In yesterday’s post I mentioned in passing that the Firefox Flicks promotion campaign was due to launch any day, as soon as they put their site up again. Well, it has now launched and you can sign up to get information on how to participate (I suppose they want to know how many are interested).

From site:

Calling All Firefox Fans…

Join us in celebrating the launch of Firefox 1.5 and the amazing people who have made the first year a raging success. Last year at Spread Firefox we launched community marketing into the mainstream with written testimonials.

This year we’re taking it “live” with video testimonials and ads. From the casual user to the creative professional, Firefox Flicks is your opportunity to speak out for Firefox and express yourself in front of a worldwide audience. Read on to learn more about how to you can make a difference.

There are 2 ways you can contribute, with video recorded user testimonials which anone with a camera can do (weekly prizes with a whooping $500 Amazon gift certificate but get them in by Feb 21st), or create a snazzy ad contest (don’t know the prizes yet, but they better be as good as for the Extend Firefox).
Personally, I think it is a great move by Mozilla. Sure, it is only a browser, but those like me who spend a lot of time on the internet, how great that browser is really matters.

So, come and show how much you love Firefox.

Technorati Tags: firefox, 1.5, flicks, video, contest

I enjoy everything multimedia, and the prospect of an eDesktop on which to share it, is pretty interesting.
Glide Effortless was released on the 30th of November, and offers to do just that, put your desktop content onto the web and allow you to share it with whoever you wish. Unlike many other sharing and P2P networks, this one does NOT require the recipient to download and install any program whatsover making sharing far far simpler. All they need is a web browser.

The site, unfortunately, is not well designed so I was a little distrustful, but I had linked there through some reviews from many online news sites and thought I’d try it out. My first try raised more suspicions as I was returned errors and couldn’t see the verification code. I returned later and was able to move further. You are able to choose a free accout with 1000MB of space but are required to enter your credit card. I was ready to leave when I tried typing in random numbers and was admitted… that’s when I knew the registration was completely messed up and decided to forget about it. Then they offer default anime pics which is weird too (like me, not everyone is into anime, so I thought that a strange default).
That is where I cancelled my registration and decided to give it a miss. I don’t think the site was secure enough to trust.

A comment on Slashdot (by Hrvat):

From TransMedia (Glide creator) Terms and Conditions:

Materials provided to TransMedia or Posted at any TransMedia Web Site

TransMedia does not claim ownership of the materials you provide to TransMedia (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input or submit to any Services or its associated services for review by the general public, or by the members of any public or private community, (each a “Submission” and collectively “Submissions”). However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting (”Posting”) your Submission you are granting TransMedia, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses (including, without limitation, all TransMedia Services), including, without limitation, the license rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission; to publish your name in connection with your Submission; and the right to sublicense such rights to any supplier of the Services….

What this basically means is that you’re giving them management rights to whatever you’re posting on their service. So if you’re a starving artist and you store your next hit song on their service, they have the right to copy, distribute, transmit etc. that song, or just sublicense it to someone else.

This is wrong. They are basically asking for you to give up all the rights without any compensation for it just by using the service. I definitively won’t be using this service.

If anyone has had any experience with them, do enlighten me.

Technorati Tags: glide, effortless, edesktop, share

With the long awaited release of Firefox 1.5 (yes, it is finally available as of yesterday), comes a new promotion campaign encouraging people to create video testimonials to this great browser. Official details have not been released, and their sites are down at the moment being revamped. I’ll post when things become clearer, but you’ll find the information on SpreadFirefox.com when it comes back up.

Ever wanted to replicate a font? That’s where Whathefont comes in.

From site:

Ever wanted to find a font just like the one used by certain publications, corporations, or ad campaigns? Well now you can, using our WhatTheFont font recognition system. Upload a scanned image of the font and instantly find the closest matches in our database. If WhatTheFont can’t figure it out, you can submit your image to the WhatTheFont Forum where cloak-draped font enthusiasts around the world will help you out!

Below is an example of how it works. I chose a simple font to demonstrate, but you can pick nearly any font (if it’s too complex, you can visit their forums and ask the experts). You upload a font from your computer (not shown) or grab an image URL, and it will ask you to validate it’s guess (left) by changing any letters it got wrong. If everything is ok, submit it and you will be given the best matches for your font. Copperplate is a common font so my test went smoothly.

(via Tipmonkies)

Technorati Tags: font

In my earlier post about Eleven2 (who provides me hosting for Paintful.net) I had promised to provide my experience with Eleven2.

It’s been just over a month now (started on 17th of October), and I have experienced no problems with them whatsoever. IM support has been just as great, and I have not noticed any downtime.

They are still my #1 recommendation for hosting.

Paintful Productions has submitted t-shirt designs for the Flukiest t-shirt design contest.

If you like them, signup for an account with Flukiest, and get voting!

I’m all for this current Web 2.0 hype and social bookmarking. But lately there hasn’t been anything really new in sharing information. Until I came across Riffs.
It ain’t a social bookmarking service but a social review site. It’s a great way to find out what people are recommending. It’s got a section for reviewing bookmarks too.
It’s got everything any other social site has nowadays including the ever popular tags and rss.
One thing that is pretty neat is the ajax chat rooms. Choose a current chat room by dragging it into your panel or create your own. You can have as many opened as you want (there may be a limit but I don’t know).

The pages are also Wiki like allowing you to make changes to discriptions and pictures, as well as seeing who editted what and undo those changes.

My only complaint is that you can’t get an RSS feed for sections, only for individual items. It would be nice to see what things are popping up in your categories of interest.

This service is fun but is lacking in certain areas in it’s competition with blogs, currently the best way of getting reviews. TechCrunch explains why.

Technorati Tags: riffs, web2.0, social, review

With all the available means of listening to free music on the internet, why use p2p?

Lifehacker has a great round up of places to find free and legal music.

Via Digg - Check out more sugegstions in the comments.

But they have ommitted the following (They are Radio Stations, but who cares? It’s free music):

The best they have forgotten to include is Yahoo’s Launch Cast. It has a better system than Pandora and no commercials. Sure, it has some kinks in it’s selection but I’ve found new great songs through it. Also.. the limit is some 6000 songs/month but I’ve listened like every day and haven’t been kicked out yet.
Check out my station if you like to hear a wide range of music from the 60s-80s (no Disco, Rap, or Modern guaranteed!).

The station that plays the best of all music. No more Artist or Genre specific songs playing over and over. Listen to the creme of Rock, Progressive, Reggae, Ska, New Wave, Glam, Psychedelic, and much much more including, but not limited to, artists such as Marc Bolan (T-Rex), 10cc, Bad Manners, Bob Marley, David Bowie, Steely Dan, Jethro Tull, Jam, Sparks, UK, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Bad Company, and the Kinks! - And always adding…

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I would also recommend Live365 - radio stations created by like minded individuals (you can too!) with only downside is the limit of the DJ’s song library and commercials (which can be bypassed is played through RealPlayer by scrubbing back a bit until they are gone. Could work in other players but I’ve only used Real as it is to set the station up with it.).

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Mercora - Offers a media player through which you can search an artist and see if any currently logged user has him. If so, you can stream his song collection. You can stream your own too. Downside is that you need to have someone connected and streaming your music to listen. Songs available change every minute. Good if you want to check out a sample of a certain artist but not for long listens.

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LastFM - Allows users to find new music and friends based on their tastes. You can listen to music you like in a radio that will find music related to artists you rate. Downlaod a plugin for your media player (currently only support for WindowsMediaPlayer and Winamp) and it will add songs you listen to your account playlist. Great site.

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XStreamRadio - Haven’t tried this one but certainly will once Launchcast tells me i’ve exceeded it’s quota. Here a summary from the site:

XstreamRadio is one of the most extensive radio players of this moment. Besides listening to your favorite radio stations it also allows you to record music.
This player contains more than 700 international pre-programmed radio stations, to which you can leisurely listen while working on your PC. With the integrated MP3 recorder you can easily record music or your favorite program from the station of your choice.
Besides being a radio player, XstreamRadio contains useful facilities for browsing the net. Did we already mention all this comes in a small 2 MB package and is totally for FREE?

Got something else to suggest? Post it in the comments.

Technorati Tags: radio, free, music

Quitura has just annouced the release of their Web Search Client (currently available only for Microsoft Windows 2000, XP or Server 2003 with Internet Explorer 5.5 or above) as a free download. (I love the way people are doing that these days )
It is a desktop based app that shows link results on the right and a graphical “related tag” screen on the left. The tags are meant to narrow down your search. Select a tag and it is added to you current search query. Hover over a tag and get similiar tags for that one. — Click here to see screenshots of Quintura in action.

Search results for “Video Editing”

I, for one, am quite pleased with Quintura. Results may take 3 seconds longer on the first search but after that, it’s a breeze. I’m not very attached to desktop search apps, but Quintura might just get me into one. Will it be the next big thing in search? I don’t know… yet.

Technorati Tags: quintura, search, tag

I’ve recently been invited to the closed beta of Sphere, the hot new blog search engine.
Its kinda like Google. Clean and simple. Not as many bells and whistles that make Technorati great, but the results are the best I’ve seen.
It doesn’t provide RSS for search results but promises to do so when it launches to the public.
I’ll keep driving it and see wether the hype about it is well founded.