gotoAndLearn() Awesome Videos!

I followed a link from my friend's blog at http://www.gorbatov.blogspot.com/ and found these awesome video tutorials about Flash, Flex, AIR, ActionScript, etc. There is one video that I am particularly interested in which is about using AIR to capture photos through a webcam. I am also looking for some info on using AIR to send out SMS through a GSM Modem. Please let me know if you find someting about AIR and SMS. Thanks. The video tutorials are at:

gotoandlearn.com

Lovely Charts

I hate using Visio because it is not intuitive. Now I can use LovelyCharts.com and get all my flow diagrams done fast and easy. I can also do site maps, organizational charts, etc. It is really cool.

Here is another service which also looks easy to use but it looks too much like Visio. It is called Best4c.com

AtlasPost: Map of Blogs

I have this blog on Blogger.com and every now and then I will click on the Next Blog button to see someone's interesting blog. It is always a random blog I see whenever I click the Next Blog button. It make me wonder what other blogs are out there. I am especially curious about what other blogs are written by people near my location.

Enter AtlasPost.com. These people have the right idea about how to connect people with blogs and photo albums. Now I can actually see what other bloggers live near me and get an idea about what they are blogging about. In the future I imagine their maps will have "layers" by which I can easily filter down into bloggers with similar interests as me. There could be layers for gender, interests, last blog update, etc. So I could search for all males who have posted something within the last month about skateboarding and who live near me.

14 Ways To Use RSS Feeds

Here is nice list of possible ways to use RSS Feeds. Here is another one I just thought of: for your online bank use RSS Feeds to show your pending activity.

14 Ways To Use RSS Feeds

SlideShowPro.net is Awesome

The is one of the best slide show presentation components I have ever seen. It supports both still images and video. It runs in Flash.

SlideShowPro.net

Flex Manual Data Binding

I just thought this was a very interesting way of doing databinding than the normal way of doing it in Flex.
It uses the ChangeWatcher class.

Image Editing on AIR

These guys are using Adobe AIR to rewrite many of the modern image editing tools and make them even better. All of their tools have a name based on a bird. Check out A.viary.com

Goodbye Analog Cellular

If you are keeping up with what is going on in the cellular world, you might have come across this interesting story that puts into perspective how we got cellular service in the first place. In the early days of cellular service, the technology used was actually based on analog. Now the last remaining big analog cellular service providers are permanently fading out this service. The biggest U.S. mobile operators, AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless, will close down their analog networks on Monday.

SitePoint CSS Reference

SitePoint.com has just release their new CSS Reference website where you can get all your CSS questions answered. Sitepoint always does a fantastic job at explaining anything about the web. Their books are excellent and I own many of them.

The Fair Use Project

This is just a word of encouragement for those of you who are trying to do your own thing, as I am. Stanford Law School has started the Fair Use Project to help protect your own creativity from power-hungry copyright owners who want to strangle the true meaning of "fair use". If your work of creativity is based on someone's copyrighted material, then help is on the way. It seems some people these days are trying to eliminate the "fair use" provisions meant to protect you. I hope some of you will take the time to show your support for the Fair Use Project with a blog, etc.

I first learned about them from reading the NYT article "A Tight Grip Can Choke Creativity" about how J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, is trying to prevent a small publisher from publishing an encyclopedia about Harry Potter. What a loser. She might even try to sue you for dressing up like Harry Potter when you sell your old costume at a garage sale. Heaven forbid you make a profit from that costume.

Track My Shipments

Here is another twist on tracking all your shipments, of which I had previously written here. This new service called TrackMyShipments.com receives all updates to your shipments via email. Just direct all your tracking emails provided by your shipper to them. They parse the emails and they provide all the info for you when you login.

Census RIA Benchmark

This is a nice tool for comparing the data throughput of various data transfer technologies, such as JSON, XML, E4X, AMF, etc. See the difference and decide for yourself which is the best for your own situation. Some of the faster ones require an expensive server-side piece of software. One transfer technology not shown here is BlaseDS as of this writing. Adobe's BlazeDS will supposedly be even faster.

Census RIA Benchmark

Pro Photo Touchups

Need a professional to touch up your photos because you don't have time or because you are not a Photoshop expert? Now you can outsource the touch up process to PicWash.com. For a small fee, they will make your photos have the hollywood appeal. Read the KillerStartups review.

Another Online Powerpoint Tool

Here is yet another online tool for creating and displaying presentations that would normally be done with PowerPoint. One nice thing about these presentations is that they are Flash movies which opens up so many other possibilities like having animation,audio and video within your presentations. Check it out.

FlyPaper Studio

SezWho: More Comments

I guess I spoke too soon. There is another service called SezWho.com that is also offering comments for your site. Just add a few lines of code to your site and presto! You will get the ability for users to leave comments on your site. StartupSquad review.

Auctions for Ads Placement

Do you have an audience on your website and some spare real estate on your site? If so, you may want to auction off that extra space to advertisers who will bid against each other to place their ads in your space. I think this is a great idea for both advertisers and webmasters. Check out the KillerStartups review. Then go check out PlaceMyProduct.com.

Disqus: Add Comments

JS-Kit now has a great competitor for adding comments to any site with just a few lines of code. Check out the StartupSquad review. The new service is called Disqus.com It is just one more thing you can add to your site without having to code it yourself or without having to hire someone to code it for you.

Inside RIA

O'Reilly and Adobe have teamed up to bring you a site dedicated to everything about Adobe's approach to RIA. You will want to keep track of this site if you are into the latest and greatest stuff about Rich Internet Applications.

InsideRIA.com

Very Nice Flex Stuff

This guy has a collection of some very nice components for Flex. Very impressive. He is not the author of any of these, unless he explicitly says so. He just uses his blog to keep a collection of all the nice Flex stuff he finds. He is like me, but specifically for Flex.

Flexed

I found his blog when I was searching for adding styling to Flex Alerts.

sCommerce Site

There are various definitions of what an sCommerce site should be. One thing I would like to see is the ability for users to submit their own products via photos, videos, tagging, etc. And to let others comment and further tag these products. One such site to begin to do this is DesignsToLove. It is a site I intend to study further. Good luck in your own sCommerce endeavors.

Free Ads to Get Funded

When I get ready to ask for some big time money, this is one place I may consider to advertise in, since it is free. Anyone can do it. Just briefly describe your biz and how much you seek. Supposedly interested venture capitalists will see your add and contact you.

BizFlip.com

Neat Javascript Projects

This guy has done an awesome job of simplifying the coding and implementing some neat javascript tools. Check them out at his blog.
Fabio

Photo Editing on Your Site

I think this story is significant. Picnik is offering an API for any website to add photo editing. This means the visitors to your site can edit any photo right within your website. How can you apply this to your situation? Well if you have an ecommerce site with photos of your products, you can now allow your customers to customize those products. They just edit the photo and submit back their customizations to that photo. You then will have an exact photo of what the user wants to buy from you, so you can produce it.

Picnik API

Free AT&T WiFi

AT&T is making all of its 10,000 wifi hotspots available to its broadband subscribers for free. Check out the story in NYT. Then use the AT&T WiFi Locator to find hotspots near you around the world. I guess it is now time to switch to AT&T for my broadband.

RoR Learning on Steroids

Watch these hour-long videos to master Ruby on Rails programming. A lot of them are free. Others are just $9 USD.

Experienced developers have said that PeepCode is "fantastic and the price is a steal." Designer/developers have said they are "exactly the type of instruction I need to pick up new things and understand how they work." Others have said they are "phenomenal", "quality" and "totally worth more to me than $9!"

Peepcode.com

Logo Design Inspiration

Get inspired for designing your next logo by looking thru these galleries of logos:

 

LogoSauce.com

Faveup.com

Logopond.com

Which Map Service to Use?

If you want to build a map mashup but don't know which service to use (MapQuest, Yahoo, or Google) then here is a quick comparison list of their features.
Google Maps vs. Yahoo Maps vs. MapQuest - API's

10 Must-Read Blogs For 2008

I Stumbled Upon this list and I think this is what I will be reading soon because I am very interested in what is going on in the Social Networks world. It is a list of the top 10 blogs you must read to keep abreast of what is going on.
Top 10 Blogs

Most Advanced Maps

This has got to be some of the most advanced maps I have ever seen. You can interact with these maps in so many ways. You can hide/show multiple layers of data. You can adjust the "time" period to view how the data changes according to time.
Go to Not Your Mama's Maps and view the Video Demonstration.
See the Live Demo.

SWFIntruder Tests Your SWFs

I first learned about this from InformationWeek.com. Here is an excerpt:

A Google security engineer says hundreds of thousands of Flash files are vulnerable and a considerable percentage of major Internet sites are affected.

To check if your swf files are vulnerable, use the Google tool called SWFIntruder.

PlaceShout: A Mini-Yelp

Ever heard of Yelp.com? You know---the place to leave good/bad comments about your experiences with local businesses. Well, now there is a similar site, but a whole lot simpler to use and limits comments to 100 characters. I tried it on my home town of San Antonio and it sure was easy to add a comment. I wonder if they intend to allow new comments via text-messaging, since text-messages are limited to about 150 chars?
PlaceShout.com

Photographer's Templates

If you are a photographer, you may want to take a look at these professionally done templates for showcasing all your photos to your clients. In addition to so many features, you can simply drag-n-drop your a group of photos into a template and instantly have an amazing composition/arrangement of photos only seen at high-end studios. This can really add value to your services.

YouSelectIt.com

Gallery of templates

Photology: Cool Photo Sorting

This new service can sort your photos by Morning, Night, Month, Vertical, Horizontal, Inside, Outside, Subject Matter, Color, etc.
GetPhotology.com
Demo

Common Short Code Administration

R u having trouble making sense of the whole mobile internet picture? Here is one source of information which has helped me make sense of all this. It is a nicely done diagram of the different levels of service providers and their roles.
I particularly find the following chart useful to know some of the big players with whom I will eventually deal with when I get my mobile application going. Good luck in your mobile strategy. If you ever need additional pointers, just let me know and I will probably find some info for you.

Outsource to Programmers

Here is another service to outsource your programming work. Your employer is outsourcing, why not do the same?
oDesk.com
I have previously covered getacoder.com and rentacoder.com. Between these two, I get more bids at more reasonable rates from rentacoder.com.

Another Outsourcing Service

Here is a new one I found on KillerStartups.com for hiring people to do the work for you.
PeoplePerHour.com

Track Ur Package on Any Service

This service can track your package on any service, whether it is DHL, UPS, FedEx, etc. Just enter your tracking number. If they have an API it would be really helpful for a plugin into your current shopping checkout experience.
TrackThePack.com
KillerStartups.com review

Shopping with SMS

Here are three different approaches for using your phone to help you shop.

• Use mobile coupons from CellFire.com
• Use your phone as a scanner ScanBuy.com
• Look for their logo on ads and text in your order to ShopText.com

Here is a short review of all three services.

Fluid: WebApps 2 Desktop Apps

This cool new service can turn any service on the web into a desktop app that behaves just like any other application on your computer. Now you don't have to use your browser to checking your Gmail or to read the News.

Just fire up Fluid, enter the url of the app you want to create and give it a name. Fluid will then create an application and even add an icon based on the site's favicon. Fluid created applications show up on the desktop, in your dock and in the application switcher. In short, they behave just like a normal app. (It only works on a Mac.)

Wired Review

Another NetFlix Biz Model

Here is another business modeled after NetFlix, but for books instead of videos. This is a very interesting model that could be applied to other things as well. I wonder what other things you can think of applying it to. Paperspine.com

I have previously written about a car club where you get to drive any car you want and then return it and get another one.

YouTube for Ringtones

Check it out. Free ringtones, wallpapers, videos, etc. for you phone uploaded by users like you. It is a community of people creating their own ringtones for others to use.
Cellware.com

Eric Meyer's Resources

CSS guru Eric Meyer shares his favorite websites of CSS knowledge in an interview. Here is an excerpt from that interview:

 

One of the best CSS resources I know is the css-discuss wiki, located at css-discuss.incutio.org. It's the distillation of more than five years of wisdom and experience from the css-discuss mailing list. There are pages covering the pros and cons of various CSS techniques, basic information on obscure parts of CSS, tons of links to other resources, and more. It's literally my first stop when I need to look up something about CSS.

Some other worthy stops are positioniseverything.net, the various materials at the House of Style , and Russ Weakley's compact tutorials. For decoding convoluted selectors, I recommend the SelectORacle. And of course there's the all-seeing eye of Google.

Let's not forget another great resource: Eric Meyer's own blog, meyerweb.com.

 

 

Write on any webpage

Diigo.com is a new service which allows anyone to

• Write on any webpage
• Interact on any webpage

It is like adding sticky notes on any page. Granted there are many other services available, including one from Google called Notebook, this one adds many new features. For example, your sticky notes can be private or public, meaning you and others can share each others notes on any web page. You can send your sticky notes to your blog, email, etc. with a few clicks. I think it is worth thinking about how one could use such a service to build another unique service. I can't tell you what I am thinking about, so think about it.

Website Heatmapping

Want to know what areas on your website your visitors are clicking on the most or the least? Want to see this visually, not just in number of clicks? These two new services can overlay colored areas on your website from hot to cold to visually indicate what users are clicking on. It's very cool.

 

CrazyEgg.com

ClickTwist.com

Drive-Thru Outsourcing

The next time you go thru a drive-thru at your local fast-food place, don't think that person on the intercom is inside the store. Chances are they could be half-way around the world in India. This new service is already being tested by Wendy's. The foreigner takes your order via VOIP and sends it to the store's kitchen monitor for fulfillment.

 

Exit41.com

Add Buttons to Your Ads

Agendize.com seeks to equip business owners with a quick and easy way to add "clickable actions" to their online ads. These "clickable actions" are initialized at the click of a button and include such actions as:
Send this ad via text messaging
Send this ad via email
Send this ad via IM
Call the retailer via a free phone call
Print this ad
Place this ad on your social network

This is a very interesting concept which will enable users to take along any advertisement they see on the web inside their phone or PDA. See their DEMO video. It sounds like a more general service then 8coupons.com

Biz Action, Not Biz Plan

PlanHQ.com seeks to equip you with the online tools to execute your business instead of documenting your business plan. When you get a team together for working on your idea, you may want to use a set of tools like theirs.

Learn Mandarin: Use LiveMocha

I just signed up with LiveMocha.com to learn Mandarin with the help of a social network, and it is all free. It has lessons and real people you can converse with.

More How-to Videos

This one is worth noting the next time you are looking for something fun to do. These videos show you how to do a ton of different things, just about anything.
Graspr.com

Ript: Desktop Scrapbooking

You have to download and install this app to appreciate what it does. The interface is dead simple. Just drag and drop pictures into the pile icon which always sits on top of your browser or any other Windows app. You can move it around. To customize your "scrapbook" just double click on it and the app will open for you to rearrange, resize, etc. all the images you have dropped into it. Add text and do more.
Ript.com

Multiculture Social Network

With this new service you can create your own multi-cultural social network. It's an interesting concept and I'm not sure what they are doing to facilitate communication between different languages. It is worth keeping track of this service to see what they come up with.

Mixxt.com

CakeMail: Email Marketing 2.0

This service is another white label email marketing tool by which anyone can become an email marketing service. The service is similar to MailBuild.com which I previously blogged.

CakeMail.com

Another DIY T-shirt Store

Here is yet another design your own t-shirt service, like threadless, zazzle, etc.

smegshirt.com

Joopz 2-way Web-to-SMS

With this new service you can send text messages from the web and receive replies back on the same webpage. The text conversations can go back and forth and are automatically archived. One of their plans costs $2.96 per month for unlimited text messaging.
Joopz.com
DEMO review

Search Thru Your Social Networks

This new service seeks to turn your search into searching for the info through your establish social network. Because social networks are so immense, it assumes what you are looking for is already on someone else's page, blog, etc. I think they have done a very good job of simplifying this kind of search into a very easy to use interface.

Baagz.com
DEMO review

FastCall411

Need service and can't get through to any merchant? Go online. Enter your phone number and the category of service you seek. FastCall411 does a local search and calls all the matching merchants. Each merchant hears the FastCall411 promo and that a customer needs service. The first merchant who takes your call gets connected to you.

DEMO review
Online video demo
FastCall411.com

Big Apple Mobile Coupons

8Coupons.com is collecting specials from all businesses in NYC and sending the coupons to your cell via text messaging. All you do is browse for the coupons that interest you and send them to your phone. When you show up at the merchant you show them the text message. One wave of the future are promotions via text messaging.

Read the KillerStartUp.com review

Another HTML/CSS Service

Here is yet another service that takes your designs (png, pdf, etc) and converts it to HTML and CSS, saving you lots of time.
xhtmlmagic.com

The others I have previously talked about are:
xhtmlized.com
psd2html.com

uLocate & Where

Want to write GPS-enable cellphone apps? Partner with uLocate and use their free Where platform, the first no-cost GPS programming platform that can work across multiple phones and carriers. Here is the story on Business 2.0

uLocate.com
where.com

Tag Clouds Gallery

Examples and good practices for using Tag Clouds, very useful for whenever I get around to using tags on my site.

Tag Clouds Gallery

Top 100 Mac Apps

I just think this list could be useful someday when I get a Mac. The trouble is they are more expensive, bur they are superior.
Top 100 Mac Apps

The Chumby

The Chumby is a new tiny device which rotates internet content in a small screen. It's almost like having a digital frame with rotating photos, only this thing can rotate more than just photos. I found out about it from an online eseminar about Flash Lite for devices. The Chumby is also powered by Flash Lite and all its content runs under Flash Lite, which is also powering more mobile content on phones.

 

Chumby.com

TextBack 4 Textbooks

I ran into this at killerstartups.com and thought their write up on it is really good. So here is what they have to say about this new service called TextBack.net

College students today know they can save money buying textbooks online. They go to the campus bookstore and write down ISBN numbers for their courses. But do they know for certain they wrote down the correct ISBN? They joke about it on their web site, humorously naming a condition "Chronic ISBN Transposition", as if it was some kind of disease. Seriously though you can write down the wrong number or switch number positions which is transposing. Therefore you have the wrong ISBN and will have to go back to the campus bookstore. TextBack has made it easy. While in the bookstore simply send keyword "ISBN" followed by the 10 digit ISBN number to short code 4INFO (44636). Isn't it better to text the ISBN to confirm you have the right textbook when you go online? After you send a text message they store the book on the website in a mobile cart so can purchase online from Amazon Market Place. They also send you a text with online pricing and the title. Giving you confidence knowing you have the right textbook. You don't have to sign up or join. More importantly, you don't have to give them your cell phone number. They place a numeric code in their response messages. All you need do is enter the code on the site and they will display all of the books for you. The system is good for any book not just textbooks. Technical professionals can use the system for those expensive tech books too.

Blogger and Podcaster

I just thought this site I ran into may be worthwhile keeping up with because they cover everything about Blogs and Podcasts. With their coverage you should be able to have a good understanding of the industry and discover some trends or useful services.

BloggerAndPodcaster

iPhone Success

I recently read the iPhone could very soon overtake the Motorola RAZR as the best-selling phone ever. Here is the story on Forbes.

I also read that Apple makes about $18 per monht per iPhone from revenue sharing with AT&T. Over the course of a 2 year contract that is about $500 in profit per iPhone. Here is the CNET story.

India China Creative Economy

This is one of the best podcasts I have ever heard on the subject.
It's about globalization, what it means to your career and even what it means to the banking industry. Towards the end you will hear what a major global bank is doing.

Try either one of these links:
http://libsyn.com/media/philmckinney/KI_20061210.mp3
http://cdn.libsyn.com/philmckinney/KI_20061210.mp3

Use Your Phone Remotely

These two new services provide you the ability to use and update your phone's content from a website. You can even send text messages which supposedly get routed via your phone's text messaging service. If you have unlimited text messaging then you can theoretically set up your own text messaging service online and the only cost to you is the cost of your phone's service.
Dashwire.com
Bloove.com

As of this writing, Dashwire only works on phones with Windows Mobile 5 and 6, with support for more phones coming soon. Bloove supports all modern Symbian and J2ME phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

Instant TagClouds 4 Your Site

I've started looking around for any service out there that can give me tag clouds for my website. I'm looking for a service which will give me a piece of javascript code to insert into my webpages and I instantly get a tagcloud of the content on my site. The tagcloud contains any descriptors that I have predetermined. When a user clicks on a link, a descriptor(s) (text) associated with that link is sent to the tagcloud service. The tagcloud service keeps a database of the frequency of these descriptors and thru the javascript provided to me I can display the tagcloud on my homepage, for example.

This is useful for keeping track of what kinds of products my website is selling. Each time an item is added to a shopping cart, a set of that item's descriptors are sent to the tagcloud service. These descriptors may include size, color, style, etc. which in turn are represented by different tagclouds. For example, I could have a tagcloud of all the styles I am selling and another tagcloud of the most popular colors.

So here is a short list of what I have found. Please add to this as you discover some more:
TagCloud.com
ZoomClouds.com
ContentRobot.com

Steve Thomas built his own with PHP, MySQL and CSS

The Wired iPhone

This company hooked up an iPhone to a circuit board to access all its inputs and outputs and anyone can access it over the web to do all kinds of testing and experimenting. They hooked up a bunch of other phones as well. It's like a phone simulator but better because it is the real thing executing your commands. Very incredible.

Inside The Matrix for Mobiles

SMS coming to your mall

Text Messaging service is coming to a mall near you. You will be able to instantly search for pricing and availability of any item at that mall.

A Richer Trip to the Mall, Guided by Text Messages

Brokering a Deal, Carefully, Between Malls and the Web

Instant Messaging Passion

Check out this story about how passionate teens are about instant messaging and how one solution, which costs $150 and no monthly fees, can help. It is called the Z2.

New Option for Teens Passionate about Instant Messaging
zipitwireless.com

PicClicks Wants Cell Pics

PicClicks allows you to post your camera phone pictures directly to your online profile. It's simple and as easy as sending a picture message to another mobile phone. You are given a code to paste onto your social network profile like MySpace, Hi5, and Facebook and when you send your pictures in from your phone; your online profile is automatically updated with your most current pictures.
I think I will start using them when I get an iPhone because it takes great photos and I'll be using the camera phone a lot.

MindCaller.com

These days VOIP and SMS are drving new innovations. Checkout this free voice broadcasting service for sending for up to 10 phones. With the paid service, you can send even more. This is useful for communicating your message to a group without having to dial each one individually.
MindCaller.com

Ruby AMF Tutorial

Just in case you've been using ColdFusion, Java, etc to connect your Flex front-end to the database, as I have, I think it is time to put the pedal to the metal and start using Ruby AMF. Like all of RoR stuff, once I learn this new stuff it will be a piece of cake to connect my Flex projects to MySQL.
Ruby AMF Tutorial
Ruby AMF Blog

All-in-one Messaging Service

This messaging service promises to provide all your messaging needs, such as SMS, VOIP, email-to-voice, two-way text messsaging, etc. They seem to do a whole lot. I haven't checked into them yet, but I thought you might need to know about this asap.

Group2Call.com

 

I am using Clickatell.com but I think Group2Call is worth looking into. Clickatell is a global SMS provider in 200 countries so they are a much bigger player.

School Utility Sites

Here are just a couple of neat sites for students and teachers. You might want to mention these to your kids' teachers so they can start using them at school.

 

Kindersay.com This site shows a pre-schooler a picture along with its written word and a woman pronouncing the word.

 

HotChalk.com This site allows a teacher to quickly create a website for the class. Assignments can be created, students can comment and post their solutions. An online grading system is built in. Too many features to comment on.

 

Kerpoof.com My kids love this. They create their own animations and stories. Very cool for young kids. I wrote about it .

 

Requesting Help

Hello Everybody,

Thanks for reading my blog. I am putting out an open call for anyone to help me with my current project. Perhaps by helping me with this you can gain a valuable insight into some current trends in ecommerce. Here is what I need:

 

I am developing a social ecommerce site with KickApps.com and want to add a shopping cart with FatFreeCart.com or BlinkCart.com. I previously commented on the new turnkey social networks and the new shopping carts . I have figured out how to use KickApps to some extent and have read thru the shopping carts' features. Now I need to figure out how to integrate the two so that anyone can post images and/or videos of their products and start selling them on my site.

 

If you help me figure this thing out then perhaps I can help you out in some other way. I am a developer and have extensive experience on the web. I love doing Flex, am excited about RoR and do lots of other things, like jQuery, etc. Or perhaps we can work on the site I am developing together.

 

Thank you in advance.

ROBIN: Here is my response to your question. I understand you built Fat Free Cart. That is pretty awesome. Here is the deal from a developer's perspective.


If you sign up for a free account on KickApps.com and start creating your own social network you might see what I see. Once you create your network anyone can sign up to become a member and thereby be permitted to upload videos, pics, and blog, tag, etc. Basically anyone can join your community and start contributing.


Now I imagine one of these social networks (or communities) can be used as an ecommerce site. Anyone wanting to sell their stuff can upload pics, videos, etc describing their products. Anyone wanting to buy the products can browse the site and click on any item to add to the cart.


So here is the trick. Every member of your community who is selling products has a unique id which is generated by KickApps. You must attach this id to each product that person is selling. You must then pass this id (and the product's own id, etc) to the shopping cart. When the order is completed, the community owner (you) must receive all this info and pass the order requests to the individual sellers for fulfillment.


I imagine one can use jQuery to create the cart's code on each product with the seller's id attached. I am probably thinking outside the box and really need to look into all these details further. If you can shed any light on this, please do so. Thank you.

A Cutter Like a Printer

Image a printer with a knife instead of ink. That's what this cutter is all about. Just send it a "print" job and you'll get the thing cut out for you.
Cricut.com

Cool E-commerce with AirApps

AirApps.net has developed a quick Flex plugin for collecting payment for any AIR application you may want to publish. They have some cool demos what this is all about. I think I will use their service very soon.

Coolest Javascript Components

These are some of the coolest javascript components I have ever seen. They have a bunch of demos. Nitobi.com

 

Of course, there are some other ones too like:

ui.jquery.com

script.aculo.us/

oSkope Visual Search

You can now search Amazon, eBay, Flickr, and YouTube in a different visual manner with this Flash-based service.

oSkope.com

Cool Flex Photo Editors

The best photo editor I've seen is Picnik.com and second to that is FotoFlexer.com, both of which were written in Flex. Here is a TechCrunch review of some other ones based on AJAX. Happy Editing!

Kerpoof

I think this is really cool for kids. Here is an excerpt from TechCrunch.com:

Kerpoof is aiming to become a leading destination site for children through a suite of activities that are enriching as well as entertaining. On Kerpoof, kids can create art, stories, and animated movies using a simple 3D interface, and when done, can save it to their gallery, share it with others, and vote on their favorites.

Krista Marks, CEO for Kerpoof presenting. Aims to change the way kids interact with the computer. Most of what kids do today is mindless, a waste of time - Kerpoof wants to change this.

Goal: to be a site where fun is not separate from learning, but integral to it. Kids can create art through the site, write their own stories, create their own movies.

Parents are no longer buying software for their kids with the explosion of broadband - they are turning to websites for them. Neopets and Club Penguin are very popular, but are not as educational as they could be. At the same time, CS majors are plummeting. Bizworld saw this trend and came to Kerpoof to create software to educate children using the web.

Easy tool for kids to make their own picture scenes - cool effects when you add particular elements to the scene (add a moon and it becomes night, etc.). You can share your pictures with friends.

To make a movie, pick a scene then a backdrop. CEO claiming the movie creator teaches kids object oriented programming. You put objects in a scene and then make the objects do things (objects and methods). Looks like a basic Flash applet creator. Still, looks impressive. You can add music to the background. You can add multiple scenes to an entire movie.

If you want to add interactivity to a movie, you can have prompts at different points in the movie that change how the movie proceeds (makes it more like a game created by kids).

Kerpoof is live and freely available now.

Shared Short Codes

Are you trying to start your own two-way text messaging service but cannot afford the annual $2000 to have your own short code? There are now services which charge you much less if you are willing to use one of their short codes. There are even some services which are free. (Google: shared short codes) Mozes.com is one such service. Here is a review of them.

Pay To Get Votes On Digg

With this service your business can buy as many votes as it wants, at $1 a vote, so your business can make the headlines and get Digged by hundreds of people.

SubvertAndProfit.com

Here is a review found at Wired.

Subvert and Profit runs an ever-expanding black market for votes on social media sites. We are simultaneously the easiest way to make money online and the cheapest form of advertising in the web 2.0 sphere. We are the crowdhackers, and we are very good at what we do.

Other "social media optimization" sites can only advise their clients on ways to design their sites for Digg and StumbleUpon. Subvert and Profit actually gets you the votes, and for cheap!

By crowdsourcing our operation to over 3000 anonymous Internet users, we can provide a cheap, effective form of undercover marketing. Read the FAQ to see how it all works.

Upcycling

This interesting NYT article talks about how people are repurposing items from IKEA and using this store as a source of raw material for totally new products. Some call this repurposing of materials "upcycling"

Romancing the Flat Pack: Ikea, Repurposed

Photo2Text

Upload any image and see it all done in ascii characters.

 

Photo2Text.com

Need Text Link Ads?

Why not include some more text link ads on your site or email marketing and start making some additional revenue?
Get some ads at:
LinkWorth.com
TLA

Flash Based VOIP

You can now do Voice Over IP all within Flash. If you don't think this is a big deal, then you don't need to follow the link:

Flash Based VOIP


Adobe has introduced their own version, codenamed Pacifica.

Pics: Goliaths and Davids

The Goliaths of online photography (pics) are:
Corbis
Getty Images
iStockPhoto

and the Davids are:
Fotolia
Dreamstime
Shutterstock

Local Merchants

Here is a service which aims to match local merchants with local clients.
MerchantCircle.com

Gen Y Blog

Here is one Generation Y blog about Yers so you can keep up with trends in this group.

Generation Y Blog

Buzzword

These people are building Buzzword, the first real word processor for the web. They're using Adobe Flex 2.0 as the development environment and Flash 9 as the runtime platform. Beautiful typography. On-screen pagination. Rich text, tables, and graphics. And your friends, teachers, and colleagues can add comments right on the page. Your documents, everywhere you need them.

virtub.com

Collective Intelligence

This fascinating book demonstrates how you can build web applications to mine the enormous amount of data created by people on the Internet. With the sophisticated algorithms in this book, you can write smart programs to access interesting datasets from other web sites, collect data from users of your own applications, and analyze and understand the data once you've found it.

Programming Collective Intelligence

My Album Site

If I were doing photography, these are the people who would do my online albums. I did some research for my cousin in Dallas and after looking at a bunch of similar services, this company is the best I saw.

http://www.smugmug.com/

Some of the highlights:

• Excellent upload tools.
• All the metadata of your photos is captured in the upload, such as date, time, GPS, and a bunch of camera details, like Focal Length.
• Very slick interface for browsing the photos and very fast
• Very easy for anyone to order prints.
• You can set your own pricing on the print products and you keep the difference from the actual cost of the prints.
• Many print products, like calendars, cups, t-shirts, etc.
• You can have unlimited number of photos and albums.

Sure, it is not free like Flickr.com but you get so much more for very reasonable pricing. If I were doing this for a living, every client of mine would get an online album of their event and all their guests could order prints from there.

Snif Tags

Put a SNIF (Social Networking In Fur) tag on your dog and take it for a walk. When your dog comes in contact with other dogs also with snif tags, the magic begins. The tags exchange information about the dogs and their owners. When you get home go to the company's website and see what this info is. So now you can use your dog to hook you up with somebody.
SnifLabs.com

Nightly Flex 3 Builds

I'm working on a Flex project and I think these are handy instructions for how to install the Adobe's nightly builds of their new Flex 3 SDK into Flex Builder 3.

Instructions

Send a Buzz

Send a voicemail message to any U.S. cell phone without the phone ringing.
SendABuzz.com
Review at 160characters.org

What Do U Think of My Style?

Sites are popping up where users can upload photos of themselves and get feedback on their fashion. So before a girl goes out, she can get her friends to comment on what she intends to wear. This just goes to show, if you can think of some "fashion service" you can hit it big time.
TechCrunch review 1
TechCrunch review 2

Flex Style Explorer

The Flex Style Explorer allows you to see what styles are available for
Flex components, and you can adjust those settings in real time and see
the generated CSS to create the style settings. You can view the Flex
Style Explorer