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BillShrink helps you save money on credit cards, gas, cell phones and savings accounts

Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet / By /

A new online service that aims to help you save money has popped up on the ol’ Interwebs – BillShrink. BillShrink tries to help you save money in a few key areas: credit cards, gas, wireless (a.k.a. cell phone) and savings/CDs.

It asks you a few questions about your current usage, including your current plans, sometimes your address and then give you alternative options for other services that you could be using to save money.

BillShrink has a pretty clean, Web 2.0 site and is easy to use. We’re not sure how they plan to make money in the future, as this service is currently free, but they do request an e-mail address to get your results. I guess e-mail addresses are the new ‘gold’ for many online companies today.

Comcast trialing service to alert customers of potential computer infections

Computers, Networking & Internet / By /

Comcast just launched a trial of an automated service that would alert its customers if they have possible virus or malware infections on their home computers. Great, but… it works as a browser toolbar. Granted the average customer probably uses their Internet connection mainly to surf the Web, but what happens if they switch browsers or simply stop paying attention to pop-ups or blinking text?

My experience working with end-users is that they need an out-of-band alert. Email doesn’t do it. Pop-up alerts on their computer doesn’t do it. Telling them does! I’d like to see Comcast stick with the original idea – calling customers. They can automate that too.

Don’t get me wrong; I give Comcast a lot of credit for being the first to institute something like this – it should have been done ages ago and by many ISPs, but I’m a bit concerned about its eventual effectiveness. Well, it’s a trial, so hopefully they take the results to heart.

via CNet

Google Wave dev throws out IE as usable browser

Networking & Internet, Software / By /

Even today, in an age of improving standards support in Internet Explorer, a company working on cutting-edge web tech has been forced to abandon IE as a platform to develop for. This time, it’s the Google Wave team that has decided that IE’s JS and DOM rendering performance isn’t adequate to task of providing a desktop-like experience in the browser.

BTW, spotted this news over on SmarterWare, which is a great new blog by Gina Trapani of Lifehacker fame.

New Search Engine, Duck Duck Go, promises less garbage, more relevance, simplicity

Networking & Internet / By /

duckduckgo-logoOne thing to love about the Internet and entrepreneurs in general is that despite what sometimes seem like insurmountable dominance, such as Google has over the search engine market, new attempts to break them down occur all the time. New search engine, Duck Duck Go, is trying to do just that with their quirky name, simpler, uncluttered search results page and in particular less garbage in the results.

The home page is simple and bright. Underneath it lies a fast search engine that does its best to produce relevant results free from parked domains, spam sites and the like. Other features include the Zero-Click Info displays that provide info directly on the results page; Special Pages that group similar topics; Related Topics; links to Official Sites at the top when it can determine that.

One particularly nice feature is the ability to search 27 related sites with the same search query with a single click (in the sidebar). Sites include YouTube, CNN, Wikipedia and much more.

Duck Duck Go was founded by MIT graduate and serial entrepreneur, Gabriel Weinberg.

Opera 10 Web browser released today

1 Comment / Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet, Software / By /

Opera Software released version 10 of their Opera Web browser today [download]. New features include page compression (using their servers), a faster rendering engine (Presto 2.2), a remodeled tab bar, and synchronization of bookmark and other browser data. Opera is available for Windows, Macs and Linux.

Soon to come built into Opera 10 is a new technology called Opera Unite which aims to turn your browser into a server as well. Unite lets you share your content – files, folders, music, video, etc from your own computer. You can snag a test build here if you’d like.

While this seems like a cool piece of new technology, it’s debatable whether this will entice users away from current social sharing mechanisms and services.

However, Opera is quietly doing a lot of interesting research and product development. Just take a look at their Labs. It’s a shame that they only have about 2% of the browser market, as they have had a solid product ever since they started.

Web developers may have a new Web browser to worry about

Networking & Internet, Software / By /

A startup called RockMelt is set to build yet another new Web browser with the backing of former Netscape founder, Marc Andreesen’s venture capital firm.

No real details on what they have in plan, although they initially let slip that their browser will probably integrate Facebook info in some seamless way.

You can sign up for their mailing list to get news as they release it.

via NY Times

Google launching its own operating system – Chrome OS

Software / By /

google-chrome-logoGoogle has taken the much rumored step of creating its own OS. Named Chrome after the browser of the same name, this new OS will have a windowing environment based on a Linux kernel (of course) and will naturally contain the Chrome browser as its browser-of-choice.

Google expects Google Chrome Operating System to be available in netbooks in the first half of 2010, and has been working with OEMs to make this a reality. This OS is really meant for those users who use computers mainly to access and use Web applications – e-mail, documents, social networking, shopping, etc. You probably won’t find too many power users switching to this OS, although it’ll be fine if it was on the family room netbook.

Is Microsoft worried? You bet they are, and if not, they should be. The scarier thing is that Google probably isn’t even doing this to ‘compete’ with Microsoft per se. They just want to get the Web in front of as many people as possible, because that means more people viewing and potentially clicking on their ads. This is not a direct revenue maker for Google, but would result in a revenue losses for Microsoft.

And if Google succeeds in creating an OS that is faster, more lightweight, more secure (with few or no bugs, viruses and malware), than current MS platforms then more people (and developers) will gravitate towards the OS.

Snag your own Facebook username Fri night

Networking & Internet / By /

Starting at 12:01AM Eastern Time (9:01PM for us West Coasters), Facebook is opening up the floodgates to let people choose their own usernames. First come, first get.

So now you can get straight to your FB page with a URL of http://www.facebook.com/johnsmith for example. If you’ve got an accent in your name (or want one), then you’re out of luck for now.

Choose well! If you read the FAQ, you’ll see that you can’t edit it, change it or transfer it once you choose your username.

Gmail’s Inbox Preview saves you time on slow connections

Computers, Networking & Internet, Software / By /

If you’re ever on a slow, nail-biter of an Internet connection and it’s taking forever to load your feature-rich Gmail Inbox, you will love this new Lab feature – Inbox Preview. It simply shows a very simple, static page of your inbox with the 10 newest messages. What’s the benefit? Imagine yourself on the run and need to quickly check if you have any new, important e-mails.

Inbox Preview to the rescue. Of course, if you’re like me and get hundreds of e-mail per day, this may only help a tad. Active Inbox Preview by heading into the Gmail Labs section of your account.

Google’s Chrome 2 Web Browser – faster?

Networking & Internet, Software / By /

Google recently released version 2 of Chrome, their Web browser. Although not a major release, it incorporates new versions of WebKit, the browser engine, and V8, the JavaScript engine.

Two new features include Fullscreen mode (F11) and Auto-Fill for web forms.

As much as we like Chrome from a pure Web browser perspective, we’re not about to stop using Firefox. The sheer number of extensions that we now can’t live without is too much to let go.

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