This talk by designer Tim Brown explores the relationship between play and creativity.

At the 2008 Serious Play conference, designer Tim Brown talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play — with many examples you can try at home (and one that maybe you shouldn’t).

A new service NotifyMeWhenItsUp lets you enter any website address and receive an email notification when the site is up again.

Similar services include: DownForEveryoneOrJustMe and IsTwitterDown

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Do you want to arrange a group chat with people but find everyone uses different instant messenger services? Stinto offers you the chance to create disposable chat rooms.

Registration isn’t required and you can set the room to private when in the chat interface. You’ll be given a unique URL when you click “New Chat”, which you can then email or IM to your friends.

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TwitterFox - One of the most popular twitter plugins for firefox. Well designed, it places a twitter icon at the top of your browser and notifies you of updates.

TwitterBar - TwitterBar allows you to post to Twitter from Firefox’s address bar. A small unobtrusive grey icon sits to the right of your address bar; clicking on it will post your tweet, and you can hover your mouse over it to see how many characters you have left.

Twitkit - TwitKit is a Twitter sidebar for Firefox. TwitKit has a 6-section interface, using tabs to separate content. You can view the Twitter public timeline, your user timeline, a list of your friends and their latest tweets, a list of your followers and their latest tweets, @replies made to you, and stats about your account.

PowerTwitter - Power Twitter adds features to the Twitter Web interface including displaying Flickr photo and YouTube videos. TinyURL links are also unwound to show the destination page title. Finally, any additional social information (blogs, photos, etc.) that match for the Twitter user are displayed in a news feed in the side bar of the Twitter page.

Twitzer - Twitzer is a Firefox extension which lets you post text longer than 140 characters on Twitter.com.

Twitbin - Creates a sidebar on your firefox browser to allow you to communicate with twitter.com. Send and receive twitter messages from anywhere on the web.

DashBlog - All in one plugin for FF3 that allows you to instantly post on Twitter, Blogger and Tumblr.

TwittyTunes - Allows to post your currently playing songs to Twitter with a click. As a bonus, you can also post the websites you’re visiting, videos you’re watching and more!

Reload Every - Allows you to set your tabs to reload every few seconds or minutes, handy for sites like Twitter.

If you make music and want to share your recordings with people from around the world then Sound Cloud could be exactly what you are looking for.

SoundCloud is a social network site that allows you to share sound files with other users from across the globe.

The drop box widget option allows you to put a widget on your webpage and receive sound files from other SoundCloud users. You can see an example of the widget below.

Send me your track

SoundCloud also offers you the chance to view statistics about your uploaded work. You can view the amount of plays, comments and downloads each file has received. If you sign-up for the premium account you can also receive even more information about which users listened to your tracks. You can embed tracks with the player below:

SoundCloud: The Tour from SoundCloud on Vimeo.

The London Underground map is design classic. Harry Beck produced the iconic design based his diagram on a similar mapping system for underground sewage systems. Watch the documentary on this design classic below:

If you find logging into your Wordpress blog to moderate comments a chore then Moderator might be the answer to your prayers.

Moderator is an Adobe AIR app that allows you to view and moderate comments from your desktop.

The app is simple enough to install. Upload it to your plugins directory and then download and install the AIR app. You can find more detailed instructions on the site.

While the app is still in early release we’ve tried it and it works very well without any problems (although the website does state that if you have a few hundred comments waiting to be moderated it might affect performance).

[via Download Squad]

You can set the number of words you need to complete or set a timed goal. If you stop writing then Write or Die will start a reminder alert until you get back to work. Watch the video below for more information.

Skype may be the best known VOIP application on the web, but we have uncovered nine amazing alternatives that you should take a look at.

Oovoo

ooVoo is the next evolution in online communication — a remarkably easy way to have a face-to-face video chat with friends, family or colleagues, no matter where they are in the world.

Gizmo5

One of the bigger alternatives to skype which features: free PC-to-PC phone calls, interoperability with other SIP softwares such as the Google Talk or Jabbin. Gizmo also provides a facility to allow users to receive calls on a traditional phone number from mobile phones and landlines.

iVisit

iVisit for Mobile and Desktop enables push-to-talk across carriers, text messaging, and face-to-face communication with your family, friends, and colleagues. Transmit live video, share hi-res photos, and communicate with any iVisit user from your mobile device or desktop.

Jajah

Jajah claims to be less CPU intensive than skype. But whether it is or not, it is still great software.

Vbuzzer

Vbuzzer supports internet fax, instant messaging, RSS, video conferencing, interconnected with Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, and ICQ. VoIP features include free Internet calls, low cost PC to phone, and phone to PC calls.

Mabber

Mabber is simple but very effective functionalities. For those of you that prefer software without the gimmicks.

Ekiga

Ekiga (formely known as GnomeMeeting) is an open source VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME. Ekiga uses both the H.323 and SIP protocols. It supports many audio and video codecs, and is interoperable with other SIP compliant software and also with Microsoft NetMeeting.

Google Talk

Google’s approach to instant communications. An application for Windows that offers VoIP and instant messaging. Mac users can talk with Google Talk users using Jabber-enabled clients such as Adium and iChat. Linux users can use Gaim.

MizuPhone

MizuPhone tries to combine the SIP compatibility with P2P inteligence and an intuitive GUI. It is a perfect choice for everybody who wants to keep its telephone bills to minimum while using the greatest features from the VOIP industry.

Have you always fancied yourself as the next Rick Rubin, Timbaland or Steve Albini, but never had the money to buy expensive music programs? We’ve found 7 free online tools that could help you become the next big thing in music production.

Hob Nox

Produce your own electronic music with the Hobnox Audiotool. All in your browser.

Splice

Splice gives anyone, anywhere the ability to collaborate on music right through a web browser. You can upload or record sounds, make songs, listen to other user’s songs, make remixes, make friends and a whole lot more.
http://www.splicemusic.com/makemusic/intro/

Indaba Music

Indaba Music is an international community of musicians, music professionals, and fans exploring the creative possibilities of making music with people in different places.

It makes finding other people, and working on recording, mixing, or mastering projects easier. For fans, Indaba provides unprecedented access to artists and to the creative process.

BBC Virtual Sequencer

The BBC’s own virtual studio where you can create music loops.

YourSpins

YourSpins is a new kind of music community for fans who want to immerse themselves in world of remixes. Within YourSpins, you’ll be able to share your mixes of top songs with others, rate and comment on other mixes - and chat, mail and IM other people too.

(This is best used by people who don’t really have the time to create their own loops and sounds. Not very advanced, but fun to play with for a few minutes.)

Jam Studio

JamStudio.com allows users to mix different instruments (guitars, drums, bass, etc.) with simple clicks to create music. Created music tracks can be save as MP3s or saved online on the site.

Jamglue

Jamglue is a thriving online community for creating and personalizing audio. We let you upload and record music, remix it online, and share your hot mixes with everyone.