Thumbalizr: A Really Good Idea, If It Worked

Thumbalizr is a newish online image tool that allows users to take screen shots of web pages.

Users can customize the dimensions of each screenshot taken, from standard sizes through to a custom option. Screen shots can consist of an entire page, or just a standard screen shot. To use Thumbalizr, users simply type the URL of the site they require a screenshot of, and hit the “thumb it” button. The image is then available for download in various sizes by pixel.

Thumbalizer is a really good idea; I’m a regular creator of web page screenshots so to not have to manually take a screen shot, open it in Photoshop, crop it, resize it, save it then upload it appeals to me, as I’m sure it would to others who frequently create screenshots. There is only one significant problem with Thumbalizr: it regularly doesn’t work. It happily made screenshots of TechCrunch, but it failed on a range of other sites. Hopefully they will fix the issues shortly.

Technorati Loses A “Great Leader.” PodTech Also Loses CEO

We’ve all known that blog search engine Technorati and videocasting site PodTech weren’t doing particularly well: that both companies were conducting CEO searches. But today the bloodletting became real.

PodTech CEO John Furrier is out. James McCormick, the COO, steps up to the CEO position. The company also announced that 1938 Media is no longer partnering with them, which is a real loss.

Technorati is a bit more complicated. Dave Sifry, the founder, is no longer CEO. And surprisingly, he is no longer an employee with the Company at all. And no one is replacing him yet.

Sifry said previously that he’d stay with the company: “I expect to resume a more active role in product development.” Today the message was the opposite: “I would go ahead and transition to the board exclusively.”

Teresa Malo, CFO, Dorion Carroll Vice President of Engineering and Derek Gordon, Vice President of Marketing, now jointly run the company.

Sifry’s last blog post as CEO of the company was representative of his entire tenure - vague and cold. Layoffs also occurred today but Sifry didn’t mention them until the end. The blog post sort of went like this:

me….me…me…and oh yeah we layed off eight people.

Sifry also refers to himself as a “great leader” in the fourth paragraph of his post.

How about a different approach? Perhaps a blog post lamenting the layoffs and the disruption in people’s lives would have been in order. And then an ending saying that he takes responsibility for the problems which led to this and will be stepping down, too.

To be fair to Dave, some people who’ve worked with him say he cares a lot about the wellbeing of his employees, and will go above and beyond the norm for them when needed. That side of him doesn’t come out very well in his blog posts. But writing an “I’m leaving” post is certainly difficult to do. I’m not saying I think the post was entirely appropriate, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt to some extent.

Update: David Dalka thinks Technorati’s Google SEO tactics may have accelerated Sifry’s departure. And it does look like the Technorati traffic party has ended - Technorati no longer shows up in the search results for the terms I mentioned in that post.

Does the Nokia N93i scale up in performance over its predecessor, the N93? Find out

When you think of the amount of money that was once being asked for the older Nokia N93, the ex-flagship N-series model from Nokia, you can’t help but writhe at its look. I mean, Rs. 38,000 for that big black piece of a brick? Come on. The way it looked wasn’t the end. There were various problems with general ergonomics, side joystick and also some issues with the OS and the camera. Here today, we have the swanky new N93i, the latest, greatest and also the most expensive Nseries phone. Did Nokia consider the users' feedback in the N93i? Let’s find out. Design The first thing you can see is that the N93i is a shiny and swanky device, something the original N93 could never win with. The front of the phone is a complete mirror-finish surface, quite like the Sony Ericsson Z610i. However, it isn't 100% mirror-like, in that it still has a bit of warping, so if you look at yourself in it, your face will appear contorted. Below this display, hidden away, is another 65k color sub-display that almost looks like an OLED display found on some other clamshell phones. The original N93 was huge and heavy. With the new N93i, Nokia has addressed these issues a bit. The result is a phone that's 5mm slimmer and also around 20gms lighter. But even after this trim, the N93i is still a bulky and heavy phone by conventional standards. The display is one of the biggest improvements as well as the biggest problems in this phone. The new display is still QVGA and the same size, but it's been upgraded to show 16 million colors and believe me when I say that you need to see it to believe it. The display is glossy, but that's the problem right there. It's so reflective, you'll keep turning the phone from side to side to be able to see it. And in sunlight, well, forget it. You can't see anything. This is a huge problem if you're shooting in camcorder mode during the afternoon - like we did for the little short film we made - the display is useless !!! Specifications Nokia N93i Network : GSM 900/1800/1900, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS/3G/WCDMA Physical : 108 x 58 x 25 mm, 163g Display : 320x240 (QVGA), 16 million colors, TFT UI : Symbian OS 9.1 Series 60 3rd Edition Memory : 50mb, miniSD, hotswap Media : MP3, AAC, 3GP, MPEG4 Connectivity Bluetooth 2.0, Infrared/IrDA, WiFi 802.11b/g, USB 2.0 Battery 280 hours stand by, 3 hours 30 minutes talk Camera 3.2 megapixel, 3x optical zoom, Carl Zeiss Optics, auto-focus, VGA 30fps video, flash, secondary CIF camera Price : Rs. 35,750 What's good and bad about the Nokia N93i? Good: Better looking A bit smaller and lighter Great video quality 1GB miniSD bundled Adobe Premiere Elements bundled Bad: Too expensive to upgrade to Technically unchanged Multimedia/camera unchanged Low battery life

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SAMSUNG - SGH-E690 This 83 grams clamshell phone has a Lithium-Ion battery type, which allows you talk time of 360 minutes and stand by time of 250 hours. It has added features like 65k colour TFT internal display with resolution of 128 x 160 pixels and 65k colour external display with resolution of 96 x 96 pixels, voice dial, voice mail, call conferencing, triband, flight mode, vibration mode, predictive text input, polyphonic ringtones, music player (mp3, AAC and AAC+), fm radio, alarm clock, calendar,inbuilt dictaphone, handsfree speaker, MMS, EMS, SMS, EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth, USB Connector and is WAP enabled. It has a VGA camera with features like 4x digital zoom, photo effects, multi shot, self timer, mosaic shot, image quality adjuster and video recording. It also has an inbuilt memory of 16MB, microSD card slot and sales package consists of 256MB microSD card. View More Price Rs. :- 8,079 User Rating : 10.00 Perfect

SAMSUNG - SGH-P310 This 73.6 grams phone has a Lithium-Ion battery type, which allows you talk time of 240 minutes and stand by time of 242 hours. It has added features like 262k colour TFT display with resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, voice mail, call conferencing, triband, flight mode, vibration mode, predictive text input, polyphonic ringtones, music player (mp3, AAC and AAC+), alarm clock, stopwatch, calendar, document viewer, inbuilt dictaphone, handsfree speaker, MMS, EMS, SMS, EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth, Infrared and is WAP enabled. It has a 2MP camera with features like 4x digital zoom, flash, photo effects, multi shot, mosaic shot, image quality adjuster and video recording. It also is pda enabled and has an inbuilt memory of 80MB and a microSD card slot. It comes with a Leather Case with inbuilt secondary battery. View More Price Rs. :- 18,999 User Rating : 4.00 Mediocre

MOTOROLA - W375 This 88 grams clamshell phone has a lithium-ion battery type, which allows you talk time of 450 minutes and standby time of 250 hours. It has a 65k colour TFT internal display with resolution of 128 x 160 pixels and a mono external display. It also has features like VGA camera with 4x digital zoom, polyphonic ringtones, predictive text input, vibration mode, triband, mp3 capability, fm radio, MMS, EMS, SMS, GPRS, USB Connector, WAP, handsfree speaker, calculator, calendar, currency converter, alarm, clock and ringtone composer. View More Price Rs. :- 5,490

MOTOROLA - L7i This 96 grams phone has a Lithium-ion battery type, which allows you talk time of 315 minutes and stand by time of 345 hours. It has added features like inbuilt dictaphone, handsfree speaker, voice dial, voice mail, call conferencing, specific caller tones, vibration mode, quad band, predictive text input, bluetooth enabled, SMS messaging, picture messaging, inbuilt games, polyphonic ringtones, EDGE, GPRS, MMS and is WAP 1.2 enabled. It has a microSD card slot, inbuilt VGA camera with 4x digital zoom and video recording feature. Its sales package consists of 128 MB microSD card, USB connectivity cable and headset. Price Rs. :- 8,200

MOTOROLA - RIZR Z3 This 115 grams slider phone has a Lithium-ion battery type, which allows you talk time of 400 minutes and standby time of 350 hours. It has added features like voice dial, call conferencing, specific caller tones, quad band, 2MP camera with 8x digital zoom, photo light and video recording, email client, calendar, calculator, flight mode, inbuilt dictaphone, handsfree speaker, vibration mode, predictive text input, PTT, SMS, EMS, MMS, EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth, Infrared, USB Connector and is WAP enabled. It comes with 262k colour TFT display with resolution of 176 x 220 pixels and also has features like mp3 capability, polyphonic ringtones, pda enabled, inbuilt memory of 20MB and a microSD card slot. Price Rs. :- 13,138