There are already various online services that automatically send emails on the behalf of the dearly departed. Yet My Webwill hopes to differentiate itself by asking customers for access to their respective social networking accounts. A Facebook user could have his account deactivated upon his death, for instance.

My Webwill is free, but for advanced features, you’ve got to pay to play. The details:

The basic service is free and includes the deactivation of 10 Internet accounts and the option to send up to five prepared e-mails written by the client. A premium service, costing 199 kronor ($29) a year, or 1,999 kronor for a lifetime subscription, offers more detailed management of social networking profiles as well as unlimited posthumous e-mails and account deactivations.

Personally however, unless I remain a bachelor, I consider My Webwill’s services unnecessary. Why not just share your passwords with a trusted or love one, with the agreement that they never open your personal accounts up until your deaths? The agreement should of course work both ways.

On top of that, wouldn’t the people managing sites like Facebook be willing to deactivate accounts, when politely asked and proof is provided? Feel free to share your thoughts below.

Find out more about the company at MyWebwill.com.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Geeks everywhere are going giddy! A Twitter-based marriage proposal has made the rounds.

Old-school personalities would probably frown on this. After all, shouldn’t there be a bended knee, with a risk of total humiliation for the sake of getting someone to live with and love you for the rest of your life? Here’s something else I’ve considered: if I proposed to a girl over Twitter, and a few years down the road, Twitter closes down, wouldn’t I lose a record of what’s obviously an important event in my life?

Yes, the conservative side of my personality rails against so-called novel approaches to romance and life in general. After all, I’d really want to do something like a marriage proposal in person. But the writer who maintains this blog is open to another possibility: the tools we use to capture significant moments in our life are just changing. So are the people who use them.

In other words, we will probably see more Twitter proposals in the future because micro-blogging represents a new way of doing things, of socialization. To the point that some consider them weighty enough for the stuff that really matters. An obvious example is the woman who accepted the proposal—with a tweet of her own.

On top of that, if you really think about, the old methods of recording events for posterity—photographs, video recordings, etc.—are as fragile as items within an online service’s database. Pictures can fade and be destroyed, while video encoded in older formats can break down. The same is true even if they’re digitized and stored on a computer. Just ask anyone who has suffered through a hard disk crash and failed to maintain backups.

Of course, you can argue that at least you own your photos and the like. Again, what happens to an online service like Twitter is mostly beyond our control. But what really matters about the important times in our life is our memory of them. Our collective remembrance of what happens can be more durable than even the most advanced form of storage and medium. Better yet, it can be expressed through any sort of technology, since the tools we use evolve to suit our needs.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

What am I Blabbing About?

As I wait for the damn restaurant staff to fix their WiFi connection—the very reason why I decided to patronize their establishment in the first place—I can’t help but try and remember what I did before I had constant access to the internets.

I do have some recollections. For instance, if I didn’t know something I had to… shudder consult a printed encyclopedia. There was no Google to help me figure out facts, figures, and most importantly for a writer like me, figures of speech.

What I Did Before Going Online?

Obviously, this question is irrelevant for people who’ve been connected practically their entire lives. So they weren’t “forced” to deal with a need to recall facts and ideas from memory.

All I remember doing before going online for real were nights full of human interaction and conversation. I had to read books and actually go out of the house, simply because I had nothing better to do. To be fair though, the availability of virtually endless information on the internet has helped me learn new things.

So What Did You do Before Going Online?

Along the way, I learned how to create my own style of doing things based on the activities of others. And as I’m increasingly able to enjoy a fully mobile online experience, I’m pretty sure the Internet will become a more important resource for yours truly.

So, what did you do before the Internet became a big part of your life? The very fact that you’re reading this blog post indicates that going online is now a must for you. Or at the very least, you’re starting to discover the wonders—and perils—of the online world.

Post from: The Gadget Blog