Gravatars, what are they and how do I get one?
A few days ago I added Gravatar functionality to my blog. A Gravatar is a unique picture or icon of yourself which is stored online and globally accessible by blogs that implement Gravatar, or globally recognized avatar. When you post or comment to Gravatar enabled blogs your own avatar will show up on that blog if you have signed up for one on the Gravatar site. It’s a nice way of making your posts more unique and personalized.
iPhone or Eee PC?
Now that the coveted iPhone has been released in Canada and the hype is dying down I find myself still unable to decide if I want one. Maybe decide is the wrong word, I absolutely know I want one, but I’m not sure if I want to break the bank doing so while locking into a long term agreement of 3 years with a big company I dislike. The big question is how practical the device is for me compared to other devices.
The other option I have been weighing in on is the Eee PC from Asus or one of the other emerging mini laptop or netbook solutions. This laptop is a little bit larger than a paperback and incredibly light. Although I would have no wireless 3G web experience I would have a super practical commuter computer and long term it would be a heck of a lot cheaper.
MeeMix Internet radio – a social music site that learns
Last night I saw an ad for MeeMix while on Facebook. The ad was engaging enough to get me to click it, but that’s usually where the engagement stops. Not so in the case of MeeMix, an online social radio site. You are immediately thrown into the application. It asks you to enter a song name (I must admit, it almost lost me here as it was not finding any of my first songs) and then either starts playing it or suggests a list of possibilities.
Stop breaking my back button!
Okay, I seriously don’t understand what people have against the browser back button; especially large corporate sites, what did the back button ever do to you? Today I was looking at wireless plans. There was a huge list of plans so I started clicking on them to find out more, I click back, see the page for a split second only to be forwarded back to the page I have already finished reading. I look around the page and oh, there’s the tiny button that will take me back to the list of plans. Why would you invent new functionality that already exists and is very familiar to the user? Okay, maybe it’s for users who don’t know what the big backwards facing arrow at the top of their browser is for, but the vast majority of us do know how to use the back button and it is much faster than looking for a web graphic back button which could be anywhere on your page.
This is an extremely basic good usability practice. The best part about this one is you don’t even have to do anything to have this functionality. In fact you actually have to go out of your way to annoy your users. There are some instances where a form may need to break back functionality, but I see it in places where it isn’t necessary at all.
WALL-E, a movie I felt good about after leaving the theater
I don’t go to the theater very often. The main reason is that for the past few years not many movies have really done it for me. I walk away thinking it either sucked or was just okay, couple that with the high cost of admittance and you are left with a steaming pile of… well you get my drift.
I am a huge Pixar fan and WALL-E, Pixar’s newest movie totally caught me by surprise. I am not a movie buff by any stretch of the imagination, so it’s no surprise that I was out of the loop when I stumbled across the movie trailers one evening on the web. As soon as I saw the trailers I knew I had to see this movie.
Protopage Mobile goes live
I received an email about Protopage Mobile going live today; to be honest I had never heard of it. After looking it over I signed up for an account. The full web version is kind of like iGoogle, but its default setup is sweet, at least for a geek like me. Right away you will get feeds like the BBC, Engadget, Slashdot, Digg, Gizmodo and even a daily Dilbert comic to name a few. They are definitely targeting people like me with this setup. I have only briefly tried the full web version but the screenshots for the mobile version on the Protopage blog look nice.
If I do decide to get a smartphone in the coming weeks I might have to try it out. I’m a huge fan of any web based apps because they free me of being locked down to any one system. I feel that eventually all but the most demanding applications will be hosted online.
Rogers to offer 6 gig plan for $30 dollars until August 31st
So maybe all the protesting over at Ruined iPhone and other places on the web have paid off. The whole iPhone outrage even hit mainstream news media. Basically Rogers and Fido (which are the same company) will allow you to take a phone plan and add a $30 6 GB plan to it. This is a temporary “deal” you can buy into with a 3 year contract before Aug 31st. It is a much better deal, but a lot of people are asking why it’s only temporary?
Free WordPress theme – Deep Red
I finally got around to releasing my old WordPress theme Deep Red. Anyone can download it and use it. I have included the PSD file so you can tweak it, change it, or do whatever you like. You will also find all the slices in the Photoshop file.
This theme also uses Alex King’s popularity contest plugin. You can see it in the screenshot below on the sidebar; it tracks your most popular posts and displays them on the front page. You do not need to add this plugin to use the theme as there is a function check in the theme that will omit that section if you do not have the plugin activated.
If you like it, flip me an email so I can see how you have used it.
Download WordPress theme and PSD file.
Twitter vomit—a great way to get removed
I recently started using Twitter. For the longest time I couldn’t really understand what all the fuss was about. Now I get it, and I like using it. It’s a great networking tool, and a cool way to follow industry leaders and pass around breaking news that you care about. To me Twitter is different from many other social media sites out there because it’s not overloaded with tools and apps I don’t need. Twitter is so simple and I think that’s why it has taken off.
Openmoko Neo FreeRunner
Wow, a lot of smart phone news lately. Yesterday another really interesting phone was released called the Neo FreeRunner for use with Openmoko. The actual phone is made by First International Computer a Taiwanese computer and components manufacturer. The Openmoko project was started by the founders of FIC. The about section of the site describes the project as:
Openmoko is open.
Open to life, desire, function, and simple beauty. Never closed, perfect, or complete. An empty vessel, ready to be filled with your ideas.
