Tech989 Radio SpotTech989 Radio Spot
Nerds On Site & CHUM FM 98.9 in Kingston, Ontario

The two most important things to look for when shopping for a new apartment on Craigslist are price and location.

PadMapper is a Google maps mashup that makes it easy to search and browse Craigslist rental property listings. Instead of using maps as a helper extension to view listings, it uses maps as the primary browser for apartments. You can view available apartments all over, zoom in to view listings in a particular state/city or a neighborhood. The closer you zoom in, the more results you will see.

You can zoom in down to a street level and view the restaurants, bars and shops in the surrounding area using the Street View feature. It also lets you instantly filter apartments based on criteria such as max/min rent, # of bedrooms, max price per bedroom, pictures etc. Pretty cool.

If you found an apartment that interests you, add it to Favorites and view the list later. However, if you want to keep the saved entries beyond your browser session, provide an email and when you close your browser you will be sent the results to your email address.

Features:

• Craigslist apartment search using Google Maps.
• Zoom in/out to view available apartments in the whole country, state/city or a neighbourhood.
• Zoom in closer to view more results in a particular area.
• Filter apartments based on criteria such as max/min rent, # of bedrooms, max price per bedroom, pictures etc.
• View surrounding area of the apartment using the Street View feature.
• Save apartments in Favorites. Provide your email to view them later when you end your session.
• Free and no registration.

GONE ARE THE days of sketching furniture plans on the backs of napkins: A slew of free online interior design programs can now do the heavy lifting and deep thinking for you.

Looking to re-arrange the stuff of your house or plan a dream room? Floorplanner is a web-based tool for planning rooms and furniture layouts using a simple but powerful editor.

Buying a new home or rearranging your bedroom or kitchen? You can save time and have more fun if you lay out your ideas in a floor plan.

Floorplanner is the easiest, quickest, and best looking way to create and share interactive floor plans. Using point-and-click, drag-and-drop tools, you can make your house plan in minutes, and rearrange it as often as you want. Then you can save, send, and print your designs to share them, or place them on your own website.

It is easy to use and works in any modern browser, no extra downloads required.

Floorplanner is free for personal use lets you design a single house, with vibrant 2D and 3D models, our PLUS account offers more space if you need it, up to 5 house plans for just $30 a year.

If you are a professional designer, developer, or realtor, we have special versions for you available by subscription. Floorplanner pro versions not only give you the extra space of PLUS accounts, but also advanced branding and site integration options.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Google Buzz, that automatically brings social networking into Gmail and the rest of the Google-sphere. Whether or not you’re big on social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook, Buzz offers a somewhat new and intriguing approach.

Buzz’s five key features, as laid out in the event at Google HQ today, include:

• Automatic friends lists (friends are added automatically who you have emailed on Gmail)
• “Rich fast sharing” combines sources like Picasa and Twitter into a single feed, and it includes full-sized photo browsing
• Public and private sharing (swap between family and friends)
• Inbox integration (instead of emailing you with updates, like Facebook might, Buzz features emails that update dynamically with all Buzz thread content)
• “Recommended Buzz” puts friend-of-friend content into your stream, even if you’re not acquainted. Recommendations learn over time with your feedback.

Buzz lets you share photos, video, links to web sites, and other content from all over the web with your closest contacts or with the public at large.

Connect sites you already use

Import your stuff from Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, and Google Reader.

Photo friendly

See thumbnails with each post, and browse full-screen photos from popular sites.

Inbox integration

Comments get sent right to your inbox so it’s easy to keep the conversation going.

See updates in real time

New posts and comments pop in as they happen. No refresh required.

Just the good stuff

Buzz recommends interesting posts and weeds out ones you’re likely to skip.

Share publicly or privately

Publish your ideas to the world or just to your closest friends.

With more than 400 million users, Facebook is the world’s largest social network; Twitter by contrast has only 18 million or so. Gmail’s unique visitors numbered around 36 million as of last year. Clearly, Facebook is dominating. Google is attempting to challenge that dominance with Buzz, but Facebook is at the same time planning to move just as aggressively into Google’s territory.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Practical Uses:

• Back up your online data in a secure location
• Restore priceless photos and emails
• Protect your online videos in the event that your account is deleted
• Retrieve data even if a service shuts off without warning

Insider Tips:

• Back up your Twitter account for free
• Sign up to receive email updates each time your data is backed up
• Add new online accounts to Backupify as frequently as your wish
• Search through your Backupify archives at any time

Features:

• Backup your data in various web services: Flickr, Twitter, Delicious, Zoho, Google Docs, Photobucket, Wordpress.
• Web services supported that are in beta: Basecamp, Gmail , Facebook, FriendFeed, Blogger, Hotmail.
• Web services coming soon: YouTube, Xmarks, RssFeed, Tumblr.
• Backup your data either daily or weekly, automatically.
• Easy to setup and use.
• Stores your data in Amazon S3 online storage service.
• Email notification every time a backup is performed.

• Free – weekly backups and 1GB storage limit
• $49/year – more storage (TBA), archiving, zipped backup downloads, on-demand PDF generation
• $79/year – as the $49 package, but with more storage and some unannounced advanced features

• Gmail: Supports POP3 access so you can can configure email programs like Outlook Express or Thunderbird to download your email from Google’s servers.  There is also the free utility Gmail-Backup that can download the content of your account to your hardrive.  Get it here or here.
• Google Documents: There are a bunch of ways to download your Docs.  You might try Gdocbackup or Google Docs Backup (free for one account).  Other choices include a GreaseMonkey Script or OpenOffice using the OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs Extension.
• Twitter: Try TwitterBackup or Tweetake.   For a totally online service try tweetbackup.com.
• FaceBook: There are not many options here.  Actually only one free choice I could find is ArchiveFacebook.  Be aware that it is an experimental plugin and some have expressed concern that it might violate FaceBooks terms of use.   If you just want to backup your contacts then FaceBook’s own Export Friends to CVS feature will probably meet your needs.  It seems the the best option  to backup your FaceBook account is SocialSafe.  While not free it is very moderately priced at $2.99
• Flicker: Several options here.   FlickrEdit (a.k.a. FlickerBackup),  or Downloadr.  Also Migratr or Flump (requires Adobe Air)
• Basecamp: No second party app is really needed since Basecamp Dashboard supports exporting to HTML or XML.
• Wordpress: I imagine if you use Wordpress you already know how to back it up.  Wordpress has built in feature to export your databases and files.  You can also try  WP-DB-Backup or WP-DBManager 2.50.
• Del.icio.us: Numerous options here but the simplest methods seem to be various browser plugins/extensions designed to sync Del.icio.us bookmarks with your browser’s bookmarks.  ( Firefox, Internet Explorer)  Other easy choices would be to use one of the other numerous free online bookmarking services that can import your Del.icio.us bookmarks — most of them do.
• Photobucket: Okay they made it hard if you don’t have a pro account, but the above metioned Migratr will also work for Photobucket, and a lot of other online photo services too!
• Blogger: Easy choice here Blogger Backup.   Might also try Blogbackupr.com
• FriendFeed: I have to admit I am stumped here.  Maybe Backupify is the only real solution.   I am open to suggestions here. Maybe there is a way to use an RSS feed to email type service to do a backup.

Apple is definitely launching a tablet tomorrow. At least, according to the CEO of one of the planet’s most noted book publishers.

McGraw-Hill’s Harold McGraw III—has confirmed in a CNBC Interview, the tablet’s coming tomorrow, that it’ll run an iPhone-style OS, that it’s “terrific”.

“Yeah, Very exciting. Yes, they’ll make their announcement tomorrow on this one. We have worked with Apple for quite a while. And the Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable. So what you are going to be able to do now is we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95% of all our materials that are in e-book format on that one. So now with the tablet you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tablet is going to be just really terrific.”

To quote the New York Times: “It will run all the applications of the iPhone and iPod Touch, have a persistent wireless connection over 3G cellphone networks and Wi-Fi, and will be built with a 10-inch color display, allowing newspapers, magazines and book publishers to deliver their products with an eye to the design that had grabbed readers in print.”

A 10-inch screen will hold 10 times the screen real estate of the iPhone’s 3.5-inch display.

Apple is also in negotiations with TV networks for a monthly subscription service. The plan would include a “best of TV” subscription for on-demand access to content. It would offer about four to six shows per channel.

A number of publishers—of newspapers, magazines and books—reported to be talking to Apple has exploded: NYT, Conde Nast, McGraw Hill, Oberlin, HarperCollins, the “six largest” trade publishers, and Time, among many others, are making noise about splaying their content on the tablet.  A giant iPod not only for video, photos and music, but for words.

For the book industry, the Apple tablet is bringing to a head a brewing battle between Apple and industry heavyweight Amazon.com Inc. over how e-books—seen as the future of the book industry—will be priced and distributed.

Apple just announced an event on January 27th that will no doubt dazzle us with what the company is calling its “latest creation.” At the event, Apple will likely unveil the company’s long-rumored tablet device.

Fox News posted an article Monday claiming that not only will next week’s now-confirmed Apple event play host to the long-rumored tablet unveiling, but it will also see the next iteration of Apple’s iLife software on show. Fox’s report also claims that Apple will discuss the next iPhone OS update.

—

The rumor: The Korea Times, citing unnamed sources at Korea Telecom, says the carrier is planning for a 4G iPhone featuring an OLED display, a front-facing video camera, a fast new dual-core CPU, and a removable battery. General launch is expected in June, but corporate clients will be doing a “litmus test” in April.

The rumor: 10.1 OLED and LCD display panels are no longer available anywhere, because Apple has “pre-ordered them all” to secure volume discounts and keep the tablet’s price down.

—

Apple is planning two versions of the Tablet, says Kumar. One would have Qualcomm’s wireless chip and WiFi. The other would have only WiFi, similar to the distinction between the iPhone and iPod Touch.

What if in addition to a tablet, Apple made another huge announcement at next week’s press event, like a Verizon iPhone? That’s what an analyst is predicting.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Google Goggles is a visual search app. Instead of using words, take a picture of an object with your camera phone: we attempt to recognize the object, and return relevant search results. Goggles also provides information about businesses near you by displaying their names directly in the camera preview.

A picture is worth a thousand words.
No need to type your search anymore. Just take a picture.
Find out what businesses are nearby.
Just point your phone at a store.
Your pictures, your control.
Turn on ‘visual search history’ to view or share your pictures at any time. Turn it off to discard them once the search is done.

Landmark

Google Inc said it is no longer willing to continue censoring Internet search results in China, and that it may have to shut down the google.cn website and its offices in the country.

Google said on Tuesday that it had detected “highly sophisticated” cyber-attacks in mid-December on the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, and that at least 20 other large companies from a wide range of businesses have also been similarly targeted.

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton will announce a technology policy next week to help citizens in other countries gain access to an uncensored Internet, Clinton’s senior advisor for innovation Alec Ross told Reuters separately.

Shares of Google fell 1.9 percent to $579.50 in after-hours trading. Shares of Chinese Internet search company Baidu Inc, Google’s main competitor in China, rose 5 percent to $406.00.

“If Google were to exit China, we believe this represents a significant lost growth opportunity in the long term,” UBS analyst Brian Pitz said in a research note. “China is the world’s largest Internet market with roughly 298 million users, with only 22 percent of the population penetrated.”

———————————————

Microsoft’s “patch Tuesday” was pretty low-key this month, but Adobe has release some critical patches. Keeping applications, especially those used for internet access, patched is now as important as keeping the operating system patched.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Story and Screenshots from Smarterware http://smarterware.org/4308/android-2-1s-best-features-in-screenshots

Great software needs hardware that can keep up, and my new Nexus One is a sleek, awesome handset. But the most important ingredient in this generation of touchscreen smartphones is the software: the screen is just a canvas that software paints on, and Android 2.1 is a work of art.

Coming from the chunky G1, the thin and flat Nexus One hearkens back to my iPhone days. (It doesn’t require a holster, and slid into my jeans pocket it doesn’t make my thigh look too fat–it gets lots of vanity points for that.) The screen is huge and crisp; the dual noise-canceling microphones are sweet; the true headphone jack is much-appreciated, and the glowing trackball is a nice touch.

Now that that’s out of the way–the best part of the Nexus One is Android 2.1. If all goes well, many existing Android users will get that update even if they don’t get a new handset. After spending just a few hours with my new phone, here are a few of my favorite Android 2.1 features, in screenshots.

Click to enlarge each image to actual size (including the image of my current home screen, shown here).

First off, Android 2.1 has some satisfying eye candy that doesn’t necessarily make you more productive, but does make the phone more fun to use.

The application menu button has been replaced with a button that looks like a grid (see bottom of the first screenshot). When you tap it, your application icons fly into place to take over the desktop in their own grid, and you can scroll them back and forward as if they were on a 3-D cube, shown here.

Android 2.1’s Live Wallpapers move and react in different ways when you touch the desktop–again, not strictly useful, but they make the phone feel as if it is alive in your hand and responding to your every action.

Two new desktop widgets come in way handy: One offers one-click toggle of your most important settings (GPS, Bluetooth, screen brightness, and Wi-Fi on/off)*, and the other has top news stories for idle browsing when you’re on line at the grocery store. I’m not a widget gal–I trashed that big old clock first thing when I set up Android 1.5/6–but these two, along with the Google search box, are keepers.

* Update: Colin Ewen points out that the Power Control widget is not new, it was simply redesigned in Android 2.1. The news widget is new. Thanks, Colin!

Every single text area in Android 2.1 is speech-to-text enabled, which means you can say your text messages, emails, tweets, notes to self, whatever.

It works like Google’s voice-enabled search box does. You tap the microphone button on the keyboard, speak, and then the spinner grinds away at the recording, translating it to text.

The conversion takes a few seconds, depending on how much you said, and it requires a decent internet connection to complete. In a spotty area I got a few “Connection error” messages when I tried to speak my first tweet from the Nexus One using Seesmic. (That was disappointing.)

The results are hit or miss.

Sometimes they’re pretty decent. Here I said, “Every text area is speech-to-text enabled so you can speak your email, text messages, or tweets.” I didn’t say the punctuation, and you can see it borked the “is,” and missed the “so.” Not bad.

Not all results are that close, though. This is another set of results I got, saying the same exact thing as above.

Android continues to offer the best Gmail mobile client available on any platform. The latest version of Google’s Gmail Android app supports “Undo.” When you archive or delete a Gmail conversation, you get the option to Undo the action. (Great for when you accidentally tap something you didn’t mean to.)

The upgraded Gmail app also supports multiple accounts, so you can get mail from your work, personal, and moonlighting Gmail accounts in one interface. (Note that before you could get email from multiple accounts using the vanilla email client, but now you can get the Gmail experience for multiple accounts.)

Another “oh, that’s cool!” Gmail discovery: if you tap the dot next to a contact’s name, you get a pop-up with one-click access to that person’s information with their photo.

Update: Also just noticed the “Older” button at the bottom of an open Gmail message. That takes you to the next message in the list. There’s a “Newer” button in the menu options.

But back to contact photos…

I like to see photos of my friends on my phone, but never had the time or patience to manually assign photos to anyone who wasn’t my Mom or my spouse. Now I have more photos filled in than I ever did, thanks to Android’s built-in Facebook application. The FB app can sync Facebook profile photos into your existing contact list or add your Facebook friends to your phone’s contact list over the air with one tap. LOVE that. I barely use Facebook, but it was worth logging in using the pre-installed app just to suck in photos for my friends and family.

In fact, you can add one-tap Facebook contact access to your desktop. To do so, tap and hold the desktop, then choose “Folders” when the Add dialog comes up, tap “Facebook Phonebook.” The Facebook-branded folder icon opens up to a list like the one shown here.

Android 2.1 has a few web browser upgrades going on as well. Something from mobile Safari’s playbook: when you browse to certain Google Apps (like Wave, shown here, or Google Reader), the address bar hides itself automatically so the webapp goes full-screen. Swipe your finger as if you’re scrolling up to show it.

Your browser bookmarks appear in an attractive grid of thumbnailed page previews, ala Opera Fast Dial and Chrome. (If I’m not mistaken, Safari on the desktop does this, too.)

However, your History and Most Visited sites are just plain text lists. It used to be that the browser’s open windows would tile into previews, but that’s just a text list now as well. Interesting that your bookmarks are the only list of pages that appear as thumbnails previews.

Android 2.1 ships with a new Gallery application for your photos, which syncs with Picasa Web Albums. It includes photos you add to the phone’s hard drive or take with the phone itself. The default view is stacks of images grouped, from what I can tell, by date. (Note: I’m using doubleTwist to move music, photos, and video clips onto the phone.)

Tap on a stack of images to browse the thumbnails or swipe through a slideshow. If you tilt the phone or tap and drag around the edges in stack or thumbnail view, the photos tilt in a strange-but-cool effect (as shown).

New to me (but not Droid owners) is Android’s Car Home screen, for navigational purposes on the road. I haven’t had the chance to try this out yet, but I’m really looking forward to it. (My trusted Android informant Kevin at Lifehacker gave it his thumbs-up.)

It was great to see that Google Voice came pre-installed on the Nexus One, and telling GVoice to handle my new mobile number’s voicemail was literally a one-click affair. (Hopefully no one will ever even know my new mobile number, since I hope to go completely Google Voice from here on in.)

Speaking of, setting up this phone in general was dead-easy. You simply sign into your Google account on the phone and instantly your contacts, email, calendar, and Google Voice calls/history are on the phone–no syncing or importing necessary. The only reason why I connected it to my computer was to take screenshots for this post, and later, to move some music onto it.