On a closer look at Mike Davidson’s attempt to dissect MySpace it turns out there was another genius behind the idea that first inspired Mike himself.

The name is Keegan Jones and his MySpace layout hack was much cleaner. So clean that it contained no ads and got himself kicked out of MySpace. LOL. You can still see his awesome pink profile here.

Well he’s out of the game now but there’s an instruction residue on his blog on how he turned his MySpace layout into the policy violating design that is his custom profile.

You can use his hack but do it at your own risk. Stay tuned for more custom MySpace layout news and we’ll also start making our own MySpace layouts for you to use in the coming weeks.

As promised we started exploring the web for the coolest MySpace layouts. We searched and searched and after a few long hours we gave up. We didn’t find anything decent enough (in our definition) to be featured on our MySpace Layouts Page.

Then we found Mike Davidson and apparently he wasn’t happy with what’s available out there either. So he went on an experiment and dissected MySpace, and we gotta admit it’s probably the best and cleanest MySpace layout we’ve ever laid eyes on.

Mike is a nice guy too. Not only did he transform his MySpace user profile into an award winning design, he also explained how to do it step-by-step.

Now he has about 95 billion friends on MySpace (LOL) and about 200+ comments on his MySpace hack tutorial page.

We promise we’ll keep searching, but we’ll also pick up where Mike left off and experiment on creating our own MySpace layouts for you to use!

We have just added a MySpace Layouts Page where we will feature the coolest MySpace layouts we can find on the web and where we will give away free MySpace layouts for our readers. If you don’t know what MySpace is we’ve also included a little description and a video. The free MySpace layouts won’t come around too soon but we will compile a list of places/websites where you can download the coolest MySpace layouts for free within the next few days to come.

If you have any input and/or links that can help us please drop us an email.

If you take your blog seriously you must create frequent backups of your database. Whatever blogging software you use you can save a copy of your files in your harddisk but creating a database backup can be a little tricky if you lack the know how.

Some blogging softwares (like WordPress) has a built-in automatic backup feature that you can activate from the control panel, but if you’re not that lucky you might want to check out BackUpMyBlog.

Why use BackupMyBlog? What if the server or database that hosted your blog crashed or your webhost suddenly shut its doors? Could you easily recover your posts and comments? Backup your blog automatically for pennies a day with BackupMyBlog!

Take advantage of the free trial during their beta testing period. Don’t risk your blog, remember to backup your database.

Next time you plan to go to Europe you might want to check out iAudioguide. Whether you need a hotel room, a cheap plane ticket or travel books iAudioguide will make your trip smoother.

iAudioguide offers mp3 audio guides for tourists who visit major cities in the world. All our iAudioguides are mp3 files, so you can use these audio guides on every mp3 device (iPod, memory stick). You do not have to register, just download them for free.

They currently cover Barcelona, London and Paris and they’re adding three more cities very soon.

We all know that knowledge workers work best by getting into “flow”, also known as being “in the zone”, where they are fully concentrated on their work and fully tuned out of their environment. They lose track of time and produce great stuff through absolute concentration…trouble is that it’s so easy to get knocked out of the zone. Noise, phone calls, going out for lunch, having to drive 5 minutes to Starbucks for coffee, and interruptions by coworkers – especially interruptions by coworkers – all knock you out of the zone. If you take a 1 minute interruption by a coworker asking you a question, and this knocks out your concentration enough that it takes you half an hour to get productive again, your overall productivity is in serious trouble.

Joel Spolsky, software developer, Fog Creek Software from Where do These People Get Their (Unoriginal) Ideas?

Jason Fried from 37signals wrote at Vitamin about getting in “the zone” where you can shut down the world around you and focus on your work. He compares “the zone” with REM sleep, when your body really rests and recharge. Getting in the zone is not easy, and getting out of the zone is a snap. Just as before you get into REM sleep first you have to sleep, and any interruption would make you start all over again.

When you’re in ‘the zone’ you get your best work done. But how do you get in that ‘zone’ when colleagues, e-mails and IM are vying for your attention?

His suggestion, get a good amount of alone time when you can’t be bothered. This is when the real development magic will happen.

From Vitamin.

Skype recently announced an early preview of Skypecasts - with which you can host live, moderated conversations with up to 100 people from anywhere in the world.

Skypecasts enable people to discuss shared interests — anything from classic cars and cooking, to home design and computer support. Skypecasts are moderated by the ‘host’ who is able to mute, eject or pass the virtual microphone to participants when they wish to speak. Hosting or participating in a Skypecast is completely free.

Update: I joined the The Ricardo Gonzalez Show LIVE!!! just now and surprisingly the audio quality was very good even on my crappy cable connection. It was fun listening to the guys talking even though Skype booted me in the end (must’ve been my connection).

For those of you who lack access to a 24/7 internet connection, you must be familiar with the frustration of getting online at internet cafes. They usually provide decent CPUs and cool LCD screens but they almost always limit internet usage to just browsing.

If you’re looking for a solution to end this, Portable Apps Suite is your answer. Most internet cafes, although they don’t let you install the programs you need, they usually allow you to use a USB thumbdrive to transfer your data. Portable Apps Suite packs enough applications that can run straight from your thumbdrive so you can turn that net cafe desktop into your own personal desktop.

Portable Apps Suite™ is a collection of portable apps including a web browser, email client, web editor, office suite, word processor, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client and FTP client, all preconfigured to work portably and be easy to back up. Just drop it on your portable device and you’re ready to go.

Via Ades Blog.

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DoSize is an Web 2.0 application that automates resizing and sending pictures online. You can resize your digital photo images in 3 easy steps. This website is really handy for those of you who don’t have any graphics skills and are unarmed with any image editing software on your computer. DoSize is free. It’s easy. It’s fun. It’s online.

We are a group of people who share a desire to make it easier for “common” people to share their personal digital photos. We discovered that many people, although Flickr exists, use e-mail to share quickly a couple of pictures with friends and family… but they just don’t know how to resize them to fit them in an email.

Everybody loves videos and rich media content. Unfortunately for most of us non-geeks it’s not exactly easy to grab those videos, mp3s, flash animations, etc. and save them on our harddrives. Until now that is, since Firefox released an extension that let you download videos from Youtube, Google, Metacafe, iFilm, Dailymotion… and other 60+ video sites. The downloader also allows you to download all embedded objects on a webpage, directly.

VideoDownloader add a small icon on the status bar at the bottom of your firefox window, and a toolbar button. Just click that and download the video you are watching.

Here is a flick that shows how it works.

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