Internet

Google recently launched a project called “10 to the 100th,” and it is generating a good amount of buzz on the web. The idea is a really cool one and I applaud the Mountain View company for kick starting it.

Basically they are allowing people to submit their ideas that will make an impact on the world and help as many people as possible (you have until October 20th to submit yours). After that, they will launch the voting phase (starting on January 27th, 2009), where the general public will choose 20 finalists.

Finally, an advisory board will choose up to five winners, and those ideas will each receive funding to see the light of the day. Google will be giving $10 million for those projects.

Cool huh? Here are the topics that you can cover with your idea:

• Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
• Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
• Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
• Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
• Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
• Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
• Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
• Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into any category at all.

And here are the criteria that will be used on the voting phase:

• Reach: How many people would this idea affect?
• Depth: How deeply are people impacted? How urgent is the need?
• Attainability: Can this idea be implemented within a year or two?
• Efficiency: How simple and cost-effective is your idea?
• Longevity: How long will the idea’s impact last?

Today I came across this website called Last Minute Auction, and the concept is interesting. Basically they collect and present all the eBay auctions they will expire in under 1 hour, and that cost under $1.

You can also browse only specific categories.

Obviously not all the items will represent a good bargain, since there is a lot of items with higher reserve prices, and stuff that is not even worth $1…. That being said, if you spend some time looking around I am sure you will find good deals, and it sure beats browsing on eBay if you are looking for that price range.

There are good chances you already came across the term “cloud computing” once or twice, even if you don’t completely grasp the meaning of the term. If that is the case, check out this article on Business Week titled How Cloud Computing Is Changing the World. It gives some good examples of how cloud computing is starting to shape the way companies do business, and individuals interact with IT. Here is a small quote:

The term “cloud computing” encompasses many areas of tech, including software as a service, a software distribution method pioneered by Salesforce.com about a decade ago. It also includes newer avenues such as hardware as a service, a way to order storage and server capacity on demand from Amazon and others. What all these cloud computing services have in common, though, is that they’re all delivered over the Internet, on demand, from massive data centers.

A pit-stop on the Wikipedia article for cloud computing can help also. This is probably one of the most important shifts that we will see on the coming years, so make sure to understand it.

Adobe AIR showed a lot of potential during its period of public beta but unfortunately had very few applications that really took advantage of the technology. Thankfully over the last month or so we have begun to see some impressive and useful applications being released.

Here is my pick of the current offerings:

1. Alert Thingy

A favourite of many Alert Thingy started as a FriendFeed application but has since added support for Twitter and the ability to upload photos to Flickr. If you are a user of these services then you will love being able to access the services from within the same interface and window.

2. Guitar Scales V2

This is a great little application, although obviously it will only appeal to a small group of you. Using the virtual fretboard like below you can find any scale for a range of options including root notes, scale types, number of strings, number of frets and tunings.

This information can be found elsewhere online, but I don’t know one other resource that freely provides this information in a way that rivals Guitar Scales for simplicity and functionality.

3. Klok

“Klok is a tool intended to be used by individuals, like myself, who have a need to track the time they spend on projects, tasks or anything else for that matter.” If you find Klok to be a bit more complicated then what you need, I recommend Timecloc which is much simpler and is essentially a stop watch, although you can still add different projects.

4. ReadAir

“ReadAir is an OSX Themed Desktop Client for Mac or Windows. Built with Adobe Air” and available for download from Google Code. I wasn’t actually aware of this one till today due to it not being listed in the AIR application directory. DailyApps discovered it and ran an article about it yesterday.

5. Twhirl

Twhirl is another Twitter and FriendFeed client. Its main feature is the ability to be signed into multiple Twitter and FriendFeed accounts simultaneously. It has a tool for shortening URLs, you can update Pownce and Jaiku, upload pics to TweetPic and use TweetScan to search for tweets.

6. Pownce

pwnceshotI really wonder what the future of Pownce is. Successful startups all generally have one specific focus that can generally be summarized in one word or phrase. Google is search, Twitter is micro-blogging, Flickr is photo sharing and so on. Pownce seems to have a little of everything and as such is making little headway in any.

However If you are a Pownce user however then this application is a must; you’ll find it a great deal easier staying up to date on your contact’s latest notes, files and photos etc. An option I feel is lacking is the ability to minimize to the system tray.

7. Ebay Desktop

This is one of the first, and still one of the best, AIR applications. It’s impressive in that it really goes beyond replicating an online service on the desktop and instead extends and enhances the experience. Not only does it look great, but Ebay Desktop takes a far more graphical and interactive approach with the browsing, tracking and buying and selling of items.

Drag and drop functionality, instant search results and a real time clock that counts down to the end of the auction are some of the features in this app. If you are even an occasional Ebay user its worth giving Ebay Desktop a try.

8. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a favourite of many bloggers as it provides easy access to all your Analytics data and profiles from your desktop. It’s attractive and extremely useful if you use Analytics on a regular basis. (You can also get Google Trends on your desktop with XeGTrends)

I am a big RSS fan. Not sure if you noticed last May 1st, but we had an RSS Awareness Day going on. I started it.

Anyway browsing on the web today I came across an interesting article outlining 100 cool uses for RSS.

Here are the first 10 ones:

• Books. Read books with DailyLit. They will send sections to you each day via RSS feed.
• Recipes. Get a recipe of the day, recipe raves, recipes from chefs and friends, and more from bigoven.
• Vegan Recipes. If you are a vegan, get recipes, articles and more from VegWeb.
• NPR. Find your favorite NPR show updates, local NPR stations, and more each with their own feeds.
• Blogs. Find your favorite blog and read it in your reader every time it’s updated rather than visiting the site waiting for updates.
• TV listings. Have local TV listings from TV Guide sent to you every day.
• TV reminders. Use mytvrss to customize RSS feed reminders on the day when your favorite shows will air.
• Watch TV shows. Find out as soon as free downloads are available of your favorite shows on Hulu.
• Movies. Read movie reviews from major critics and the editors themselves at Rotten Tomatoes with their updates.
• DVD. Find the latest about DVD new release and bestsellers with Movies.com.

Today is RSS Awareness Day. What is that all about? It is simple: a day to spread the word about the RSS and feed formats, and to get more people using it. As of today just 5 to 7 percent of the Internet users are actively using RSS. That is a shame given the usefulness of that tool.

Check out the RSSDay.org website and help spread the word.

Ah, and if you are not subscribed to our RSS Feed yet, make sure to do it!