Offering the biggest storage capacities of all the file hosts on the Internet will surely drive some traffic to a file hoster’s website. Oosah did just that with the announcement that they would offer 1 Terabyte - that is 1024 Gigabytes - to everyone signing up for their file hosting service. And while they surely have calculated with a mean storage usage instead of the maximum it would still be apparent that a free file host would have serious troubles coping with the demand.

The upload limits are 250 Megabytes for video files and 50 Megabytes for mp3 and images. The user guide is still speaking of a 2 Gigabyte limit per user which contradicts the information on the homepage of the service most likely because the user guide has not been updated with the new information.

The options offered by Oosah surely look nice. Besides the storage capacities the service offered Flickr, Youtube, Facebook and Picasa integration, an iPhone client, playlists, galleries, slideshows, public and private sharing and a easy to use web interface.

continue reading "Is It Reasonable To Offer 1 Terabyte of Storage As A File Hoster?"

I never quite understood why most people shy away from going to a library. After all, 9 times out of 10, the information you are looking for is available at your local library. In fact, libraries have an excellent collection, not only of books but also CDs, DVDs, scientific journals, etc.

One common reason people shy away from libraries is that they cannot find what they are looking for. The solution to this problem is to use Worldcat. It is a publicly accessible online interface that lets you search the collections of libraries in your community and around the world.

Worldcat lets you search for books, CDs, DVDs, audio books, journals, and just about anything that a library stocks. The best part is that you can search all the libraries in your area at one go. Just type in your search query and your pin code and voila! a list of all the libraries in your neighborhood with the item you searched for.

continue reading "Use Worldcat to Search Libraries Worldwide"

Just four days ago a post entitled How To Sort Feeds In Google Reader Alphabetically Again was published on Ghacks that helped users of Google Reader to sort their feeds listing alphabetically again. The default sorting is alphabetically which becomes void when the user begins to drag and drop feeds around in Google Reader. Four days ago there was not a way to enable the option to sort feeds alphabetically again.

The only way to enable alphabetically sorting again was to create new folders and add the feeds to them. New folders sort the items alphabetically by default.

A comment by Fernando mentioned that Google added a new Options links beneath the feed list next to Manage Subscriptions in Google Reader that makes it possible to select the default method of sorting the feeds. The option can be set to “alphabetical” or “my order”. Selecting alphabetical will sort all feeds alphabetical again. One interesting aspect of the choice is that users who choose alphabetical will not be able to move feeds around in the same folder in Google Reader. It is still possible to move them to another folder though.

continue reading "Google Reader Now Offering Option To Sort Alphabetically"

You have got casual Internet users and advanced Internet users and the way they search is totally different from each other. The casual Internet users enter a search term in a search engine and go through the results. If they cannot find what they are looking for they either stop in frustration and get the information locally or try another search term. The advanced user refines the search so that the results match exactly what he was looking for.

SortFix is a search mashup for Google, Yahoo and Dmoz that provides a usual search form on first glance. A user can input a search phrase, pick a search engine and wait until the results are showing up. The result pages on the other hand are looking different than the ones known from Google or Yahoo. They still show the search results for the entered search term but they also display four boxes on top which are labeled Power Words, Add To Search, Remove and Dictionary. The options provide access to a fifth box named Standby which can be activated.

SortFix checks the results and adds the search term that the user entered in the search box in the Add To Search box. Power Words are gathered from analysing the search results. Those are related words of the search phrase. A user searching for network monitoring would see words like server, software and protocol analyzer in the Power Words box.

continue reading "SortFix Adds Visual Aids To Search"

Stanford School of Engineering started their Stanford Engineering Everywhere program which provides full computer science courses on a newly created website. This is not only useful to computer trainers but everyone who is interested in computer science in general.

The available courses are divided into three categories which are Introduction to Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Linear Systems and Optimization. Of those courses the Computer Science courses are aimed at beginners while the other two categories provide access to advanced courses.

Courses are made up of an introduction, the actual lessons, handouts, assignments, exams and software. The actual lessons are available as videos which can be watched online and as html / pdf transcripts that can be downloaded to the computer.

continue reading "Computer Trainer"