BytesWired

Now that GMail has offered storage more than 3GB and counting, you can store more files and emails without worrying running out of space.

Bjarke, has creatively developed a drive extension called GMail Drive Extension that will create a virtual directory on your desktop and allow you to utilize your GMail storage space. Since it uses your GMail account directly, that means you need to have Internet connection on before can access your virtual directory.

Accessing the virtual directory is easy. Once installed, you can see a new drive created on your My Computer screen.

To access your Gmail virtual directory, you just need to specify your GMail account settings and once connected, you will be able to start using your new virtual storage.

Visit Gmail Drive Extension

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WiXi, currently still in beta mode, is a new social-networking site that offers users to store and share all media files in one place, a desktop-like interface.

You can manage videos, audios, and images all at one place.  You can even share your files with friends or only made your files available only to your friends. There’s even a search function for you to search any public files available in Wixi community.

Media files are viewed using embedded Flash player and you need a broadband connection in order to view media files without disruption. User interface is sleek and can categorized all media into different folders for easy retrieval.

A free account allows user to upload up to 3GB of storage. However, if you want unlimited space and an ad-free account, just sign up the for premium account.

Wixi is definitely a great way to share media files with friends. Since it’s easy to share files with friends, the risk of sharing pirated or copyrighted material is very high. At this point of writing, there is a pirated copy of Fantastic Four movie available there too.

Currently, it is still on beta and by invitation only.  However, I will be giving free invites to you too! Want a free invite? Please leave comment below. 

Visit Wixi for more.

Getting digged is one of the few things that most bloggers could wish for for their blogs. Generally, they will get instant hits if make to the top page and can attracts lots of traffic. How do you know if your site being digged?

Digital Inspiration has a quick tip on keeping track if user submitted your site to Digg.

Read more on Digital Inspiration.

If you download lots of files from RapidShare or other similar free share services, you probably like RapGet.

RapGet, weighing less than 500KB, is a freeware that allows user to download files from free share services, bypassing verification process and support simultaneous downloads as well.

What you need to do is copy and paste the download link to RapGet and it will do the rest for you. Downloading files from  could never been easier with RapGet. Get a copy below.

Go to RapGet Homepage

Are you the handyman? Do you like DIY? If you like to get your hands dirty and build stuff, then you might like Instrutables.

Instructables is a website that allows users to share their knowledge on doing stuff for free. From folding t-shirts to brined roast turkey (yummy) and even making your own electromagnetic floater (woohoo!), you can find virtually anything here that is DIY-able. Users can easily create a step-by-step guide using text, images, add notes and even embed video.

This is certainly a great site to find out how things are done, and as a weekend project to those eager to build stuff.

Start reading what people have done at Instructables.

Each blog has its own character based on contents and writing styles. It is important to identify which category fits your blog so you can better understand which direction your blog progresses.

In my opinion, each blog can fit in either categories below. Find out which category does your blog(s) belong to.

News Breaker

Blogs falls in this category are leaders in their niche. They always get the latest or exclusives news before everyone else and more importantly, the news are accurate and genuine!  From previewing latest mobile phone to new scandal in Hollywood to newly launched products, such blogs are like CNN to the readers. Usually, it’s a niche site targeting specific subjects only and not everything under the sun. For example, Engadget for gadget and mobiles.

Because of their nature of getting firsthand news, these blogs normally have a large number of followers and subscribers and daily readership could easily surpass 1 million mark.

Due to the fact that such sites has a huge number of followers, startup companies love them because it is a great medium for them to launch their products or services. A good review could create a hype and makes their services sell like hot cakes. However, a bad review done by these blogs can also crippled a product even before it’s launched.

People in this category have a great connection with insiders and people in their niche to get the scoop.

And yes, most of the time, they do get lots of goodies from sponsors and companies for reviews and make good money from advertisement due to the high number of visitors.

Example sites: TechCrunch , Engadget

Technical Blog

What if you don’t have insiders and don’t know anyone who can get a scoop for you? What do you know, "If you can’t beat them, join them."

Such blogs normally collect and gather news from other blogs or sites and share them with their readers. They may not be reviewing the latest gadget or products but they do share some great reviews on products that they find it interesting. By the way, not all latest news are worth to share with readers.

These people are more into technicality and often have great tips in their niche, be it in modifying software settings, sharing traveling tips, or even preparing French cuisine.

They do like to get their hands dirty and experimenting stuff and share it with readers. In other words, these guys know their stuff and they are good at it.

They don’t usually talk about their personal life. Even if they do, it’s rare and limited.

Example sites: gHacks, LiewCF, Hongkiat

Personal Space

You can definitely identify blogs in this category because these blogs would have the writer’s face (photos) pasted all over their blogs, on each freaking entry . Web blog like KennySia, and Timothy falls into these category. Their main objectives are getting their voice heard, sharing their opinion and keeping in touch with friends. Doh! It’s personal blog, what do you expect?

Subjects are wide but mostly personal matters and somehow related to writers themselves; whether they are confessing their addiction to ice cream, the wildest thing they have done, ranting not making enough money from their blogs, or tasting the best food in town.

Their readers consists mostly friends, relatives and close peers. However, depending on the style of writing, it can generate a huge followers too.

Example : KennySia, Lilian, Timothy Tiah (Nuffnang), Shaolin Tiger

Which category you belong to?

Most of the blogs today are putting too much effort in infesting ads all over the place, hoping to generate money instead of having quality posts. Online ads such as Google Adsense, Chitika, Yahoo! and many others are not something new and in fact, it’s rare to see a site without an ad displayed nowadays. However, of all money maker tools, I personally think sponsored post should be used sparingly and if possibly not at all.

What Is A Sponsored Post

Sponsored posts such as from PayPerPost and SponsoredReviews, are services that connects bloggers and advertisers whereby bloggers will get paid by writing posts regarding some topics requested by advertisers. In return, they will get a percentage of each entry from bloggers.

Selling Ads or Selling Out

It’s definitely a good money maker for some bloggers but using it extensively will eventually drive away new readers and probably lose some existing ones. Personally, I have seen some blogs having sponsored posts that is not related at all to the site. I have seen a technology site raving on how wonderful a hotel is or a money making site saying how cool a software is (that is non-related to money making). In fact, I doubt if these bloggers actually used or have experienced in any of the sponsored posts they wrote about. I mean, isn’t that sort of like misguiding your readers? How can you bragging and recommend products that you haven’t used before?

In fact, most of the readers would skip the post whenever they see sponsored post. What’s more if the post is non-related and something not expected from your readers. I know I would. In fact, it annoys me quite a bit if I found out too many sponsored posts in a site. It annoys me so bad that I probably won’t go back again.

The Choice Is Yours

Sponsored post is probably the easiest way to make money but it’s definitely not THE way. However, choosing the right topic for sponsored post not only can increase your income but also sharing something that might interests your readers.

Rules of thumb; before you choose to write a sponsored post, consider the topic and see how it will benefit your readers. You wouldn’t want to lose readers because they are the main source of income.

Do you write sponsored posts? Are they related to your blog?

After my failed attempt to watch online TV with Joost and feeling frustrated, I quickly look for alternative application that allows me to watch TV shows online. It doesn’t take me too long to discover Miro.

Supporting most major OS platform such as Windows, Mac and Linux, Miro is a free media player and an open-source project from Participartory Culture Foundation. Besides being able to watch shows or your favourite music video, you can even play media files from hard disk with Miro.

How It Works

With Miro, you can search video from Google Video, Youtube, DailyMotion, Revver, Yahoo! Video and etc. They even have a huge list of free TV shows and channels. If you found the video that you want, you can download it to your hard disk and watch it later. You can configure to delete the downloaded video after a specific period in the setting.

Since it downloads all the shows that you want in your hard disk, you may need a huge empty space in order to store all your media files. You can create your own channels and add bookmark your favorite channels so you can refer it later.

It has been running well since I first installed it. However, there is one thing I personally don’t like:

• Limited search result. If you search video from Miro, there is a limited result displayed and it is quite frustrating because unless there are new videos added into the collection, you will be seeing same result on every search

Most of the shows are free and free from copyright issues. Thus, they may not offer the latest movie and the likes but they do offer other great channels like Discovery and some music videos.

Get your own Miro here.

Joost, a P2P media service that allows its users to watch TV and movie online, is finally open for public. Since it started its service back in April 2007, Joost open its door to private beta users or by invitation only. With a total of 15,000 TV shows and 250 channels, Joost is set to take first step to replace conventional TV set box.

Besides providing free TV shows, it also feature IM (Instant Messenger) that allows user to interact or chat with friends and building a community at the same time. It also has a feature that allows user to blog while watching shows online.

Joost is still in beta version, thus do expect some hiccups here and there while trying to run the application. However, they do have active forums that helps to solve whatever bugs or problems encountered. Currently it supports both Windows (XP and Vista) and Mac OS X. You do need a broadband, a considerably good video card and about 500MB disk space to run this application.

So, I tried…

Knowing it’s open for public, I was so eager to try out that I downloaded and installed it. However, when I try to run for the first time, this beautiful screen greets me..

Darn it. It crashes everytime I tried running Joost. After reinstalling a few times, it still couldn’t get pass that problem. Trying to be helpful, I submit the crash report to Joost. Boom! Another message. Double darn it!

Did you manage to run it? Share your experience on Joost by dropping comments below. Thanks!

via Joost

It’s quite common nowadays that all web startup only open by invitation only. I am not sure if this is the gimmick to create more buzz in the community; just like Gmail (before open for public), Pownce, Joost and etc. It seems to work since most people are curious and eager to try out such services because of limited availability to general public.

Unless you have media connection or your sites have the word “Crunch” on it (got it?), you probably will have to wait quite a while until the site is open for general public.

However, with InviteShare, you might just get lucky. This is how it works:

• Register an account with them
• Search for the site that you want an invite
• If the site not available, then create new site
• Now, sit back and hopefully, kind soul will give you the free invite

At the time of this writing, more than 50,000 invitation has been sent out with close to 50,000 of users in the community. This service is based on supply (the one who has free invites) and demand (the one who wants a free invite). The success of this service is solely by kind souls who has free invitation to share with others. Without them, this thing won’t work in the first place.

Get you invites here at InvitesShare.

By the way, I am giving away Pownce’s invites. Click here for details.