Category: Websites (Page 22 of 23)

Why I Hate April Fools Day

April Fools

The Internet sucks on April Fools Day. You can’t take anything seriously. Gmail Autopilot will automatically respond to your emails. Ha ha. That’s a good one. Warner Brothers loves thepiratebay.org. Hardy-har-har. My beloved Woot.com had a legitimate bag of random crap for $3. With $1,000,000.00 shipping. Boy, they sure got me there!

You know, it’s pretty damn annoying. I don’t want to spend any extra time in my day trying to decipher some idiot company’s pranks. Like why the hell does reddit look like reddigg? I’m tired of it. It’s been played. April 2nd can’t come soon enough.

New Gaming Themes for Your iGoogle Homepage

iGoogle Gaming Theme Mario Bros

I love the new gaming themes for the iGoogle homepage. But first, for those of you who don’t know what iGoogle is, here’s a brief explanation.

iGoogle is a highly customizable and personalized homepage. It’s a RSS reader as well as a home for Google Gadgets. My iGoogle has several different tabs for things like gadgets, games, sports, and shopping. I’ve got RSS feeds from all sorts of gadget sites mixed in with games that can be played right from my homepage. I can also access my email and check out the latest news in one place. You can have everything you want on your very own personalized home page. Anything from The New York Times to Sudoku and from Amazon.com to a RSS feed from gadgetteaser.com.

One of the things I like best about iGoogle is the themes. You get everything listed above added into a colorful, distinctive, and unique layout. Google has all kinds of themes that will make your homepage look and feel the way you want it. They have themes that change with the weather; characters on your homepage pull out umbrellas when it starts raining in your zip code. They have themes created by artists and musicians like Radiohead, Bob Dillon, and even Jackie Chan. And, you can even create your own themes and submit them to Google.

So what was the point of all this? Oh yeah, they just added gaming themes and they are awesome. I love pulling up Firefox and seeing Mario throwing fireballs across my homepage. I switch tabs to see Mega Man in all his glory. iGoogle didn’t stop there though. They have gaming themes from The Sims 3, Guitar Hero, Spore, Call of Duty: World at War, Street Fighter IV, and of course, World of Warcraft. And there are many more. They even have a theme from Galaga. How cool.

So if you already have an iGoogle homepage, check out the new themes. They are great. If you don’t have an iGoogle homepage, what are you waiting for?

Bouncing Around the Web

In case you missed it, here’s what’s Bouncing Around the Web:

Western Digital’s My Book family just jumped up to 2TB of storage. 2 freaking terabytes! You can carry around a USB 2.0 2TB external drive for around $330. 2 freaking terabytes! Is it me or can you recall when you didn’t know what the hell a terabyte was?
Via cnet

Wolf3D

I can guarantee I didn’t know what a terabyte was the last time I conquered this game. One of my absolute favorite games growing up is now available on my phone. id Software just released a ported version of Wolfenstein 3D for the iPhone. My productivity just went out the window.
Via urbergizmo

A company is now producing Boxed Water. Water in a box? Really? I can see where they are going with this. Boxed Water is safer for the environment than plastic bottles. I get it. But Boxed Water? Really? I’ll stick to the tap.
Via GIZMODO

TiVo and Blockbuster are joining forces. The market of people willing to pay several hundred dollars for a DVR and also pay $15 a month to rent movies will be thrilled. I guess I’m not one of them.
Via engadgetHD

Sweet Site of the Week – yelp.com

Sometimes it’s hard to sift through the millions of websites out there to find the fun, unusual, creative, and especially, the useful ones. And word of mouth can only take you so far. Well, leave it to Gadget Teaser to give you a hand in your search. Once a week, we’ll highlight one of our favorite sites that not everyone knows about. I like to think that we here at Gadget Teaser are performing a public service for you… the avid gadget blog reader the general public.

Yelp

This week’s Sweet Site of the Week is: yelp.com

The real goal of the Sweet Site of the Week is to highlight sites others may not know about, or at least don’t know how useful they are. To my amazement, yelp actually fits in both categories. I’m sure there are several thousand people out there thinking, “How does someone not know about yelp?” I know, and I agree. It shocks me how often I bring up yelp to someone and they have no idea what I’m talking about. But more shocking are the people that know about it, and don’t use it to its potential.

Yelp is a simple site. It’s a free online warehouse of reviews on anything. From restaurants to real estate and from health and medical to nightlife, yelp has a review for it. The best part is, it is all user reviews. Not some nose-in-the-air critic or posh “expert.” It has reviews from you and me and everyone in between. And I use it all the time.

Traveling and looking for a good restaurant? Check out yelp. I have eaten at many great food establishments that I would have never found without yelp. For example, if you’re ever near Sacramento, check out Manderes. Or if you’re ever near Redding, CA, check out The Downtown Eatery and Libations. With 100% surety I can tell you that I would have never found either of these with yelp. And these restaurants are amazing.

Going to Vegas and looking for a great show? Yelp suggests Jersey Boys as the top show in town. In New York for the weekend? The Benjamin is the hotel with the best service. In Phoenix for the week. Check out The Wrigley Mansion Club for the best nightlife. The list goes on.

The best part about yelp is using it where you live. Find out what others think about all the different places in town. Or, better yet, create an account of your own and help everyone else out with your opinions.

And for the iPhone users out there, don’t forget to add the free yelp app. So much information with the tap of your finger.

So when it comes to usefulness, yelp tops my list. And that’s why it’s this week’s Sweet Site of the Week.

IE8 – What Goes Up Must Come Down

Don’t know if you noticed, but Internet Explorer 8 was released last Thursday. What’s that? You didn’t notice. We neither did most of the online world. Microsoft can’t get much right lately and according to InformationWeek, IE8 is no exception.

IE8

As of 8:00 am Monday, IE8 — released Thursday — held 1.86% of the browser market, down from a high of 2.59% on Sunday, according to market watcher Net Applications. The most likely reason for the decline is that early adopters of IE8 are switching back to the more familiar and –at this point — reliable Explorer 7 browser.

Ouch. That is not good. Now combine this bad news with the rumors that IE8 may be Microsoft’s last attempt at a web browser… and then add the fact that Windows 7 is going to have an option to remove IE from the operating system… then well, you have yourself a web browser on life support.

It’s sad really, though not entirely unexpected. IE, like most of Microsoft’s products, became so large, and so dominant, that innovation and creativity were no longer anywhere to be found. New players emerged from the ashes (Firefox from Netscape) that took enough of the market share to make others think they could do it too (Chrome, Opera, et al). And they did. These new browsers started with clean thinking and a cleaner footprint. Everything IE is… slow, large, un-customizable, resource hog… the new browsers are not.

To be honest, I hoped IE8 would be a game changer. I hoped Microsoft would push the other browsers to be even better. I hoped IE8 would be a sign that Microsoft was moving in a new direction. Sometimes we don’t get what we hope for.

So I guess the jury is still out on Microsoft. Maybe Windows 7 will help them recover from the Vista hangover. But if the trends from the article hold true, IE8 is going to need a defibrillation from Microsoft or else we, the general public, are going to pull the plug on IE8 for them.

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