I learned about this visual search tool when I decided to check-in on the Twitlive video stream and ended up watching a Net@Nite discussion between Leo LaPorte and Sarah Lane...

Spezify

I'm not sure it is something I will use regularly. But, it does provide an interesting way to literally "look for something" on the web.

Note: It doesn't render correctly when viewed using Safari 4. However, Firefox 3's rendering looks fine.

Just a quick note that TrueCrypt 6.2a was released on June 15. TrueCrypt is an amazing Open Source encryption app that can create encrypted file containers that are mounted as drives or entire drives (including boot drives). It works with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Adobe's Acrobat.com added a somewhat pricey (compared to most other web services) premium service in addition to its existing free service.

Acrobat.com Premium

The premium service is priced at $39 per month or discounted to $390 if you play for a full year.

You can find a good description of the site's premium service in this CNET article...

I learned about...

Farkie.com

I just learned about the...

BeanShell

...Java scripting language while reading about the new Android Scripting Environment and writing about it for the MobileContentToday blog...

Android Scripting Environment Both Awesome & Frightening

Its installers are are Java jar files. So, I'll guess it can be used on any platform that Java runs on. I'm definitely planning on taking a closer look at it sometime soon.

The Official Google Docs Blog announced...

The file formats keep on coming! Announcing .xlsx and .docx support

This means the Microsoft Office 2007's XML-ish Microsoft Word and Excel file formats are support now. Just in time for Microsoft Office 2010 :-)

Interesting item from Microsoft's Port25 site...

Announcing the PHP SDK for Windows Azure

I found this part of the announcement equally interesting...

Microsoft has provided funding for two other SDKs that support third party programming languages: Java SDK for Microsoft .NET Services and Ruby SDK for Microsoft .NET Services so as to facilitate interoperability between the Azure Services Platform and non-Microsoft languages and technologies.

ServerFault.com may not be the best name for a website, but if you are a system administrator or IT professional, you might want to consider bookmarking it. It is a Q&A site for this group of people with a Digg-like look and voting structure. Here's how their About page description starts out:

I'm way behind in listening to the Security Now podcast featuring Steve Gibson. So, I just listened to Security Now 189 (March 26, 2009). This particular podcast episode focuses on Internet Explorer 8. However, Gibson discussed an anecdotal, but very interesting, finding before the jumping into the main podcast topic. He mentioned that a friend's notebook became infected by malware. He tried the free editions of both AVG and Avast anti-virus.

YouTube video courtesy of Google

The U.S. Government's...

Data.gov

...is up and running.

The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.

I'm looking forward to dipping into it to see what is there and hope to see a bunch of cool web-data mashups resultings from its availability.

Interesting item over on Growlaw that should be read by anyone who might use a result from the WolframAlpha computational query engine...

Terms of Use: A Real Difference Between Wolfram|Alpha and Google

WolframAlpha wants full citation credit for anything it generates that is used in a publication according to Groklaw.

The WolframAlpha computational query engine continues to amaze and amuse me. If it could speak answers to queries in the late Majel Roddenberry's voice (voice of the various Enterprise computers), it would really feel like getting a response from a Star Trek computer.

Here's a couple of amusing exercises you can try typing:

- sin(x) cos(y)
You can see a small part of WolframAlpha's response above

- Type in the first names of your family members in the text entry box

I use bit.ly to shorten all the URLs (web addresses) I share on Twitter (I'm @toddogasawara on Twitter) because it keeps track of how many times a shortened bit.ly generated URL is clicked. So, it gives me an idea of how interested other people are about a particular item or topic.

Wolfram Alpha is described in its About page as:

Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

Interesting item from eaves.ca...

vancouver enters the age of the open city

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of Vancouver endorses the principles of:

- Open and Accessible Data - the City of Vancouver will freely share with citizens, businesses and other jurisdictions the greatest amount of data possible while respecting privacy and security concerns;

If you've ever wondered how fast the DNS (Domain Name Service) server you use is, check out Steve Gibson's freeware...

DNS Benchmark

Its product page says it is not quite production ready yet. However, this forum post

Functionally COMPLETE DNSB online for testing

Good news for MySQL fans (like me). MySQL founder Monty Widenius and Peter Zaitsev announced the formation of the...

Open Database Alliance

Its stated purpose is to be: