Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

There are a lot of add-ons for Firefox out there.  Over 5,000 of them to be more precise.  But, its a bit hard to actually find the most useful ones unless you’re searching for them specifically.  Mozilla is trying to help us all out with that.  It recently opened a page called “Fashion Your Firefox,“ an easier way to find the add-ons that you might find useful.

Obviously, Fashion Your Firefox doesn’t list every add-on, only about 40 of those available at the moment.  It’s broken up into categories ranging from “News Junkie” to “Shutterbug,“ “Digital Pack Rat,“ and a few other categories for how people use their internet browser.  According to the FAQ, there are a few points the add-ons needed to meet.  They had to be popular, compatible with Mac and PC (I suppose Linux doesn’t count?), easy to use (oh, right, linux is supposedly hard to use), and “ffer a well-rounded set of functionality.“  Sounds a bit reasonable to me.

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In what promises to be waay worse than the whole Y2K thingy, hackers have officially notified us that they are planning a massive attack to take over your machine.  Confirmed by privacy and security company, PC Tools (no jokes, please), the threat comes after analyzing more than 500,000 machines this year.  Computer users are warned not to fall trap the basic snares: fraudulent websites, emails from unknown peoples, or the infamous banana in a tailpipe.  (Beverly Hills Cop, anyone?)

Read on to find why Monday, Nov 24 is targeted as “Hacker Day”

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As a frequent traveler, I am awash in trip confirmations, hotels, and rental car info.  I often forget who I’ve told I am going away and who I’ve not.  TripIt aims to change all that.  By simply forwarding them your confirmation emails, they scan the doc and import in the pertinent information into their system and put it out there for you and anyone you give access to.  Talk about handy.

I’ve been using TripIt for a bit now and must say it works as promised.  It takes email forwarded from sites like Travelocity and Expedia as well as from the airlines directly and travel agents.  Entering in new trips was effortless and the data entered was spot on.  Even when JetBlue changed a flight time on me, I forwarded the email wondering if it would throw their system for a loop; nope, it changed my data just as I hoped.

My contacts could easily find my trip info and when i was on the road, accessing the data was a snap.  I enjoy the service but had some questions.  Luckily, Gregg Brockway, CEO and founder of TripIt was willing to answer my questions.  Gregg comes out of the travel industry and seems to know his stuff.

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2008 has not been kind to Yahoo.  It began with a buyout offer from Microsoft that they promptly screwed up, and was followed by the disintegration of their ad deal with Google and two rounds of layoffs.  Now it appears CEO Jerry Yang has finally had enough.

Yang announced his resignation last night, saying he will remain on the board of directors and reclaim his old title of “Chief Yahoo.”  Yang has been under the microscope of his shareholders ever since he rejected Microsoft’s offer of $33 per share for being too low.  Yahoo’s shares are now trading at a mere $11 each.  He now appears to regret his decision.

“To this day I would say that the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo,“ he said at a conference two weeks ago. And when quizzed on if he would stick to a higher price that he demanded back in May added, “Oh no. At the right price, whatever the price is.“
But Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer didn’t bite and said a couple of days later, “We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition. I don’t know why they would be either, frankly. They turned us down at $33 a share.“

Ouch.  Yahoo has begun the search for a successor, but finding someone willing to take over the tough job of turning around what was once the net’s top search engine won’t be easy, and for now what lies in the company’s future is anyone’s guess.

Read: [PC World]

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Sprint is all over the place.  They just lost 1.3 million customers, they’ve got their CEO on television yammering about technology, and now they’ve unveiled this thing.  What is it? 

It is Sprint’s promotion of its mobile broadband service featuring over 30 widgets.  At random intervals, a woman’s voice will say things like, “Feel free to touch it.“  You can listen to music, mess around with some of the widgets just by clicking on them like the cuckoo clock and be inundated with all kinds of information that you don’t need.

It’s actually a pretty cool way to waste a lot of time.  Does this make you or I want Sprint mobile broadband?  Not really.  It does remind me of Jarvis in the “Iron Man” movie.  I think I’ll go watch that.

See it at Sprint via UneasySilence.

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Everybody loves a survey (especially me) as it is a great way not only to identify the underlying social changes within the growing world, but also a good chance to laugh at the astonishing number of people who can’t identify where Australia is on a map.  This is no exception, as a survey released by YouGov in conjunction with their sponsors AMD showed that 77% of Europeans asked are addicted to the Internet.  Continued after the break.

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Don’t worry, I can sense your confusion, either there is a serious contender for the phone top spot (so why haven’t you heard of it yet?) or I have gone crazy.  Admittedly, I am stepping out of line here, and perhaps I was being a little pretentious (maybe even ostentatious) but I think that this is seriously a good concept and if it takes of it can, and maybe will, be big.  So what is it I hear you cry, read on…

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Do you remember HDtracks?  Well, if you don’t, it’s an online store that sells music and albums in high definition format, meaning the audio clarity is a lot better than normal music.  Unfortunately, this music doesn’t come cheap, an album would cost $15.98 and a single song would cost $2.49.  However, HDtracks and Gibson (a company that manufacturers instruments and famous for their guitars) have partnered up to offer an exclusive album for free in high definition. 

The album is called Gibson Presents: Hot Tones and is available on the Gibson website, but is available on the HDtracks website for free in high def; the album on Gibson is only available in normal format.  Within this album, performers such as Johnny A, Michael Burks, Billy Burnette, Arlen Roth with Sonny Landreth, Chris Cain, Neal Schon, Nick Colionne, Eric Johnson,  Tinsley Ellis, Big Bill Morganfield, Peter Karp, Kenny Neal and Johnny Winter have all put forth their music.  In addition, this album features a never-before-heard instrumental track with performers Abraham Laboriel Sr. and his son with Slash. 

Unfortunately, this album will only be available for a limited time.  It is available right now, but on December 6, 2008, it will be taken down from both sites and they will not be made available after that.  Continued after the break.

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Oh my, oh my.  Just think of all the not so nice tracking you could do with this little gadget.  The new Zoombak Universal GPS Locator lets you know whenever it enters specific geographical zones.  How very stealthy.  A company spokesperson however, claims that Zoombak “does not condone or recommend that the device be used for those things.“  Ummm…yeah.  I’m sure that will stop its misuse. 

What you do is drop it into whatever you want tracked.  (No…I don’t recommend having someone swallow it).  Your kid’s backpack or car is more what they are envisioning for the device.  You know, to make sure they are actually going to school, or to the library to study like they claim.  Or you’re wondering where your girlfriend is really going when she makes those late night runs to the gym?  Voila.  Yeah…you see where this could go, don’t you?

More after the break.

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One of the things Apple has on Microsoft (among many) is that they have a fully functional online store available in many countries around the world.  Not until recently, Microsoft only had online stores set up in countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Korea.  However, they unveiled a website for the United States, which sells many Microsoft products such as Office 2007, games, Xbox 360 components, and Zune products. 

Microsoft essentially has two ways of getting the products you requested to you.  The first way is the traditional shipment delivery method.  Basically, after you order something, it will be shipped to your within however much time it specifies.  The other way, which is more modern, to get what you purchased to you is via download.  Continued after the break.

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