websites

Earlier today, TechCrunch’s poorly researched claim that Twitter is abandoning Ruby on Rails in favor of PHP or Java generated a lot of buzz in the Twitter and Ruby communities (the claim was later refuted by Twitter developer Evan Williams). Of course, the article’s comments attracted the usual, ignorant TechCrunch trolls. Most took the opportunity to pitch their framework of choice (such as PHP, Java, .NET, or Django), which they claimed would of course magically solve all of Twitter’s scalability issues....

After having signed up for an Evernote beta invite a while ago, I finally received one this week. Evernote is a next generation note taking service. What sets it apart from similar applications are the numerous ways of entering as well as retrieving notes. First of all there is the Evernote Website. It is simple and straightforward, and seems to be very responsive. You can create as many notebooks as you want....

Today, TechCrunch posted an article about a stealth job site that makes companies pay candidates to interview with them. NotchUp is currently in beta and invitation-only, but apparently the site will allow candidates to set their own price (although a calculator is provided that suggests a price based on experience, current salary, etc.), in an attempt to lure the kind of passive job seekers that many companies would be interested in finding....

Techcrunch posted a nice article on finding DRM-dree music online. I have long been frustrated with the state of online music sales. While I love iTunes, I have never used the iTunes Music Store because I refuse to buy any DRM-crippled songs. The fact that Apple recently made EMI’s catalog available without DRM is a step in the right direction, but unfortunately most of the music I listen to is on smaller labels....

Today, Google Maps launched the new Street View feature, and I’m very impressed (no, even though I work at Google I had not seen this until now). Street View gives you a 360 degree panoramic view of the chosen location. You can use the mouse to turn around, virtually walk up or down the street, as well as zoom in or out. The picture quality is quite good (particularly in fullscreen mode), generally detailed enough to make out signs and house numbers....