star icon at the left edge of the address bar and you’re done.
• Import Settings: When you switch to Google Chrome, you can pick up where you left off with all the bookmarks and passwords from your existing browser.  That’s also a vey common feature, but it would have been silly to leave it out.
• Simpler Downloads: No intrusive download manager; you see your download’s status at the bottom of your current window.
• V8 Engine: A better, faster and more robust Javascript engine, designed by the guys at Google.

Giving Google Chrome a test run is certainly the best way to see and experiment with all the features and the somewhat different interface.  The approach and presentation are excellent but there are naturally some things missing right now.  Keeping in mind that this is still a Beta version, there are some applications and sites that simply do not run with Chrome. Toolbars and plugins are also not available yet, so functionality is limited for power users.

If you are still using Internet Explorer, giving Chrome a try in something you should really go ahead and do because you are probably not surfing as fast and as easily as you should.  If you are a Firefox user, then it all depends on what your surfing habits are, but it doesn’t hurt anything to give Chrome a try anyway!  I’m sure that many features in Chrome will get their Firefox plugin equivalent in no time, but the speed of a browser is pretty difficult to replicate in a plugin.

Chrome is built with Google Gears, so there should be version for all platforms eventually.  Right now, it’s only available for Windows.

The Street View allows you to obtain 360 degrees images of locations in several important cities in the USA, France, Italy, Australia, Canada and Japan. Google hires motorists equipped with a special camera in the intent of taking pictures at regular intervals. These images are then placed in a database and, theoretically, within the next few years Google could offer to “see” any place on earth.

But complaints are becoming more numerous. Residents of California complained that photographers have rolled on private roads to take pictures of residences. Some have failed to comply with the signs and have brought pictures of residences located more than 350 meters from the last public road. An audit by the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat newspaper shows that photos were taken on over a hundred private roads.

The company underlines the fact that we are in an era of satellites and aerial imagery, real intimacy no longer really exists. In early summer, Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the Internet, who is now hired by Google to spread the good word (what some call a Google Evangelist), told a newspaper: “Intimacy, forget about that … that’s finished!” Then he gave some explanation on his blog. “I tried to explain simply that we are entering a period where fewer and fewer things are really private. Think of how easy it is to take pictures and videos, scan and make them available to the entire planet through the Internet, Youtube or equivalent services. “

Although the company reiterated that it respects the privacy, confidentiality and intimacy of people, complaints about this keep growing.

A few months ago, Google announced it had developed a technology to hide the faces of people on the street along with the numbers on licenses plates. That’s certainly a step in the right direction, at least to show that they really do care a little bit about privacy.

Refreshingapps.com was built primarily as a showcase and gallery that shows some of the fantastic Adobe AIR applications that are being developed today. So if you have seen a great AIR app, or you have built something cool go ahead and submit it to our showcase.

Everyone knows I love applications built with Adobe Flex/Air and this site is what it’s all about. You can find a bunch of applications described, reviewed and, best of all, divided into categories according to their purpose and application. The site also has some news articles about the RIA world and gives some useful links to different Resources for developers of all skill levels. Visitors can also rate the listed applications so you can view top applications as voted by actual users.

If you like Air applications, refreshingapps.com is certainly a bookmark to add to your list.

Yahoo! Buzz is now open to the general public, meaning that anyone can submit stories and rate the ones that are already there.  We’ll have to see if the ratings on Buzz are relevant enough for users to keep coming, because ultimately, Yahoo keeps a hand on the editorials.. so it’s not 100% user-driven.  For now, the top pages seem to satisfy but that may have been because only a few selected sites were submitting content.  Time will tell.

In the mean time, why not just Buzz Up our stories and articles using the button at the bottom of our articles and give us a hand! :-)

YouConvertIt.com, the world’s first and most complete conversion, file storage, units conversion website allowing internet users to convert audio video images and documents into an array of formats also sending or delivering file(s). YouConvertIt.com support unit conversion of thousands of types making it easy for users to reach one stop shop without the need to jump from one location to another.

The site offers many things, and all might not be useful to everyone, but some of them can be combined very often.  Unit conversions is the easiest one to understand and that’s the one I came looking for.  Youconvertit lets you convert in practically every unit there is(weight, distance, quantity, etc..), so my Kg to Lbs conversion was a pretty easy one.

The most interesting feature however, is probably the video conversion.  This one lets you download Youtube videos(or any other online video source) or just convert them and download them in a better format.  Simply supply the URL to the video you want, the new format, and you will get an email with a link to download your freshly converted video.

Youconvertit offers the possibility of converting between different file formats as well.  For instance, you could convert a Microsoft Word file into a PDF directly online.  You might also want to convert to an entirely different format such as from a .PDF to a .BMP file.  Naturally, not all conversions are supported, so you should refer to their conversion table to make sure that what you want is possible.  There are many document formats, audio, video, image and even archive formats to choose from.

Finally, Youconvertit lets you send files to your friends or post them on forums and blogs using a supplied link.  You can upload files up to 1000mb and the site gives you a link to publish.  You can simply email that link to a friend to download the file you wish to share.  Files you share remain available for download for a maximum of 7 days.

Keep in mind that Youconvertit.com is still in beta, so some formats may not work as expected, but for the most part, the ones I’ve used all worked just fine.

Chickipedia is the world’s largest web-based, women-based, wiki-based database of hot chicks on the planet. It is entirely user generated, making it the first female-only encyclopedia of the people, by the people, and for the people.

I’m an avid IMDB.com user and this is probably the best complimentary site to add to your list since it is not limited to actresses.  You’ll find many categories including TV, Sports, Movies, Business, Fashion, Misc, Music and Politics.  The greatest thing about Chickipedia that makes it different from all those databases out there is the fact that you can embed a girl’s profile on your own site.  This way, you don’t need to copy all that information or steal pictures, everything links directly back to them.  You can even embed your own list of babes or a slideshow.  Here’s an example with my quick list – I’ve got Britney Spears, Jessica Lee Rose, Megan Fox, Jessica Simpson and Lacey Chabert in there.  Use the arrows to change girls.

If you add your “My Babes” list, your users have to change from one girl to the other using the arrows and clicking on the widget takes you directly to that girl’s page.  However, the option that I like the most is using a specific girl’s profile which, when you hover the mouse over, gives you more information on that girl.  Here’s Jessica Lee Rose’s profile:

This is just one of those sites that I wonder why I didn’t think of doing myself.  Everyone on the internet is looking for this kind of information and Chickipedia not only supplies it, but gives you a means to display that information without stealing anything.

Keep in mind that the information on this site is user-generated, just like on Wikipedia.  This means that the information may not always be accurate, although the content is moderated.  Overall, the information I have seen looks pretty good, and some humorous content is also added to make things more enjoyable.  For instance, one of Britney’s vices is “Mental Instability”.  One could argue that jokes are not facts, but it certainly is based on facts :-)

There are a few bugs on the site as well, but I’m sure those will get worked out very quickly since they are minor.  I had two problems while writing this.  The search box at the top didn’t seem to like spaces.  Searching for Jennifer Love Hewitt turned up nothing, but just jennifer works fine.  There was a problem with the embed code for “My Babes” but I’ve already flagged that one so it should be resolved in no time.

Chickipedia.com will very likely become a common web site if the content keeps growing and the response times remain the same as they currently are.  I can see the embedding feature popping-up on many web sites.  Give it a visit.

Over that 24 hour period, FIrefox 3 was downloaded a whooping 8,290,545 times!  You can visit their official Download Day page to see the current download totals which is a 18,196,695 at the time of this article.

The actual download logs will be reviewed by a panel of judges before the record is definitely official.  The judges will be none other than Paul Vixie of the Internet Systems Consortium and Corey Shields of Indiana University.

Best of luck to the entire Firefox Team in their quest for a world record and thanks for the great browser!  If you do not already use Firefox, I recommend you give it a go, you won’t be disappointed.