andrewweiser

Phoenixville, PA (Taken with instagram)

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:23:08 -0500

Phoenixville, PA (Taken with instagram)

Taken with instagram

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 10:39:41 -0500

Taken with instagram

Caramelized onions, mushrooms and goat cheese. (Taken with...

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 10:24:29 -0500

Caramelized onions, mushrooms and goat cheese. (Taken with instagram)

Black skies above Soho. (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:47:56 -0400

Black skies above Soho. (Taken with instagram)

Best thin-crust pizza, that the money a recent college grad can...

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:18:39 -0400

Best thin-crust pizza, that the money a recent college grad can buy. (Taken with instagram)

Portobello mushrooms are my kryptonite. (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:08:22 -0400

Portobello mushrooms are my kryptonite. (Taken with instagram)

Afternoon

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:51:25 -0400

Afternoon

Sunset over Brooklyn, post-Hurricane Irene. (Taken with...

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:26:30 -0400

Sunset over Brooklyn, post-Hurricane Irene. (Taken with instagram)

Lunch. The Meatball trifecta. (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:34:25 -0400

Lunch. The Meatball trifecta. (Taken with instagram)

thecools: The Cools launches in private beta We have some...

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:38:25 -0400

thecools:

The Cools launches in private beta

We have some exciting news!

In anticipation of our upcoming public release, The Cools has launched into private beta testing. We will be evaluating feedback and making changes during the upcoming weeks to insure that our users have the best possible online experience when the final version is revealed.

If you are interested in signing up for The Cools, add your name to our mailing list. We will notify you as more invites become available.

Sign Up // Follow // Connect

Thank you.

Overkill or socially prepared?

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:51:00 -0400

After jailbreaking my iPhone 4, and adding the tweak Infinifolders, I was able to consolidate my social apps into one folder. Now, after a year of shuffling things around and constantly adding new apps to the folder, I’m wondering if it’s too many.

Here’s a list of the apps in my “Social” folder:

Twitter
Tweetbot
Facebook
Gowalla
LinkedIn
Foodspotting
Foursquare
Path
SCVNGR
Loopt
Seemic
Disco
Fast Society
GetGlue
Grouped{in}
Groupon
GroupMe
Localmind
Beluga
Sonar
Soundtracking
Trover
TweetDeck
Where
Fancy
Friendthem
Pintley
Beerby
Mobli
Boxcar
Meetup
With
CheckIn+
Hashable

Let me know what your thoughts are on my social presence.

Why Google+ is the future of social networking

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 09:02:00 -0400

I think Google+ was launched at the appropriate time to succeed. It’s been five years since we’ve seen the launch of a significant social network, and Google+ could reinvigorate the market, which Facebook has dominated.

MySpace was launched in 2003, Facebook and Orkut in 2004 and Twitter in 2006. We haven’t seen the launch of legitimate social networking competitor in that crucial 5-year window from launch to critical mass.

As a community, who is always looking for the next big thing, Google+ has come at the perfect time. Facebook has easily established itself as the go-to social network, and will be for a while longer, but Google+ offers users a fresh take on the social networking platform that hasn’t been seen since Twitter.

We’ve seen the social scene slow during the past few years, which is a testament to how Google+’s launch is ideal. Evaluating a quick overview of social networks shows from 2007-11 roughly 20+ social networks were launched, compared to 2003-06 where 33+ sites were introduced.

The social networking scene has slowed during the past few years, which in turn has slowed innovation and it shows. In the 2010 calendar year Facebook only released two updates — Questions and Places. Meanwhile, Google is continually revamping its existing products and introducing new ones, like Buzz (even if it didn’t exactly blow your socks off), all of which can be potentially folded into Google+ to strengthen the network as a whole. We’ve already begun to see how Google is progressing with this strategy with the shift in Blogger and Picasa. Because Google already has so many features in place as standalone applications, expect Google+ to advance and update at a breakneck speed, while catering to users’ wants and input. When all in said and done I wouldn’t be surprised if Google+ overtakes Facebook in users.

Google has all the right features to shape a social networking titan and this was the perfect time to launch Google+.

This is where I come from.

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:02:51 -0400

This is where I come from.

Photo

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:52:03 -0400

Atlantic City.

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:14:45 -0400

Atlantic City.

"Of all the lanterns who have ever worn the ring, there was one whose light shined brightest. At..."

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 12:41:00 -0400

“Of all the lanterns who have ever worn the ring, there was one whose light shined brightest. At first, his humanity was thought to be a weakness, and yet it proved to be his greatest strength.”

Smartphones are the future

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:00:00 -0400

I was crazy about disposable cameras as a kid. I must have blown through close to a dozen on my family trip to the Virgin Islands in sixth grade and another seven or eight during our trip to Hawaii. But that all changed once my sister got her first Polaroid i-Zone camera.

The ability to take a picture and instantly show it off — despite it being about 1 square inch — blew my mind.
But now, several years and cameras later, my iPhone 4 is all I need to instantly share photos and videos with — not only one or two — but hundreds of my friends. And the point-and-shoot video camera industry has also realized that.

This past week, Cisco announced that it “will exit aspects of its consumer business,” which means the popular Flip video camera is no more.

The Flip camera took the industry by storm when it was released and became the top selling video camera this past year with 26 percent market share. But with today’s smartphones and other hand-held gadgets — even the iPod touch has a decent camera — the future of mobile video and photography will not be found in a stand-alone device.

The Flip camera’s crutch was the fact that it needed to be connected to a computer to put video online. Smartphones allow users to instantly snap a photo or record a video and wirelessly upload it to YouTube. People don’t want to wait to share their content, just as I don’t like to wait for Avril Lavigne’s next album.
Smartphones offer the best of both worlds — a great camera and an ability to share content across multiple platforms with one click.

But it’s not only mobile video that is on its way out the door. Video’s cousin, point-and-shoot photography, is next on the list to be overrun by smartphone technology. Polaroid is in the midst of attempting to revamp its line of cameras, with the help of creative director Lady Gaga, but even Miss Poker Face herself might want to consider folding this hand.

Polaroid, as well as Nikon and Canon, might want to rethink their stance on hand-held and video cameras, considering the advancements to mobile technology during the past few years.
Smartphones are at the forefront of recording and sharing digital photography on the go.

But, while smartphones might be able to upload video and photos directly to the Internet, I haven’t yet come across a mobile device that allows me to recreate the experience of Final Cut Pro or Photoshop on the go.

I might need to wait for the iPhone 7 for that.

Liking Google’s latest product

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:36:53 -0400

I don’t know how many times I’ve “liked” something on Facebook. Most of the time it tends to be an awkward picture of someone falling asleep in class or an inside joke about the past weekend’s shenanigans, but for the most part, my “likes” never amount to anything meaningful.

A year after Facebook spread its “like” button around the Web, Google has stepped into the picture with the goal of one-upping the likeable face of social networking, and giving my mouse clicks purpose.

On March 30, Google released its own rival to the “like” button — the “+1.” The “+1” button, currently an opt-in service available for users with a Google Profile, is integrated into Google’s search engine and gives users the option to “+1” results and ads they like.

Google’s new button, unlike Apple’s iPad 2, is in bountiful supply. The small “+1” icon appears immediately after a link in search results. Once clicked, it will show that you have “+1’d” the link to a user’s Google Contacts in Gmail, Talk, Reader and Buzz.

This may appear to be the next logical step for Google to put its own spin on the content that is being shared through social media. A quick search for “Sophia Bush” will display several links my friend Andy has shared or retweeted. He didn’t plan on directly sharing that with me through Google, but rather Google saw his connection to me and highlighted his tweet.

The addition of the “+1” button will bring another dynamic of content sharing across the web. The “+1” recommendations not only influence the ranking of results based on social connections and link the content to who shared them, they also give users a smarter search with links displaying the aggregate number of “+1s” from all people — not just a user’s social network.

But Google is taking its new button one step further. In the coming months, Google is planning to give website owners the option to embed a “+1” button alongside their content, similar to Twitter’s tweet and the infamous “like” thumbs-up button. When a “+1” button is clicked on any website, that click is recorded and reflected in the search results of that user’s social circle. This is where Google trumps Facebook.

Since “+1” clicks will ultimately affect a website’s rank in Google search results, a widespread adoption of the button is inevitable. Both Facebook and Google’s platforms, in terms of buttons, are structured around driving traffic to a website through their millions of users. But for individuals looking to benefit from what their friends like — aside from Rebecca Black’s “Friday” music video — Google’s new button is a “+1” step in the right direction.

http://theithacan.org/12113

joshuatopolsky: All these worlds are yours.

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:13:37 -0400

joshuatopolsky:

All these worlds are yours.

22 was a great year, but I can one up it.

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:37:57 -0500

On the verge of my 23rd birthday, it’s hard to put into perspective what has occurred in the past year. Here are some notable events that have taken place since Feb. 26, 2010.

February 27 – An 8.8-magnitude earthquake occurs in Chile, triggering a tsunami over the Pacific and killing 497. The earthquake is one of the largest in recorded history.

March: There were several Keystone Light sightings and Bomber sandwich landings on my living room table. Besides that, uneventful.

April 20 – The Deepwater Horizon oil platform explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers. The resulting oil spill, one of the largest in history, spreads for several months, damaging the waters and the United States coastline, and prompting international debate and doubt about the practice and procedures of offshore drilling.

May and June: A flurry of funnel cakes, finals and fishing poles.

July 25 – Wikileaks, an online publisher of anonymous, covert, and classified material, leaks to the public over 90,000 internal reports about the United States-led involvement in the War in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.

August 11 – Ramadan begins.

September 18 - National Cheeseburger Day. Sandwich with a piece of cheese is America’s favorite.

October 6 - An autopsy finds that the death of United States actor Gary Coleman in Salt Lake City, Utah was an accident.

November 21 - Canadian pop star Justin Bieber wins four awards at the American Music Awards and North Korea unveils a new uranium enrichment plant.

December 13 - Country diva Taylor Swift celebrates her 21st birthday as a 2,400 year old pot of soup is unearthed in China near the ancient capital Xi’an.

January 24 - An emerging outbreak of avian cholera kills thousands of eider ducks in Arctic regions of Canada. Scientists are studying the outbreak and its potential to spread to Greenland.

February 1 - Google and Twitter team up to build a voice-to-tweet system to allow Egyptians to tweet despite the closure of Internet and mobile phone systems.

Hopefully my 23rd year on earth will be just as eventful… stick tuned.