graphs

Just how powerful can the data behind a location-based application be? Extremely.

Earlier this month, the second annual Internet Week New York took place, and Dropio founder and certifiable data nerd Sam Lessin crunched a bunch of numbers based on what his contacts on urban navigation and friend-finding service Foursquare were doing. Lessin was working with a group of fewer than 100 contacts, almost all of whom are involved in the tech and new-media industries (this is the scene that birthed Foursquare and its predecessor Dodgeball, after all), and yet it's a fascinating peek at just how much this … Read more

Google is apparently "getting ready to fully cast its social net over its web properties," according to TechCrunch, the latest signal being the automatic creation of a Google account when opening a YouTube account.

It's a clever, almost Microsoft-esque move designed to make Google the center of our social universe. It can't happen fast enough. But Google shouldn't stop with its own properties.

The social Web is currently a morass of mostly siloed choices. I can be on Facebook but also have to build a profile on LinkedIn, not to mention Digg, Slashdot, Bebo, Classmates.… Read more

If your system is lagging or CPU performance just isn't want you think it should be, try out this helpful monitoring program.

MKN Performance Monitor has a basic interface with graphic readouts and several points of statistical information. As stated in its name, this program monitors computer performance by displaying two graphic readouts of processor usage and input/output rates. Below the graphs, users will find a real-time display of the processor, I/O, and system performance. We liked that the information was also available when the program was minimized. A quick hover over the system tray icon brought … Read more

YouTube RealTime, a new technology that brings an as-it-happens social aspect to Google's video-sharing site, shows promise but suffers shortcomings.

RealTime has the potential to bring some of the communal aspects of TV to the more solitary phenomenon of online video. With it, a toolbar across the bottom of a YouTube page shows you what your friends are watching and commenting on, shows them what you're up to, and pops up invitations from friends who want you to see something. It's an opt-in service, and you can temporarily go into a private mode, so you can still … Read more

Identify is a small, experimental Firefox extension that quickly analyzes a contact's user name to pull up biographical information, and grab links to their profiles on other social services. For instance, if I were to use it on Rafe Needleman's Twitter profile it would be able to tell me what other services he's using, like FriendFeed, Facebook, Last.fm, and more. The same thing would happen if I checked from his profile on one of those other sites, too.

At least that's how it's supposed to work. It did better on some of my friends … Read more

Baseball season is almost under way. So it's time we all get online and start forming our fantasy leagues. Perennial favorite sites from ESPN, Yahoo, and MLB.com will probably top the list for most people when they decide which service to use, but more goes into fantasy baseball than simply signing up for leagues. What about stats? Did you forget about the news? Did you happen to remember scouting tools?

Hear are the rest of the sites you need.

There are a number of fine league-building services out there, but if you want to have the best experience, stick to these selected few:

CBS Sports Not only is CBS Sports' Fantasy Baseball league free, it provides real-time scoring, live chat so you can talk with buddies during the game, and adequate player news and stats to help you make more informed decisions. I've used it a few times over the past five years and find it to be easy to use and high-powered for a private or public league. Disclosure: CBS Sports and CNET are owned by the same parent company: CBS.

ESPN Fantasy Baseball I've also used ESPN's fantasy sports services for years, and I've been impressed with how much they offer. Leagues are free, player news and stats come straight from ESPN, one of the best sources for sports news, and managing your team couldn't be easier. But ESPN's penchant for charging for extra scouting help and more in-depth player information is annoying.

MLB.com If you want the most basic offering for your fantasy baseball league, you'll probably want to use Major League Baseball's service. It's free and makes it easy to set up a league. But I'm generally unimpressed with its stat tracking, and managing a team isn't nearly as easy as it is in competing services. It's a well-known fantasy site, but it's not the best.

Yahoo Sports Yahoo was one of the first companies to start fantasy leagues. More than a decade later, it's still providing an outstanding experience. All the leagues are free, player information is always up-to-date and reliable, and the service's stat tracking is second to none. Yahoo does charge some hefty fees for access to a draft kit ($9.99) and a scouting report ($14.99), but it's still a great service.… Read more

In another expansion of its Profiles site, Google has enabled people to share their contact information with selected contacts, a move that offers modest convenience for users of the service and valuable data to Google.

The feature shows as a "Contact info" tab; clicking on it shows whatever contact information you've entered and the note, "You are not sharing your contact information with anyone. Edit your profile to add contact info, and then choose who to share it with so that they always have the most up-to-date information."

Google Profiles is hardly a Facebook crusher or a LinkedIn slayer, but it is getting gradually more elaborate, as Google builds it up. In October, user profiles became visible to search engines. In November came identity authentication and a mechanism to let people contact you without sharing your e-mail address.

Here's why this Profiles move is interesting: telling Google whom you entrust with your personal information is a good way of identifying the close members of your social circle--in other words, the strong links in your social graph. … Read more

Yahoo is beginning the transition to its new socially-enabled platform, laying the foundation for a "universal profile" Thursday.

The new profile page will allow users to make limited changes to their profiles, such as status updates, adding connections (friends in the social graph) from their Yahoo address book, and listing interests. Users can change settings, control permissions and manage notifications across various Yahoo properties.

Yahoo 360 (Yahoo's 2005 attempt to create a social network ) member profiles will be migrated to the new system, but Yahoo 360 won't be going away yet, according to Jim Stoneham, vice … Read more

A potentially invaluable tool for math students or engineers, this tightly focused program draws and analyzes two-dimensional graphs. Within these limits, Graph offers most of the features any mathematically minded computer user could ask for.

Standard, parameter, and polar functions are supported. It includes a huge number of predefined functions, but new ones can be added. Tangents, normals, and derivatives can be drawn. Users can add relations and set constraints. The program can calculate the length or area of a selected function, or determine its first and second derivatives. From a cosmetic point of view, users can freely adjust axes, … Read more