Sunday, January 11, 2009

Are My Sites Up? Tracks Multiple Web Sites’ Availability

10:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | Are My Sites Up? is a web-based application for tracking the up time of web sites and sending notifications when they are down. If you need to know immediately if a site is down completely or just unavailable to you, a service like Down For Everyone Or Just Me? is a great tool. If you’d like to monitor a site more consistently and get notifications when there is an interruption in service you’ll need a more advanced tool. Set up a list of up to 50 sites to monitor at the Are My Sites Up? web site. In addition to being able to check the status of the sites on the Are My Sites Up? control panel as seen in the screenshot above, you can also set it to email you and send you an SMS update when one of your monitored sites is down. The service requires no ownership of or modification to the web sites you are monitoring, you can use it on your own site or any site you want to keep an eye on. Are My Sites Up? [via Webware] More »

Microsoft Extends Windows 7 Beta Availability Until January 24th

9:40AM Gina Trapani | Microsoftie Brandon LeBlanc admits that the Windows 7 beta release scramble “was not ideal” and says the company will extend its availability beyond the 2.5M cap until January 24th. We have clearly heard that many of you want to check out the Windows 7 Beta and, as a result, we have decided remove the initial 2.5 million limit on the public beta for the next two weeks (thru January 24th). During that time you will have access to the beta even if the download number exceeds the 2.5 million unit limit. Though their initial underestimation of demand did smack of cluelessness, it’s nice to see Microsoft making amends for a rocky couple of days. As of now you can get the download and the free product key to unlock it by visiting the Windows 7 Beta site straight on (no secret direct download links required). Here’s where we stand [Windows 7 Team Blog] More »

Sublight Helps You Find And Download Subtitles

9:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | Windows only: Sublight is a subtitle organizer with a built in search function. Users can search for movie and television show subtitles in multiple languages. Sublight pulls from several popular subtitle databases to save you the hassle of individual searches on each site. The interface is easy to use, although with television shows especially, it’s best to abandon the automatic search and manually search. For another great subtitle finder, check out Subdownloader. Sublight requires Microsoft .Net 2.0 or greater and is freeware, Windows only. Sublight [via SimpleHelp.net] More »

How To Get Your Windows 7 Beta Product Key

1:54AM Gina Trapani | Reader Digerati offers detailed instructions for getting your Windows 7 beta product key which worked for me (when many of the other tactics people are trying around the Web did not). Here’s what you do. More »

TiltShiftMaker Turns Your Photos Into Miniature Sets

1:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | TiltShiftMaker is a web-based image manipulator designed to give you photos the unique look of photographs taken with a tilt-shift lens for free. What is tilt-shift photography? A lens is used that allows the photographer to tilt the focal plane—in a regular camera the focal plane is fixed in parallel to the film or image sense— and to shift the part of the barrel of the lens up to correct for the distortion in things like tall buildings. One of the more recognisable traits of tilt-shift lenses is how their extremely shallow depth of field creates a feeling that one is looking at a photograph of a tiny model of something instead of the real thing. For the purists, sure it’s cheating. But tilt-shift lenses start at $1200′ish and only rise in cost from there. Most people won’t be running out to buy a lens that expensive for a little hobbyist fun. More »