offlining

September 18 deemed 'No Device Day'

Click, send, call, text, Like, tweet, undo, reset, delete... it just doesn't end. Which is why a couple of marketing guys are dubbing September 18 "No Device Day" for consumers who might be too involved with their gadgets.

Though the idea of dedicating an entire day to shutting devices off may seem silly (or virtually impossible) to some, Mark DiMassimo, CEO of ad firm Digo, and Eric Yaverbaum say they believe Americans need to be reminded to turn off their electronics from time to time. Thus, their "lifestyle intervention."

They didn't randomly choose September 18 for the latest installment of the larger Offlining ad campaign, though. It's also Yom Kippur, considered by many Jews to be the holiest day of the year. On this day, also known as the Day of Atonement, observant Jews disengage from things like playing on their BlackBerrys, as well as other daily activities like writing, playing instruments, and even eating.

DiMassimo and Yaverbaum are applying the same tradition to No Device Day, but here's their shtick--"You don't have to be Jewish..."… Read more

CNET to the Rescue: Leave the world behind

If you're heading out of town and leaving the electronic world behind, don't forget that your e-mail contacts, Facebook friends, and Farmville plants will still be expecting to see you around online, interacting with them. Here are some tips for managing your electronic world when you step away from it. Also: Your questions answered, including how to extend Wi-Fi range, and fix a Droid's messed-up contact list.

Box iPad/iPhone apps to get offline, iOS4 support

Online collaboration service Box.net is pushing out an update to its iPhone and iPad app that should make its business users happy. The software is getting offline file storage, which in a call with CNET on Monday, Box's CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie said had been the most requested feature by Box users.

Files that are flagged to be saved to the device can be accessed even when users aren't near a data connection, which Levie cited as a frequent occurrence for Box users on the Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad. Box has also built an updating … Read more

Intuit Web sites come back online

Intuit's several Web sites, including Quicken Online and QuickBooks Online, are back online following a major power outage that took the sites down Tuesday evening.

In a statement released Thursday morning, Intuit said that after working throughout the night on Wednesday it had restored service to the customer sites that were down since 7 p.m. PDT Tuesday as a result of the outage. Those sites include Intuit's core Web site, QuickBooks Online, Quicken, QuickBase, and TurboTax Online. Intuit advises that in some cases customers may need to refresh their browsers to reconnect to the affected sites and … Read more

Desktop delight

Like many people, we're big fans of Google Calendar; it's easy to use, well-organized, and made for sharing with others. But we don't necessarily love the fact that we have to open a new browser tab every time we want to look at it. Enter Desktop iCalendar. This sleek program lets users view Google Calendar content right on their desktop.

The program's interface is modular, with boxes for weather, a calendar, a to-do list, and a list of events that displays information for whatever day is selected on the calendar. Each of these boxes can be … Read more

Intuit's Web sites hit by major outage

Intuit's core Web site and its QuickBooks and Quicken online sites have suffered a major outage, rendering them offline and unavailable since 7 p.m. PDT on Tuesday.

In a statement on its QuickBooks support page, Intuit acknowledged the outage but provided no details on the cause or estimated recovery time.

"Service Interruption to Intuit Websites and Applications: Intuit continues working to restore full service to a number of websites and applications that became unavailable at about 7pm Tuesday, Pacific time," read the statement. "Our first priority is to give customers full and complete access to … Read more

Studios score another TKO against Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent search engine that Hollywood has tried in vain to shut down for years, was offline Monday morning.

The blackout was presumably the result of an injunction won recently by the film studios that ordered The Pirate Bay's bandwidth provider to stop servicing the site. This is only the latest chapter in the cat-and-mouse game between Hollywood's big studios and the site's operators.

The Pirate Bay has lost at least two other bandwidth providers in the past few years and the site typically just acquires a new host. That is likely to happen … Read more

Rhapsody for iPhone gets offline playlists

Subscription-based music service Rhapsody on Monday morning released a new version of its iPhone app that offers offline playback, allowing you to play playlists even when you don't have an Internet connection.

This advance puts Rhapsody in a unique position, at least for a couple months. Subscription service Spotify has an iPhone app with offline playback, but it is still available in Europe only. MOG hasn't gotten its iPhone app out the door yet, and Thumbplay, whose offline playback feature is a big selling point for the service, is available only for the BlackBerry.

The Rhapsody app is … Read more

Simple video hunter

Sothink Web Video Downloader provides a interesting twist on the crowded video downloader field. With simple operation, excellent results, and a surprising functionality, we were quite impressed.

The program's interface gets off to an excellent start with a tutorial video that lays out all the commands and functions perfectly. We never felt confused and were able to operate everything like a veteran. Not only could we input URLs featuring videos, much like every other video-downloading software we'd ever tested, but also a small pop-up would appear, asking if we wanted to save what we were watching at the … Read more

Zune services taking a break next week, brb

I just received a heads-up from Microsoft that all of the Zune-branded services (Zune Pass, Zune Marketplace, Zune.net, and the Xbox Zune video store) are scheduled to go temporarily offline this upcoming Monday night (January 25) at 10 p.m. PT. The outage should last around 24 hours, during which time Xbox and Zune users will be unable to browse, stream, or purchase content from Zune Marketplace, Xbox video store, or access Zune.net. Existing content you've downloaded will not be affected, so if you're planning on a raging party Monday night, you should stock up on … Read more