If you want your life back from Facebook, Twitter and the rest, this Web site will help you delete all your social-networking profiles and kill all your virtual friends in one go. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and LinkedIn are currently covered.
Imagine a hidden online world where people are not afraid of ever being identified, whatever they write, publish or download.
Not surprisingly, the article is somewhat sensationalistic, with its focus on child pornography and practical guides to explosives for terrorists, as Ian Clarke, Freenet’s creator, points out in his response.
Might come in handy if you use Google’s various services – or even just the search.
If you use Google’s Gmail email service, you can now enable an option that lets you undo sending a message within five seconds of hitting the Send button if you suddenly realize you sent it to the wrong address, etc. You can then fix the mistake and send the message.
Eric Morris at the Freakonomics blog found this web site that lets you calculate how walkable (shops, parks, etc. within walking distance from your home or not) your place is. Well, you probably already have a good idea about it if you live there, but it can be useful when looking for a new home.
Just don’t expect software programmed by people who left out a lot of important things (such as stores’ business hours, for example) to be absolutely accurate.
Here is how to do it using Google Docs.
I guess just putting the words “best offer” in your Craigslist ad instead of a price may seem like the closest thing to an auction, but in my experience most respondents simply ask how much you want for the item, and it doesn’t result in a better price.
Its latest changes look designed to fend off Twitter’s threat:
Facebook made a number of announcements today about changes to its home page, profile pages, and activity streams. Taken together, these represent a concerted response to the rise of Twitter as a real-time message broadcasting system that goes beyond members’ personal circle of friends.
One of the biggest changes is that it is getting rid of the distinction between private profiles and public pages. The 5,000-friend limit will be dropped from the public pages. Up until now, Facebook Pages haven’t really been the place fans go to connect with their favorite celebrities or brands. For that, they’ve started going to Twitter, where they can get updates in real time. Facebook doesn’t want twitter to become the way large companies and public figures connect to fans.
The upgraded Google Earth software adds features to explore ocean floor, see historical images of an area, or even visit Mars. The video below is Google’s official demo, and here is a review from Ars Technica.
The Wikipedia-hating losers finally surrender:
From next week, visitors to the publication’s website, Britannica.com, will be able to submit proposed changes to editors, who will check them and make alterations if they think they are appropriate.
Users whose suggestions are accepted will then be credited on the site, the firm said in a statement.
But some technology commentators say the step is a doomed attempt to preserve Britannica’s subscription-based business model in the face of the challenge from Wikipedia, which is free.
More here:
“We are not abdicating our responsibility as publishers or burying it under the now-fashionable ‘wisdom of the crowds’,” wrote Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopaedia Britannica in a blog entry about the changes.
Maybe they need to turn down their snobbism toward Wikipedia and that ‘wisdom of the crowds’ thing when their own site, with all its supposedly professional editors, produces things like this:
Click the screen shot to enlarge, or just look at this close-up of its lower right-hand corner:
Challenger was lost in 1986 – 23 years ago, not 13. And it should be “the 13th (or 23rd) anniversary”, not “the 13 anniversary”. If there are fears of Britannica sinking to the level of Wikipedia, they seem a bit belated.
The Internet is not only for blogs and porn:
The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.
We have 700+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, and finance which have been recorded by Salman Khan.
(Via Newmark’s Door.)
Gmail has many useful features you may not know about.
Google Book Search now includes magazines:
Today, we’re announcing an initiative to help bring more magazine archives and current magazines online, partnering with publishers to begin digitizing millions of articles from titles as diverse as New York Magazine, Popular Mechanics, and Ebony.
Google is not above criticism, but they are doing a good deed by making so much information from books and magazines freely available to so many people.
It’s called Crime Spider, and you can search it by any of the multitude of categories, from juvenile crime to private investigation, mystery books and “most wanted” lists:
Whether you are doing research on criminalistics, forensic anthropology, FBI, unsolved murders, homicide investigation techniques, child abuse, domestic violence, the death penalty, terrorism, criminal justice, law and courts, behavioral profiling, gang violence, juvenile crime, missing persons, serial killers or mass murderers, criminals, police, crime scene photos, we can help you find the crime information you want. We also have tips for people searches and protecting your privacy as well as features on specific topics of interest to crime and law enforcement professionals, such as links to police jobs sites and crime scene investigation supplies.
When you’re done drawing, you can save your masterpiece and email it.
It turns out Google has a simple tool to calculate the length of your jogging, walking, biking or hiking route, and it even calculates your caloric expenditure for you.
Here is the site, and here’s how to use it.