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The Common Craft Show is a series of short explanatory videos by Lee and Sachi LeFever. Our goal is to fight complexity with simple tools and plain language. We call our format "paperworks" and publish a new video about once a month.

On C|Net you can now vote on your favorite Web Applications. Also skimming through the favourites gives a good overview on "What's out there". Also if you are a Voxer be sure to help SixApart a liitle ;) You won't be here if you dislike Vox ...

Do you have a blog, online profile, or some other personal web page? Would you like to communicate more with your visitors? Today we're launching a new Google Talk feature that lets visitors to your web site chat with you. We call it "chatback" because instead of you doing all the talking on your blog, your visitors can talk back to you. Sure, they could leave comments, but those are public and hard to use for a real conversation. With chatback, it's a real instant message session.To use chatback, you must have a Google Talk account ... but your visitors don't have to! They don't even need to have an email address, or to have ever used instant messaging.When they visit your site, they'll see a badge like the one on the right showing your online status (available, busy, offline) and, if you're available, they can just click and start chatting. Chatback uses the web-based Google Talk Gadget so your visitors don't need to download anything. It opens in a new window so they can keep chatting with you even if they browse to other pages.Of course, chatback isn't just for blogs. You can use it on any web page that you can add HTML content to. To get started, visit the chatback start page. (This is also linked from the Google Talk homepage.) Then just copy the provided HTML snippet to your web site. Visitors will then see a badge on your site indicating your availability, and can click to start a chat with you. If there's a time when you don't want to be distracted, just set your online status to "busy" and visitors won't be able to chat with you until you change your status back to "available."If you're not already a Google Talk user, it's easy to become one. If you've got a Gmail account, then you already have a Google Talk account. If not, just go to www.google.com/talk or www.gmail.com to get started.Bruce LebanSoftware Engineer

Firefox just reached 500,000,000 downloads. This is an absolutely phenomenal milestone for Firefox. It is sort of hard to imagine what that number means. For some perspective, that’s roughly the audience size of 10,000 Rome Colosseums combined. It would be the weight, in kilograms, of 8,500 Boeing 747 airplanes. In dollars, for $500 million you and 15 of your friends can fly to the International Space Station.

FastWith Splashtop your computer is ready to use seconds after you turn it on. Instead of waiting for a full boot, you have Web access in mere seconds. Chat, surf, play a game - all one click away.SecureSplashtop is a secure Web-surfing environment. You can surf the Web while staying immune to many of the attacks that plague Windows.Eco-FriendlySplashtop boots so quickly there's no reason to leave your PC on all the time. Now you can use your time more effectively, and consume much less energy.

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Nice done Flash Site.

WASHINGTON - Conspiracy theorists take note: the myths surrounding one of the United States' oldest and most enduring national symbols are about to be debunked...if you believe the government, that is.

Since the summer of 1962, a fire, fueled by rich anthracite coal deposits, has been burning beneath the mining town of Centralia, Pennsylvania.Nonstop.From Offroaders: “The fire was started in a garbage dump over an open coal seam in May of 1962. The fire was reported and seemed to be quenched at the time, but actually continued underground. There are many additional versions of the original cause but the garbage pit and the date are probably right. First bid to extinguish the fire was $175.”“By 1983, the government said the fire was advancing on three or four fronts. Proposed trenching of the area might cost as much as $660 million with no guarantee of success. One of the larger trenches would have bisected the town roughly from east to west. A government buy-out was proposed instead of the trenching and there was a referendum held. The homeowners voted to accept the buy-out 345 to 200. Only those whose names were on the deeds could vote. From 1962 to 1984, $7 million had been spent. In November of 1983, $42 million was voted for the buy-out.”“By 1991, this area had been increased by about three-quarters. Worst case scenario would be about 3700 acres and [burn out in] a hundred years.”Perhaps not since the entire Appalachia region hovered above a fault line hundreds of millions of years ago has the ground below smoldered, a glowing ember of iridescent orange, while fissures and fumeroles spewing poisonous gases dotted the landscape above.You feel the heat in your feet. The smell of sulfur lingers in the air. The town, appropriately enough, resembles a “post-nuclear war wasteland.” Or yes, Helltown USA. A must-stop on the municipalis non grata travel circuit.If it weren't for the signs warning us of the coal mine fire, I'd probably guess we're witnessing the birth pangs of a new ocean.If you cannot make it to Centralia, there are, apparently, other coal mine fires in Pennsylvania and all over the world, particularly northern China, eternally coursing their way through the serpentine subterranean tunnels and mineral veins.(All photos were taken from Offroaders, except for the third photo. Unfortunately, I don't remember where it was taken.)Link:The Centralia ProjectUnseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine FireCentralia Mine Fire @ Roadside AmericaPhotos of Mine FiresCoal fires by Anupta PrakashIn the Archives:Scorched EarthPetroleum Sublime

This is the ultimate rock solid 99% iPhone clone and is selling like crazy. It is unlocked so just plug your SIM card in and you are good to go. Comes with one year warranty. Sells for only $239. No contracts. No rate plans. Just your existing SIM card is enough.

Facebook group for IT alpinists.

In my neighborhood Kadeeae pointed out this wonderful tool. PicLens - an extension for Firefox to view photos. BTW: If you use "CustomizeGoogle" as firefox plugin you have to decide - either PicLens or "CustomizeGoggle".

Always good for a laugh :)

Extremely nice game.

Wow - my first own city. Feel free to visit me in W4 Town.

If you like IT comics - check it out. This one is in memoriam of the "last real life adventurer". If you ever RPG'ed you will understand :)

Its always a very entertaining part of the day if your work in the IT industry.

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We've taken huge steps to make Wi-vo the only site you need for... pretty much everything! This includes a large amount of user driven features! We realised that when the community is given the tools to contribute, the possibilities are unlimited. You can equate this to an open source system; Instead of 3 or 4 people working on this Wii-volution, thousands can contribute their resources to make this site the #1 repository of Wii information ,cheats, and saves!