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March Musings

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Just a random post to share, of some great tidbits.

- I always like to use this blog to share the new and cool online applications I find. Well, today I've found a blog that does nothing but this: I bring you MakeUseOf, a directory/blog of some of the coolest sites on the web for free things to make your life interesting. Although the visual style is closer to a wiki than a blog, it definitely offers a great, constantly updating collection of some of the more interesting sites that provide useful services to the consumer. Think Original Signal without the (ahem) noise.

- Yahoo has released version 4 of Yahoo Widget Engine, promising less memory hogging, and new mini-docking, to allow your widgets to be displayed in an intuitive collection, for neatness. It also introduces a drag and drop upload widget for Flickr, as well as support for just about all old widgets. Seems like a worthy download, and is definitely sucking less of my precious resources.

- Speaking of Flickr, they migrated everyone to a required Yahoo account this month. I have no objections to this, but the tool they have to merge an existing Yahoo account with your Flickr account definitely needs work: it kept getting confused. C'mon, guys...QA this stuff if you are going to require it's use.

- Looking for some new ringtones or audio clips? Check out Entertonement for a HUGE collection of freebies. Best of all, they have search and browse, and some really cool ones, such as the ticking clock for 24, or various TOS Star Trek clips. Movies, music, TV, commercials, sports, video games...they have them all.

- Need a logo, or a great stylized text image? Check out the venerable CoolText for the ability to create like a pro, for free.

- Yes, the Jawbone arrived, and is as good as advertised. Controls are a bit cryptic, but it completely eliminates background noise to the people you call. Got a convertible, or like to drive with the windows open? This is your headset. Style is ultra cool, noise reduction is simply the best, volume is just OK. Bonus: charger is USB based, so you can always get a charge from your laptop: no need to lug that AC adaptor around on your trips.

More as I think to write...
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