Virtual work application

Google is adding support for Google Gadgets in its Google Desktop for the Mac software. Google Gadgets, as you probably know, are mini applications with dynamic content that offer quick access for things like newsfeeds and to-do lists. Mac users can now run Google Gadgets side by side with Apple Widgets in Dashboard and have the same gadgets on their Mac, iGoogle page, and Google Desktop Sidebar. Some cross-platform Gadgets include: YouTube, which lets you search and watch YouTube videos from Dashboard; Virtual Flower Pot, where you water it and watch flowers bloom; and Weather Globe, which displays weather conditions inside a 3D glass sphere. "For users, this means they can install hundreds of Google Gadgets with just one click and run them in Dashboard. ***

PayPal has announced that it is set “officially launch” Tuesday yet another way for its customers to make payments on web sites that do not accept PayPal. The downloadable software utility is called PayPal Secure Card. It is designed to automatically detect when you’re on an eCommerce checkout page, and then fill out the payment form for you. I’ve actually had the software installed for going on a year now, and honestly thought it was already publicly available. As it turns out, I’m part of some pre-beta club that got an early peek. As someone who uses it regularly, I can give you a bit better run down on how it actually works. You install and set up the software, and on your taskbar, you have a little PayPal icon. When you want to generate a random credit card number, you double click on it. ***

Jeremy Zawodny, whose works for Yahoo, and qualifies for the uber geek title has come to a conclusion that it is cheaper to store his important data on Amazon’s S3 service that use a server at home. He argues that it cost him about $1400 to build his server, and at current prices, he is spending around $13 a month at the very least. He thinks the monthly cost is around $35 a month. By his math, if he transferred all his data now - about 125 gigabytes is going to cost him $18.75 per month. Let’s further assume that I increase that by 1GB/month for the next five years (mostly photos) and transfer about 2GB every week doing backups (log files, mail, and other temporary stuff is much of that). 2GB every week is 8GB every four weeks, which costs another $1.60 every four week “month” for a total of $20.80 per year or $104 over 5 years. ***