Webware100

Site: Woot.com Category: Commerce

Woot is an online retailer of goods. Most of the items sold are electronics, although you never know what will be next. The site sells a new product every night at midnight Central time and will keep it available until the next night or until it sells out.

Unsold goods are then later sold (usually at a discount) in what's called a Woot-off, where the retailer continues to sell new or previously listed goods until it runs out of stock, replacing it with other items. Woot-offs are well known for ending with the notorious &… Read more

Site: OAuth Category: Editors' Choice, Most Important Technology

OAuth is a developing standard that lets Web services interact with each other on behalf of users, without requiring users to give up their passwords.

Why do we need it? Best reason that makes it clear to almost everyone: Twitter apps. Currently, when you're using a third-party Twitter application, like Tweetdeck for example, you have to give the app your Twitter credentials--user name and password. That's a key to your entire Twitter account. An app like Tweetdeck could, if hacked or written maliciously, log in to your Twitter account and … Read more

Site: GetDropbox.com Category: Infrastructure & Storage

Dropbox is a file storage service that syncs up files between multiple machines. Once installed, you gain access to a virtual folder that will stay synced up and pass along any new additions, deletions, or changes. All the while, the service keeps snapshots of every version of a file that's been changed, which means you can go back and retrieve older iterations.

Dropbox also lets users create shared versions of these folders, so multiple users can contribute or make changes to a collection of group files and make sure everyone is using … Read more

Site: YouSendIt.com Category: Infrastructure & Storage

YouSendIt is a file-sharing service. It allows receivers to get files by clicking standard URL links. Since YouSendIt stores files on its own servers, you have to upload what you want to share, but then you don't have to leave your PC on to allow people to pick it up. The hosted transfer model isn't as flexible as peer-to-peer sharing, but it is easier to use for both senders and receivers.

In addition to a free service, YouSentIt offers three premium subscription plans for users who want to send larger files … Read more

Site: Postbox-inc.com Category: Communication

Postbox is free desktop e-mail software that's closely integrated with various Web apps and services. Once it's been connected to these outside services, it can easily open up attachments in other pieces of software or Web applications when clicking on things like addresses, phone numbers, and certain file types.

Similar to Mozilla's Thunderbird, Postbox has taken a tabbed approach to e-mail, allowing you to have several tabs open at once with various e-mail tasks running inside of each one. It also includes a to-do-list manager, archiving tool, and tagging system to let … Read more

Site: Bittorrent.com Category: Infrastructure & Storage

BitTorrent is an advanced peer-to-peer sharing technology that runs using a client system. To share and transfer files, users must be running a BitTorrent software client on their computer. Some Web browsers, such as Opera, have built-in BitTorrent clients as part of their technology.

BitTorrent works by splitting up files into tiny bits of data that can be shared in any order. Users work together to make the file available on demand. Even if just one person has an entire file initially, eventually after sharing it with others, the speed for downloading increases.… Read more

Site: Farecast Category: Editors' Choice, Best Exit

The founders of airline price forecasting site Farecast cashed out during a brief resurgence of the airline industry after the September 11 downturn and before the double whammy of the 2008 oil crises and the financial sector collapse.

We liked the service from the start. It did something no other travel site did: it predicted the airfare between two points on any upcoming date, and it would advise you when the best time to buy your tickets was--if you should buy now or wait a bit. Farecast officially launched to the public in … Read more

Site: Mozy.com Category: Infrastructure & Storage

Mozy is an online storage provider that specializes in backup. Users install a small piece of software on their machine, and it automatically syncs any new or changed files over a secured connection. In case of an emergency, you can simply use the software to get everything back, and because it's not localized to where your machine is, you can get that backup from wherever you have a connection.

Along with its home service, Mozy operates a more advanced version for business users that adds things like storage pooling, administrative controls, extra … Read more

Sites: Evernote and Windows Live Sync Category: Editors' Choice, Rafe's favorites