Networking

So you’ve got a new version of a file that you need to upload to an FTP server. Sure, you could fire up a full-blown client like FileZilla, but why bother? DropUpLoad offers elegantly simply uploads in a tiny, portable package. It’s a 114k download and only consumes 9mb of memory, and is very different from other FTP clients.

For example, there’s no directory browsing: set up your remote server info (including destination directory) and it will appear in your list of FTP servers. Setting up a new site is child’s play, and you can clone settings from an existing server - useful, since you’ll have to set up multiple profiles if you upload to more than one folder on your server.

Select your target from the drop down, drag a file or folder from your Windows machine into the “drop box,” and you’re done.

Need to give a customer upload access to your FTP but don’t want to give out passwords? Created a “locked” version of DropUpLoad, which limits connections to a single server and hides and encrypts login information inside the generated executable.

Give it a shot, FTP uploads don’t get much easier!

[ via Softpedia ]

Facebook will soon be rolling out a new site design that, among other things, will change the way your profile looks. But you can check it out today by logging into your account and then visiting www.new.facebook.com.

One of the most prominent new features will be an emphasis on the mini-feed. In fact, it might be safer to start calling it a news feed, since it’s not so mini-anymore. When you first view a profile, what you’ll see is a list of recent activity on that account.

You can also click on tabs for Info, Photos, or Boxes. Info brings up your contact information, group membership, and other info. Boxes shows all the Facebook apps that are currently littering your main profile page. And we’re going to let you figure out for yourself what shows up in the Photos tab.

[via Mashable]

Update: Facebook seems to have disabled the www.new.facebook.com page sometime in the last few hours. But trust us, it looks something like the image above!

Snarfer is a free RSS reader for Windows. The application looks and feels a lot like other RSS readers, which is to say it kind of looks like Microsoft Outlook. But it’s easily customizeable, with a variety of styles to choose from. There are also a bunch of plugins you can add that bring features like the ability to add feeds for custom eBay or Craigslist searches or stock price watches directly from the application.

You can easily arrange items by subject, date, or source. Clicking on the date tab gives you a Google Reader-like “river of news” where you see each item in chronological order, rather than by source. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way to save this view, so you’ll have to click “date” each time you select a folder you prefer a river-style view.

The program does a great job of importing feeds from OPML files. We were able to import over 400 subscriptions in a matter of seconds, and it only took a few minutes for Snarfer to grab updates from each feed.

[via Download.com]

If you spend all day sitting at a computer with your web browser open, you might have an aversion to minimizing your browser to perform simple tasks like managing files on your hard drive. Fortunately there’s a Firefox add-on that can help. Firefly adds a full-featured file manager to Firefox. And when we say full featured, we mean it. Firefly includes a bunch of features that you won’t find in Windows Explorer. Here are just a few:

• Split the window horizontally or vertically. Add as many windows as you’d like
• Image previews for audio, video, PDF, and image docuements
• Filter display using regular expressions or wildcards
• Search the current folder and subfolders
• Create keyboard shortcuts
• Use the Firefox or Internet Explorer rendering engine (when using IETab)

You also get all the usual features you’d expect from a file manager including the ability to copy, cut, and paste files from one folder to another.

[via gHacks]

Every so often, we get wind of some new “breakthrough” from a few guys / gals in a lab that promises to simply revolutionize the web. A team from the University of Sydney is the latest bunch to do so, claiming that a piece of scratched glass (or a Photonic Integrated Circuit, if we’re being proper) could enable internet speeds 60 times faster than “current Australian networks.” Essentially, the “circuit uses the scratch as a guide or a switching path for information,” and the resulting product is “photonic technology that has terabit per second capacity.” Call us when you folks get everything ironed out — we’ll be over at Sigbritt Löthberg’s house.

[Via The Future of Things, thanks iddo]

Earlier this week, a Homer Simpson impersonator began instant messaging fans with a link to an “internet-only exclusive Simpsons episode.” This — like many things spawned in the dark corners of ‘net — turned out to be a PC virus. But how did this impostor gain Homer’s identity?

It turns out Mr. Simpson has a legitimate, real-world e-mail address: chunkylover53@aol.com, which appeared in the episode, “The Dad Who Knew Too Little.” Before airing the episode back in 2002 for the first time, Simpsons writer-producer Matt Selman registered the address with AOL. As soon as the episode finished airing, Selman’s inbox filled-up instantly. Selman began replying to emails under the guise of Homer, and fans got to enjoy a short conversation with the cartoon star

Six years later, the email account is no longer active, but fans begin receiving AIM messages from Chunkylover53. Fans forgot that an AIM screen-name can be tied to an email other than its AOL email counterpart, and Selman never registered it or abandoned it at a later time — leaving it open for hijack.

[via TECH.BLORGE.com]

If you’ve always wanted to build a search engine, but didn’t have the resources to index the entire web and compete with the likes of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, now’s your chance. Yahoo! is opening up its search service, allowing anyone to build a search engine based on Yahoo! technology. Yahoo! has offered a search API for a while, but the new Build Your Own Search Service or BOSS program is different in a few key ways:

1. You can re-rank search results and blend them into other content on a web page.
2. There are no limits on the number of queries per day
3. There’s no requirement to include Yahoo! branding
4. BOSS search results can be mashed up with results from other data sources

Yahoo! is offering access to its web, news, and image search engines. More areas, such as video may be coming soon. Eventually Yahoo! will be rolling out a monetization plan that will allow BOSS partners to include ads on their sites and presumably split the revenue with Yahoo!

The company has announced several launch partners, including Hakia, Me.dium, Daylife To-Go, and Cluuz.

Will the move help put Yahoo! on more computer screens than industry giant Google? It’s hard to say. Google offers the ability to create search engine options, but they’re not nearly as open or flexible as BOSS.

Readbag is a useful website for setting aside links to read later. You don’t even have to sign up to use it - provided you have a Google account.

Add a bookmarklet to your browser and you’ll be up and running in minutes. Quickly add websites and access your stored links later in a variety of different ways including on your phone, via email, your feed reader or in offline mode, and it has a built-in share system to boot.

You might be wondering how this differs from built-in features in your run-of -the-mill feed reader or a more organized social bookmarking system – and the answer is it doesn’t. Readbag’s saving grace is its simplicity. It doesn’t strive to be more than just an easy way to save and share online content. It really come in handy when you’re browsing on a mobile device. Add the bookmarklet to your mobile device’s bookmarks and it works exactly as it would on your computer.

Are you scared to leave the house because you’re worried that someone might poke you, turn you into a zombie or ask you to compare your taste in books while you’re out and you’ll miss it? FriendMobilizer is a Facebook application for Windows Mobile that gives you access to some of the most frequently used portions of Facebook when you’re away from a computer.

You can use the app to:

• Receive and respond to notifications and inbox messages
• Browse photo albums
• Write on walls
• Update your status

FriendMobilizer is free but it won’t work on all Windows Mobile devices. You need to have Windows Mobile 6 or higher and you need to install the program to your device’s main memory, not to a storage card. You also need to provide a phone number to register, which rules out classice PDA-style devices.

[via the::unwired]

So here’s a bit of brilliant statistics work for you: The Pew Internet & American Life research project has determined after endless polling and number crunching that 62 percent of American dial-up users have no interest in upgrading their connections to something a bit more peppy. In fact, only 14 percent of them would upgrade if they could. They cite high prices, barrier to entry, and — ooh, is Survivor on? We look at it this way: if you’re not already on broadband with the multitude of options, and you can get broadband (i.e. you’re not stranded out in the wilderness) in one way shape or form, you probably just don’t really care, and we can make fun of you because you’re not reading this post anyway.

[Via Switched]