Jumpcut.com must be a very good service of San Francisco-based MiraVida Media, Inc. when a giant like Yahoo is interested in it. Founders say that Jumpcut was built to help people in creating a movie or a slideshow and publishing it to the web. And they've surely made a great product.

If you've been wondering what to do with the video you shoot with your snazzy new camera or a phone, Jumpcut is the perfect place for you to be creative. If video isn't your thing just yet and you just want to make cool slideshows with your pictures, Jumpcut again is the right place.

Jumpcut's easy-to-use feature-rich online editor gives you all the tools to spice-up your video. You can add and arrange content in your movie by dragging and dropping thumbnails, select the best parts of your video clips, change duration for your images, add your music or sound effects, choose transitions, add titles, cool effects, and more.

Remixing is another feature unique to Jumpcut that allows you to create your own version of someone else's movie, usually incorporating elements from the original, and adding more content or maybe just some of your own style and spicy goodness.

But wait, Jumpcut is more than just an online tool - it is an online creative community. Similarly to YouTube, this means you can look through all of the media that other people have made public and grab anything to use in your own movie. If you choose, you can share any of your stuff with the community as well.

Finally, you can publish all your work online. It's up to you whether you want to share your art/work with the whole world or just with few friends. You can even publish your Jumpcut video on your blog, and save the bandwidth with Jumpcut being the one which will suck-up all the traffic.

Imagine coming home from a concert and having everyone's footage to make your own music video with! This kind of creative collaboration is unique to Jumpcut. So… Jump in and join the fun.

If you ever found yourself realizing how traditional payment methods such as checks and money orders are becoming obsolete, slow and more and more inappropriate for today's way of doing things (read: the Web), this is what you need.

Founded in 1998, an eBay company since October 2002, PayPal enables any individual or business with an email address to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online. It is, by many means, a global leader in online payment solutions with 100 million account members worldwide. Available in 55 markets (countries and regions) around the world, Paypal renders possible online transactions between online retailers, online as well as traditional offline businesses, buyers and sellers on eBay.

Free of cost for most of its features, PayPal requires only that you have a valid e-mail address and a valid bank account. When registered to PayPal, you can consider it as another type of account that you can access, put money to and make all types of transactions while you are online. All you need is your account information (login and password) and paying or receiving money, in all major world currencies, becomes a peace of cake.

PayPal's service is built on the existing financial infrastructure of bank accounts and credit cards and utilizes advanced proprietary fraud prevention systems to create a safe, global, real-time payment solution. Beside that, PayPal offers you an up to $1000 purchase protection for goods acquired on eBay that you don't receive or that are not as described in the listing.

Need more proofs that the whole world is moving towards the Web?

We all know how it goes. At first we write everything that come to mind on a tiny piece of paper. Then again something else on another piece of paper… Some time later there are dozen pieces of damn paper and you can't find where you've wrote that important piece of information. Next step is to keep all your notes on a single, larger paper. But, with the increase of number of information, everything can not be put on a single paper and on it goes.

The computers have brought an option to search through the documents. However, when you have no access to your computer what will you do. I used to call my house, and ask brother to read the contents of some particular document.

Luckily, a web based service from good ol' Google comes in help. I'm talking about Google Notebook, which will help you (it helped me) organize, manage and search through your notes. Seriously, the concept is simple. You have your web based notebook where you write all you want.

However, Google created the Notebook to help you manage your web browsing, but I rarely use it for that. "For notes it shall be used", as one of my friends put it.

You can have (I guess) unlimited number of notebooks and even share them if you want. Every notebook can have sections which I use to further organize my notes. There is also an option to print your notebook, when Google Notebook format your notes for easier printing.

Some other features include:

• Every note has the date when you created it and when was the last time you've changed it
• Notes are easily sorted using drag and drop (powered by Ajax, of course)
• Undo option helps you quickly fix your fast-hand mistakes
• Access via Personalized Google Homepage - Google Notebook gadget is finally available
• Google's powerful search technology lets you search through all your notes

At the end, I want to add that Google provides a neat Firefox plugin, which additionally helps you keep your notes organized. So, what are you waiting for?

You've heard of Videoblogs, right? It's a blog with video - simple as that. As it requires to be just a little more tech savvy some people are bit scared to get into vlogging.

Well, it's very simple to become a vlogger and get in to the vlogosphere. All you need is some camera - the simple web cam will work for a start - and some video recording software. The software you will use to publish your vlog could be the same as for the blog publishing, which means WordPress, Movable Type or some other. You could also use some of the blog services such as Blogger or TypePad.

Still scared? Don't be. Check out this simple video tutorial which will help you use YouTube in your vlogging endeavors. CNET's Veronica Belmont shows you how to make a simple (and free) video blog. Plus, check out the related videos on CNET.

Finally, all you need is an interesting topic.

When, back in 1996, Macromedia acquired FutureWave along with FutureSplash, no one (or at best not many) could predict how things were going to develop. And what grew up is one of the most important elements of the Web we know it today.

It would seem that strictly speaking Flash is what they call an IDE (Integrated Development Environment), or in more common terms a software helping developers to build software. When people refer to Flash today, they mean many things: the Flash file format, Flash player or plugin and Flash authoring tool (as a part of the Macromedia Studio). This just indicates to what extent Flash has become an institution over the past decade.

The new thing brought by the first versions of Flash was an effective vector-based animation software. In the far past of the middle 90's, when connection and communication speeds were hardly high enough for transporting mere text and a few images, this innovation meant a lot. Finally, large and badly optimised animated gifs could retire and leave their place to something more sophisticated. Flash files were (very) small, could contain animations lasting much longer, with better definitions, scalable and not too difficult to play or integrate into a website. During time, images and video files also became frequent in Flash animations.

Probably the most important event in the life of Flash was the birth of ActiveScript. Initially oriented towards animation, Flash didn't offer any interactivity and thus was able to produce only more or less self-contained animations. ActiveScript dealt with this weakness, and added to Flash all those capabilities that make today's Flash applications (yes, applications) what they are: buttons, text entry fields, events, pick lists…

Recently (December 2005) bought by Adobe (again, as a part of Macromedia), Flash in its latest version has several features that clearly distinguish it from being simply an advanced drawing panel:

• object-based drawing mode
• run-time bitmap cashing
• advanced anti-aliasing
• support for alpha transparency in video
• standalone video encoder
• interactive mobile device emulator
• …

Current improvement perspectives involve such directions as designer/developer workflow management and integration in other Adobe products.

Witnessing the rapid growth of importance undertaken since some time by Ajax, it will be interesting to see how Flash will face the challenges risen by what can be its first serious concurrence (don't agree? Check out the new Gucci website. If you think it's made in Flash, you lose ). There are some independent attempts to make the two kind of work together, but it is maybe a little too early to jump to any conclusion.

Internet brought many unexpected changes in our lives. Renting of the video and DVD movies was certainly one of the areas I thought would stay unchanged. The scenario is familiar - visit the DVD rent "store", browse around, find something interesting and get it. Of course you must return it within few days in order to evade the late fees.

That was also changed with the introduction of the NetFlix, the first and the largest online DVD rental service. The scenario here is very different - visit the site, register, add the movies you like to your list, sort the list and start receiving the DVDs via mail. To keep the model as smooth as possible the delivery is free in both ways and, the most important, there are no late fees. Plus, since NetFlix doesn't operate from a fancy building, they have all the movies you can imagine and it's not that likely that some DVD you wanted is already rented to some other person.

And that's not all. You see, with NetFlix you don't pay the DVDs per-rent. You pay a monthly membership which allows you to watch as many movies as you possibly can for a single fee.

NetFlix's most popular membership plan costs $17.99 a month (plus any applicable tax in your state) and allows you to have 3 DVDs rented at-a-time. After you watched a movie, just put it in the prepaid envelop, send it back to the NetFlix and they will send you the next DVD from your list. It's that easy!

Similarly to Skype and Google Talk, Woize is a digital telephony service targeted to customers who want lower calling costs. The Woize application allows a Woize user to make and receive phone calls over the Internet. All the user needs is a high-speed Internet connection and a PC or a mobile device (Windows Mobile / Pocket PC) with Woize application installed on it.

I could go on with the description of the service, but it's basically the same as Skype. The main difference is that, when used to call landline/cellular numbers, Woize bills in seconds. The usual unit for calculating the costs of call is minute. Also, at the moment Woize is not available for Linux.

But, according to Symbian Watch we can expect to see in Q4 2006 the version of Woize for the Symbian OS S60 platform. If Skype and other rivals don't do anything about Symbian - and so for, none of them did - Woize could significantly shrink its market share by the number of Symbian OS smartphone users. To remind you all guys and gals, led by such handset manufacturers as Nokia and Sony Ericsson, Symbian is the leading smartphone operating system.

Personally, I don't have Woize installed. When it arrives to the Symbian platform, I will certainly have it. Till then, I could only suggest you to check Woize and see if you find it somehow different from the other VoIP applications.

For those of you who still have some doubts about Audible's vision of the future, this might be the middle way. If you decide to follow Sony, you will read. The only question is - what?

This is a new gadget from Sony, named Reader. It's a nine-ounce (250 grams) mobile device whose only purpose is to display text, thus allowing you to read e-books (digital books, that is). Sounds silly? Hold your horses, there are details.

What Sony counts on is mainly the technology lying behind Reader's six-inch screen. It is called E Ink, and is based on micro-capsules actually changing color in either black or white, depending on the applied electrical charge (instead of using some kind of light to illuminate pixels, which is in one way or another the method used in "classical" screens). Created to mimic the appearance of regular ink, this technology insures a reading experience similar to paper: high contrast, high resolution, viewable in direct sunlight and at high angles. It will be, visually, just like reading a real book, says Sony.

And as you can expect, there is a whole scenery being set up for the show. Start with the file format readable by the device, the BBeB (Broadband Electronic Books), owned by Sony. Even though Reader is also able to display PDF or JPG, it seems that Sony will want to do the forcing to impose the BBeB. The simple reason for this is in the fact that BBeB comprises a DRM system, mostly of unknown characteristics up to now. One of the ways for Sony to promote and establish this new format will be through the online e-book library (Connect Store) they are planing to launch in order to properly support Reader with some content.

As for the availabilities, after a several months delay, Reader is reportedly due to appear during the Fall and cost between $300 and $400. If you think it is too expensive for a book reader, have in mind that it will also read mp3 files. (Humble advice: if you ever get the idea of buying it because of the music capabilities, first try to think about something more adapted ).

Don't know what you think about e-books, or e-readers, or reading mixed with new technologies in any way. By default very sceptical and old-fashioned when it comes to give away the good old paper edition, I think that if they get it right this thing might begin to change some of my last archaic conceptions of the world. Let's wait and see…

The Giga Om recently wrote that "It's a Widget World". Let's look more closely to one of the reasons that made him come up with this remark.

If you have developed websites recently, or just stayed in touch with how people do it nowadays, you sure are familiar with the fact that architectures based on widgets are rapidly gaining in importance. A widget is defined as a graphical interface element that a user interacts with. Generally, we are talking about windows or all different kinds of graphical boxes representing independent entities, capable of performing a specific task. With the emergence of Ajax, the Web adopted them as an easy and practical way of building applications out of pre-developed functional blocks.

I wanted to say something about Widgetbox, an online directory of web widgets. Acting at the same time as a repository of widgets that developers are willing to share with the Community, and a management system for widgets installed on a particular web application, Widgetbox is a great example of how widgets simplify your life while making a website. What's the principle?

When you get to the Widgetbox site, you are presented with a large number of available widgets you can add (at no cost) to your site. You can make a selection, you can preview, configure and test widgets before you make a final decision of using one of them. In order to do that, you must create an account, log in, and create an object that they call - a widgetbox. It's a kind of graphical management panel containing different widgets, helping you to dispose them over the screen. In fact, what you will insert into your site are these widgetboxes, or more precisely just an URL to the script file necessary to describe them. All the rest stays on Widgetbox, all the configuration and customization are seamlessly and transparently done on Widgetbox, through a very well designed WYSIWYG editor.

(Just spot that, besides getting to easily add a bunch of interesting instant elements to your site, you can now remotely have control over and modify its content. What a world we live in… )

The point of the story is - things are changing. It isn't hard to imagine how in the near future the development focus will shift from complete sites to widgets. Everyone will be able to make (or build) a website, just like everyone is able to play with Lego. Think about it, and get prepared.

Imagine this scenario: You are writing a post for your blog, and just found an image on the Web you want to insert into it (NB: this supposition doesn't imply that you or anyone should steal copyrighted images). Only one detail - it's too big. No problem, you download it onto the local disk, open it in an editor, browse some menus, scale, rename and save it. It's ready.

There is another way, slightly easier and somewhat more elegant - ResizR, an Ajax based web service dedicated to resizing images. Let's look back to the given scenario, but featuring the ResizR way: You have found the image, it's too big. No problem, you open ResizR, copy the image URL into it, scale, and save the result. As I said, it's slightly easier. Nothing less, nothing more.

With a simple application comes a simple interface: a single line edit box for the image URL or path on your local disk (if you want to use the uploading option), a slider to determine the resulting image width (ranges from 16 to 1024), four checkboxes proposing you to rotate the original image by steps of 90 degrees, and a button to apply the chosen action. All on a single page (of course, it's Ajax dude ), fast and effective.

Two things on the flip side. For the moment, only a JPG support is implemented, you cannot resize just any image (only the most of them). In addition, the original aspect ratio is always preserved, there is no possibility of stretching the image in any direction.

It sure can come in handy, so add yourself a bookmark.