Despite the Master Plan's statement that the online videos would be shut down on July 20...

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

...Acts 1, 2, and 3 are still viewable (and extremely entertaining) online. My only caveat is that it is sort-a-kind-a PG-13, but just barely. If you are a Joss Whedon fan who missed his latest production and first web-production, wander over to the site linked above.

The Internet Archive hosts the...

NASA Images

...images site. There's some spectacular images with text descriptions there. Great time waster (but educational :-).

Smashing Magazine, a web design focused magazine, has a bunch of free stuff at...

Smashing Freebies

The free items includes RSS icons, typefaces, Wordpress themes, wall papers and more. Very cool stuff.

I posted my second podcast to Blogr. I have commentaries on 10 items as well as the podcast and app of the week. You can find and listen to the podcast at:

OgasaWalrus Podcast #2

Here's the show notes:

Podcast #2 (11min 44sec)
NEWS
1. iPhone 3G/iPod touch 2.0.
Freeware for...

2. TechOnABudget.com/blog

MAIN
1. Adobe Buzzword imports Word 2007/Word 2008 file formats

2. MOST VIEWED blog entry for the past two weeks (425)
Alternative to LifeHacker's 5 best windows maintenance tools
- CCleaner (same)

My first OgasaWalrus Podcast (under 8 minutes) is posted to Blogr.com. Click on the link below...

OgasaWalrus Podcast 20080701

...to get to browser based podcast player to listen to it. You don't need to download it or subscribe to it to give it a try.

Here's a list links to items I mentioned in the podcast...

Tools Mentioned:
Apple iLife Garageband
Audacity Sound Editor

The IMSLP Petrucci Music Library provides free PDF downloads of public domain music scores. It apparently shut down a while ago but has just been revived.

Feedbooks.com takes public domain books and provides them for free for a variety of electronic book readers (including Windows Mobile mobile phones and the Kindle). Windows Mobile smartphones can use either the Mobipocket or ePub formats provided by Feedbooks. I've installed Mobipocket (also free) on a Windows Mobile Professional Edition (Pocket PC) device and will be looking at it closer on my MobileViews.com blog.

In 1941 the National Park Service commissioned noted photographer Ansel Adams to create a photo mural for the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC. The theme was to be nature as exemplified and protected in the U.S. National Parks. The project was halted because of World War II and never resumed. That's the opening paragraph from the web page of the...

Records of the National Park Service: Ansel Adams Photographs

OK, this is amazing. Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother is on the New York Times' bestseller list AND is also available as a free download in multiple e-formats. Check it out at...

Little Brother - Download for Free

I really hate it when hard copy magazines create best of lists that force you to slowly go through individual web pages to see the entire list. Apparently, someone at Valleywag feels the same way and created...

Time.com's Top 25 Blogs -- the one-page-version

There is also a list of the top 5 most overrated blogs there. I have to disagree with placing Arstechica and Slashdot on that overrated list though. I'm not familiar with the other three blogs on that list to comment on them.

Here's something a bit different...

UNdata

This site provides UN data in categories such as agriculture, education, energy, health, and trade. Some items are viewable online in a spreadsheet like table format. This kind of table data can also be downloaded in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file.

So, go forth and data mine.

Most of you probably know that Apple iTunes features two free music downloads every Tuesday and sometimes features a new free video download (usually a TV show episode or music video). But, did you know that...

Amazon MP3 (Amazon.com)

...provides free DRM-free MP3 downloads. If not, head over to the link given above and see if any of the freebies interests you.

I've bought a couple of DRM-free MP3 songs from Amazon MP3 and have been very satisfied by the purchases. The songs import fine into iTunes for transfer and playing on an iPod.

FYI: I'm one of the people profiled on Microsoft's (Open Source) Heroes Happen Here site. So, I guess I have achieved my 15 seconds of alloted web fame. And, yes, I know that I have a "face for radio" and a "voice for blogging." :-) So, if anyone is interested, you can hear (and, unfortunately, "see") me ramble on my thoughts of why I want Open Source and proprietary software to work together.

The Annals of Improbable Research magazine's articles are now freely available on the web as well as a low-resolution PDF download. The high resolution PDF version as well as the paper version are available for a fee (seems reasonable to me :-). The magazine also sponsors the annual (and usually hilarious) Ig Nobel Prizes. A video of the 2007 event is available for viewing on their website.

This one falls a bit out of my usual categories list (freeware, Open Source, free downloadable content, or interactive web service). However, I've been thinking and speaking a lot about Enterprise Knowledge Capture as it relates to an aging workforce in my day job. And, like many other people I have parents that are aging (doing well so far!). And, of course, me and my fellow Baby Boomers are aging too. So, I figured some fellow baby boomers might find this site interesting/useful...

Caring.com

The long holiday season the U.S. starts with Thanksgiving weekend (and the Black Friday store sales). Here's something to let you you legally load up videos for your travels whether short or long...

Internet Archive: Moving Image Archive

...contains thousands of free movies, films, and videos.

Mashable.com's list of 20+ Places for Public Domain E-Books looks like a pretty exhaustive list of free e-book sites (including the few I've mentioned in this blog). Head over there to get the full list.

Here's way more info from and about the U.S. Congress than most of us can probably process. But, if you can, head over to...

OpenCongress.org

...where U.S. Congress legislative information as well as news about the Senators and Representatives can be found.