Techory.com - Regular Ramblings About Technology

“Weird Al” Yankovic Takes on Craigslist

Scott — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:01:36 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Weird Al just released a new single where he takes on the random stuff you can find on Craiglsit ala the Doors. This one is almost as as good as White and Nerdy.

Redesign #3 for Techory.com

Scott — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:07:17 +0000

You may have noticed that things have changed a bit around here. I’ve been working on a new design off and on for a couple months now, and have finally gotten to a point where it is “done enough” to implement. As these things go, it will probably never be “done.” In this new design, there are a few new areas and features that I didn’t have previously that I want to point out.

Photos
Photos aren’t really a new feature. I’ve always had a photo gallery on the site. I’ve decided to use a different gallery application, ZenPhoto, instead of Coppermine which I used previously. This new gallery is a little nicer to use, and allows me to finally turn comments back on for photos. This is something I used to have, but was so overwhelmed by spam that I had to remove it. So feel free to leave photo comments (especially on the mobile photos) whenever you see fit.

Blog Sidebar
This area is pretty much the same as I’ve as I’ve always had in the sidebar. Its information specific to the blog: search, blogroll/links, post archives, etc.

Social Sidebar
The Social Sidebar is mainly a collection of my interactions with social sites outside of techory. Some are fleshed out, and pull content directly in, and some are just links to my profiles on those sites.

The “Latest Mobile Photo” isn’t a new feature, but comments are turned back on for those photos (see above)
Twitter now lives in the sidebar. I’ve got a twitter account, so I figured why not bring it into my blog as well. You can see my last two tweets on the site, as well as follow the link to my twitter account and follow me if you’d like.
Shared links is something totally new. I run across a lot of intersting links on a pretty regular basis, and unless you follow me on the various social bookmarking sites I use, you can’t see what weird and wonderful sites I find interesting. I’ve brought all my submissions to those social bookmarking sites together into that sidebar (and the payoff page for shared links archives) as a place to see what I run across out on the Internets.
Flickr is the next in line, and is a link I’ve always had in my sidebar, but just called out a bit more. It now includes the latest two photos that I’ve posted to flickr.
At the bottom of the Social Sidebar, I have included links to my social networking profiles. Again, these area areas I interact with on other social sites, so I decided to hook those into techory as well.

So there you have it, what’s new and cool with the new design. I’m sure there are still some rough edges on this, and I’ll be going over things with a fine-toothed comb the next few weeks. Let me know if you noticed anything flakey happening, or anything I missed.

Pilot a Ship All Around Google Earth

Scott — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:04:33 +0000

I just ran across one of the coolest uses of Google Earth I’ve seen. Planet in Action has created an online simulation built on top of Google Earth. You can pilot several barges, a re-fuel ship, a container ship, a cruise ship, or even a blimp. This looks to be a proof-of-concept type game according the the banners they have plastered on the boats you get to drive.

Investors wanted to bring this game to the next level.

Regardless, it is a pretty neat use of the Google Earth technology. I can’t way to see what games come out of this when/if they get their inivestors.

New Book Suggestions from Book Army

Scott — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:31:07 +0000

A couple years ago I was on the hunt for a site to keep track a small bit of information on all the books I read in a given year. What I eventually settled on was a service called LibraryThing, that I’ve been using for quite a while now. When I started looking for this tool, my needs were very simple (and still are). All I wanted was a service or tool that would let me track very generic information about books, along with when I started, and completed reading them. The main thing I wanted to track was how many books I completed in a year, and whether or not I liked a book. LibraryThing did all of that and more. The “and more” part of that is what I’ve become increasing interested in lately. A few times a year, I make a larger order of used books (usually from wherever I have the most gift cards). Between my purchases, I try to keep a list of “want to read” books built up before I buy. Normally, I build this list out off of lists I run across online, or book award winners, or even recommendations from Amazon off of books I liked. LibraryThing also offers a recommendation service where your books are compared to other people on the service who have similar tastes as you à la Last.fm, and the iTunes genius features for music. This feature has been ok (not great), and has given me a few useful recommendations. I still mainly build my book purchase lists from other places. Enter Book Army.

Book Army is a new site that focuses more on the recommendation feature, and less on the cataloging/tracking features that I use in LibraryThing. It is much closer to a Last.fm type service in that it looks at your likes, and suggests other books based on other people who like the same books. I spent a little while entering ratings on the books that I had been tracking in LibraryThing the past few years to see what I’d get back. There were a few good books that came back in my results – more than what I was getting from LibraryThing. I’m sure the service will get better over time, as the number of users goes up, and as I rate more books on the service. The things I like about Book Army recommendations is that it provides reasoning for a suggest book (you may like book X because you enjoyed books X, Y, and Z). The other nice feature is you can correct suggestions. If a book is suggested that looks incorrect for whatever reason, you can tell Book Army, that it was a bad suggestion to help it get even better data about your reading tastes. Since this service is new, the “Book Army” is still being recruited. We’ll see if recommendations improve as the size of the army increases. Who knows, maybe my tastes are just so eclectic (it certainly isn’t working for me in Netflix) that it’s hard to determine what I enjoy.

Mentos Rainbow in the UK

Scott — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:52:13 +0000

It looks like Mentos are doing pretty well in Great Britain. According to a recent press release, a new type called “Mentos Rainbow” will start to show up on shelves.

Mentos is now the largest brand within Perfetti Van Melle with an impressive brand awareness of 68% after being launched just 3 years ago. In 2008 Mentos Mint was the fastest growing mint product in the UK confectionery market.

Building on the success of Mentos Fruit and Mint in the UK, Perfetti Van Melle are launching a limited edition Mentos Rainbow. Each roll will contain an exciting mix of 7 fruit flavours (grape, strawberry, orange, watermelon, pineapple, raspberry and apple) all made with real fruit juice.

What’s more, consumers are guaranteed to get two chews of each flavour in every pack.

Is there anyone going to the UK any time soon who can pick me up a roll or two?

Netflix Warehouse Behind the Scenes

Scott — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:17:23 +0000

Have you ever wondered what happens when you send back a Netflix DVD for a new one? The Boston Globe has put together a great photo walkthrough of a Netflix receiving warehouse. It is a lot less automated than I had assumed. A small army of people turn around an average of 60,000 DVD’s every day!

2009 SXSW Interactive Conference

Scott — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:11:33 +0000

It’s that time of year again that I’m off to Austin, TX for another South by Southwest Interactive Conference. I’ll be collecting my notes on a side-blog again this year: http://sxsw.techory.com.

The SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties. Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology. Whether you are a hard-core geek, a dedicated content creator, a new media entrepreneur, or just someone who likes being around an extremely creative community, SXSW Interactive is for you!

New Mentos.com Website Design

Scott — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:23:25 +0000

Sometime over the past few weeks, Mentos has updated their website. They’ve got a much more interactive site now. It’s much improved over the one they’ve been limping away with for the past serveral years. The new site ads a full-screen video background of their commercials, and brings everything into a much more consistent package. The content hasn’t changed that much from previous designs, with the exception of updated media from their new TV campaigns. They did remove the Mentos store though. This had probably been planned for a while, since I’d noticed the store has been selling less and less merchandise. I’ll still miss it, since it was one constant place you could order some of the rare flavors not normally available in the US. Doubly sad is that I never got around to buying that Mentos wristwatch that they sold… oh well. Minus the loss of the store, I think the new site is a definite improvement.

You Should Have Seen This

Scott — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:40:23 +0000

Greg Rutter’s Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You’re a Loser or Old or Something

I haven’t seen all of these, and I don’t know if I’m better off for it or not. Maybe I’m a loser or old or something.

http://www.youshouldhaveseenthis.com/

What if the Internet Disappeared?

Scott — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:44:10 +0000

Last week I was talking to a coworker of mine and somehow the conversation moved towards the possibility of the internet disappearing. She came out and asked me what I would do if the internet was gone. It’s an interesting question to think about since the Internet has become such an important part of our lives. I know some people do without it, but personally, I think it would be difficult. Just think of all the things you encounter that require visiting a website for more information, or need an email address to register for something. At least in my life, I think I’d run into issues rather quickly. Firstly, I probably wouldn’t have a job, since basically I make stuff to put on the Internet. Secondly, I’d probably have much more free time, given that a large portion of my day is spent in front of a computer (working and playing). It would definitely be interesting, and I can probably say that I’d be spending my time in many different ways.

During the conversation where this came up, I kind of turned the question around, and asked what would happen if any technology were to suddenly disappear. What if we didn’t have cars to drive around? There would obviously be some difficulty getting from place to place, but we probably wouldn’t be stranded since we have some history to look back on without cars. I think the same thing would go for the Internet. We haven’t always had it, so we could obviously do without it. We’d just need to remember how things got done without bits and bytes flying through space. Things would be difficult at first, but we’d figure out how to get by. Some people would probably have an easier time than others if they’ve lived without a certain technology, or had been trained on doing their job before a certain technology existed. I think maybe the point I was making is that we’ll learn to adapt with what we have. I think this coworker was trying to get at how much people rely on the Internet for everything these days, but I think the argument could be made reliance on just about any advancement in technology. What happens if something disappears? We deal with it, and figure out another way to get by. At the very least it’s an interesting thing to think about as you move through your day. How many places do you rely on the internet to get things done?