Backblaze is the easiest way yet to protect precious digital files. It’s nearly effortless backup, and it’s reasonably priced if you can adjust to paying a never-ending fee. Founded by a team of serial entrepreneurs and located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Backblaze is on a mission to ensure all computer data is backed up. Backblaze offers the only no-configuration online backup service. Available worldwide in 11 languages, Backblaze costs just $5 per month per computer for unlimited backup.

Backblaze does back up most every file on your computer, irrespective of its location on whichever hard drive. It also ignores files that are over 4GB in size; which may be a nuisance for those people using the NTFS file system - Though not a problem for FAT32 users. If you’ve been thinking about putting together your backup strategy, then Backblaze is definitely worth a look.

This is a wonderful tool for business folk or anyone who has ever stumbled over a foreign name. How To Say That Name.com allows the user to listen to a quick sound file of a native speaker saying given names and surnames. This portal is a database that includes audio files showcasing how to pronounce a name the way a native speaker would. No idea how to pronounce last names like “Nyugen” or “Dokht”? Look the name up and play the embedded audio file to hear it.

The actual database spans territories ranging far and wide, and you can always request that names which are currently missing be added. The database itself can be browsed in two different ways, too: by given name and by surname. As it is often the case nowadays, a cloud tag is part of the premises and you can see if you spot something familiar straightaway. Check out the site if you need help with your class list or an upcoming business meeting that includes Massoud, Kavoos, Rakhshan, Padideh, Daryush or Touraj.

Seesmic enables users to share experiences on blogs, social networks and with each other by uploading videos straight from their webcam or mobile device. Seesmic members can record videos directly on Seesmic’s website, or they can add links to videos posted on other sites such as YouTube. Other members can then reply to those videos which results in threads of video conversations. The Seesmic platform also enables video conversations on more than a thousand sites, blogs and broadcasts them to other social software such as Twitter and Friendfeed thanks to its robust API. Seesmic also operates twhirl, a social desktop client, that now enables Seesmic video comments. twhirl represents 12% of Twitter messages being sent and has over 400,000 downloads.

It is easy to join in the video conversations on Seesmic. Many computers have built-in cameras, or you can purchase a webcam. Once you have a camera, hit the record button on Seesmic and start talking. Don’t worry, you can discard the video if you aren’t pleased with how it looks. To embed videos on a website or blog, it’s as easy as pasting in a snippet of code, just as you would to embed a YouTube video.

Dimdim is the world’s only free, open source web collaboration company. Dimdim lets anyone share audio, video and their desktops all within a browser with no software download required for participants. Dimdim’s mission is to become the leading provider of open source web meeting software. Dimdim strives to be an open and transparent company, with source code, product roadmaps and simple technical documentation freely available online.

DimDim not only offers free sign-ups for those wanting to host seminars for up to 20 participants, but offers up its hosting platform for free as an open source package, for those with the server space to do something with it. DimDim doesn’t ask much more than a username, email, and password, and only from the host. Dimdim is backed by the original investors in Skype, Hotmail, and MySQL. Dimdim’s global investors include: Nexus India Capital, Index Ventures and Draper Richards. The system requirements for anyone participating are basically having a decently high-speed connection and be using either Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari. If a host wants to screencast their desktop, it usually requires a separate (free) program to be downloaded and launched automatically. Dimdim is based in Boston, Mass., with offices in New Hampshire, Canada and India. When all is said and done, Dimdim is a solution that makes for interacting over the web without the need of a desktop client

Anyone who’s paying for a college education knows how expensive it is. Now, some students are finding a new way to get cash for college. There’s a new website called GradeFund.com that allows students to solicit donations for their education from friends, family, and corporations. In this way, students are able to obtain “education sponsors.”

In order to take part of this system, all you have to do is create an account at the site (for free) and then invite your desired sponsors. This is done by submitting an invitation template, and it is also possible to craft your very own invitations. You then upload your transcript and let the system do the rest, as money that your sponsors put forward is collected automatically. In addition, GradeFund provides tools for those who want to customize their sponsorship beyond the student-community network in a way that is meaningful to them. Individuals can sponsor grades at their alma mater or in their major. Philanthropic organizations and corporations can support particular fields of concentration or geographic locations important to their cause or industry. Grade Fund gets 5 percent of every sponsor donation. Right now most sponsors are family and friends, but Grade Fund has a couple at the corporate level. One is ZooToo.com, an online resource for pet lovers, which is giving $100 to every A a registered veterinary student earns. Read the rest of this entry »