I Spy…

I just found a great new resource from Adobe called Kuler (pronounced Color). I say new because it’s new to me but it looks as though it’s been around for quite a while.

Basically it’s a mini site within Adobe that was built to help use pick the right colors for our projects. With a list of over 100,000 palettes and themes to choose from, it’s a great place to start when your looking to find a color scheme for any project.

I know I will be using this a lot in the future. Thanks Adobe.

http://kuler.adobe.com/

A Million Little Pictures is offering everyone the chance to contribute to their new project which involves collecting a million little pictures and then showcasing them in a town that has yet to be decided.

Basically, you send them $16 and they send you back a disposable camera. You then take your shots with the camera, anything in the category or theme of “adventures” and then send the camera back to them. The photos will then be included in the exhibit. If that was not enough, they are also going to pick the town to hold the exhibition in based on the number of people who participate from that town or city.

I am really curious how this will work out, not only the photos that will be taken but also which town or city will win.

Check back here for more information or just visit their funky site:

http://www.amillionlittlepictures.com/

Fixmymovie.com is one of the few sites using the new technology released by Adobe in their latest flash player. Without getting too technical it basically allows for much better quality for your videos. This means that eventually we will see better videos on places like YouTube and other video sites. In addition to using this new technology, Fixmymovie.com also fixes other aspects of your movies such as lighting, colour and pixelation making your videos look better. Below is a sample movie I created this weekend with my phone (nokia N70) to document the fact that we had no water on both Saturday and Sunday afternoon due to poor pressure at our new house.

If you have movies that need fixing then you may want to jump over to FixMyMovie.com

To see a sample video and my opinion of the service, just click the “continue reading” link.

Continue reading »

For anyone reading this that does not have a blog of their own you may as well skip this entry.

A new service was just launched a few days ago that can help increase the amount of traffic you get to your website. Basically it’s a plugin that you add to your site just like the one you can see on the right hand side of this site. It will display news from other sites similar to your own and in return for each view your site will be featured in someone else’s site. It’s a little like virtual Karma for bloggers. It’s still very new and we will have to wait and see how well it does but if the first few days are any indication I think they’ll do just fine. I think nearly 15,000 people signed up on the first day alone.

If anyone would like to sign up and give it a go you can use the link below:

http://www.blogrush.com/

Here is a gadget that I wish was already on the market. It’s a Smoke Alarm that also detects Carbon Monoxide. You might be thinking this is not that special and not really worth an entry here but wait there is more.

The “Home Hero” also has a few other features that make it worthy. First it can connect to other alarms you may have installed in the house so when one goes off they all go off. The second is something I really like and that’s a human voice with instructions on what to do next in addition to the alarm. This way you will know whether it’s a fire or perhaps carbon monoxide. It also has a history of each alarm and when it went off. Perhaps you went away for the weekend and didn’t know there had been a small fire while you were away. No word on a price yet and it’s technically not for sale yet. I will keep this space updated with a price as soon as I get one.

Until then you can visit them online and find out more or even sign up to be notified once they do become available.

http://homehero.net/smokeAlarm.html

Do you hate automated call centers as much as I do? Press 1 for this option, press 2 for that option. JUST GIVE ME A HUMAN TO TALK TOO ALREADY! Well so does a man named Paul English who created a database of numbers you can call withing large corporations that will get you to a real human directly. I recently lost my phone and need to make a claim on my insurance and could have used this database.

The database not only has a list of numbers to call directly but also a map on how to get through the maze of options quickly and be redirected to a real person.

This is a great resource to have available for those times you just want to talk to a real person.

http://gethuman.com/

Well it looks like Apple has finally realized that it’s not cool to punish the people who buy first. I have long thought that Apple actually expects people to pay more to have something first. It’s a sort of geek tax that true apple fans have to pay in order to be the first person to own any “new” apple product. But now Steve Jobs has finally said he’s sorry and that true apple fans should be rewarded and not punished.

So what does Apple do for all it’s early iPhone customers? They are all eligible to receive a $100 rebate to help and make up for a $200 drop after only 5 weeks on the shelf. I guess you still have to pay some sort of geek tax of about $100 but at least they are trying.

“We need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price,” he said. “Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.”

Steve Jobs

For more on the story visit the article by the associated press:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070906/D8RG7O7G0.html

Now I have not tried this one yet but it does look pretty cool. Basically you upload a photo of a child and they place the child into one of a number of story books, based on the one you choose.

I remember getting a book once that had my name in the book as the main character. It was a customized book that replaced the name of the lead character with your name for a fee. At the time I thought it was pretty neat. Even though I could totally see the different font used for my name than that of the rest of the story. This is like the next version of that I guess.

The books themselves can be ordered and customized online for $32.95 and they also sell other gifts to go along with the books. So let’s say you have a nephew who loves pirates and you place him and his photo in a story about pirates, you could also send him the same pirate hat that he would be wearing in the book as a bonus gift. I love the idea of this and will probably be sending one to someone for a birthday or even Christmas.

http://www.flattenme.com/

The wonderful and amazing people at Engadget are giving away 100 gadgets in just one week. They are having 4 giveaway rounds a day, one every 6 hours and each round will have 3 groovy prizes based to coolness. It’s very easy to get your name on each giveaway list, basically you just need to leave a comment. Your only allowed to enter once per giveaway. Be sure to check back every 6 hours and get your name on the new list.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/03/the-hundred-gadget-giveaway-starts-midnight-tonight/

This is pretty amazing stuff actually. I just love flight simulators. I could spend all day just flying around. Now Google has hidden a nice little easter egg inside the latest version of Google earth. In addition to the high publicized google sky allowing you to see the stars and constellations but now we find a full blown flight simulator.

Here is how you can activate the flight simulator:

Press Ctrl+Alt+A (Windows)
Command+Option+A (Mac OSX)

For more information you can visit the site below:

Marco’s Blog
Some people have reported that Ctrl+A or Ctrl+Windows+A work when the standard Ctrl+Alt+A does not)