For those who haven’t hear, there is a new email service which offers more than gmail, 30gigs to be exact (they intend to offer more in the future).
Why the hell would you want so much space for email!?
Many don’t (I don’t), but 30gigs.com promises to expand their service to a storage server, and 30gigs of free space sounds good to me.

At the moment, the service is a little slow but it is improving and I’d definately signup up while the gettings good and follow their progress. Their email service isn’t revolutionary (yet), offering pretty much what their competitors are. In due time, however, they hope to put a crimp in the big dogs such as Yahoo and MSN.

Any how, I’ve got some 30gigs invites to give away. Here’s 2:
http://www.30gigs.com/accept/64448/966d5d4731a780227779a651e2e5c660

http://www.30gigs.com/accept/64449/9599e480bc2f0540614ddaf44e14918d

To make things more interesting… the rest of the invites will appear in the RSS feed. Just subscribe and hope you are the first to grab it.
Give it to me now! You think I’d sign up to your feed for a crappy invite!? You’re nuts!
Ya, I know, tough.

The first ever virtual film festival is drawing to a close. You have 2 days left to attend this historic event. Don’t miss the final bash on the 30th!

And spread the word so as to fuel future vitual film festivals, at SecondLife, or elsewhere.

The Avalon crew have done a smashing job getting this cutting edge technology up and running. The quality is great and the sensation amazing. So a big thanks to the boys ( and gals) behind it all.

Would you like to be remote controlled? Well, if the new headset developed by Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. gets out of hand, or in the wrong hands, you may not have a choice.
I didn’t think it would be long before they would reach this point. But where would this development lead?

NTT says the feature may be used in video games and amusement park rides, although there are no plans so far for a commercial product.

Yeah, and after that?

Apperantly the experience is painless. It sends very low voltage electric currents from the back of the ears through the head messing with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance. This causes the feet to instantly move in a certain direction, depending on the joystick movement, believing you are in need of balancing.

Some people really enjoy the experience, researchers said while acknowledging that others feel uncomfortable.

Full report at CNN. Read more…

A music video to the song by 10cc.

Is ClipShack just another video sharing site? So far, yes. But it promises to blow the competition out of the water in due time so I’ll keep my eye out and see whats in store.

At the moment, signing up for it’s beta gives you a Free 50MB of video storage (so far there is only a free version. Paid services should be added soon). Compared to other sites, that’s nothing.
Vidilife allows you to upload videos up to a whooping 2Gigs! Streaming video is in WMV which doesn’t give you the best quality.
YouTube offers the most features at the moment and unlimited file upload as long as they are under 100mb. Only downside is when video is converted to Flash, its not always the pretiest thing.
ZippyVideos like Vivilife offers streaming video without converting it to Flash. They convert to WMV which isn’t the best quality either. And their limit is unlimited files of up to 20MB.

What we want now is someone to give clean, interactive Quicktime streaming video support… Any takers?

Did I miss any great video services? Feel free to give me a heads up in the comments.

Technorati Tags: share, video, vidilife, zippyvideos, youtube, clipshack

Sure, email has been great progress, but webmail? There has been little improvement in that field. The most popular webmail services have long been Yahoo and MSN. But why? Yahoo’s navigation requires too many clicks… and MSN’s adds an ugly and troublesome interface. No wonder GMail made such a great impression. Fast, clean, with a whopping huge (and ever increasing) storage. I know a great place those bloody privacy suckers can stick their arguments. But I digress…
What I’m getting at is… where is the competition? The field has been long open for improvement before GMail came along… and still is. I have gone through all the big shots, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL, none of which satisfied me. I can’t see how anyone can love any of there webmail services. Extremely annoying process to read email with them… slow loading times, and annoying to jump between messages.

Sure, Yahoo & MSN are working on Beta versions of their webmail (with Yahoo’s to look like Outlook), but they are taking way to damn long. They have already lost me. I’ve got better things to do.

We have an new service that not only looks pretty, but is just about as good as GMail.

Enter Goowy Mail… Email in Flash!
I signed up when it was in early beta… it was nice, but it had a long way to go. But recently, all my concerns where blown away and its become my secondary email account (second to only GMail of course).

Goowy not only offer you 2gigs of space, but a ton of features.. all of which are speedily available, a surprising thing considering it is all Flash. For those who can’t experience the full flash version, there is a Lite version for their convenience. Now, what reasons are there not to convert to this revolutionary service?

It offers a calendar, a web desktop (you can choose your own image), games, and a handy integrated Google search (not that I ever search right from Goowy). They have updated their login screen, so now it is possible to use Auto Form Fillers such as the popular RoboForm.

But wait… there is more. Goowy has also released a Desktop Client version (Mac version coming soon). It includes widgets, such as RSS readers, and Flickr photo viewers. To read your mail, it still opens up your browser.

Now, there are finally becoming choices in webmail services.

P.S. In the unlikely event that someone still hasn’t a GMail account (where have you been all this time!?) just leave a request in the comments.

Technorati Tags: webmail, goowy, yahoo, msn

With the growing amount of information out there, it still doesn’t make it any easier to find what we are interested in. Searching google gets us only so many relevant results, and who browses past the first two pages. Or you can skip google and search by tags at the thousands of social tagging sites.

Here are some sites that might make it easier (someday):

Tagomatic - Still in it’s infancy, and unless you search for very popular items, the results will be few. You can help out by tagging queries, and making this site grow.

Simility - Comes in the form of an extension to the greatest browser ever, Firefox. Again, it offers little suggestions. Actually, I kept the toolbar open for a couple of days while browsing hundreds of site, big or small, and I was dissapointed to recieve no results whatsoever. Maybe it will catch on and grow… maybe not. You cannont submit material to it directly, instead through an opensource information community, found at the bottom of their website.

However, your best bet, at the moment, would be to sign up with one of the many social bookmarking services.

Spurl - Spurl offers a “related link” feature that finds results in your bookmarks as well as fellow members, bolding the ones that aren’t yours.

Furl - Furl offers the same, except it lists the five most relevant related links below the bookmark url you wish to visit. Of course, it’s not limited to five; there is a “see more link” too.

And all social bookmarks allow you to keep an eye on specified user bookmarks through RSS. Know somebody with the same interests? Subscribe to their bookmark feed.

Technorati Tags: social, bookmarks, similiar, tagomatic, simility, search

I have just attended the premier kick-off of the first ever Virtual Film Fest (at Avalon in Secondlife), and I must say that I’m impressed with the technology. My House played splendidly, considering the amount of fast moving details in it. A job well done by the Avalon crew.

The Film Festival will run all week up to the 30th (with My House playing again on the 29th. As they say, “the best for last”). A schedule is posted in the screening dome at Avalon. Information can also be found in the updated PDF at the Spacethinkdream website.

Photos from the event will follow soon.

Recap (from Post):

Would you like to be a part of an entirely unique event? Are movies the love of your life? Join the crew of avalon. as we make movie history celebrating the world’s first virtual movie festival.

Between October 22nd and October 30th, avalon. will be presenting an exclusive selection of short films from up-and-coming directors.

The event will be held on Second Life, a unique 3-D world created and evolved by its users. Just one simple, FREE download from www.secondlife.com and you can enter the world with a basic account and visit the Avalon. sim. Create your own avatar and explore the virtual landscape, log in with your forum friends and experience the first ever online movie festival together.

With competitions, the opportunity to discuss your opinions in real time, the chance to offer your own input and ideas for future festivals and a community of friendly and like-minded people to meet, this will be an event like no other.

The avalon. crew are a team of London and Chicago-based professional filmmakers, designers and marketers who are helping to pioneer virtual worlds as a new channel for entertainment, education and interaction. Please visit www.riversrunred.com to learn more about us.

For more information, or if you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, send an email to avalon.movies@gmail.com or an IM to ‘Willow Caldera’ in-world in Second Life. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to help us pioneer a completely new way to experience movies!

More information in my last post…

Technorati Tags: avalon, secondlife, virtual, film, festival,, paintful productions, film, shorts

The long awaited Flock Public Beta (well, actually its called the Developer Preview, but what the heck) has been released, allowing the poor suckers, such as I, who haven’t been invited to enjoy the revolution of social browsing and web 2.0 to finally test drive it.
However, the Flock team does warn that this is not for the faint of heart, and expect anything. I will, of course, disregard this warning and install it for better or for worse. My impression and review will come very soon.

Download it here.

My House is going to make history at the world’s first ever Virtual Film Festival to be held at SecondLife. See PDF.

What is Secondlife?
From site:

Second Life is a virtual world - a 3D online persistent space totally created and evolved by its users. Within this vast and rapidly expanding place, you can do, create or become just about anything you can imagine. Built-in content creation tools let you make almost anything you can imagine, in real time and in collaboration with others. An incredibly detailed digital body (’Avatar’) allows a rich and customizable identity. A powerful physics simulation running on a backbone of hundreds of connected computers and growing with the population allows you to be immersed in a visceral, interactive world that as of April 2005 covers more than 12,000 acres and 20,000 owned plots of land. The ability to design and resell 3D content, combined with the ability to own and develop land and a microcurrency, which can be exchanged to real money means that you can build a real business entirely within Second Life.

If you are simply curious about what it would be like to wander a world filled with colorful people in which the only limits are imagination, you will find the Second Life software easy to install, and the basic experience of moving around and experiencing the world simple and fun, with many friendly people waiting to help you once you arrive.

If you are a 3D content creator, entrepreneur, game developer, artist, or software developer, Second Life is guaranteed to blow your mind. It is a palette for creative self-expression like nothing you have ever seen. Jump in, find a sandbox, and start building.

From Avalon Film Festival annoucement:

Would you like to be a part of an entirely unique event? Are movies the love of your life? Join the crew of avalon. as we make movie history celebrating the world’s first virtual movie festival.

Between October 22nd and October 30th, avalon. will be presenting an exclusive selection of short films from up-and-coming directors.

The event will be held on Second Life, a unique 3-D world created and evolved by its users. Just one simple, FREE download from www.secondlife.com and you can enter the world with a basic account and visit the Avalon. sim. Create your own avatar and explore the virtual landscape, log in with your forum friends and experience the first ever online movie festival together.

With competitions, the opportunity to discuss your opinions in real time, the chance to offer your own input and ideas for future festivals and a community of friendly and like-minded people to meet, this will be an event like no other.

The avalon. crew are a team of professional filmmakers, designers and marketers who are helping to pioneer virtual worlds as a new channel for entertainment, education and interaction. Please visit www.riversrunred.com to learn more about us.

For more information, or if you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, send an email to avalon.movies@gmail.com or an IM to ‘Willow Caldera’ in-world in Second Life. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to help us pioneer a completely new way to experience movies!

See you there!