Slawesome (link via TechCrunch) is still in the alpha stages right now but it looks like it will be a really promising application for the future. What Slawesome allows you to do is send voice mail messages to E-mail addresses, after registration of course. The thing I am really happy with is that you don’t need to register to hear the messages.

Much of the back end recording and playing looks like it is controlled in flash. After you record a message you can select to have it public or private. Private messages will just be for you and the person who you send your message to via E-mail. Public messages have the chance of appearing on the front page, and also get dumped into an RSS feed.

Click here to listen to my first public message while testing out Slawesome!

Not the best audio experience in the world, but it does get the job done. I can’t wait to see how Slawesome will continue to grow and expand into the future!

Remember going to see the magic shows when you were a kid, or even seeing them on television. I used to like when they would saw the woman in half, and then put her back together again. Now what if we did an experiment and sawed off some parts of Skype and put them into Firefox, as an extension? Then you would have Skyfox.

What Skyfox does is by no way going to revolutionize the way you use a computer. Not everything you read has to be that life changing though. This extension does one simple job and it does it well. After you install the Skyfox. extension, you just need to give it your login name to Skype and it will give you a drop down menu of all your contacts. Want talk to somebody? Just select their name, and you are good to go.

Now I would have liked to of seen a sidebar for Skype to sit in and maybe a little more merging of the two. Maybe in the next release we will see a little more functionality. Another thing worth bringing up is the fact that you do have to have Skype running in the background to get the full use of the Skyfox. extension. For now though, Skyfox does a good job at making my Skype contacts a little more handy.

This article is not for you or for me. This isn’t even for the Firefox developers. This is something special between my favorite browser and myself. Instead of sharing something about Firefox with you that I love, I thought today I would take a little time to write my favorite browser in the world a letter. I recently had to go through a total reinstallation of Windows on my personal machine, and while I was doing it, I really missed my Firefox. So now, before I have to tear myself apart from it again, I thought I’d let it know how much I care.

Dear Firefox,

Although I might have missed you while you were away, you are now back on my computer and I couldn’t ask for a better companion to be surfing the Internet on. The glow in your icon when I launch you every day is enough to put a smile on any man’s face, especially mine. When I think of those cold and lonely night when you weren’t around, I am afraid. I am afraid that someday you might not be as great as you are right now. You do have some growing to do, as any great browser should.

In the next version of you that I get my fingers on you will have a menu selection where I can clear you of all the forms, passwords, history and all that other stuff I don’t want you to remember once I shut you down. You will also have tabs that I can move around and reorganize. Although this might not sound like much now, I am sure by the time you hit 2.0 you will be as solid as ever. You will still have a special spot on my quick launch bar as well.

As something special for you and me to share, I thought I might download a few new themes for you to wear. I hope you like them! With that said though, I really must get going before folks start to question my sanity, or lack there of. Keep up the good work, my sweet little Firefox and I will keep clicking through your tabs for many more years to come.

Your “Special” Clicking Friend,

Mitch

Now as you can see, I love my Firefox! I honestly do not know what I would do without it.

The first (of hopefully many) video tutorials from the Web Hosting Show is now up and running! Check it out, and give me your thoughts!

I think they might be running out of things to cover over at Lifehacker. (Link via Eric Rice who was via Stevel Rubel) Do folks really need a guide on how to comment? I figured I’d help out the editors of Lifehacker with a few more article topics. It is obvious somebody isn’t swimming too deeply into the pool of intresting ideas.

A Guide to Turning a Doornob

A Tutorial Covering How Wear Headphones

An FAQ Covering How to Brush Your Teeth

A Tip Sheet For Flushing the Toilet

and here is my favorite…

How To Get Attention for Writing Articles on Stupid Topics!

Got any more ideas we can send over to the folks at Lifehacker? Let me know!

I recently got an E-mail from a reader of mine named Peter. It seems like Peter has some questions when it comes to the best way of getting Web hosting for a big project. Hopefully this will be of use to anybody else out there who has a big idea, but doesn’t know how to get it started, up and running Online. Knowing when to use a shared, reseller or dedicated Web hosting account can be a tricky thing to master.

Hi Mitch,

I’m an entrepreneur and blogger, and I need some advice on web hosting. I’ve been subscribed to Mitchelaneous and the Web Hosting Show for a good while now, so I knew you’d be the right guy to contact.

Basically, I’m interested in setting up an online storage company similar to streamload and box.net. I need to lease a rack and I’d like to know which companies you’d recommend. I plan to rent the space to individual users, charging around $3/GB per month (this seems to be the going rate). I don’t plan to charge for bandwidth. Obviously I’m going to need a lotta storage in the long run, but I don’t have much cash to invest right now, so who would you recommend? Do you still run your own servers? What other pointers would you give me?

It sounds like Peter has got a really nice idea going there. I am excited to see how far you get with it and the finished project. As far as the hosting suggestions go, this is what I can tell you.

I don’t usually do many company recommendations, but I would say you’d need at least one dedicated server to get started on. That way you wouldn’t have to worry about server loads from anybody else on the server and you would have plenty of room and bandwidth to grow on. Right now I host all my audio and video files for the show on a separate server that the folks at Web Hosting Chat provide me for free. I think they use FastServers.net. I haven’t dealt with the support side of FastServers.net personally, but from the user side I haven’t had a problem with the hosting experience since I started doing the Web Hosting Show.

Getting a dedicated server is going to be a little costly as well. If you feel like you don’t want to put that much weight onto yourself right now, you might go with a large reseller account or a small semi-dedicated server. Just contact a few companies, see what the going rates are and how much traffic and work you can pump through the server itself. Never let yourself get intimidated by a Web hosting company. They are there to serve you either by hosting your Web site or answering your questions as a possible client.

The folks at IBM have reached out to disabled computer users who might want to make Firefox more user friendly. IBM has contributed 50,000 lines of code to make the browser more accessible to the blind and motor impaired. Web developers can create pages that reduce, for example, the amount of tabbing required to navigate a document, tabbed sections and spreadsheets, to help minimize keystrokes for users with mobility disabilities.

I am happy to hear IBM putting forth this effort to help out Firefox users. Between 750 million and 1 billion of the world’s 6 billion people have a speech, vision, mobility, hearing or cognitive disability, according to the World Health Organization. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, one quarter of the U.S. population will reach 55 by 2008, and about two-thirds will experience a disability after age 65. Many are working past age 65.

While many of us do not think about these issues from a day to day basis, it is nice to know that somebody out there is.

What does this mean for the Web in general? It means that companies, businesses and regular folks will be able to expand the number of people using their services and Web sites. Being able to hear more voices on the Internet is definitely a good thing for all of us.

Who knew there were so many different and neat start page projects in the works? (link via Mashable*)

Ajax is infinitely cool, isn’t it? Tech Crunch today has a review of NetVibes, a personal homepage that features a really slick ajax interface. Check it out! NetVibes isn’t alone as far as ajaxian start pages go: there’s also Microsoft’s Start.com, Google’s Personalised Homepage, and the exceptionally beautiful Protopage. All these services are free to try without registration, so give them a go! Of course, there’s also MyYahoo, but you’ll need a Yahoo ID to play around with that one. One last tip: if you’re interested in Web 2.0, head over to the Tech Crunch blog – you’ll love it.

I really like the looks of both NetVibes and Protopage. I’d like to see more companies take the more clean or more customizable route when it comes to start pages.

If you have used Firefox, then you know that one of the best features that it offers is the ability to extend your searching ways. By default, on the right hand side you have a small search menu set up. It has a few search engines in there already, but what if you want to do more with it? What if you want to add a few more, or take some away? I promise you, this is nothing hard.

I am sure you have all clicked the “Add Engines…” link at the bottom of that drop down menu in question. It takes you to the lower half of the Firefox Web page, where you see a few more search engines listed. If you still do not see the search engine you want to add, don’t worry I have one more place for you to look.

Over at the Mozdev.org Web site they have hundreds of other search engines for you to choose from. Chances are if it is some sort of popular search engine, it will be listed here. From Google to MSN, you have plenty of choices to choose from. Feel like you want a lot more resources at your fingertips? Then you can download the Mozdev.org top 30 search engines list. That will give you many more options when it comes to searching.

Now to get rid of a search engine, that is a little harder. You need to find the directory that your Firefox installation is sitting in. Once you get yourself inside of the Firefox folder, then look for a folder called “searchplugins”. To delete a plugin, find the .src and the .gif (or any other graphic format the icon might be in) and just delete them. Lets say you want to get rid of Google. All you would need to do is delete “google.src” and “google.gif” then restart Firefox. Google will be gone!

Have any more Firefox tips you’d like to see here? Make sure you let me know! Just drop me an E-mail and I’ll check it out and then share it with the entire world.

It is Monday morning, that can only mean two things. You are about to get started with a brand new week, and you are sitting on the edge of your seat in anticipation for the next Web Hosting Show. Well, maybe you are not ready just yet to start the week off, but I know I at least got the Web hosting part right. So what is the big deal about outsourcing hosting jobs? Who is the new free Web hosting company?

Download Episode 30 of the Web Hosting Show

Running Time: 25 minutes | File Size: 5.81 MB

Well wait no longer, because podcast number thirty is now up and running. In an effort to provide you with more than just a sample of the show, here are two topics we discussed.

This comes from a press release put out by the folks at 8 to Infinity:

8 to Infinity is doing the reverse of the outsourcing trend by hiring more in house support staff to enhance support for its estimated 50 000 users. The support staff are given On Job Training as well as being send for various professional certification courses to enhance their service levels and provide more varied support for their clients.

Now are you ready for the kicker here? This Web hosting company is located in Singapore. Now not to bash the efforts they are putting forth, I am really happy to hear about it. I just wish more American companies would follow the lead of 8 to Infinity. There is a time and a place for outsourced Web hosting support. If you want to have somebody on call in the middle of the night, it is much easier to have a guy in India working your night time hours than asking somebody here to stay up all night long. Why? Well, it is daytime in India when it is night time here.

When Web hosts start outsourcing all the support they do out to cheaper “support farms” in other companies, that is when I put my foot down. Why? Just take a look at any Web hosting forum out there. There are dozens of unemployed system administrators and level one support folks looking for jobs to stay afloat. Why aren’t they getting hired? It is because outsourcing support is much more “cost efficient”. In other words, it is cheaper.

There is a new Web hosting company out there, and its name is Acorn Rack. Now what makes them any different than the other million Web hosting options you might have out there today? They promise you, “Automatic Web Site Creation”. Here is some more information on the “about us” part of their Web site:

Acorn Rack gives you the chance to build you very own web site, for free where everything is initially constructed. You can then enhance those foundations, and flourish your site into a state of the art internet application.

You are able to edit every page you see* through the Admin CP, from the layout, down to the colors. Accept members, assign them roles, and watch your site take off. Talk to your members on the forums, ask them their opinion via the voting section, and if someone disobeys your rules, you can suspend, or delete them from your site.

It sounds like it is totally free, but I haven’t had the time to check it out for myself just yet. So feel free to sign up, test it out, then drop me an E-mail and let me know how you like it.