YouTube is one of the most popular sites on the internet, and its something that everyone knows about. Your grandparents, your baby sister, your parents, and even your dog know about YouTube. However, we all know that there are many websites out there that are much better than YouTube quality wise, but YouTube still is the place to be discovered. If you've created your own video, chances are that you'll upload the video to YouTube first; just to get more people to see it. We all know that YouTube is the best place to upload your videos, but is YouTube the best place to watch it?

I was wandering around thinking about the new Macbook Air when a website fell out of the sky and hit me on my head. It was iDesktop. From the name alone, you'd assume that iDesktop is a site where you have your own personal desktop, but its far from that. iDesktop is a site in which you can search for YouTube videos but also get the option to download the video. Most of the website needs Javascript enabled, so you'd better do that if you want to get anywhere.

Features:
iDesktop is quite simple to use. Just search for something you would search for on YouTube, and iDesktop will show you a list of queries that match your search. Hovering over an image will display the description. At the bottom of the screen, there will be a control which will adjust how many matches you display on one page. Here is a picture of a search result:

The buttons at the top will allow you to download, share, or add the video to your favorites. A great function is that not only can you download the video as a '.flv' you can also save it an AVI, MP4, MOV, 3GP, 3GP2, WMV, EXE or zipped EXE. When you click to start a video, the video will show up on the screen and begin playing. There is a little bit of lag, but it shouldn't be unbearable. You can also change the website theme by clicking the 'Theme' button on the top of the screen. I think the point of iDesktop was to provide a fun innovative and great looking way to browse and download YouTube videos. Another great feature is 'dim'. To enable this, just move to the top of the screen, and click the button that says 'show settings'. Click that, and enable 'dim'. With 'dim enabled, the background will turn a darker color when you play your videos, so you won't be distracted by all the images.

Problems:
I don't really have that many problems with this website. It works alright, and although there is a some lag, it isn't something I would complain about that much. There is only one thing that annoys me. I wish that the website would allow some sort of 'list' function. Instead of showing the video's as small rectangular blocks, they should allow the videos to be displayed the way YouTube displays them. I keep my zoom at 0% so I can see a lot of videos, but this is what the screen looks like when you have zoom at 0%. It hurts my eyes, and I'm sure you'd say the same thing.

Final Thoughts:
Other than that minor (or major, whichever you like) drawback, there isn't anything else to complain about. iDesktop makes downloading your YouTube video's a lot easier, and the design is quite innovative (although a bit too much for my poor eyes). This is a great site for anyone who wants to download all those great YouTube video. Whether you use it to watch videos or to download videos, the site is definitely something to try out. You might be surprised how much you like it.

via iDesktop.tv

Posted in Labels: Internet, Websites, YouTube 0 comments Posted by Bookmark Geek at 6:46 PM    

Many people have talked about this subject, but the matter isn't over until a nobody talks about it.

Google knows everything about you. If you have used their search engine, they know everything you searched. They know what you're interested in. If you use their calender or docs web applications; Google knows about all sorts of things that are going on in your life. The more you use Google, they more they know about you, which is what many users are worried about. Is Google secretly selling your information to some organization that is out to get you because you honked your car horn at them during a traffic jam? Should Google be keeping your personal information private? (For those of you who don't know, many companies do a Google search about you when you decide to apply. What sort of things are they going to find?) There are so many people out there who are afraid of the things Google is capable of doing because they have all this information in their hands.

I don't think Google is going to try and do something that would screw everyone over. They are a very large company, but they are not the only company. They there is still some competition with Yahoo!, and if Google does something wrong with our personal information, Yahoo! is going to get a huge boost of users. Which bring me to my second point. There are other places to search for information. There are tons of other places that could potentially screw you over. Every single time you submit anything on the internet, it could be used against you. If you broke the law, and the police get a warrant; they could get all that information from Google as well as any other site that has your personal information (Facebook, Twitter, your Blog, etc.). It's not like Google is just there handing out your information for free because they try to keep it private.

Google keeping all your information isn't exactly bad. With more information about the popular searches, Google could add different functions which would allow you to find sites that you're more interested in. Besides, it's not like you could force Google to get rid of your information. The only way you could keep your private information a secret is if you boycott the internet, and that's not something you'd want to do.

So, Google isn't all that bad. If they did do something, you'd be sure to hear about it because thousands upon thousands of users would be complaining. Google isn't a bad company. They do so many things for you, and only want to make your browsing experience the best it can be. Conclusion? If you're going to break the law, don't do something stupid like searching "How to Make Bombs" on Google. Other than that; Google on.

Posted in Labels: Google, Internet, Opinion 0 comments Posted by Bookmark Geek at 3:52 PM    

If any of us wanted to watch Television on our computer, we would probably have to get a TV Tuner. If we were too cheap to buy a TV tuner, then we'd stick it to old YouTube. But that's not good enough. I want to watch television, and I want to watch it now. Thanks to a nifty free program called AnyTV you can watch many television shows on your computer. You don't need to register or buy any additional hardware. Just download the program, find what you want to watch, and start watching. These numbers are just an idea of the amount of shows you could be watching.

• 2630+ Online TV
• 6910+ Video clips
• 4750+ Online Radio

Posted in Labels: Free Software, Internet 0 comments Posted by Bookmark Geek at 7:48 PM    

These days, you pay for download speed, and the less your wallet weights, the faster your connection. Time Warner wants to change all that. Instead of making you pay for your connection speed, you're going to pay depending on how much bandwidth you use. So, the more you download, the more you're going to have to pay.

I personally don't like this at all. I mean, it would be great for those people who don't download anything at all, but I really enjoy watching movies, and if I'm going to get charged every time I want to see someone get kicked down the Sparta Well, I'm not going to be a happy little bugger. I know that this is an genius move for all those who want to get rid of pirates, it's still slightly unfair to those people who are really interested in watching video's and downloading games. Another problem is that most people don't even know how much bandwidth they are using, and they would probably be shocked when they first see the bill because they didn't know that they downloaded all those things. It this goes well for Time Warner, I'm sure other ISP's are going to resort to this instead of blocking BitTorrent traffic (Comcast? Are you there?).

This would be a great way for casual e-mail browsers to get internet without having to spend a lot of money. You guys have fun. If anyone needs me, I'll be sitting underneath my desk strangling my bandwidth.

Associated Press

Posted in Labels: Internet 0 comments Posted by Bookmark Geek at 5:37 PM