Every once in a while I like to mention a few internet sites and tools that I find very useful or fun, because keeping them to myself would be just...well, selfish. So here are 6 cool things to try:
(1)Most of you probably already know about Flickr! They host your photos for free, allow sharing, commenting, organizing/tagging, and provide a way to easily upload to your blogger entries. You can even post directly from your camera cell phone.
(2)A similar service is OurMedia.org. Here is what they say about themselves: "We'll host your media forever — for free. Video blogs, photo albums, home movies, podcasting, digital art, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads, music videos, audio interviews, digital storytelling, children's tales, Flash animations, student films, mash-ups — all kinds of digital works."
(3)A very cool collaborative service is BackPack. It allows easy creation of multi-media pages for any purpose under the sun: Organize to do lists, notes, images, and photos, Plan a personal or business trip, Keep track of what your competitors are doing, Plan a home improvement project, Collaborate on a new business idea, Keep track of houses you're considering buying, Gather information for a research project, Keep a list of gift ideas for friends, Build a For Sale page, etc.
(4)I have been looking for a good systray note taking application for years (a free one of course). Well, I finally found it with Evernote. It allows multi-media note taking at the touch of a button, as well as search and categorizing. If you get the paid version you can have handwriting recognition as well.
(5)If you use Google's Gmail, you know you get over 2GB of space. If your like me, most of that is wasted. So, I use it to save my files with a free gmail shell extension. This allows me to synchronize files between laptops and desktop easily. The plugin provides easy access to Gmail via Windows Explorer.
(6) Finally, all work and no play...well, you know the rest. Anyway, when I was younger I used to play guitar, and I really miss it, but alas, I am now out of practice. Well, if you want to be Eddie Van Halen, watch an interesting animated plot, learn guitar, and have a great time living out your fantasies, check out Mr. Fastfinger. Have fun!