“Hi, my name is Paul and I’d like to be your pal!” ‘Rentapal.com always has a friend available to meet with you (either in-person, or by phone or email) for any kind of legal activity.’ Cost $19.95 per hour. There’s so much more to this than I can ever possibly write here. Read the site! [via bifurcated rivets]

MSGTAG alerts you when your friends read email that you’ve sent them. It’s better than the standard Outlook Express receipt feature because it doesn’t activate pop-up windows on the recipient’s screen etc. And there’s a free version! ‘When your email is viewed at its destination, MSGTAG lets you know. You receive notification from MSGTAG telling you that your message has been opened. The notification also details when the message was sent, when it was viewed, and what the delay has…

Hmm, neato. Guzzlefish.com is a free online DVD, CD and games cataloguing service. It also lets you sell or exchange stuff with other users and includes reviews and other useful features. Bookmark-a-go-go.

The Ecotonoha project is sponsored by – gasp – NEC. For every virtual tree that visitors to the site help create, NEC will plant a real tree in New Zealand as part of an ecological project there. [via metafilter]

The EETimes is reporting on moves by the disk drive industry to improve data capacity on hard disks by radically changing the way the data is stored on the drive platters. ‘As opposed to longitudinal recording, where the bits are impressed in a parallel format along the surface of a disc, perpendicular recording stands the bits on end, enabling more data storage per square inch.’ It’s tricky, has reliability issues and is a few years away, but eventually the new…

Verne Troyer, the actor who plays Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies is to wed his 6 foot 2 inch girlfriend Genevieve Gallen. ‘Troyer has now undergone treatment for alcoholism and friends say the stability of marriage will help to keep him off the booze.’ Nothing more to say here folks, kindly move on! [Thanks Mark!]

Interact-TV’s $899.00 Telly MC1000 box is a TiVo competitor with a difference because it’s all based around open standards like Linux and stuff. What’s more, the designers are deliberately encouraging their users to upgrade their systems with bigger hard drives, memory etc etc. Hmm, could this be a company that appears to understand the future of 21st century retailing? ‘Want more memory or that new DVD-RW drive? Go ahead! You can upgrade Telly with off-the-shelf PC components, and Telly software…

The Geektools site contains a Geektels section detailing hotels around the world which are Internet connection friendly. A must have bookmark if you’re a travelling soul with an addiction to the Net. Pass the word!

A short but interesting little comparison of the photo output of a quartet of new generation 1.3 megapixel cell phone cameras. The Casio looks quite good. In fact, looking at this selection if I was a digital camera manufacturer of any note I would be distinctly worried.

Magnatune. An online record label, created by musicians for musicians to promote their work to the public. ‘No major label connections. We are not evil.’ Says it all really.

Hands up all those of you who’ve got an old parallel printer lying around, obsoleted in the midst of an ocean of USB ports. Well perhaps you should take a look at the Bluetake BT200 Bluetooth printer adapter. Simply hook it up to the parallel port of your ancient printer and voila, you’ve got a printer which will talk to any bluetooth enabled PDA, PC or whatever. Sounds good to me, now where did I put that old Epson dot…

Er…look I know that it’s clearly a marketing ploy, an attempt to garner some free viral marketing exposure, but still the 118118 (a new UK directory enquiries service) site is rather funny. In one of those ‘almost trying too hard to be weird’ ways. The take off of the Honda ad for instance has a couple of truly hilarious bits. Via memepool.

The good folks at Iomega have just announced a new 1.5GB storage technology dubbed Digital Capture Technology (or DCT). It’s designed for camcorders, video players and all sorts of portable devices and features a really really small form factor – like it’s the size of a 50c coin. Fuji, Citizen and Texas Instruments are also part of the team, so it’s got some muscle behind it. Hmm. Yet another confusing storage standard for portable devices to add to the zillion…

Heh heh, super gamer site Gamespot has gone and done the unthinkable. It’s posted a review of real life – as in ‘get one, eh?’ – perhaps to show their hardened gamer readers that the sun actually does exist outside of those drawn curtains. Brill. ‘Real life isn’t above reproach. In one of the stranger design decisions in the game, for some reason you have no choice in determining your character’s initial starting location, appearance, or gender, which are chosen…

Ooh look, Winguard Pro 2003 is a free program which lets you lock your computer’s files and folders, Internet Explorer, Control Panel as well as offering a host of other security goodies. Did I mention that it was free? If you like it, the authors would appreciate it if you upgraded to their Premium version.