Hey!Watch: Universal Video Encoding

These folks have a service that can take any video from practically any online source, such as YouTube, and encode it to practically any format, such as for the PSP, Wii, iRiver, etc. You decide what video u want to watch and what device to watch it on. This service does the magic of transforming the file to your needs.
Hey!Watch

Movers 2.0

These are the movers and shakers of Web 2.0. Keep on eye on them and on any new ones. There are other sources as well, which I have elsewhere in this blog. If u know of any others, please let me know and I'll make a comprehensive list of Web 2.0 lists, that is a list of lists.
Movers 2.0

How to Harness the Power of Web 2.0

Good, practical, succint advice about what to do to keep up with Web 2.0.
BizWeek

What's a ScrapBlog?

Create your own scrapblog, which is just like a scrap book with pictures, comments, nice backgrounds, etc. But since it is digital, you can also have music and videos. Once you are done, you can share it on MySpace, Facebook, etc. You can even print it out or get a DVD of it.
ScrapBlog.com

Bleeding Edge Programming

Of course RoR is rocking, but there are some other great programing paradigms shifts happening. Two of these are Adobe's Apollo project and Yahoo's Pipes. If u r a developer and want to do some awesome stuff, then u need to know about these.

Adobe's Apollo
Yahoo's Pipes

Gigantic Ecommerce Deal

There is news that eBay and MySpace may be teaming up to create an extremely large ecommerce shop. What this means is that any MySpace registered user can sell items to any of his/her friends. So that's millions of friends being able to sell to millions of other friends. And of course, any person is more likely to buy something from a friend than from anyone else.

MySpace and eBay

Share2Me

With this new service u can share any digital item to:

> Instant Messenger

> Email Account

> MySpace Page

> FaceBook Wall (coming soon!)

and more...
Share2Me.com

Demo 07

The Demo 07 Conference is a showcase of the world's best emerging technologies.
Check them out at Demo.com

Shipwire: Small Biz Shipping

Shipwire.com²⁰ — Online shipping services for the small business owner — $30 per month, and has a free trial offer.

New Lense

Get a second lens for your camera that attaches on top of your existing lens. It will allow you to reposition the focus point on your subject. The effect is to create blurs around your focal point.

Lensbabies.com

Sewing is Back Big

Sewing skills are back again, and in a big way. Here is what the NY Times has to say:
NYT
And here are websites where all sorts of handcraft skills are sorely needed:
Etsy.com

DaWanda.com

Redroller: Compare Shipping Carriers

Compare -  real-time rates and delivery/pickup options from top carriers.
Ship -  directly from your Ship From address; print shipping labels; and then track and view shipment reports.
Save -  time and save money. It's so easy. And, best of all, RedRoller is FREE!
redroller.com

Searching by Tags

Social tagging is big now among many different websites. Now there is one site in which you can search by any tag across different websites at the same time. You can search via tag using services like Youtube, Flickr, Technorati, 43Things, and many of their competitors.

TagBulb.com

Sell on Mobiles

Sell your stuff on mobile devices. Just use Gumiyo and they will take care of the details. All u do is upload your product images, etc.

Gumiyo.com

B 4 Inviting Google to Your Site

Here is a checklist of things to have ready before inviting Google to crawl your website for their search engine.

Get Ready

BofA Keep the Change

Bank of America is running a promotion called "Keep the Change" where for every purchase paid with your checkcard they will round up the purchase amount to the nearest dollar and deposit the difference to your savings account. So it's like keepng your extra change in your savings account. Then they will match 100% of the spare change for the first three months and match 5% thereafter. Does this sound like a good deal?

When we do the math, it may not turn out to be so great. I took a look at my own spending habits and this is what I discovered.

• I have an average of 50 checkcard purchases per month.
• If you average the spare change on any purchase you get $0.50. That's because the average number from 1 cent to 99 cents is 50 cents.
• 50 x $0.50 = $25.00 you will be putting aside into your savings account.
• For the first three months, BofA will match 100% of $25.00 so in three months that's $75 BofA will put into your savings.
• Thereafter, BofA matches 5% so on average $25 x 5% = $1.25 per month BofA will put into your savings.
• In one year BofA will put $1.25 x 12 = $15.00
• $15 is nothing compared to any overdraft or under balance fees you may pay in a year.

Their deal is at:
BofA.com

Add Widgets to My Blog

Time to add some cool widgets for my blog. Or better yet, why not create my own widgets that can generate income for both those who add my widget to their sites and for me.
NYT review

Basics of Online Payment Systems

>From a programming standpoint, how do u go about processing online payments?
Here are a few summaries of the process.
Basics

Apple's Gazillion New Products

Apple has plenty of catching up to do. It better hurry up in getting these new products produced before their future products become obsolete by other emerging technologies.
Apple's Next Product

Product Development 2.0

A very interesting article about what Product 2.0, its business model and its potential. These thoughts are from Dion Hinchcliffe.

Product Development 2.0

Infonomia: Spanish Ideas

A website in Spanish to promote new ideas. They have a magazine called "if"
Infonomia.com

Internet TV by Skype Founders

After they sold Skype to eBay, the founders are at it again. This time they want everyone to access any international TV channel thru their new service to be called Joost. One of their competitors is TVUNetworks.com and another is Babelgum.com
Joost.com
Read review

Watch TV From Around the World

Watch any station, in any part of the world. It's coming soon. Actually in the beginning you'll be able to watch just some channels, but the infrastructure is being set up to support all of the world's TV channels.

TVUNetworks.com

My Ideas on Cambrian House

I submitted my iPhone ideas to Cambrian House. Vote for them if u think they are some of the best ideas you've ever known.

Cambrian House

Future Computer Interface

To complement the mouse, keyboard, stylus, pen tablet, voice, etc., we will be interacting with computers thru the use of our hands. In fact, this will open the possibilities of completely new applications.

Demo
Invented by Jefferson Han

iPhone Killer Apps

Since Apple's new iPhone runs OS X we should be seeing some killer applications for it soon. Here are three of my favorites:

1. iShopper. Scenario: u r shopping and find an item u really like but the price is 2 high. Using your iPhone's camera u upload a picture of the item to an "object search engine" such as Like.com. The search engine returns a list of similar items available in your local shopping area, along with current prices and availability. It may turn out there is an exact same item just down the mall at another store, so it just saved u a lot of time.

2. iPlacer. Scenario1: Your friend calls u and the iPhone simultaneously auto-places your friend on a Google map at his exact location. Now you can keep track of each other's location. Scenario 2: U find yourself in an unknown city or neighborhood and need a taxi. Your problem is that there are no street signs so u normally couldn't give your location to a taxi. Not a problem anymore because u and the taxi have iPhones and the taxi driver can pinpoint you.

3. iGuide. Scenario: u r touring an unfamiliar territory, such as a shopping, restaurant, or historical district. Using your iPhone's camera and its GPS you point it at a restaurant. It recognizes the restaurant and gives u its website, contact info and menu. U then point your phone at a historical landmark and the iPhone does a search and gives u all sorts of historical background info of what u r looking at.

4. iEvent. I first thought that this app should be called iSportster, but then I realized it applies to more than just sporting events. The concept comes from the movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. In the movie we see groups of kids watching the cars race by and using their phones' built-in videocams to broadcast the race to other groups of kids further down the racetrack. At every turn of the racetrack there are kids doing the same thing with their phones, thereby eveyone is viewing the race from different angles in real time. The phones are able to broadcast the video to other phones.

Now with the iPhone and all its glorious features, this concept can be refined. The scene: u r at a basketball game at a stadium equipped with WiFi. As u walked into the stadium your phone received a seating map of stadium. Many other fans are there sitting all over the stadium with their own iPhones. Each fan is videocaming their view of the game and is being broadcast to other iPhones. In addition, the TV cameras at the stadium are also broadcasting, thru WiFi, their video footage to the iPhones. With your iPhone u view the seating map of the stadium and see all the pin markers of all the iPhones and TV cameras available for viewing. U pick a camera and view the game from that angle in real time. U have to go to the rest room but don't want to miss a second of the game, so u take your iPhone with u. Their are also people outside the stadium with iPhones who could not get a ticket to the game, but are able to view the game thru all the available cameras as well.

Now think about a local high school baseball game, where there is no WiFi. Many fans with iPhones sitting all around are also able to share video footage by broadcasting to each other because the iPhone s also operate on the Cingular network. To navigate to different videocams, each iPhone can pull up a Google map of their location with pin markers of other local iPhones sharing their video footage. By clicking on one of these pin markers u can change your viewing angle of the game in real time.

Because this applies to more than just games, think about what other types of events this could be useful at. For example, at a parade u often wonder what's coming down the road next. Well up the road there are people with iPhones videocaming the parade and u can see their footage thru your iPhone. Think about how a security officer with an iPhone can tap into all the security cameras at a store no matter where he is.

5. iRemote. When your iPhone rings and you are at home and have an AppleTV dvr, then have the caller id appear on the screen. iPhone and AppleTV should be able to communicate with each other out of the box. This is almost the same as what Time Warner Cable does thru their cable and digital phone services. When your digital phone rings at home, the caller id is shown on the screen. Plus you can browse thru your phone's call log on your TV. You should be able to do the same call log browsing on the AppleTV. In addition, you should be able to use the AppleTV as another interface to all your functionality on your iPhone. In other words, just use your AppleTV to view everything on your iPhone, except you won't be able to use your fingers to navigate, but rather u will need to use your AppleTV remote control. This way u won't have to go find your iPhone when u are watching TV. Just answer the call on your AppleTV. The show u r watching will be muted, while u take the call or listen to your messages.

To carry the AppleTV and iPhone integration a bit further, imagine this. Some commercials have a website and a phone number that appear on your TV. Just point and click on a phone number with your AppleTV remote and the iPhone will auto-dial the number so u can start talking right away. Or click on a website url appearing on your TV and the iPhone will auto-navigate there. So u r watching a pizza commercial and decide u want to order pizza. Normally u would go hunting for your phone book to look up the phone number of your local pizza place. Now u will be able to click on a pizza commercial and the iPhone will automatically call your local pizza place so u can place your order right away.

What r your killer apps for the iPhone? Need some inspiration? Try Googling "iPhone Killer App"

ASCII Generator

Convert any text or message into a series of ascii characters such as:

     ___                              ___                  
    /\__\               _____        /\__\                  
   /:/ _/_   ___       /::\  \      /:/ _/_                
  /:/ /\__\ /\__\     /:/\:\  \    /:/ /\__\               
 /:/ /:/  //:/__/    /:/  \:\__\  /:/ /:/ _/_  ___     ___ 
/:/_/:/  //::\  \   /:/__/ \:|__|/:/_/:/ /\__\/\  \   /\__\ 
\:\/:/  / \/\:\  \__\:\  \ /:/  /\:\/:/ /:/  /\:\  \ /:/  /
 \::/__/   ~~\:\/\__\\:\  /:/  /  \::/_/:/  /  \:\  /:/  / 
  \:\  \      \::/  / \:\/:/  /    \:\/:/  /    \:\/:/  /  
   \:\__\     /:/  /   \::/  /      \::/  /      \::/  /    
    \/__/     \/__/     \/__/        \/__/        \/__/    

ACII Generator

Pack Your Javascript

By "packing" your javascript you can reduce the size of a .js file and obfuscate its code for peeping eyes. Here are some packers:
Dean Edward's
Dojo ShrinkSafe
JSMin

To Backup or Not

2007 could be the year of the backup. There are those who currently backup their hard drives and those who are going to backup their drives. Here are three services to help your online backup endeavors.

http://mozy.com/
https://www.carbonite.com/
https://www.mediamax.com/

Here is David Pogue's podcast about online storage backups

Vosky Still In The News

Don't forget to use a Vosky device to connect your home's landline phones thru Skype. This way you can dump your home phone service and go thru the free Skype international service. The Vosky device will make your landline phones ring whenever there is a call, as long as your computer and broadband internet access are on. You can also place a call from any of your landline phones via the Vosky device via Skype.

There are various reviews/videos about Vosky at:
http://www.vosky.com/pressreviews.php

Need HTML....now?

Do you need to convert your design to HTML asap? No sweat. In about 8 hours you can have it done, professionally and with CSS. And very affordable!

PSD2HTML.com

You 2.0

It is really all about you, what you can do, that makes Web 2.0 possible. You are so significant that Time magazine named you the person of the year. And you have so much more potential.

Time's Person of the Year: You
You change the World 2.0

Web Developer's References

The Web Developer's List of Resources:

devlisting.com

Not receiving gifts this Christmas?

Not receiving gifts this Christmas? Don't feel bad. Now you can watch other people open their gifts so at least you can say you did (virtually) open a brand new PS3.

unbox.it
unboxing.com

Free Templates 4 Your Blogspot

If you have a blog on Blogger.com then here are some additional free templates you can use:

blogger-templates.blogspot.com

Standard Icons 4 Your Site

Designing your own website? Use these icons, which are being pushed as standard icons for all imaginable actions, properties, etc that may be found on a website.

Tango Icon Gallery
Nerd Business

Host Your Images 4 Free!

No need to register or pay:
http://www.imageshack.us
http://pixup.xpuser.net
http://xs.to
http://www.mytempdir.com/
http://www.imgtank.com
http://www.imagevenue.com
http://tinypic.com
http://www.imgspot.com/
http://www.2and2.net/index.php?i=upload
http://www.allyoucanupload.com
http://pix.nofrag.com
http://www.putfile.com/
http://www.ihostphotos.com/index.php
http://www.pixpond.com/
http://www.imgspot.com/
http://www.uploadyourimages.com/
http://www.parkyourpic.com/
http://www.uploadtemple.com/
http://www.picsplace.to/
http://www.myimagedepot.com/
http://uploadpixels.com
http://www.dateihosting.de
http://www.bilder-hosting.de

I got this list from:
blogger-templates.blogspot.com

Pay-per-click: Old School Advertising

There is a new way of paying for ads and is gaining popularity. It's called pay-per-action, pay-per-performance, or pay-per-sell. The concept is trivial. An advertiser pays for an ad whenever a user buys the item advertised, not when a user clicks on the ad.

For a consumer, this means more relevant search results and less-expensive items shown first, because the ads can make money for the advertising agency only when the consumer buys the items.

Some ad agency websites using this concept to sell ad space:
Jellyfish.com, TheFind.com and MyTriggers.com

Read the NYT review:
As Ad Costs Rise, a Move to Challenge Pay-Per-Click

Fix Your Site With the Right DOCTYPE!

One of the best articles I've read describing what a doctype is. You will need to use one to render your code in the latest browser support.

DOCTYPES

Videos 2 Customize Your Windows

Your online video tutorials blog. VirtualTweak is all about Windows tips,tricks & how to do guide.

VirtualTweak.com

"How To" Videos

This new service aims to gather all the how-to videos so anyone can learn anything they wish simply by watching a free video.

Visuarios.com

What is Web 3.0?

The New York Times has an interesting article describing it as the semantic web, where all the connected data has meaning. It will gather all the user reviews, rankings, blogs, etc to answer such questions as: "I'm looking for a warm place to vacation and I have a budget of $3,000. Oh, and I have 4 young kids."

Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense

Transumers: I Want Change

Transumers are consumers who always want something new and get tired of seeing the same thing all the time. They want to change the look of something. Take for example rental gardens, which will change out your garden accessories, like plants and planters, every few months. Watch out for this growing trend to be extended to other areas.

Rental Gardens
Transumers Review

Help 4 Developers: Amazon

Amazon wants to use their experience running efficient, gigantic e-commerce infrastructures and extending these services to developers. Sounds to me like all e-commerce developers could benefit from this and save money.

Amazon

Getting Things Done

A must read for learning how to get done all those things bottled up in your mind.

GTD

The Habits of Highly Effective Web 2.0 Sites

Good article on what constitutes a Web 2.0 site

Web 2.0

Digitize Your Video Tapes 4 Cheap

If u have video tapes that need to be digitized, don't waste your own time trying to do it the slow way. Just pay these people to do it for u for $5 per tape. Send your video tapes to stashSpace for processing and loading into your stash. That means u can store and share your videos online and order DVDs, etc.

stashSpace.com

Like Talking to Strangers?

It's common to start a conversation with a stranger at a bus stop, or while waiting in line at an amusement park. Now you can strike up a conversation with anyone on the same website you are browsing. It could be any website, so long as you both are currently there. That means you already share something in common: the fact you are visiting the website at the same time. So you must share some kind of similar interests. I bet it would be easy to strike up a conversation under the circumstances. You may be able to mutually help each other in some manner.

Zweitgeist.com

Best Shopping Help Ever

Here's the scene. I am at a mall and I see some shoes I like but the price is too high. I pull out my camera phone and upload a picture of the shoes to like.com, along with my current GPS location or zip code. In response I get a localized list of merchants who carry similar shoes, even their current prices. Some are even at the same mall I'm at. Now I know exactly where to shop at next.

I personally have a real need for this because this often happens to me while shopping. I hate wasting my time trying to find a similar product in another store. This new service presently only works online, not over a phone. But just wait a moment; it's coming.

Like.com

What's Happening on eBay?

Can't keep up with what's popular on eBay? Clueless about eBay? This service keeps track of the most popular items in different categories over the last two weeks. That way you can buy what's hot and remain clued in. Want to sell something on eBay but don't know what? Use eBay Pop to help you track trends and target the right products to sell.

BTW, if you are into AJAX, they have a cool interface.

eBay Pop

Online File Conversions Services

No need to download and install any software. Just browse to your file, choose which format you want to convert to, submit your email address and wait. You'll get  a link to your new file.

Zamzar.com
Media-convert.com
Review at Techcrunch

Widgets, Web Services, APIs

There are more companies offering to help you build your own web APIs, widgets, or web services. Now you don't have to hire a programmer. Just let these companies do all the coding for you.
Check out all the links on this article:
TechCrunch: Mashery

Alternative Content Viewers/Deliverers

Here is a small list of browser-alternative methods of delivering or viewing content.
http://earthcode.com

The New York Times has a new newspaper reader that is a windows app which displays the original format of the paper version and works offline.
http://www.basement.org

Flash Paper is also a great tool to display your content. Check out the online catalogs available at:
http://orientaltrading.com

Ultimate Illusions and Paradoxes

This site contains many hard to believe illusions.

ScientificPsychic.com

Add-Ons for Firefox 2

Now that you've installed the new Firefox 2, it's time to make it really shine with these cool plugins.
Firefox Add-ons

Interesting Concept

This new dating service has an interesting concept that can be applied to other types of services or products. It allows you to view photos of other individuals so you can categorize them as yes, no, or maybe, as possible dates for yourself. You fill up your little black book with those photos you've chosen as "yes, or maybe". Those you've selected as yes then see a photo of you and if they are interested then you both can contact each other.

I just like the concept of giving each user a little black book with photos and corresponding personal info.

Check it out at:
YesNoMayb.com

Help For Scrabble

Do u like the game of Scrabble? Then here is some help. Just type in the letters u have on hand and it will respond with a list of possible words formed by those letters. While playing, take a break and secretly go to your computer to this site:
MoreWords.com

Seth Godin's Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List

Watch out for these new companies and concepts. It a good idea to know what these people are planning to do. Perhaps u can do something better.

The List

Need to send a large file?

Send a file upto 100MB to anyone who has an email address.
YouSendIt.com

My Favorite Tech Books

I just ran into these the other day and I still do not own one of these. I've just seen a sample chapter and there are no other tech books like these anywhere. I hope this new methodology of presenting information continues into a broader coverage of high technology. Help them out by buying your own books at Amazon or BookPool.com

Head First Books
Sample Chapter
Another Sample Chapter

An Amazing Programming Company

I couldn't just simply tell you who this company is, because you might dismiss the headline without ever reading the story. As a computer programmer myself, I can appreciate the follow highlights about what this article states:

• Developers can switch teams and/or projects any time they want, no questions asked; just say the word and the movers will show up the next day to put you in your new office with your new team.
• There aren't very many meetings. I'd say an average developer attends perhaps 3 meetings a week.
• This company has a philosophy of not ever telling developers what to work on, and they take it pretty seriously.
• This company tends not to pre-announce. They really do understand that you can't rush good cooking, you can't rush babies out, and you can't rush software development.

Amazing Company.
Slashdot Review.

Get Your Video on the SuperBowl

Frito-Lay and Chevrolet, looking to capitalize on the buzz created by user-generated content, are holding ad-making contests, with winners getting money and prizes and their spots used as part of Super Bowl XLI campaigns. If u like Frito-Lay or Chevrolet and know how to do videos, now is your chance to make it big.

NYT Review

Search O'Reilly's Code Samples

Publisher O'Reilly has a new search engine that will search thru its thousands of code samples in any programming language. Very nice if u r a programmer.
http://labs.oreilly.com/code/

Your Online TV Recommender

Search or browse what's on ur local cable/satellite TV by a variety of criteria. Then it makes an online daily, weekly, monthly schedule of shows for u to watch.
Meevee.com

Test on Any Browser & Any OS

Test your website and code on any browser running in any operating system without having to buy all the hardware and software. Pick a combo of browser & OS and this service shows u a screen capture of your site running in that combo. For an additional fee u can have remote access to any of their machines so u can navigate and test any scripts running in any browser/OS combo, even on the Mac.
BrowserCam.com
Here is another one a buddy of mine suggested: BrowserShots.org

Hurry, Get Your Podcast In

Attention all podasters. A new company is setting up podcast channels and looking for your podcasts to include them into their continuously playing channels. Of course, only the very best will be included, but yours is worth a shot. The channels are themselves a podcast made up of individual podcasts.
Podango.com

Autonomous Crank Calling

My college buddies would get drunk on the weekends and do some wild things. They would call their professors late at night to cuss them out. One time one of them was identified by a professor and suspended. Now you can do all this anonymously. Just enter a phone number, enter a text message, and select a voice. The system will dial the number and use the selected voice to read the message to the answering party. Of course, this was never meant to be used for crank calling, I think.
AfterVoice.com

Some Widget Giants

Widgets are coming to a blog or desktop near you by the masses. These are some of the giants guilty of spreading them:
WidgetBox.com
Yahoo Widgets
Apple Widgets
TypePad Widgets
NetVibes.com

Search By Doodling

We all search by text or spoken words. Now there's another way to search. Just draw what u r looking for.
Doodle now
Company: Imaginestics.com

Use a Wristwatch as a Compass

Hold a watch with 12 o'clock at left.
Move your arm so the hour hand points at the sun.
The spot halfway between the hour hand and the 12 is south.

This article appears in Wired Magazine 08/2006.

How to Terminate Cell Phone Contract

Easy. Just find someone who would like to take over your contract. Ok. How do u find somone? Easy. Go to this site which pairs up people "Getting Out" with people seeking to "Get In" to a contract.
CellTradeUSA.com

See & Know Where I've Been

Sony has a new $150 device that keeps track of your GPS coords and date/time stamp. It comes with software to correlate the data with date/time stamped pictures taken by any digital camera. Of course, with a Google map mashup u can now easily add your photos to the exact location on the map at which they were taken.
Sony GPS-CS1
NYT Review

Nice outside screen on new laptop

This new device is smaller than a typical laptop, and yet it runs on full Windows XP. The nicest feature is that it has a small screen on the outside which is always on and is used to display and read your email, view and play your music lists, etc. You don't even need to boot up the device to use this always-on feature. I can see how other laptops will be adding a similar feature soon.
FlipStart.com

Wear Your Top 5 Lists

This company will create your personalized t-shirts that list your top 5 things about anything. I guess I would like one about my top 5 blog items I've had this month.
t-lists.com

One Joke A Day: LaughRocket.com

These people go around town and video record people telling a joke. You can subscribe to the service for $6/month and get one joke a day delivered to your phone as a small video clip. That's another one-a-day idea. What's yours?
LaughRocket.com

One-a-day: Paintings, etc

People are starting to sell their one-a-day creative ideas online. These people make a new painting once a day and sell it online. What can u do once a day that is worth selling? See post "One Joke A Day: LaughRocket.com

shiftinglight.com
justinspaintings.com
paintingadayproject.blogspot.com
duanekeiser.blogspot.com
dailypaintings.com
acollageaday.blogspot.com
nickjainschigg.org

NYT Review

Borrow/Lend Things With Friends

If u need to borrow something, just look here. If u have something to lend, just post it here. You'll never have to buy again, especially that "thing" u only have to use once.
BorrowMe.com

Looking for a Volunteer Project?

If u want to volunteer to help build a website, translate documents, tutor, etc. this organization will match u with the right opportunity. Non-profit organizations around the world r looking for help and u can find a project u may be able to help with.
VolunteerMatch.org

Buy Direct From China Suppliers

It as easy as ordering online. Of course, to really save u need to buy in bulk. Find your Chinese product supplier here, no matter what type of product you seek.
Alibaba.com
Made-in-China.com

Lumalive: A Futuristic Fabric

The future of fabrics is now upon us. This new fabric contains embedded light-emitting diodes and yet remains soft, flexible, washable, etc. You can now view simple graphics right on your clothes. Of course, in the future everyone will be walking around with commercials showing on their backs to earn a few extra bucks from advertisers.
Lumalive

zeeDive: Reverse Auctions

What? Reverse auctions? The concept: instead of stating how much you would be willing to pay for an item, you state how little you would want to pay. When the price drops to the amount you state, the item becomes yours. The fun happens when there are multiple bidders on the same item and you do not know what their lowest bid is. You really want to buy the item, but you don't know how low you should go. Sounds like fun to me. Good luck.
zeeDive.com

Common Folk Producing Free AudioBooks

Anybody can now lend their reading skills to produce audio versions of public domain books. And anyone can download the free audiobooks.
librivox.org
telltaleweekly.org
literalsystems.org

Open Up Your Website to Any Programmer

This new tool automatically creates a Web API for your website which can be accessed by any programmer. For example, u have an online catalog of all your products. This tool can make your catalog available to any affiliate so they can show your catalog on their website without a consumer ever knowing the original source of the products. Of course, the affiliates r still selling your products, so u still get credit.

On the flipside, if u r a programmer, u can now make a web api for any website. For example, u found this really neat site that has ongoing updates of the latest events in your area and u want to show this same info on your site. The tool will generate an RSS feed, etc of that other website so u can use on yours.

Dapper: The Data Mapper

Nifty Porn Filter

Feel safe at home while your children surf the net with this nifty tool that scans images and detects and filters out porn images.

ContentPurity.com

Quirkle

We take classic toys and gadgets and re-engineer them into super-performance devices. Hi-tech toys if you like. Conversation pieces if you prefer. They are fascinating to play with and a challenge to analyze how they work.
Quirkle.com

Your TV With Your Commercials

Some big company is going to replace all those worthless TV commercials which u r not interested in, with commercials that u want to see based on your personal preference settings. Since TV is going all digital, it would be easy to dynamically insert any commercials based on your preferences. Guess who is going to do this?

Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes television viewers should not have to stand for tv commercials that are "a waste of your time." Schmidt is frustrated that "When you watch the television you see ads that are clearly not targeted for you." What does he plan to do about it?

Google CEO wants $74 billion TV ad market

Spam Phone Calls Coming

We've all heard of spam email. Now get ready for spam phone calls. This new service allows u to record a message and send it to any number of phone numbers. Can't u already think how a spammer could use this? Here is the service's self description:

Pheeder is the new way to talk on your cellphone: you use it to communicate with groups of people simultaneously, with a single phone call. Just call Pheeder, leave a message, hang up, and seconds later all of your friends receive the message at the very same instant on their phones. Then, if they want, they can reply to your message, or forward your message on to their friends.

Pheeder.com

New "Spaces" for Mac OS

Here comes an existing concept reworked by Apple to make it more appealing and user friendly. Later it will make its way into Windows, Linux, etc. "Spaces" is just like a different room. Each room has different windows. So now the Mac desktop can have 4 different rooms all with different windows open. It's like having a room for playing games, one for working, one for shopping, and another for relaxing.

Take a tour of Spaces

Add a Google Map to any web page in 30 seconds

Use Wikimapia to quickly add a Google map to a website, even without a Google key license.

Window Shopping On Your Desktop

I know I just posted something about Slide.com but I thought I should give this story a different perspective.

Imagine yourself window shopping at the mall. You are interested in shoes so you window shop all the shoe places. Some shoes catch your attention so you go into the store to look at the shoes a little bit closer. On another occassion you are interested in getting a new cellphone. You window shop again in much the same way.

Now instead of going to the mall, you want to do the same window shopping all from the convenience of your desktop. That's what Slide.com is going to be all about (not just yet). Just pick an item type, say handbags, then pick from a handful of matching online stores, say JCPenney, Old Navy, etc. Now just sit back or keep working and watch a small window on your desktop automatically present a slideshow of possible items you might like.

NYT review

More Power 4 Online Shoppers

Two new tools will give online shoppers more information with which to make decisions.

1. Mpire.com is Kelly's Blue Book for everything. It uses data from Overstock, eBay, Craigslist, Amazon, etc. to show the average prices paid for an item for the past 30 days in a nice looking graph. Now you won't be easily cheated when you know the average price other folks have paid for a particular item.

2. Slide.com gives users another way to browse items in which they are interested. A user can see a slideshow on their desktop of products they are interested in buying. When the right one appears, just click and the browser pops up so you can buy it. You choose the types of products from which sites you would like to browse.

NYT review

What is Flash Paper?

One of my friends recently asked me this question and if Flash Paper is better than PDFs. Well you be the judge. Take a look at these catalogs. You can zoom, browse by thumbnails, fast forward, rewind, add notes, add bookmarks, etc.

Oriental Trading uses Flash Paper

Put All Your Library Online

Just scan the barcode on all your books, CDs, DVDs, etc and instantly the info is downloaded from Amazon and added to your personal library. You can even track to whom you have lent an item and when it is due back. It uses the video cam on your Mac to do the barcode scanning.
Delicious Library

Resell Awesome Email Marketing

These people have enabled anyone to resell email marketing services, even privately branded. That just goes to show that any service can be configured for reselling. What service would you like to resell?
MailBuild

Do U Have a Mimobot Yet?

Portable flash drives selling for $500 just because they are made as cute toy characters.
Start your Mimobots collection.

Online "Can I Help You?"

More online stores will be using live chat sales reps to help upgrade/close the sales. If a customer has any questions there will be a live person available. This company is providing this service to any online store. In the near future you may get a pop-up chat window saying "Do you want fries with that?"
LivePerson.com
Demo
NYT Review
NYT Quote:
"Making this process social is important, because the acquisition of goods has never been just about the acquisition of goods. There's always been a social element to it."

Say Thanks to Our Troops

If you go to this web site, www.letssaythanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq.  You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services.

 

Sent to me by my friend and fellow high school classmate, John Garcia.

How To Create Great Logos

Interesting, easy to follow article talking about a technique for creating an awesome looking logo.
Create Your Logo

Awesome Local Video Producers

Need a commercial, documentary, video shoot? These guys are purely incredible. Based in San Antonio, Texas.
Shootz.com

Java Going Down, Ruby Going Up

The fact of the matter is that no one had ever seen any programming language and framework such as Ruby on Rails. Now that people are starting to learn it, they are simply amazed at what u can do with it. I wish I had the time to learn this thing inside out. Take a look at this study about the trends of several computer languages.
Computer Languages