Gmail Now Supports IMAP

Gmail now supports IMAP, in addition to POP3. So use it if you want it.

Source: Google Blog

Google Buys FeedBurner

Google has sealed the deal on a purchase of the popular FeedBurner service. I have loved FeedBurner for a while now, though I don’t really take advantage of all their features. It might be that great logo or their elegant and simple site design. I do use them to alleviate the stress of serving my site’s feed. I just hope that Google doesn’t ruin them. Google has a tendency of neglecting services they buy. They just became too big and unwieldy.

Source: Feedburner blog - It’s True-gle

Are New Google Ads Doing Evil?

Google’s AdSense blog just posted news of a change in the look of AdSense ads. Gone is the “Ads by Google” bar at the top, replaced with a smaller mention in the bottom right of an ad unit. They write that “the new formats are not only visually appealing to users, but they also perform even better for publishers and advertisers.” This doesn’t mean they are better for ad viewers.

Is it any question whether an ad will perform better if it blends in with the page so well and only says it is an ad at the bottom in a small area? This smells like Google is being evil and sacrificing transparency in search of the almighty dollar. Of course the old format did look bad.

Source: Inside Adsense: A fresh, new look for AdSense ads

Yahoo Mail Going Unlimited

The Yahoo blog brings word that Yahoo Mail “will begin offering everyone unlimited email storage starting in May 2007.” The space will be rolled out over a few months. Great news for Yahoo Mail users, though I’m a bit wary. All companies who offer unlimited anything always have a catch. Not that I don’t trust Yahoo, because they haven’t done too much to lose my trust. Plus, I’m too attached to my Gmail account to switch back to Yahoo Mail after all these years away. Unlimited space isn’t something I need, so I’m more drawn to the site interface and features.

Source: Yahoo! Mail goes to infinity and beyond

SingingFish Alternatives: Where to Find Music

With the recent demise of SingingFish, many people have been commenting on what other sites are out there for them to find music. A former employee of SingingFish even commented briefly on the situation.

Below is a list I will be updating with music search alternatives (even the UK AOL audio search that still works just like SingingFish). It will be sorted alphabetically. Feel free to leave a comment if you know of a site not on the list or if you would like to add information to my description of a site. I will keep updating this post as I hear of other sites.

AOL’s Audio Search - Seems to be built from SingingFish technology, with less information displayed. It shows you what quality a file is: Low, Medium, or High. It doesn’t let you refine by file-type, doesn’t display the file-type in search results, and it doesn’t show the size of the file (only the duration/time). Also doesn’t show the bitrate.

AOL Search UK - Audio - AOL Search UK was sold by AOL, and therefore their Audio Search is using the SingingFish technology with all its bells and whistles. They changed the look of the site, but they still had advanced search to filter by file-type. Search results display the bitrate and file-type. How long this will remain operational is anyone’s guess. (via Steve in the comments) (April 12 Update: Advanced search is now gone)

Dogpile Audio Search - Shows you file type, size, and playtime. Many results show as having been found on SingingFish, so this could hurt the site’s results with SingingFish’s demise unless they still have access to the licensed version.

eSpew - Finds lots of music, but only searches for mp3s. It displays file size in search results, and you can use their advanced search to filter your search by a minimum or maximum file size. Also doesn’t show the bitrate, or much valuable information other than what was already mentioned. (Via Katerine in the comments)

Internet Archive: Audio Archive - Collection of audio recordings. Ranges from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry recordings, to original music contributed by users. You won’t find many popular songs here, but you will find remixes and great user-contributed content.

IMEEM

Multiply

Project Playlist - Offers a music search engine. You can add songs you find to a playlist and then play them in that pre-determined order. Very interesting idea, but no information on the files in search results.

Webjay

Google Apps Gets New Control Panel, Enters Domain Business

In an update to my previous post on Google Apps Premier, it seems Google has unveiled a new control panel for Google Apps. I was struck by how great it looks, and more intuitively breaks up the admin features.

The new administrator control panel makes it even easier for you to get started maintaining your Google Apps services, managing your user accounts, and customizing the look and feel of Google Apps to meet the needs of your organization. Some of the main highlights include:

Easier customization of individual services

An improved interface to get to the features you need, faster

Additional tools to monitor what’s happening on your domain

They are also now selling domains for $10 each. This goes against their previous promises that they weren’t entering the domain registration business and only became a domain registrar to get more information about domains for ranking search results. The domain registration appears to be powered by GoDaddy according to their screenshot.

Source: Google Apps: new features for users

Google Apps Premier Edition

Google Apps for Your Domain has been rebranded as Google Apps. They have added the much rumored Premier Edition. Both the Standard and Premier editions offer Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Docs & Spreadsheets, Page Creator and Start Page. They also both offer no preset user account limit (an upgrade from the previous version), mobile access, and an administrator control panel.

For $50 a year per user account, the Premier accounts have 10GB of space as opposed to 2GB for the Standard. Text-ads also become optional under Premier, and you get 99.9% uptime guarantee for email. Premier accounts have 24/7 assistance, including phone support, and APIs to integrate with your existing infrastructure (single sign-on, email gateway, etc). You can try it free until April 30th.

Via Google Operating System (unofficial google news)

Singing Fish Is No More, Kind Of

A reader in the comments notes that Singing Fish is gone. This indeed appears to be the case when looking at the domain. SingingFish.com is now being redirected to video.aol.com. This is a loss of a great site that I only recently started using, but you can still get some audio results in AOL Audio Search. You no longer get the ability to tweak the results to the file formats you are looking for, and they no longer display the bitrates of the files. Also, in many cases the results are for files you must buy. SingingFish.com returned links to freely available audio and video files, however legal they may have been.

There no longer seems to be anything on the current AOL site with the complete features of SingingFish. A lot of what they now display is for paid content, especially on AOL Video, and SingingFish didn’t really lend itself to being monetized. The redirection of SingingFish.com to video.aol.com leaves many people not knowing about AOL’s Audio Search. In reading some web buzz some people who used SingingFish didn’t even know it was owned by AOL and they think AOL just bought them. AOL has owned them since 2003. It had a good run, and it will be sorely missed.

Update: FLX in the comments writes that AOL has only redirected the main page of SingingFish and not the sub-directories. I could have sworn I tested this but I guess I didn’t, or I didn’t test the right thing. You can still access SingingFish for the time-being at http://singingfish.com/sfw/home.jsp.

Update 2: They appear to be redirecting the workaround. This may signal the definitive end for SingingFish, unless someone finds another method that works.

Terrorists Using Google Earth to Attack UK Troops?

A UK newspaper has published an article about print-outs of aerial photography taken using Google Earth being found during raids of the homes of insurgents. The photos may have been used by terrorists attacking British bases in Basra, Iraq. They show buildings in the bases, tent areas, bathrooms, and more. The photos may have also been two years old, but if bases didn’t change much they would have been useful. The photos are at least older than March 2003, since that is when the Iraq War began. The British camps fend-off daily mortar and rocket attacks according to the article.

This begs the question: should Google Earth/Maps be banned in certain high-risk areas? And if so who determines what areas to blackout, and where does it stop? We have ourselves a very slippery slope.

Source: Telegraph

Singing Fish is Amazing: Finds MP3s

Singing Fish is a company that AOL bought in 2003. The service lets you search for audio and video online. You can even specify what type of media to search, such as only mp3s. I never tried the site before now, but thanks to a comment on Nathan’s site I plan to use it as much as possible.

It’s great for finding those obscure songs, like the Royksopp song in the Geico commercial I posted about a few days ago. And of course it can find popular music. I was surprised to find a lot of Metallica songs given their track record of helping to shut down Napster.

Update: I thought SingingFish was gone, but FLX in the comments writes that AOL has only redirected the main page of SingingFish and not the sub-directories. You can still access SingingFish for the time-being at http://singingfish.com/sfw/home.jsp. Hopefully it stays up a while, but I will be on the lookout for an alternative to push on this site.

Update 2: They appear to be redirecting the workaround. This may signal the definitive end for SingingFish, unless someone finds another method that works. There are also some interesting posts in the comments that offer up alternatives.

Update 3: I have searched for alternatives to SingingFish and you can find the evolving list here.