tools

Glogster is a new publishing tool that's been making the rounds over the last week. The service is focused on letting people create "posters" of various bits of premade and user-generated content using a Flash editor. Unlike some blogging platforms, Glogster has no inclination to go after people who want to write something every day. Instead, the site is geared toward the tween crowd, or anyone else who enjoys partaking in glitter graphics, or those strange greeting cards with dogs and cats that have been Photoshopped to have enormous eyeballs. That being said, using the right tools, … Read more

Even though fresh herbs beat the pants off their dried, ancient counterparts, most people I know don't have any kind of herb garden at home.

That can be for a lot of reasons. For one thing, most of us city folk don't have a lot of space. And even those lucky enough to have some outdoor space might not live in herb-friendly climates. Indoor gardens can be tricky (not to mention major countertop hogs in a space-challenged kitchen), and the AeroGarden gets only mixed reviews.

So what's a cook to do when she needs that extra flavor … Read more

Microsoft's Live Labs, a standalone product research group, released on Wednesday Volta (download it from CNET Download.com), a development tool designed to make it easier to partition an application's component pieces across a network.

The problem that Microsoft researchers are trying to address is the difficulty of deciding which part of the application runs under which tier--either the client or server.

Typically, developers need to write code to handle the communication between those tiers. And they need to decide during development on how to best architect their applications for optimal performance.

With Volta, developers can make "… Read more

Sur La Table announced on Tuesday a new line of specialized utensils based on classic tools like the butter curler, melon baller, turning fork, and grapefruit knife.

The new line, called Things Cooks Love, consists of several dozen utensils with solid wooden handles and an old-timey style. For inspiration, the company looked for vintage kitchen tools here and abroad to find those that have withstood the test of time and remain useful, despite being highly specialized in some cases. The "tomato shark," made for expertly removing the tops of tomatoes or strawberries, was a new one to me. … Read more

If you've ever done a search on Wikipedia.org, you know that as you read a particular article there are hundreds of links to related items that are incredibly hard not to click on. In my experience, I'll go into Wikipedia with a specific goal in mind only to find myself reading something completely different 20 minutes later. While this could be because of my desire to see it all, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say some of the most interesting Wikipedia pages are the ones you stumble across you never would have known existed otherwise. Unfortunately, clicking around on links is not conducive to getting your originally planned research done.… Read more

Seeing how it is nearly Thanksgiving here in the States, what better time to take a look at the SEO industry and give a little thought for some of the things that I give thanks for.

Search Engines

First and foremost would have to be search engines themselves, since without them, SEO would not be as important as it is. This isn't to say that SEO's value is only tied to the existence of search engines. SEO has really become much more encompassing than the acronym it is as SEO continues to evolve more as an extension of traditional marketing.

Ability to Rank

While every client and site owner feels challenged when it comes to ranking...… Read more

Here's a neat service for blog owners who want to add another layer of distribution for their content. It's called Odiogo, and it will take any written blog entries and turn them into spoken word. It uses an integrated player that sticks itself on top of every blog post, and lets readers listen to any post in lieu of reading.

I came across the service while reading a post on UNEASYsilence about hacking the new eeePCs to run a hacked version OS X Leopard (which apparently runs about as well as it can on the aged processor), and … Read more

As a frequent downloader of new software, I test and review a ton of programs on my PC at work. But after installing and uninstalling so many programs, it doesn't take long for my registry to become a complete mess, which causes errors, sluggishness, and sometimes even crashes. The problem is that not all programs uninstall as easily as they install and often registry entries are left to stagnate in your system and may eventually cause problems.… Read more

Having your site rank high in the search engines can be a real boost to traffic for your site. Could anything be better than achieving that top spot in Google? How about getting eight more keyword-rich links up there? What I'm talking about is the highly coveted site links.

Site links have been the icing on the cake for a top listing in Google. Site links are additional links to a site that occasionally appear below the listing. What made these especially sweet was that they haven't been something that you had direct control over, but were like … Read more