Copyright laws wouldn’t allow for real magazine titles to be used, so the magazines you’ll be on are called things like “National Geography” and “Vague”, but still it’s a fun effect and saves you a whole lot of photoshop work. Try it out and see what you think!

I’m already back in blogging mood

Wonderful Jaiku users,

Exciting news, Jaiku is joining Google!

While its too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you’ll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together.

In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now. But fear not! All our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will continue to be able to invite your friends to Jaiku.

We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition at http://jaiku.com/help/google

Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

They seem to have closed new user sign-ups until they figure things out, which I hope won’t last too long. Jaiku is a vibrant, developing online community, and shutting out new users is NOT something wise right now. Especially with readily available competitors offering similar services online.

In any case, good luck to them!

Most of the places damaged in these fires, I have been fortunate enough to have visited in the past. A fact which multiplies my sadness over the unparalleled beauty which I know has been destroyed. The site of Ancient Olympia, birthplace to the first Olympic Games was threatened and only managed to survive the flames at the last moment thanks to the dedicated efforts of fire fighters and volunteers.

Nature has suffered damage unlike ever before in Greece. Some of the most beautiful forests are no longer. Yet nature has a magical way in which, should it be allowed to rest, it can be reborn. The people though, will require a lot of help in order to recover and get back on their feet.

One of the best organized initiatives to aid victims and provide for disaster relief is located at the following website:

www.ihelp.gr

Please consider spreading the word over the “I HELP GREECE” initiative by telling your friends about it, or posting on your blog.

Imagine my excitement when I came across Pownce. A new micro-blogging, social networking type of site that promises a lot more than the competition and far as I can tell – it delivers as much.

The produce of the labor of four dedicated individuals, one of whom happens to be web-pioneer and Digg founder Kevin Rose, Pownce allows users to exchange notes, messages, pictures, links and files. The privacy controls allow how much of what you publish is made public. You can send staff to just one person off your friend’s list, a select few or everyone on it. I guess it depends on how big the space will be where you plan to throw your next parteeeeyy!

There is also a “pro” version of the service, which offers more features, but personally I am quite content with what I can get for free. Well done to Megatechtronium (how did they come up with this name for a company – I don’t know) for the brilliant work they’re doing, and from the looks of it Pownce will just keep growing in features and goodies for everyone, users and developers alike. Check them out here.

The user interface is very easy to get used to and everything is self explanatory. Besides, you can experiment with all the different tools and styles available, or make your own theme. Customization being the key word in any traditional scrap book, so it remains here. You can tailor your Scrapblog to whatever your personal requirements are, and to how far your imagination reaches. And if you’re out of ideas, there’s an active community of users to explore and jolt your inspiration.

Get creative now and have fun while at it, visit them over at Scrapblog.com

I remember a time when blogging was not even invented as a term. When places like Blogger, WordPress and LiveJournal simply did not exist. And that time was a little over 10 years ago, when I designed and uploaded my first homepage. I hadn’t even finished school yet, let alone having gone to university or having had any kind of training on how to build a web page other than self study and endless hours keeping company to the computer.

Even then people felt the need to keep online journals though. However, it wasn’t as easy. You had to type everything in, give shape and form to what you’ve written with HTML tags, manually add a date, and then make sure you have another page which you manually needed to update keeping track of past journal entries.

The only way people could leave comments on your homepage at that time was via a “guestbook” and not on individual posts. So, you usually had an e-mail link somewhere and if someone wanted to discuss something you’ve written about – they e-mailed you.

Then technology progressed and it was made possible to simplify the entire process into type and publish. Easily making categories for posts, adding tags, keeping archives, comments, and publishing news feeds.

So now EVERYONE blogs. Even the least technologically savvy people with a connection to the Internet. Blogging is not now, nor has ever been reserved for an elite of Internet users anyhow. And once again technology came to the rescue making a wonderful way of expression available to the masses.

Blogs exist today on pretty much every subject there is to discuss. Some bloggers go with niche subjects such as blogs on flowers and gardening, other’s like myself just blog about anything that draws their attention. All these blogs together formed the blogosphere. A virtual space within the world wide web were all the blogs reside.

Even Technorati.com recently lost count of how many blogs there are, and started making use of the term “Zillions”.

So, if there are so many blogs out there already, why bother starting your own? Well, because you can. There is no guarantee anyone will ever read what you write, and if you write too much about your workplace it may even cost you your job. But if writing is a passion of yours, and you want to do it – go ahead.

You can get a free blog at any of the following places:

• Blogger
• WordPress
• Vox
• LiveJournal
• MySpace

And because the blogosphere is a vast place where it is very easy to get lost, let me know where your blog is and I may drop by for a visit some time.

Write journal entries, post photo albums, invite and make friends. Among the wonderful features of My Life Of Travel is the ability to have an interactive Google Map pinning out the places you’ve been at, and the ability to earn revenue on the ads displayed on your journals. Something not all free blog / journal services allow.

Most important, it’s fun, and you can start by adding the places you’ve already traveled to.

What is most important though is that what was broken is well underway to being completely restored for those who survived. When I blogged the news about it last year, I was skeptical as to whether the wounds of those left behind will begin to heal, and whether state aid would work. According to the Sunday Herald Sun the government has taken the necessary steps to aid and relief the survivors.

I can only hope humanity has witnessed the last natural disaster of such massive scale and high death toll. Meanwhile, I’ve tracked a beautiful video on YouTube about Jogjakarta you can watch below.

Click here to view the embedded video.