box

More than 800 digital-media enthusiasts in New York RSVP'd for a Tuesday night "meet-up" held by Boxee, the TV browser software company that's ambitiously (and controversially) aimed to make it possible to have a full Web content experience in your living room.

Right now, Boxee sources content from outlets such as Comedy Central, Netflix, CBS (which publishes CNET News), and Web video content hubs such as Blip.tv and Next New Networks.

In conjunction with the get-together, Boxee (still available only for Mac and Linux) made a few notable announcements: First of all, it's overhauled … Read more

Box.net is rolling out a new version of its search engine that lets users search for information found within the files they've stored on the service. Previously its system only worked with file names and user-created tags. The new tool will index text within Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, user descriptions, and Box.net's recently-added Web documents service.

This is an important feature to add, and one that's long overdue. For things like videos and image files it was not a big deal since the built-in preview tools made viewing the content within your folders quite simple. … Read more

Spring is almost here, and soon we'll be showing the world much more than just our heads and hands. That means it's time to get up off the couch and start doing whatever we can to get our bods ready for summer. Need advice on that? These sites can help.

Gyminee If you're looking for a way to track your workouts and get some dietary advice, Gyminee is a great place to start.

In a matter of seconds, you'll be able to join Gyminee and start creating a workout regimen that will help you lose weight, tone your muscles, or gain strength. And you won't need to do it alone. With the help of Gyminee, you can find exercises and create a regimen from pre-configured workout routines based on your goals. Gyminee does a fine job of helping you do whatever you want.

Gyminee's tracking tools are very good. Once you sign up, you can put your weight, resting heart rate, and measurements into the system to see where you stand today. As long as you keep inputting that information on a regular basis, it will show you a detailed graph providing your progress over the term of your workout. That's easily my favorite feature because it's a great motivation tool that helps me see just how far I've come since I started exercising.

While Gyminee does a fine job with workouts and tracking, I was disappointed with its dietary advice. It does provide a detailed analysis of required calorie, fat, and protein intake to get you to your goal weight, but it doesn't do much more. It doesn't tell you what to eat and how to do it. It doesn't tell you when you should be eating. It basically tells you that you need to have a certain number of calories every day and leaves it at that. For a full-featured health improvement site, that's weak.

Gyminee boasts extra features like a forum so you can discuss health considerations, and you can make friends with others and track their progress. If you want, you can also set challenges and see how close you are to achieving those goals. Gyminee offers good features and it's worth using even though it doesn't have enough dietary information.… Read more

Media-center start-up Boxee, which aggregates Web video for television set-top boxes, has launched a new version that restores access to video hub Hulu. The NBC Universal-News Corp. joint venture had pulled its content from Boxee after content partners took issue with it.

But it's not really the same: Boxee has brought back Hulu by extending its support for RSS feeds, and is pulling the video content in that way.

"Like IE, Firefox, or Google Reader, the RSS reader supports Google Video, Yahoo, YouTube and feeds from many other websites," a post on the Boxee blog by CEO … Read more

Online storage service Box.net has a new tool for internal collaboration. Multiple Box users can now work on a shared Web document, using a built-in editor the company has made from scratch.

While there is no option to work on a single document at the same time, like you can with Google Docs and Zoho Writer, it features all the things you'd want for putting together a sturdy document. You can pick from various fonts, format to your heart's content, and drop in photos--either from your hard drive or a URL. All the while it saves what … Read more

Transferring a large file isn't always easy. When e-mail won't work (which it often doesn't for files of any heft), you can burn to a disc or send a file piecemeal, but neither option provides much value to the person who just needs your file now, and simply.

Online file-sharing services can transfer large files for you. To use these services, you upload your file to them, and then your recipient gets a link to the download. The file itself doesn't go through e-mail, just the link to it. Let's look at a few different products that perform this service.

Box.net Box.net may be billed as a service designed for companies, but it's equally useful for consumers.

Overall, Box is extremely easy to use and its interface is second to none. After signing up for an account, you can upload a file of up to 1GB in size, add comments to it to provide some context for other users, and save it to a single folder or multiple folders on the site. Once the file is uploaded, you can e-mail or IM a Box link to others, who can then download that file to their local machine. You can even create a shared workspace and work together online. Whether it was uploading the file or using that shared workspace, Box provided me with an outstanding experience.

One of Box's best features is its customizable widget. After heading to its widgets page, you can upload files, customize the look and feel of your widget, and share it with others by embedding it in your Web site or blog. You can keep adding files until you hit the 1GB limit. It's a really neat feature and a great way to share files that you don't mind keeping unsecured. I created my widget (right) in under a minute.

Unfortunately, Box only provides 1GB of storage a 25MB upload limit for free. If you need more than that, the company charges $7.95 for 5GB of storage and 1GB uploads or $15 per user per month for businesses that want 15GB of storage and 1GB uploads.

Dropbox Dropbox is similar to Box because it allows you to upload files and share those with others. But in order for them to see the files, the service requires you to add them as authorized users.

Once you sign up for Dropbox, you can immediately start uploading files and creating separate folders to control access to documents. Once a folder is created, you can share it with others by inputting their e-mail addresses into the sharing box on Dropbox. The service then sends those users a link to sign up and start sharing access to the folder.

Uploading files in Dropbox is simple and generally zippy. If you want to create a photo gallery that can be viewed by anyone, the site boasts a Photos section where you can upload pictures. And although it works as advertised, it doesn't compare to nicer galleries like those you'll find on Flickr.

One of the most compelling reasons to use Dropbox is its offline functionality. When you sign up, you can download the company's desktop client, which allows you to drag-and-drop files into it. Once complete, it syncs with your online account in the background while you work. It's an outstanding feature.

Dropbox also offers an attractive pricing model. Although it doesn't provide as many collaboration features as Box, it offers more capacity for free. In fact, you can upload up to 5GB for free. It costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year to have 53GB of storage.… Read more

Online storage service Box.net is sporting a new look Thursday. It's part of a bigger change to woo small to medium-size businesses toward using it as the go-to way to transfer files between colleagues and clients. The changes will trickle down to users of its free, consumer-facing, 1 GB service too.

Instead of going for a desktop software solution, which I'm told is in the works, the company has redesigned its user experience to let employees and managers alike monitor usage and activity around files and folders. Collaborators on a project can see what others have open, … Read more

UPDATE (February 4, 2009): Both houses of Congress have now passed identical versions of a revised DTV bill that President Obama is expected to sign into law. However, it appears that the law will still allow analog stations to shut down starting February 17. See CNET News for more information.

The future of the DTV transition is still uncertain, and Wednesday the House of Representatives is set to vote on the latest bill to delay the transition from February 17 to June 12.

That sounds simple enough, but the reality is still pretty muddled. For one, the delay is still … Read more

Though DTV converter boxes are stacked up in most electronics stores, there are not enough guaranteed government coupons for them since the funds for the program began to run out.

With the scheduled transition to DTV broadcasting fast approaching (slated for February 17), one company is encouraging us to share the wealth. Retrevo's Good Neighbor Coupon Exchange Program links up those who have unused converter box coupons with those who are in need of them.

On Retrevo's DTV site, you simply choose whether you have a coupon to give or if you need one. Enter an e-mail address … Read more