by Michelle Lentz on August 29, 2008
by Michelle Lentz
Today I found Quarkbase and it makes me uncomfortable.
I’ve never been one for numbers. When it comes to my blogs, I’ve never really cared about my traffic numbers, never installed Google Analytics, never paid a huge amount of attention to my number of subscribers. Why? Because I love to write, and that’s why I have blogs. I am afraid that getting caught up in the numbers will work against me. I’ll start writing to up the numbers, and not because I want to write about something.
So Quarkbase makes me uncomfortable. Type in a URL and it tells you just about everything you ever wanted to know about that web site. It finds biographical information on the owners, if available, as well as traffic, popularity, technical specifications, ranking, Twitter mentions, and more. If you’re trying to figure out whether to advertise on a web site, this is a great tool. I, for one, just wish they offered a tool to keep your web site private.
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Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology.
by Michelle Lentz on August 28, 2008
by Michelle Lentz
I bring this up not because of the political leanings, but because of the charity. I run a charity myself, so I’m sensitive to when others are trying to raise money.
If you think you’ll find yourself watching Obama’s speech tonight, for whatever reason, then have a go at Obama Bingo. It’s a simple and good concept.
1. Pay $10 to play.
2. Pick a charity from the list.
3. Download a special card with a list of randomly generated keywords. The keywords come from a special list of words used frequently in past Obama speeches.
4. The winner – the person who gets Bingo – has a majority of the fund donated to charit
The folks behind Obama-Bingo are donating 75% of the collected fees to the chosen charity. The remaining 25% will cover cover credit card fees, web development and hosting fees. And on the off chance that no one gets BINGO, the collected funds will be distributed equally among all 581 of the charities on their list.
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Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology.
by Alex Ho on August 27, 2008
By Alex Ho
cross posted at www.startupordown.com
The first Mashable Monthly San Francisco event took place last week and packed the whole Roe Restaurant and Lounge. I wasn’t able to make it to the special pre party event for bloggers and press and actually didn’t get to the party until around 9ish but better late, than never. The top floor by that time, was packed with people while the blogger lounge downstairs had a little more breathing room but was not exactly empty either. Don’t these pictures make you wish you were there!
Mr. GQ of San Francisco, Pete Cashmore was the celebrity of the hour of course, here in front of the Mashable/Bub.blicio.us backdrop with Alice, Krystel, and Rana.
Lorna, Andrew, and Vanessa
Krystel, Andrew, and Alice
Awesome Aubrey with two glasses of wine to cure her jetlag back from Beijing.
Morgan and Kaley
More images from the event here
by Brian Solis on August 27, 2008
by Brian Solis
It’s no secret. I’m a huge fan of FriendFeed. It’s the most comprehensive aggregated stream (lifestream or brandstream) application available today and it’s supported by an incredibly active community.
Today the FriendFeed team introduced badges and widgets to spotlight the conversations taking place inside FriendFeed in any blog, social network profile or web page that accepts HTML.
The team also released “share this” on FriendFeed to link your community to your FriendFeed Stream.
Share on FriendFeed
Bret and the FF team, please add the ability to submit messages back to the same services, selectively, from which we can also import.
Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Plurk or Facebook
by Michelle Lentz on August 27, 2008
by Michelle Lentz
I should probably preface this post with something: I’m addicted to Disney. Not Hannah Montana / Jonas Bros Disney, but Pixar / Disney Animiated Classics type of thing. Pop Disney’s animated Robin Hood into the DVD player, and I’m content.
We recently purchased a Sony PS3 – games for my husband and a Blu-Ray player for me. The first Blu-Ray movie I purchased was Disney/Pixar’s Cars. Not only was it an incredibly pretty viewing experience, I had a blast with the special features that were enabled via Blu-Ray technology.
Disney thinks everyone should get on the Blu-Ray bandwagon. Apparently consumers as a whole see no reason to pay $30 for a Blu-Ray movie and upwards of $250 for a player when their current $45 DVD player works just fine and DVD movies can be as low as $5 at some points.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Our TV (as well as the PS3) upconverts, so we are still using our old region-free DVD player in addition to the PlayStation. Our old movies look pretty spectacular. Because my husband and I are both movie buffs, we have countless movies, very few of which I plan to replace with more expensive Blu-Ray discs.
According to the NY Times, Disney is now releasing 5 of its classic movies on Blu-Ray in special “platinum” editions, to help encourage Blu-Ray adoption: Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast, Fantasia, and Fantasia 2000. The special features sound fairly nifty.
All the DVDs will include unusual features geared toward a generation that embraces interactivity and social networking. Viewers can watch a movie in tandem with friends in other locations, while they chat using a laptop or cellphone (the comments appear on the screen).
Viewers will also be able to compete against others around the world at trivia or send what Disney is calling movie mail, video images of themselves that appear within the context of the movie.
I’m trying to remember how I adapted my music so many years ago. My albums are all in storage, and many of them, I’ve replaced with digital versions. Until recently, I’ve always had a CD player that also had a cassette deck, although I gradually stopped listening to the tunes on tapes. I don’t believe I ever replaced them. However, most of my CDs have been ripped or replaced by digital music at this point.
Are you planning to adopt blu-ray? Will be you replacing or just adding to your collection?
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Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology.
