I am working on putting together my own dynamic DNS service, similar to dyndns.org. I will be needing some guinea pigs in the coming months to take part in this project, which will provide you with your very own myname.faildns.com hostname which you can update as you see fit.

Initially, you will be asked to work with this service manually via your web browser or other similar methods, but eventually I should be providing a client of some sort for Windows and Linux.

If you're interested, shoot me an e-mail at tim AT faildns DOT com.

If you've been watching my Facebook status at all over the last month or so, you've seen that I have taken an interest in learning Russian. I don't know why, but it's this strong burning desire.

I have been dabbling with various resources, including Rosetta Stone, and just haven't been able to feel good about learning the language. Nothing really seemed to provide any feedback on how I was doing, any explanation of the phrases I was reading or speaking, or any pronunciation keys. It was all very frustrating.

Last night as I was taking Emily home after having dinner with her parents, I mentioned that I was going to work on my Russian a bit today. She said she had to show me something before I left her place, and I'm glad she did.

She had me look at the Houston Public Library website with her, and they have a section on learning other languages. In their list of resources was a link to Livemocha, an e-learning site with a focus on languages. Here's an excerpt from their "about us" page:

Livemocha is an exciting e-learning Web 2.0 startup founded by a group of experienced and successful entrepreneurs based in the Seattle area. Livemocha addresses a $20 billion worldwide language learning market fueled by rapid globalization, immigration and travel. Livemocha is a first of its kind web based language learning solution integrating online instructional content with a global community of language learners. Livemocha is a venture funded company backed by Maveron, a leading Seattle based venture firm with tremendous consumer and e-learning expertise.

In the last 14 hours, I've been able to complete lessons 1 and 2 of Russian 101, and I'm feeling good about it now.

If you're looking to learn a new language, I highly recommend Livemocha. It's free for learning one language.