7 Days on the internet: the egos have landed

7 Days on the internet: the egos have landed

Biggest heads, best top 10s and a dash of news

Welcome to the inaugural 7 days on the internet feature from TechRadar, your weekly guide to all that's sizzling on the world wide web, with an hors d'ouevres of the most topical news, a seasoning of sarcasm and a soupcon of humour on the side.

Stuff that occured

It may be a bleak mid-winter as we trudge manfully through the snow and suicidal bankers muttering about lost bonuses, but if you want a genuinely British way to lift your spirits then the news is good. Why? I hear you cry, as you neatly sidestep the chancellor calling for you to go and spend your savings in Marks & Spencers. Because Monty Python has finally (officially) Hit YouTube.

Now you can (officially) enjoy such classics as the Ministry of Funny Walks, (legally) watch the dead parrot sketch and (not have to wait for the P2P download to) lap up the 100 metres for the directionally challenged.

And that's not the only way you can entertain yourself as you cut back on such frivolities as food and shelter, because Google has given us countless* hours of entertainment with a raft* of thrilling* announcements this week including (drum roll) themes for Gmail.

Now you can dress up your formerly perfectly functional and clean webmail with NINJAS! ZOOZIMPS! Err BUS STOP or our personal favourite 70s brown, or 'sunset' as Google call it. Can we stick a small wager on you opting for the theme called 'default'?

* caution may contain hyperbole

Someone commented on my piece about Dido's site being optimised for the iPhone that sticking the word 'bland' in the opening paragraph could be seen as judgemental editorialising in a news piece.

Two things. One, I'm not entirely aware that I did it, so I'm tentatively suggesting that my wordprocessor saw the words 'Dido album' and amended it and secondly isn't there some form of trade descriptions ruling on this?

Away from the world of, deep breath, Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, Facebook has hit the headlines with the news that a juror held a poll on her page to see which way she should vote. Aside from how funny this is (and it did get picked up before a man was sent down/let off for his crimes/non-crimes) it started us wondering if a Digg system of votes would indeed be an effective method of justice. It would certainly make Big Brother more interesting if the least popular one was actually jailed on their exit from the house (and as for Davina…).

Last, and possibly least, comes the rumour that Microsoft is going to rebrand its Live search as 'Kumo' – which apparently means both 'cloud' and 'spider' in Japanese. We're not entirely sure how this works but this is the internet and the critical mass of more than five people have said it – which means it must be a fact. Just ask those people looking up their medications on Wikipedia. As an aside – this story carries the least interesting image ever used in the history of TechRadar.

7 biggest egos on the internet

After much rowing with T3 online who believe that big ego = famous, my personal view of the biggest web egos are:

5. Harry Knowles, Aintitcoolnews.com – Harry, we know you did good when you created a world-beating movie rumours site but do we really need an animated gif of you as a film character? Really?

4. Bloke from 'the best page in the universe' – "This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong." Kudos

3. Jason Calacanis Mahalo.com et al – "This is my blog, this is where I live. You should also listen to my podcast." Err, okay.

2. John Romero http://www.johnromero.com – Legendary egotist who famously threatened to make us all his bitch. Did co-create Doom in his defence however.

1. Martin Lewis http://www.moneysavingexpert.com – "Right everyone, I'm TV's thrift expert Martin Lewis and I need an icon for my site. Any suggestions. My face? Good. Make it happen."At this exact moment there are three images of Martin, one icon and a video - all on the front page.

10 top 10s that we didn't do on TechRadar* (from Digg)

Top 10 celebrities who play world of warcraft
10 Sarah Palin excuses for turkey slaughter
Top 10 signs you drink too much
Top 10 reasons George Lucas movies are so bad
Top 10 most pirated movies on BitTorrent
Top 10 amazing Biology Videos
Top 10 reasons why Kanye West is a douche
Top 10 things you can do with a DVD
Top 10 games on the Wii
The top 10 worst stepmother movies
*yet

Word of the week

Cyberchondriac – Reading up on your symptoms on the web and deciding you're dying of Ebola.

Three stories that amused me for the wrong reasons

Daily Mail – The Mafia gun disguised as a mobile phone. Yes – and if you lived in the 80s, when a phone that looked like that actually existed it would be really terrifying. If someone pulled that phone out I would be running well before I wondered if it was a 'cunningly' disguised gun. Opening line merits mention as well:

"It's the mobile phone that could leave you with more than a warm ear." Quite.

Reuters – Israelis develop software to improve your looks. Let's clarify this. It's a program that helps you alter photos of yourself to make you look better in pictures. Surely, I dunno, Adobe got there first with Photoshop.

The picture on this article is brilliant. Guess which is before and after.

BBC - The UK government is losing 53 computers a year – not amusing. But this sentence bears consideration: "A spokesman said all the incidents had been investigated and that all portable equipment was marked with an invisible dye to help deter or detect theft."

'Don't take that, it's got a security measure we can't see!'