Techerator

Busy people, rejoice.  Gmail, the primary electronic mail client offered by the giant Google, is getting a simple add-on sometime in the near future (it’s actually rolling out right now, but it will be a week before everybody has it). What does it entail, one might ask?  Well, its a filter.  Not a new spam filter (Gmail already has one of those), but a new new filter that tells you, the u...

Ever have an idea that you’re sure is going to make you rich, only to have forgotten it by the time you get home? Or how about the time you spent all week making a list of things you need the next time you go shopping, only to forget where you put it when the time finally came?  With Simplenote for iPhone (and other iOS devices like the iPod Touch), that’s all in the past. Simplenote ...

So you’ve got a sweet idea for a web application—great, let’s get to work! You’ll need a basic GUI, some sort of user registration, a templating system, logic processing, error handlers, form verification, AJAX processing, and… woah, this is adding up in a hurry. At what point do you get to start making the app itself? What you need is a framework that will accelerate your app developmen...

With school starting for many of our readers (myself included), what better way to celebrate than with another edition of Friday Fun? After all, Flash games are the ultimate procrastination tool! Liferaft: Zero is a devious blend of the setting from Portal, the acrobatics of N, and the frustrating difficulty of Jumper. You play the role of a series of clones, hopping through obstacle courses under...

Never before has a website been so blatantly obvious and honest in it’s function.  HowSecureIsMyPassword.net asks that very simple question;  it’s response is something more or less dramatic, depending on what you type in.  The capital letters are kind of goofy, but it definitely works with the site’s straight-forward approach to telling you how secure (or insecure) your passw...

I’m probably a little over-paranoid, but I always get a slight wave of anxiety before I send an important email.  Questions like “Did I say the right things?”, “Did I address it to the correct person?”, and “Did I refrain from speaking like a pirate?” all rush through my head before I click that ominous little Send button. As a relief to me, Gmail release...

If you’ve played a game on a major gaming platform in the past few years, chances are you’re familiar with achievements. Games on the Xbox 360 have them in the form of a Gamerscore, where certain actions in games gain you points that are displayed in your profile. The Playstation 3 has platinum, gold, silver, and bronze trophies. Most Steam games come with achievements that can be earn...

PHP, MySQL, and Apache have become prominent ingredients in small and large website alike. After all, they are free, robust, and they each have a large community of supporters from which to troubleshoot. However, unless you have a server on which to develop your application, you won’t be able to enjoy these platforms or the, “Hey! Look what I did!” sense of satisfaction inherent ...

Here is the situation: You’re at a party – the girls want to dance and your buddy wants to fist pump like a champ – but no one has any music. You spot an iPod in the corner and take a look at the selection, but all you see are 90’s boy bands and a playlist that only exists in Guitar Hero. But now a spark of genius hits you… Since they have an iPod, they must have a computer! ...

Have you ever been browsing the internet, opened a new link, and suddenly had your entire browser window change size?  This is a trick that web developers can easily do with JavaScript (and was heavily used in the “older” days of the internet) but has become a nuisance in modern times.  If I’ve got a pile of tabs open, I don’t like my newly-opened tab kicking my browser...