What is a MyCast from Orb? Well they have a great description and many details on their website so I won’t go into the details. But let it suffice to say that with this software, running on my home PC, I can view all of my videos, podcasts, music files, photos, and anything that’s either a video, audio, or media file, from anywhere I can access the web.

This stuff even works on my Dell Axim pocket pc. It’s somehow amazing that I was able to walk around the office, watching “The Office” in the palm of my hand, knowing it was streaming via the wireless LAN and then via the Internet, all the way from my computer at home. The current version is a little buggy, it tends to crash but it does a great job when it’s running. Streaming quality is excellent, of course dependent on your network connection, and the new flash player allows for even more flexibility than before.

I would highly recommend this for anyone who is on the go a lot and just doesn’t have enough time at home to watch their media stored on their PC.

My buddy Paul just alerted to this site called Digg View that gives a very nice summary of the top stories on Digg. I tend to look at what’s happening on Digg a few times a day, usually when I’m bored. This page now gives me a quick overview of anything that I may be interested in. Good stuff!

Web 2.0

It’s been a while but finally my blog is back online. Stupid DNS changes… Here’s what I’ve been dying to post about over the last week:

Aren’t you tired of all of those people out there trying to grab all of these fake friends online? It’s all about how many people can I pretend to be friends with to make myself feel better. Welcome to a better way at snubster. Instead of adding people to a friends list, you can put them on a “on notice” list or on a “dead to me” list. I like the idea.

TalkCrunch is a new weekly podcast by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch and discusses the previous week’s stories. I haven’t listened to it yet, but it should be pretty interesting.

Like prank calls? well these prank calls to the GeekSquad are absolutely hilarious. Be sure to check them out.

TechCrunch has gotten possession of screenshots from Google’s long delayed new Ajax calendar application, which will be called “CL2″. It was only a matter of time before someone broke down and leaked these – as far as I know these screen shots are the first on the public web. Previous ones were almost certainly photoshopped fakes. These are real.

ClaimID is a new online service that lets you claim content online that is rightfully yours. I’ve just been accepted into the private beta and signed up for it. I’ve added whatever I could remember and find online that’s mine. You can check out those links under the “Me Online” link in the header.

Here’s a little more about ClaimID:

claimID will allow users to track, classify, annotate, prioritize and share the information that is about them online. It’s about staking your claim to the things out there about you. It’s about drawing a line in the sand over the things that aren’t about you. It’s about managing the facts and the image you want. Take back some of the control that’s been lost to the search engines. Use the search engines to help you reclaim who you are.

An updated version of the Web 2.0 logo compilation has been posted at Flickr. Many new logos have been added, such as Blinklist and 9rules. I’ve posted it below:

I thought I was done with these Ajax start pages. I was sure that Netvibes was what I was going to stick with. Well, then someone posted a comment that changed things. Enter Pageflakes. Same ideas as the other ones, little prettier, more features, and the ability to create your own flakes (widgets). Screenshots below:

We’ve all seen the use of avatars used in forums all over the place. It’s a neat way to distinguishing yourself from others. Gravatar, which stands for Globally Recognized Avatar, is a free service where you can sign up and upload an avatar image for yourself. This image will show up on any sites that are Gravatar enabled.

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an 80×80 pixel avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?

And guess what? I just did that on this blog. If you look at the comments, you’ll now see the avatar images next to posters. If you don’t have an avatar, I suggesting signing up for one. It’s easy and it’ll certainly look better than a blank image, no?

Related Links:

• http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Gravatars
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_virtual_reality
• http://www.gravatar.com/about.php

Ok, ok, I’ve been obsessed with these Ajax powered start pages. But I think this one’s a keeper. If for nothing more than a new RSS feed reader. Netvibes has all the common features, RSS reader, to-do lists, weather widget, email checker, and more. They’ve also planned a number of nice features for the future. The layout is not as customizable as Protopage for example, but it’s more stable and reliable. Who knew the French could pull something like this off! Check it out, I highly recommend it.

Yesterday I blogged about Goowy. While it’s a pretty neat service it’s still a bit too buggy for everyday use. At least for me. So I decided to check out Protopage. This is another Ajax powered customizable personal homepage. It seems a little bit more stable and faster. It’s free, so it’s worth a try. See my screenshot below.

Goowy is something I just heard about in the latest Inside the Net podcast.

goowy (re) is a rich experience site which helps you manage your digital lifestyle. We provide you with a fresh and powerful environment for managing your webmail, contacts, calendar, rss, widgets (search, bookmarks, photos, weather, stocks, quotes, scores, etc.), and fun flash games.

It’s really quite cool. The first thing I did was import my gmail emails into my goowy account. Now, I’ll continue to receive them at gmail but will use goowy to read and write them. The other nice thing it does is that it also acts as an RSS feed reader. Here’s a screenshot of the web-based version of it. Give it a try, it’s pretty useful.Web 2.0

This is kinda neat. Someone has posted a montage of sorts using the logos of all (well almost all) Web 2.0 companies. The end result is a really cool image which shows off just how colourful web 2.0 is. The image is posted on Flickr and I have posted the small version below.

A comprehensive summary of design issues on Web 2.0 web design. This one is focusing on a design related point of view instead of the usual Ajax / Web2.0 API approach. Basic, yet highly interesting facts on why those websites look as cool as they do – while still being dead simple web design.

read more | digg story

According to Egosurf, about this much:egoWeb 2.0

I’ve experimented with many different ways to listen to music while at work: homebrew streaming mp3 server at home, live365.com, even mp3s on my cellphone. Recently I’ve discovered a cool new streaming music service (free of course). It’s called Pandora and it let’s you customize what music you want to listen to. Think of it as an online radio station where you have control over the content, at least for the most part. Essentially how it works is that you tell the system the name of a song or artist that you like. It will then compile a dynamic playlist with songs similar to the one you chose. As you go along, you can give the good ol’ thumbs up or down to songs that are playing and the system will attempt to better serve you with music you like. It’s pretty cool. Now, I’m not all that picky with music, so I’m not sure if it’s all that accurate, but so far, no Rap songs have disturbed my “My Faves” radio station that originated from 3 Doors Down.Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes.

What it means to me is that all of a sudden I am able to find so many more free online services that help me get my shit together… For example:

BlinkList

BlinkList is a social bookmarking service. Social or not, it allows me to store my bookmarks on the internet, so I can access them conveniently from wherever I am. It also allows me to be more specific by tagging sites and providing descriptions. More importantly it keeps things organized. No longer do I have to deal with a huge list of local bookmarks that I have to scroll through. I can now bookmark anything that I think is even remotely interesting and I don’t have to worry about taking up precious space. Why? Because now I can search my bookmarks. Gotta love it.

MetaWishList

One of many online wishlist sites that I’ve stumbled upon recently. I have a horrible memory and everytime Christmas comes around I have no idea what I’d like, let alone what my friends would like. Now, if I see something online, I hit a couple of buttons, and BAM! it’s saved forever. Take that, memory!

Flickr

Everyone’s got photos they want to share. With Flickr you can upload them for free and share them with friends or family. Or maybe you just need to boost your ego by showing off your abilities when it comes to lighting (wtf?). In any case, if your harddrive ever goes kablooey, at least your photos will be safe, no?

Bloglines

So RSS is here, right? Let’s you read websites from one central place. I think Bloglines is typical of what Web 2.0 is all about. As opposed to having an app that runs on your PC, you can gather all your RSS feeds of interest in one place, online. Benefits again are that if you ever lose your harddrive or are somewhere else, or blahblahblah. You get the picture. I like it!

Gmail

Online email has been around for a long time but it’s getting better all the time. I can’t recall how many times I’ve vowed to stick with an email account, but I think my Gmail account may really be it. Hey, I have nearly 3GB of space and am only using 11% of it. I used to store my emails in a local app, like Outlook (shudder) or Thunderbird. But no more. My system goes down the crapper more often than I’d like and I’m sick of losing emails. Google to the rescue!

So, whatever Web 2.0 means to people, to me it means one thing in short: Comfort.