Axodys

[Vox][] is definitely shaping up to be a pretty sweet weblog community, but only being a Starter class participant with only comment posting ability is starting to get a little old. I’m really looking forward to being upgraded to Standard mode and being able to invite my family and friends to join in as well. I think Starter mode will be perfect for a lot of people that are new to blogging like the various members of my extended family, but it’s fairly constraining to me. The real irony is that while generally I do far more post reading than post writing, now that I’m in a situation where I can’t write posts I really want to. Go figure.

At least I’ve got good old [Axodys][] here to channel some of that writing desire into.

In the meantime I guess I’ll keep adding interesting people into my Vox Neighborhood and tooling around all the cool pictures, audio and video that’s popping up. I really like the fact that there’s a ton of public material going up there even though you can keep stuff limited only to friends and family.

[Vox]:http://vox.com
[Axodys]:http://axodys.com

**Update:** Looks like all existing starter accounts [will be upgraded to Standard accounts by Monday](http://team.vox.com/library/post/more-about-invitations.html). Sweet!

I made a passing reference in a [Vox][] comment (that I can no longer locate today unfortunately) to the fact that [Aardvark'd][] should be made available for sale via [Google Video][]. Today I checked and [Aardvark'd][] is actually available for download for a mere $4 which is much more palatable to me than the full $20 DVD price was. So I downloaded the newly released Mac Google Video player, ordered the video, and started watching during my lunch hour.

[Vox]:http://vox.com
[Aardvark'd]:http://www.projectaardvark.com/movie
[Google Video]:http://video.google.com

For those not in the know here’s the blurb from the [Aardvark'd][] web site:

> [Four interns][] are brought into Manhattan and given 12 weeks to design,
> develop, debug and ship a program that will change the way computer
> geeks around the world fix their friends’ computers. [Boondoggle Films][]
> presents a journey through the world of software development from the
> perspective of a unique upstart, four quirky interns, and the world
> of The Geek.

[Four interns]:http://www.projectaardvark.com
[Boondoggle Films]:http://www.boondogglefilms.net

####My Capsule Review####

I loved [Aardvark'd][]. The four interns were my kind of guys. Albeit, 10 years younger, smarter and far better programmers than I will ever be. One classic scene revolved around them speculating on whether or not they could safely jump across the gap between their office and the ledge of a neighboring building in the event of a fire (and then breaking out some whiteboard physics to come up with a definitive answer). Lots of other humorous computer geek moments, minor drama, and plenty of inside looks at the process of rapidly developing and shipping a new software application. Overall a fun documentary with a nifty soundtrack that is well worth it’s price on Google Video.

####Related Links####

* [Fog Creek Software](http://fogcreek.com)
* [Joel Spolsky](http://joelonsoftware.com)
* [Tyler Griffin Hicks-Wright](http://hicks-wright.net)
* [Michael Lehenbauer](http://mikelehen.livejournal.com)
* [Benjamin Pollack](http://bitquabit.com)

After I saw Matt Haughey’s post about [Vox][] I was fairly intrigued because I definitely see the communications potential for family and friends. There are definitely times when having a semi-private website would be a plus and I think it would encourage a lot more people to take the plunge into this form of communication. From what I’ve been able to discern so far, Vox is very much a refinement of the [LiveJournal][] model aimed squarely at bringing in people that have never done any blogging before.

I applied for my own invite code a couple days ago, but imagine it could be a while before I get one as [Six Apart][] is still ramping up the service. I learned today that current Vox account holders can actually send out invite codes so if anyone out there has an extra one they can spare I’d love to try Vox out firsthand.

[Vox]:http://vox.com
[LiveJournal]:http://livejournal.com
[Six Apart]:http://sixapart.com