TechJournal

I've written about PassPack and Clipperz recently which led me to notice another startup that does something similar, safe storage for usernames and passwords.

Every time I hear a safe storage space online the first thing that comes to my mind is encryption. This was proven to be the trend by both PassPack and Clipperz who both encrypt their users' sensitive information and protect them with a standard log-in system.

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One thing I learned in college about events organizing is that you need to beg and convince sponsors to give you cash just to materialize your party or quiz contest. I'm not really sure why many student organizations in my University had only one way of raising the funds for every event they came up with, solicitation. It's funny to think that back then student organizations' leaders feel so corporate although the corporate world was just laughing and patronizing them.

Chipin is a nice way of marketing an event and in the same time raising funds to fuel the event. Using the internet as the broadcast medium, Chipin helps events organizers (which could be anybody for that matter) advertise and promote and consequently raise funds by harnessing the power of embedded widgets, blogs and social networks. Every Chipin event gets a space in the Chipin servers accessed by a URL in the form event.chipin.com. This webpage can be edited by the user to include more details and marketing spills for his event. Chipin widgets on the other hand can be embedded in any blog or site or social network to gain attention and possibly donations from the traffic.

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Usernames and passwords today are becoming a problem to secure expecially with the number of new web and non-web services that keep popping up everyday requiring us a key consisting of a username and password. Gone are the days when all one had to know was his PIN for the ATM and combination code for the padlock on the bicycle.

Today, the average internet savvy person would have at least two sets of passwords ana user names. Storing the sensitive information has become a burden rather than an excitement. Solutions like OpenID have been trying to solve this problem by uniting all usernames and passwords into a single ID. This approach however requires the web services to be part of the OpenID network The alternative approach is to house all the sensitive information in a single secure online space that can be accessed anytime, anywhere with a single username and password.

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″Feed The Bull” is different from ″Take The Bull by The Horns”. The last one is an expression while the first one is a website.

FeedTheBull.com is a social content website. Basically all the articles are from member contributions or submissions. It is another website banking or riding on the general idea and concept that made Digg so popular. Just like Digg, highly rated user submissions in FeedTheBull will be given prominence and be placed on the home page. FeedTheBull users can help promote an article by ″feeding” it or can help remove spam from the system by ″starving” an article.

What makes FeedTheBull different is its focus. The site handles any news and articles about or related to the stock market, finance, and the economy. The objective is to create a website that allows investors to give their valued opinions about the various articles that come online. Here, supposed experts and individuals knowledgeable in the field of business and stock markets post their votes and share their comments on articles that are considered most useful and informative for businesses and investors.

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Here comes Prapta.com , a recent addition to the long list of social networking sites on the Web. What makes this one different is that Prapta's social network focuses on the various experiences we have had in our lives. When you sign up, you will find a list of experiences where you can check which ones you have completed so far. Points will be given for every experience you marked. The one with the most number of points will win, although, it seems that there's no actual money or gift prize waiting the winner. With over a million experiences, one thing that you will get to realize is how well you have lived your life up to this point. The website, in a way, measures your life achievements.

Users can add comments on each experience they check, they can tell stories or write blog about the experience, and they can add a picture as well. These entries are public and can be seen by the rest of Prapta's members. You can also add an experience of your own if you find the list lacking or if you thought of something unique.

Prapta user profile pages can be highly customized or personalized. Background theme colors and font sizes can be changed. I can see some good Ajax scripts like the personal messaging service. Also, when you open the Prapta IM you can immediately see who among your contacts are online. You have a search service that can narrow down search results by clicking on categories like food habits, eye color, orientation and political views. There's a lot of features which allow social interaction with members as well.

I find Prapta complete, as far as features of a social networking website goes. Members at this point are still very few. Maybe, would be users are not attracted with the ″experience” approach of social interaction or they don't understand pretty well how it goes. ...more

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We all know now what a Wiki is or at least have the slightest idea. For a vague definition, a wiki is something that anybody can edit, add to, or delete anytime. Today it has become the most widely used multi authoring collaborative software. It's most popular application is the Wikipedia.

That being said, there are also other Wiki applications for a multitude of purposes. There are some for technical writers, open source programming, programming, cooking, medicine and practically everything else. This of course includes maps.

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Photo sharing, video sharing, file sharing, etc. These types of websites frequent the Web yet even so more and more new startups are attempting to break into the world of this highly congested web service. After browsing, reading and writing about these sites for a long time, it is quite refreshing to actually see something new, something unique on the Web.

I'm talking about Hidden Lives , a website dedicated to hosting innermost thoughts, dreams, hopes, fears and imaginings of members. Your not sharing photos or videos but rather a glimpse of what your life is like, of what you are thinking right now, or of who you are underneath. Don't worry about privacy issues, unless you chose to reveal your own identity, everything on the website can be anonymous. Hidden Lives is a social networking site as well, allowing users to view member profiles and read who they are and the things they had to say.

The basic idea of the website came from the notion that all of us live two lives: the one we show the public and the one we held inside where we usually keep it at bay. Hidden Lives was created to serve as avenue, a place to express one's inner self, and to develop into a community with real, intimate, and moving self-expressions from around the world.

Although it is a very interesting website, but functionality is not well defined. With the appearance and concept, it seems that the site is a form of a social network or online community. But social interactions among members are very limited. You cannot send personal messages to fellow members. You can only vote or show your appreciation for your favorite entries. However, one could argue that having personal messaging options may result to annoying, unsolicited advice or messages and defeats the website's anonymity. ...more

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Adventnet, the company that owns Zoho just launched a new web application, ToonDoo that is a lot similar to Comeeko and Stripgenerator (both reviewed here as well).

Users can sign up for free and start creating their comics strips right away. The interface is made in Flash allowing drag and drop options along with seamless vector graphics. Members create their comics by simply choosing prefabricated drawings and laying them out on the canvass.

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