Filed under: Audio, Business, News, Apple

As much as Amazon mp3 would like to be a thorn in the side of iTunes, the data indicates that the service has had little effect on iTunes’ dominance in digital music sales.

According to a new study by The NPD Group, only 10 percent of all purchasers at Amazon mp3 are converts from Apple’s service, while the rest are switching from other services or new to the whole direct-download music scene.

While 10 percent may sound like a lot to us ordinary folks, it wasn’t worth the eyebrow raise of a single analyst.

The bottom line is, if Amazon mp3 sees itself as the David to iTunes’ Goliath, then their work is definitely cut out for them. Amazon currently sits in fourth place in US music sales, with iTunes and Wal-Mart fighting it out for the top spot, and Best Buy in third.

The troubling statistic for Amazon is that only a tenth of their music sales come from Amazon mp3. The rest come from those archaic compact discs; if you don’t know what we’re talking about, check out your parent’s music collection-maybe they have some laying around.

The question is, my friends, what is keeping Amazon mp3 from biting into sales on iTunes? Is it the poor browsing experience? Is it because Amazon is seen as outside of the iTunes-iPod ecosystem? Are people willing to part with 10 cents more, and put up with DRM, for the sake of iTunes simplicity?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Utilities, Web services, web 2.0

If it turns out that the Internet collapses under the weight of all our uploaded files, we will blame it all on the incredible, and seemingly unstoppable, growth of file upload services like File Dropper.

File Dropper is yet another file upload service that will host your files up to 5 GB. As far as file sharing services go, it couldn’t be easier to use:

On the main File Dropper page, you click the upload button, browse to the file you wish to upload, and the file is automatically uploaded to the File Dropper servers. After the upload is complete, you will be taken to a page with a link to send to your friends or co-workers. All they have to do is follow the link and hit the download button, and the file is theirs.

As a free service, File Dropper meets the basic needs of file sharing: upload, share, and download. If you want more enhanced features, such as the ability to protect your files with a password, or the inclusion of a handy file manager, you’ll have to pony up the dough, with plans starting at $0.99 a month.

When File Dropper first saw the light of day a few weeks ago, its Achilles heel was quickly discovered: the uploads and downloads were terminally slow. Some time has passed since its initial release, so we figured that we’d test it out again:

Continue reading File Dropper: Hosts your files up to 5 GB for free

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Web services, Yahoo!

A few days ago Yahoo! announce it was purchasing IndexTools, a powerful web analytics suite that rivals similar applications from Google and Microsoft. Now IndexTools COO reports that the plan is to offer IndexTools free of charge. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that for now, the free service will only be available to existing clients and partners who accept the new terms of service. Yahoo! won’t be accepting new users until it rolls out the next version of the application and it’s still too early to know when that will take place.

Eventually the free service could offer some serious competition for Google Analytics, one of the most popular free tools for web publishers who want to track reader statistics and optimize their advertising.

[via Techmeme]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Troubleshooting

It used to be that you would need four or five different programs to optimize your system, clean the registry, rename files, capture screens, etc…

That was before RegToy.

RegToy is a freeware utility that is basically a collection of utilities. The program sidebar is broken up into three main categories: System, User, and Others.

The System section allows you to perform seriously arcane apothecary, such as enabling a large system cache, forcing Windows to unload DLLs from memory, setting prefetch and MFT settings, tweaking your video card settings, and more.

In the User section, you have a whole screen dedicated to tweaking Windows Explorer, as well as different customization options for your Taskbar and Start Menu, Icon settings, Logon settings, and more.

In fact, if there’s a statement that best personifies RegToy, it has to be “and more.”

We’ll let you search out what else RegToy has to offer, but if you’re looking for a window manager, registry cleaner, file renamer, screen capturer, memory and disk cleaner, and more…then you should give RegToy a shot.

One warning: the home page loads very slowly. But trust us: it’s worth the wait.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: OS Updates, News, Microsoft

Neowin claims today that they’ve managed to get their hands on an “internal schedule” for the release of Windows XP service pack 3, with the official date of release pegged as April 29th.

On that date, XP service pack 3 will be sent to Microsoft Update, Windows Update, and the Microsoft downloads center. The automatic update to XP service pack 3 will not be pushed to the user until June 10th, presumably in case they find any distressing and cataclysmic hardware incompatibilities in the soft opening.

For a full schedule, you can check it out here.

News of the impending Service Pack release comes along with the fact that XP users are fighting for the survival of Windows XP itself.

It seems like Vista is quickly turning out to be like the new Star Wars movies, while XP represents the original trilogy. The people who weren’t raised on the old trilogy didn’t find the new movies all that bad. The fans that have seen and cherished the old trilogy know how good things can be, and know what an aberration the new movies are.

This Service Pack will likely be the last for XP, unless the save XP users can fight to an unlikely victory.

[via Softpedia]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, Web services, web 2.0

Last month Drew Olanoff and Mashable’s Adam Ostrow acquired ReadBurner from developer Alexander Marktl. This afternoon they’re relaunching the site with a new look and a ton of new features.

ReadBurner is a meme tracker based on Google Reader shared items. We covered the site when it launched. At the time it was simply a repository for shared items from a handful of well known tech bloggers. Now the site features a much more elegant design, categories like Popular, Upcoming, and Most Recent, and subcategory links for All, Web, Desktop, Mobile, and Apple.

There ’s also a related stories section that lets you know if other sites have picked up on story. This feature makes ReadBurner a bit more of a Techmeme competitor than it used to be. And ReadBurner has partnered with Disqus, an online comment system to let users comment on stories. The companies are looking into ways to also make those comments appear on the original blogs where the stories came from. Finally, the site now sports Google Reader integration. Just click the Google Reader tab and your RSS reader will open up on the same page.

While we’re dubious that this will be a true Techmeme or Digg killer, it does look like a good way for casual readers to find tech related news. Since the site relies on users who share their Google Reader link blogs, it’s possible users could start spamming the site when it goes live. But as long as the site is well managed and someone takes care to prune spammy feeds you should see stories from a more diverse set of readers showing up soon.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Looking for a quick way to conduct a poll? Online polling service PollDaddy has added a new Twitter feature that lets you ask a group of people what you should have for lunch, who you should vote for, or anything in between.

Users can set up a poll in a matter of seconds. Just visit the web site, type a short question, and select a few possible answers. You’ll need to enter your Twitter login information in order to send out the poll. PollDaddy will automatically shorten the URL and send out a tweet under your name.

We’re guessing that most users will either see your poll the moment you post it or they won’t see it at all, so this service will be great for Twitter users with a large number of followers who need to get some information quickly. But you can also post links to your poll on a web page or pretty much anywhere else, so you could theoretically use PollDaddy’s Twitter feature to gather information over time as well.

[via WebWare]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Security, Windows, Freeware

Avira has released AntiVir Personal 8.1, a free antivirus appliation. Like popular free antivirus applications from Grisoft and Avast!, Avira offers a free basic security suite in the hopes of convincing some users to spring for a commercial version. The main difference between Avira and the competition, as far as we’re concerned, is that Avira AntiVir will occasionally pop up nagware asking you to upgrade.

Pop ups aside, Avira AntiVir is pretty powerful, and the latest update brings a few improvements like increased scan speed and a redesigned visual interface. Another new feature, which isn’t available in the free version, is the ability to create a system rescue CD.

Unlike some other antivirus applications, you can install AntiVir without uninstalling or even turning off your current antivirus program, which is always a plus.

[via gHacks]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Beta

Syncplicity is a new service that lets you synchronize files between two or more computers. The desktop client is extraordinarily easy to setup and configure, and it synchronizes new and changed files pretty much immediately as long as you’re connected to the internet. Syncplicity also saves a copy of each file to its server so you can access your files from any computer with a web browser.

So far, it all sounds a lot like SugarSync, right? Well, there are a few differences. Syncplicity is Windows only at the moment (although a Mac client is coming later this year), and has no support for mobile devices. But Syncplicity does have one nifty trick up its sleeve: integration with online services like Google Docs and Facebook. So users can automatically synchronize Office documents or Facebook photos.

Syncplicity is free while in beta, but because the service offers users unlimited online storage, the company will eventually start charging a fee. According to WebWare, we can expect prices to be in the $20/month range.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, Windows Mobile, Web services, BlackBerry, Mobile Minute, iPhone

Mowser is a tool that helps you cram full web pages onto the tiny web browser on your cellphone. Just go to the Mowser web site, type in the URL you want to read, and Mowser will strip away all the unnecessary visual information that looks fine on a desktop web browser but bogs down your cellphone.

We first covered Mowser when it launched about a year ago, and we’re sad to tell you that founder Russell Beattie says the product is “at the end of its life in its current form.”

Beattie reports that his company has been having a difficult time raising funds and has been making very little money from advertising. Rather than regroup, Beattie is giving up because he says he doesn’t believe in the “mobile web” anymore.

That’s kind of sad, because the service was fairly useful if you’ve got an old school browser and an old school phone, something interesting is happening with the mobile web. Cellphone users either don’t bother signing up for web service at all, or if they do they’re starting to flock towards devices like the iPhone which can support full web pages without any Mowser-style squashing. The interesting thing about products like Mowser is that they’re designed for yesterday’s mobile web, not tomorrow’s. If Beattie had launched his company in 2004 instead of 2007 it might have been successful. But today the distinctions between the mobile web and the full web are starting to blur, which leaves services like Mowser out in the cold.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments