With video search being what it is (see Truveo, Blinx, etc.), we’re possibly over the need for video how-to sites that simply compile from other sources. However, I wanted to write about video how-to site WonderHowTo because it’s got a great collection of clips, and an even better way to sort through them–maybe more so than your standard video search tool.
Each category goes about two levels deep, but that second level is where all the care has been taken. For example, if you dig into Arts & Crafts…, there are 13 different subcategories, each of

Continue Reading Figure out how to ______ with WonderHowTo

Valve’s Steam service is perhaps the best digital distribution network for downloading PC games.
(Credit: Valve)
We love it when companies just get it. Valve Software and its announcement of SteamCloud is a prime example. As reported by John Walker at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, SteamCloud will let anyone using Valve’s Steam PC game download and networking service carry over saved game files, mouse, and keyboard configurations and other player-specific info regardless of where you log in. In other words, if you’re at a friend’s house and you want to jump into a game of Team Fortress 2… on

Continue Reading Valve announces best PC gaming idea of the year (so far)

Apple may be getting ready to overhaul its .Mac service–or at least change the name.

New code within Mac OS X could mean the end of the .Mac name for Apple's Internet service.
(Credit: Apple)
A Russian site called Deep Apple noted that code within the Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3 software update contains placeholders for the .Mac name that would allow Apple to drop in a new name at a later date. Dmitry Chestnykh of Coding Robots also noticed similar code within Mail and Safari applications.
Apple’s .Mac service… is designed to help Mac users extend the capabilities

Continue Reading Code strings suggest name change coming for .Mac

Good things happen to software publishers that listen to their users.
Fring, an aggressively growing company that builds a chat and cheap calling application for Symbian, iPhone, and Windows Mobile platforms, heeded a swell of feedback from iPod Touch users who had been using the pre-release iPhone version for jailbroken iPhones on the voiceless iPod Touch (review…). On Friday, Fring announced a new pre-release version for the iPhone that also fixes a bug found when using the application on the iPod Touch.
Both sides were pleased that the initial experiment had worked, Fring reports, but not

Continue Reading Fring’s iPhone and iPod chat app nets two for the price of one

Are Twitter’s performance problems due to flimsy engineering or the choice of Ruby on Rails to build the application?

In the Twitter developer blog on Thursday, an engineer said that Ruby on Rails still rocks as a Web development platform. The service’s woes are due more to a creaky architecture, he said.

Twitter performance problems have brought heaps of scorn from the busy Web 2.0 digerati. That has prompted the company to disclose more technical details… like today’s Q and A format blog.

Many people have questioned whether choosing to write the application using Ruby on Rails was a

Continue Reading Twitter: Ruby on Rails rules, but we’re buckling from growth