What is Web 2.0?
According to the entry in Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is all about online collaboration and sharing through wikis (like Wikipedia), social networking sites (think Friendster, Nexopia, Stumbleupon or Windows Live Spaces), and certainly blogging fits nicely into the definition of Web 2.0.
In other words, what you knew about the Web when you first went online has transformed from a relatively static ‘push-button’ experience to a more collaborative, engaged and engaging experience …

Got a few minutes to procrastinate? You might like the following “digital ethnography” video that VanRamblings found courtesy of CNET News. It’s all a little bit techno-utopian, but nevertheless pretty cool.

Although it’s taken a number of years to get to the point where there are now a few, half-decent mp3 players on the market to consider (despite the prominence and ubiquity of the Apple iPod), it’s now safe for consumers to walk in to their local Best Buy and purchase an mp3 player that will do pretty much everything they need it to do, from playing music and video, to voice recording, calendar work and everything in between.
The newest, and according to C|NET, best mp3 player is the 8GB SanDisk Sansa e280R Rhapsody, a flash-based mp3 player which (unlike its iPod competitor) includes an FM tuner, a voice recorder, access to music downloads through Rhapsody, a user removable battery, an expansion card slot, and great battery life.
They’re not calling the Sansa e280R an iPod killer for nothing.
Why buy SanDisk’s e280R, or Creative’s 4GB Zen V Plus — also a C|NET Editor’s Choice, just like its Sansa cousin&#32 (and, in the interest of full disclosure, currently VanRamblings’ default mp3 player) — rather than one of the many hard drive-based mp3 players on the market?
The answer to that question is many. First off, battery life. Because it’s a flash-based player and there are no moving parts inside, battery life is two to four times as great as you’d experience with a hard drive-based player.
Next up, again because it’s a flash-based player (with no moving parts), whether it’s Sansa, Zen V or iPod Nano, it is pretty much indestructible.
Creative and SanDisk are one up on the iPod given that they play Microsoft’s proprietary WMA format, allowing for almost double the number of songs to be moved onto the player (up to 4000 mp3s on the e280R — and, really, how many people have more than 4000 songs they want to load onto their mp3 player, and carry around with them to the gym, the beach, or in the car?). Four thousand songs? Sounds great to me.

Both the 8GB SanDisk Sansa e280R Rhapsody and the 4GB Creative Zen V Plus (pictured right) offer a host of features at a price below $250.
Aside from the 1.5″ colour OLED display, it’s scratch resistant, has a built-in voice recorder and 32-channel FM tuner, you can play several different video formats, view photos and album art, record directly from a CD, play audio books — and the player is not only light (at barely 35 grams, or an ounce and a half), it’s portable and won’t skip no matter how hard a workout you give it (or yourself) at the gym or on the beach.

Ran across this article earlier in the day, written by Christopher Null for PC World magazine (and, by the way, if you own a PC, and don’t most of us, you oughta subscribe to PC World).
The article covers everything from how to improve font legibility on your LCD screen, to surfing anonymously, tweaking your Internet connection, and securing your WiFi connection, and much much more.
For those who are curious about how to capture streaming media (including Windows Media, Real, QuickTime and Flash media, like YouTube and Google Video), Null points you towards Replay A/V and KeepVid.com, although for the latter you’ll want to download the latest version of the VLC player.
Otherwise, Null covers moving big files across the Internet (VanRamblings likes Pando, a sort of e-mail insert which allows you to send files up to 1GB), creating keyboard shortcuts, and a bunch of other useful “tools”.

With Toronto, Paris, San Francisco, Philadelphia (who were the first to jump on board, way back in 2004), Chicago, Miami Beach, Fredericton (that’s the sleepy village in New Brunswick, by the way), and a host of other North American and European centres offering free, state-of-the-art broadband wireless networking citywide across their jurisdictions, the forward thinkers on Vancouver City Council have finally capitulated to the public’s will, and on Thursday announced a free, citywide wireless broadband network by 2010.
What does this mean for you? Well, for starters, by 2010 you’ll be online, free-of-charge with a state-of-the-art high speed Internet connection 24/7 anywhere (and I do mean anywhere) across the City of Vancouver. Chances are that your cell phone (at least the new Apple iPhone) will connect through a WiMax network, which will forever do away with land-based telephones. You’ll be able to surf the ‘Net and send e-mails wherever you are (in your car, in the park) at will, wherever and whenever you choose.
Free. (Although, to be perfectly honest, it’ll probably be ad-supported)
According to Bruce Clayman, a Simon Fraser University Physics Professor and a member of the SFU Centre for Policy Research and Technology establishing a wireless network in Vancouver could yield a wide range of opportunities, including …

• providing residential and business computers with unlimited Internet access for a one-time fee of under $50;
  • automating hydro, gas, water and parking meter reading;
  • equipping transit, commercial and private vehicles with global position system (GPS) devices, which could expedite retrieval of information on stolen vehicles and help drivers determine their locations and find addresses;
  • providing tourists with instant access to maps and travel information;
  • providing city staff in the field with access to building inspection schedules, parking ticket details and other information;
  • delivering maps, mugshots and other information to emergency response teams travelling to accident sites;
  • providing a “smart” transit system that can advise commuters about bus and other transit schedules; and
  • providing free Internet access to residents of the Downtown Eastside, those on low or fixed incomes

  Remember that Telus ad that ran a couple of years back, the ‘story’ of a young woman shopping for a birthday present for her mother? She held the phone up so her sister could see the present she was considering for purchase. There was about the ad an eerie ‘brave new world’ quality.
  Welcome to that future. And much, much more. It’s here now.