It goes without saying that Dropbox is highly regarded as a cloud storage solution. What’s more, when Dropbox is combined with everyone’s favourite open source Operating system, Android, keeping your treasured files with you on-the-go truly becomes a reality. Therefore, when new builds are thrown out onto the web, I simply can’t help but take a peek and get my hands on the latest offering from the team with the little, blue box.

Coincidentally, speaking of updates, the latest Dropbox Beta build, 1.3.0.6, is now available directly from the Dropbox website for Android users to behold. Let’s take a quick peek at what’s available in 1.3.0.6…

Straight out-of-the-box (so to speak), you will notice that Beta Build 1.3.0.6 has a new, clean interface for users to explore. Tabs that run horizontally at the top of your display allow you to cycle easily between your Home folder, Uploads manager and Favourites (which I will mention in furehter detail below). The new UI certainly has an ICS-esque feel to it, teasing those of us who haven’t upgraded from Gingerbread. In fact, Dropbox made note of the fact that this build has been “optimised” for Ice Cream Sandwich.

In addition to a nice, new look, Beta Build 1.3.0.6 has also received several new features, that allow Dropbox users to take advantage of a more streamlined workflow. These include, but are not limited to:

• The ability to “bulk” upload files to your Dropbox folder;
• The ability to rename files and folders, and;
• The addition of Favourites. Favourites are files you wish to save offline, for easy access — anytime.

Although these new features are welcome ones, it is a shame not to see “bulk download” integration thrown into this release. Having said that, this is not a final release, and we may be lucky enough to have a late Christmas present thrown our way — I’ll keep my fingers crossed if you will.

Have you downloaded a copy of the Beta Build? If so, what is your first impression? What do you think could be improved for the next release? Throw me some comments, dear readers…

Traditionally developing websites was hard difficult and available only to a select few, but with the commoditisation of the web, businesses and platforms emerged to make it easy enough for average Joe to build his own site.

Shortly after creating a website, Joe wants to make a little cash, so he introduces some advertising to the site. Maybe he does or doesn’t have a success, but the opportunity and potential to make a lot of money takes Joe down a dangerous path. He then goes after every possible opportunity to throw advertising in front of his audience in the hope that they click on an ad and make him some money.

It makes sense right, with a couple of ads, you make a little bit of money, so add more ads and you’ll make more money, right? Maybe Joe is ‘successful’, but the reality is, he just turned his corner of the internet into a virtual dumping group.

Take the site wmpoweruser.com below, apologies for picking on you but this is simply a graphic example of what’s happening across the entire internet right now. The site is completely dominated by advertising leaving almost no room for actual content, you know, the reason a visitor went there in the first place.

• Red – Advertisements
• Orange – Website branding/social sharing
• Green – Actual content

This is like a TV show breaking for ads not every 9 minutes for 2 minutes of ads, but 9 minutes of ads and 2 minutes of content. So my question is, why do we put up with this and why as website creators do we think this is a good solution to financing our operations? It’s a terrible user experience.

Take a look at Apple’s use of retail space compared to most others. Many retail businesses are so packed with products you can barely turn around without knocking something off the shelf. Apple took the minimalist approach and focused on a better user experience in-store, it seems to be paying for them with Microsoft now following suit. Many luxury brands are also doing the same, so lets rethink the way we’re doing the web, because right now, we’re treating our customers like shit.

In around 8 hours from now, the land rush for .XXX begins. The new adult entertainment top-level domain (TLD) will be allocated in a first come, first served basis. While this TLD is receiving widespread attention due to its adult nature, any time a new TLD is introduced it’s an important milestone.

Anyone who has tried to register a domain name in the past few years knows that there’s very few short, memorable dictionary word domain names left. Only time will tell how successful the .xxx domain will be. In theory it allows ISPs to filter all .xxx domain names to prevent adult content from being seen by minors.

The problem with .xxx and filtering is that it’s optional. This means the valuable and highly trafficked .com domain names will remain and continue to serve adult content. So while .xxx is recognisable, it wont replace .com.

There is one incentive that could see demand grow for .XXX over more traditional and popular domains, that is security. .XXX domains will all receive daily malware scans via McAfee which is said to protect both site operators and consumers. This is the first domain type in the world to receive this treatment.

It’s clear demand, or interest in this release is high with the www.buy.xxx website is achieving almost 1 million visitors per day. The domain registrar linked to from the official website is GoDaddy, but should be sold through many others. Just in case you wanted to shout us a Christmas present, the domain techAU.xxx will set you back A$102.01.

Thanks to @Mr_Internet for the heads up (wait, that probably sounds bad).

For more information and to watch the count down, head to http://about.xxx or watch on twitter #dotxxx

Sometimes you may need to route your internet traffic through an internationally location like the US or UK. TunnelBear is a great, free Windows and Mac VPN app that is so easy to install and setup that your mum could do it. While it free there are limitations. Bandwidth transfers per month is set at just 500MB, but with a tweet promoting the app, it’s increased to 1.5GB.

Depending on your need for a VPN solution, this may or may not be adequate. If not, you may want to consider paying for additional bandwidth. At $4.99 per month for unlimited, it’s a great deal. There is even a TunnelBear beta for iPads and iPhone looking for a VPN connection, but you will need a paid subscription for that.

However you choose to use this is up to you, all I know is that it’s the most simple VPN solution to date. There’s no router configuration, it just works. Naturally when you run a VPN at the device level, you’ll need to set it up and enable it per device. This will also allow you to manage your bandwidth limit better.

Check it out at http://tunnelbear.com/

Keeping on top of technology developments means reading through thousands of news items from over 100 feeds per month. According to Google Reader, I’ve read more than 300,000 items over the past few years. To keep things interesting, I break up the hard-core technology news, with some lighter, more thought provoking feeds.

One of my favourites is Design Buzz. Covering design ideas from Gadgets, Architecture, Technology, Arts, Transportation, Tourism, DIY and Green News.

If you want to know what’s coming in the future, then looking at these visionary concepts is a great place to start.

Check it out @ http://designbuzz.com or subscribe to the RSS feed here.

‘The secret behind exceptional websites’ Squarespace has had a new version in the works for a long time now. Back in May SquareSpace teased us with the upcoming changes to the platform. A number popular internet celebrities Like Kevin Rose and Leo Laporte have made mention that they have seen v6, however we are now headed for October with no sign of it.

Back in May we reported the beta was rolling out to early testers in ‘weeks’ after SquareSpace’s own blog delivered screen shots of the refresh. In June SquareSpace posted that v6 had been in development for more than 6 months internally.

Our team has been hammering on it internally for 6 months ensuring that it has the inherent flexibility that developers want and need.

So the question remains.. where the hell is SquareSpace v6 ? Most blogging and CMS platforms received updates and improvements over time, however SquareSpace has remained the same. The theory is that by being hosted in the cloud, that updates become easier to distribute to users, however the reality of the SquareSpace update is that it has been delayed by many months.

To be honest, I’ve struggled with SquareSpace, it’s certainly easy to use and and fast to get a website online, but is limited in its functionality. Version 6 of SquareSpace was supposed to go a long way to address user feedback, but for that to occur, it needs to ship.

Microsoft have switched on the long promised HTML5 version of their Bing search engine. Bing began by making search more visual with a daily image, but now through the power of HTML5 video, that image comes to life as a video. Unfortunately this is another entrant to the US-only release list, but there is a relatively easy way for those outside the US to use it.

In the top right of Bing there is a Country selector, click this, then choose United States from the list. Of course this then means you will get US-oriented results. If you can’t be bothered with that, then check out the video below of Bing’s HMT5 video homepage.

Sure this does absolutely nothing to the quality of search results, but is an interesting showcase of the possibilities of HTML5 and makes for a unique search experience, Google, your plain white page is growing old.

More @ Bing

The NBN dream of delivering faster speed and better prices is finally being realised. This morning iiNet have announced their retail NBN plans. Earlier this year Internode took a lot of heat for their NBN offerings being too expensive ($189.95 for 100/40, 1TB plan). Internode pointed to NBN interconnect costs as the reason why, but since then Dodo, Exetel, but more importantly, iiNet have announced significantly cheaper plans.

At the time of the Internode pricing announcement, the Government’s Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy suggested competition would bring prices down and after today’s announcement, it seems he was right. Early reaction online this morning seems overwhelmingly positive for these prices. Not entirely surprising given moving to an iiNet NBN plan would dramatically increase speed and downloads – Win/Win.

While there may be 12 options, the top plan is most inviting. 1TB of downloads, at 100Mbps down and 40Mbps up for just $99.95 per month. All the iiNet NBN plans require a 24 month plan, but if that’s the barrier to entry, sign me up now.

iiNet’s plans don’t cater for the entry level pricing, look to Dodo or Exetel for that, but at the medium to top end of the market, iiNet are currently the cheapest. Your move BigPond and Optus.

The only problem with the iiNet NBN plans is that most of us can’t get them yet. Now the pricing is in line with what we expected to see, the only question left is how fast it can be rolled out.

Update
VOIP phone service can be added for $9.95pm. The NBN prices are also available to business but the top plan costs $30pm extra.

More @ http://www.iinet.net.au/nbn/

ifttt is a new online tasking service that according to them, allows you to “put the internet to work for you”. “ifttt” stands for “if this then that” and pretty much amounts to cron jobs for the internet. The main idea revolves around creating tasks that fit into a simple structure:

if this then that.

Where “this” is a trigger and “that” is an automated action. Some examples of tasks might be:

If I star something in Google Reader then add it to my Read It Later account.

If I publish a new post to WordPress then publish its title and URL on Twitter.

If tomorrow’s forecast predicts rain then send me an SMS to notify me.

It’s that simple and yes, SMS notifications do work in Australia. at least they do if you’re with Vodafone – we haven’t tested the other service providers just yet.

Recipes
ifttt allows users to share task “recipes” with each other. At the moment there are 135 pages of recipes on the site. With 10 recipes listed per page, that’s a decent number of recipe contributions to choose from.

Channels
Triggers and actions use channels. There are thirty channels currently available to use, from Twitter to Yahoo! weather to the current date and time. Channels require one-off activation, which usually takes up to a minute or so:

Where ifttt came from
ifttt was created by two pretty cool sounding guys – Linden Tibbets and Jesse Tane (told you they sounded cool). One day while trying to solve an event-driven programming problem, Linden had an “Aha!” moment:

“I realized that the key to unlocking the creative potential of our existing digital tools might be to build a service that simplifies and consolidates the way those tools can be connected.“ – Linden Tibbets

Thus, ifttt was born. You can read more about the thoughts and history behind the project in Linden’s post on the ifttt.com blog.

How ifttt could be better
ifttt is in currently in Beta so nobody really expects it to be perfect just yet. There are some features I wish it would have that it currently doesn’t. One of them is folders to organise tasks. With the number of tasks one can create being unlimited, it’s easy to see how you could eventually end up with a pretty huge list of tasks on your “Tasks” page. Yes, you can filter your tasks (which is pretty much just a search feature), but I’d love to be able to put my tasks into category-based groups, like folders.

I also wish (and I’m not sure if this would be over-complicating the idea behind ifttt) that more than one action could be created in one task. For example, instead of having two separate tasks when publishing a new blog post – one task for posting its URL to Twitter and another task for posting its URL to Facebook, I could just have one task that does both actions – if I publish a new blog post, then publish the link on Twitter and Facebook.

Will ifttt remain free?
My biggest question about ifttt.com right now is whether the service will remain free. Tibbets and Tane must have some sort of monetization plan or projection in place, whether it’s advertising, payment plans, or even selling the company when it goes big and letting monetization be the buyer’s problem. I’m curious to see where they take the project in that regard.

The great thing about ifttt is that it isn’t just a creative, original idea. It’s an original idea with amazing practical application potential. One of those ideas that makes you think “Why didn’t anyone else think of this before?” I’m already using ifttt to send me reminders, do some of my Tweeting, and monitor the weather for me. The service fulfills a genuine need and does this with amazing ease for the user.

ifttt.com is currently in open Beta; you can check it out by registering here.

Liza Shulyayeva is a blogger and web consultant in Perth, Western Australia. She likes technology, big ideas, and your mom.

Microsoft have continued their theme of getting the browser out of the way and letting web content shine. During the Build conference, we seen a demo of the new Internet Explorer for Windows 8. While it wasn’t ever referred to as IE10, we know IE10 is currently in developer preview with no UI. Given the codebase is very similar, it’s likely that IE10 will still run on Windows 7.

Internet Explorer multiple tabs.

Internet Explorer on Windows 8 with keyboard overlay.