Web 2.0 news,
At Original Signal.
The cream of the crop.
They take information from the best blogs tracking breaking news on web 2.0 stuff, filter out redundancies and articles that aren't that good, and then post the best stuff on their blog. Instead of subscribing to 18 different blogs and searching for the good stuff, I subscribe to one blog and get the good stuff gift wrapped. Sweet!
You can live better.
One place has the best advice.
Lifehacker.com
Who doesn't love lifehacker? Whether it's using an alarm clock to get your baby to sleep longer, or how to photograph jack-o-lanterns, lifehacker gives creative tips on just about any subject.
If you are depressed,
Examine Michael Montoure.
And "Just be happy."
I stumbled on this rant about being depressed today. It's pretty good. Really kicks you in the ass. Whenever you are in a whiny mood, just open up this web page and read yourself into determination.
I don't miss folders.
Archive and labels work great.
Gmail is the bomb.
One of my favorite features of Gmail, and one of the most difficult to explain to a die-hard Outlook user, is that Gmail doesn't use folders. "What?!" you may exclaim. It's true, there is no folder structure in Gmail, and I think it works much better that way.
The problem with folders is that you have to pick only one to put your email into. What if you have a folder called "Aunt Ethel" and another called "Shopping" and you get an email from Aunt Ethel about shopping. Where do you put the email after you read it?
Instead, with Gmail you can label the email with both "Aunt Ethel" and "Shopping" and then "archive" the email which is basically one gigantic folder that all of your email goes after you read it. When you want to retrieve the email, you can click on the link for "Aunt Ethel," the one for "Shopping," or you can do a search for "Aunt Ethel best buy ipod nano video," and the email will pop right up. Sweet!
Outlook users will quickly point out they use it for other things like a calendar. However, Gmail also gives you access to Google Calendar and Google Docs, more or less replacing Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, and Google Base giving Access a run for its money. Sorry Microsoft. (And Google is free).
My photo album.
Anyone can see it here.
No "e" in Flickr.
What I really like about Flickr is that it's not pushy. There is no hard sell to upgrade to the paid version of the website. It works really well.
You can upload up to 100MB of photos every month for free. If you have a camera that's taking large photos, this may not seem like a lot, but I run my photos through Photoshop before I upload them. They're .5-.8 MB each at most.
I started this blog for two reasons:
1) I knew it was going to be really fun, and
2) I thought it had a chance to make some money
I'm hoping that people will really connect with what I'm writing and want to take a piece of it home with them. I am a big fan of Duane Keiser who had the idea of painting one piece of artwork a day and selling the paintings on eBay. A Painting a Day is now generating hundreds of dollars for Duane.
I can't paint. So I've thought about what I can do, and it only took me about ten months to figure it out. I can write fun, entertaining, and (hopefully) educational Haiku poems about the internet. If you are a fan of something I'm writing, won't you please consider purchasing a Haiku. They are:
They really are a unique gift for someone who has a special fondness for a particular website, computer program, or pop culture phenomena.
Take a look at the #1 first Haiku available. It's at auction on eBay right now. I hope this is the first of thousands, so it might be worth something after I've published a few books, appeared on Oprah, and met the President.
I read a new book.
The cult of the amateur.
Author is a berk.
The cult of the amateur is a bestselling book about how the internet is destroying today's culture. I used the British slang insult, berk, because he's a native Brit that now lives in the U.S.
I didn't like this book. There are actually some good points in it, but getting past the author's pompous, condescending, know-it-all style is truly difficult. As it turns out, Keen started a big internet company in the late 90s called audiocafe.com and it bombed. This book comes across as a jealous child's revenge towards an industry that conclusively rejected him.
His book has a 2.5 rating on Amazon with 64 ratings. I think this is the lowest rating I've ever seen for a bestseller. Keen was interviewed on the Colbert Report. It's worth a watch.
Address bar feature.
16 by 16 pixels.
Favicons are cool.
Favicons are the little icon next to the address in the address bar of a browser. They also appear in your bookmarks, and on the tabs if you are using a browser that uses tabs.
They're cute and functional, letting you know at a glance what website you are on. If you would like to make one for your website or blog, it's easy. Here are some directions on how to create a favicon.
I was at a friend's.
Show still on, I went to bed.
Tivo works online.
One of my favorite features of Tivo is that I can set shows to record over the internet. Recently, I was in Chicago, about two hours from home, and found an interesting documentary debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. I got into it, but started falling asleep halfway through.
I logged on to my Tivo account, told it to record the rest of the show, and went to bed. A few days later in Wisconsin, I watched the rest of the show on my home TV where Tivo had recorded the end.
I love this mashup.
Google Earth, Flickr photos.
Just like being there.
Here's how it works:
After you install a .klm file on your computer, Google Earth shows push pins to indicate photos have been taken there. Click on the push pin and see the photo.
This works because one of the cool features of Flickr (my favorite photo sharing website...maybe 'cause it's free) is "geo-tagging," the ability to tell Flickr exactly where a photograph was taken.