Final prep for the launch of my new blog is underway. At this point I’m just tweaking the design and bit and preparing to make the necessary adjustments to redirect traffic from LifeApps to the new site.
If all goes well, that will happen as early as this evening and as late as Wednesday. Stay tuned, and I hope you like the new site!
First, happy weekend and a quick look at 4 nifty gadgets I stumbled upon this week:
1. Alessi “no hands” watch. Available at Buy.com and other retailers, the Alessi AI3002 features a slick, “handsfree” design: the current hour and minute appear in two distinct openings that rotate around the face of the watch, revealing only a small part of the art work at a time. The watch sells for between $70 and $98, so shop around a bit; here’s a link to it @ Buy.com
2. USB “Robot” 4 port hub. Only $12, this hub features 4 ports which can be rotated 270° for greater flexibility; link to it at gadget4all.com
3. For all you summertime party animals out there, I came across an indoor/outdoor “Party Fridge” by Soleus that’d be just the ticket for entertaining on your patio or deck. It holds 72-12 oz. cans, 48 beer bottles, or up to 36 wine bottles and also features a couple of small fold-out shelves and two wire wine caddies. Other features include a digital temperature controller and a tempered glass cover so your guests can see what beverages are inside. Drinks will stay cold for up to 10 hours after the unit is unplugged. All this goodness comes in a 20″ diameter by 32″ high package and costs ~$349. Available at a number of retailers; click on this link for the listing at amazon.com Party on!
4. Finally, a neat and extremely simple way to display photos that’s perfect for a dorm room, cubicle at work, or perhaps in a family or rec room: the “magnetic photo rope.” The 43″ long thin steel cable comes with 8 very strong neodymium magnets with which you can attach your photos. Its simplicity encourages changing the photos frequently, and you can hang it just about anywhere. It’s $12 + shipping (or 2 for $20, 3 for $28) @ photojojo… check it out - it’d make a great gift for just about anyone on your list.
4 Hour Work Week guru Tim Ferriss’s blog featured a guest post yesterday by Dr. Michael Eades regarding the remarkable health benefits of krill oil. Like fish oil, krill contains both of the omega-3 fats, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA), but they are hooked together in a manner that mirrors the structure of the fats in our own cell walls. The result is that these healthy fats are much more absorbable than is the case with fish oil. In addition, Dr. Eades writes of krill oil’s antioxiant and anti-inflammatory qualities. Follow this link to the article. Amazon.com carries krill oil, by the way, - I had a gift certificate on hand and ordered a bottle on Thursday. If I have anything remarkable to report about it, you’ll see it here.
A post over by Tage Aaker at Glimmerick focuses on 4 tips for remembering names. Good advice if you’ve ever struggled to recall acquaintances’ or coworkers’ names.
Darren Rowse @ the superb ProBlogger blog offers up some excellent suggestions for Twitter newbies in his post, “Twitter for Beginners - 5 Things to Do as a New Twitter User.”
Finally, and this definitely falls under the category of internet time wasters, there’s Wordle, recently featured at makeuseof.com this morning. In their words, “Wordle is a unique web application that lets you specify a RSS feed or a specific block of text. Wordle then uses that information to create a word cloud.” Here are links to Wordle, and the post at makeuseof.com And here’s the word cloud Wordle generated for this blog… it works!:
Have a great weekend!
Image: Rodrigo Muniz @ Flickr
Hi, my name is Kevin and I was an English major.
Worse yet, I actually taught high school English for a few years before going to grad school and subsequently entering the business world. These things, coupled with my love for the language, has made me a bit of a purist when it comes to grammar and usage; I’m sure there’s some sort of 12 step program for folks like me.
Every day I cringe when I hear newscasters mangle the language - or see typos in the crawlers at the bottom of the screen on CNN and other networks, or in the local newspaper.
Worse yet, some of my acquaintances routinely misuse common words and expressions. Particularly popular around here are “That’s a mute point,” “irregardless,” and a weird Nebraskan colloquialism, “That needs (fixed) (revised) (painted.)” What happened to the words “to be” in this sentence?? e.g., “That needs to be fixed,” etc. I don’t get it.
Yesterday a colleague, knowing I have an issue with poor grammar and usage, sent me a list of 41 common misuses of words and expressions compiled by the staff at JustSell.com. Here it is in its entirety… please, if you are making any of these mistakes, try to avoid them in the future:
So you’ve booked a flight from Charlotte to Los Angeles, traveling coach, and get on the aircraft only to discover your seat doesn’t recline… or that you’re seated near the lavatory… brilliant! Fortunately there’s a terrific online resource to help you avoid this type of situation.
If you’re a frequent traveler and haven’t checked out SeatGuru, you’re missing out on a great resource for understanding where you want - and definitely don’t want - to be seated on any aircraft!
The site uses a simple color-coded diagram of aircraft interiors to indicate the desirability of different seats, as well as the location of the lavs, galley, exit rows, bulkheads, and closets:
When booking your flights, all you need to do is capture what aircraft you’re flying - which is usually quite easy:
…and then toggle over to SeatGuru to check out the desirability of the available seats. (Virtually every airline and aircraft are listed on the site.)
In addition, contact information, baggage requirements and related information are listed for every airline.
Another neat feature, should you wish to use it, is the site’s “Booking Buddy.” which enables you to compare fares offered by a number of discount fare providers:
I’ve used the site for years, and it’s very handy and helpful. Bookmark it and try it the next time you’re (or your agent) is booking flights (click on their logo at the top of this post to go to the site.) It’ll give you a much better shot at sitting in as good a location as possible. Now if they could just develop the technology to ensure that you’re not sitting near a crying infant…. 
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If you’re a wine enthusiast and haven’t sampled wine.woot yet, you definitely ought to check it out. Brought to you by those wonderfully wacky folks from woot.com, wine.woot features one wine deal (usually two or three bottles) per week at very attractive pricing - until it sells out. Shipping is a flat $5 during most of the year, but $7 during the summer to expedite things a bit during the warmer months. You can buy up to three of whatever’s offered each week, and the shipping remains the flat $5 or $7, regardless of your order quantity.
The wineries featured are usually smaller California operations. Here’s wine.woot’s description of what they’re about:
If you’re just getting hip to the whole wine trip, we’ll be offering a variety of premium, ultra-premium, and mega-super-premium wines from known wineries. Most of the time, anyway. On the rare occasion that we uncork some off-brand rotgut, we’ll tell you. And we just might throw the odd wine accessory at you, if we’re feeling puckish.
The prices are generally quite attractive - but be warned, once they’re out of stock, they’re out. And you can’t go back after the woot and buy more.
This week’s offering is from Brian Benson: a Syrah two pack priced at $41.99 + the $7 for shipping. The wines are the Denner Vineyard 2004 and 2005 Syrah, and they sell for $22 and $35 respectively on the Benson website… so the savings are substantial.
I’ve ordered from wine.woot several times and have never had an issue with delivery or quality.
Part of the wine.woot fun is the irreverent descriptions of the wines, wine.woot customers, and wine.woot itself. Customers and browsers are active participants in a lively forum - which is usually joined by the winemaker or one of his/her representatives.
Go ahead if you’re even a little adventurous - visit the site and join the fun. Sign up as a “labrat” and in addition to your order (you have to order by 10AM on Tuesday to qualify) and you may be selected to receive an additional free bottle overnighted to you - with the expectation that you’ll review the wine in the forum. Check it out - just make sure you bring a credit card and your sense of humor! Click on the button below to go directly to wine.woot:
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Do you have favorite websites and blogs that you visit frequently? Would you like to get updates from those favorite sites - including LifeApps, I would hope - all in one place, and when you prefer?
That’s what RSS feeds do. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it enables you to discover what’s new on your favorite sites without having to visit each one. Millions of users have discovered the advantages that RSS offers over old fashioned bookmarking:
As regular readers know, we had a few tornadoes touch down in our town on May 29th. As a result, we were without power for several hours and cell phone service was also knocked out. A radio would have been really handy so we could get some sense of the damage and whether we were still at risk.
Since then I’ve purchased a small hand crank powered AM/FM radio/flashlight. Crank it for a minute, and it’ll be powered up for 10 minutes. It features a 4 LED flashlight, AM/FM radio, and should you need it, a 125 decibel siren. Fully charged, it’ll run for 3-1/2 hours…
First, another terrific performance from the Clapton 1996 Hyde Park concert - a spirited rendition of “I Shot The Sheriff” with some great interplay between EC and drummer Steve Gadd…
If you’re a Clapton fan and don’t own this DVD, it’s well worth it!
Should Small Businesses Whine? is a great little post about Seth Godin’s experience with a small affiliate of amazon.com and their approach to customer service - and understanding customers. Funny and sad.
Eagle Creek All-Terrain Money Belt - this is actually an older post/review from Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools, but I never got around to linking to it before. If you’re a road warrior this money belt with a plastic buckle (read: TSA) is very slick.
A great recipe (and video) on how to make “easy and cheap” homemade bread from Get Rich Slowly. Don’t click on this link if you’re at all hungry!
6 Tactics for Staying Sane When You Are Unemployed from Organize IT… regrettably enough, in this economy this good advice for more and more people. Worth a read even if you’ve got plenty of job security.
Martha Cooper: The Hip Hop Files is a fascinating look at former NY Post photographer Martha Cooper’s work documenting graffiti artists and the early hip hop scene.
The new blog is progressing really nicely - I made a lot of progress this week and have no doubt that I’ll launch it by the end of the month. If you’re a subscriber (or not, for that matter) email me if you’d like a sneak peek.
Thanks for visiting; have a great week!
Image: "Carpe Diem" by fantartsy JJ
Ever find yourself attempting to solve a vexing problem and feeling blocked mentally? Need to brainstorm a solution to a product design, marketing problem or even a personal issue but feel you’ve run out of creative steam?
Don’t just slog away, hoping that inspiration will somehow magically come to you! There are a number of techniques that have been used successfully by individuals and small groups to get their creative juices flowing - and best of all, they’re free and relatively easy!
Image: bonked producer
If you’re buying a new car, there is one thing you absolutely must NOT do: do not, under any circumstances, agree to purchase any dealer installed options. Let me quickly point out that I’m not referring to items like spoilers or audio equipment, although you ought to be careful there as well. I’m referring to dealer options like…
A lot has happened since my first post back on February 9th: I’ve learned a great deal, met some terrific people, and I hope have written some things which are of interest to you. In spite of its eclecticism, the blog has done reasonably well - with about 10,000 hits per month it’s currently ranked (last week, anyway) in the top ~300,000 websites in the world, and has a growing subscriber base.
About 8 weeks ago I mentioned my desire to move to a new site with a totally new domain. One of my biggest concerns as I contemplate that move is to not lose the search engine traffic that LifeApps is generating. I now think I’ve figured out how to address that issue, and am ~95% confident I’ve determined the graphical look of the new site.
So…. I’ll be doing some final testing in the next week or so, and I believe the new site will be operational by the end of July, if not sooner.
Stay tuned, and thanks for visiting!
Veteran New Orleans bluesman Bryan Lee performing with KWS, Hubert Summerlin, and Double Trouble - from January, 2008.
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Ever wonder what auto detailers use to clean glass - or interiors - or wheels? Or how they get that spectacular show-car shine? A few years ago I became moderately obsessed with detailing and began frequenting detailing forums and experimenting with products the pros recommended. In this post I’ll cover some of the favorite tips and tricks I’ve gleaned from conversations with detailers and the detailing forums; best of all, some of the products they use are readily available locally!
A terrific rundown by Joel Falconer… from debt reduction to automating your tax records, there’s something here for every reader!
My wife has been trying to develop an idea for a new product for some time. Frustrated by how wrinkled a single article of clothing can get when it’s put in the clothes dryer by itself, she’s been trying to identify some sort of solution. Each time she mentions this idea I say something like, “Why don’t you just throw a clean towel or two in the dryer along with it?” …which brings me to the subject of today’s post.
In a recent links roundup I mentioned seeing an ad or post for “paper shampoo” and mentioned I’d order a package and would review it. As promised…
Image: pohutakawa2008
This is a follow-up to one of my first posts, 4 essential sites for anyone considering relocating. If you’re considering relocating or are trying to identify your perfect retirement location, these sites will be of great help:
