A Little Push
I don’t surf the web all that much. Granted, I’m on the internet all day. Constantly. But I spend most of my time on my e-mail and Google Reader. I like my content delivered to me–I don’t like to have to go out and find it. That means when I do venture out into the [...]
You’ve Got Mail…but You Want More
Do you ever have days when you keep checking your e-mail, but you’re just wasting your time, because nothing’s appearing in your inbox? Today was one of those days. And somehow, in an odd way, the day ended up feeling a bit empty. Am I really that attached to getting e-mail? Dan Ariely thinks so. [...]
My Technology Dream
I think we all have some dream of using/obtaining a piece of technology that doesn’t exist yet. Maybe something that a movie has shown us–an anti-gravity skateboard. A lightsaber. A virtual reality chamber. A mech suit. These types of technologies fascinate me, and I truly hope they become reality someday. But there’s one piece of [...]
How Google Reader Can Save You 29 Minutes a Day
One of my goals this year is to have 100 feed (RSS) subscribers to my blog. Although my blog gets between 400 and 700 hits a day, I only have 26 subscribers. The goal of this post is to get you to subscribe to my blog by signing up for Google Reader. It’ll take 10 [...]
The Inside Scoop on Why I Use (and Love) Twitter
The other day I mentioned to a real-life friend of mine that she should join Twitter. She obliged, and then asked, “What next?” I realized I didn’t have a good answer for her. I explained a few things, but I don’t think they were all that helpful. So I thought I’d put together a short [...]
The Most Creative Ornament of 2009
Around this time last year, a friend of mine hosted a Christmas tree ornament party. Every person/couple who attends the party has to bring a homemade ornament to the party. The hosts select their favorites within several different categories and put those ornaments on the tree; the rest are auctioned off to the attendees, with [...]
Kickstart THIS
I was going to write about something completely different today, but then JoshVision posted this blog entry announcing the launch of his book on Kickstarter, and I can’t stop thinking about anything else. My mind is blown. I’m having braingasms. Kickstarter is a site where you can post a project–usually one in progress–and seek funding [...]
What Will Books of the Future Look Like?
See my thoughts and post your thoughts on my TypeTribe blog entry on the topic.
Where in the World Is My iPhone
Two years ago, I posted on this blog that I’d never buy an iPhone because of the lack of a tactile keyboard. I take it all back. I bought an iPhone. I won’t go into the reasons here, beyond the fact that I called Sprint, my service provider for the last 7 years, and gave [...]
Vark
Every once in a while I have a question to which Google and Twitter don’t know the answer. Today, for example, I had a question about the iPhone. I wanted to know if people in St. Louis have any problems with AT&T’s service for iPhones. Very specific, very targeted. Fortunately, I had just learned about [...]
Magic Wands for Everyone
Back in my day, we had laser tag. Then came paintball. Now there’s MagiQuest. Haven’t heard of MagiQuest? Neither had I until I read an article about it in Wired this month. The basic concept: give a bunch of kids “magic” wands embedded with infrared sensors and send them on a “magical” quest (hence the name–get [...]
The Coolest Magazine Ad Ever
Entertainment Weekly, a magazine to which I subscribe and greatly enjoy, announced today that a fall edition of the magazine will contain a 2×2-inch, paper-thin video ad. That’s right. A tiny video screen embedded into a page of the magazine. It’s even rechargeable so you can watch the ad again if you want. Very cool. [...]
Ideas from Last Night
Every once in a while I stumble upon a website that is so clever, so brilliant, and so perfectly designed–and yet so obvious–that I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. Today’s example of my shame is www.textsfromlastnight.com. The first part of its brilliance is that you know right away from the URL exactly what [...]
How I Became a Man in 5 Hours
In many ways, I hit puberty on Saturday. I went through the rite of passage that every boy has to go through to become a man: I installed a flat-panel television on my wall. I haven’t had much success selling my condo, so I took the advice of frequent commenter Eric (Big Papi) and decided [...]
2-Year Anniversary
I came home from work today bursting with excitement from an amazing chat I had with the person who is going to design the website for the new business I’ll be launching soon. I also got a great haircut at Cutters, although I opted not to get the best part, the shampoo, because another customer [...]
5 Things I'm Excited About Today
This screenshot/print screen software. It’s called ZScreen, and the feature I’m most excited about is that I can now click control-print screen and I can choose exactly what I want to copy on my computer screen. This guy’s online cover letter. It’s brilliant and friendly and you walk away simultaneously feeling like you know the [...]
How to Use Twitter to Conquer the World
A friend of mine asked me today why I use Twitter. I realize I’ve mentioned it on the blog a few times recently, and I have that scrolling Twitter box on the right, so I thought I’d talk about how I use this service. Note that I’m a casual user–I post once or twice a [...]
The Name Game
I’m in the process of selecting a name for a company I’m thinking about starting. I’ve polled some trusted friends and advisers, and I’m close to making a final decision. The process has made me really evaluate the value of a name, particularly in this dotcom world. You might think of the perfect name for [...]
The Smartest Thing I Did Today
The smartest thing I did today cost me $83.16, significantly reduced my computer’s performance, and took 5 minutes of my time. Yes. I converted my CPU into a sandbox for the enjoyment of my kitten. No, really, today I noticed a blog entry from one of my top five favorite novelists, Lauren Groff, that deeply [...]
It's Twitter Time
I think I’ve finally figured out Twitter. For myself, at least. I have an ongoing list of things I want to blog about. The list currently has hundreds of items, many of them not worth writing more than a sentence or two about. This list has been growing longer and longer. My new blog format [...]
Cat Flips for the Flip
Thanks to an incredible deal on Woot! the other day, I have found myself the proud owner of the easiest-to-use video camera in the universe: the Flip Ultra. It’s so simple that it even has a built-in USB drive. So when you’re ready to upload the photos to your computer or YouTube, you just “flip” [...]
Screening Myself
I’ve been getting headaches a lot lately. Growing up, I’d get migraines from time to time, but they went away for the most part. Now I seem to be getting throbbing headaches at least once a month, including several the past week. Usually my headaches are attributable to something specific, like if I didn’t get [...]
A Love Letter to My Greatest Love, My GPS Navigator
Dear Maggie (that’s short for Magellan), Today my love for thee blossomed as you accompanied me on the long road back to St. Louis. ‘Tis a long road to travel alone, but you were the perfect companion. You sat quietly on the dash the entire ride, allowing me to listen to my book on tape. [...]