Filed under: Audio, Internet, Blogging, Web services, Freeware, Social Software
Jaxtr to blogs: make the call, free
Jaxtr is a way for blogs and social networking sites to offer their visitors a way to make calls to any landline phone or cell phone for free. You might think of it as bringing the old-world telecommunications idea up to Web 2.0 speed. I have seen the many VoIP solutions out there, as you have, and many of them are very good, but few have targeted the social networking sites and made a good way to integrate VoIP offerings in a social way. Since Jaxtr is in a private beta right now, I haven't yet tried the service, but the sheer idea of it is cool. My question is whether or not bloggers would want to be contacted by random website visitors via Jaxtr or not. An interesting thing about Jaxtr is that it displays a local number the first time a visitor connects so next time they can call the local number to get a hold of the person again, without having to use the Internet. They will block certain callers for you, which is priceless for any phone service, paid or not, not to mention that the Jaxtr widget can be emailed to contacts. The service currently supports Blogger, Friendster, hi5 Networks, MySpace, Tagged, and Xanga. You can sign up for the private beta, and it helps to reply to the initial email they send you with your social networking information, because they are looking for beta testers with established accounts to test out the service. If you do get into the beta to try it, let us know what you think.

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
