web 2.0, tools, software reviews, tweaks and latest technology
Top 5 Popular Torrent Sites of 2007
374 year ago years ago
by Benedict Herold
in internet
Have you ever wondered about what would be the most 5 popular torrent site of 2007? Guess what, here we have the list of torrents that made into top five position based on popularity this year.
Last year I compiled the list of popular torrents based on the few selection parameters. This year I have decided to put most top 5 list based on popularity.
The selections criteria are based on following parameter. The main factor of popularity was based on the traffic site receives (Alexa Ranking has been used to determine it). The second factor for popularity was number of sites that are linking in (Yahoo inbound links has been used to determine it). Also average number of peers has been taken into consideration for tracker sites that made into the list.
1.MiniNova.org [A ~ 60 | Y ~ 2.73M | P ~ 16M]
Mininova has been simply the best of torrent sites for year. Mininova has crossed its one million torrents listing and three billion torrents download this year. In addition to indexing, Mininova has its own tracker also. Mininova tops our popular torrent sites list this year as usual.
2. IsoHunt.com [A ~160 | Y ~ 2.83M | P ~ 15M]
IsoHunt is a popular torrent index and torrent search engine. IsoHunt is one among the few sites that withstood the legal battle on piracy even though it had to take away it own torrent tracking service TorrentBox from US. IsoHunt uses tracker cross-referencing that enables to track across identical trackers across other tracker sites.
3. ThePirateBay.org [A ~ 165 | Y ~ 2.83M | P ~ 8 M]
ThePirateBay is one of the world’s largest torrent trackers. ThePirateBay also gives clutter free interface for the user. TPB has its own tracker for its torrent index and has top listing of torrents etc. ThePirateBay also has released it own browser toolbar. This is one of my personal favorite all time.
4. TorrentZ.com [A ~ 197 | Y ~ 2.64M]
TorrentZ has a powerful and advanced search engine that enables you to search for the filenames rather than torrents. TorrentZ is only site that makes into list without featuring its own tracker. TorrentZ only indexes torrents available on another trackers. Another plus point is TorrentZ is ads free!
5.BTJunkie.org [A ~ 580 | Y ~ 1.67M | P ~ 3M]
BTJunkie is one among the largest and more advanced torrent search engines. BTJunkie crawler indexes both the public and private torrents, which put together gives a most comprehensive torrents listing. BTJunkie also know for indexing most number of torrents in total.
Statistics
A – Alexa Rank
Y – Yahoo InLinks
P – Average Number of Peers
Also checkout the Alexa traffic for page views for these torrent sites for year of 2007.
This year special mention goes to Demonoid and TorrentSpy. Both of them were doing exceptionally well during last year. Demonoid remained to be a largest private tracker site. Demonoid was completely bought down couple of months back. In TorrentSpy case, they index is still active but the search feature has been disable for US visitors due to the piracy issue.Altogether this year was full of battles on piracy. You can read more information on torrents at TorrentFreak.
Let me ask you this question. Have you ever used torrents? Do you think they are against piracy?
Update 12/29 : TorrentFreak has listed it top popular torrent sites
Stixy, free-form collaboration and online sharing service
94 year ago years ago
by Benedict Herold
in web 2.0
Stixy provides a new free-form approach to collaborate most of the day to date contents online with your friends, colleagues and family. Along with collaboration Stixy also provides online file sharing.
Stixy provides a new free-form approach to collaborate most of the day to date contents online with your friends, colleagues and family. Along with collaboration Stixy also provides online file sharing.
Stixy is an online bulletin board application that features Stixyboard, a free-form drag ‘n drop bulletin board. Stixyboard is highly flexible and shareable web bulletin boards. You can invite more users to collaborate on your Stixyboard.
Stixyboard can be effectively used for multipurpose like creating a to-do list, planner, calendar, sharing photo album, sharing files and notes. These boards created can be utilized for individual or group purpose.
Stixyboard Screen shot
Key Advantages
- Easy to use, this application can be operated easily by any level of computer user.
- Very rich GUI, the user interface is really amazing.
- Stixyboard can be either private or public (with or w/o authentication)
- There is no limitation of Stixyboard currently that means you can share huge volume of files with your friends. They have only 10 MB per file limit on files.
Setbacks
- No full screen support. For any rich Internet application full screen mode is required for desktop like operation.
- Question on scalability: I’m sure they much have designed the application with scalability in mind but there was a little question during my test initially. The application didn’t respond and lost data when I was trying to collaborate a Stixyboard from two different systems at the same time.
Improvements
Stixy would have a huge success if they can create a rich application for everyone’s daily use. I inferred following points would add more values to the Stixy, which is currently in beta.
- Stixy can support more content types including video and music.
- Stixy need to have a web-based drop zone to drop the files that need to be added to the Stixyboard.
- Stixy would need a preview tool for viewing documents, playing music and videos etc. Just for the shake of previewing a Stixyboard I won’t prefer to download the entire content to my local.
- Stixy need to collaborate with other online services to create more sophisticated and rich application. My personal favorite would be adding Picnik for image editing.
- Stixy also need to syndicate the Stixyboard update so that users can keep track of their related Stixyboard.
Bottom-line, Stixy is currently in beta; I expect more functionality to be added to Stixy in near future to make it rich Internet application.
Have you tried Stixy? If so what is your feedback?
CatalystOffice, small office productivity web suite
74 year ago years ago
CatalystWeb features small business software known as Catalyst Office on web. CatalystOffice is an integrated suite of productivity software such as email, document sharing calendar, task, contact etc.; Catalyst Office is a web application that gives you desktop like feel.
CatalystWeb has been officially launched a week back; you can catch more release and background information about CatalystOffice at Catalyst launch blog. Catalyst Office has been designed not to include the drawbacks of popular office application such has Microsoft Outlook.
Bob Mathew, CEO of CatalystWeb has been working on this small business software for last 3 year to overcome his frustration experienced with Microsoft product in his former company. Bob Mathew is the first CEO who gave his cell phone number to the user.
Features
Catalyst Office provides more sophisticated features that included corporate wide instant messaging and others mentioned below.
- Corporate Email; access to the company wide email.
- Document Management; manage your documents with easy permission settings.
- Calendar; share your calendar across the company and find other calendar features.
- Contact Management; manage you’re contact list and easy import / export.
- Task; easily set the tasks and reminder.
- Notes; user it just like a Jot pad.
- Journa; easy to journal your entries.
Key Advantages
- CatalystOffice provides very-very simple to use administrative panel. You really don’t have to hire an administrator.
- The user interface is simple and well designed. Anyone who previously used Outlook can quickly run through it.
- CatalystOffice can be accessed from anywhere via browser. You don’t have to pay for individual licenses. Just have to pay only for the space. No extra penny for processor and memory.
- CatalystOffice is hosted at CatalystWeb server, which has scheduled daily backups and 24/7 monitoring for technical issues.
- There are much more functionality associated with CatalystOffice as well like user profiles, email template and so on.
Setbacks
- CatalystWeb works only with Firefox 2 and Windows XP / VISTA which is great drawback when it comes to Web platform.
- No support for customizable domains. The application can only be hosted at CatalystWeb server.
Bottom-line, CatalystOffice suits pretty much the needs of every small entrepreneurial office that has much budget constraints. If you like to try CatalystOffice sign up for their 30-day full free trial today.
This is a sponsored post.
Recover deleted files with Handy Recovery™
144 year ago years ago
Handy Recovery is data recovery tool created by SoftLogica for recovering lost or deleted files under Windows platform. Handy Recovery comes in with nifty features for recovery and proves it is a worthy choice for data recovery.
Have you ever bothered to backup files? If not then Handy Recovery is a handy tool for you that helps you to recover accidentally deleted files. However, I personally encourage everyone to backup their important and sensitive data in timely manner.
There are plenty of tools available both freeware and commercial when it comes to file recovery. Handy Recovery stands out from most the rest just for ease of use. Earlier, file recovery can be done only by a computer expert. This has been proven wrong again by Handy Recovery, allowing any novice user to restore their files safely.
Key Features
- Support most of the Windows file system
- Very extensive scanning for deleted files
- Ability to create disk image for recovery
- Search option for deleted files
- Explorer style interface for ease navigation
- Preview for recoverable items
- Supports recovery from memory cards
Handy Recovery works great for most of the file recovery. Handy Recovery also provides you the probability of recovering data. In addition to cool features, Handy Recovery has also got Windows VISTA certified logo for its reliability.
Setbacks
Here are few drawbacks which I have observed so far with Handy Recovery.
- No support for Linux partitions
- Not a free ware
Bottom line, Handy Recovery would have been more attractive if it was provided as freeware. Handy Recovery is priced in the higher side and it costs 39$. But if you’re the one looking for an easy way to recover your deleted files go for Handy Recovery.
If you like to try Handy Recovery, you can download the trial version from their download page. The trial has limitation of one recovery per day; sometimes good things doesn’t comes for free
Have anyone tried anything similar to Handy Recovery for file recovery? Share your views.
This is a sponsored post.
Exclusive Interview with Matt Brown
64 year ago years ago
by Benedict Herold
in Interviews
I wrote about ByteSwap a new online service. Now I have got a chance for an exclusive interview with Matt Brown founder of ByteSwap.
ByteSwap is an innovative way to organize your content, share your content with friends / community and search your content as well as shared content.
Tell us about ByteSwap from your perceptive?
Basically, ByteSwap is an easy-to-use tool for organizing and finding information. Think of it as a virtual file cabinet or a personal search engine. You can store links to web resources, files in any format, photos, organize your contacts and more. It’s information that’s relevant to you. Information related to your career, your hobbies, or just silly stuff you come across. And when you need to find it, you can. This isn’t always the case with a regular search engine. We’ve all found stuff using our favorite search engine, for example, and then not been able to find it again 6 months later. With ByteSwap – you file away stuff relevant to you and retrieve it easily when you need it.
This alone would be a powerful tool for many people but the real power of ByteSwap comes when users share information. We all have people we trust – people we’d ask when we’re looking for answers. These are friends, family and colleagues. They think like us, share the same interests, work in the same fields etc. ByteSwap lets you tap into their information as well. So when you’re searching, tapping into this trusted network of people is likely to result in highly relevant results. I should mention, ByteSwap users control access to each item they store, so you share only what you want to share and with only who you want to share it with.
Also as you search and store, ByteSwap will attempt to suggest content that might be of interest to you as well. This information might come from news sources, blogs or items other ByteSwap members have stored.
We at ByteSwap want you to “rethink the way you search.“
Why ByteSwap is a unique service?
I’m not aware of another service that can be such a one-stop-shop for organizing and finding relevant information.
How do you plan to monetize ByteSwap?
We offer very reasonable memberships and will supplement that with advertising revenue from non-paying members.
Anything else you would like to share?
Only that we want people to stay tuned as we have new features and functionality in the works that’ll make ByteSwap even more powerful and useful. Sign up today – it’s FREE!
4 tools to integrate Flickr photos into your website
364 year ago years ago
by Benedict Herold
in tools
Flickr is a great and best photo-sharing site, no second thoughts about it. But the inability Flickr to allow their users to brand their own photoset is notable. Flickr API’s comes in handy for the rescue. Flickr tools built over Flickr API allow the user to brand their photo into their own site.
I have been using Gallery2 till now, since I wanted to brand my photos under my banner. But when you have bunch of photos trust me managing it with a self-hosted solution is a pain. That why I decided to move to hosted photo-sharing solution. Flickr sounded like the solution for me with plenty of flickr tools.
Here is the bunch of flickr tools that I discovered recently. If you are looking methods to brand your Flickr photos under your banner this list would be great help.
Flogr is a photoblog application that works great with Flickr. Flogr written on PHP over MySQL database and off course uses Flickr API. Flogr allows you to customize your template. It uses Slimbox implementation for slideshow. Flogr grabs EXIF data and comments from Flickr for each image. Moreover Flogr is easy to install and configure!
Satellite is a photo gallery application that allows you to use Flicks for hosting. The installation is simple; all you need is Flickr account, Flickr API key and a PHP supported host. Satellite uses MooTools framework and Slimbox implementation.
Chasr is another similar mini application that allows to display Flickr images in own website. Chasr is very simple implementation that allows you to customize it to you own theme. Chasr allows you to view / add comments to the images.
FlickrViewer ( Demo | Download )
FlickrViewer is a simple script written over SimpleViewer, which allows viewing Flickr photoset. SimpleViewer is a popular Flash app that allows to views self hosted photos. FlickrViewer needs Flickr API Key to read the images from you blog. This is simple flash gallery application.
Also if you like to integrate Flickr into your WordPress blog there are several plugins for it.
BTW, I have recently purchased Panasonic Lumix FZ50 camera and now I’m thinking of creating new photoblog. If you guys have better suggestion for photoblog, please suggest me.
Are you running photoblog using Flickr? If not do you plan to do so?
Update:- Moses over WPThemesPlugin.com has listed all flickr related plugins used with WordPress.
Update (08/30) :- Ram over TeknoBites did a favour for me listing all the photoblog themes available for WordPress. Thank you gentleman.
Top 5 open source Wiki engines
374 year ago years ago
by Benedict Herold
in open source
A Wiki is a website which visitors can modify. Wikis are composed of web pages you can write on, enabling fast and easy collaboration
Why Wiki?
This is very commonly asked and answered question. But here is the few uses which I feel about a Wiki.
Educational: It can be used as instrumental tool for building knowledge management system. Wiki is also been used as Text books in few educational institutions.
Collaboration: It allows the project team to collaborate on any specific task / idea.
Documentation: It can be used for the documentation purpose of any project. Draft version of document can be developed greatly using Wiki features.
Personal: It can be used for personal note taking purpose and book marking.
Top 5 -
Here is the list of popular open source Wiki engines. This list is not complied in chronological order according to their popularity.
MediaWiki is most popular and holds the crown amongst the list. MediaWiki free web based software Wiki engine that was originally written for Wikipedia. MediaWiki is been adopted by several corporate and institutions as their internal knowledge management system. MediaWiki is written in PHP language and supports both MySQL and PostgreSQL RDBMS.
TWiki is a flexible, powerful, secure, yet simple web-based collaboration platform. TWiki can be used to run a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge base or any other groupware tool on either an intranet or on the Internet. This Wiki is been mostly used by lot of enterprise including Yahoo and others. TWiki is written in PERL.
PmWiki is a free wiki-based system for collaborative creation and maintenance of websites. PmWiki pages look and act like normal web pages, except they can be edited or new pages can be added. Page editing can be left open to the public or restricted to small groups of authors. PmWiki works over text file and is written in PHP.
DokuWiki is simple and lightweight Wiki engine. The administration option is very simple and comes with one click installation. DokuWiki is highly customizable with your current website theme. DokuWiki is written in PHP and works on small text file. DokuWiki is my personal favorite since it keeps everything simple!
MoinMoinWiki is a web application for making large database of knowledge basing. It produces nice structured information with feature of expansion information in cooperation manner with appropriate use it is power full content database. Alternatively, desktop edition of the Wiki is also available. It uses flat file for storing the information.
Here is the list of few other open source Wiki engines which is worth giving a try.
- PhpWiki
- TiwiKiwi
- DekiWiki
- Xwiki
- FlexWiki
- OpenWiki
- Kwiki
- Very Quick Wiki
- TiddlyWiki (Thanks to Binny)
Do you see another use of Wiki? Have you used any of the mentioned Wiki engines? Share your experience.
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