This Guy Falls Down

Goin' analog

It's kind of like a pendulum for me. I'll go for a few weeks and really be into the technology; then I'll rebel against myself and go analog on everybody. Right now I'm going through one of those analog phases. If you want to shun the PDA and go for the paper, the PocketMod just might be for you. You fold a piece of paper a certain way and you have a little pocket notebook. They've got templates for everything, from the practical (to-do lists and calendars) to the custom (Sudoku games and guitar tab). Best of all, it's free. While I will still probably carry a Moleskine cahier in my pocket, I will probably print out a PocketMod calendar to carry around with me as well...

Chevy Volt

Most of us drive less than 40 miles in a day. Now, imagine being able to drive those 40 miles without using any gasoline at all. What if you could drive over 600 miles on a single tank of gas? Or better yet, what if your car didn't run on gas at all, but used a combination of biodiesel (or E85) and electricity? Best of all, what if it actually looked pretty cool, too? That's exactly the kind of car the folks at Chevy unfurled recently at the Detroit Auto Show, and this vision could become a reality in the next few years. (via Tai Anderson)

The Chevy Volt was the hit of the auto show, and had more than a few heads spinning. Of course the new Camaro looks pretty cool too...

If you like this idea and would like to see Chevy make it a reality, cast your vote here and let your voice be heard.

Some great advice on blogging

TallSkinnyKiwi recently offered these "15 Blogging Tips for 2007". What I love about Andrew is that he stands apart from the "look at me! look at me!" mentalitly that has taken over the blogosphere as of late. He rightfully points out that the proper focus shouldn't be on being the number one blogger in the world (mwahahahaha!), but that your goal as a blogger is to provide a service. And these tips will help you make sure that the information you're putting out there is found by the people who are trying to find it.

Apple's got some fun news

I just got back from Florida a few hours ago, so I haven't really had time to live with it yet, but Apple seems poised to make some huge, iPod sized waves yet again. Yesterday Steve Jobs unfurled a couple of new products at the MacWorld Expo which piqued my interest, along with just about everyone else within earshot:

• iPhone - This could be the big one, as it sports some impressive features, and definitely has the wow factor and Apple's slick stylings. Phones are all about real world functionality, so the real tell will be how bug-free these things end up being.
• AppleTV - I'm scratching my head here. Right now, I have the ability to download television shows to my computer and then watch them on my TV. With AppleTV, I can now pay a couple hundred bucks so I can download songs to my computer and then watch them on my TV. See the problem? Why do I need to spend a couple hundred bucks, even if it means I can do it without cables? Maybe somebody with a little more tech savvy can point out what I'm missing...
• New Airport Extreme - Sports speeds up to 5x faster than previous airport models, to help you transfer your TV programming to your computer (OK, I'll stop now!)

Here's what others are saying about iPhone.

BTW - these guys agree with me on the whole TV thing...

I Want to Be a Flockstar

Recently a friend of mine turned me onto Flock, a new web browser that takes the ideas of community and integration to new levels.  It's built on the open source and very usable Mozilla platform, and adds some features which make it stupidly easy to add photos, save pages to del.icio.us, and post blogs, all from within the browser itself.  I'm still getting the hang of it, but I think it's got the potential to dethrone Safari once and for all.  Well, at least until Apple comes out with the next OS which will undoubtedly incorporate similar features. 

To give you an idea of how cool Flock is, I'm using it to do this blog post.  It pretty much rules.

technorati tags:web, browsers, flock

Blogged with Flock

Oprah Scam

Have you gotten an email like this yet?

Dear Sir/Madam,

INVITATION TO THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW 2006!!!

Congratulations!!!

You have been selected as one of our lucky winners of the OPRAH WINFREY
AND FRIENDS Christmas show of the year 2006.
We request you honour our invitation due to the fact that you will be
treated with the most exciting and unforgettable event of your life
time.
You are one of the few lucky winners who will join the Oprah and
friends in this year Christmas show in US and United Kingdom.
with a VISIT STAY for six months.
As one of our new introductions, Oprah and Friends is coming out with a
new package that will ensure you leave the show with fabulous gifts
and cash rewards to participants of up to $100,000.
One week of free extra cruise with ONE OF YOUR LOVE ONES in one of the
five (5) star hotels in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OR UK.
That's not all, you will be having the opportunity of talking with one
of your favorite artist right in front of three different international
T.V stations broadcasted live, worldwide.

All these including variety of events will be presented while the show
is in progression.
All your expenses (hotel accommodation, traveling expenses, flight
arrangements, feeding) paid by OPRAH AND FRIENDS SHOW CO-ORDINATORS
You’re advised to contact one of our co-ordinators will give you
guidelines on the proceedings of the show, and how you can start with
processing of your invitation, and the necessary requirement on how to
claim
your INVITATION PACKAGE that will be sent to you after proper
verification have been made.
This will take only five working days from the receipt of this
invitation.

By acceptance of this letter, you will be one step closer in getting
your invitation.

The email goes on to ask you for your pertinent information, and then lets you know that the tickets will cost anywhere from $500 to $950, depending on how close you want to sit. I'll be honest - the first time I skimmed this letter, I thought it might be legit, and wondered if my wife had forwarded it to me as some kind of hint. But then I noticed the language was a little unprofessional and there were a few grammatical errors, so I decided to track this down. Sure enough, I found THIS ARTICLE.

I'm telling you, these guys are getting more and more clever, so stay on guard.

New Killers single

In case you didn't know it, today is a significant day. The Killers release a new single entitled "When You Were Young". You can preview it here, and I haven't checked it yet, but I'm sure it will be available via iTunes. The full album comes out on October 2, and is easily one of the most anticipated rock albums of the year. I finally broke down and bought their last one, Hot Fuss, a few weeks ago, and it is "killer" (ha!). If the last album and the new single are any indication, the new one is destined to become a classic.

Beck and the future of music

If you haven't yet checked out the latest issue of Wired Magazine, be sure to snag you a copy. They did a special feature on where music is headed, with an obvious emphasis on technology. The shining star of the issue for me was the Beck article:

Answer the following: You heard Beck's last album, Guero, (a) online as an unfinished mix that was leaked in late 2004; (b) as the official 2005 Interscope CD release, which contained most of the tracks on the leaked version plus a few new songs; (c) as the deluxe CD/DVD edition, complete with seven bonus tracks, a surround sound mix, and interactive video art to accompany every song; (d) in one of the many unauthorized fan mashups floating around the Net; (e) not as Guero at all, but as Guerolito, a commercially released companion piece featuring remixes by Diplo, Adrock, and Boards of Canada.

Whatever your answer – and, yes, you can choose more than one – Guero represented a new way to think about the album. Because there was no album, no static list of 13 songs. Instead, there was a project that drew on Beck's Latin leanings and the Dust Brothers' eclectic production to create a portrait of the artist circa 2003-2005 (a Guero Cycle, if you will). Such is the future of the album, as envisioned by Beck; it's something to be heard, seen, and reconstituted by artist and audience alike. As the Beatles did with Sgt. Pepper's almost four decades ago, Beck has expanded the range and potential of the form.

The repercussions here aren't just creative. The very logistics and economics of the music industry are at stake, as one album becomes a long shelf of songs and products, each carrying its own release date, distribution path, and price tag. In the end, fans can create their own versions of the album, stringing fave songs and remixes into one ideal playlist.

Now Beck is doing it again. The multiple versions, the audience interactions, the multimedia experiments – they're all back in Guero's yet-to-be-titled follow-up, due out this fall. Wired caught up with the iconic singer-songwriter in Los Angeles to discuss mashups, YouTube, and the future of the album.

Read the rest HERE.

Eggcorns

Via Rebecca's Pocket, here's a fun little site whose mission is to point out various eggcorns. An eggcorn is defined by Wikipedia as:

an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound identical, or nearly so, at least in the dialect the speaker uses. Characteristic of the eggcorn, and its chief difference from malapropism, is that the new phrase makes sense on some level ("old-timer's disease" for "Alzheimer's disease"). Eggcorns often involve replacing an unfamiliar, archaic, or obscure word with a more common or modern word ("baited breath" for "bated breath").

What makes eggcorns fascinating is that the "wrong" phrase usually makes equal, if not more sense than the "correct" one.

For example, here are a few which have baffled me for sometime:
"up the pike" vs. "up the pipe"
"say your peace" vs. "say your piece"
"for all intents and purposes vs. for all intensive purposes"
"toe the line vs. tow the line"

And then there's the downright funny: "butt naked"

TypePad Mobile (***** out of 5)

After using TP Mobile for a couple of days, I can safely say that it's pretty impressive. Check out the posting I've been doing on the Third Day Weblog today to give you an idea. Where it really shines is with pictures. I've been able to take pictures with my camera phone and upload them to the web instantly. As a result, I've posted more pictures to the 3D blog today than I did on the whole spring tour, and probably more than I've ever posted here. It's also extremely easy to add a new post. Just hit the button for your weblog, and then hit "create new post". Then type the text into the template. It's as easy as that. The only limitation is my Treo's tiny keyboard. For longer posts, I could always get a keyboard attachment. And I would bet people with Blackberrys and Sidekicks would probably have a little easier time.

The only drawback I've found with TP Mobile so far is the fact that I maintain more than one weblog. To switch between them, I have to logout of one TP account and into another. In doing so, I lose any blog info I've got saved in my phone. But that's not too big a deal - I just have to make sure to upload everything before I logout. I would imagine this would only affect about 1% of TP users. Most people, even with multiple weblogs, use the same TP account to manage them.

If you have a smartphone or a PDA and want to blog on the road, this is a must have. It has already improved my blogging life exponentially. I'm sure you'll agree.