Along with pornography, it seems that online egg timers are a driving force for change and innovation on the Internet. I'm not sure there's any other way to explain the proliferation of egg timers. Granted, people may be using these timers for more than just eggs, but this burgeoning market segment never ceases to amaze and surprise me. My latest find is simply called Online Egg Timer, which is a great name for SEO.

The interface is dead-simple and very friendly, and it sports a friendly URL format as well. You can just go to www.online-eggtimer.com/90/120/240 to instantly start three timers: one for ninety seconds, one for two minutes, and one for four minutes.

Granted, the URL format could have been a tad friendlier if it allowed for other time units too, like CD allows for /2h4m15s. But Online Egg Timer does have one alarming advantage over CD: it emits a very loud ringing sound once the time is up.

Online Egg Timer is another slick, stylish timer originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 20 Nov 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo launches Mafia Wars and FishVille originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The folks behind Pioneer One have been busy since the show's pilot release back in June, and it seems as though their hard work is beginning to pay off. The pilot was a campy success, having won Best Drama Pilot at the New York Television Festival -- but it won instant pseudo-historical status as well. It was the first science fiction drama series to be produced entirely off of donation-funding and released freely through torrent networks. Hundreds of thousands of views and five months later, the made-for-torrent drama series is set to move forward with the release of three new episodes, starting as early as mid-December.

Viewers can also expect to see a revised re-release of the pilot, in which one of the main roles has been recast. The upcoming episodes will comprise about half the expected first season -- of a projected four-season offering should the show's success continue. On that note, it's important to remember that Pioneer One, along with other free P2P community offerings like it, are only made possible by donations. So don't be afraid to donate if you like it, and be sure to catch the teaser trailer for the upcoming episodes after the break.

Continue reading Torrent-loving sci-fi drama Pioneer One landing soon with new episodes

Torrent-loving sci-fi drama Pioneer One landing soon with new episodes originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Boutiques.com, Google's fashion shopping site, may launch on Wednesday originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Tether releases Android tethering app, works on Android 1.5 and up originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Digg now has a staff-picked Breaking News section originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Chrome sponsors free holiday Wi-Fi on Virgin, AirTran and Delta flights originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Tumblr apps for iPhone and Android get revamped Dashboard originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Instant now available to mobile browsers originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: StumbleUpon for Android, now with 'app stumbling'

StumbleUpon for Android, now with 'app stumbling' originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Docs will soon have third party apps, cloud printing and sync originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Who's suing whom in the telecom world? Feast your eyes on this infographic

Who's suing whom in the telecom world? Feast your eyes on this infographic originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Blekko, despite how it sounds, is a search engine -- not a euphemism for vomit.

It's a search engine that, in its quest to go up against bigger opponents like Google, Bing, and Yahoo, has tried to set itself apart by lumping operators into "slashtags," calling itself "social," and touting how "open" and "transparent" its search results are. It also tries to put an overwhelmingly positive spin on human bias playing a huge role in search rankings. Blekko hopes to attract not just disillusioned power-users, but everyday users as well -- and from what I've seen, that doesn't seem very likely.

For starters, if you share the aversion to the three-letter acronym SEO that many users of social media tend to have these days, this search engine is not for you. If you like to get your search results very quickly, then this search engine probably isn't for you. If you like your search engine to be intuitive, and furthermore, to get decent results with a minimum amount of finagling, then I have to say that Blekko is not the search engine for you.

I spent a couple of solid hours using Blekko in a vain attempt to find a reason for all the hype. After all, The New York Times went as far as to call Blekko "A New Search Engine, Where Less Is More," and our own AOL compatriot Michael Arrington gave it plenty of positive attention at TechCrunch. I was actually hoping that there might be some worth to the plucky little upstart -- but instead I found a bloated, buggy search engine with largely worthless, extremely inaccurate results, regardless of what slashtag I used to "vertically narrow" my search.

Continue reading Blekko, the "Slashtag" search engine is slow, cumbersome, and just plain broken

Blekko, the "Slashtag" search engine is slow, cumbersome, and just plain broken originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Firefox 4 maxes out SunSpider benchmark originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 30 Oct 2010 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google's newest official Chrome extension is sure to get a lot of use in the coming months. Assuming you've got extension-syncing enabled in a capable version of the browser, Web Clipboard brings a fully synced clipboard to Chrome, and it's pretty nice for an initial -- though somewhat buggy -- release. It copies both plain text and HTML within any Chrome tab, and secures the data on Google servers. Each item copied remains saved for 30 days, or until you clear the clipboard contents through the extension's drop-down menu.

The extension just released today, but Google warns of two major known issues: Gmail isn't yet supported, and neither are pages which contain frames. I've also run into a spot of trouble in getting items copied with the extension to paste inside Google Docs.

On the bright side, text copied using Docs' built-in clipboard will be instantly available in the extension for pasting elsewhere. Last but not least, the extension is currently only able to paste inside form elements. Despite these early obstacles, this is probably one of the more useful extensions in the gallery for people who use more than one computer. Since this is an official Google extension, I would think the bugs will get worked out fairly quickly.

One thing I'm hoping for in subsequent updates is for the extension to work inside the Omnibar, which could make quickly copying a URL and switching computers a much smoother process than it is today. One thing's for certain, Chrome OS was definitely on the minds of Google's extension team when they cooked this one up.

Google Web Clipboard feeds Chrome freshly synced copypasta originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Flickr adds Google accounts to sign-in options, plans better OpenID support originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Box.net increases storage quotas for both free and paid plans originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Flickr now imports Facebook friends, suggests users you may know originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo! Mail Beta arrives, claims to be at least twice as fast, safer, easier to use originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Google Docs gets new chart editor and some new chart types

Google Docs gets new chart editor and some new chart types originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.