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Hands-on reviews and news about online software and new Web communities, from Webware.com.

Googlepedia for Firefox brings Wikipedia to youYesterday

(Credit: CNET)

If you're one whose search results lead you to a Wikipedia page nine times out of ten, you would do well to install the Googlepedia extension for Firefox.

This free, terrifically easy add-on pulls the Wikipedia article most closely associated with your search term into the right half of a Google search results page. Modest controls let you expand, shrink, or hide the article.

Here's the best part: clicking a link within the article feeds the term back into Google's search engine, and therefore back into Googlepedia's cycle of serving up Wikipedia articles.

Googlepedia will undoubtedly save you time if a quick search is all you need. If you're one to submit to Wikipedia's siren call of never-ending knowledge, download at your own risk.

Tiltshiftmaker turns photos into miniature scenesYesterday

Tilt-shift photography is a technique that requires a special lens to change both the perspective and focal field of an image. A similar effect can be created in PhotoShop and other high-end image editing programs, but it's a lengthy effort that casual photographers will probably find daunting. Web-based photo editor Tiltshiftmaker has automated most of this process, letting you achieve a similar effect right in your browser.

To do it yourself you can either upload a photo from your computer, or drop in the URL of one hosted online. From there you can adjust how much of the shot you want in focus. This is done by dragging a horizontal bar up and down the shot, the size of which can be increased or decreased to bring more of your picture into focus. There's also the option to blow out the saturation to make your shot look cartoonishly colorful.

The test shot I used of the street outside CNET's office turned out great (see it below), and only took a few seconds to put together. My only qualm is that the editor's preview, which needs to be refreshed between each edit to see changes, is a little bit small, making minute adjustments on larger photos a tad difficult.

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Resumator makes hiring collaborative, paper-freeYesterday

Assuming you're in a position of hiring new people to work for your company (instead of laying them off), there's a new productivity boosting service called The Resumator that launched early Wednesday. It's part job-posting tool, part paperwork reducer, and also manages to throw in a recommendation engine that tells you which Web job boards are worth posting to based on the kind of job you're trying to hire for.

Of all the features, I find the most attractive one to be the document organizer, which sorts submitted resumes into different buckets for each job. You can search through these and narrow them down into groups by keyword, making it simpler to see who has listed certain skills, schools, or workplaces. It uses Scribd to convert each file into a browser-friendly document, and throws in a few neat Webby features like a five-star rating system and optional checklist that lets you quickly give each applicant the yea or nay in a centralized location.

What I really like about this system is that it's collaborative. Say, for instance, you're involving a few people in your company with a hiring process, you can give each one of them access,

Tech layoffs: The scorecardYesterday

With the overall economy slumping, the tech industry is taking its fair share of hits. We'll keep updating the chart below as news of company changes comes in. See our complete coverage of how the tech sector is faring here: Tracking the tech downturn.

Know of a layoff not listed here? Let us know on this form or e-mail us.

See also: The spreadsheet of sunshine: Who's hiring.

Company Date How many Further reading EMC 01/07/2009 2,400 (7 percent) EMC to cut 2,400 from workforceLiveJournal 01/06/2009 About 12 LiveJournal deletes 'about a dozen' jobsLogitech 01/06/2009 15% of salaried staff worldwide Logitech to slash 15 percent of workforceLenovo 01/05/2009 200 s

LG Blu-ray players stream Netflix, CinemaNow, and YouTubeYesterday

The LG BD370 Blu-ray player

(Credit: LG)

In 2008, LG's BD300 set itself apart from other Blu-ray players by becoming the first one to include compatibility with the Netflix's "Watch Instantly" streaming service. Unfortunately, the uniqueness of the feature was short-lived: within weeks, Netflix support was added to the Xbox 360, TiVo HD DVRs, and a pair of rival Blu-ray decks from Samsung. Now, LG's back with its second take on the Blu-ray/Netflix player, the BD370, which will also include the ability to stream online content from CinemaNow (pay-per-view) and YouTube (free).

Aside from those two new online content providers, the feature set of the BD370 appears little changed from the BD300 model (DVD upscaling, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio, BD-Live/Profile 2.0 support). However, the step-up BD390 model will offer a host of nice upgrades over the 370: built-in Wi-Fi (so you're not limited to wired Ethernet), 1GB of onboard memory (no need for a USB stick to access BD-Live features), and 7.1-channel analog outputs (maximum compatibility with older, non-HDMI AV receivers). Each of those improvements addre