www.stickam.com - FREE web storage for your media files

Stickam labels itself as an "all-in-one multimedia tool". To me, it is more of a storage area for your videos, music files and photos. Bloggers would find the service provided by this website useful as it provides a convenient way to publish those media files. In addition, gives up to 500 MB of free webspace.

Uploading media files is easy, as steps are clearly illustrated. Even newbie bloggers would find it easy to get things going. For photos, they provide a hyperlink for visitors to your site to click on. For example, here's the hyperlink provided by Stickam after I've uploaded a picture:

Range Rover

The same goes for music:

Prelude, 4th Lute Suite

For videos, they provide a HTML tag. When you publish the tag, your visitors will see the first frame of the uploaded video (see my previous post). And once it is clicked, visitors will be redirected to Stickam's site, where they can play the video.

If you have a webcam, you can also use Stickam as a video recording tool. Other services include a chatroom (which is often deserted), and a gallery of videos and photos uploaded by other Stickam members.

In my opinion, the services provided by Stickam are rather useful. I like that fact that media files can be easily uploaded, and that it gives 500MB of space with no bandwidth limitation. My only gripe is the intermittent breaks during media playback using the Stickam player. But since it's streamed from their server, I guess it's forgivable. Do give it a shot.

Here's the website.

Video link via Stickam, an FREE All in one communication tool.

Just trying out this service provided by www.stickam.com. For your information, Stickam offers 500MB of space for you to upload videos, audio files and pictures for publishing via a blog. A HTML tag is provided for each file you upload. Here, I've attached the tag to a video in this post. A full review of Stickam is in the works...

Anyway, enjoy the video!

Yahoo's New Music Engine (v1.1)

Introduction
After I experienced lots of frustration with the previous release (in terms of installation and stability), I was really skeptical that this new version of Music Engine can live up to the marketing hype on Yahoo'’s web site. I decided to give it a real go, and was pleasantly surprised at most aspects of it. So, here's my take on the new version:

Yahoo! Music Engine as a Music Library
As seen from the screenshot below, the album art display is integrated into the player console, which I thought was ingenious as it makes full use of limited space.
Music Engine has one of the best music filters in my opinion. It'’s a dynamic filter in the sense that it morphs according to '“Browse by Artist'”, '“Browse by Album', '“Browse by Song'” or '“Browse by Genre'” (selected via the drop box).

Browse by Artist filter

Browse by Album

Browse by Song

Finally, browse by genre, where you get the works

You can add songs to the "Now Playing" pane via drag-n-drop or by right clicking the song, and select 'Add to Now Playing'”. On top of just being a Now Playing list, it is also a burn list, and a 'songs-to-be-transferred-to-portable-player'” list. Kind of similar to WMP10 I guess and as you can see, it'’s UNICODE friendly.


Yahoo! Music Engine as a device manager
To transfer songs into the player, Yahoo! Music Engine uses the drag-n-drop method like everything else. The player can be managed when its node is clicked.

I like the fact that the player'’s information and related task buttons are located on conspicuously on top, and that Help is easily accessible. The filters and song list takes up rest of the pane.


Yahoo! Music Engine as a media server
This software can be used to share” music across computers within the same network. This idea is not completely new, as Apple has this feature for quite some time, albeit not a heavily marketed one. The Network Music service is also compatible with consumer media streaming devices like the Linksys MusicBridge and the ROKU SoundBridge.


Yahoo! Music Messenger
Mix Yahoo Music Engine with Yahoo Messenger and you get Music Messenger. This convergence of application/feature allows you to see your Yahoo! Messenger list from Music Engine. In addition, music libraries can be shared between contacts.


Click on the name to explore your contact'’s Music Engine library. You can even double click the songs to listen to 30-second samples. To listen to full songs, you have to spend a bit of money and be a Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscriber. That's kind of a turn-off isn't it?


Yahoo! Music Engine as an Internet Radio receiver
LAUNCHcast provides the Internet radio services in Music Engine. Choose from a range of genres and click the '“Speaker'” buttons to listen to streamed, Internet radio broadcast via Music Engine.


Yahoo! Music Engine as a music subscription manager
If you are a Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscriber, you can browse through the catalogue (which is actually a web page) and select songs to download using Music Engine. There'’s also '“Download Manager' node to check the status of each download. If you are not a subscriber, clicking each song allows you to listen to 30-second streamed samples.



In a nutshell
The guys over at Yahoo have obviously put in plenty of efforts to ensure that the interactive design is top notch. I like the simplicity of the layout and everything seem to be held nicely in place. Every feature has a '“guided'” feel to it with instructions placed at non-obtrusive places. The end-user messages are very thoughtful and helpful, making it usable right “out-of-the-box”.

The features are quite unique, for example the Music Messenger and the dynamic filters, which makes it stand out from the rest of the media management software crowd.

However, it does have its flaws. I'm not sure whether it was due to network problems at my place, or that my PC was not configured properly, but when I used Music Engine to access an Internet based feature such as Internet radio or browsing through Yahoo Unlimited Music, it freezes, hogs up my computer'’s resources and as a result, affects all my other applications. I had to force it to shut down several times while writing this review.

Conclusion
I feel that Music Engine quite a good piece of software, and the efforts the developers put in to give it an extra edge is rather evident. I just wish that they had sorted out the script errors, which I suspect, caused my computer to hang more often than not. But overall, I'd gladly recommend it to any music lover.

Yahoo Music Engine can be download free-of-charge here

Firefox 1.5 - Free (and very good) Internet Browser

Introduction
When I first heard of Firefox, I was thinking, hey, a web browser is a web browser is a web browser. You type in a URL, access the web site, read what's on it, and that's it. Why would I want an alternative to Internet Explorer? Well, I can't be more wrong.

True, it does the same job as Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but Firefox offers something extra: an excellent user experience and a great "look and feel". For example, in IE, if you cannot connect to the Internet, you get a whole lot of explanation in fine print. Who bothers to read them anyway?

Firefox keeps it short and simple:

Notice the "Try Again" button. Thoughtful isn't it?

The features that are frequently marketed are tabbed browsing and live bookmarks.


Tabbed browsing
I think that the tabbed browsing feature is nicely done. It's performance is sleek, and it's nicely drawn.Microsoft's version (via the MSN Toolbar) looks really crude in comparison. While loading a webpage, Firefox's tabs has its trademark circular animations. Microsoft's tabs only has a static image that looks like a blue pie.

Tabbed browsing saves a lot of real estate on my computer. Instead of opening several windows, all I have to do it to press Ctrl-T to open up a few tabs to browse multiple web sites.


Live Bookmarks
Next, Live Bookmarks. With the proliferation of RSS, almost every web site seems to be syndicated. Firefox highlights such websites with the following symbol found right side of the address bar:
You can add a site's RSS feed into Firefox as a Live Bookmark. Every time there's an update on the site, be it new blog postings or fresh news reports, you can catch them all of them from Firefox's Bookmark panel.

What I like about the Live Bookmarks is that by clicking the links, Firefox brings you to the actual site of that new blog post/news story, with all the pictures that accompany it. Most RSS readers (not all) simply show text, as such, you'll won't be able to see that mouth-watering pasta dish that your favorite food blogger uploaded.


Lotsa downloadable extensions, plugins and themes
Firefox has plenty of extensions, plugins and themes to allow you to fully customize your web browsing experience. For example, you can download FoxyTunes, an extension that allows you to listen to music while browsing in Firefox. This way, you don't have to launch an additional media player, cluttering up your desktop.


Developer's website
Firefox can be downloaded here.

It's free! Try it, it's great and I'm sure you, like the millions around the world, will be "converted"!

CE

Hello!

I'm sort of a marketing R&D guy and in my line of work, I evaluate lots of "consumer type" software. Along the way, I've found plenty of useful, aesthetically pleasing and free software that can be easily downloaded from the Internet. No point keeping all these excellent freebies to myself right? So, I've decided to share my knowledge here, through blogspot (which is free!).

Most of my posts would be on free software, and what you can do with them. If I come across anything on the Internet that can help you save money (tech-wise), I'll link them as well.

Cheers!
CE