Whack your birth year into http://whathappenedinmybirthyear.com/ and settle back for the story of your first year. Built in HTML 5, the site gently scrolls through (seemingly) everything that happened that year. I found out that in 1974, The Godfather Part II pretty much cleaned up at the box office, Stephen King published the first novel under his own name, Carrie and luminaries such as Kate Moss, Leonado di Caprio and Alanis Morissette were born. Isn’t it ironic? Not really, but it’s well worth a fun few minutes to check out what pre-occupied the world the year you were born.

WebMatrix helps developers learn standards-based Web development, explains the text on its new website, using technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. And it even connects you to open source apps like DotNetNuke, Umbraco, WordPress, Joomla!, and more, all available from the built-in gallery. (You’ll probably remember seeing these apps in the Windows Web App Gallery, which was also launched over the past year).

The interface WebMatrix displays when you launch it the first time is a simple wizard-based welcome screen that lets you pick whether you want to create a site from the Web Gallery, a template (several are included) or a “site from folder.”  This may be too simple for advanced developers, but that’s the point. WebMatrix is intended for “web agencies, small development teams within SMBs, hobbyists, and students,” writes Microsoft’s Laurence Moroney on The Officical Microsoft Web Platform Team Blog. Moroney also details how to get started with the tool and do other nifty things, like displaying a Twitter feed, for example.

To download WebMatrix now, you can do so from here. (But note the “beta” label, OK?)

Joomla!’s Sam Moffatt shares, “…it's a big deal to have a major company contributing to the codebase. And yes, the fact that it's Microsoft contributing to a GPL project is big news.” But he says it’s also a natural progression, considering all the work that has been going on for some time now between the two companies.

Already, Joomla! has worked with Microsoft to get their package up on the Web Platform Installer where it now has 32,000 downloads, for example. They’ve also worked with Microsoft on optimizing Joomla! for better IIS compatibility, something that means “opening a whole new territory of possibilities including in many enterprises,” says Moffatt. (Previously, Joomla! was more Apache-focused.)

The Microsoft-contributed code will be made available in Joomla! 1.6, as noted above, but if you want to try it now with 1.5, there’s a workaround for that here.

To use the site, you simply enter in your printer make and model in the search box provided. When your search results display, you’ll find all the documentation about the printer that the website has available on the left-hand side of the page and, on the right, there will be links to the matching forum posts. From the “Reference” tab at the top of the page, you can search for part #s, model #s, and even engine #s for printers or click the links provided to search error codes, find documentation, drivers, and more.

There’s nothing too fancy about this site, but sometimes simple is better. Even without too many bells and whistles, FixYourOwnPrinter.com is still a useful resource for anyone stuck troubleshooting their own printer. (via AppScout)

You are most likely saying, "We’ve heard of all the online video sharing sites before, what makes Soapbox so special?” Well you can find out for yourself. Even though Soapbox is currently in a private beta, we've secured 10,000 invites just for the folks that come and visit 10. Visit our special beta registration site, supply your email address and you're in the beta.

Its time to create your own videos for 10 on Soapbox. Create your own video showing how you are using Technology to change your world, upload it to Soapbox and tag it with on10. We'll profile the most interesting videos here in the future!