Some use it for larger scale modifications, for instance by removing people from images or placing other objects in photos. That’s not an issue if this is disclosed, but that is usually not the case. This is especially important in advertisement, as it may give you the wrong impression of a product.

Back in 2010 I reviewed the Error Level Analysis web service that you could use to analyze photos for modifications. It appears that this service is being shut down soon.

FotoForensics has been created to fill the gap that it is leaving on the Internet. The new service improves upon the old in several ways. It supports both jpg and png image formats, and allows you to not only upload a photo from your computer, but also to analyze a photo that is already hosted on the Internet.

All you need to do to get started is to select either option. The program processes the selected image and displays its results on the next page.

This won’t do you any good if you do not know how to interpret the results.

JPEG images use a lossy compression system. Each re-encoding (resave) of the image adds more quality loss to the image. Specifically, the JPEG algorithm operates on an 8×8 pixel grid. Each 8×8 square is compressed independently. If the image is completely unmodified, then all 8×8 squares should have similar error potentials. If the image is unmodified and resaved, then every square should degrade at approximately the same rate.

ELA saves the image at a specified JPEG quality level. This resave introduces a known amount of error across the entire image. The resaved image is then compared against the original image.

If an image is modified, then every 8×8 square that was touched by the modification should be at a higher error potential than the rest of the image. Modified areas will appear with a higher potential error level.

A good getting started guide is the tutorial on the Foto Forensics website that demonstrates different modification levels with sample photos.

You will notice immediately that WunderMap uses Google Maps as the underlying mapping service. The zoomed in map displays weather station information by default. This includes the temperature and wind strength and direction, with options to switch to dew point / humidity or precipitation instead. A click on a weather station displays all available information, plus forecasts.

Additional weather related information are selectable on the right. From severe weather and satellite imagery to webcams, traffic or storm reports. All that it takes to enable the new layers is to check an item to have it displayed on the map. Most offer options to change data sources or display different kinds of information on the map.

One interesting option is available with a click on the clock icon next to the selected location. Here you can go back in time (hour, day, month or year) for information about the weather location at a specific date and time in history.

You can furthermore select future dates (in the day range) to see weather forecasts on the map.

The different layers, and the ability to go back in time, make WunderMap an interesting service. It is usually not something that you would go to to get a weather report though. The service has its specialized uses, you can for instance pull past data from holiday locations to see how the weather conditions have been during your planned stay.

Some layers are only available if you are displaying a location in the United States. You can check out Wundermap here.

Dropbox is currently running a promotion that extends the available storage space for users who use the service’s photo import feature.

Storage space is increased in 500 Megabyte chunks by a maximum of 4.5 Gigabytes. For this to work, it is necessary to run the new Dropbox 1.3.12 client. This client is experimental and only linked at the Dropbox forum and not on the main site.

It is not clear if users will keep the additional storage space forever, or if it is only available in the beta period.

During this beta period, we are also offering additional free space to test automatic uploading of photos and videos. For every 500MB of photos and videos automatically uploaded, you’ll receive another 500MB space bonus, up to 4.5GB total.

It is however likely that users will receive the space upgrade permanently.

To receive the update, users need to upload photos via the new photo import feature. If you do not have that many photos on your camera, you could simply shoot a lot of photos, connect your camera to Dropbox to get the additional 4.5 Gigabytes of online storage space.

Some users have reported that the feature is not available on their computer, even after installing the latest experimental Dropbox client. It is not clear why it is not there at this point, but there seems to be no option available to force it to appear. Dropbox also notes that photo import is currently not working under Linux or Apple Macintosh 10.4 systems.

The photo import feature relies on Autoplay, which needs to be enabled. This is done under Start Menu > Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > AutoPlay in Windows 7.

Check out the forum post and let me know if you were able to get the import option to work on your computer. (thanks Caschy)

If it works on your computer, you could use it to get an extra 4.5 Gigabyte of Dropbox storage. Not too shabby if you ask me.

I have received emails and user comments from several users who wanted to know if there is an alternative to Torrific. There is, and it goes by the name BitLet. It is a web Bittorrent client that is powered by Java. You can just visit the website to get started right away, an account is not needed. Torrents can be added in two ways, first as web urls and second from the local computer system. You can paste in urls right away, or click on the select local torrent button to select a torrent from your system.

A click on download torrent opens a download window that displays information about the download status.

You are asked to select a destination directory for the files, and sit back afterwards as everything else is handled automatically from that moment on. Once finished, you can keep the torrent open to continue seeding it, or close the window to close all connections.

Bitlet on the other hand is not completely identical to Torrific, as the latter service downloaded the files first to their service, before they were made available as http downloads to the user.

Users more interested in an identical service can try ziTorrent, which offers pretty much the same functionality as Torrific. A free account is good for 10 Gigabytes of traffic, with a maximum file size of 1 Gigabyte per torrent per month. The service did not work that well though during tests, but this may have been a temporary flux.

While it is possible to read the messages on Twitter about a trending topic, it is not guaranteed that you will see any links in the messages that you are reading.

That’s where the web service ShowMeTrend comes into play. The service links the top 10 Twitter trends of a particular day to Google News articles about that particular topic.

The trending topics get updated regularly, and it appears as if the links from Google News are pulled more or less whenever they appear there. All news articles are linking directly to the site they have been published on. It is furthermore possible to open Google News’ listing of all related news, or to go back and forward one news entry on the ShowMeTrend website.

Selections can be made at the top to switch from the day’s worldwide trends to country specific and date/time specific trends. About ten countries can be selected, from Germany and the United States to the Netherlands, UK or Brazil. The service’s back catalog of Twitter trends begins in October 2011, which is an indicator that it is a relatively new service. Users can not only select the date but also the time of a day to get a listing of trending topics.

One of the issues that the developers need to fix is the lack of links for some topics. Some trends show a white listing and not a single news item. One of the options here would be to either improve the search algorithm or to use additional news sources besides Google News.

ShowMeTrend is an interesting service for researchers, marketing agencies and individual users. Have you tried the service? If so, what is your take on it?

Uploading files to just another hoster is however no guarantee that the files stay available for a longer time. It should be clear by now that you need to have backups available either locally or in another location to reduce the likelihood that you will lose the data completely.

Mirror Services

One option that you have is to use so called mirror services such as Mirror Creator to distribute the files to multiple online hosting services. If one or two go down, you still have them available on others that you have selected.

The process of uploading files to those hosters is almost identical, with the difference that you cannot make use of existing accounts and their benefits.

• Select files that you want to upload from your computer. A file limit is always displayed, in the case of MirrorCreator it is 500 Megabytes for free users.
• Select the file hosting services you want to distribute your files to. Free users can select up to ten services.
• Start to upload the files once, the mirror creation service will take care of the rest.

Here is a short list of file mirror creation services:

• Gazup! – Supports six services in total, maximum file size 400 Megabyte if only four are selected.
• Upload On All – Supports 12 services in total of which ten can be selected for distribution. Maximum file size is 300 Megabytes per upload.
• Digzip – Lets you pick eight mirrors from a list of 18. Maximum upload size is 200 Megabytes.
• Multi Upload – Upload to a total of nine different file hosting services
• Upload Mirrors – Select up to 14 mirror servers where you want your files to be hosted. No information about file size limitations posted on site.

You can search for file hosting mirrors and similar phrases to find more services that distribute files for you.

Nothing changes for free users who stay below the upload maximum. Users who need to upload larger files have a few options as well. They could split the files using software like 7-zip or Haozip for this. Other services may be offered, for instance the option to delete uploads again, that are not available when mirror uploading services are used.

If you want to use a specific service, for instance because of the account benefits it provides, you should consider backing up your data at a second cloud hosting service to avoid total data loss if that particular services is no longer available. A suggestion here would be to use a backup and synchronization provider like Dropbox, or if more storage space is required Skydrive from Microsoft. This means however that you will have to upload the files at least twice for this. You could alternatively back them on a local device if you do not want to waste the bandwidth.

Have another suggestion? Lets discuss it in the comments.

Bitcasa is a new file hosting service that is similar to Dropbox in many regards. Bitcasa just like Dropbox is application driven, which means that users need to install the Bitcasa client on their system to use the service. The client is currently available for Apple Macintosh OSX systems and Microsoft Windows (as an alpha), with a Linux version currently in development.

The client synchronizes data across all devices that have the Bitcasa software installed. Data gets encrypted before it is uploaded to the cloud to make sure that it is protected from unauthorized access. The developers state that they cannot access user data for any reason.

A core difference to Dropbox is that Bitcasa offers its users unlimited storage. It is not really clear how this will pan out in the long run, or if paid accounts will be introduced at a later time to make the service profitable. For now, users can upload, download and share as many files as they want.

Sharing is completely free as well, and the service highlights that friends and family can start accessing files “instantly without waiting for the entire files to download”. It seems though that recipients need to install the Bitcasa client and create and account as well for this.

Bitcasa has no web interface for users at this point. It is not clear if the developers will integrate one at a later time.

Bitcasa Beta Invites

Users can sign up for the beta queue on the Bitcasa homepage. If you do not want to wait, you can use the following link to sign up for an account directly. The link has been posted by Motou Xiao on Google+.

Just enter your email address and open the confirmation link once you receive the Bitcasa confirmation message. You can then download the software and create an account from within.

Closing Words

We cannot post screenshots of the application or signup process at this time as you have to agree to a NDA during signup. All information have been taken from public sources. We will post an update in the future.

The service offered little more than direct links though which users could bookmark in their web browsers to access the permission pages directly.

Notification Control, created by Ben Lang and Tim Kendall, has been inspired by My Permissions. The core difference is that Notification Control links to the notification pages of popular services on the Internet.

All you need to do is to click on one of the links to be taken directly to the notification page of the linked services. There you can then change if, when and how you are notified. You could for instance block all notifications to your email account if you do not want to receive notification emails anymore, or enable them again in case you’d like to receive emails again.

A total of 12 services are currently supported, among them Facebook, Twitter, eBay, FourSquare and Google+. Users benefit the most if they use more than one of the services, and chance is good that the average user does.

I’d still recommend to bookmark the notification control panel directly, or at least the general control panel of all sites so that you are able to access the pages directly and without intermediary page. Most users do not need to modify notification settings on a regular basis though.

What’s your take on My Permissions and Notification Control? Do they provide a useful service or is it not useful at all?

I’d say it is nice for users who want to quickly check on the notification or permission settings of said services, but that’s about it. (via Techdows)

Kickstarter is a funding community that brings designers and developers together with people who are interested in their projects. You can create a project on the site and ask for funding, and depending on how well you represent your idea and how well it is perceived, you may receive the necessary funding to create it.

Kickstarter projects come from a wide variety of topics, from music and games to publishing, new technologies or design. If you ever wanted to fund your own comic strip, the album of an artist you like or an iPhone app that finds your car no matter where you have parked it, then Kickstarter is the right place to look.

Creators and designers get the funding they need to create their projects. The people who fund the projects on the other hand often get something in return as well, next to the eternal gratitude of the designer of course.

This is usually grouped into tiers. The more you pay, the more you get usually. I for instance decided to fund enough to get a copy of the board game shipped to my address. If I would have paid more, I would have received a prototype of the game delivered before the actual printing of the game or game shirts and strategy guides.

You usually get the core product if you fund, and often a lot more than that. Ever wanted to see your fantasy self in a board game that you’d like to play or in a new computer game? Then Kickstarter is the right place for you.

If you are new to the site I suggest you open the popular listings first. Each project is listed on the page with an image, title, short description and funding information. The funding information display the amount in Dollars and percentage that has been funded already as well as the days left before the funding closes down. You will find many projects receive more funding than they creators actually need. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, and you can join the funding as long as there is time left before it closes.

A click on a project opens that project’s home page on Kickstarter. Here you receive detailed information about the project as well as all funding information you need. The sidebar lists what you will receive for your money. In the case of the “best dock for iPhone” you will have to pay $59 to get one in glass bead blasted finished instead of $90 which you would have to pay in retail once the product ships. You could also pay more and get the dock in different colors and materials.

You need to create an account first before you can fund a project. Funding is not difficulty at all as it takes a few clicks to fund a new project.

What I really like about Kickstarter is the fact that you can fund interesting ideas and projects that may otherwise never come to existence. You’ll definitely find crazy ideas on the site that you would never invest in. But for ten ideas that do not interest you, you find one that is exactly what you ever wanted to have. I love to browse through the new projects on the site and am always excited when I discover one that sparks my interest.

I might even use it in the future to get funding for some of the ideas that I have, e.g. for writing a book.

The old Virustotal had a file size limit of 20 Megabyte which worked fine for most executables and setups, but not for all. If you encountered a single file that exceeded the 20 Megabyte limit, you could not use the service to scan it at all. The service had other issues that users encountered every now and then, like large queues or pages that were not loading properly.

The developers have recently updated the service website and virus scanning service that improves Virustotal considerably.

When you open the service’s homepage you will notice two of the changes right away.

The first is a new professional feel and look, the second that Virustotal now accepts file sizes of up to 32 Megabytes. That’s a reasonable 60% increase that should resolve the majority of “file size to big” issues that users encountered previously on the site.

Once you upload a file you will notice that the reporting interface has changed as well.

The url scanner is now supporting a total of 19 different scan engines that includes a mix of well known (Google Safebrowsing, Opera, Phishtank) and lesser known services. Some url scanning services provide additional information that are now also displayed in the scan results.

Virustotal has moved to Google’s App Engine Service which, according to the developers, speeds up the analysis significantly. Developers of third party apps now benefit from faster response times thanks to a public API update.

Virustotal has improved significantly thanks to the recent update. Especially the maximum file size increase needs to be mentioned in this regard.

Have you used the new version yet? If so, what is your impression of the service? (via Dottech)

Setting up Dropbox Automator could not be easier. All you need to do is to authorize the service to access your files. This is done on the Dropbox website and will automatically log you in on the Dropbox Automator website.

You can then start creating tasks by selecting one of your Dropbox folders and one of the available actions. Only existing folders can be selected on the Automator website, new folders need to be created on the Dropbox website or on a PC connected to Dropbox.

Four groups of actions are available:

• Documents: Convert to pdf, summarize, translate, pdf to text, upload to Google Docs, upload to Slideshare, sign pdf (electronic signature)
• Pictures: Upload to Facebook, upload to Flickr, downscale, rotate image, write text on image, photo effect, stamp a logo on the image, stamp a map on the image, stamp a dislike on the image
• Any file: E-mail, zip file, save it to another Dropbox folder, rename, upload to ftp server, encrypt, decrypt
• Send Info: Tweet, Set Facebook status

Some actions require you to enter parameters, for instance ftp login information, selection of a photo effect or an email address that should receive the notifications.

Some actions use programming function names instead of better readable and explanatory names. This can be confusing at first, considering that action.pics.writeOnImage.text is not as self-explanatory as Text to Write.

Processing time depends largely on the selected tasks and the server load. The original files are moved to the processed folder where they are kept, the processed files to a results folder. It can take quite some time before the process completes.

Multiple actions can be configured for a folder. You could for instance translate a document and convert it to pdf, or resize a picture before it is uploaded to Flickr.

Dropbox Automator is a useful tool for Dropbox users who are currently processing files manually before they put them into their Dropbox storage. The developers need to work a bit on the descriptions displayed to the user. A progress indicator would also be useful. (via Lifehacker)

The Stop Online Piracy Act in the US is getting ever more publicity with GoDaddy one of the high profile companies to suffer from supporting it as we wrote a couple of days ago.  In our previous article Martin summed up SOPA very effectively.

If you are living in the United States, you should have heard about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and Protect-IP, which, when passed, would give companies rights that they should not have. If it passes, IP rightsholders (a term vaguely defined) could send notices to payment processors or ad services like Google Adsense to force them to stop doing business with listed websites, all without legal process.

Site owners have five days to file a counter-notice, but neither payment processors or ad networks have any obligation to respect it. Even worse, they are granted “immunity for choking off a site if they have a “reasonable belief” that some portion of the site enables infringement”.

Now a loose confederation of Internet giants are considering shutting down the entire websites for 24 hours and instead showing a messagew urging their visitors and customers to contact their representative in the US congress the day before the vote goes to the house there.

The coalition is made up of some very big names on the Internet including Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, eBay, PayPal, AOL, Foursquare, IAC, LinkedIn, Mozilla, OpenDNS and Zynga.  If the plan goes ahead all these services could be taken offline for 24 hours.

In a report by CNet…

When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA, you’ll know they’re finally serious.

True, it would be the political equivalent of a nuclear option–possibly drawing retributions from the the influential politicos backing SOPA and Protect IP–but one that could nevertheless be launched in 2012.

“There have been some serious discussions about that,” says Markham Erickson, who heads the NetCoalition trade association that counts Google, Amazon.com, eBay, and Yahoo as members. “It has never happened before.”

This wouldn’t be the first piece of anti-piracy legislation around the world to face stiff opposition.  France have already passed an Internet copyright law but the Digital Economy Act in the UK stalled in the face of arguments from major Internet Service Providers British Telecom and TalkTalk.

Many reports say that SOPA is still set to pass the US congress and that very few Americans have heard about it.  Shutting down services such as Facebook and Google, and replacing them with anti-SOPA messages for a day would certainly raise awareness, but a question mark remains over whether doing so only one day before the congress vote would be effective enough.

This is the first time ever that major websites have threatened to effectively go on strike to boycott something, and it is completely unprecedented.  It is unclear at this time whether the services would be taken down worldwide or just in the US and also how serious the coalition are about the boycott, which would inevitably lose them all a day’s trade.

Services are commonly targeted for IP addresses anyway and it wouldn’t be difficult for these companies to target messages to their US-based users.  With many millions of visitors every day in the US, companies such as Google and Facebook could achieve this on their own.  Imagine then how much more leverage they would have with Amazon, Yahoo! and others on board.  If this goes ahead it is still possible that other companies could follow suit, effectively crippling the Internet in the US for the day before the vote.

So what do you think of SOPA and your favourite websites being taken offline for a day?

Show Me Nonstop is a third party service that offers an alternative that is most appealing to broadband users. The free service will play videos about a certain topic for as long as the user wants.

All it takes is to enter a search phrase into the form on the page to start playing videos nonstop on the site. You could enter movie trailers 2012, kittens, or a band name to start watching high definition versions about the selected search term for as long as you want.

Show Me Nonstop seems to load the high definition version of a video whenever it is available on YouTube. The next video is automatically loaded whenever the previous video ends, without user interaction.

No controls are available, which is one of the issues that users may experience, considering that this means no pausing or replaying a video. A click on the video does however skip the video that is currently playing to load the next video in the queue.

The only other control that is available is the Show Me button at the bottom of the screen. This opens the search form again with options to refine the search or search for a new term on YouTube.

Show Me Nonstop is a useful services for uses who’d like to watch multiple related YouTube videos. It works very well for specialized search terms. It is also interesting to note that you will see new videos when you search for the same term again (provided there are enough videos available on YouTube).

Visit Show Me Nonstop to start watching right away. (via)

VideoDropper is a free add-on for Dropbox that can be used to save YouTube videos into Dropbox. This can be useful under certain circumstances, for instance if you cannot view YouTube videos at your current location or are not allowed to do so. Many users email YouTube video urls that they cannot view right away to one of their email accounts to view them later on another computer.

VideoDropper offers an alternative to that. The program offers two core benefits: It is easy to use, and since videos are stored in the Dropbox account, they will also be synchronized automatically with all connected devices once they come online the next time.

YouTube users who often get the dreaded “video not available in your country” message benefit from the service as well, as it can be used to bypass those restrictions.

First thing that you need to do is to connect VideoDropper with your Dropbox account. Just visit the web page and click on the Login with your Dropbox link to connect the services. You can also sign up for a new Dropbox account if you do not have one or want to use a secondary account for the videos.

You can then start to paste YouTube urls into the form so that they are automatically downloaded to the connected Dropbox account. Videos can be downloaded in their original format, or optimized for iPhone or iPod Touch devices.

All videos are added to a queue before they are downloaded. It can take a few minutes before they start to appear in the Dropbox.

Users who do not want to paste YouTube video urls can alternatively use a bookmarklet in the browser to make the process convenient. All videos are saved into the root Dropbox folder. This could become a issue for users who download dozens of videos from YouTube regularly.

VideoDropper offers an interesting service for Dropbox users who want to download YouTube videos or use Dropbox as a way to store videos that they cannot watch right away.

After the setup is complete, you will be asked to sign up for the service from Zumocast.com. The next step is to select the appropriate folders containing the media that you want to have available on your mobile devices. The application will scan the selected folders rapidly and you will be able to access all scanned content from remote locations by simply logging into the account that you set up during the signup process.

One drawback noted by many users of Zumocast is that it uses a tremendous amount of machine resources. The upload speed of your connection is another factor that plays a role in how quickly you can access and stream your media. This has been tested on some heavy-duty computers with powerful processors and there have still been issues with upload speed. It is possible that a solid state drive could be helpful, but external hard drive storage is not going to help. Overall, you do get the media you want when you want it. You might just need to go and have a cup of coffee or play some computer chess while the upload is in process.

Browsing your content on the Zumocast site is similar to browsing content on any other site. When you are away from your home computer, you just need to log on to Zumocast.com and there is all of your media, compliments of Cloud storage. You then go through and find what you are looking for. With iOS devices, you may find some issues with playback and this is due to the formatting. It is recommended that you use MPEG4/H.264 content for smoother streaming, particularly for video content. With other devices, this does not seem to be an issue and most formats are supported by Zumocast.

This is fairly amazing for freeware and it eliminates the need for syncing devices and sharing files, as this is handled by Zumocast for you. It is a great way to organize your media and have it readily available. Additionally, should you wish to download any of the content from your host computer to any mobile device or other computer, you have this option with Zumocast.

Picfull is a free online image filter service that can add a variety of filters to selected photos. The service requires no registration; All it takes is to load a photo from the local computer and pick one of the available filters.

The program supports popular image formats such as jpg or png, and will display loaded images as thumbnails on the application website. A list of 20 filters, from pencil and vintage looks to aquarelle, sepia or color separation are available. A click on a filter applies it automatically to the current picture. It is alternatively possible to first select a filter and load an image afterwards, which applies the filter automatically.

Sliders to customize the selected filter are opened as well. Here it is then possible to fine tune the effect further by changing contrast, brightness or saturation values. Available parameters may differ depending on the selected filter. Only one filter can be added to a photo.

A click on Save processes the image which should not take longer than a couple of seconds. The program displays Facebook, Twitter and e-mail sharing options in an overlay on the screen. This overlay can be closed to display the direct download link instead.

Here it is then possible to download the photo to the local computer, and to start applying filters to other photos.

Image dimensions are not changed in the process. Downloads are however only provided as jpg images even if the source image was uploaded in a different image format.

Picful is an easy to use service. All it takes is one click to apply one of the available filters to an image. Sliders and selectors make customizations easy, and the undo button makes sure that you can go back if you have made a modification that you do not like.

This is all great news but there are still some technologies that have got to change in 2012 and they need to do this very quickly or else the technology we use will move so far ahead of them that innovation itself will begin to suffer.  Those technologies are all concerned with the Internet itself or with Internet communications.

Let’s start with the ADSL or DSL broadband lines coming into our homes and offices.  Unless you’re lucky enough to live in a country such as Sweden which already enjoys 50Mb/sec lines or faster you’ll be lucky to get a stable connection on a tenth of that.  Indeed the old 2 miles from the telephone exchange line is wearing thin with many but telecoms companies and governments simply aren’t doing enough to rectify the problem.  Here in the UK we think that people who live in countryside villages and who still have to use dial up or get a 512k/sec broadband line have a bad deal.  In some countries where the distances are far further such as the USA, Canada and Australia the problems are 100 times worse.

It’s a similar story with mobile networks.  The USA was late to the 3G game but has forged ahead with 4G connections.  Many other countries however are still several years away from moving to 4G, but which time it’ll be time to move onto something else in all probability.  The mobile networks also need to sort out the mess that is unlimited data plans and manage their networks in such a way as to allow people to use mobile broadband properly.  The pricing for mobile broadband also has to drop by at least 50% next year.  There’s already more than enough money to be made and many people, especially those in isolated areas would love to move away from an ADSL line and onto a SIM contract.  At the moment though it’s still far too expensive to do this.

Many people think that a universal wireless solution like a full roll-out of 4G or WiMax will solve the problem and make traditional broadband lines obsolete.  Telecommunications companies need to protect their bottom lines however and, as such, a lot of innovation is being stifled for reasons of profit and share prices.

When we actually are able to get online though using our sexy new devices we find that the web is still looking as old and outdated as it was in 2003.  Back then we didn’t have the preponderance of smartphones, tablets and touch-screen PCs that we do now.  Even next year’s iMacs are rumoured to be multi-touch but almost none of the world’s largest websites have moved to a touch-friendly design yet.  I did this with my own website last month and firmly believe it’s absolutely essential.  Some companies are making a move in this direction with the BBC launching a part-touch-friendly website recently but the new YouTube redesign is traditional menus and mouse control only.

It’s one thing having new interfaces and new form factors that enable us to use the web in new and exciting ways, and new operating systems that are designed primarily around touch.  If we can’t get good, quick and stable connections to the web though, or properly and effectively use the websites we visit when we get there all this technology is going to waste.  Here’s hoping that 2012 brings us much more than just a move to IPv6 and some 4G radio spectrum auctions.  What technologies do you think really need to change in 2012 and do you agree with me here?  Why not tell us in the comments.

The next best thing is a web service that allows the creation of charts. You have the option to use a service like Google Docs or Microsoft Office Online for that, or something that is not as complicated to use.

Chart Creator is a free lightweight tool to create charts online. The program supports a total of 12 different chart types, from line and area charts to scatter, pie, map and trend charts.

A click on Editor opens the configuration menu where you can configure how the chart should look like. A click on the customize tab offers to make additional modifications to the chart. This includes the layout of the legend, the chart title, values for the axis and additional features like log scale, reverse or stack.

Once you are done with the initial configuration you can start entering data that you want displayed on the chart. The program limits you to charts with two data points, for instance countries and their population.

A click on draw draws the chart on the screen. You can then use a screen capturing software to save the chart to your local system or use the print button to print it on a connected printer.

Chart Creator offers an easy option to create simple charts online. Users who need more functionality, for instance the ability to import data into a spreadsheet need to look at services such as Google Docs to do so as that is not possible with this chart creation service. (via)

You usually do not need to know PHP or MySQL if you download and install an application like WordPress. But if you want to start developing your own applications, or modifying existing ones, then you need to know the ins and outs of SQL database commands.

Head first SQL: Hands On is a free service by O’Reilly that can be used to learn and execute MySQL queries online. when you open the Head First Labs site for the first time you see a form near the top that you can use to run MySQL commands.

The service provides access to several tables that are listed above the form. All you need to do is to enter a SQL query in the form to execute it. The core benefit of testing SQL commands here is that you do not have to create your own database first and fill it with data. Plus, you cannot really damage the database or tables this way.

The results are displayed right beneath the for.  But the site offers more than just an option to run your own MySQL queries, which is especially useful for users who are just getting started and do not know anything about SQL.

The Get Started section of the page lists 33 MySQL lessons. The majority of lessons teach a specific command or command sets. This ranges from basic queries such as SELECT or INSERT to more complex operations. Not all lessons make sense, which can be attributed that some require that you have read the Head First SQL: Hands On book.

Some on the other hand can be used without having the book in reach. MySQL beginners will probably like the form on the start page the most, as it allows them to run custom SQL queries on sample database tables.

Services that test a password strength can help users in evaluating their passwords. Will it take days, years or even longer to crack a selected password? That’s what How Secure Is My Password will tell you.

Just head over to the service’s website and enter a password in the form. You do not necessarily have to enter a password that you use actively. You can alternatively enter a comparable password to find out how long it would take to hack your password with a brute force, or maybe a combined dictionary and brute force attack.

Experienced computer users know that they need to pick passwords that contain upper and lower case letters, digits as well as special characters to make it secure. Length suggestions vary from 12 to 16 in most cases. The How Secure Is My Password service suggests to use passwords with a length of at least 16 characters.

The password checker can be an eye opener for users who are using weak passwords. You can try out the service here or check our How Secure Is A Password guide for suitable alternatives.

But the service is not only displaying the time it would approximately take to hack your password, it also displays information and tips that can help you select a more secure password. In addition, it compares the selected password against the list of the top 10k passwords used on the Internet.

The estimated time to hack a password is based on the processing power of a modern desktop PC. Depending on the infrastructure used, it may take considerable less time to hack a password.