Global Nerdy

Rentometer
is a Google Maps mashup that could come in handy if you're apartment-hunting. Give it a U.S. address and a few particulars about a
place for rent at that address (monthly rent, number of bedrooms,
number of units in the rental property) and it displays a “rentometer”
showing where it falls in the range of rents in the neighborhood and a
Google Map with markers showing how the rents at nearby rental
properties compare:

Rentometer represents not only a useful service, but also some good UI choices:

• Great visualization: Rentometer's display gives you a very clear picture of the range of neighbourhood rents at a glance, with the “dial” showing you where the given address falls in that range and the Google Map showing you where the cheaper, equivalent and more expensive places are. The old way to present this data would've been with a table; this shows that mashups can be used to deliver information in a more meaningful way.
• Use of appropriate technologies: The Rentometer developers did a good job of playing tools to their strengths: the “rentometer” dial is rendered using Flash while the Google Map is DHTML and JavaScript.

PC Magazine is reporting that Apple's going to poke the hornets' nest in Redmond again:

Apple will step on yet another of Microsoft's toes early next year when the Mac maker unveils the next version of its iWork productivity suite, complete with a new spreadsheet application.

Sources report that iWork '07 will gain this new third component, code-named Lasso, which will go to bat against Microsoft Excel in the consumer and small-office space. The new application will arrive in addition to the upgraded Pages 3 and Keynote 4 programs, Apple's current answers to Word and PowerPoint.

The iWork bundle  is one more example of the good money to be made in simplicity—in this case, fewer features. Microsoft's ubiquitous suite has become so complex and powerful, most users tap only a small fraction of its features. By reducing the feature set, Apple makes it simpler for users to use those features, offering more direct access to functionality.

It's much the same advantage offered by online Office "competitors" like Zoho and Writely Google Docs & Spreadsheets. In all these cases, their developers have seen how less can mean much more for most users of Microsoft Office.

Link

Tags: Apple, Microsoft, iWork, Microsoft Office, simplicity, spreadsheets

Think ROKR missed the mark on mashing up mobile phone with the iPod? BlueEye may be a better way to get the best of both worlds (at least until Apple releases their own sooper seekrit iPhone).

BluEye syncs up with your mobile phone via Bluetooth. When you get a call, it alerts you through your earphones with your ringtone and gives you the option of answering or ignoring the call. If you answer, the hands-free microphone handles all talking duties, while the BluEye pauses the iPod and displays caller ID information on the screen. Missed a call? Scroll through a list of your 9 most recent calls on the iPod, choose a number and BluEye will make the call for you.

No need to haul that mobile out of your pocket for the mundane task of calling someone now.

Link

Tags: iPod, Bluetooth, mobile phone

Well, those iPod nanos look pretty red to me, and that isn't a shade in Apple's current nano color palette, so I guess it's safe to say that Apple has added their iPod to the brands enlisted in the (RED) cause.

Kudos to Apple; Oprah makes a nano look even smaller than it really is, and the money goes to a good cause. A win-win. [via Engadget]

Update: Get the official word from Cupertino here.

Tags: iPod, Apple, Bono, Oprah, (RED)

Bunch of takeaways from this deal: the content distribution network space is consolidation quite rapidly, and all comers are going after Akamai, which continues to stay on top. How long it can stay there? I am not even going to try and guess. Another thing which I must say is that Internap is trying to be network and CDN, a combo with mixed results in the past. Will it work this time?

So network provider Internap bought smallish content distribution network (CDN) Vitalstream, probably on the theory that all the YouTubing the kids are doing is going to mean Fat City for people who can push pixels through the pipes.

Let me add a question to Om's: if all Akamai's competition does is throw incremental improvements at the traditional CDN architecture, is there any reason to believe they'll manage to take a serious chunk out of Akamai's business? I'm much more interested in seeing if/how content distribution around the peer-to-peer edge, fuelled by social networking connections (high-concept pitch: it's BitTorrent meets MySpace and YouTube) changes the way large content gets moved from machine to machine.

Link

Tags: Akami, Internap, Vitalstream, CDN, p2p, BitTorrent

Keyword Assistant for iPhoto: Fantastic idea; any Flickr user would tell you that tagging their pictures makes it much easier to find what they want. Unfortunately, iPhoto's keyword UI and workflow is a bit of a pain in the ass. Looks like someone's done something about it (and for free, no less). [via MacWorld]

Tags: iPhoto, tagging

The Blog Juice Calculator is an amusing diversion for the curious or those who like to obsess over their blog ranking and pageview counts. Given the URL of a weblog, this web application calculates its “juice” (that's street slang for “credibility”, “respect” or “influence” for our non-North American readers) on a scale of 0 to 10. The juice score is based on these factors:

   

       

       

   

   

       

       

   

   

       

       

   

   

       

       

   

   

       

       

   

Factor	Notes
Bloglines	Approximate number of people on Bloglines subscribed to the given blog. Accounts for 40% of the juice score.
Alexa	The Alexa rank for the given blog. Accounts for 15% of the juice score.
Technorati	The Technorati rank for the given blog. Accounts for 30% of the juice score.
Inbound links	The number of links pointing to the given blog, as reported by Technorati. Accounts for 15% of the juice score.

As points of comparison, here are the juice ratings for a few well-known blogs:

• Gizmodo: 9.8
• Boing Boing: 9.6
• Daily Kos: 9.2
• Scripting News: 8.8
• GigaOM: 8.5
• Scobleizer: 8.4
• SEOmoz: 7.4
• Gawker: 6.8
• tmz.com: 5.6

In case you were curious, this blog's juice score is currently 0.2. We've got our work cut out for us.