Ear to the Ground

Today is Link Day, because it’s Friday and I am the official Foe of Boredom.

• So first up I should point out that ironSoap.info will soon be a viable fourth option for accessing this here locale, as will irnsoap.info (note the purposeful mis-spelling which has a purpose I can’t reveal at this time). The reason for the .info extravaganza? 1 and 1 is offering up to five free .info domains. You do need a credit card to register, which they hit (according to a poster on Digg) with a $6.00 charge that is immediately refunded to verify the card. I used one of those Cingular temporary rebate debit cards to register my five.
• Secondly, and this opens the Web 2.0 portion of our show, I don’t remember if I mentioned it already but I’ve been using Netvibes as my home page in place of My Yahoo! My Yahoo! has some decent features but is generally clunky and slow. I still use it on occasion because my fantasy sports teams are listed there, but the Olympic break in the hockey season seems to have freaked it out a little and now it just has a link to the main fantasy page so even that is no longer so great. Netvibes is very beta and some of the modules have some issues, but it does have some very nice features like a notes area, weather module, configurable search box (which is less of a compelling feature what with Firefox having a built-in Google search bar) and bookmarks module. Now that I bounce between three different computers regularly, having non-system based bookmarks is important. Even better is the way Netvibes integrates with existing Web 2.0 type sites: the Del.icio.us module is rather brilliant, the RSS feeds are very nicely done (and much easier to configure than My Yahoo! RSS feeds), plus it handles Flickr feeds with flair and even has (buggy) integration with Box.net, Writely, calendar files (.ics) and IMAP or POP3 email accounts. More on some of those in a second.
• Web surfer extraordinaire Ryan points me to a very interesting piece on Writely and Google’s potential killer app that will finally herald the end of Microsoft Word. If you haven’t checked out Writely, it’s a very slick online Word Processor. I use it all the time now. Unfortunately Google just bought it and it seems that they’ve closed registrations for a little bit, but you can send in your email address and they’ll update you when they’re accepting new accounts. I suggest you do that because Writely is free, Word is expensive; Word sucks and Writely rules. My logic is didactic, I assure you.
• Netvibes built-in modules even turned me on to a new site: Box.net, which offers free online storage space with a Web 2.0 kick including nice Ajax-powered interface and sharing features. The free account is 1GB and if you refer five people you get a free upgrade. Not sure about the business model there, but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.
• Also if you still haven’t checked out Flickr, do it now. I’ll wait.
• Also I’m seriously considering moving my hosting to DreamHost, again from Ryan’s recommendation, as they have good prices and features that make me salivate. Not so good for my keyboard perhaps, but good for websites. If you’re looking for a host, you might check them out.
• Finally, some Sharks talk. Yes, they won last night against a team they desperately needed to beat. I still think their playoff hopes are too remote though. I liked the addition of Ville Neminen (I especially liked the expulsion of Niko Dimitrakos) and it was good to see Scott Parker back in the lineup, too. Man were there some hits in that game… good grief, I though Neminen’s hit on Ryan Smyth was going to be accompanied by lightning strikes and rain of fire. If Ryan Smyth wasn’t religious before that hit, he is now, I guarantee. Anyway, hopefully things stay positive and if the Sharks miraculously win all six games on this home stand, I’ll be happy to admit I was wrong, but I worry about Nabokov being in questionable health status. Not that I’m not happy to see Schaeffer back, but we have Toskala as the starter now and he’s… nerve-wrenching. I’m not saying he’s no good, it’s just that even the easy saves… let’s just say Toskala never looks like he’s making an easy save.
• Update: A late addition but it must be included because it involves so many things I love: Radiohead, Grafitti, London and Animation. The song is a cover of RH’s Just and while I’m not a huge fan of tagging nor do I particularly care for wanton distruction of property, I adore clever and creative street murals some of which contains art far more visually appealing that what you might find in a gallery somewhere. In this video grafitti is animated against the buildings of London (I so very much want to visit there) in a very convincing style. Brilliant.

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