MediaFire is a website which offers free file hosting & sharing services. Unlike most services, it does not require registration and doesn’t cap bandwidth, upload size, amounts of simultaneous downloads and uploads and doesn’t appear to have many, if any, adverts.

There are a few other file hosting & sharing services out there. These range from the Web 2.0 Box.net and Box.net lite, to Rapidshare (which I seem to have trouble downloading from) and MegaUpload.

Personally, I find Box.net a bit complex if you merely wish to share a file (although Box.net lite is much better), Rapidshare too restrictive (my IP can’t download from them, for example) and MegaUpload too ad-filled. All of these services are fast though, and the latter two offer some form of revenue sharing (which is somewhat ironic considering so much copyright law is breached on these sites).

MediaFire looks extremely Web 2.0, and is quite light compared to the vast majority of sites which offer similar services. MediaFire also seems pretty fast, I like the way it tells you how many Kbps you are achieving when you’re uploading (I’m currently getting about 210Kbps which is pretty impressive considering I’ve only got a 256Kbps uplink). The upload process, including the speedometer, is done through Ajax.

If you sign up for a free account, you get better management of your files. Although this is currently limited to the ability to seeing a list of your uploaded files and the ability to delete them, it would be nice to see the ability to count downloads. Also, MediaFire allows you to send files to Yahoo! IM or AIM buddies (but not MSN or Gtalk).

An example of a file I uploaded is the Creative Commons copyrighted ‘Heavy Eyelids’ by Eric Skiff. It is available to download from MediaFire here, Archive.org here or Gnutella here.

Tags: web 2.0, web2, web 2, web2.0, ajax, mediafire, hosting

This was previously posted but was removed due to non-disclosure

Azhar Chougle recently invited me to join a service called iLike which is a music recommendation site. When I first heard its description, a brand new service to help you organize your music, share your music tastes, and discover new music through your friends., I thought it was pretty much a clone of last.fm and it pretty much is, though it does differ.

iLike, as you may have guessed from its name, integrates with iTunes. If you download it, it plugs into iTunes and sends what you’re listening to, and allows you to discover new artists, create 1 click playlists and see what your friends are listening to. Remind anyone of last.fm? Last.fm still has many advantages, most importantly is that it supports other media players than iTunes. Personally, I detest iTunes and I’m a VLC and Winamp guy.

If you don’t wish to use iTunes, you can select artists you like from a list. However, the songs you play are not displayed on the site and your list isn’t automatically updated. An idea would be for them to create plug-ins for other media players or to simply use last.fm feeds.

iLike, much like last.fm, provides lists of people who have similar musical taste as you, as well as links to your friend’s profiles.

iLike, interestingly, allows you to preview copyrighted songs and songs from GarageBand. I like the way it supports unsigned artists by using GarageBand, and also how it allows you to download the full MP3 from GarageBand for free. This is a good way to attempt to share music free and legally, as well as promoting unsigned bands. The previewing function is somewhat like last.fm’s, though last.fm doesn’t integrate with GarageBand at all and plays songs from signed bands over its radio stations.

iLike’s design is very Web 2.0. It is very heavy on white and employs a lot of other light colours. This is much less heavy on the eyes than last.fm .

Overall, iLike seems a bit like last.fm clone. However, it lacks the support from the record industry last.fm has and only supports iTunes (it is targetting a much smaller audience than last.fm, though this isn’t a bad thing).

Tags: ilike, last.fm, lastfm, music, web 2.0, web2, web 2, web2.0, social networking, audioscrobbler

Despite the fact I have already made a brief sideblog post on this, I believe it is necessary to write a full article. 9rules is a blog network I am a member of.

9rules doesn’t pay its members, but it provides publicity as well as the right to display a 9rules’ member badge. The network has some of the best designers, like Bryan Veloso, and best bloggers around (such as me :P).

Anyhow, 9rules only accept submissions at certain points of the year. The last one, where I submitted my site, was in way back in May. That submission round received 700 applications, and this one will no doubt receive more (my bet’s 829).

The submission round starts at 0000 Eastern on the 25th October (0500 London; 0400 GMT) (which is right now, I’ve set this to automatically post) and lasts for exactly 24 hrs. I’m fairly sure the 9rules administrators will take days, if not weeks, to select new members so be patient . Read the 9rules blog for more details.

Good luck to anyone who submits their site, I hope Sarah and Azhar do.

Tags: 9rules, web2.0, web 2, web 2.0, web2, blogging, blogs, blog, blog networks

I’m going on vacation until halloween, and I have left a few posts to automatically post. Just to let you know my computer use will be limited until then

I remember Neil Turner publishes a list of his blog’s most frequent commenters each year, and I being the copycat I am decided to do the same.

I realised that you can’t do this in WordPress without having to mess on installing a widget or doing a SQL query. I decided to download the WordPress Top Commenters Plugin/Widget, but wishing to produce a one time list only I decided to extract the SQL query held in this GPL script.

Anyhow, the MySQL query is:


SELECT comment_author, comment_author_url, comment_author_email, comment_post_ID, COUNT( comment_ID ) AS total_comments
FROM wp_comments
WHERE comment_approved = '1'
GROUP BY comment_author
ORDER BY total_comments DESC


And to honour our most frequent commenters (bear in mind if you’ve posted from different names unless I see, they won’t be merged together)

Number 1 is Azhar, who’s made 72 comments here. He is followed by Sarah who has made 57. techchick comes next making 21 comments in total from the names techchick and dd. We then have Ambiguous Wanderer, who hasn’t commented here in quite a while, but once was a regular commenter making 11 comments. There are many more commenters I’d like to thank, but frankly there are too many!

As a blogger, I love comments. Its nice to know that you are not only being read but that people are thinking about your writing.

Tags: wordpress, mysql