If can't come up with a good idea, steal one.

When Arrington posted that the Crunchpad is dead, there was mention of upcoming legal action against once partner Chandra Rathakrishnan and Fusion Garage.

On Monday Fusion Garage released the tablet now known as the JooJoo in San Francisco. How they rubbed off the CruchPad logo so fast, I’m not sure. The touch screen device is priced at $499.

Arrington announced TechCrunch filed a lawsuit Thursday against Fusion Garage, siting “Fraud and Deceit, Misappropriation of Business Ideas, Breach of Fiduciary Duty, Unfair Competition, and Violations of the Lanham Act.”.

The JooJoo ‘Web slate’ is based around a 12.1-inch diagonal 720p capacitive touch screen.
The specs include: 1366×768-pixel resolution, a built-in camera, mic, and speakers, one USB port, and a card slot. There’s 4GB of cache memory. Rathakrishnan wouldn’t say what the processor?. He also won’t say who makes the touch screen.

The JooJoo runs a proprietary Linux-based operating system whose only purpose is to run the device’s browser, based on Webkit but again a custom job by the developer. The browser supports Flash and other standard HTML extensions.

The $499 price point is too high. Arrington has previously shot for closer to $200 – $300.

I already run Chrome on my Macbook, but it was fun to get this in my email box

It’s finally here: Google Chrome for Mac. Available today in beta!

Hi there,

Thanks for signing up to hear from us regarding Google Chrome for Mac! We’re excited to let you know that Google Chrome is now available in beta for Mac OS X.

Here are a few fun facts from us on the Google Chrome for Mac team:

* 73,804 lines of Mac-specific code written
* 29 developer builds
* 1,177 Mac-specific bugs fixed
* 12 external committers and bug editors to the Google Chrome for Mac code base, 48 external code contributors
* 64 Mac Minis doing continuous builds and tests
* 8,760 cups of soft drinks and coffee consumed
* 4,380 frosted mini-wheats eaten

Thanks for waiting and we hope you’ll give Google Chrome for Mac a whirl.

Google Chrome Team
www.google.com/chrome

Just installed it. It seems very snappy.

Yesterday, I commented on the Gboard gadget thing for Gmail keyboard short cuts, costing $20 and an USB port that I don’t have to spare… but I did learn something important Gmail has keyboard short cuts.

These could be handy. Lifted straight from Google.

To turn these case-sensitive shortcuts on or off, click Settings, and then pick an option next to Keyboard
shortcuts.

Combo-keys – Use the
following combinations of keys to navigate through Gmail.

Have an extra $20 sitting around?
Use Gmail?
Can’t remember all those pesky Gmail keyboard short cuts?
I present… the Gboard

This little gadget looks useless.

It plugs into your computer, using up one of your USB ports and gives you a little pad with 19 buttons that trigger some of the more common of Gmail’s keyboard short cuts. Since there are 69 Gmail shortcuts in all, it barely scratches the surface, but a 69 key keyboard with all of them would be ridiculous right?

But then again, its Christmas and under $20 gifts can be hard to come by. This might be just the trick for the geek in your life.

I am now going to go learn some of the Gmail keyboard shortcuts because before this post, I didn’t know they existed.

Damn.

Buy.com currently has a never-been-locked 3Gs 32gb Iphone for two cents under a $1000.

That seems like a lot of money for a phone.

For $1000 you could buy a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook.

For $1000 you could buy a Golden Opulence Sundae.

For $1000 you could buy a 1998 Kia Sportage

You might even be able to buy a house in Cleveland.

It seems mininova.org has purged all user-contributed torrents in an attempt to comply with an August order by a Dutch judge, removing all the indexed torrents with questionable content and become an index of Content Distribution torrents only.

Posted on the MiniNova Blog (which is now unavailable)

Hi all,

Today is an important day in the history of Mininova. From now on, we are limiting Mininova.org to our Content Distribution service. By doing so, we comply with the ruling of the Court of Utrecht of last August.

Unfortunately the court ruling leaves us no other option than to take our platform offline, except for the Content Distribution service. According to the verdict (Dutch link) we have to prevent uploads of torrents to Mininova that refer to certain titles or to similar-looking titles. We’ve been testing some filtering systems the last couple of months, but we found that it’s neither technically nor operationally possible to implement a 100% working filter system. Therefore, we decided that the only option is to limit Mininova to Content Distribution torrents from now on. We are still considering an appeal at this moment.

We launched our Content Distribution service in 2007. This service allows producers and artists to easily publish and distribute their content for free through Mininova. The launch of Content Distribution has proven to be a success. Countless content owners have used Content Distribution to distribute their content (e.g. albums and documentaries) for free to millions of users. For example, the Dutch band Silence is Sexy released their complete album on Mininova and received the Interactive Award 2009 for doing so. The Dutch television broadcaster VPRO decided to start using Content Distribution in 2009 in order to distribute documentaries.

We would like to thank you for your support. Especially everyone that contributed to Mininova receives a big “thank you!” for the effort! We hope to keep welcoming you on Mininova and our other projects (e.g. Snotr, Dispostable).

Thanks! The Mininova staff

www.zeropaid.com was quick to post five alternatives, but I doubt any will be as good and ‘clean’ as mininova was.

Honestly, this ranks up there with the collapse of Napster in ending an era on the internet.

OK, this was one tablet that I actually was looking forward to.

Michael Arrington has posted that the Crunchpad is dead.

The plan was to debut the CrunchPad on stage at the Real-Time Crunchup event on November 20. 1,000 of the devices would be available pre-sale and they would start taking orders immediately. Larger scale production would begin early in 2010.

Arrington then goes on to tell a bizarre tale of getting an email from Chandra Rathakrishnan, their partner on the project, telling them that based on pressure from his shareholders he had decided to move forward and sell the device directly through Fusion Garage, without our involvement.

“We still acknowledge that Arrington and TechCrunch bring some value to your business endeavor…If he agrees to our terms, we would have Arrington assume the role of visionary/evangelist/marketing head and Fusion Garage would acquire the rights to use the Crunchpad brand and name. Personally, I don’t think the name is all that important but you seem to be somewhat attached to the name.”

Arrington compares it to Foxconn, who build the iPhone, notifiying Apple a couple of days before launch that they’d be moving ahead and selling the iPhone directly without any involvement from Apple.

But was it ever real?

I guess we may never know.

WebStudio Website Builder From Netidnow.com allows a user to create a website or to build an online store by just using a internet browser, allowing you to choose between a host of professionally designed templates. While most of the standard templates have that standard ‘template’ look (well so do 75% Word Press sites) the ease of set up and affordable pricing should tempt a small to mid-sized business.

In my experience, you can never replace good web development and web smarts with an off the shelf software, but often a tool like this can speed up design and development and replace a lot of actions that are repeated with every website.

The offer a free trial, a shopping cart, and hosting is included with the package.

The online cart supports many payment methods and gateways, including Authorize.net, Network Merchants, PayPal Payments Pro and Standard, Verisign Payflow Pro, Virtual Merchant, and more. They help with the merchant account as well through Total Merchant Services.

Prices start at $19.95 per month for their Basic and go up to $99.95 per month with their Platinum Professional Store. All plans have no set up fee and POP email accounts and webmail.

If you are looking for a quick off the shelf full package website or online store service, check out WebStudio Website Builder From Netidnow.com

The “Swiss Army Knife” of Disk Connectivity…Turns Any Bare Drive Into An External Storage Solution!!

I just ordered one of these for only $30. I have a small army of older hard drives that probably have stuff on them I’ll want, this seemed like a good way to access the data.

It allows any 2.5″, 3.5″, or 5.25″ hard drive or optical drive* with any standard IDE/ATA/ATAPI 40 pin or SATA interface to be connected via USB to any USB equipped computer for file transfer, backing-up and storing file archives, and accessing data on stored backup drives with Plug & Play ease.

SWEET!

Since I suggested it to someone on Yahoo Answers, I should probably own one.

AdvancePro Inventory Management Software

AdvanceWare Technologies’ inventory management software offers an impressive inventory management system that is both flexible and scaleable to meet small to medium business needs. With over 3000 total users and 8 years of experience, they would be an excellent choice for a small to medium sized distributors, wholesalers, resellers, and web retailers who need to automate their supply chain transactions, improve workflow and maximize their profits. Their Technology Partners include Intuit, Microsoft (Net ‘Gold Certified’ and AdvancePro uses Microsoft’s SQL database), Crystal Reports (Crystal Reports for Visual Studio .NET), Thawte (128-bit browser independent encryption), Authorizenet and VeriSign (for automated payment processing).

With a free trial and a 30 day money back guarantee, they seem willing to bet you will like their product.

The pricing is scaled depending on the number of users, starting with their AdvancePro Lite product with one user for $499. With the AdvancePro, you can add modules ala carte for $499 per module with a single user price of $999 scaling up to $17,999.00 for 25 users. The AdvancePro all Inclusive option starts at $1,749.00 and includes unlimited add-ons (with several exceptions). Features such as warehouse management software, order management, and the Quickbooks integration are all built in with additional modules including UPS/FedEx/USPS Integration, Order matrix for items with multiple sizes, colors or other options and other features. They also provide two levels of support, payable by an annual fee. Email support as well as live telephone support, from 9am EST- 5:00pm EST US (weekdays). All the product descriptions and support details are covered on their websites product page. It is also possible to upgrade between products and product levels seamlessly.

AdvanceWare Technologies also provides One to One Demonstration on request.

Even with all these features and affordable pricing, is AdvancePro the right choice for your business? Pam Newman, columnist for Entrepreneur.com, outlines Tips for choosing an accounting software. Using Newman’s suggestions for qualifying accounting and inventory management systems, check if AdvanceWare Technologies’ AdvancePro fits your business needs. Their website should have answers to any questions and if you need more information, their customer service can help.