WebSiteForensics.com » Web 2.0

A few useful tools

Mark MacKinnon — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 05:06:43 +0000

You’ve all been to our Site Admin Stuff page already right? Well, we decided we’d share the following tools we sometimes / always / can’t live without when creating various projects. Enjoy !

Please read through to enjoy our resources!

File conversions
- Zamzar – File conversion – From anything to anything
- Youtube-mp3 – Convert and download youtube video/audio
My name is URL
- Tinyurl – URL Shortener
- ShadyURL – Create alternative “shady” urls
L-Mail – Send letters via this online from anywhere
WhatTheFont – What font was that?
File hosting
- Dropbox
- MediaFire
- Ge.tt
- ZumoDrive
- DepositFiles
Other file services
- FilesTube – Search and Download Files
- MultiUpload – Upload to multiple popular hosting sites with 1 upload
- FileCrop – Search engine for shared files
WhatIsMyIp – Find your IP address – Make sure you’re on the right network…
Stuff to do with emails
- Mailinator – Disposable email
- 10minutemail – Disposable email
- FaxZero – Send/Receive faxes through email
Tools for text
- Scribd – Text hosting, scrapbook for snippets
- PrintFriendly – Make webpages printfriendly
- Lipsum – Filler text – the classic latin passage
Image hosting and management
- Imgur – Best image hosting
- DummyImage – Create dummy images of any format
- VectorMagic – Create vectors from any image
- Challonge – Create tournament brackets
- Tineye – Reverse image search. Great to catching liars!
- CoolUtils Image Converter – Resize images for avatars
Various tools
- Prezi – Because powerpoint slides are boring
- TypeWith.me – Online word document collaboration
- eBuddy – Web and mobile messaging
- Iedone – Online IDE & Debugging Tool
- Readability – Make articles easier to read
- RunPee – Find out when the best time to use the bathroom is during movie
- ShowMeWhatsWrong – Instant Screen Recording for troubleshooting
- Pipl – People search
- Mibbit – Web IRC
- DownForEveryoneOrJustMe – Is google.com down?

Twuffer – it’s a twitter buffer!

Mark MacKinnon — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:19:20 +0000

We recently discovered an amazing service that finally delivers what it promises: to be able to manage and post future tweets. If you run a blog, you probably would like to promote your postings evenly over time instead of the classic burst of links most users are accustomed to.

As well, if you have a major event coming up, do you have the time to promote in on twitter, or would having tweets arranged by date and time be a time saver? Welcome to Twuffer, a twitter scheduler with impeccable functionality, ease of use and – best of all – no link jacking. You know what I mean, don’t you?

eBay Is No Longer eBay

Mark MacKinnon — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:14:51 +0000

For years, we’ve listed and sold stuff on eBay (not an affiliate links for sure …). Ever since the mid to late 90s in fact. We stopped selling for a while, and almost forgot about the service until we realized we had quite a bit of good quality equipment we wanted to offload. We went back to eBay … We were shocked. Things have drastically changed and not for the better, why this is we decided to investigate.

When John Donahoe took over eBay, he started a long term plan to kill off small time sellers. The total number of items listed on eBay fell below 8 million and kept dropping because listing fees were getting so expensive and Fewer and fewer items were being listed.

eBay tried to get the numbers back up by offering listing fee discounts time to time but it wasn’t a permanent solution. The next step in Donahoe’s plan was to start cutting deals with large retailers so they could sell on eBay. Buy.com was one of the first large online retailers to flood eBay with more than 100K items all with free shipping. These companies were basically paying no listing fees which was really an unfair advantage over the little guys.

A large number of small power sellers have gone out of business because of these corporate deals. To sum things up, eBay wants to shed its image as a electronic flea market and now want to be seen as a mainstream shopping mall. Not the eBay we used to know. In fact, seems the revolt has been brewing for some time now …

Music Composition For Nerds

Mark MacKinnon — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 05:13:14 +0000

iNudge.net is an amazing little site with a nifty musical tool. Anyone using the web based application can create music loops by following a few rules. The first step is to select 1 of 8 different Sound Patterns from the small Matrixes icons on the right. You then use your mouse to draw notes on each 16 Step Matrix and you adjust the volume of the iNudge application. For each pattern, you can adjust the volume, you can mute, clear, or set the audio pan from Left to Right.

You can also click on the tempo numbers and click up or down to change the overall tempo. To make the nudge longer use the “plus” button. You can use the Clear, Copy, Cut and Paste functions to edit your pattern faster. Get & Share allows you to send mail, get links, get embed code or spread your latest creation in social media communities. Using the Feedback Forum, you can tell us what you think, leave your comments or make suggestions.

The Kitchen Sink

Mark MacKinnon — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 05:46:57 +0000

This post will contain some of our latest finds that don’t merit a full article. Some of these links and articles are wonderful resources.

Breaking News
Wordpress links
- Why you should never search for “Free Wordpress Themes” on Google : malicious code everywere?
- Predictions for Wordpress in 2011
- Turning Wordpress into a Forum : bbPress
- Anatomy of a Wordpress Theme
- How I Decreased My WordPress Page Load Time by 5 Seconds
More Web Design Stuff
- Should you work for free – a funny flowchart
- 14 Rules for Faster-Loading Web Sites
Apple stuff
Web 2.0
- The spectacular decline of 2.0 sites
- A Web 2.0 Suicide Machine or how to erase your 2.0 footprint

DoNotLink.com

Mark MacKinnon — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 06:07:24 +0000

When you create a link to a website this always strengthens its position in search engines. This means that a bad review of a website, or the link to a malicious website makes it more popular. If you’re using social media and you are discussing or alerting others about a website that promotes scams or other questionable business and you link to that site, search engines will, despite your best wishes, improve the offending site’s rank.

With donotlink.com, you can link to sites without giving them any Google juice. Donotlink.com uses three different ways to block search engines from crawling a link including a shortened url. Donotlink.com also has a great sense of humour – See above image!

Information Architects

Mark MacKinnon — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 05:00:50 +0000

Among the amazing data visualizing tools out there, the maps featured by Information Architects have become a favorite among the industry.

Based in Japan, Information Architects’ website produces over 3.4 billion page views per year and their Trend Map has won one of the biggest design prizes out there: it hangs on the wall of practically every big tech office in the world. Interested in your own custom maps? Check out http://webtrendmap.com/

Meraki WiFi Tools

Mark MacKinnon — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 05:00:33 +0000

According to Meraki’s website, they provide networking systems and enterprise-class networking to organizations of all sizes. Their unique cloud-hosted controller architecture provides centralized management and security though an intuitive web interface, eliminating the high costs and complexity associated with traditional networking systems.

While we are not current users of Meraki’s services, we are avid fans of their Web based tools: the WiFi Stumbler, the WiFi Mapper as well as a range calculator and an indoor coverage calculator. Great tools when you work in an environment that is saturated with 2 Ghz services from WiFi to Wireless cameras.

WePay: A PayPal Alternative

Mark MacKinnon — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 05:10:04 +0000

Whether you’re upset with Paypal over their policies, issues with Wikileaks, or just in need of an alternative, you can turn to WePay.com. Featured by the New York Times, Mashable, LifeHacker, The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets, WePay is secure, safe, easy to use and manage and credit card services.

Do note however that the USA PATRIOT Act, a federal law, requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person who opens a Card Account, which means giving your real name, address, date of birth, and other information that will allow us to reasonably identify you.

To create an account, you will need to provide a tax number or a social security number. The first step in collecting money is creating a group account. Only then you’ll be able to request payment, sell tickets, and accept donations.

How to turn a simple email into a social network profile

Mark MacKinnon — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 03:29:04 +0000

In this day and age, when you meet someone you don’t exchange twitter accounts or Facebook profiles. Instead, we always end up getting an EMAIL. The Internet’s oldest form of communication is still the most universal piece of information that is exchanged between prospective partners or new acquaintances.

Flowtown.com is a service that will match an email address with Web 2.0 accounts through a simple search feature. Flowtown also offers an import utility for Gmail accounts, csv files (Outlook Exported contacts) or manual input. When opening your account, you will be provided with your own dashboard for easy management.

Flowtown is also a great tool for social media marketing or Twitter marketing campaigns within your trade or social network. In short, this is a wonderful tool for moving from the lowly email to Web 2.0.

On the web: Flowtown.com