You may not have used them, but you’ve probably seen them. QR codes, the small black and white square barcodes, are popping up on everything from billboards to magazines to airplane boarding passes.

QR (short for Quick Response) codes are unique 2-D matrix barcodes that contain information such as text and URLs. By aiming your camera phone or barcode scanner at a QR code, you can “read” the information stored in that QR code. For example, scanning a QR code that you see on a movie poster may bring up the movie’s trailer or a link to buy tickets, all on your phone.

People such as small business owners can also create QR codes to market their products and services. Using a website like uQRme, you can put individual QR codes on business cards, products that you sell, T-shirts, and stickers to direct customers to your website and social networking pages.

Indeed, QR codes offer a bridge between the virtual, online world and one’s physical environment, providing a new way to give or receive information quickly.

Facebook, Twitter, blogs, emails, and frequently updated news sites make the Internet a very distracting place. Since most people do the majority of their work on computers, it can be hard to resist the temptation to check social networking sites instead of focusing on work. When you’re engrossed in fun sites online, it’s also easy to lose track of time, and some people view spending time on the Internet as a potentially addictive activity. Several web-based applications are now available to help keep you on task, including SelfControl, StayFocusd, RescueTime, and Write or Die.

SelfControl is a Mac application that blocks your access to e-mail and websites for a set amount of time. After you download SelfControl, you type in any websites that you want to block and an amount of time. Beware: Turning your computer off or deleting the application won’t let you access the sites you blocked – you must wait for the timer to run out.

StayFocusd is an extension for Google’s Chrome browser that lets you spend a limited amount of time each day on certain sites before blocking your access to them. By using StayFocusd, you can limit your Facebook usage to, for example, 15 minutes a day. The application also allows more flexibility, letting you access Facebook but blocking your access to Facebook’s games or photos.

RescueTime is an application that tracks how much time you spend using software programs and browsing websites. Some businesses install RescueTime on company computers to make sure that employees are not wasting time on non-work related Internet activities. RescueTime works for both Macs and PCs.

Write or Die uses fear to motivate people, especially college students, to be productive when writing essays. Once you start typing in the application’s text box, you must continue typing or a reminder box will appear, telling you to keep writing. If you don’t resume typing, Write or Die will play a shrill noise until you start typing again. If you still don’t type enough words, the program enters Kamikaze Mode, in which your writing will unwrite itself – i.e. delete – until you reach your word count goal.

Last month, I walked out of Penn Station and onto the busy streets of Manhattan. I had half an hour to get downtown to meet a friend, so I made my way to the line of cabs in front of the train station. The line, however, was daunting – I simply could not wait in the cold that long. So, I started walking south, immediately pulling out my iPhone and turning on the built-in Maps app. Tapping the arrow at the bottom left of the screen, I could see my location – a blue dot – on a map of Manhattan. As I continued walking, the blue dot began blinking and moving along with me. By activating the iPhone’s built-in Compass app, I could also confirm that I was walking in the right direction.

Other mobile apps such as MotionX, Mapquest, and TomTom can help you get from point A to point B efficiently, whether you’re on foot or in a car.

MotionX offers two GPS apps, one for people on foot and one for drivers.On MotionX you can look at topographic and road maps, record and save up to 101 tracks if you want to retrace your steps, calculate your speed and distance traveled, look at graphs showing your altitude, and tag yourself in photos from your journey. MotionX is also integrated with Facebook Places, so you can check-in with your Facebook friends when you reach your destination.

Mapquest’s mobile app lets you see color maps of the US and Canada, follow step-by-step driving directions, view gas station locations and prices on the map, and view your expected travel time and mileage.

TomTom’s road maps are global, covering 102 countries and over 33 million kilometers of road. TomTom can connect to current traffic and weather reports, giving you the most up-to-date report of the fastest route to take.

In addition to saving time, my phone’s GPS capabilities gave me a sense of relief and feeling of independence – with my iPhone as navigator, I could make the journey from Penn Station to downtown on my own.

 

In the last two weeks, a previously unknown 13-year-old girl named Rebecca Black has become a trending topic on Twitter, received almost 50 million YouTube views, and appeared on Good Morning America and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. How? Black paid a vanity music label to write a song and shoot a music video, resulting in “Friday,” a celebratory song about the weekend. The video got modest views (4,000) until a Comedy Central blogger posted a mocking review of the video, sparking interest in it and helping it become a viral video.

With its vapid lyrics (“Yesterday was Thursday, Today it is Friday…Tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards), nasal and highly auto-tuned singing, and out-of-place rap interlude, the “Friday” music video has been criticized as the worst song ever. Its 75,000 YouTube “likes” are nothing compared to its 650,000 dislikes. Despite this criticism, the song has sold enough digital downloads on iTunes to break onto the Billboard music charts, providing evidence that the popularity of viral videos does not have to be isolated to YouTube – viral videos can create real economic ripples offline.

“Friday” is a great case study for examining how social media, when done right, can work astonishingly effectively. The song’s message offers a universal experience – everyone can relate to looking forward to taking a break from school or work when the weekend arrives. Also, viral videos pick up steam as more and more people watch them: “Friday” is gaining thousands of YouTube hits every hour by leveraging the countless parody videos that it has inspired. So, creating a hit viral video in the vein of Rebecca Black requires timing, luck, a relatable message, something that sparks discussion, and the legwork of other Internet users – such as the Comedy Central blogger – who spread the word for you.

Although resorting to Internet dating once elicited mockery and pity, online dating has become a legitimate way for millions of people to date and meet their spouses. Most people have already heard of matchmaking sites such as eHarmony and Match.com, which match their members based on compatibility and personality. In honor of Valentine’s Day today, here are the best other dating social network sites.

OkCupid is a free dating and social networking with over three million active users. OkCupid gives suggested matches for its members, who can create quizzes, write on blogs, instant message others on the site, and post in discussion forums.

Zoosk, another free online dating community, has more of an international emphasis – Zoosk users, called Zooskers, come from over sixty countries. Almost three million people “like” Zoosk on the sites’s Facebook page. Zooskers can pay for a premium account to access virtual gifts and full listings of potential matches.

Plenty of Fish first gives users a personality test and relationship coaching based on the results of the test. For a fee, users can see who has looked at their profile. The Plenty of Fish forums, which feature discussions on everything from dating to cooking to philosophy, are so popular that some people join Plenty of Fish just to post on the forums.

Prior to the Internet, movie-going was a relatively simple activity – look up movie times in the newspaper, head to the theatre to buy the tickets, and watch the movie. Today, however, movie-going can be a much more interactive experience involving research and planning before you even set foot in the theatre. Moviefone, Fandango, MovieTickets.com, and Rotten Tomatoes are the best sites to visit before you head to the theatre.

Moviefone lists the movies that are currently playing in theatres, organized by city or zip code. Featuring movie posters, trailers, show times, plot details, and advance tickets, Moviefone has all the information you need to decide what movie to see. Each movie page also has a comments section at the bottom where you can write a quick review of the film.

Fandango offers similar services as Moviefone, such as trailers, movie details, and show times, but it sells tickets to more movie theatres (16,000 screens). Fandango also offers film clips, movie news, and interviews with actors.

MovieTickets.com strives to be a “virtual box office” – users can buy tickets online or from their smart phones. MovieTickets.com has an international presence, reaching outside the United States into Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, and Argentina. For most theatres, MovieTickets.com lets you print your tickets at home, saving time (and possibly waiting in line) at the box office. If you register (for free) at MovieTickets.com, you can buy tickets faster without having to reenter your credit card information, and you can get invited to free movie screenings.

Although you can’t buy tickets at Rotten Tomatoes, you can get in-depth information and reviews about current box office movies. Percentages appear all over the site, indicating how well-liked a particular movie is according to critics and users on Rotten Tomatoes. The Tomatometer (also called T-meter) measures how good a movie is – a good review (above 60% approval) gets a fresh red tomato, while a bad review (below 60%) gets a rotten green tomato.