Technology News and Happenings – Techpresso.org

Every Monday, we are techpresso.org would gather a list of sites that we thought were interesting but couldn’t cover or something that reached us pretty late. What makes this list is simple, any site that has interesting content, design or product offering.

Here’s our list of weekly for Mar 2010:

This article is a photography tutorial on how to dodge and burn to the right exposure. Here’s a step by step guide on how to do it by Christopher O’Donnell

URL – http://www.thephotoargus.com/tutorials/dodge-and-burn-to-correct-exposure/

Learn how to implement cross browser drag and drop capabilities using HTML 5. Good for the web developers looking for samples

URL – http://www.useragentman.com/blog/2010/01/10/cross-browser-html5-drag-and-drop/

Study via the smart way, here’s an article that talks about learning how to score for your exams without much effort. Article was written by Scott young, good read.

URL -http://zenhabits.net/2010/02/ace-exams/

Footnote.com – Like to catch up with history and footnotes of the past? This site has the original historical documents to be found online. You never know what interesting find you can get from the site. Good for someone who is interested in history

URL – http://www.footnote.com/

Are you a teacher or would like to let your child practice on Math worksheets? Here’s a site that provides you free worksheets that you could reproduce in class or just practice materials for your kids.

URL – http://www.freemathworksheets.net/index.php

We have previously shared on how to find someone free in Canada. We have shared on how you can use limited data to do your search, How to put search engines like Google into good use, how you can use free people search engines like Zabasearch or even use a paid service like Intelius.

That said, I can safely say that the number of wasy to find people online cannever really be exhausted in one article. Reasons being more and more ways of finding people free are being introduced online. So what we shared as the best method last fall may not necessarily be the best method this year. Hence the need for you to read more that just this article on the site.

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about here. Did you know that just 4 years ago online social networking sites did not exist i.e. for what they stand for today?. Then came sites like Friendster and Myspace that made it possible for people to share information online and make friends.

If we were to write an article on how to use these social sites last year then we would have to update it this year because there are newer and arguably better social sites that you can use today. As an example, if you are trying to find someone in Canada then you should consider a site called Facebook.com. This means you can sign up to this site, which is free to join by the way, and then start making friends.

This means within seconds you could sign up to the site and get hold of the people finder tool found in the site. Estimates show that the number of people using facebook has increased by three fold since two years ago. Some of my search reveals that the sites get about 13 million uniques (from Canada).

You can also use the new comer which is rocking the social media world, twitter to find the person. My research has shown that at the time of writing there are about 2 million people from Canada using the site as members.

Hey, do not overlook the “grandaddy” of social networks…Myspace – it is still as valuable in people search as it was a few years ago. Like Twitter is also receives about 2 million uniques from Canada each and every month although it seems to be on a downward spiral.

Useful reading

1. Find Someone Free Using Email
2. Find Someone Free With Email Address
3. Find Someone Free With An Email Address

I recently stumbled upon Dubli.com and while playing with the site, I thought the way they explained how the model works was pretty interesting and simple for all to understand. I’ve known a few sites that use this model, but a lot of them don’t explain or illustrate the concept well. These sites unique selling point is based on users bidding for the lowest unique price and the winner gets to buy the item at that price. It is suppose to help users save money, but there is an element where each bid you place normally cost x amount of dollars or credits in Dubli.com case. So be careful when you bid as you might not be saving money if you bid like crazy.

What I like about this site is they have 3 models a reverse auction model, an express model (this is like you pay to reveal the price and if you like it you buy it, else wait for the price to drop with each time a price is revealed.) and the traditional online shopping method. Now as a user you can try out the model that works best for you and see how you could save money.

Personally I wouldn’t use the site that often but if I am feeling lucky, I wouldn’t mind giving it a try just to see how much I can save on that gift. If you are in the mood, why not give it a try Dubli.com

Do you use Amazon and eBay regularly? Ever thought which site or item that you are looking for has the best deals? In the past you might need to open 2 browsers to check the selling price on both sites. But here’s a site that lets you compare the 2 sites on a single screen.

Check out q-compare.com, this concept isn’t new as there are sites in the SEO industry that does this. But I thought the delivery of the site and results are pretty useful to be mentioned here. When you find load the site, you are asked to select your location, category of the item you are looking for and type in the keywords. Once done click on search and you would be shown a set of results from Amazon and eBay which lets you compare the prices.

The concept is good, but somehow the results returned isn’t that ideal so there is still loads of work to be done on the search logic, but overall I like the site and its simple UI.

Check it out – http://www.q-compare.com

If you use twitter alot, beware of DM with “LOL is this You” or variants of this message. The official twitter trust and safety account issued a warning about potential phishing attempts. he latest attack redirects user from a legitimate looking link to a fake twitter login page. Once users type in their usernames and password, their accounts can be taken over by scammers. To combat this, twitter support page advises users to revoke access for any 3rd-party application that you dont recognise in the “Connections” setting.

I’m wondering why not just disable that as a default feature from the on set and only ask for permission if the account holder wants to allow 3rd party application access?

Read more about this at BrisbaneTimes.com.au

Twitter has been the hype of the year, many people have been using twitter, just to twit. The USP of twitter is the ability to microblog with a max of 140 char per tweet. However, is 140 char abit too little? At times, the 140 char limit is a bit restrictive, so now a new site called woofer.com has pop into the scene to address this issue.

What does woofer.com do? Well it simply has a min char limit of 1400 per woof. Totally opposite from Twitter, if you dont type anything up to 1400 char, it will not let you woof. Now woofer calls itself homage to Twitter, but they arent affiliated or in any part associated with Twitter. They are a different service.

But here’s what I find strange about this service, why have a min of 1400 char? Its like I need to type how much spaces to fill up the remaining 1400 char limit requirement, when I woof something less than 1,400 char?

What do you think about woofer.com, let me know?
 

As bloggers and webmasters, there is definitely a time where you would like or need to capture a screenshot of a website that you like or would want to feature in your post. Doing this can be a bit of a pain at times, as you need to have a photo editing tool or you need to open software like snagit to capture the whole webpage.

Well now there is a web tool that allows us to capture full site screenshots. Using Aviary.com, you can simply type aviary.com/techpresso.org and you will get the screenshot plus the ability to edit them.

Its a pretty cool tool, why not give it a try today. Aviary.com  

Here’s a white paper on 10 firefox extensions you will need.

Go grab it, its Free

Joost the long awaited video streaming site that somehow didnt manage to make it has decided to make a switch in strategy. They will be coming out of the portal market and will be going into the white label space.

Heard of the Wii scream video? Well its a hit video on youtube where a kid gets to open his christmas present and finds out that its a Nintendo Wii. If you havent seen the video, you must see his reaction to it below.

Its good to see that Nintendo Wii could bring so much joy to kids, I wonder does the xbox 360 or ps3 have the same effect