• Creating 'Moments' of Your Life
  Looks like an interesting photo sharing concept.

If you work on more than one computer (e.g. home and work) then chances are that you have needed to transfer files or documents from one to the other. If you need to do it frequently then Dropbox makes this really easy by seamlessly synchronizing folders between computers and you can also access your files online. All you need to do is signup for a free Dropbox account.

Combining Dropbox with portable apps makes the ultimate portable solution, for instance as a password syncer. Another very nice feature of Dropbox is a “public” folder that makes files available online - all you need to do is to copy or save a file to that folder on your computer and it becomes publicly available link on the Web.

Their wiki also has a useful list of tips and tricks for using Dropbox.

Link: Dropbox

• Multi-Monitor taskBar
  A free tool for managing taskbars if you are using duel monitors. Creates a taskbar on the second monitor and allows you tao manage the screens individually. Neat.
  (tags: tools freeware)

• Web Services/SOA Slideshow: Why Hadoop Has Google Fans (and Rivals) Excited
  Based on distributed computing technologies Google has publicly disclosed, Hadoop provides an open source implementation for other companies with very large data analysis challenges, including Yahoo! and Facebook. The free software, named for a toy elephant, now runs on some of the largest sites on the Web.

In the online marketing world, research tools like comScore Media Metrix, Nielsen Net Ratings and Hitwise are considered the authority for competitive metrics. But their measurement methods have been challenged and new and interesting competition has been booming. Significantly Google, the uber online force, has entered the space which means that the premium services are under pressure to reduce prices and deliver better products - great for us consumers!

No one market research tool is perfect and often it is best to look at more than one to get the information that you need. It is so much easier when they’re free! So here are four of the best free tools that you can use for competitive analysis. More »

• Web Analytics Association - Web Analytics Definitions
  Definitions of Web Analytics measurement concepts created by the WAA standards committee. Provides a generally accepted descriptions of terms.
  (tags: Web analytics WAA)

• smush it!
  A cloud-based image optimization service. They provide a few different ways to make image optimization very easy.
  (tags: tools optimization)

• Seth's Blog: How often should you publish?
  Seth proposes a new strategy for deciding how frequently to publish. By publish he means anything like books, newspapers, blog posts etc.
  (tags: sethgodin)
• How to perfectly Integrate Google Custom Search in your WordPress blog
  A step by step guide to replace WordPress built-in search with Google Custom Search

People have remarked on how fast Chrome seems to be and so I put it to the test on slickspeed, a speed tester for JavaScript frameworks, against Firefox and IE. Each PC is different and extensions or add-ons to Firefox and IE probably make them slower, but it is interesting how much faster Chrome is on my PC than IE and Firefox:

(The number shown is time in milliseconds to perform certain tasks.)

Chrome was much faster than Firefox which was much faster than IE. Of the frameworks, JQuery was generally fastest, with MooTools and Dojo a close second with Prototype and Yahoo! UI Selector a distant third. Note that it is a MooTools developed test so it may be biased, but it seems like an honestly objective test.

Google released it’s own Web browser today called Chrome. It’s clean, simple and light weight and at first glance seems to be developer friendly. The announcement was made via a comic book, quite entertaining

UPDATE: Matt Cutts has some interesting facts about their new browser. In particular I found it interesting that “Google Chrome uses WebKit for rendering, which is the same rendering engine as Apple’s Safari browser”. Considering that Google has been pro Firefox, I wonder what that means…?

• Summize Conversational Search
  Search Twitter in realtime. They index Twitter’s public timeline in realtime, thread together associated tweets, and give you the search tools to dig in.
  (tags: twitter mashup)

Most people know that Web analytics providers like Google Analytics and Omniture use JavaScript to track user activity on Web sites, but many people do not realize that ad networks like Google Adsense and DoubleClick also track user behavior. It’s even scarier for Web site owners to realize that these third party services have complete visibility into your Web site traffic. WASP is a Firefox plugin that shows what each of these providers are tracking on the page that you are viewing. More »

• 5 Tools Everyone Working Online Should Have
  Productivity and collaboration tools for people working on-line, including, IM, screen sharing, a start page and a personal blog.
  (tags: productivity collaboration tools)

According to JenSense, the Google AdSense terms and conditions requires all AdSense publishers to have a privacy policy. Their current T&C state:

You must have and abide by an appropriate privacy policy that clearly discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your users’ browser, or using web beacons to collect information, in the course of ads being served on your website. Your privacy policy should also include information about user options for cookie management.

To me it’s not clear that you have to publish your privacy policy on your Web site, but the privacy policy proposed by JenSense seems quite simple and clean so I will give it the benefit of the doubt. So without further a due, here’s Da Vinci Planet’s privacy policy.

• Avenue A Razorfish 2008 Digital Outlook Report
  Consumer behavior in the market place. Home pages not that important any more, every page is a home page. Great report worth reading.
  (tags: marketing research trends)