Download all the Facebook photos you're tagged in using PhotoGrabber

Filed under: Photo, Windows, Macintosh, Freeware, Open Source, Social Software

Pop quiz: what's the largest photo site on the web? Flickr? Photobucket? Picasa? Nope, it's Facebook.

Like me, you might find that fact a bit surprising, since we don't immediately think of Facebook as a photo sharing site -- that's just one of its features.

What's even more interesting when thinking about Facebook as a photo sharing site is that it has a built-in permission system that says that if you are tagged in a photo, you are given permission to see that photo.

A new Mac and Windows application called PhotoGrabber uses that permission (and your credentials) to go harvest all of the photos it can find of you on the service, and download them into a local folder. It can also download all the photos you have access to of your contacts.

Interestingly, it doesn't appear to download profile pictures, but sticks strictly to photos where the target person has been tagged.

[via Lifehacker]

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Download all the Facebook photos you're tagged in using PhotoGrabber originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Divvyshot: just shake your iPhone to share photos

Filed under: Photo, Social Software, iPhone, Web

Divvyshot is a new photo-sharing service that makes it ridiculously easy for friends to combine all their photos from an event into a single album that everyone in the group can access. There's an iPhone client and a web interface (desktop apps coming soon) providing numerous ways to view and edit albums.

The flashiest way to share photos with Divvyshot is to put two iPhones together and shake them. This method allows you to quickly share tons of photos between two phones without having to actually transfer the files - the person you're sharing with just gets access to the already-uploaded photos on Divvyshot, and their phone pulls files from the cloud.

The iPhone-quality versions of the photos aren't too shabby -- and anyone who has access to a particular album can manually download high-res versions via the web. The service also integrates with Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook, making sharing on multiple sites a snap.

If you don't want to have a Facebook or Flickr account just to share photos with your friends, Divvyshot is worth a look as it seems to be positioning itself as the easier-to-use alternative.

Divvyshot: just shake your iPhone to share photos originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is Facebook becoming Spambook? Apps can now demand your email address

Filed under: E-mail, Social Software

Just when you think the Facebook privacy debate has reached its peak, the popular social network drops another privacy-related bomb. This time, Facebook has said it will allow apps to demand users' email addresses. Currently, apps communicate with you via the red-flag "updates" tab in the bottom-right corner of the site. On the plus side, Facebook is taking that annoyance away. On the "oh my gosh, this could really suck" side, it's asking app creators to reach users via email instead.

Of course, you don't have to hand over your email address to any app, and they're required to send you through a series of dialog boxes making sure you've given them the go-ahead to have your information. That would be the end of the problem, except for one thing: Facebook is allowing apps to deny access to any user who doesn't hand over an email address.

With no alternative mode of sending out messages, I'm sure a lot of developers will gladly take advantage of this forced option. On top of that, the old on-site notifications were only allowed to bug you a certain number of times. With email, it's open season. Facebook has okayed developers to send you as many emails as they darn well feel like sending.

Disaster! It looks like Facebookers will be forced to choose between email privacy and their favorite apps. Facebook's proposed solution? Give the app a proxy email instead. That's certainly the alternative I'd go for if I were particularly attached to a Facebook app. What about you, DLS readers?

[via Washington Post]

Is Facebook becoming Spambook? Apps can now demand your email address originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posterous uses post.ly domain for Twitter updating service

Filed under: Blogging, Freeware, Social Software

The super-simply blog platform Posterous has just released a new feature on its post.ly domain, which was previously used only as a URL shortener. For those that are not familiar, Posterous is a blogging platform that makes posting dead simple. You just send an email to post@posterous.com, and if you don't already have a blog there one is created for you. Subsequent emails are treated as new posts.

As much as the email-based ease of use is great, Posterous' real claim to fame is how seamlessly the service handles media. Attach photos or video, and they are automatically embedded into the resulting post. Include the URL to an online video, and the video is embedded. Posterous can also cross post to various platforms. So if you attach a photo to your post, it can be embedded into the post, but also automatically uploaded to your Flickr account. And of course, it includes Twitter integration, so new posts are tweeted on your account.

All along Posterous has been looking at post creation as something you do from your email client, but today's post.ly release tackles it from the other side. Post.ly is an online Twitter updater that allows you to attach files and even add more text beyond the 140 characters that Twitter supports. All of this is then compiled into a tidy Posterous blog post, and a post.ly URL is appended to your tweet.

If you already have a Posterous account, you're all set; just navigate to post.ly and start updating. IF you don't have a Posterous account yet, you basically just do the same thing. You'll have to authorize post.ly to update your Twitter account using OAuth, but after that creating a tweet through post.ly will automatically create a Posterous blog for you.

[via TechCrunch]

Posterous uses post.ly domain for Twitter updating service originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter introduces new category-based suggested user lists

Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0, Microblogging

For a long time, Twitter has welcomed new users with the Suggested User List, an assorted pool of celebrities, tech pundits, web luminaries and more. The SUL wasn't a bad idea, but it was trying to do a job that requires a much more precise tool. Because not all Twitter users have the same interest, Twitter has split its suggested users into several categories, changed the mix of people and organizations on the list, and removed the batch-following function of the SUL.

This has a couple of effects: one is that being on the SUL might not automatically get you a million followers anymore. Second, because new users now have to decide whether to follow each individual account on the list, the average Twitter n00b should start off with a more personalized following list. Although you could quibble with Twitter's selection of users, the decision to move to categories instead of one big list is undoubtedly a smart one.

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Twitter introduces new category-based suggested user lists originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter launching location-based Trending Topics

Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0, Microblogging

Twitter has just started rolling out location-based trending topics, but for now only to about 1% of their users. The new feature will be called Local Trends, and will use your location information to present trending topics that are happening near you.

Twitter is remaining fairly tight-lipped on the new functionality for now, preferring to wait until it rolls out to a wider audience before discussing it, but Lisa Barone has included some screenshots in her post at Outspoken Media that allow us to get the gist of what it's all about.

As a Canadian living near Vancouver, I'm a little dismayed to note that though major cities are supported by the new feature, they are mostly US cities with London and Sao Paulo adding some international flavor. It's pretty safe to assume that this will expand over time. Let's just hope it doesn't take Local Trends as long to roll out as Lists took.

[via Mashable]

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Twitter launching location-based Trending Topics originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FeedDemon 3.1 brings serious performance and social improvements

Filed under: Windows, Blogging, Shareware, Freeware, Social Software

Google Reader is really dominating in the world of RSS readers, but if you're looking for a desktop experience that has the best of what Google Reader offers, but a faster and more desktop-like experience on Windows, you definitely need to check out FeedDemon.

The latest version of FeedDemon, newly release 3.1 offers some serious performance improvements from 3.0, which was a feature release that included Google Reader synchronization as its major point of interest. FeedDemon 3.1 also includes a new Shared By People I Follow feature, which brings Google Reader's shared items functionality into FeedDemon.

You can now also filter the posts in the feeds that you are subscribed to based on keywords. You can show posts only if they include certain keywords, or filter out posts if they include certain keywords. This can make subscribing to a very busy feed more manageable because you can completely hide the content you are not interested in seeing.

FeedDemon 3.1 brings serious performance and social improvements originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cross-platform Silverlight out-of-browser Facebook client finally launches

Filed under: Internet, Microsoft, Social Software, web 2.0

Back in April 2009, Microsoft demonstrated a pure-Silverlight Facebook application called Silverface. Everyone thought it had vanished into thin air, especially with Fishbowl's release. It seems, however, they've been working on a Silverlight client the entire time: ladies and gentlemen, the beta Silverlight 4 Client for Facebook!

And boy was it worth the wait.

I won't bore you with a laborious review with lots of screenshots -- Think Different has pictures, if you want -- I'll just tell you that this thing works, and it works really well. It's black and swish and shiny and silver. The entire gamut of Facebook functionality has been brought over to the Silverlight client. Status updates, photo browsing, mail -- even a neat photo uploader tool.

Plus it has notifications, ala TweetDeck or Growl. You can just forget most of the apps I listed in last week's Five Facebook Desktop Apps feature -- this bad boy does it all.

Except chat. It doesn't frackin' do chat. Anyway, give it a go -- you'll need to install the new version developer version of Silverlight, but it's worth it, I promise. Microsoft Silverlight > Adobe Air?!

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Cross-platform Silverlight out-of-browser Facebook client finally launches originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Payvment lets you launch a storefront on Facebook

Filed under: Features, Social Software, Web

Finally, beyond the sale of virtual gifts like hugs and angel wings, Facebook has an app that allows you to open an ecommerce storefront via Payvment. Introduced in November 2009, Payvment uses a PayPal shopping cart for its app to work with Facebook Pages.

In addition to its Facebook app, Payvment has a shopping cart web service which allows you to add a shopping cart to any website by adding just a single line of code. Their Open Cart Network allows shopping cart systems to communicate with each other so if a customer leaves a web store without purchasing an item, their items will reappear across every shopping cart in the network. Now customers will be able to complete their purchase even if they are no longer on your storefront.

Their Facebook app is free and dead simple to use. It allows you to sell an unlimited number of items to your Facebook fans, who can now search and purchase your products across any storefront on Facebook. In theory the idea of promoting your product to 350 million people is commerce nirvana. In practice however, at the moment there are some hurdles that have to be overcome. First, search on Facebook is not exactly optimized for commerce. (Try searching for products to buy). Second, most people don't use Facebook to shop.

Whatever the challenges to ecommerce retailers on Facebook face now, the idea is this will certainly change in the not too distant future. Payvment indicates a first step in that direction. So if you want to be part of the first wave and start your Facebook storefront, here's how after the jump.

Continue reading Payvment lets you launch a storefront on Facebook

Payvment lets you launch a storefront on Facebook originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HipChat is a new private chat service for companies and teams

Filed under: Business, Windows, Macintosh, Adobe, Commercial, Social Software

There was a time when having a chat client on your computer at work was considered a no-no. These days, if you're not available via some sort of online chat or instant messaging, you're just not moving at the speed of business.

Many companies have begun using open instant messaging services for their internal discussions, but there are a couple of downsides to this approach. The first is a lack of control, and a potential lack of security. The second is a lack of collaboration tools; it's difficult to share files between multiple people in an instant messaging chat.

HipChat is a new start-up that aims to fix the problem of secure, controlled corporate chat. Based on Adobe AIR which provides cross-platform functionality, HipChat is a fully functional chat client that as GigaOM points out, bears a resemblance to 37Signals' Campfire product. To be fair, the basic layout of an IRC-like chat client has been the same for 15 years, so the similar look is not that much of a surprise.

Where HipChat has a definite advantage is in the fact that it is a desktop client (even if it does unfortunately rely on AIR), not a web client. While there are 3rd-party Campfire clients and even ways to run Campfire in a dedicated single-purpose browser, HipChat is simply a desktop chat client.

HipChat has plans available from $9/month for up to 12 users, to $99/month for up to 100 users, and offers a 30 day free trial.

[via GigaOM]

HipChat is a new private chat service for companies and teams originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter activity at all-time low, only 17% of users actually tweet

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Microblogging

In a flurry of interesting (if you're into social networking) statistics, pie charts and graphs, RJMetrics has just published its latest Twitter data and user analysis. If social media or Twitter isn't your thing, here are the vital statistics: by the end of 2009, Twitter had 75 million user accounts -- of those, only 17% actually sent a tweet.

The delicious stats go on! About 80% of Twitter users have tweeted less than ten times in total. 40% of all 75 million accounts have never tweeted. 25% have zero followers. Also, while the service is still growing (6.2 million new accounts in December), it seems its growth has peaked and is now beginning to fall: July saw 7.8 million new accounts. The growth graph still looks very impressive -- it's just a matter of the inherent quality of those new users.

The report ends on a good note (for Twitter users at least): it doesn't look like its loyal users are even thinking about jumping ship. Basically, despite the 83% of users not tweeting on a monthly basis, the remaining 17% make up them in a big way -- they're highly-loyal to their followers and actually become more active over time.

[via ComputerWorld]

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Twitter activity at all-time low, only 17% of users actually tweet originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ringtones from Geico commercials - cool, or trying too hard?

Filed under: Freeware, Social Software, Analysis

You're probably aware of the insurance company Geico due to their ubiquitous quirky TV commercials featuring the Geico gecko. Some of their commercials are actually pretty funny, which I think is a good way to go about advertising.

Now the company has added a page to their website where you can download audio clips from their commercials as ringtones. This seems like a blatant attempt to "go viral" and have people passing around Geico's URL on Twitter and Facebook. While there's nothing wrong with the strategy, at some point making such obvious efforts to take advantage of social networking will likely backfire and garner disdain instead of positive word of mouth.

So that leads me to this question: do you think campaigns like Geico's page offering free ringtones are fun and make the company seem more hip, or do you think people feel like it's an obvious attempt to manipulate their feelings towards the company?

Personally, I'm in the latter camp, but I'm still going to install the Boss's Ringtone on my phone. It's pretty funny.

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Ringtones from Geico commercials - cool, or trying too hard? originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter working on 'interesting hacks' to evade Chinese and Iranian firewalls

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Microblogging

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, the co-founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, said that software developers are working on 'interesting hacks' to evade the censorship by oppressive governments in China and Iran.

He didn't go as far to say what these 'hacks' are -- he also said that the technology is being coded by third-party developers, rather than Twitter itself -- but he alluded to some kind of distributed, and perhaps Tor-like, anonymizing service: "Twitter is a network that is accessed in thousands of ways." -- Twitter is not just a website but a framework of Internet and mobile applications. Barring access to a handful of IP addresses or protocols isn't going to be enough if Twitter wants to get its service into the hands of those that need it most.

There was also admiration for Google's attack on China, but Mr Williams said that Twitter was too small to make a stand on the same scale. You have to give it to them though -- Google, Twitter, and any other liberal software company out there -- these are noble ideals for a damn corporation.

[via Financial Times]

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Twitter working on 'interesting hacks' to evade Chinese and Iranian firewalls originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look out, Foursquare! Gowalla adds trips and bookmarks

Filed under: Games, Social Software, Mobile

Software is a lot more fun when there's a little drama involved, which is why I'm thoroughly enjoying the rivalry between location-based social gaming apps Foursquare and Gowalla.

In the beginning, there was no clear reason to choose one over the other, but their featuresets have started to diverge in an interesting way: while Foursquare courts local businesses and works to get discounts for its users, Gowalla is focusing on the social side of its app. Now you can create and share trips with your friends on Gowalla and bookmark spots you enjoy.

Gowalla already included some recommended trips, but now users can add and share up to 5 of their own. Each trip can include 20 different spots, and you can assign them categories like "bar crawl" or "nature hike." Of course, Gowalla will keep track of your progress toward completing a trip, and mark it as completed once you check in at all of the locations.

Bookmarks aren't as big a deal as trips, but they're still quite useful - and, more importantly, Foursquare doesn't have them yet. Having a quick way to check up on (and check into) your favorite places is definitely. You can't add bookmarks from any of the Gowalla mobile apps, but soon you'll be able to. For now, you can still access your bookmarks from your phone.

Look out, Foursquare! Gowalla adds trips and bookmarks originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Foursquare's newest competitor is ... Facebook?

Filed under: Web services, Social Software

It's really not Foursquare's week. Just after they'd launched Foursquare Everywhere, an awesome update that took Foursquare checkins worldwide, we saw a flurry of announcements from competitors both old and new. Yelp is in the game now, and Foursquare's main nemesis, Gowalla, just rolled out some snazzy new features.

If you thought this pool couldn't get any more crowded, think again, because Facebook is reportedly about to do a massive cannonball into the deep end of this whole social check-in thing. Will Facebook check-ins turn into a Foursquare killer?

They definitely could. For one thing, it's likely that your friends are already on Facebook. If you're one of the millions of users who updates Facebook daily, it's not much of a stretch to check in while you're there, and completely avoid opening a separate app like Foursquare or Gowalla. Check-ins wouldn't be Facebook's main business, by any means, but they would certainly help bump up the site's engagement numbers, and help its ad revenues.

The thing is, Foursquare might always be one jump ahead of Facebook, unless someone else buys it out. When we talk about these services, we're still saying "Foursquare-like location-based app," and that's because Foursquare - much like Twitter - was the first company to find a decent mix of simplicity and features. Plenty of people would still use it, even if Facebook launched a competitor. Personally, I'd love to see an app that lets you check in on all of these services at once.

[via Silicon Alley Insider]

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Foursquare's newest competitor is ... Facebook? originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Trillian chat client gets a Mac version, now in alpha

Filed under: Macintosh, Social Software

Trillian has enjoyed a nice, long run as one of the most popular multi-protocol IM clients for Windows. It's not just surviving, though, it's thriving and expanding to new platforms. I tested out the very nice iPhone version recently, and now there's finally Trillian for Mac! It's not perfect, but keep in mind that it's still in alpha, so I expect a lot of feature additions and improvements in the future.

Okay, it's time to fall back on that classic reviewer trope, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Good: Trillian's message style and list style aren't customizable (yet?), but the default style is attractive and easy to read. This might be a matter of taste, but I prefer Trillian's chat bubbles to iChat's. It also includes a couple of neat little preferences that I'd like to see in every chat client. AIM users will understand when I say that the option to hide AOLSystemMsg is a relief, and I also like the ability to automatically accept file transfers from contacts.

The Bad: Lack of customization and Growl alert support means that Trillian still has some work to do before it can knock over the reigning king of Mac chat clients, Adium. I'm taking the bare-bones features with a grain of salt because - and I can't emphasize this enough - we're talking about an alpha version here.

The Ugly: Alert sounds. They're not the worst alert sounds I've ever heard, but I couldn't find a preference to change them or turn them off. It's not just new message alerts, either, it's buddy on/off, message sent, and pretty much anything else. This doesn't make Trillian very café or library friendly, and it might make the people you live with want to kill you. I'm sure this will change before version 1.0 officially comes out.

Trillian for Mac was at the top of my wish list 10 years ago, but competitors like Adium and iChat filled the gap, and they've spent years refining their products. I'm not saying Trillian can't catch up; it's off to a good start, and a popular brand name will help. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be a while before it's ready for prime time.

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Trillian chat client gets a Mac version, now in alpha originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WinMoSquare: a FourSquare client for Windows Mobile, now in beta

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Social Software, web 2.0, Mobile

The Foursquare phenomenon just keeps growing! Amidst rumors that Facebook might enter the location-based check-in arena, Foursquare continues to pick up users and expand to new platforms. Thanks to the service's APIs, an intrepid developer has put together a client for Windows Mobile: WinMoSquare. It joins the roster of other mobile clients for Foursquare, which was already available in some form for iPhone, Android, Palm, Maemo and Blackberry.

To run WinMoSquare, you'll need a touchscreen Windows Mobile phone running version 6.1 or 6.5 of the OS. WinMoSquare allows you to check in, add locations, and see where your friends are. Because not every feature is exposed via Foursquare's APIs, the client does have some weaknesses: you can't see the leaderboard or find and add new friends with it, for example. This will change if and when the features become available to developers. WinMoSquare may also pop up in the Windows Mobile Marketplace soon.

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WinMoSquare: a FourSquare client for Windows Mobile, now in beta originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google, Yahoo!, CNBC, WSJ set real-time stock quotes free

Filed under: Finance, Internet, Google, Yahoo!

A number of web sites have been offering free stock quotes for years. But they've always been delayed by about 15 minutes or so. While 15 minutes doesn't sound like a lot, if you've dumped a lot of money into one stock and it's tanking, you want to know as soon as possible. The solution has been to sign up for subscription-based services like E*Trade.

Now it looks like you can save your money. A whole slew of companies including Google, Yahoo!, CNBC, and the Wall Street Journal have announced the availability of real-time stock quotes. For free.

Yahoo! has partnered with BATS, while a slew of other companies have partnered with NASDAQ to provide the up to the minute stock quotes.

[via paidContent]

Google, Yahoo!, CNBC, WSJ set real-time stock quotes free originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Show your work with Project Calculator

Filed under: Finance, Office, Productivity

Are you a freelancer, a student, or someone who just really likes to bill people by the hour? You might get some use out of Project Calculator, an OS X app that helps you keep track of how much time you put into each of your projects. It lets you run a timer or enter your hours manually, and then does all the calculation you need to send someone a bill. You can output your Project Calculator in a number of formats, including PDF, HTML and plain text, so your clients will never give you the old "I couldn't open the file" excuse.

We almost balked at the $20 pricetag for Project Calculator, but after trying it out, we realized that this app can save you a lot of time for the money. Keeping a spreadsheet from scratch is ok, but having everything set up for you and organized by customer and by client is a lot easier and less fiddly. Appropriately, Project Calculator frees up some time for you to actually work on projects.

Show your work with Project Calculator originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Social networking with your money

Filed under: Business, Finance, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Myspace, Facebook and Twitter, the concepts are pretty much the same. You follow someone with interests that intrigues you, see what their doing, what their saying and sometimes you do what they say. Now what if they told you where to spend your money, would you? Covestor thinks so.

Covestor takes the social networking formula and applies it to the stock market in a 2 part system. The first requires members with some sort of investment background (we'll call them experts) to build portfolios. The second has average users reviewing these members and if they like what they see, they follow them.

If these experts buy or sell a certain stocks, users get to see that and choose if they would like to buy or sell along side their experts. Covestor is currently working on a fully automated system as well. You'll just be able to put down a bunch of cash and the system will invest your money as your experts invest. Of course as an expert you get a percentage of the action, since people are following your advise.

So is this the next step in social networking? We already take advice on what to wear, where to go and what to eat. Why not take it a step further with having strangers tell you what to do with your money?

Social networking with your money originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Googleholic for June 20, 2008

Filed under: Finance, Internet, Web services, Google, Social Software, Googleholic, web 2.0

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

• Upcoming AdWords system maintenance
• Sites gets new features
• YouTube tries long-form
• YouTube introduces Screening Room
• Google Docs on ultraportables
• Google Finance adds cash tracking

Continue reading Googleholic for June 20, 2008

Googleholic for June 20, 2008 originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Trying to Quit? CostOfSmoking Will Make You Cry.

Filed under: Finance, Freeware, Time-Wasters

Smoking is widely considered to be one of the hardest "bad habits" to kick. Way more so than turning your underwear inside out and wearing it a second time.

If you're having trouble quitting, why not download CostOfSmoking for a massive dose of reality. It's an ugly, quickly assembled program (it looks like a packaged MS Access database) that will leave you absolutely gobsmacked. If you don't smoke and never have, this program will make you damn glad.

A quick run based on a ten-year, one-and-a-half pack a day habit at the current $12 a pack (oh, Canada!) pricing yielded the ungodly sum of $114,594. If that's not enough to convince someone that their habit is putting a serious dent in their potential savings, we don't know what is.

Try it yourself and see! We decided to run numbers on our average coffee habit - just to make sure we're in good shape - and was relieved to find out that our java vice came in at a much more reasonable $1,146.

[ Via FreewareNetwork ]

Trying to Quit? CostOfSmoking Will Make You Cry. originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Invotrak adds new features for invoicing

Filed under: Business, Finance, Utilities, Office

Invotrak is a simple to use, online invoicing tool for small businesses or freelancers produced by Draconis Software. While we have covered it before some new additions make it worth another mention.

Basically this is a simple invoice app that you can use to create and track invoices and time sheets for yourself or your small business. You can use limited services for free or pay for three levels of account depending on how many invoices you plan to send.

Updates features include: the ability to upload invoices you have created yourself, add line items from time sheets to the invoice and adding reports to your invoices. You can also save your invoices as PDF or TXT files.

You can also read the Invotrak blog to get tips on using the new features and general small business tips - like how to get paid on time.

Invotrak adds new features for invoicing originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rudder - navigating your personal finances in your email

Filed under: Finance, Internet, News, Productivity

Rudder is a personal finance management site that pushes your banking info and upcoming due bills to your email inbox. This may free you from your compulsion to log in to your online bank site. Generally, there are all kinds of tools available from banks nowadays which push account updates to you via text, email, voice mail, etc.

The nice thing about Rudder is you can add multiple accounts like your credit cards, checking/savings accounts from other banks and roll them into your Rudder account so everything is all in one place. Each morning, you get an account update of all your finances in your email.

Rudder also reminds you when your bills are due and tells you to pay them. If you heed the reminders, you might be able to stave off those $39 late fees on your credit card bills.

Each daily activity report provides you with reminders of which bills are due, an activity feed of account transactions, account balances, and then tells you what's left. The What's Left feature looks into the future and does the math based on your upcoming bills, future paydays and calculates the statement balance for your credit cards. You then get a nice picture of your what you can spend or save after your bills are factored in.

Rudder isn't Quicken or Mint.com. It doesn't have cool categorization features or fancy pie charts and it doesn't compare your spending with others in different cities. It does, however, provide a nice way to keep tabs on your personal finances all in a nice email delivered daily to your inbox.

Rudder - navigating your personal finances in your email originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shoeboxed now automatically categorizes your receipts

Filed under: Business, Finance, Productivity

Trying to figure out where to tighten your belt during the financial crisis? You might want to take a look at Shoeboxed. It's an online service that helps you keep financial records by recording receipts that you mail, email or upload. The latest big feature addition is automatic receipt sorting, which comes in handy when you need to know where your money is going.

Anything you send to Shoeboxed is now labeled with the common tax category it belongs to: food, clothes or electronics, for example. You can even add your own custom categories, but you'll have to apply those yourself. When you need to tinker with your Shoeboxed data even more, it can be exported to Excel or Quicken. If tax season always sneaks up on you, Shoeboxed could be the help you need to make sure your records are all in order.

[via CNET News]

Shoeboxed now automatically categorizes your receipts originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FreshBooks launches industry bookmarks

Filed under: Business, Finance, Web services, web 2.0

At SXSW 2008, Download Squad had the opportunity to talk to Saul and Sunir from the online-invoicing service FreshBooks, and we were really, really impressed with their customer dedication and the overall vision for the service. Today, FreshBooks has just released public industry bookmarks, making it easy for freelancers and small businesses to compare their billables with others in their field.

The benchmarks are similar to the industry data FreshBooks made available to customers before, but instead of compiling metrics from the previous 18-months (and that information is still available), snapshots for segmented industries are available on a quarterly basis to anyone who is curious.

The data is anonymous, released quarterly and primarily sourced (which prevents survey manipulation of data). Right now, FreshBooks has industry bookmarks available for web professionals, IT services, design, marketing and service providers. This is a real advantage for users who might dabble in more than one area, say both web development and design, to keep tabs on how both markets are performing.

In economically uncertain times, knowing what others are billing and having the ability to watch trends can give a small business or freelancer insight into overall market health. If I see my billables declining (and I'm not purposefully taking on fewer projects), but the overall market is remaining steady, I know I need to start evaluating my business practices.

Even if you don't use FreshBooks for invoicing -- and if you haven't tried it out, give it a shot, its interface and ease of use is top-notch -- you can still take advantage of this information. FreshBooks' co-founder made a video explaining the benchmarking data in-depth here.

FreshBooks has free accounts for users who invoice fewer than three active clients and larger packages start at $14 a month.

FreshBooks launches industry bookmarks originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TimeXchange: Simple web-based timesheet management

Filed under: Finance, Productivity, Web services, web 2.0

Keeping track of billable hours is a crucial task for companies and individuals alike. And although there are literally hundreds of time tracking and time card applications, most are designed to be used in a very specific ecosystem. This can get tricky if you are working on a proejct with both employees and contract workers, and your tracking system is only designated to work based with regular employees. If you are a freelancer and you work with clients and collaborate with other developers, time reporting can be even more problematic.

These are the types of hurdles TimeXchange, which officially launched today, hopes to help overcome. TimeXchange, which bills itself as "part web-app, part social network," is designed to reduce data entry redundancy and help people using different backends work and collabrate together more efficiently.

This is how it works: you sign up for a TimeXchange account and create a new project, select your role in the project and then indicate if you are working by yourself or on a team. If working on a team, you can invite other users, indicate what level of control they have (can they approve timesheets, can they see budget and billing information), etc. If you are invited to join a project, you simply respond to an e-mail, and create your own free TimeXchange account so that you can collaborate with the rest of your team.

Here's where TimeXchange is different than a base level time or budget management repository: you can easily export your data into other formats or integrate with other services. You can export your data (either project or individual) as a PDF, CSV or QuickBooks file. In the near future, support for 37Signals Basecamp API and an iGoogle widget will allow you to import existing Basecamp project data and to-do lists.

Continue reading TimeXchange: Simple web-based timesheet management

TimeXchange: Simple web-based timesheet management originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DailyFinance for iPhone

Filed under: Finance, Mobile Minute, iPhone

For a while now the top contender in iPhone finance apps was Bloomberg Mobile. Enter DailyFinance's iPhone app [iTunes link], featuring real-time quotes, portfolios and watchlists and some rather impressive charting tools. Mike Rose has a nice write-up over on TUAW, and the DailyFinance site has a good summary of features and a demo video. It's a free download, so try it and let us know what you think in the comments.

Editor's Note: DownloadSquad's parent company Weblogs, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL.

DailyFinance for iPhone originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is Rudder's security breach really serious or is the web overreacting?

Filed under: Finance, Security, Web services, Op-Ed

Early morning Tuesday a software malfunction caused a security breach at Rudder, a web based financial management service Download Squad has covered in the past.

It seems a number of Rudder users received email intended for a ton of other users, and in some cases one user received hundreds of emails intended for other users of the service.

Soon after, Twitter went crazy with tweets and retweets about Rudder's security breach, and before you know it a mishap affecting hundreds of users was being widely commented on by thousands of people.

So how serious is it, really?

Continue reading Is Rudder's security breach really serious or is the web overreacting?

Is Rudder's security breach really serious or is the web overreacting? originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 20 May 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's time to say goodbye to Microsoft Money

Filed under: Finance, Windows, Microsoft

No, that headline doesn't mean that Microsoft isn't making money as in cash profits anymore. But Microsoft has decided to discontinue Microsoft Money, its personal finance application.

Microsoft will stop selling the application in June, although it will still be supported for another 18 months or so. After that point, you'll still be able to use the software to manage your finances, but it won't be able to get automated feeds from banks, credit cards, and other financial institutions. You'll have to download or enter that information manually.

Normally, users get 2 years of service, but if you purchase Microsoft Money this month, the product will still only be supported until January, 2011. It might be time to look at Quicken or another personal finance package. What do you use to manage your finances? Pen and paper? Mint? Let us know in the comments.

[via CNET]

It's time to say goodbye to Microsoft Money originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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