Webware

Although Cyber Monday--a big online-shopping day on the Monday following Thanksgiving--has caused some of Black Friday's appeal to slip, it's still a big day for deal-seekers.

But with the shopping day three weeks away, I'm sure you're wondering why I'm talking about it already. Well, the ads are already starting to emerge. And it's time to start figuring out where you want go and what you want to get. Use these resources to help you do just that.

Track Black Friday

Black Friday Ads Black Friday Ads features all the latest updates on Black Friday deals. The site also features buying guides and shopping lists for those who want a little more than deal-seeking.

So far, Black Friday Ads doesn't have many ads to look at. That said, you can check out details on becoming a Best Buy VIP or see what kind of deals Sears plans to offer on Black Friday. Where Black Friday Ads shines is with all the extras. You can discuss hot deals with others in its message boards, find discounts the site might have missed, and more. Keep this site on your radar when you get ready to buy on Black Friday.

Black Friday Ads updates you on all the latest ads.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Black Friday Black Friday features one of the most user-friendly designs of any site in this roundup. It makes it quick and easy to find what you're looking for.

Black Friday lists all the best deals from several well-known retailers. Simply click on one of the stores' names in the right sidebar and you can see its respective Black Friday ad. When you find an ad you want to search though, I think you'll like what you find. The site lists all the deals by department. Simply scroll to the category you're looking for to find the deals you care about. Next to those items, you'll see a "plus" icon. When you click that, you can add it to your shopping list on the site. I found that it's a great way to keep track of items. I really liked Black Friday. Try it out.

Add the product you want to your shopping list.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Twitter is making its way onto clothes.

(Credit: ThinkGeek)

This week, we talked a lot about how Twitter is impacting the real world--as a means of conveying information about the political situation in Iran, for example, and as a ThinkGeek T-shirt theme.

But probably our most-discussed Twitter story was about a guy who got his old Commodore 64 connected to the microblogging service. It's an awesome and fun project, and it got us wondering: where's Twitter going to show up next?

Vote in our poll, and if you come up with possible uses we missed, let us know in our TalkBack section.

It's #FollowFriday on Twitter, which means people will be updating their streams today with lists of users they think others should follow. Usually, the tweets say something like this: "#FollowFriday: @donreisinger @rafe @josh @caro @stshank"

Follow Fridays are a good time to add new people to your Twitter list, or promote the contributors you like the best. But what we really all want to know is this: How do I get included in Follow Friday notes? I did some research to see how a user could capitalize on Follow Friday to increase their follower count. I tried a handful of ideas. Some worked, others didn't. Here's what I found:

Idea 1: Beg
I decided begging would be the first option in trying to be added to Follow Friday tweets. I thought my followers would pity me and add me to their lists, thus exposing me to a whole new group of people.

It backfired. After updating my Twitter stream, many of my followers responded angrily, saying I was missing the point of Follow Friday. Others simply made fun of me. I didn't add a single follower.

Result: No change to follower count.

Idea 2: Insult Follow Friday
What better way to ingratiate yourself with Twitter followers than to insult them for being a part of a "Twitter scam"?

I updated my stream with discussions on why Follow Friday was a joke. I told my followers they shouldn't be engaging in such activity. I even told them that I didn't want to be on any lists because it was so dumb.

After three tweets and five minutes of keeping up with this ploy, it became abundantly clear that my Twitter insults weren't adding any followers to my list. In fact, I lost about 10 followers in that time. Most chastised me for not recognizing the value of Follow Friday. Others put it more succinctly by calling me a jerk. It wasn't a smart move.

Result: Follower count decline.

(Credit: Twitter)

In observance of Good Friday, a New York church has been Twittering the story of the Passion--the biblical tale of the hours leading up to Jesus' crucifixion. This means that subscribers will receive 140-character updates coming from a set of Twitter accounts run by people playing characters in the story.

Trinity Wall Street is an Episcopal church in Manhattan's Financial District that live-streams its services on the Web, encourages members of the congregation to send video e-postcards to friends and family, and produces its own podcasts. The church's thinking behind offering a Twitter feed of the Passion is to offer a way to bring the day of observance into modern life and technology: While Good Friday is one of the most important days of the church year for many Christian denominations, there are plenty of devout Americans who don't take the day off from work.

But edgy interpretations of the Passion are nothing new. This is the same subject matter depicted in "The Passion of the Christ," the controversial Mel Gibson movie from a few years ago in which the dialogue was presented in the languages of the time without subtitles.

Also worth noting this week: a Passover haggadah depicted in the form of a Facebook news feed.

I blogged on Wednesday about the photo archiving site Digital Railroad's abrupt shutdown, leaving thousands of professional photographer customers confused and worried. On Thursday, I got a statement saying that the site will extend the window time until Friday, October 31, 11:59 p.m. PST, for customers to migrate their photo archives.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

The statement comes from both PhotoShelter and Diablo Management Group, the firm in charge of the shut down the defunct Digital Railroad, and reads:

As part of the process of terminating the business operations of Digital Railroad, Diablo Management Group has informed PhotoShelter of its intent to shut down the DRR site as early as 11:59 p.m PST on Friday October 31. After this point, it is very likely that all the images located on the Digital Railroad servers could be permanently inaccessible. Given the strong possibility of this event, PhotoShelter, on its own initiative, is strongly suggesting that customers migrate their files from Digital Railroad immediately. Digital Railroad, at the present time, has no plans or resources to accomplish this task.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, upon announcing the termination of operations, DRR stated it would provide only 24 hours of server access, which actually lasted only about 10 hours. This tiny window of time was exceedingly insufficient both in terms of making the news known to concerned parties, as well as time to download their photos off DRR's server.

Although the extension through October 31 is still short, it will provide more time to help photographers find backup options and transition their online presence. Both DRR and PhotoShelter stress that the situation is highly fluid and the deadline could be altered with little or no notice.

Since Tuesday, PhotoShelter has offered DRR customers a special three-month free offer and FTP solution to help migrate their images.

If you are a customer of DRR or know somebody who is, it is time to take action before it is late.

Related story:

Photo site Digital Railroad derailed completely

A follow-up to my previous post on Qbox: they fixed whatever was preventing the player from playing songs embedded in MySpace pages, and I can now happily recommend it anybody who frequently listens to music on MySpace, Bebo, or YouTube.

As the Qplayer plays this Sigur Ros video from YouTube, I can conduct a search for a friend's band, and add songs from their MySpace to my playlist. The only drawback: search results appear in a separate window.

(Credit: Screenshot)

A quick recap: the Qbox Web site lets you conduct searches for artists across MySpace, Bebo, and YouTube simultaneously. When results appear, you click a small play button on the Web page and the Qplayer launches and begins playing the song or video. You can conduct other searches and add them to your currently playing list, mixing audio and video in whatever order you like. The service is interesting because--like many younger music listeners--it makes no distinction between multiplatinum artists and your best friend's garage band. As long as they're on MySpace, Bebo, or YouTube, they're easily available from Qbox.

Qbox has the concept right, but the overall experience is a little more awkward than it could be--you can conduct searches from the player, but the results appear in a separate Web browser window. Then, when you select an option like "play" or "add to player" from the Web page in the browser, it adds the song back to the Qplayer playlist. I'm not sure why this back-and-forth has to exist, given that Qplayer is basically a modified Web browser--why not just display the search results window in a separate tab within the player? It also has an annoying habit of asking you if you're sure you want to close the player every time you try to shut it down--unnecessary dialog boxes are a pet peeve of mine. But I trust this is just a first iteration, and I'll be keeping track as they improve the service and the software.