AudioMicro, a popular source for royalty free music, has announced that they will be adding 170 original compositions by the composer for Family Guy, Ron Jones.

With the recent news that YouTube has muted the audio on certain videos due to copyright problems with the rights holders, stock music is becoming a growing option for people who create videos, podcasts, presentations and more.  Now it seems that composers are liking this option as well, as evidenced by someone like Ron Jones, the  Emmy-nominated composer of the television series Family Guy, placing 170 of his original compositions on a site such as AudioMicro.

For those unfamiliar with the AudioMicro style of company, you pay as little as a $1 a minute for audio clips that can be anything from audio cues and bumpers up to full compositions lasting several minutes.  This gives content creators the freedom to create whatever they want with appropriate background music, and they don’t have to worry about someone coming in and saying they violated their copyright.  Mr. Jones also feels that this is a good thing for the composers as he said, “With this service the composer can bypass the middleman and go directly to the end-user. That is a huge leap forward for composers. You can decide what you want to create and get it out there today. That is freedom. This is a revolution.”

With the addition of these 170 new tracks, the AudioMicro library now surpasses 50,000 available pieces of music and sound effects covering a wide-range of musical styles.

The popular Firefox add-on Foxmarks is getting a name change, a facelift and some new features.

One of the most popular Firefox add-ons is Foxmarks, a tool that allows you to synchronize your bookmarks and passwords between computers.  As of today they are changing their name to Xmarks, and along with that, they are also adding some new features that will make the add-on an even more interesting tool.

Once you have installed the new version (older versions of Foxmarks will continue to work if you have no desire to upgrade), you will be able to see recommendations in search results on search engines such as Google based on the number of times Xmarks users have saved that particular site.  You will also be presented with an information icon as you surf the web that will allow you to click on it and get more information from Xmarks about the site.  If you find either of these new features obtrusive, but still want the latest version, you can turn them off in the Xmarks option settings.

The new version is ready to go for Firefox, but Internet Explorer and Safari users will have to wait a bit longer.

The name change is not surprising seeing as the extension is no longer just a Firefox tool, but it is nice to see they brought some new features along for the ride.

One of the most awaited updates to Gmail has finally happened: the ability to add multiple attachments to an email at once.

In what is a seemingly never ending series of updates to Gmail as of late, Google has announced that you can now attach multiple files at once to an email.  Up until now you had to select a file, click “Attach another file” and select another, doing this one file at a time.  Now you can browse your computer and select multiple files by holding down the CTRL key on Windows machines, or, if you’re on a Mac, you just hold down the Cmd key.  They also now will show you a progress bar for each file so you know that it is actually working as opposed to the old “Loading…” notice at the top of the screen which told you nothing of importance.

While we have seen lots of little tweaks to the system like choosing new colors or editing how the service looks in a tab, those have all been aesthetic changes.  This is one of the most useful changes yet, and one that has been needed for years.  Thank you, Google!

Ever wondered if your inability to reach a Google service is just on your end, or are they having problems? Now you can tell thanks to the Google Apps Status Dashboard.

In the early hours of the morning on February 24th USA time, Gmail became inaccessible.  Due to the number of people who know rely on this service, people were panicked to find out what was going on, but there was no easy way to keep up-to-date with the goings on.  Well, luckily Google has quickly stepped up to the plate by releasing the Google Apps Status Dashboard.

The new tool will show you the status of the various Google products, if everything is working as it should you will see a green checkmark.  If something has gone wrong, you will see a blue icon with an “i” on it, and when you click on it you will be taken to an information page with updates about what is happening with that service.  Seeing as how Google is quickly taking over our online lives with all of their tools, this is a very welcome addition to those of us who use them on a regular basis.

Gmail and Google Talk users be warned, the service is under a phishing attack.

The image to the right (provided by Adam Ostrow of Mashable) shows the message people using Gmail and Google Talk have been receiving for the past few hours.  When you click on the link, you are taken to a site (pictured below) named ViddyHo.  The site asks for you to log in with yoru Google credentials to view the video your friend is supposedly sharing with you.  Instead, what you are doing is giving your username and password to a third-party who then spams your entire Google contact list with the same message to get more people to go to their site and do the same.

Back in January we reported on a phishing attack on Twitter that was using a similar method, and again we must warn you that you should never give your login credentials for any service to any site that is unkwown to you.  If you receive a message like the one shown here, ask the person what the video is before you click on it, and even if you should click through, never give your login credentials!  If something like this does ever happen to you, make sure to change your password immediately upon discovering it.

If a new study is to be believed, iPhone and iPod Touch users have next to no attention span.

We recently asked When Do You Have Too Many Apps?, but if a new study from Pinch Media is to be believed, having any apps is pretty much pointless.  We’ve told you in the app story we did that the total number of application downloads was over 500 million, but it appears that people download them and quickly forget about them.  Only 30% of users bother to look at a paid app on the second day they own it, and only 20% of users of free apps do the same.

While we’re sure Apple doesn’t care if you ever use an application again after the initial download, you have to wonder how much longer people will put up with paying for applications they hardly ever use.  When will they finally say ‘enough, I don’t use them’ and stop purchasing new ones?  I have purchased exactly one application for my iPod Touch, an instant messenger, and I use it quite frequently.  However, I have downloaded around 50 free applications, and I actually couldn’t tell you how many of them get used on a regular basis.  They all sound like good ideas when you first grab the, but then you simply don’t find you have time to play with them as much as you thought you might.

The even scarier part of this story is that only 1% of users end up using an application over a long period of time, with games having the highest retention rate.  So the idea people are buying so many applications are fantastic for Apple and the developers, but no so much for the users.

What say you?  Do you find yourself dropping applications quickly, or do you try to get your money’s worth out of them?

Tired of pre-selected themes for your Gmail account? No worries, Google has that covered for you now.

Back in November of 2008, themes and colors were announced for Gmail, but there was nothing that you could customize to be closer to a look or feel that was more your own.  According to the official Gmail blog, all of that has now changed for users of the regualr edition of the service.  As with most advancements with Gmail, users of the apps version of the service for business will have to wait a while before they get the new features.  Someday we at StarterTech are hoping to understand why those users have to wait longer for features.

To take advantage of the new colors, you just need to go to “Settings” in the upper right corner of the main screen, click on the “Themes” tab and then you will find “Choose your own colors” at the bottom of the screen. If you end up hating the selections you make, you can always click “Reset” and revert back to the default colors until you try again.

After much criticism from the public, Facebook has reverted to their old Terms of Service… for now.

In the very early hours of Monday morning USA time, Facebook changed their Terms of Service, the boring legalese rules of any site out there that hardly any one ever reads. Well, someone did read the changes, and what followed was a vicious firestorm of bad press for the ultra-popular social network.

This is what the old version said.

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

The new version of the ToS said:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

Where it got even a little bit scarier is where is clued you in as to when this license would expire… never. The following is from the “Termination” section.

The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.

Essentially Facebook was telling its users that the moment you uploaded anything to their system, it became their property forever, even if you left the service. Not only could they hold on to it forever, they could do anything they please with it, including selling it, without ever having to acknowledge you as the creator of the work, or they could even use it in advertising if they so desired. Imagine how you would feel 10 years from now having that picture of you doing a keg stand showing up on a billboard across from the office where you are interviewing for a new job.

The collective cry of outrage was deafening online, finally prompting the very reclusive CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg,to take to the company blog on Monday afternoon and try to clear up some of the hard feelings people were having towards the new ToS.  He makes valid points that they need a license that covers the copy of an image that resides in a user’s inbox even if you should leave the service.  This is a good point, but it still doesn’t explain why they felt the need to say that they could also basically do anything they could ever dream of with your content.  As Adam Ostrow of Mashable said:

Ultimately, Facebook’s stance can be summarized as “trust us, we won’t do anything bad.”

Right around the same time Mr. Zuckerberg posted his response, Amanda L. French posted a comparison of the Facebook ToS with those of other services such as MySpace, Flickr, YouTube and so on.  To be blunt, it showed Facebook in a terrible light, and it fueled the user revolt even more.

To really get a feeling for how users felt about the ToS, yesterday Facebook polled their users to find out how they felt about the new rules, and the results showed 56% wanted them changed, 36% were fine with them and 8% didn’t know/didn’t care.  While not an overwhelming majority, it was still a sign people were annoyed, and so Facebook gave in and changed back to the old ToS.

While this may be a victory for the users of Facebook, some of the decision may have been prompted by the news that the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) announcing that they were preparing to file a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the new ToS.  Either way, the roll back has happened, but as Duncan Riley of The Inquisitr points out, it is not time to rest and just forget this happened because they still plan to rewrite the rules again, and if the users don’t express their views now, we could end up going through this whole drama all over again when the newest version is released.

On a personal note, I didn’t agree with the ToS at all, but honestly I’ve always pretty much thought that anything uploaded to the Internet becomes uncontrollable once it is out there, this just made that thought a bit more official.

A day that most mobile phone users have always dreamed of looks to finally be coming true: universal chargers are on the way.

You would be hard pressed to find an owner of a mobile phone who hasn’t at least once wished that all models of phones could use the same charger.  If you lost yours, and then had to hunt down just the right style, you realized what a huge pain having all of these different models truly was.  And the worst was if you were trying to use an older phone and your charger had been discontinued.  Luckily it looks like those days may finally be going away.

According to the Guradian, it was announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain that manufacturers have agreed to the new universal charger, based on the micro-USB standards BlackBerry users are already accustomed to on the Bold model, will begin appearing by the end of 2009, and will be widely adopted by 2012.  The new chargers will also feature a 50% reduction in standby power consumption.  Both benefits are part of the mobile phone industries efforts to improve their standings as being more green friendly as the business has always been seen as one of the least eco-friendly out there.

This is a development that has long been needed in the marketplace, and one I couldn’t be more excited about.  Having been a mobile phone user since the early 1990′s, I have had more chargers than I can remember, and I have always though there needed to a universal standard.  I honestly didn’t think we would ever see the day as the companies like selling you accessories specific to their phones, but it looks like consumer demand will finally win out.  The micro-USB format also makes the most sense as it will also give you easy syncing capabilities with your computer.

The phone I will be surprised to see this on will be the iPhone; due to its physically slim nature, it will be difficult to put the micro-USB port into it.  It would also be surprising if Apple would want to move away from their connection that they use on all the iPods.  I may be wrong about this, but I would be genuinely shocked if they joined in this movement.

Anyway you slive this, this move is a win for consumers and the environment.

When is too much information just that?

Over at Mashable, Adam Ostrow wrote up a new Facebook application today called TrueScoop.  On the surface it seems like a fun, and surprisingly free, way to look up information about your friends, but it is also directed at potential employers being able to look into your history to see what type of person you are.

TrueScoop allows anyone who installs the application to enter a person’s name and it will search through “millions” of public records to show you about them.  Ever been pulled over for a speeding ticket?  Well, it’s on here (as Mr. Ostrow bravely proved by posting a screen capture of one of his own)  This means it will also show any other possible run ins you’ve had with the law whether they be misdemeanors or felonies, your entire arrest record is now avaialble for anyone on Facebook to view.

While this may be a great thing for a family looking to hire a baysitter, or an employer wanting to know about a potential employee, there are two serious problems we see with this application.  The first is the potential for you to get confused with someone else, or for you not be found at all.  True, it does show you the person’s date of birth and a potential location for where they reside, but when I looked up a friend (with their permission) who had moved away from our town eighteen years ago, it still showed him as possibly living here.  An employer could see that and wonder if the information put on an application was truly accurate.  Another friend (again with their permission) that I looked up seemingly doesn’t exist at all.  After 15 minutes of searching, not one record could be returned on her, which might prompt someone who has put too much faith into this system to think that she has given them bogus information.

The second, and far more scary, potential problem is that of stalking.  Perhaps someone is a bit too obsessed with you and they decide to look you up via this system.  They could potentially learn what city you live in or even more.  Imagine this in the case of someone who has escaped an abusive relationship and it gets even scarier.

True, these are all public records the information is being pulled from, but in the past there has always been a fee involved in searching them which is enough to dissuade the casual abuser.  This is the first time I can ever remember there being a truly free public record search, and due to the ability of anyone to do it on a whim, it could potentially turn itno a frightening tool for stalkers, child molestors and things we might even be able to dream of yet.  Use this application with care.