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Direct via Cultcase.com are the Top 10 Online Video Conversion Services. I’ve personally used Vixy (just this week in fact) and find online conversion services to be awesome. They’re probably slower than using a thick client, but the convenience of not having to install additional software to convert video, or grab flash from the web to store locally is just awesome.

Most online video platforms such as Youtube, MySpace and Metacafe use Flash video streaming (.flv) rather than simple links to files we can download. There are various reasons for that with the main one being the common business model most of those services relay on: advertising. In other words - we get to watch the content for free but we need to do that online and on the site. While this may be serving well the interests of the service provider it might not always be how we want things to go: some of us want to archive our own copies of the videos we love. Others may want to transfer a certain movie from one website to another. Well, this is the time to let you know that you don’t have to be “on Youtube” to watch a Youtube movie. Instead, you can download the video stream to your computer, keep it there as a “normal” video file and watch it whenever you like. Nothing is illegal or fishy about it, it is simply another way of consuming the data. Just like you do when you save an html page to your computer and read it later.

So, for your convenience, CultCase has selected some of the best online video conversion services available today. They are all free of charge and do not even require registration. They tested all of them by converting and downloading the same 1:42 min Youtube video. There were no significant differences between the services in terms of both time-to-deliver and video quality. All of the files looked reasonable considering the quality of the source and took approximately 1-2 minutes to delivery. Read the rest of this entry �

The steady stream of good news about green tea is getting so hard to ignore that even java junkies are beginning to sip mugs of the deceptively delicate brew. You’d think the daily dose of disease-fighting, inflammation-squelching antioxidants–long linked with heart protection–would be enough incentive, but wait, there’s more! Lots more.

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The most excellent site GoogleSystem has a write up on how to enable you to chat with your site’s visitors using Google Talk.

Google Talk’s gadget was a nice addition, but you couldn’t use it to chat with unknown people or with the visitors of the site, like in Meebo Me. Now you can do that using the new chatback badges. You only need to add some code to your site and anyone could click on the generated badge to chat with you.

“A Google Talk chatback badge allows others to chat with you even if they haven’t signed up for Google Talk or a Google Account. You can put the badge in your blog or website, and people who visit those pages can chat with you. The badge will display your online status (whether you’re available to chat or not) and, optionally, your status message.”

If someone clicks on the badge, a special version of the Google Talk gadget will open and he will be able to chat with you.

The conversations are private and only one-to-one, so other visitors won’t be able to read them. For some strange reason, they’re not even added in Gmail’s chat section. Unfortunately, being constantly interrupted by other people is not very pleasant, so you can disable the link from your badge by setting your status to “busy” or by signing out of Google Talk.

I’ve put this in place on my site to test it out. It was extremely simple to enable, just scroll down to the bottom of the page and look in the About Me section and you’ll see my Google Talk badge!

This is going to make you bust a gut. Literally the funniest two clips I’ve seen on the web in a long time.

So here’s the history:

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel often says: “Our apologies to Matt Damon, we ran out of time” near the end of his ABC television show Jimmy Kimmel Live, a gag lampooning instances where shows cannot feature their last guest due to time constraints. On September 12, 2006, after a segment highlighting the running gag and a lengthy introduction by Kimmel, Damon finally appeared on the show, only for Kimmel to apologetically cut his interview and head to credits, as Damon cursed him. Kimmel later confirmed to USA Weekend that the skit was entirely planned and Damon willingly played along. Kimmel’s girlfriend, comedian Sarah Silverman, also used this line at the end of the 2007 MTV Movie Awards.

To top all this off, Sarah came on the Kimmel show with a skit called “I’m F*cking Matt Damon”… I can’t even explain in words how funny this is, so just check it out:

Not to be outdone, Kimmel returns with “I’m f*cking Ben Affleck”. It starts out much the same as Sarah’s skit but then 2 minutess in you get a star studded video with Ben Affleck as well as: Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Cameron Diaz, Joan Jett, Macy Gray, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle, Pete Wentz, Perry Farrell, Benji and Joel Madden, Lance Bass, Huey Lewis, Josh Groban, McLovin, Christina Applegate, Rebecca Romijn, and Dominic Monaghan, and Meatloaf and probably a few more. This one is even funnier than Sarah’s as it plays off all the funny things she did in hers. Just check it out:

Ya you heard that right, the EU is putting money into a P2P client. Direct from TorrentFreak here’s the article:

A few weeks ago we reported that the EU Greens launched a pro-filesharing campaign named “I Wouldn’t Steal”. In a continued effort to support the development of P2P technology, the European Union has now invested $22 million in the development of an open-source BitTorrent client.

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