Country Level Domain Name - Worldwide registries

What is domain name?

Domain names are hostnames that provide more memorable names to stand in for numeric IP addresses. They allow for any service to move to a different location in the topology of the Internet (or another internet), which would then have a different IP address. Domain names allow Internet users to easily find and communicate with Web sites and other server-based services.



What is domain name registrar?

A domain name registrar is a company accredited, either by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), or by a national ccTLD authority or both, to register Internet domain names. ICANN has authority over gTLDs, or Generic Top Level Domains. Examples of gTLDs include .com, .net and .org. ICANN does not have authority over ccTLDs, or Country Code Top-Level Domains, though it is quite common for domain name registrars to offer ccTLD registration services as well. Most registrars provide DNS hosting service, but this is not required, and is often considered a separate service.



ccTLD - Country Level Domain Name - Worldwide registries

• .ac Ascension Island Domain Registration Extensions


• .ad Andorra Domain Registration Extensions


• .ae United Arab Emirates Domain Registration Extensions


• .aero Aviation Domain Registration Extensions


• .af Afghanistan Domain Registration Extensions


• .ag Antigua and Barbuda Domain Registration Extensions


• .ai Anguilla Domain Registration Extensions


• .al Albania Domain Registration Extensions


• .am Armenia Domain Registration Extensions


• .an Netherlands Antilles Domain Registration Extensions


• .ao Angola Domain Registration Extensions


• .aq Antarctica Domain Registration Extensions


• .ar Argentina Domain Registration Extensions


• .as American Samoa Domain Registration Extensions


• .at Austria Domain Registration Extensions


• .au Australia Domain Registration Extensions


• .aw Aruba Domain Registration Extensions


• .az Azerbaijan Domain Registration Extensions


• .ba Bosnia and Herzegovina Domain Registration Extensions


• .bb Barbados Domain Registration Extensions


• .bd Bangladesh Domain Registration Extensions


• .be Belgium Domain Registration Extensions


• .bf Burkina Faso Domain Registration Extensions


• .bg Bulgaria Domain Registration Extensions


• .bh Bahrain Domain Registration Extensions


• .bi Burundi Domain Registration Extensions


• .biz Business Organizations Domain Registration Extensions


• .bj Benin Domain Registration Extensions


• .bm Bermuda Domain Registration Extensions


• .bn Brunei Darussalam Domain Registration Extensions


• .bo Bolivia Domain Registration Extensions


• .br Brazil Domain Registration Extensions


• .bs Bahamas Domain Registration Extensions


• .bt Bhutan Domain Registration Extensions


• .bv Bouvet Island Domain Registration Extensions


• .bw Botswana Domain Registration Extensions


• .by Belarus Domain Registration Extensions


• .bz Belize Domain Registration Extensions


• .ca Canada Domain Registration Extensions


• .cat Catalan language and culture Domain Registration Extensions


• .cc Cocos (Keeling) Islands Domain Registration Extensions


• .cd Congo, Democratic republic of the (former Zaire) Domain Registration Extensions


• .cf Central African Republic Domain Registration Extensions


• .cg Congo, Republic of Domain Registration Extensions


• .ch Switzerland Domain Registration Extensions


• .ci Cte d'Ivoire Domain Registration Extensions


• .ck Cook Islands Domain Registration Extensions


• .cl Chile Domain Registration Extensions


• .cm Cameroon Domain Registration Extensions


• .cn China Domain Registration Extensions


• .co Colombia Domain Registration Extensions


• .com Commercial Domain Registration Extensions


• .coop Co-Operative Organizations Domain Registration Extensions


• .cr Costa Rica Domain Registration Extensions


• .cs Czechoslovakia (former non-existing) Domain Registration Extensions


• .cu Cuba Domain Registration Extensions


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• .cx Christmas Island Domain Registration Extensions


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• .es Spain Domain Registration Extensions


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• .fi Finland Domain Registration Extensions


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• .fk Falkland Islands Domain Registration Extensions


• .fm Micronesia Domain Registration Extensions


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• .gf French Guiana Domain Registration Extensions


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• .gi Gibraltar Domain Registration Extensions


• .gl Greenland Domain Registration Extensions


• .gm Gambia Domain Registration Extensions


• .gn Guinea Domain Registration Extensions


• .gov US Government Domain Registration Extensions


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• .gr Greece Domain Registration Extensions


• .gs South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Domain Registration Extensions


• .gt Guatemala Domain Registration Extensions


• .gu Guam Domain Registration Extensions


• .gw Guinea-Bissau Domain Registration Extensions


• .gy Guyana Domain Registration Extensions


• .hk Hong Kong Domain Registration Extensions


• .hm Heard and McDonald Islands Domain Registration Extensions


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• .ht Haiti Domain Registration Extensions


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• .id Indonesia Domain Registration Extensions


• .ie Ireland Domain Registration Extensions


• .il Israel Domain Registration Extensions


• .im Isle of Man Domain Registration Extensions


• .in India Domain Registration Extensions


• .info Open TLD Domain Registration Extensions


• .int International Organizations Domain Registration Extensions


• .io British Indian Ocean Territory Domain Registration Extensions


• .iq Iraq Domain Registration Extensions


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• .jobs Jobs Domain Registration Extensions


• .jp Japan Domain Registration Extensions


• .ke Kenya Domain Registration Extensions


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• .kp Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Domain Registration Extensions


• .kr Korea, Republic of Domain Registration Extensions


• .kw Kuwait Domain Registration Extensions


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• .la Lao People's Democratic Republic Domain Registration Extensions


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• .lr Liberia Domain Registration Extensions


• .ls Lesotho Domain Registration Extensions


• .lt Lithuania Domain Registration Extensions


• .lu Luxembourg Domain Registration Extensions


• .lv Latvia Domain Registration Extensions


• .ly Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Domain Registration Extensions


• .ma Morocco Domain Registration Extensions


• .mc Monaco Domain Registration Extensions


• .md Moldova Domain Registration Extensions


• .mg Madagascar Domain Registration Extensions


• .mh Marshall Islands Domain Registration Extensions


• .mil US Dept of Defense Domain Registration Extensions


• .mk Macedonia Domain Registration Extensions


• .ml Mali Domain Registration Extensions


• .mm Myanmar Domain Registration Extensions


• .mn Mongolia Domain Registration Extensions


• .mo Macau Domain Registration Extensions


• .mobi Mobile devices Domain Registration Extensions


• .mp Northern Mariana Islands Domain Registration Extensions


• .mq Martinique Domain Registration Extensions


• .mr Mauritania Domain Registration Extensions


• .ms Montserrat Domain Registration Extensions


• .mt Malta Domain Registration Extensions


• .mu Mauritius Domain Registration Extensions


• .museum Museums Domain Registration Extensions


• .mv Maldives Domain Registration Extensions


• .mw Malawi Domain Registration Extensions


• .mx Mexico Domain Registration Extensions


• .my Malaysia Domain Registration Extensions


• .mz Mozambique Domain Registration Extensions


• .na Namibia Domain Registration Extensions


• .name Personal Domain Registration Extensions


• .nc New Caledonia Domain Registration Extensions


• .ne Niger Domain Registration Extensions


• .net Networks Domain Registration Extensions


• .nf Norfolk Island Domain Registration Extensions


• .ng Nigeria Domain Registration Extensions


• .ni Nicaragua Domain Registration Extensions


• .nl The Netherlands Domain Registration Extensions


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• .np Nepal Domain Registration Extensions


• .nr Nauru Domain Registration Extensions


• .nu Niue Domain Registration Extensions


• .nz New Zealand Domain Registration Extensions


• .om Oman Domain Registration Extensions


• .org Organizations Domain Registration Extensions


• .pa Panama Domain Registration Extensions


• .pe Peru Domain Registration Extensions


• .pf French Polynesia Domain Registration Extensions


• .pg Papua New Guinea Domain Registration Extensions


• .ph Philippines Domain Registration Extensions


• .pk Pakistan Domain Registration Extensions


• .pl Poland Domain Registration Extensions


• .pm St. Pierre and Miquelon Domain Registration Extensions


• .pn Pitcairn Domain Registration Extensions


• .pr Puerto Rico Domain Registration Extensions


• .ps Palestine Domain Registration Extensions


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• .py Paraguay Domain Registration Extensions


• .qa Qatar Domain Registration Extensions


• .re Reunion Domain Registration Extensions


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• .su USSR (former) Domain Registration Extensions


• .sv El Salvador Domain Registration Extensions


• .sy Syrian Arab Republic Domain Registration Extensions


• .sz Swaziland Domain Registration Extensions


• .tc The Turks & Caicos Islands Domain Registration Extensions


• .td Chad Domain Registration Extensions


• .tf French Southern Territories Domain Registration Extensions


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• .th Thailand Domain Registration Extensions


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• .to Tonga Domain Registration Extensions


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• .tr Turkey Domain Registration Extensions


• .travel Travelling Domain Registration Extensions


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• .ua Ukraine Domain Registration Extensions


• .ug Uganda Domain Registration Extensions


• .uk United Kingdom Domain Registration Extensions


• .um United States Minor Outlying Islands Domain Registration Extensions


• .us United States Domain Registration Extensions


• .uy Uruguay Domain Registration Extensions


• .uz Uzbekistan Domain Registration Extensions


• .va Holy See (Vatican City State) Domain Registration Extensions


• .vc Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Domain Registration Extensions


• .ve Venezuela Domain Registration Extensions


• .vg Virgin Islands British Domain Registration Extensions


• .vi Virgin Islands U.S Domain Registration Extensions


• .vn Vietnam Domain Registration Extensions


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• .wf Wallis and Futuna Islands Domain Registration Extensions


• .ws Samoa Domain Registration Extensions


• .ye Yemen Domain Registration Extensions


• .yt Mayotte Domain Registration Extensions


• .yu Yugoslavia Domain Registration Extensions


• .za South Africa Domain Registration Extensions


• .zm Zambia Domain Registration Extensions


• .zr Zaire (non-existent, see Congo) Domain Registration Extensions


• .zw Zimbabwe Domain Registration Extensions

Adding emotions to online video

Having difficulty finding the right videos amidst the chaos on YouTube? A recent survey suggests you’re not alone.



But happily, there may soon be an easier way to tell whether the video in front of you will meet your expectations. A team of researchers led by Ling Chen of Zhejiang University in China is working on a new media player – called Emoplayer - that highlights the emotional state of the characters on the video timeline (see image, left).



Ultimately, they’d like to adapt technology that senses a person's emotional state to automatically add these tags to video clips. But that’s not possible just yet, so users have to add them by hand.



Still, experiments with Emoplayer suggests that these emotional markers let users navigate the content of a video much more easily and quickly than is possible with standard media players.



Testers were asked to search for a specific scene in a video, for example the moment when a character receives a gift from a friend. Those using ordinary media players randomly clicked around on the timeline until they found the right moment, but Emoplayer users, who made use of the emotion markers, were able to find it with ease.



Given this encouraging result, could the use of emotional tags improve sites like YouTube? Perhaps they’d help us all narrow down video searches and reduce our frustration?

Are these the chemical elements of the web?

Are Yahoo and Wikipedia really the Hydrogen and Helium of the World Wide Web? And is Fark the rutherfordium?



They sure are, according to this Periodic Table of the Internet.



It's a nice idea and I can sort of see the logic behind it. But I can't help thinking Google should be up there with Wikipedia at the top. I'm also a bit sad that NewScientist didn't make the table, especially since we're one of the most linked-to sites on the web. How about making us the equivalent of something like Mendelevium guys? Can anyone see any other glaring omissions?



Will Knight, online technology editor

No-limit artificial intelligence

Checkers (or "draughts") has just been cracked. Chess hasn’t yet, but it might as well have been. Inevitably, and for some time, poker has been on the cards (see what I did there?).



Now even "no-limit" poker is being put to the test, as AI gurus pit their program (Polaris) against two human pros - Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Ali Eslami - in a 500-hand competition being held at the AAAI-07 conference in Vancouver, Canada, tonight.



"Limit" Texas hold 'em, in which the bets in each round are of fixed amounts, has long been well-handled by computers. The parameters and probabilities can easily be quantified. In fact, if you log into any online poker site, the chances are that several players at the table are being told what to do by poker analysis software running alongside their game. "Pot limit", in which you can bet anything up to the amount already in the pot, adds a level of complexity.



But only "no limit" poker elevates the game to something of an art form. Sure, there are still probabilities to calculate, risk versus reward, speculation and so forth, but the sheer fact that, in any betting round, you can decide to push all your chips into the middle takes the game to another level altogether. This is the challenge facing Polaris in Vancouver.



However, anyone who knows poker – and I’ve been playing and studying the game for 15 years – will tell you that, over the course of one evening, even an average player may beat a top-ranking professional. This is because there is such a significant element of luck in the short-term. You can make the right decisions all night only to come out behind. Over time, however, the luck evens out and the good players rise to the top.



The team behind Polaris hope to eliminate "luck" in a clever way. The system will play both pros separately but simultaneously: the cards received by Laak will automatically be the same as those dealt to the computer playing against Ali Eslami. Similarly, the cards played by Eslami will also be the same as those dealt to the version playing Laak. It’s a nice idea and I am very curious to see how it turns out. The art of the bluff, much overplayed in Hollywood, is a very tough skill to develop. I wonder if the pros will sense a computer bluff, having no human opponent to scrutinise...



But I also have a worry. It may be cutting edge poker AI, and they may have evened out the luck to some extent, but poker is nevertheless a game where one session, even a 500-hand session, is a very brief experimental period.



If the pros win tonight, and I hope they do, it won't prove once and for all that humans still have mastery over poker machines. Likewise, if the machine wins, it certainly won't show that humans no longer rule no-limit hold ‘em poker. It is an interesting experiment, but we must keep it in perspective, whatever the outcome.



Sean O’Neill, New Scientist magazine sub-editor

The prosthetic limb revolution has arrived

Last week, a Scottish company called Touch Bionics unveiled a "bionic hand" for amputees, called the i-LIMB.



It is billed as the most sophisticated prosthetic hand commercial available, as it lets the wearer assume different grips by sensing electrical impulses in the muscles in their upper arm. Even delicate grips, such as holding a key are possible, (see image, left).



You can see it in action, and hear a bit more about its capabilities, in the video below, which we created from footage provided by Touch Bionics.






It's an impressive-looking device, and it certainly seems to have made a big impression on those who have tested it. But it's also just one of many novel prosthetic technologies out there. Here's a quick round-up of some other interesting projects from around the world.



At Southampton University, UK, one team is working on a robotic hand capable of sensing as well as manipulation (see image, right. Credit: Southampton University).



Small sensors fitted to each fingertip let the hand know when an object is being gripped too tightly or too gently, and even if it's too hot to handle. Currently, the hand must be programmed to respond to this information. But eventually, the researchers believe this sensory information could be fed directly back to the wearer.



In the US, a woman called Claudia Mitchel is testing a whole-arm prosthetic, which was developed by researchers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. The arm connects to muscles in her chest, rather than her upper arm, requiring various muscle nerves to be "rewired" beforehand. Eventually, however, this set-up could also let her "feel" feedback from the arm.



And finally, a thought-controlled bionic limb is being developed by a Massachusetts-based company called Cyberkinetics. The company has implanted 100-electrodes on top of the motor cortex of a paralysed man called Matt Nagle, allowing him to operate a computer, or a prosthetic arm, using his thoughts. An recent article from New Scientist magazine describes this project and similar efforts to connect prosthetics to the brain - Artificial limbs wired direct to the brain (subscription required).



Video: Sandrine Ceurstemont, online content editor

Words: Will Knight, online technology editor

World Wide Web goes underground

Following on from last week's post about the Periodic Table of the Internet, here's another interesting re-imagining of the World Wide Web, this time in the form of a map of the Tokyo metro. It was created by Information Architects Japan and I think it's almost as confusing as the real thing.



Unfortunately New Scientist is absent. Perhaps we'll have to create our own "map" of the web, just to get ourselves a prominent position.



Will Knight, online technology editor

Dodging the Digg effect

I spent several hours last night trying to work out how to get my girlfriend's website back online after one of her blog posts got picked up by Digg.



It wasn't actually the Digg effect that brought the site tumbling down. Rather, a concerned sys-admin pulled the plug after noticing a sudden and alarming upturn in network traffic. I think they thought a script had gone berserk or the site was suffering some sort of a DDoS attack. Someone then set up a redirect to a mirror, but for some reason it didn't work, and so the site was basically inaccessible.



To some degree, it's understandable, since the site is maintained on pretty basic hosting package. But it also highlights a frustrating Catch-22, which I suspect other small sites may suffer from. On the one hand, they can't afford a fancy hosting service until their site gets a more successful and, on the other hand, it'll never be a success unless they can carry on getting Dugg or Slashdotted.



I suspect there must be some sort of technical solution. Perhaps there's a way to automatically create a mirror once your site gets Dugg or Slashdotted. I haven't been able to find one yet, but maybe I just don't know where to look?



Will Knight, online technology editor

Hollywood physics - is it all science fiction?

Are Hollywood movies contributing to scientific illiteracy? Costas Efthimiou and Ralph Llewellyn, two physicists at the University of Central Florida, US, certainly seem to think so.



Efthimiou and Llewellyn just published a paper called Hollywood Blockbusters: Unlimited fun but limited science literacy, which highlights some glaring physical impossibilities in several popular films.



They say blockbuster films like Speed, Superman II, Spider-Man, The Core and the X-Men all break the laws of physics routinely. And, while this is hardly surprising, since most are "science fiction" movies, they suggest it could ultimately be damaging for some viewers. Especially younger ones who simply accept what they see as just a slightly modified version of reality.



Take, for example, The Core (trailer here, see image, left) a film in which the outer core of the Earth has stopped rotating due to military experiments. Members of a scientific team descend 1000 km into the Earth's interior, to help restore its rotation no less! And yet, they still walk and move normally. This is clearly impossible, Efthimiou and Llewellyn point out, since the force of gravity nearer the centre of the Earth would considerably less than that at its surface.



This blunder is just one of many described in the paper, which is an altogether amusing read. There's also a woeful misrepresentation of Newtonian physics in Spider-Man, when the Green Goblin holds Mary Jane in one hand and a tramway cable in the other (trailer here). And, in The Chronicles of Riddick (trailer here), there's a choice moment when Vin Diesel swings through 700ºC sunshine by dousing himself in water.



It might be amusing for people with a science background, but Efthimiou and Llewellyn aren’t too impressed. "Hollywood is thus reinforcing (or even creating) incorrect scientific attitudes that can have negative results for society," they write.



But it is all bad news? Perhaps not. The pair says that such mistakes can also be used to teach students abut the fundamental principles of physics. Indeed, Efthimiou and Llewellyn run a course together at Central Florida called Physics in Films that discusses these topics.



Hollywood might have a habit of breaking the laws of physics, but that doesn't mean students can't learn from their mistakes.



Belle Dumé, New Scientist contributor

Buckaroo for the big boys

About a year ago, we ran a story about a four-legged "robotic pack-mule" being developed for the US military by a company called Boston Dynamics. This video shows what appears to be a new prototype called BigDog. It seems more energetic than the original, and even has the ability to leap over obstacles (01:55 secs).

Such a gasoline-powered beast of burden could eventually be used to lug heavy packs around for soldiers travelling on foot. Sensors feed information to an on-board computer that makes rapid adjustments to each of its four hydraulically-driven legs to keep BigDog balanced. The resulting movement is surprisingly life-like, and lets the robot navigate uneven ground and keep itself steady even when given a hefty kick.



Will Knight, online technology editor

Return of the mechanical computer?

Is the mechanical computer about to make a comeback? It's an interesting possibility that is raised in a paper in the latest edition of the New Journal of Physics. In it, Robert Blick and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison explain how a fully-mechanical nanoscale computing device might be constructed.



Blick and colleagues suggest that a nanomechanical computer (NMC) could be constructed by linking together lots of nanoelectromechanical single-electron transistors (NEMSETs), which would perform the most basic logical operations. These devices process information using the movement of a nanoscopic pillar (see image, bottom right). Many different NEMSET devices could, in theory, be connected mechanically to form a much larger, more complicated logical circuit, the researchers say.



The idea is a long way from the earliest computers, like the difference engine (see image, top left) or the analytical engine devised by Charles Babbage, or the Antikythera Mechanism of ancient Greece.



But Blick and colleagues say a nanomechanical computer could have several key advantages over a silicon computer architecture. It ought to waste less power, should be less vulnerable to electromagnetic interference, and could work at far higher temperatures, the team says.



This could make the mechanical computer of the future ideally suited to use aboard spacecraft, in military devices, and inside high-temperature machinery.



Source: BBC



Will Knight, online technology editor

Choir hopes for a good time on the web

Anyone who sings in a large choir will be familiar with the problem of acoustic lag - the 1/50th of a second it takes sound to travel from one end of a large stage to another. Although barely perceptible, this lag can interfere with the singers' timing, and it is the bane of choir directors everywhere.



But Barry Cheetham has a far bigger problem. He wants to direct an "internet choir", with singers separated by a up to a thousand miles performing simultaneously. It'll be more challenging than even the roomiest stage, but that doesn't deter Cheetham.



"It is a passion. I can't pretend otherwise. I do love singing. But I'm primarily a computer scientist," says Cheetham, a senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, and a bass in the university chorus.



The big issue is latency - the lag from the time a signal is sent to the time an answer is received. For a telephone conversation, latency of up to 300 milliseconds is considered acceptable. For musicians trying to perform together, even 50 ms is a problem. Unfortunately, 50 ms is also a pretty typical latency on a commercial broadband connection.



So Cheetham is trying to get funding to build an experimental network than can reduce the lag to acceptable levels. If he succeeds, the same research could mean better internet telephony and improved remote robotics.



Ultimately, he dreams of amateur choruses from around Europe teaming up to sing Bach or Handel together - with everyone starting and ending at the same time.



Kurt Kleiner, New Scientist contributor

robots' emotions

What if robots not only seemed emotional, but acted on their emotions too? This is the idea behind a project to give a robot called the iCAT, (one of Time magazine's best invention of 2005) "emotional logic", as outlined in this Technology Review article.



The robot itself is made by a team at Philips Research as a tool for experimenting with human-robot interactions. It features speech recognition and servomotors that generate a wide variety of facial expressions to simulate different emotions. See videos of iCAT in action here and here.



And now, Mehdi Dastani and colleagues at Utrech University in the Netherlands are using the robot to test out 22 artificial emotions - including anger, hope, fear and joy - that determine its behaviour.



The Dutch scientists believe that assuming these "emotional" states could help robots perform complicated tasks without getting too bogged-down in planning and analysis. During navigation, for example, many sophisticated robots repeatedly analyse their position and strategy, requires plenty of computer power.



A robot with artificial emotions could perform much less analysis, relying instead on its "feelings". Once it sees that its current plan is going wrong it would become "fearful" and this would modify its behaviour from that point onwards.



Ultimately, Dastani thinks robot "emotions" could help machines interact with people in more sophisticated ways.



Personally, I think it would be interesting to see how such emotionally controlled robots could help with therapy for autism. Over the past few years, several studies have shown that autistic children benefit from interacting with robots. It encourages the development of social skills like making eye contact and paying attention to others. Perhaps an emotioPublish Postnal iCAT could provide a whole new perspective on emotions and social cues.



Magdalena Kogutowska, New Scientist contributor

Cool Websites and Tips

• eSnailer - send free postal letters to anywhere in the U.S.


• Glubble - here is something for your little ones. Gubble is a free and impressive parental control suite for Firefox. It turns your browser into a locked environment where kids can only surf Gubble-approved sites.


• l8r - service to compose and schedule future emails. “… many people use l8r to email their future selves and track personal goals.” (free account limited to 3 pending messages at a time). Alternatively, checkout FutureMail or Thunderbird’s Send Later.


• Phozi - simple service that lets you add some fun to your images.Share them with others on your profile (Myspace, Facebook, iGoogle, Xanga, etc.).


• Plaxo - excellent web-based address book, Calendar and ToDo list service. Syncs with Microsoft (Hotmail, …), Google (Gmail, Gcal), Yahoo, AOL, the Mac, Thunderbird, and mobile phones.


• Sk-rt - Digg-like news service for girls.


• SocialPoster - handy configurable utility for submitting websites to multiple social networks and bookmarking sites all at once.


• Yuntaa - online file storage, backup and sharing service. Features: file sharing, easy image/video/audio sharing, backup/restore services, sync. yuntaa-stored files with your desktop, and more. (Free account is restricted to 1GB of storage)

Cool Articles and Tips:

• Hack DNS for lightning-fast Web browsing [computerworld.com] - Quick tip to speed-up your connection speed.


• New Antivirus Rankings [tech.cybernetnews.com] - Find out which one is better.


• Podcasting Toolbox: 70+ Podcasting Tools and Resources [mashable.com]


• HowTo: Create an RSS embedded desktop [instructables.com via LifeHacker] - Haven’t tried it myself, but looks cool.


• Have a say in what Google says about you [lifehacker.com]

Cool Websites and Tips

• DesktopNexus - huge gallery of free desktop wallpapers.


• eBookSearchr | JustFreeBooks - two comprehensive ebook search engines.


• Panjea - create and share your own broadcast channel featuring your fav. web videos in customized video player.


• Perian (Mac OSX) - handy Quicktime addon that integrates support for many popular video formats: AVI, FLV, MKV, MPEG4 , DivX, subtitle support (SSA, SRT) and lots more.


• Stopwatch - online stopwatch and count-down timer. Also available as a widget (Mac Dashboard, Vista Sidebar) or a stand-alone program.


• TXTdrop - send free Mobile text messages to anywhere in US or Canada. Extras: get it as widget (Mac, Win), add it to your blog or Myspace profile.


• Voki - free service for creating customized talking avatars that can be added to your blog or web-profile. More features to come.


• Wis.dm - fun website where you can ask users whatever YES/NO style questions you have, stir discussions and get dozens of quick replies within the first hour.


• YotubeRemixer - easy-to-use video editing tool from Youtube. Let’s you keep an original file and assemble a new video in a drag’n drop timeline. Mix videos, add photos, background music, graphic effects, transitions, etc.


• World’s biggest mouse cursor.

Cool Articles and Tips

• 230+ Keyboard shortcuts for top web services [mashable.com]


• iPhone: excellent iPhone Review [engadget.com] + Top 25: Web Apps for the iPhone [rev2.org]


• 20 Firefox extensions that will save you money [savingadvice.com]


• Are you sure that you are using the best word processor? [donationcoder.com]


• Superb Airbrush PhotoShop tutorial [tutorialdash.com]

Cool FREE Widget Platforms for your PC

Widgets are tiny nice-looking programs that can do all sorts of interesting stuff ranging from the addition of a simple desktop clock or weather tool to a feature-rich video player. In many cases the purpose of a desktop widget is to bring functionality of the website (or at least part of it) right to your desktop. There are several platforms that can bring widgets to your PC, below I present to you some of the bigger and better ones.

Note: If you’re a Mac or Win. Vista user this is something you’re already familiar with, as both of these operating systems come with an inbuilt widget platform. Unless you’re interested in a slightly different alternative than feel free to skip everything from 1-5 and jump directly to 6.

(1) Yahoo Widgets (Win, Mac)

Yahoo Widgets comes with the biggest widget gallery, featuring over 4000 custom user-contributed widgets. Widgets are nicely categorized, commented on and rated by users. We have already written about Yahoo Widgets here.

(2) Google Gadgets (Win, Mac, Linux)

Google gadgets is one of the goodies that comes with the Google Dektop software. Basically, these are the same gadgets that can be added to your personal Google Homepage (aka iGoogle). Check out full gadget gallery here (approx. 350 gadgets).

(3) Opera Widgets (Win, Mac, Linux)

To run Opera widgets you’ll need an Opera Browser (version 9 or above). To get an idea on the kind of widgets you get and how they look, check out ‘top downloaded widgets’ section here.

(4) Adobe AIR (Win, Mac)

Adobe AIR (formerly ‘Apollo’) is a “cross-operating system runtime …” OR in simpler terms, a tool that can be used to run certain web services right on your desktop which results in a faster and much more interactive experience. For instance, once you install Adobe AIR you can run any Yourminis web widget right on your desktop. See some more examples here.

(5) Klipfolio (Win)

Klipfolio is a powerful personal dashboard and sidebar for windows users. It’s highly-customizable and counts over 4000 embeddable widgets (aka Klips). And unlike all other widgets, Klips are rather compact and tiny in size. Thus, Klipfolio can accommodate lots more Klips on its sidebar than any other widget sidebar.

(6) AmnestyGenerator (extra for Mac OSX Dashboard / Win Vista Sidebar) - this isn’t a widget platform but a really handy utility that can grab any web embeddable widget (i.e. for blogs, Myspace) and convert it to work on Vista Sidebar or Mac Dashboard.