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Odds; Ends

From The “That’s So Disgusting” Department
Found a rather hilarious writeup about my Fingernail and Toenail Collection today over at I Am Such a Child. The pics aren’t working on that page, but you should be able to follow along.

I was contacted by MyHeavy.com about doing a video of myself performing my toenail licking ritual and submitting it to their site. June had originally mentioned that idea a couple of months ago, and I’ve just been waiting until the moment feels right. Stay tuned.

From The Online Web Tools Department
Check out this huge list of online generators for generating things such as 3-column CSS layout and accessible forms.

From The Tooting My Own Horn Department
Someone has erected a Myspace page for Crain. Nice job of collecting stuff.

From The Crucial Apps Department
If you use multiple monitors on your PC, then you must get Multi Monitor Taskbar, a freebie tool that puts a taskbar at the bottom of your second monitor, saving you mouse mileage and window confusion. It also has a nifty clipboard memory tool built in.

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ReviewMe.com

It is with mixed feelings that I announce this blog post is a paid review of ReviewMe.com.

On the one hand, I enjoy writing reviews, particularly of new Internet services, and I really like the idea of being paid to hang out on the Internet all day. Heck – that’s why I started some of the other sites I have started, such as TheBestofYoutube.com. Not that I’m making much more than enough to buy a Diet Coke per day off these ventures (yet).

On the other hand, it’s pretty much a sellout when you come here to see me writing for dollars. But can you blame me? If I even do any more of these, I promise to try and keep paid posts informative and objective. OK?

I saw a review of ReviewMe and thought I’d take it for a spin. It’s basically a site that is recruiting bloggers from everywhere to register and write reviews. If you have a product or service to sell, you can use ReviewMe to start generating an instant buzz about what it is you are trying to push. It’s really a pretty ingenious idea, really, brought to life through a snazzy Web2.0-style site that is easy to use and figure out.

My first impression of the service though, is that unless you are already a well-established blog writer online, your chances of making much money from ReviewMe are pretty slim. I submitted this blog and my Dumpworthy blog but the latter got rejected by ReviewMe for not being popular enough. The irony is that Dumpworthy is a review site. Go figure.

They seem to judge worthy blogs on the amount of linkbacks, traffic, and existing posts. Not a bad idea to weed out the cruft. Still, this site only received one out of 5 stars, so I am wondering if I will ever get contacted about writing any reviews. Were this blog more targeted to technology or something, I might get a higher score.

I think the ReviewMe service will probably become wildly popular though, as it is simple and effective, and it looked like you could make at least $40 per review. This gets the gears turning in my head for starting a new site that will be more focused, and might attract more potential reviews.

Perhaps this warrants a follow up review of ReviewMe in a few months; once I see if it works out at all.

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Calling Firefox Extensions Developers

A common task I always find myself doing in Firefox is searching through my boatloads of bookmarks (1100+) for something I remember the look of, but not the name or URL of. I tend to remember things visually, so this is a common problem I run into.

I’ve looked around for a Firefox extension that would do the following, but haven’t found anything. Does anyone know of a bookmark extension that would provide the following functionality?

  • Take a screenshot of a web page when it is bookmarked. (This could be optional somehow).
  • Show the screenshot when hovering over bookmarks in the Bookmarks menu.
  • Retroactively take screenshots of web sites already in your Bookmarks.
  • Be compatible with Foxmarks.

Yeah, so that’s probably asking quite a lot…but hey! This would be a killer extension if it did half of what I listed.

Any takers?

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Firefox 2.0

You probably know Internet Explorer 7 came out last week. Woohoo. Hoorah.

But did you know Firefox 2.0 comes out tomorrow??? Yeeehawww!!!

As a special treat for you dear readers of this blog, here is a secret link to grab Firefox 2.0. It’s sitting there waiting to be announced, but you can get it now!

Enjoy.

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Pictures

For a while I have enjoyed using my Olympus C-5050 digital camera, but ever since Alicia dropped it and we had to get it repaired it just hasn’t been the same. It takes a good 10-15 seconds to set up a shot, take it, and be ready for the next one. It still takes excellent pictures, but the lens mechanics never quite returned to normal.

I decided to sell that camera (wanna buy a camera?) and replace it with something simpler, smaller, and more transportable, so I went and got a Canon Powershot A530, which had just been knocked down to $149 at Best Buy.

What a camera! So far it has been perfect inside, outside, and at night. It’s small, it uses SD cards, which I already had, and it runs on AA batteries. I am in love with how well it fits what I was looking for: cheap, portable, fast, and excellent picture quality.

Anyway, I posted up a bunch of new pictures in my gallery, and the first 17 shots are with the new camera. Check out the new Sep/Oct 2006 pics.

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Vote!

Today is the last day to register to vote in the November 7 elections, for you folks living in North Carolina.

I was pleased to find out that it is now possible to check your voting eligibility at the North Carolina State Board of Elections web site, where you can find out where you are supposed to go to vote, and even see pictures of the facility. Something I’ve had problems with during past elections is that they keep changing where I am supposed to go. I’ll show up one place, then learn I have to go somewhere else.

That should be fixed now with the online information available.

I have always believed that if you don’t vote, you don’t have the luxury of complaining about problems with the government. I know I’ll be voting for change this year, intending to oust the antiquated Charles Taylor in favor of Heath Shuler. And according to a poll released yesterday, Shuler is leading!

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Asheville Tech Relaunch

I’m ready to start taking on more web design clients now that the big push to get FriendsForFamilies.com is over.

I thought I’d take the opportunity to do a redesign of my business site, Asheville Technologies.

I spent a long time trying to come up with a sharp look that remained down-to-earth at the same time. I wanted to emphasize the way I approach web sites, working to make something unique for each client, and building it from the ground-up.

Let me know what you think!

Asheville Technologies

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Web Development News

So…you forgot that this blog used to focus more on web development and the Internet, didn’t you? No? Well I seem to have, so here’s a re-qualifying post to try and get things back on track.

Since I added SeoMoz.org to my regularly-checked RSS feeds, I’ve enjoyed many of the informative posts they have made. Recently, they featured two articles which hit home with me.

How to convince a client their site doesn’t need music was a good one. Web sites that force music upon you really grate on my nerves. Luckily, I have never had to make such a site on purpose or on accident, though I have had people ask. The explanation that usually wins the conversation for me is the one about visitors to a site already having music playing in their speakers. Just hit Myspace on any given day, and discover how annoying it is to have people’s favorite songs start blaring at you when you load their profile.

Along the same lines of client coercion relationships, they posted How to Convince a Client They Don’t Need a Splash Page. Splash pages were cool in 2000, but have since given way to usability and search engine approachability. At least in the parts of the Web where common sense rules, anyway.

My favorite quote from the article:

When we have clients who are thinking about Flash splash pages, we tell them to go to their local supermarket and bring a mime with them. Have the mime stand in front of the supermarket, and, as each customer tries to enter, do a little show that lasts two minutes, welcoming them to the supermarket and trying to explain the bread is on aisle six and milk is on sale today.

In other news, Sitepoint just released a PDF report titled The State of Web Development. The interesting part was that AJAX is quickly gaining popularity (as if I had to tell you that), and looks to overtake Flash within the next couple of years. Wow. From one inaccessible technology to another! This is progress!

At least AJAX isn’t so proprietary.

Lastly, Google announced Google Code Search today, which looks like it could be pretty useful. I haven’t played around with it enough to find out what it can really do, but they say it can find any crawlable code. I doubt this means server-side technology such as PHP, but you could at least use it to find people who have ripped off your WordPress layout.

Oh, speaking of WordPress, ThemePress just launched, which allows you to upload a layout, and converts it to work with WordPress. It costs $10, which sounds pretty reasonable if it works well. I plan on trying it out for TheBestOfYoutube.com soon, so I’ll let you know what I discover.

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The Simpsons, TV, etc

If you are a fan of The Simpsons, you might want to read this. You can now watch every episode of The Simpsons online for free. I don’t know how they are getting away with that, and it might not last very long, but it’s there and working, commercial-free. I never knew how Santa’s Little Helper got his name until last night.

On the TV tip, as the new seasons begin to rev up, I am eagerly awaiting Battlestar Galactica. In the mean time, I am watching the DVD set of Firefly that I acquired from Target for 18 clams. I am digging it, though it saddens me knowing that only one season ever existed…

What are you looking forward to this fall on TV?

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