I much prefer to receive e-mail than snail mail (unless they’re checks!) and so I’m really like the idea of this new service called Zumbox. It’s a paperless mail/postal system. Zumbox has created a virtual mailbox for each street address in the US and anyone can send virtual mail to your Zumbox mailbox.

Now, this is not the same as your e-mail address, but something you need to sign into which works well because you don’t necessarily need to check your snail mail every single day, nor would I want all that advertising coming straight to my e-mail inbox.

The best part is that it’s free. In case you’re wondering what the catch is, they probably are able to resell their service to marketers and advertisers, so yeah, your virtual mailbox may end up being clogged with virtual spam, but hey, better than my actual mailbox.

Hit Zumbox.com to sign up and claim your mailing address.

Mozilla Labs has just released Weave 1.0 and (so far) it rocks for sync’ing up my Firefox installs on different computers. Weave is actually a lot more than just a synchronization tool, but that’s the first service to come out of the project.

So what’s the point of it? Let me paint you a picture: I’ve got desktop and laptop computers that I run Firefox on, and it’s a pain to have to re-implement, transfer and/or update settings, tabs, history, bookmarks, etc. whenever any of those changes on 1 or the other. Weave now takes care of that for me automatically.
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In case you don’t know what you’re looking at, because of all of the shiny gold, then that’s a Playstation 3 (PS3) decked out in 1,600g of solid 22ct gold. As if that wasn’t enough, there are 58 individual 0.5ct diamonds flanking the disc loading drawer.

If you’d like one, hurry because they only made 3, and at the bargain price of under £200k, they’ll go fast!

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: £199,995
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Woot! Another crazy alarm clock – this one makes you shoot hoops to disable snooze the alarm clock. By the time you make a basket, you’re probably going to be pretty worked up and awake.

I think after day one, I’d probably give up and just let the alarm continue!

Buy now!

Price: $16.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

One of our great readers sent in this set of 7 pieces of free software that you can, and in most cases should, use to protect your PC laptop. Most of these also apply to your desktop as well.

I happen to use most of these and recommend them as well. At a minimum, you should be using antivirus, a firewall and backups.
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Here’s another VHS to DVD converter that’s an all-in-one unit being sold at Hammacher. It’s a one-touch system – stick in the VHS tape, and a blank DVD and press a button for conversion.

This also includes a built-in HDTV tuner so you can record from your TV/cable/satellite as well. It can also read and convert DV/Digital8 camcorder videocassettes. Includes an HDMI output.

A bit pricier than the other hardware/software options, but you may prefer the easier learning curve.

Buy now!
Price: $349.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

MvixUSA has updated their flagship media center product, the Ultio, to now include DVR (digital video recording) capabilities. The Ultio Pro plays back Blu-ray quality 1080p hi-def video, photos, and music on your high-def TV via HDMI and stores it all on its internal hard drive which you can get as large as 2TB.

And now, the Pro can record video on the fly from your cable/satellite TV, your camcorder or from DVDs, instead of acting just as a repository. The Ultio Pro is a virtual Swiss Army knife of video, image and audio formats including: mp4, avi, iso, asf, wmv, flv, mkv, rm, ts, mpg, vob, mp3, wma, aac, ogg, flac, jpg, bmp and gif. To see the full list, download the Formats PDF from MvixUSA.

And of course, the Ultio Pro plays back media from your network and the Internet, including from your computer and from services liks Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and more.

Buy now!
Price: $169 without hard drive; $384 with 2TB drive. (You can buy the barebones version and insert whatever sized drive you’d like.)
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Qualcomm is now pushing FLO TV somewhat independently of Verizon of AT&T by offering the FLO TV Personal Television, a handheld 3.5″ QVGA gadget that you can watch live TV on.

You can also get FLO TV on select phones as well as in your car. The monthly rate is $14.99 and you get over 15 channels.

It’ll be interesting to see whether this takes off, given the limited # of channels and monthly fee. I’d much rather have a placeshifter like a Slingbox.

Buy now!

More info from the manufacturer
Price: $249.99 plus monthly service fee
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

This is pretty neat – there’s an app on Facebook called Graffiti on which a number of great artists have created some amazing artwork, and now there’s a site called Graffit Art Prints that is taking some of these pieces and printing them nicely at larger sizes.

Hit our link to get 20% off.

Plug your SD memory card with digital photographs into Honestech’s FOTOBOX, plug the FOTOBOX in your PC and the FOTOBOX application runs you through a quick wizard and quickly creates a slideshow complete with effects.

You can transfer the finished product to DVD, YouTube, your iPod or save on your computer. That’s it!

Honestech makes the excellent VHS to DVD product (VHS to DVD Deluxe) that we reviewed previously.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $52.25
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)