Fire Analytics

http://telega.phpnet.us/analytics/

Wed Aug 05 08:56:30 +0000 2009

by Ralph Averbuch

There's no question that Google Analytics is a dangerous addiction, offering a seemingly endless wealth of minutiae about your visitors, browsers, geography, searches... you name it. So, for those with a penchant for incessant visits to their analytics page to check website stats, this handy little application offers a convenient fix utilising the Firefox browser. It's not particularly pretty but it's very quick, convenient and a great way to access a wealth of information in this pop-up browser plugin.

MailChimp

http://www.mailchimp.com/

Wed Jul 29 16:12:13 +0000 2009

by Ralph Averbuch

Apart from the cute/annoying product name (you decide), MailChimp is an impressive example of how to make a very powerful web-based email platform really simple to set up and use. It integrates with a large range of content management platforms, from simple blogging engines like Movable Type, to heavyweight systems like Joomla, in each case integrating seamlessly and allowing you to manage all your email newsletter subscribers. It also makes the process of quickly building a decent looking email message very simple for even the most determined technological luddite. Best of all, this all starts at the favourable price-point of free, provided you have fewer than 100 subscribers and send less than 500 emails a month.

Google Earth gets Mooned

http://earth.google.com/moon/index.html

Wed Jul 22 17:10:59 +0000 2009

by Ralph Averbuch

If you've ever experienced Google's free Google Earth application you'll already know that it's a pretty impressive tool which lets you view vast amounts of surface information and detail anywhere on the globe. As part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of the Apollo moon landings, Google worked with NASA Ames Research and JAXA to create a new "Moon" map which lets you do just the same for our nearest celestial body. Great fun and you can even pretend it's educational! Check out the explanatory video here.

WordPress

http://wordpress.org/

Wed Jul 15 17:08:35 +0000 2009

WordPress is probably the single most popular piece of blogging software out there and it costs nothing... other than somewhere to host it. If you're unfamiliar with it, once installed on your website, WordPress allows you to produce your very own blog. But it can do so much more thanks to a vast array of helpful plugins that enhance the basic functionality. It's even suited to being used as a simple Content Management System, providing much of the functionality you might need. It's an easy way to create and maintain the design and content of your web pages. To see just how effective it can be, check out the WordPress showcase.

Feedly: a magazine-like start page

http://www.feedly.com/

Wed Jul 08 17:35:36 +0000 2009

by Ralph Averbuch

If you love RSS but hate the confusion of information it creates then this application may be the tipping point you've been waiting for. Feedly aims to deliver a sort of magazine-like experience piggybacking on top of Google Reader or the Google Desktop web clip gadget to make a much more dynamic and social way of interacting and sharing your feeds. The easiest way to get started is by downloading the Firefox add-on (no IE version yet) and following the prompts.

PodShifter

Wed Jul 01 14:28:12 +0000 2009

by Ralph Averbuch

If you've developed a podcast habit, odds are you often struggle to keep on top of a growing list of audio. If your particular thing is talk shows, then Podshifter might be an ideal solution. Paste in the feed from your favourite shows and it will optionally speed up the audio all the way to 3x (or as low as 1.2x). Obviously this reduces the time it takes to listen to a show but it manages to keep the pitch at the same level whilst speeding up the speech, thus avoiding the 'chipmunk' effect where everyone sounds like they are squeaking in high pitched voices. And the point? Well, if you can't spare the half hour it takes to listen to a regular speed podcast, making it a little faster still means it's perfectly audible but it takes less of your time to listen. It's the solution to the problem you never knew you had...

Google Sightseeing

http://googlesightseeing.com/

Wed Jun 24 17:47:39 +0000 2009

by Ralph Averbuch

With such easy access to high resolution images of the Earth's surface from space or more recently from Street View on Google Maps, one of the newly discovered challenges is pinpointing interesting sights. And there's a lot of ground to cover, literally. That's where Google Sightseeing lends a hand. James and Alex Turnbull's mission is to "bring you the most amazing sights from Google Earth, Maps and Street View". If you're a fan of maps, their site will certainly give you many hours of happy distraction, offering sights by locality, category and map. Loads to keep cartophiles happy.

Census Online (CSO)

http://www.cso.ie/census/Census_1926_Results.htm

Thu Jun 18 12:20:07 +0000 2009

by Deirdre McArdle

Those with an interest in historical data will be keen to learn that the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has made the results of every census conducted in the State since 1926 available online for free. The amount of information available is vast, running to thousands of pages, revealing the massive societal changes in Ireland over the last 83 years. Population, births, deaths, occupations and marriages are just some of the categories covered. Endless hours could be spent trawling through this data, not only by researchers and academics, who will no doubt gobble it up, but also by the general public.

Click Online

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/default.stm

Wed Jun 10 17:59:28 +0000 2009

by Ralph Averbuch

If you’re reading this, the chances are you’re already interested in all aspects of technology in either your work or personal life. If you never can get enough of the good stuff, then pop over to the BBC’s ‘flagship technology programme’ where you’ll discover ‘Click Online’. Aired as part of BBC News 24 and the World Service output, the weekly TV show also has all its regular content available via the supporting website. You can even watch new episodes in the BBC’s iPlayer, though this will only work in Northern Ireland.

Save The Words

http://www.savethewords.org/

Thu Jun 04 10:17:54 +0000 2009

by Ralph Averbuch

Panachymagogue is a word that's on borrowed time. Well it's certainly struggling to stay in regular use. It means 'medicine purging bodily fluids from the body'. This and many more lost words have found a home at Save The Words. This site's aim is simple: to get you to reacquaint yourself with the enormous lexicon of the English language and resuscitate words in danger of disappearing from use entirely. As the site demands, "it's time to do your part and use them before we lose them". Definitely one for Scrabble lovers.