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Santa must be real, he’s on Google Earth

As it has for the past four years, Google will be mapping Santa Claus' trek from the icy North Pole to rooftops around the globe on Christmas Eve. But this year, good girls and boys can track their gifts via mobile phones and Twitter, too.

Starting at 3 a.m. PST on Wednesday, a Google Map with Santa's current location will be displayed on the NORAD Santa Web site, operated by Google and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Santa fans can also track his movements in 3D in Google Earth (download) by downloading a special NORAD Tracks Santa KML. iGoogle users can add a NORAD Tracks Santa gadget to their iGoogle page.

Google will be displaying high-resolution "Santa Cam" video of the gift-laden airborne sleigh. For locations without video, photos from Panoramio will be displayed in Google Maps.

And for the first time, people can track Santa's journey on mobile phones with Google Maps for Mobile and follow him on Twitter by adding "@noradsanta."

You can read the history of Google's Santa tracking efforts on the Official Google Blog.

Google became NORAD's official Santa Tracking technology partner last year. NORAD has been tracking Santa for about 50 years.

Read more: Webware.com

Daily Tidbits: Seventy percent of all Twitter users signed up in 2008

Online marketing firm, Hubspot, released a report Tuesday that details the "State of the Twittersphere" for the fourth quarter of 2008. According to the report, 70 percent of all Twitter users joined during 2008 and approximately 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts are opened each day. Thirty-five percent of Twitter users have ten or fewer followers and just 9 percent of all Twitter users don't follow anyone. The full report is available on Hubspot's research page.

Free eBook service Project Gutenberg, announced Tuesday that it has introduced a mobile version of its hosted content. Dubbed Project Gutenberg Mobile Edition, the company's software converts the service's files into a format that is easily read on mobile displays. The app is based on Java, so it won't work with the iPhone.

Custom slideshow service, Animoto, announced Tuesday that it has brought its offering to the iPhone. According to the company, users can now create their own Animoto videos directly on the iPhone by accessing the iPhone's images. Animoto for the iPhone currently allows users to upload eight to 16 photos and pick a song to create the video. Once complete, users can view the video on their iPhone or email it to friends. The free app is available now in the iTunes App Store.

Swedish video start-up, Bambuser, launched an updated site design Tuesday that now allows users to stream videos from mobile phones and syndicate those videos across the Internet. According to the company, the most important update to its service is the better interface, which it believes will keep more users on the site.

HP announced its first App Store application Monday, which helps users easily print photos from their iPhone's image library when within range of a wireless network and HP printer. Dubbed iPrint Photo, the app allows users to print 4 x 6 photos to HP Inkjet printers directly from an iPhone and is fully compatible with Apple's zero-configuration service, Bonjour. iPrint Photo is free and available now in the App store.

Read more: Webware.com

iPhone claims high-ranking spot on Flickr

The iPhone is the mobile device of choice these days for doing most things that need a network. So it shouldn't be a surprise that the phone has carved out a prominent place on Yahoo's photo-sharing site, Flickr.

The Flickr Camera Finder, Yahoo's statistical counter of camera use among its members, shows that since the arrival of the iPhone 3G model earlier this year, the phone has vaulted not only over all other camera phones, trouncing the Nokia N95 in second place, but also almost all ordinary cameras.

That's a notable accomplishment. I've been watching the Flickr Camera Finder for two years, and that's the first time I recall a camera phone placing so highly. The top ranks have been dominated by SLRs, the camera of choice for many of Flickr's heaviest users.

Right now the iPhone is in a virtual tie with Canon's Rebel XT and Nikon's D80, two SLRs whose popularity is waning with the arrival of newer models from the dominant makers of such cameras. Only Canon's newer Rebel XTi outranks the iPhone.

Though the trajectory is clear, there are caveats. First, Flickr measures popularity on the basis of the number of users who've uploaded a photo on a given day. In other words, the camera used by a person who uploads one photo a day will fare better than one who uploads 100 pictures one day a month. Second, many camera phones don't identify themselves to Flickr, so their use isn't logged. Last, these statistics fluctuate daily, and who knows what kind of anomalous behavior is going on during the holidays.

The total number of photos uploaded from the Rebel XTi is about 51 million, compared with 5.8 million for the iPhone. However, there are nearly 3,000 people uploading daily from their iPhone compared with about 6,500 for the XTi.

My guess is the iPhone's better-than-average network abilities are responsible for the prominence. For the same reason, iPhone users also use Google Maps and other online services more than most mobile device users. The BlackBerry is good at e-mail, but the Internet has other attractions.

What's more interesting is extrapolating from the trend. Certainly the iPhone's image quality doesn't hold a candle to even old point-and-shoots, much less new SLRs, but the phone taps straight into the social features of Flickr--the ability to photographically share with friends and family what's going on in your life, for example. There are innumerable expert photographers at Flickr, but it looks like the yet larger herd of ordinary snapshooters are going to leave them in the dust once liberated with the ability to post pictures at will.

I sent my iPhone photos to Flickr using the site's upload-by-e-mail service (see Yahoo's instructions), but there are several iPhone applications that will do it for you if you prefer. Apple's photo e-mailing software scales photos to 640x480, but I don't mind, given feeble image quality and the unlikelihood that these shots will ever make their way beyond a computer screen.

Read more: Webware.com

Scrapplet takes portable site creation to a new level

RadWebTech, a company that specializes in Web technologies, announced Monday that it has opened its hallmark service, Scrapplet, to the public. Scrapplet was formally in private beta.

Friday, I had the opportunity to sit down with Scrapplet's founder and view a demo of the service. In essence, Scrapplet is a blank, browser-based canvas that allows you to drag-and-drop practically anything from any Website and place it on your Scrapplet page.

Want to grab your Twitter stream and put that on the same page as your Friendfeed? With Scrapplet, that's possible. In just a few simple maneuvers, Scrapplet allows you to highlight portions of a Web page or an entire site, drag it to the Scrapplet page, and modify the design of that page to make it fit. In fact, you can resize the site, change the site's colors, and remove borders. In essence, you can create an entire Web page out of existing sites for your own consumption.

Scrapplet, which originally started as a Facebook app, has quickly morphed into a full-fledged Web app that performs extremely well. RadWebTech's CEO, Steve Repetti, believes Scrapplet could be the tool that replaces Netvibes and simple Web design, and I tend to agree.

If you want to have news updates from the Associated Press, scores from ESPN, and images from Flickr on your Scrapplet page, it's as simple as highlighting portions of the page you want or the entire site and dragging them to Scrapplet. From there, they will be updated just as they are on the company's page.

More importantly, each page is portable and can be placed in individual social networking profiles, blogs, or anywhere else across the Web thank to full Javascript code, which is readily available in the app's menu.

Scrapplet canvases offer default objects to add and create news feeds, flash objects, mashups, animation, sliding panels, custom menus, special effects, and more. Each page also automatically generates search engine optimization functions, tracking, and privacy controls to keep unwanted visitors out.

Of course, not everything Scrapplet offers is perfect. I'm still not convinced other companies would be happy with users taking elements of their page and adding it to their Scrapplet page and aside from a fee of $2.95 per month for a non-ad membership and an undisclosed amount for professional members, I'm not sure how easily RadWebTech will be able to monetize the service.

Regardless, Scrapplet, one of the few truly unique services you'll come across, is available now to anyone willing to register. If nothing else, it's worth trying and playing around with.

RadWebTech offered CNET readers a Premium offer with registration. If you want to use it, type in "CNET" upon registration to get the freebie.

Read more: Webware.com

5 little Gmail annoyances Google needs to fix

Last week, I discussed why Gmail is the best e-mail service on the Web and took a look at all those features that earn it that title. But just because it's the best doesn't mean that the e-mail service doesn't annoy me sometimes. In fact, Gmail has a handful of quirks that Google needs to address.

E-mail scans for advertising

Call me a privacy nut or just way too worrisome, but I don't like that Google scans my e-mail to deliver more relevant ads. It's not that I'm against relevant ads--I think that's what makes Google's success online so compelling and the main reason why the company is in the place it is today--but I simply don't like knowing that my content is being watched by a public company so it can make more money.

I'm fully aware that the opportunities afforded to government branches allow them to do the same and I'm equally upset about that. But, Google? Come on! At least no one at the company actually reads my e-mails, I guess.

Labels

I know I'm probably walking into some fire for this, but I find Labels extremely annoying and useless. I enjoy being able to categorize all my content into different folders without getting bogged down with each e-mail that comes in. But with Labels, I don't have that luxury.

Instead of really filing my e-mails away into the various designations I provide, Gmail simply adds a "Label" to each message to tell me where each belongs. Great, but why can't it just give me a folder? It's not that labeling is awful--it does help me organize my messages somewhat--but it's simply not as useful as folders themselves, which make it much easier to organize my in-box. Oh, and some better filtering on those labels would be nice too.

Where's the drag and drop?

Doesn't it annoy you that you can't drag and- drop e-mails in Gmail? I can do it in Yahoo Mail and AOL Mail. Why should Gmail be any different? Instead of being able to drag and drop, the message is clicked and I have the option of reading it or sending it into the trash. Sometimes, I simply want to drag and drop a slew of e-mails into the Trash to save some time. It's not a big deal--I'm using my mouse anyway--but it is annoying.

Delete me

The fact that I can't delete messages in Gmail by using the Delete button on my keyboard drives me nuts. Maybe I'm an old-school user or I always look to the keyboard for my computing needs when I shouldn't, but the Delete button is one of the most useful keys I interact with each day, and yet it's useless on Gmail.

Try clicking on an e-mail and tapping the Delete button. Doesn't work, does it? Now try highlighting the e-mail and clicking the Delete button. That one doesn't work either, does it? But if you enable keyboard shortcuts in Gmail's settings page and click the Shift and 3 keys at the same time, you'll be able to send messages to the trash. OK, so it's better than nothing, but why not just use the Delete button? I think that's far more convenient.

Single signature

As someone who uses Gmail with multiple e-mail addresses, having the option of using just one signature simply isn't enough. I need different signatures for different e-mail addresses and, unfortunately, it simply doesn't work that way with Gmail. So, each time I want to use a different address, I'm forced to erase my signature and write a new one or use a generic signature that I can use for any e-mail address. Maybe it's a small gripe, but other e-mail services allow for the use of multiple signatures. It's a simple addition, and I don't see any reason to not include it.

If you are looking to do it though, the Black Canvas Email Signature Firefox add-on is worth trying.

Read more: Webware.com

Puzzle extension turns any Web image into a game

Here's a fun extension from the experimental section of Mozilla's Firefox add-ons site. It's called Puzzle, and once installed lets you turn any image from a page you're on into a sectional puzzle with pieces that can be moved around. Upon completion you have the option to ramp up the difficulty, which goes all the way up to a 15x15 grid. It's also able to resize larger images into smaller, laptop-friendly versions.

To toggle it on you simply right click on an image and select which difficulty you want. It then opens up the image (in puzzle form) in a new tab.

I didn't have any luck getting it to work with Firefox 3.1 beta 2, however it worked fine in the current public build of Firefox 3. As with all experimental add-ons, you'll need to be registered with Mozilla to download it.

Read more: Webware.com

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