Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:15:50 GMT
Cool Yule
Christmas is one month away as of today. I"m stunned, to be honest. I really can"t believe that the year is almost over (life is moving so fast that I almost feel like it"s flashing before my eyes!)
Given the symmetry of the date, I"ve chosen today to launch my holiday gift guide series that I"m calling Cool Yule. Anyone can toss a bottle of wine in gift bag and make a gracious offering; however, giving gifts that are on trend and show off your good taste is so much better, don"t you think?
At about $300 I"ve chosen a high ticket item to kick off Cool Yule 2009; however, it"s just so perfect for the oenephile (that"s a wine lover, btw) on your list. This wine essence set features 40 aroma flasks that can be used to help train your nose and isolate the aromas in wine.
Besides being a great gift for a wine lover, it"s also fun to pull out at a wine tasting, so if you"re planning one during the holidays, it might make a good gift for yourself, too.
Smaller kits featuring 12 aromas commonly noted in white or red wine are also available at a considerably lower price.
Contact Browne & Co. in Canada for information on availability in your area.
Posted by: danamccauley Read more Source
Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:09:50 GMT
Checkout Planet Eye Traveler
©
Nathaniel KSThere"s a new online travel magazine on the block:
Planet Eye Traveler.
At Planet Eye you can explore inspiring travel photos from around the world, expert reviews from our writers in major travel destinations, interactive maps to help you plan your next trip, and fresh new content every day.
In addition to the launch of our PlanetEye Traveler, we are also excited to introduce the new version of our popular
PlanetEye Travel Maps.
In this latest update we re-designed the interface, switched from an unwieldy Flash engine to the Google Maps API, and optimized the speed with which we can retrieve and visualize travel information.
Check it out at
PlanetEye Traveler.
Posted by: Lisa Read more Source
Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:59:27 GMT
Goldstein and Dargis
"It"s an open secret in indie Hollywood that no one wants Manohla Dargis to review their movie, fearing that the outspoken critic will tear their film limb from limb," blogs the Los Angeles Times" Patrick Goldstein. "What causes so much fear and loathing in the filmmaking community about Manohla"s work as a critic isn"t her blunt appraisals but her seeming lack of empathy for the challenge of tackling difficult material."
My first reaction: Since when has empathy for the filmmaker - varying degrees of the stuff, too, evidently depending on the nature of the project s/he takes on - been part of the critic"s job description? Turns out, I"m not alone.
Posted by: dwhudson Read more Source
Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:44:47 GMT
Domyos Gym in a Box
A complete gym in a box, the DIS is serious business. Instead of encouraging players to lower their "Fit Age", the system challenges you to an intense workout via an exercise mat, gloves for martial arts challenges, and a bike attachment. For those seeking a group sweat, fitness fanatics can attach more exercise mats.
The best part about the DIS is that it"s console-less. Players simply plug the DIS into their television, insert one of the cartridges and viola, you"re doing Olivia Newton John and Richard Simmons proud.
Retailing for £ 39.95 or $58.92 in U.S. dollars, the Domyos Interactive System is ready to whip you into shape.
Via Coolest Gadgets
Posted by: Sarah Read more Source
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:01:20 GMT
Successful Entrepreneur
Entrepreneur took a look a couple of weeks ago at what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur and the piece has floated around in my mind for a time now.
Author James Stephenson lists 25 common characteristics of successful entrepreneurs for the article. (It's actually an excerpt from his book, the Ultimate Home Based Business Handbook.) Some of those characteristics are obvious and we talk about them a lot: successful entrepreneurs do something they enjoy, successful entrepreneurs take what they do seriously, successful entrepreneurs management money wisely.
Some of the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur don't get as much attention. Successful entrepreneurs use technology. Successful entrepreneurs make themselves accessible. Successful entrepreneurs become known as experts.
It's an interesting list. You can look through all 25 list items
here.
©
fauxto_digit
Posted by: Greg Cruey Read more Source
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:54:26 GMT
Heh, heh....what?
Sent to me by an anonymus hedge fund investor;
An investor hands a hedge fund manager a £10 note.
"Get me a drink. If I like your choice, I'll buy the drinks all night" says the investor.
The hedge fund manager shrugs and orders them a pint of Guinness each.
The barman pours the drinks, takes the cash, and then tells the hedge fund manager "You should have bought vodka instead."
"Really? Why vodka instead of Guinness?" asks the manager.
"More transparency, greater liquidity," replies the barman.
Too late! The investor had already exited.....
Posted by: Alex Akesson Read more Source
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:47:23 GMT
Xtrabold 2009
Nelson Balaban Jr., A.K.A. Xtrabold just dropped a fresh new update with works for Oakley, Honda, Sony Ericsson and various others.
Posted by: Diego Quintana Read more Source
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:16:37 GMT
Plug Your Phone Into My Coffee Cup?
If you"re like me, you"ve at some point wondered why nobody thought to include "standard" electrical outlets in your car. The bad news is that there"s no solid answer to this question. The good news is that someone out there with more technical knowledge (and motivation) has decided to do something about it.
Calling it the Coffee Cup Inverter, this conveniently shaped power source coverts your car"s DC power into two 120-volt AC outlets just like on your walls at home.
Perhaps even more clever is the fact that it"s shaped just a like a cup of java from your favorite drive-thru window so as to fit nicely in your car"s cup holder.
Perfect for powering or charging portable game consoles, cell phones, and iPods or even to plug in and watch television during the camping trip. It also has a USB charging port providing 500mA.
It sells for around $29 and the only question that remains is. Why didn"t I think of that?
Posted by: Jeff Read more Source
Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:26:31 GMT
75 reasons why the Android platform is about to sweep the world
For the past few months I’ve been living with a selection of Android handsets, different makes, models and network owners. The HTC Hero, The T-Mobile Pulse, the HTC Magic and from my experience of this new computing platform I’m going to predict that Android is destined to be the biggest thing to hit computing since Windows hit the PC. Yes it’s that big.
It’s not that these early products exhibit anything spectacular in the way of features, applications or style, in fact quite the opposite. Apart from the occasional stand-out such as the free turn-by-turn GPS navigation included with Android 2.0, the releases have to date been fairly ordinary, workable and fun, but not mind-blowing. Much of what we’re seeing is just catch up to the iPhone, which is hardly world shaking stuff (Motorola’s Droid included!).
No, it’s not the current situation that is so exciting, it’s the promise of the platform that is starting to grab people’s attention. The main thing is the Google of course. Attach the name of the hottest tech company in the universe to a raw hamburger and you could IPO the company for a billion tomorrow, so the fact that Google is so publicly supporting, guiding and driving development of this platform has literally set the tech arena alight.
If you want a comparison, just look how hard it’s been for good old Palm, another great name from yesteryear, to drive the sales of the Pre phone to date. Or look at how fast Android has eclipsed the stalwart but extremely stodgy Symbian and Windows Mobile phone systems and it’s clear that there are more forces at work here than just technical ability. One of the keys to this rapid take-up of course is Google’s focus on open systems. Compare and contrast this with the traditional closed wall attitude of Apple and the rest of the mobile phone industry and suddenly the possibilities are endless.
Sure, it’s not completely open. Android may be based on Linux and Java roots, but the crucial Dalvik virtual machine interface is definitely not completely open source, yet. But the whole platform is still a heck of a lot more open than anything else out there right now. And crucially, oh so crucially, Google gets the Web. Better than just about anyone around, and like it or not, the world is moving to a web-centric milieu, where networked technology serves as the backbone for every day functionality. Web applications like Google Docs, Internet communications like Skype and Google Voice, location aware services like Google Maps. Can we spot a trend here?
And to top it all off, Google loves engineers. They respect developers, nurture them, speak to them, encourage them (mostly!). Watch out as the 10,000 applications for the platform literally explodes over the next year, to catch and surpass all but the Windows PC platform. The reason for this is the fact that Google don’t hold all the strings to this development effort. Open Source drives its own agenda, and once developers get wind of a potential gold mine, they’ll jump on in force, and then we’ll see how open vs closed works in realtime.
The driving force for all this action of course will be the massive increase of devices using the Android system which we can expect to see arrive over the coming 12 months. And so here’s a list of the 75 devices now available or which will arrive very shortly.
The Android Phone List [source] (bold = available now!)
Acer Liquid – A1 – November 28th
Compulab Exeda
Dell Ophone mini3i – Benzine
Geek Phone One – December
General Mobile DSTL1
Haier H7
HKC Pearl
HighScreen PP5420
HTC Click – Fiesta – Tattoo
HTC Desire 6200 – Verizon Droid Eris
HTC Dragon – Zoom 2 – Passion
HTC Dream – T-Mobile G1
HTC Hero – G2 Touch
HTC Lancaster
HTC Magic – Sapphire – T-Mobile myTouch 3G – Google Ion – Dopod A6188
HTC Predator
Huawei U8220 – T-Mobile Pulse
Huawei U8230
Innocomm Skate
Kogan Agora
Koolu Freerunner – Openmoko GTA02
Lenovo O1 Ophone
LG Etna
LG GW620 Eve
LG GW880
Motorola Calgary
Motorola Devour
Motorola Droid – Sholes – Tao – Milestone
Motorola Heron
Motorola MB200
Motorola MB300
Motorola Morrison – Cliq – DEXT
Motorola Motus – 2010
Motorola Sholes Tablet – 2010
Motorola Zeppelin – 2010
Philips V808
Qigi i6
Saygus VPhone V1 – 2010
Samsung Behold 2 T939 – November 18th
Samsung Bigfoot
Samsung Galaxy i7500
Samsung Galaxy Lite i5700 – Spica – November
Samsung Houdini
Samsung m850 Q
Samsung Moment – InstinctQ m900
Samsung Saturn i6500 – 2010
Sciphone N12
Sciphone N16
Sciphone N17
Sciphone N19
Sciphone N21
Sony Ericsson Sunny
Sony Ericsson XPERIA x10 – Rachael – Infinity – January 2010
Sunno S880
Tiger G3
ZTE Android
Non-Phone Devices
Alex Android eReader
Archos 5 Internet Tablet
Barnes & Noble Nook
Cloud Telecomputers Glass
Creative Zii Egg
Dell Streak
ENT ET-M4301
enTourage eDGe – February 2010
eviGroup Wallet MID
GiiNii Movit Maxx
GiiNii Movit Mini
Hard Kernel ORDROID
Mio MiBuddy
RAmos T11
Shenzhen Eston HD ENT N97
Spring Alex
Skytone Alpha 680
SMiT Android MID-560
Touch Revolution NIMble
If we remember that the very first device was introduced a mere 13 months ago, the speed and scale of the adoption starts to become apparent. And note that it’s not just mobile phones we’re seeing here, but also a growing range of other devices such as digital picture frames, media players, set top boxes and beyond. We may be on the verge of witnessing the start of the infamous ubiquitous computing platform era that has been promised since the start of the micro-computer revolution.
I’ll leave you with anecdotal evidence of how things are going to change over the next few years. Just about everyone I’ve shown Android too have said 2 things in quick succession –
a) “Ooh, that’s nice, looks just like an iPhone”.
b) “Oooh, I want one”.
And this from people who are not trend setters, fashion conscious or interested in keeping up with the crowd. They are just impressed by the feature set and ease of use of the device itself. We owe a huge – huge! – debt of gratitude to Mr Jobs and Apple for showing the world how to make mobile phones which could be ‘smarter’ and still have bags of style and fondle appeal, but maybe the baton is about to be passed to a more open platform where the promise of mobile computing can ripen properly as it should? Time will tell!
Posted by: Redferret Read more Source
Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:39:36 GMT
Increase Website Traffic through Pay Per Click
Pay Per Click or PPC is a web marketing strategy in which a particular product or service is advertised in relevant websites or directly on search engines. PPC is a comparatively cheap means of promoting one's business since the advertiser pays only when visitors click on the advertisement.
How Pay Per Click Functions
The basic idea behind PPC is that the advertiser contacts a search engine and bids upon the keywords or key phrases relevant to his or her business. The one who offers to pay the highest gets listed higher. The bidder can specify the geographic region, type of sites and time of ad placement.
Each time a visitor clicks on the keyword, the advertisement is displayed and the advertiser is liable for payment. When a visitor enters an ad domain, there are chances of the individual becoming a potential customer. Another way of pay per click advertising is by seeking out hose sites that rank high in specific keywords. However, you must ensure that the keywords on these sites are related to the product on your site. If not, then your visitors will not feel the need to visit your website and your advertisement will become redundant.
Once you find the pertinent keywords, bid on the most effective ones. In this way you will be able to gear greater traffic to your website. Once the traffic is converted, making the visitor your customer solely depends on your website’s content.
Pay Per Click Services is the best way of increasing website traffic for several reasons, such as:
- It displays links only in relevant websites or when relevant content is displayed on the page.
- It is cost-effective and produces instant results.
- It facilitates measurement of approximate rise in profit and sales.
Tips to Ensure Pay Per Click Success
- Keywords – The more competitive a keyword, the more expensive your clicks will be. Also, ensure that you keep up to the requisite keyword count.
- Clarity of selling point – What do have to offer? Why are your products better than your competitor? These should be mentioned in the opening paragraph itself.
- Language – Ensure that your advertisement explains the product or service in short, crisp sentences. Also, make sure that there are no grammatical errors which might put you website in an unfavorable light.
The following are some tips to be kept in mind to make Pay Per Click a success, these are:
Posted by: Heather Read more Source
