definition me, karthik's blog

Im back and its time for change

2006-05-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

I finally found some time to host my own blog.
It is almost ready
www.karthiksetty.com/blog

My homepage is still in pre alpha.
www.karthiksetty.com

See you there!

Got Hitched!

2006-03-12T11:38:00.000-08:00

DSC_0281
Originally uploaded by s_siddharth_reddy.

Sorry, have been really busy! :), Next post April 1st (no kidding!)

The mother of all lists

2006-02-18T12:21:00.000-08:00

Listible
www.listible.com
This site is a welcome break! One of the sites where you would say "now why didn't I think of that?". Listible does one thing and does it well... maintaining *lists*. Users can create lists of anything, but thats not all. What makes the site great is that lists can be tagged so that searching will be easier, users can vote for the items on the list for better relevance, vote for the list so that it goes closer to the homepage and the best part add items to already created list so that you have a complete set!
Now get relevant resources quickly!

technorati tags: listible, lists

Now for some BS!

2006-02-17T21:56:00.000-08:00

Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator
emptybottle.org/bullshit/
Everyone is creating a web 2.0 site, why don't you give it a shot? If you need VC funding, well you need to ... bullshit! I have created mine. This site helps you with your business plan and everything else!

Company name: Yahkohub
Product description: social bookmarks via bittorrent
and the usual BS: "share rich-client APIs", "remix standards-compliant networking", "reinvent peer-to-peer value", "share undefined network effects", "share AJAX-enabled value", "incentivize citizen-media communities"

ok, ok ... im done!
haha! this site is hilarious!

technorati tags: funny, web2.0

Now where do I get the best deal?

2006-02-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

Clipfire
www.clipfire.com
If iNods is the place to get the best reviews, Clipfire is the place to get the best deals on the net. Clipfire is a shopping search engine and community. Clipfire works just like digg. Users can submit websites or individual products which other users can search and *clip*. Highly clipped products will show higher up in the search results. So lets start digging, oops clipping!

technorati tags: shopping, clipfire

what are you shopping for today?

2006-02-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

iNods
www.inods.com
Choosing the right product can be so difficult … sometimes you dont know where to start. Always wonder which site gives the best reviews? Dont worry, its not that difficult anymore. Take a look at iNods.

"iNods is a pre-shopping research engine for you to find reviews and advice about the products, services, and other things you are looking to buy".

and a more geeky version ...
"iNods is a search engine and aggregator of decentalized review content on the Internet allowing you to quickly find review-centric pages for the products or services or things you are looking to buy".

iNods search index targets review content sites and it also has an algorithm to exclude shopping related pages. Get great reviews from every part of the web! iNods will soon support the hReview microformat.

technorati tags: reviews, inods

Get that perfect drink recipe!

2006-01-30T10:13:00.000-08:00

extratasty
www.extratasty.com
"extratasty is here to make relaxation a lot less stressful!"
If you are in the mood of trying out a new drink extratasty is the place to be. ET is not just a great looking site and it is also feature packed!
You can submit your own drink recipes to the site. Submitting a recipe is simple, first give the drink a name, add the ingredients and give directions. After you have submitted your recipe the users can rate it and also comment on it. Your recipe book contains all the recipes you have submitted. You can even load your recipe book onto your ipod. The my bar feature is the best, you add the ingredients you like and ET suggest recipes that match them. It is a great way to discover a new drink.

technorati tags: extratasty, recipes

whatsup?

2006-01-24T10:32:00.000-08:00

TailRank
www.tailrank.com
"TailRank finds the best content from thousands of blogs so you don't have to!".
TailRank monitors weblogs to find highly linked and discussed links and citations. Once TailRank discovers something important it promotes it to the mainpage. It observes 35,000 blogs and soon it would do 50,000.

how does it work?
"TailRank takes into consideration linking behavior, the text off the post, links in common with other users, search relevance, and various other factors for recommendations."

If you want to know whats happening on the world wide web this is a great way to do it!

technorati tags: tailrank

bookmarks on steroids

2006-01-24T03:02:00.000-08:00

mystickies
www.mystickies.com
Mystickies lets you place yellow post-its in any page of the world wide web. You can write anything you want in it and come back and refer to it later. Mystickies has a neat firefox extension making creation of notes really easy. Mystickies offers lets you browse, search, sort and edit sticky notes. You can also organize your notes better by tagging them. Mystickies is still in beta, some of the upcoming features are coloured notes, sharing notes with friends and public notes.
You can definitely give this site a try!

technorati tags: mystickies, bookmarking

how much do I owe you?

2006-01-19T02:46:00.000-08:00

iOWEYOU
www.ioweyou.co.uk
ioweyou is an online calculator for expense sharing. It works very well for roomates, clubs or families where you would have to share expenses and keep a note of it. To start off you have to create a group and then invite the members. After this you can start logging in the expenses. When you log an expense you enter details like who paid for it, the amount paid and the number of members in the group the expense applies for. You can also log settlements where you enter the amount one member pays to another. ioweyou creates reports to tell you how much each member owes the other. Simple? yes it is! You can create groups of upto 5 people and for groups of more than 5 they have a paid version. The only drawback of the site is that the amount is always shown in pounds, dont think it would take the creators much time to have a multi curreny option!
give it a shot! it makes expense calculations easy!

Update: Looks like the creators have solved the issue of multiple currency! Now you can choose any currency. Thanks epsilon for pointing that out!

technorati tags: ioweyou

no more attachment headaches

2006-01-15T04:12:00.000-08:00

Pando
www.pando.com
“thanks for sharing”
Pando is a really tiny app that lets you email attachments to anyone for free. With Pando you can send attachments of upto 1GB! Thats 100 times the size which is allowed on gmail or yahoo! mail. First you download the Pando app, then you choose the file or folder you want to send and then add the address and a message. Pando creates a .pando link for this attachement and sends a mail out to the receiver and also adds a link to download Pando. Its that simple! The only hitch is that the attachments have to be downloaded within 14 days of uploading. Right now it is in closed beta. Should be beta soon coz it works great!

technorati tags: pando, p2p

what’s this song?

2006-01-10T03:53:00.000-08:00

Tunatic
www.wildbits.com/tunatic/
Tunatic is a free music identification software. It will hear your song and give you the title and and the artist almost instantaniously. Tunatic is the first and only(?) song search engine which gives you results by listening to the query. The input can be a radio or any other music source, all you need is a mic. It can also identify music right from the computer. Does it work? Very well! I tried 25 songs and it identified 24! Tunatic is really tiny … you have to try it out!

technorati tags: tunatic,music, search, mp3

share creativity

2006-01-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

Imagination Cubed
www.imaginationcubed.com/LaunchPage
Imagination Cubed is a whiteboard on the net. It is a stripped down version of MS Paint. It is created by GE using flash. You have various tools like the marker tool, different shape tools, stamper tools, text and more. The best part is you can invite friends, work on it together and share ideas. It lets you save the whiteboard (sends the link of the whiteboard by email) and also has a replay option. You can even print your whiteboard. This is cool!

technorati tags:
whiteboard, ge, collaboration

ebay with a twist!

2005-12-30T11:52:00.000-08:00

Etsy
etsy.com
Every once in a while you come across a website that will blow you away, Well etsy will do just that! Etsy is an online marketplace for buying and selling all things handmade. What makes Etsy great is that it lets you shop by colour, location, place or material all from the comfort of your ... well ... desk! The site makes ample use of flash to make the site absolutely beautiful. Let me explain some of the cool stuff ... as you move your mouse over a colour a bubble pops up and when you click on any colour all the items with that colour are displayed. You also have the sampler module which displays all the items for sale and the geolocator module which lists items by location. But the feature is the time machine, here the items are advancing towards you sorted on the time they were added to the site. You can throw the items around if you want or check out the price. I bet you would be tempted to pickup something from here.
"Best darn place to shop on the net!" - iospace creators of Etsy

technorati tags: etsy, ebay, shopping

sharing photos just got simpler!

2005-12-27T10:23:00.000-08:00

BubbleShare
www.bubbleshare.com
BubbleShare is a simple and free photo sharing service. With BubbleShare you can create as many ablums as you want without the hassle of registration. You can create an album right from the homepage. First you upload the photos you want in the album (It also has a batch upload option). While you wait for the photos to finish uploading you enter your name and email id. In the end it creates a neat slideshow. BubbleShare will send you two links. One link to your slideshow so that you can pass it to your friends and the other admin link which is only for you!
BubbleShare has come cool features. My favourate is adding audio to your photos. You can view your photos as thumbnails, you can increase or decrease the size of your thumbnails. You can reorder your photos by dragging and dropping . The add ablum to blog option is really cool!
BubbleShare is still in beta so expect a lot more features.
The term "no pain no gain" is now passé!

check out my 'trip to japan' album

This album is powered by
BubbleShare - Add to my blog

technorati tags: bubbleshare, flickr, photo

stop typing start yacking!

2005-12-26T00:19:00.000-08:00

yackpack.com
www.yackpack.com
yahoo groups and google groups are now ‘old school’ thanks to yackpack. Why? YackPack is a simple web-based voice messaging for groups. The entire concept is very simple. First you need to register, then create a group (pack) and invite your family/friends/colleagues. After that you can start sending voice messages either to the entire pack, a select few or just an individual. You can create multiple packs for different groups. You get notified if you get a new voice message. The site is well designed, even an amateur can use it. This is great fun! Happy Yacking!

update: check out the yackpack demo

technorati tags: yackpack, voice, groups

great flash!

2005-12-22T03:16:00.000-08:00

gtalkr
www.gtalkr.com
Some of the most amazing websites are created using flash. Even though AJAX has gained a lot of attention, flash still hasnt lost it popularity. Two great flash sites are yahoo! maps and goowy. Goowy provides a nice interface to manage web mail, contacts, calendar and more. One site which caught my eye is gtalkr, it has a neat flash interface. It is primarily a web-based IM client for google talk. It also indexes your conversations so that you can search. gtalkr is not all google! it also has other webservices like yahoo maps! (why not google maps? because yahoo! has a flash interface). It has also exposed some APIs to help flash developers add extensions. Some extensions include gmail and todo lists. It also has a notifier which alerts you if you get new mail or when your contacts come online!. An RSS feed reader was included recently. It is still in beta so expect many more features.

technorati tags: gtalkr, im

get rolling!

2005-12-17T09:50:00.000-08:00

rollyo
www.rollyo.com
are you tired of the irrelevant searches which appear on search engines? ... is it hard to find the exact information you are looking for? well maybe you should try personalised search! with rollyo you can create custom search engines and narrow down your search to the sites you know or trust.
all you need to do is pick the sites you want to search and rollyo would create a customised search engine for you. you can share these search engines (searchrolls) with other users and explore and save searchrolls created by other users. you can create any number of searchrolls. there are a number of tools available as well, you can add the searchrolls in your firefox toolbar. you can add it to your website, like i have and a rollyo widget is coming soon. rollyo is powered by yahoo! search.

indian newspapers searchroll
software downloads searchroll
mac addict searchroll
cricket searchroll

technorati tags: rollyo, search

expert ... you?

2005-12-14T07:16:00.000-08:00

squidoo
www.squidoo.com
everyone’s an expert on something ... right? atleast passionate? well you should share it with the world. squidoo has built an online platform to do just that. squidoo will help you create a webpage called lens of any topic of your choice. squidoo lets you create a neat website by letting you add modules. there are different kinds of modules ... linked list modules, rss modules, text modules … you can add your flickr photos and amazon links. as a lensmaster you can play around with the page to fit your needs. thats not all, squidoo lets you earn money from advertising on the lens. you can choose how much of it would come to you and how much would go to charity. all in all it is one great tool.
there are some great lens which have been created. you can check out the top 100 or just explore

my personal favourates
intro to web 2.0
torrents
css design
startups
longtail
colors of the web
squidoo

i was a private beta tester of squidoo, my page is still in the works http://www.squidoo.com/karthiksetty/

technorati tags: squidoo

do you still bookmark?

2005-12-09T11:49:00.000-08:00

one of the most overcrowded spaces in the web today are bookmarking sites. it all started with del.icio.us , then came along myweb, furl, spurl, simpy ... i can go on and on. i tried them all out and then came back right to del.icio.us , the problem with all the sites were they do exactly the same thing.
well now it has changed! why bookmark an entire page when you can just clip an image, a para or a link??
there are two great sites ...

clipmarks

looklater

i dont want to compare the two sites coz looklater is still in beta and still introducing new features everyday. but you cant use both now can you?
first check out the demos on how they work clipmarks demo looklater demo

feature showdown
bookmark tools
clipmarks: have to install an extension and is browser dependant
looklater: works with just a bookmarklet and is browser independant

privacy settings
c: you can have public or private bookmarks
l: all bookmarks are private

importing
c: no importing of bookmarks
l: can import bookmarks from del.icio.us or any browser

levels
c: you can clip on different levels and there is a cool slider that can change the amount to be clipped
l: single level

rss feeds
c: has rss feeds by tag or user and also provides commenting on bookmarks
l: has only private rss feeds

ads
c: no ads
l: coming soon (?)

blogs
c: can have a cliproll in your blog
l: no such feature

technorati tags: bookmarking, looklater, clipmarks

update yahoo acquires del.icio.us! i missed it by 10 min! (del.icio.us blog)

homepage with a difference

2005-12-08T22:26:00.000-08:00

protopage
www.protopage.com

protopage is a great startpage for any browser. it is a mixure of personalized news, sticky notes and bookmarks. you can choose between a number of news articles or enter your own rss feed. sticky notes are easy to create and it has rich text so you can do a lot of formatting. v2 just released with a lot more features. you can create any number of pages. you can share parts of your page or the entire page. each user gets his own page www.protopage.com/user. you can dock panels and print sticky notes. u can just about customize anything!
protopage was created with AJAX
you can see a protopage button at the top of this blog to add my blog to your protopage. i have also created a blummy bookmarklet!
make your startpage now!

technorati tags: startpage, protopage

day dreaming ... well u should be!

2005-12-02T06:49:00.000-08:00

dreamlines
www.solaas.com.ar/dreamlines/index.htm

"Dreamlines is a non-linear, interactive visual experience. The user enters one or more words that define the subject of a dream he would like to dream. The system looks in the Web for images related to those words, and takes them as input to generate an ambiguous painting, in perpetual change, where elements fuse into one another, in a process analogous to memory and free association.
The system has been developed in Java and PHP. First, a PHP script makes a Google image search of the words entered by the user. Then, the Java applet retrieves the images one by one, and uses them as input to generate an ever-changing drawing. The pictures are never actually shown. The drawing itself is produced by 1500 autonomous particles in perpetual movement. The last image loaded serves as a sort of virtual terrain for them. The direction and speed of each particle is given, at each step, by the color values of the pixel they are stepping on. Different sets of formulas translate the hue, saturation and brightness of the pixel in angle and velocity values for the particle. The path of each particle is traced to the screen, and this forms the output seen by the user."
- Leonardo Solaas

check this site out, it is truly amazing!

techonati tags: websites dreams

command line surfing

2005-11-30T21:56:00.000-08:00

yubnub.org
www.yubnub.org
if you are bored of using the mouse for everything or you are a linux enthusiast or just want to surf the web in a new way, yubnub is the thing for you. what does it do? suppose you want to know the meaning of 'quidnunc', you would normally go to dictionary.com and search for it or if you use firefox you would use the dictionary search. well ... all this requires a lot of steps. with yubnub all you have to do is type 'y dic quidnunc' in the address bar and u get the same result. thats not all, there are a lot of other ways to use it. you have a yubnub toolbar, yubnub search engine, yubnub website and you can also have a small frame at the bottom of your browser to execute commands. yubnub has a 'buhzillion' commands. g, does a google search and gim, does a google image search. check out the golden eggs. you can also add your own commands. i created one 'setty'. it opens up my blog. yubnub was created by Jonathan Aquino using ruby on rails

check out the different ways of using yubnub
yubnub blog

well it makes my surfing waaay faster!

technorati tags:browsing yubnub

want to know what I am upto?

2005-11-24T11:48:00.000-08:00

suprglu

so you have a blog? bookmark with del.icio.us? upload pics in flickr? digg a story? do something? want to visit a place? consuming a book? listen to music? wont you want to glue everything together in one page so that people know what you are upto? suprglu can do exactly that for you. so everytime you add a bookmark or a pic or digg something it would automatically appear in your suprglu page. you can also choose css templates or create your own. you can also throw in some additional html. check out my suprglu page ... karthiksetty.suprglu.com

what you reading?

2005-11-17T04:06:00.000-08:00

if you have tons of books, music cds or dvds and it is all over the place, maybe you should take some time to do inventory! these two wonderful sites would do a great job!

listal
www.listal.com
this site has a neat design and some great features. you can organize your book, dvd or cd collections by tagging them. you can also create and share custom lists and ofcourse the site will not be complete without reviews and ratings, picking your next book or movie is now easier! checkout my listal page -> karthiksetty.listal.com

allconsuming
43.allconsuming.net
allconsuming does almost the same thing, joined the robot co-op. the same company which has created 43 places and 43 things! so what has changed? well now it has the same unique 43 look and feel, and integration with 43 places and 43 things! check out my allconsuming page ->
43.allconsuming.net/person/karthiksetty/

if you are still undecided on what book to pick up next ...
www.whatshouldireadnext.com should help you out