Two New Vertical Sites Tailor Web Searches, But Still Have Kinks
Vertical search sites like Ziggs and Indeed.com provide interesting, focused information and show real promise — if they can get the kinks out, Walt writes.
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Vertical search sites like Ziggs and Indeed.com provide interesting, focused information and show real promise — if they can get the kinks out, Walt writes.
Walt tests Microsoft’s just-launched blogging service, MSN Spaces and says the service is a good, basic blogging service — if somewhat limited.
Two subscription music services, Yahoo and RealNetworks, are taking steps to change the legal online download game. Walt says if you want to try renting songs, Yahoo’s the way to go.
Walt referees the battle for Web-mail supremacy between Yahoo Mail and Google’s Gmail. His verdict: Yahoo more closely matches the desktop experience most serious email users have come to expect.
Internet phone network Skype is set to release a major software update and is introducing a new breed of compatible telephone handsets. This combination of hardware and software could propel the service into the mainstream.
Walt Mossberg takes an early look at three programs that are part of Windows Live, a major Microsoft initiative to produce applications that are run over the Web rather than a hard disk.
Two new services aim to provide advance notice of bad or offensive sites, letting you know if sites in Web search results are harboring things like malicious software or pornography.
A free Web site called Netvibes is poised to give My Yahoo a run for its money, writes Walt Mossberg. It allows users to create personalized pages with modules that gather headlines, email, weather and other data from all over the Web.
Walt Mossberg says Picnik — a Web-based photo-editing application — is good for tweaking and improving photos, then posting them to photo Web sites, saving them to a computer, emailing them, or even printing them.
Yahoo Mail has emerged from testing as a polished, fairly powerful online email program. It beats Google’s Gmail both in terms of features and its ability to act like a computer program instead of a Web page, writes Walt Mossberg.
New Web services are giving cellphone voice mail a fresh sound with features that let users personalize outgoing messages for individual callers and eschew unwanted calls.
Internet-based instant-messaging services Meebo and KoolIM circumvent barriers to downloadable software and are far less vulnerable to viruses.
Dell’s new all-in-one PC, the XPS One, is a stylish Windows Vista machine that runs well and won’t cost a fortune. If it didn’t have the Dell logo on it, the XPS One might be mistaken for a product of the PC industry’s design leaders, Apple or Sony.
A new service called KidZui aims to offer kids a safe subset of the Internet where they can roam freely without triggering parental worry.
Adobe’s Photoshop Express offers the nicest set of Web-based photo editing tools I have seen. They are sophisticated for a consumer application, yet easy to use. However, it’s rough around the edges.
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