Filed under: Fun, News

Whether we like it or not, our world runs on numbers. Some people more than others embrace numbers and data. Nick Felton, for one embraces numbers.

Like a major corporation, Nick has been publishing an annual report on data from his life since 2005, and this year's report is now available. The data used for Nick's report was accumulated by distributing cards with an online survey URL to each person with whom he had a meaningful encounter.

The report is gorgeous, with elaborate data visualizations, charts, and graphs all over the place. It's a marvel just to peek at.

But it does leave me feeling a bit strange. Can a life and all of the complex interactions involved with it really be boiled down to some pretty graphs? Should it be?

Is this something you could see yourself wanting to do? How would you feel being asked to fill out a survey for a project like this?

The 2009 Feltron Annual Report originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Download Squad - Uniform Resource Locator - Nick Felton - Feltron Annual Report - Kids and Teens

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

If you love space shooters with tons of customization and upgrades, Enigmata is for you. You start out with one of three ship types and you can build out from there -- upgrading your shields, weaponry, and even the ship itself. As you unlock more achievements, new sections of the store open up, further fueling the addictive upgrade madness.

As for gameplay itself, it's not that challenging if you repeat an easy level several times to collect gold and buff up your ship. However, learning to use special skills like bombs and shield recharging can also be important -- especially when facing some of the tougher end-of-level bosses.

Sometimes enemies drop X icons, which damage your ship, temporarily downgrade your firepower, or even steal your gold. These are avoidable, but they're the most annoying thing in the game. Fortunately, you can buy items that protect you from them as well.

Enigmata can seriously kill a few hours if you find yourself getting obsessed with having the best ship and unlocking all of the black market upgrades. Make sure you don't have any urgent appointments for the rest of the day before you start playing, because you might be there a while.

And god forbid you unlock the Legendary shop ... it contains a very expensive item that transports you to a level where the only enemies are bosses.

Enigmata is a space shooter with tons of upgrades - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Download Squad - game - Video game - Gold - timewaster

Filed under: Features, Social Software, web 2.0

Welcome to Twitter Tuesday! Every week, I'll bring you the latest in new Twitter clients and services, sprinkled with a healthy dose of news and rumors. Twitter Tuesday - please, don't call it Twuesday - follows in the footsteps of Download Squad's other illustrious weekly roundups, Chrome Corner and Firefox Friday Five.

Let's jump right in and talk about what's happening on Twitter this week:

There's a new Android Twitter client in town: Handmark's Tweetcaster. It boasts push notifications, support for multiple accounts, lists, and retweets. There's even built-in URL shortening. The customizable UI candy looks pretty decent, too. Could this be the best Twitter client for Android? Check out the free, ad-supported version or the $4.99 pro version and decide for yourself.

One caveat, though: Tweetcaster's free version makes you send out an annoying tweet about the app when you first launch it. I think that's poor form on Handmark's part, and I'd recommend testing the app on a dummy account to avoid spamming your followers.

Speaking of followers: Download Squad's own Jason Clarke explained why your twitter followers aren't as valuable as you might think. How much would you pay for each of them? Jason Calacanis tried to buy a million at 25 cents a pop, and you can buy followers on eBay for a penny a piece. Do you think that would be worth the cost?
Can Twitter do your taxes? Probably not, but you can now get free tax advice (and TurboTax tech support) from professionals via @teamturbotax.

If you're tired of reading the same tweets from everyone you follow - and after last week's iPad frenzy, who's not? - you might want to try a new site called Cadmus. Cadmus organizes tweets from your friends into related groups, so you can check out topics at a glance, without reading tweet after disorganized tweet on the same subject.

Twitter's San Francisco headquarters was picketed last week by Reverend Fred Phelps' notorious anti-gay protest group Westboro Baptist Church, because Twitter apparently isn't using its influence to promote the church's values. A swarm of hilarious counter-protesters showed up, countering the Phelps crew's "God Hates Fags" signs with some of their own, including "God Hates Retweets." There's already a gallery of humorous signs from the protest, and it's worth checking out if you need a good laugh.

If you're a marketer, someone who talks about "personal brands," or just running a Twitter account for a company, you can pay BrandMyBackground to do a custom design for your Twitter page. Of course, if you don't want to throw away $99, you can do it yourself at freetwitterdesigner.com.

Got a bunch of tweets you need to space out over the course of the day? The creatively-named LaterBro.com is a quick and easy way to schedule Twitter and Facebook posts for publication at the time of your choosing.

There you have it, folks: the inaugural Twitter Tuesday. We even managed to get through it without making up any obnoxious new words that start with "Tw-"!

I'll be back next week with more Twitter news and apps than you can shake a stick at, all in one convenient place.

Twitter Tuesday - this week's Twitter news, apps and more originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter - Westboro Baptist Church - San Francisco - Jason Calacanis - Facebook

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Time-Wasters, Web

If you like retro-style gaming, you're going to love Don't Look Back, which is a modern platformer in a retro style by Terry Cavanagh.

The game manages to create fantastic ambiance with the use of only about 4 colors, and very simple music. The graphics are old-school, which is to say extremely pixelated. The control scheme is also very simple; you can move left and right and jump, and if you're lucky enough to get a gun, shoot it. You can only aim right and left, so you'd better hope the bad guys come to eye level at the right time.

The game opens with your character at a grave site, and he goes on a long adventure. I haven't completed the game yet, so I'm not sure where he's going, but it's the getting there that's the fun part anyway.

Don't Look Back - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Platform game - Download Squad - game - Time Waster - Terry Cavanagh

Filed under: News, Web services, Google

If you read your news in feed form, you're likely familiar with Google Reader's "star" feature. You can click a star to save a story for later, and use your star list for quick reference. Google News has finally added something similar for those who read their news the old-fashioned way. Starring a story adds it to your "starred" menu, accessible via the sidebar, and causes any updates to appear in bold.

Users can only star 20 items at a time, which is a bit of a bummer, but it makes sense. Saving stories for posterity is what Google Reader is for. Google News is better-suited for following breaking headlines, and it's tough to follow more than 20 of those at once. It will be interested to see if Google builds more features around saving, organizing and sharing starred items on Google News, though.

Google News enables stars to help users track breaking stories originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google - Google Reader - googlenews - Download Squad - Searching

Filed under: Developer, Macintosh, Browser Tips, Browsers

I've been using Fluid for a couple of years now to create site-specific browsers on my Mac for certain very useful web applications like Gmail, and Jay points out 10 web apps you should be running on your mac with Fluid. Though the current version of Fluid still works well, it hasn't updated in awhile and that got me curious as to what the developer behind Fuild, Todd Ditchendorf, was currently up to.

It turns out he's currently working on a project called Fluidium, which takes the site-specific browser concept of Fluid, and does two important things: it makes it available to developers so that they can create self-contained SSBs that they can distribute, and it open-sources the code behind Fluidium so that developers can not only use it, but they can make changes as they need.

This is some neat stuff, but as a non-developer my main question was, "when will Fluid be updated?" My question was answered on the Fluidium blog, and the answer is soon. First a small update will be released to address some bug fixes, but later we can expect to see a revamped version of Fluid that takes advantage of some of the rewrites Todd did for Fluidium to make it even better.

I can't wait.

Fluidium lets developers create their own site-specific browsers originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Macintosh - Fluid - Site-specific browser - Download Squad - Gmail

Filed under: Google, Mobile

Google's Android smartphone operating system is clearly aimed at the same customers that might be interested in picking up an Apple iPhone. But it looks like Google may not only be interested in taking the iPhone down a notch or two -- the company is also working to ensure that it's upcoming Chrome OS plays well with tablet computers. You know, like the recently announced Apple iPad.

That's not to say that Chrome OS will run on the iPad. Rather, the operating system, which is designed specifically for netbooks and mobile computers, will feature touchscreen optimizations that will allow PC makers to load it on devices with or without keyboards.

As Lee mentioned yesterday in Chrome Corner, the Chromium developer site has a page dedicated to a concept UI for tablets. It's choc full of mockups of a tablet with an adjustable on-screen keyboard, touchscreen launchers, a zooming interface, and browser tabs that would show up on the side of the screen sort of like the Firefox Mobile.

Right now this is only a concept, and it's not clear if there will be any Google Tablet hardware. But it shows that Google is at least thinking about the touchscreen tablet space. A number of PC makers have also started loading Google Android on tablets. And you know who else is interested in the tablet space? Microsoft. Windows 7 features an on-screen keyboard and a number of touch-friendly features built right into the OS.

It's also probably worth pointing out that the iPad will be able to run 140,000+ iPhone apps at launch, while Windows tablets will be able to run a wealth of Windows software. Any Chrome tablet will be able to run... Chrome, which is basically an entire OS built around a web browser.

You can check out a concept video of a fake Chrome tablet after the break. And if you want to check out a pre-release version of Chrome OS, you might want to check out Hexxeh's latest Chromium OS Zero build which includes a new auto-update feature.

Google Chrome OS could run on tablets, take on the iPad originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Chrome OS - Apple - Google - IPhone - Microsoft

Filed under: Utilities, Web services, Freeware, Web

Nick Felton likes numbers. I mean, he really, really likes numbers. He's the guy that publishes an annual report on his life. So yeah, numbers.

He also created a tool that we briefly mentioned awhile back called Daytum. Daytum is a web application that lets you set up any number of various displays tracking virtually anything you want, and presents it in a beautiful way.

Daytum is a great tool for goal tracking. For example, maybe you want to track how many minutes you run every day, or how many push-ups you've done. Or, if you're Merlin Mann, you can track everything related to writing a book, including your maximum number of words written in a session and your average words per day.

The point is, anything you can think of can be tracked. Daytum includes the ability to create lists, charts, averages, time statistics, and even the latest, largest, or smallest entry.

Are you already using Daytum? Tell us how in the comments.

Daytum lets you track almost anything originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Download Squad - Merlin Mann - Web service - Daytum - Writing

Filed under: OS Updates, Google, Beta

While it didn't land in time for the release of Chrome OS Zero, Hexxeh has now made a script available which bolts on an automatic update feature.

The updater is currently in open beta, and installing it requires a little bit of tinkering via terminal (ctrl + alt + t starts a terminal session on Chromium OS). Follow Hexxeh's instructions, reboot your system or VM, and watch the magic! If you're not totally up-to-date, you'll see a window like the one above.

One of the most welcome fixes is listed at update 2: no more Broadcom delay. If you've been testing Chromium OS on a netbook or laptop running one of their wireless adapters, this is fantastic news!

One note: for the final step of the process, Hexxeh's instructions say to type reboot [enter] in terminal. That didn't work for me -- but sudo reboot did.

Hexxeh's Chromium OS build is one of my favorite independent projects so far this year, and it just keeps getting better. If you've used it, share your thoughts in the comments!

Hexxeh's Chromium OS Zero learns to auto-update originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Operating system - Google Chrome - Google Chrome OS - Download Squad - Hexxeh

Filed under: Utilities, Video, Web services

With the showdown between Apple and Adobe over the relevance (or lack thereof) of Flash video, you're going to be reading an awful lot about HTML5 video in the near future. Although it's not completely ubiquitous yet, YouTube and Vimeo have already started to support HTML5. Things are also looking up for folks who want to use the HTML5 <video> tag to embed videos on their own sites. Jilion, a Swiss development and design house, is nearly ready to publicly launch its slick and sexy HTML5 player, SublimeVideo.

You can already check out a demo of SublimeVideo in Chrome and Safari, or IE with Chrome Frame. When it's done, it will work in Firefox, too. It already sports a nice full-window mode with gorgeous minimize/maximize transitions (full-screen will be supported in the final version), as well as the ability to skip anywhere in the video and have it start buffering from there. SublimePlayer is all HTML5, with no plugins required, but it will eventually include the option to fall back on Flash in Internet Explorer.

Although it's not ready for public release yet, SublimeVideo already looks pretty drool-worthy to me, and if it lives up to its initial promise, I'm excited to use it to embed video on my sites in the future. (And, as John Gruber points out, it'll be viewable on iPhones, too!)

[via Daring Fireball]

SublimeVideo - super-sexy new HTML5 video player originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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YouTube - Apple - HTML5 - Adobe Systems - IPhone