Nope, I needed to send some ID and utility bills. The process was fairly simple, I took a photo of my phone bill, my AmEx report and both sides of my National ID. In the Paypal documentation they say a phone bill is not ok, but since my apartment is not on my name I don’t pay bills per se. Nevertheless, I sent these all off.

After some mucking about (the form was not the best), Paypal accepted these documents and this, as a lot of government and verification processes puzzles me a bit. I mean I could’ve Photoshopped all that right? Unless they actually checked with my government and bank and carrier service, which I’m sure they didn’t, they replied in like 2 days, they can’t be really sure.

My reasoning is that someone like me would have to go to more trouble to prove his identity and location truthfully, than a money launderer would have to go to to forge this stuff. If I didn’t have a camera I would’ve had to spend about $30 to photocopy, print, scan and so on. A money launderer may have to pay $1,000 for a good forgery, but hey, he has a printing press right, money comes easily.

The point is, that all I proved is that I have an internet connection and probably an ID. Is this a process that is supposed to deter people on the wrong side of the law? I doubt if it does, it did deter me though, my account was even frozen for a while!

Paypal anti-laundering safety regulations

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The jQuery sIFR plugin is fully configurable and can choose how little or how much you want to customize the display of the sIFRed text. It uses jQuery’s native functionality to eliminate the otherwise code redundancy in SWFObject, meaning you get a much smaller filesize and even faster loading.

Requirements: jQuery Framework
Demo: http://jquery.thewikies.com/sifr/
License: GPL, MIT License

Sponsors

Dreamhost: Get $50 Off with Coupon Code: WEBAPPERS

Not included are the browsing history or session cookies which is a bit unfortunate as it could mean to log into several of the websites again if they require that. The extension becomes available in the Tools menu of Internet Explorer after installation where the sessions can be stored or loaded.

The Internet Explorer sessions are stored in the program directory by default. The extension provides the option to store them at the Amazon S3 Service instead which costs $0.150 per GB but has the advantage that the sessions are available online and can therefor be loaded from any computer with Internet connection.

Another option would be to send the session per email or upload it manually to the Internet to access it from a second computer.

One interesting aspect of the session manager for Internet Explorer is the ability to manage the stored urls of each session. Single urls can be loaded in the browser. It is also possible to delete urls from the session.

IE Sessions supports Internet Explorer 6 or on Windows XP or Windows 2000. Windows Vista users should read the information posted on the website about Vista compatibility first before they install the extension.

Internet Explorer Sessions

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To those of you with a feed addiction, it may come as some surprise to learn that RSS adoption is still surprisingly low across web users– even those who spend a lot of time on the internet. Most people are unaware of the technology or if they are – even less interested. A lot of people simply prefer email subscriptions and depending on the target audience of a blog this can be nearly equal with RSS subscribers. Even here on MakeUseOf, a substantial number of our subscribers are using email for updates.

There are hundreds of interesting ways in which RSS feeds can be put to use. Yahoo Pipes is one great example and this is something I’d like to write about in more detail at a later time. For now however I’d like to introduce you to PostRank.

What is it exactly?

“PostRank is a scoring system developed by AideRSS to rank any kind of online content, such as RSS feed items, blog posts, articles, or news stories. PostRank is based on social engagement, which refers to how interesting or relevant people have found an item or category to be. Examples of engagement include writing a blog post in response to someone else, bookmarking an article, leaving a comment on a blog, or clicking a link to read a news item.”

The 5 ‘C’s are used to determine the popularity of any particular post, I’ll leave you to check it out for yourself if you wish to find out more detail, but in essence this criteria includes the following:

• The creation of a blog post responding directly to another blog post. This is the biggest determinate of a post’s popularity.
• Commenting on a blog post – the second most important measure of audience engagement and the quality of the article.
• Discussion – this involves mentioning a post on other social networking services like Twitter.
• Sharing – submitting a site to Digg, or bookmarking it using a service like Del.icio.us
• User activity on the page – clicks and page views, not given too much weight in PostRank.

Using this system, blog posts can be run through PostRank to determine just how popular (and therefore how good) the posts are. In the example mentioned above, this is how NewsGator implemented PostRank.  When viewing one of your feeds online, you can choose to change the view to show only the most popular items – a useful feature for when in a rush.

Why Would You Want it?

For me the biggest issue I have is finding time to read all the feeds I subscribe to. While personal blogs may only get updated once a day, large multi-author blogs (like one particular blog you may be aware of) are updated much more frequently while other sites focusing on news will be updated constantly 24/7.

With this constant flow of information it’s become increasingly necessary to have the ability to filter out articles which are not of interest to you, and instead simply read the articles which are.

This is where PostRank comes in.

What’s great about this is that no matter what RSS reader you use, be it web based like Google Reader or a desktop application like FeedDemon you can still use PostRank to filter your feeds.

PostRank is both an online RSS reader, service and also an API which developers can choose to include in their applications if they wish. One notable online service which have done is this is Newsgator Online a few months ago.

How Else Can I Use It?

To use PostRank on any feed simply submit it to the PostRank website.  I’ve shown an example in the screenshot below.

If this is a fairly popular feed you’ve submitted then it’ll already be in the system.  If it’s a bit more obscure than you may have to wait a day or so for it to be fully submitted (I’m actually only guessing, I have no real idea how long it takes. Perhaps someone else knows?). In my own experience any feed I wanted to use was already submitted so I’ve had no issues.

After this you can choose what to do with the feed.  You can select from 4 different rankings:

• All Posts
• Good Posts
• Great Posts
• Best Posts

You can also filter the feed by any keywords you want.

After doing this, if you decide you would like to use this feed in your own RSS application then simply click the ‘create new feed’ button. Using this feed you can simply import it into whatever application you already use and replace the feed which may be overwhelming you slightly.

If you decide to create a PostRank account then you can use the site as your web based feed reader.  You can save submitted feeds and change them as you like. If you don’t want to sign up then if you want to make any changes to the feed you’ve created you’ll have to start over again – although it’s not really that inconvenient.

Hopefully some of you can find this useful, I know I did.  Has anyone else already been using it in this way?   You may also want to check out Mark’s previous article on using PostRank and AideRSS in Google Reader.

(By) Laurence John was born naked, screaming and utterly helpless at some point in the last century. With the help of talented programmer and fellow MUO author Wez Pyke, Laurence is working on a new Blog; extendably.com, check it out!

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There's yet another new blogging platform out there: Kontain. It's designed for non-technical users, and it's easy to use and very good-looking. I don't think I've seen an easier platform for beginning bloggers, in fact. Everything on the site is clear and simple. But there's a downside.

The negative of Kontain is that while it's easy to use, it's very limited on the presentation side. You get no blog templates to choose from. While the default layout of Kontain blogs is attractive enough, the lack of customizability is surprising in a product that is so strong on the authoring side. Also, the blog pages display slowly.

Creating a Kontain blog is simple. Adding media to blog posts is simple. Even viewing and organizing the media files you've uploaded to previous posts is simple--something that's not true in almost all other blog platforms.

It's the little things that make Kontain a delight. From the start, it gets out of your way. While it requires a valid e-mail address from new authors, you can start posting right away, since you have 15 days to confirm registration. If you're writing a post and want to share it with friends, you can enter in their e-mail addresses from the posting screen.

Quite possibly the simplest blogging interface ever.

All entry fields are nice and big. I would not feel uncomfortable recommending Kontain to people with poor eyesight, or those simply afraid of technology or the blogosphere. It's really that easy.

You can't choose your display template or even colors.

However, pretty and simple is not enough, unless you're Apple and have an Apple-like advertising budget. There are other super-simple, quick-to-use blog platforms, like Tumblr. And there are certainly services that already have the community angle dialed in (like Vox). And for anyone halfway serious about blogging, there's nothing wrong with expending a few brain cycles to learn how to use free mainstream services like Blogger or Wordpress.com.

There are ambitious plans for Kontain, including social features (friend following, for example), privacy options, Web-based audio, image, and video editors, SEO options, and reader analytics. I don't know if Kontain will still be as simple when it gets these features. I also don't think there is a big untapped market for new bloggers, since it's a safe bet that most everyone who wants to blog now is already doing so. Kontain isn't a bad platform for teaching about blogging, but I don't see it supplanting any current platforms.

It is not yet another proxy if that is what you thought. The add-on merely lookups the IP of the Rapidshare download page and uses that to initiate the download. If the network administrator has only banned Rapidshare.com in the network then it will work.

If he did ban the IP range as well it won’t. Once installed the add-on adds a toolbar with an option to paste a Rapidshare link into it. Pasting the link into it and pressing the button next to the toolbar will change the url so that the IP is used for accessing the download page.

A Javascript window will be launched once the IP has been converted which will immediately display the download dialog. It seems to also be an excellent shortcut to download Rapidshare files even if the file hoster is not banned in the network.

The Firefox add-on is experimental which means that you have to log into the Mozilla website before you can download it. You find a list of Rapidshare Search engines by following the link.

Access Rapidshare Even If It Is Banned

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The brainchild of Culver and Digg founder Kevin Rose, Pownce launched with much fanfare in 2007. But despite the early buzz and in many ways a superior feature-set, the service hasn’t been able to gain nearly the type of traction as the darling of short-form messaging – that of course being Twitter.

It doesn’t sound like Six Apart has aspirations to revamp Pownce and take on Twitter either. They echo the sentiment that this deal is more about acquiring talent from Pownce, writing, “we are very sorry the site will be closing … We’re planning on doing great things with the help and expertise of the Pownce team, and can’t wait to see all the results of their hard work.”

Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka will also be joining Six Apart as advisers as part of the deal.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Pownce Invites Increased: Please Invite Others
Pownce Adds RSS, Support For More Video/Photo Sites
Pownce To Launch Public API
Pownce Releases Public API
Pownce Invites on eBay
Pownce Gets New Features
Put Pownce on Facebook

One minute I was trawling for articles, blissfully convinced that Facebook was all I’d ever need to connect me to items of real time relevance. The next I was pulled into a vortex created by masterminds so ambitious and intrusive, they plan to index the worlds information. Yes, I’m talking about Google (and their latest uber-success, iGoogle).

iGoogle began its life with the name ‘Google Personalised Homepage’, briefly became ‘Google IG’, and a few makeovers later, emerged as iGoogle, a name that makes it sound like an Apple product (iPod, iTunes). Nobody seems to agree on what the most popular startpage service is but iGoogle is up there. Users are so passionate about their iGoogle pages that recent changes were met with uproar and violent protestation. The ‘changes’ were basically a new sidebar and the removal of some gadget resizing privileges. Yep, people are obsessed.

iGoogle isn’t just for accessing feeds from your favourite sites; there is a growing catalogue of gadgets from reputable developers. Google are also inviting people to create gadgets, both practical ones and social stuff of the ‘here’s what I’m up to right now’ Twitter/Facebook variety. You can see why people are saying it’s the next Facebook. What’s good about iGoogle is that the gadgets tend to be useful (feeds, search aids, shortcuts), not vacuous (throw a mudpie at your friends! become a werewolf/pirate/vampire!) and no one - absolutely no one - is going to poke you, ‘get low with’ you, post lewd comments your mum can read or invite you to rate their sexiness.

Here are the best of the best iGoogle gadgets for streamlining your online life:

1. A Podcast Player

If I say “I heart this” does that blow or bolster its case? A Podcast Player is a neat little player with a search facility; enter your search term into the bar at the top, choose your favourite podcast directory from the scroll-down list, and away you go. The options are Feedster, all4RSS, Podkast, Digitalpodcast and Podscope.

If you don’t have a favourite, I recommend the Podscope directory; here you can find a piece of audio according to the words that are spoken in it!

For example, if you want to find podcasts that mention Obama, simply enter ‘Obama’, select ‘Podscope’, press ‘Find’ and voila: ‘A Podcast Player’ returns a list of audio and the exact times (0:53, 1:45, 1:49) the keyword Obama is mentioned! Pretty amazing, and great for people like me who love to listen to news (or any podcast) as they work on the computer. You’ll find a lot of interesting stuff.

2. Driving Directions

The beauty of iGoogle is that the gadgets are integrated so well with key Google services. Driving Directions is the ultimate gadget for people who finds themselves scrolling dumbly in Google Maps or thumbing through a street directory, trying to trace journeys that jump from page 46 to 49B to 109, back to page 46 and so on.

With Driving Directions you have two entry bars (’From’ and ‘To’). Enter your starting address and destination and you’re redirected to Google Maps, where the page is sized just so and your route easily plotted. You also have the option of sharing the map by pressing ‘Send’ or ‘Link’ in the top right hand corner.

Google Maps is great because it contains business information; there is a large and growing catalogue of business locations, so you can search by, say, the name of a restaurant or bar even if you don’t know the address. A good startpage shortcut to a useful service.

3. Digg

Not sure which feeds to track on iGoogle? Why not be a sheep and let public opinion decide?  Digg is the ultimate online popularity contest; the Digg iGoogle gadget lets you keep track of the articles people are digging.

Click the tabs at the top of the gadgets to view either News, Video, Images or All Content, or you can opt to see a list of what your friends are digging (if you have any Digg friends).

To filter according to content, open the scroll-down menu in the top righthand corner and choose between Science, Technology, Entertainment, World and Business, Lifestyle, Sports, Gaming and Offbeat. The gadget is updated continuously, so you’ll know as soon as something rises in the Digg ranks. Keep track of what’s creating buzz on the web from the safety of your startpage.

4. Facebook

A sprawling page within a sprawling page. Once upon a time Facebook was my number one web destination. Now it’s just another little box on my iGoogle page. Like a big fish swallowing all the little ones, Google is insatiable and unstoppable.

Who can resist? No need to visit Facebook anymore; just add the Facebook gadget to iGoogle and keep track of who, exactly, is poking you.

5. Memba Velodoc

To be fair, Velodoc is a great large file sharing service, and would deserve a mention even if they didn’t have an iGoogle gadget. The fact that they do just confirms how damn fantastic they are.

Have a large file you can’t send via Hotmail or Gmail? No need to burn a CD, send anything via post, sign up with some paid site, or even register with anyone.

Enter your email into the Velodoc file sharing gadget and the ‘Browse’ button will appear. Search your directories for the file you want to send, click it and send away.

Now, this is what’s great about the Velodoc service. The person you select as your recipient will receive an email. They’ll open it and find a neat little link. They’ll click that link and be directed to another neat little page- minimal text, no images- where they can download your file.

For a while I was using Sendspace (another free large file sharing service) and thought it was fine until I actually opened what I was sending. It was all pop-up ads, blocks of weird text and flashing arrows next to the words ‘Download Here’! After you opened my file everything was good, but that interim page was a killer: really gaudy and unprofessional looking. Not good if you’re sending files that are supposed to land you a job, which is what I was doing.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. Send files linked from nice-looking pages, and do it in your iGoogle. Great for people who send a lot of audio files, images or videos.

6. Anagram

Another shortcut to Google services - this time to Google Accounts and Google Calendar.

Anagram is really just an efficient way to save contact details to Google Accounts and add events to Google Calendar. No need to navigate all the way to Accounts and enter somebody’s number, name, etc. Simply enter their information in the Anagram text box in an incoherent blob. For example

Bob 77447744 3 Grate St

You don’t even need to keep pressing enter. Anagram will do the rest for you. A lazy person’s dream, and perfect for when you need to take details down fast.

Calendar details work the same way; this time you’re writing ‘Staff Lunch 3 November 5:30′. Anagram will understand what you’re doing and submit the information to Google Calendar.

7. Dictionary.com and Wikipedia

Two commonly used references in one handy gadget. Flip from tab to tab to alternate between Wikipedia and Dictionary. Results open in a new window, so your iGoogle is safe and secure.

8. Internet Bandwidth Speed Test

Created by an independent developer and applauded for its accuracy, this quick and easy speed test estimates your bandwidth and places you on a spectrum between plodding dial-up and hardcore DSL.

9. World Webcams

For the voyeur inside us all. Spice up your iGoogle with popular webcams from all over the world. Watch a beach in the south of France one day and a bustling scene from Rio the next. All pared down (of course) to iGoogle size. That’s about 5 x 6 cm, though if you’re really keen you can expand it to fill the page.

10. Random Google Gadgets

There are new gadgets popping up all the time, and we all know that the most useful, innovative stuff isn’t always the most publicised (remember our feature on Google services that get no love?).  With this gadget you can test drive a different, random Google app every day, and have the options of keeping stuff you like.

So what gadgets sit on your iGoogle page?   Which ones get your love?    You might also want to check out Mark’s earlier article from May this year on how to make your own personalised iGoogle gadgets.

(By) Sandra Hajda is a freelance writer from Melbourne. She hangs out on her Blogger blog and occasionally appears on Australian radio.

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Another one bites the dust? Pownce, a would-be Twitter rival that was heavily hyped due to the involvement of Digg co-founder Kevin Rose, is closing its doors in two weeks.

It's not quite going away, according to a post from Pownce founder Leah Culver on the start-up's official blog. The technology has been sold to blog platform Six Apart, which runs TypePad and Movable Type. And its two full-time employees, Culver and Mike Malone, will be joining Six Apart's team.

"We'll be closing down the main Pownce Web site two weeks from today, December 15," Culver wrote. "Since we'd like for you to have access to all your Pownce messages, we've added an export function...(you can) import your posts to other blogging services such as Vox, TypePad, or WordPress."

Pownce, which is like Twitter with additional features like file-sharing, was so buzzworthy at its debut that people were auctioning alpha test invites off on eBay. It also had a business model, with paid accounts available for sale. But the Pownce hype died off, and Twitter gained more and more market share.

Additionally, we heard that the self-funded Pownce was trying to secure a round of venture capital. It looks like that didn't work out. This is, after all, not a great time to be raising money.

Six Apart is encouraging Pownce members to join its blog platform Vox. "We hope the Pownce and Vox communities can come together, just as the teams have, towards a better future," Six Apart's Chris Alden wrote on the company blog.

Pownce's two other co-founders, Rose and Daniel Burka, will become Six Apart "advisers."

When you integrate Disqus (pronounced “discuss”) with your WordPress blog, you create a new Disqus community that mirrors the post/comment activity on the blog. The blog post becomes the start of a new discussion and the comments are the subsequent thread. Members can also post to the community that you create. This is a great way for readers of your blog to start discussions with you and all of your readers.

As a Disqus user, all the comments you post to other Disqus-enabled blogs will appear on your profile page (you don’t need a blog to have a Disqus account). This is a nice way for others to see all your words of wisdom that you have shared on other blogs. It is also a good method for finding other users and communities you may be interested in following.

Disqus also plays nice with the built-in WordPress commenting system. Existing comments will be imported into Disqus and when comments are posted onto Disqus they are kept in sync with your WordPress blog. If you change your mind later and you no longer want to use Disqus, you can simply uninstall it. You don’t have to worry about losing comments that were posted through Disqus.

To install Disqus on your Wordpress blog:

• Create an account on Disqus.
• Download the Disqus for Wordpress plugin.
• Place the contents of the archive in your WordPress plugins directory.
• Activate the plugin and navigate to Comments > DISQUS.

  

• Enter your Disqus login credentials and proceed with the installation process.

  

• If you would like to import your existing WordPress comments into Disqus, select Advanced Options and click Import.

  

For further installation details, you can visit the Disqus integration page and view the Disqus documentation for WordPress.

When a blog is converted to use Disqus, individuals that commented on the blog prior to the conversion can claim their imported comments. When users claim comments, verification links are sent to the email addresses used to post the comments. The Disqus users can click the verification links to associate comments on the converted blog with their profiles.

Disqus also automatically subscribes commenters to any responses to their comments. They will receive the responses at the email address they provided with the comment. The best part of this feature is that they can respond via email! There’s no need to revisit the blog post and respond there, as it can all be done by replying to the email.

Disqus also allows non-Disqus members to post comments just as they would normally on any WordPress blog. Users just provide their name, email address, and post the comment. Responses to their comments are sent to their email address and they can reply by email just the same as Disqus users.  Comments by non-Disqus comments are basically treated the same as imported comments.  If non-Disqus commenters do eventually sign up for Disqus accounts, they can also claim their comments to associate them with their new account.

Unfortunately, WordPress is the only well-documented platform for Disqus at this time. The Disqus help page states that MovableType, Tumblr, Blogger, and TypePad are also supported, but the help links just go to a “coming soon” page.  They also have a JavaScript interface in the works (which would allow you to integrate with any platform), but again there is no documentation for it yet.

Fortunately, there is a well-documented Disqus API. That means that developers can integrate Disqus on other platforms that are not officially supported, which is good news for users (and potential users) on the following platforms:

• Drupal
• b2evolution
• Graffiti
• Joomla
• RubyGem

If your blog does not use one of these platforms or uses one of the undocumented platforms that Disqus claims to support, then IntenseDebate might be a better option for you. IntenseDebate can use JavaScript to display comments, so it can be easily integrated into any blog.

However, IntenseDebate does not have the community features and profile pages are only limited to the last 5 comments posted. Disqus makes all comments you’ve made available from your profile, not just the last five. If you’d like to see Disqus comments in action, here are a few blogs that implement them:

• louisgray.com
• VentureBeat
• obscurely famous
• The Eagle-Tribune

You might want to also check out some Disqus profile pages:

• Louis Gray
• Duncan Riley
• Daniel Ha

What do you think of Disqus and other commenting systems?   Which one do you prefer?  Do you use Disqus on your blog?

Jorge Sierra is a geek that enjoys working with Linux and other free software and operating systems. He also enjoys programming as a hobby and has developed several iGoogle Gadgets. By day, he works as a Six Sigma black belt and by night he occasionally blogs as GeekLad.

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