Halloween D.I.Y Project

Happy Haloween!

Halloween D.I.Y Project: Make Your Own Zombie

Lifehack is awesome!

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How long does new and shiny last?

I just wanted to maintain my network of friends and colleagues, and make some new connections along the way.

Last night on the way home from work my girlfriend said she was bored with facebook. She isn’t interested in the applications. She doesn’t want to superpoke, zombify, share-a-drink, garden, whatever-else-you-can-do-now…

The fun was in finding old friends, building new connections, and sharing embarrassing photos. Increasingly it seems facebook users are being turned into lobbyists for their interests, hell bent on converting all of us into drunk aquarium-owning zombies of web 2.0. AAACH! I SAID IT!

I have been noticing that more and more of my friends’ profiles are looking myspace-esque. The clean and functional design that originally drew me to the site seems to be fading fast.

One friend of mine has managed to rig up her profile with just about every single widjet/application/quiz/poll imaginable. The result is the ugliest page I have seen since I stumbled upon MIA’s myspace. WTF...Seriously, WTF.

I love the whole power-to-the-people ideal, but why do people have to use their newfound power to create something so damn butt-ugly. The real killer-app for facebook would be an optimizer. It would take a critical look at your profile, all the applications you’ve installed, and then reorganize and format the page to be reasonable.

That, or maybe it could just uninstall the stupid things altogether.

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Hacking Ads?

I Hate Love Hate Love respond with strong emotions to advertising. Bad advertising will make me change the channel in an instant, really bad advertising makes me turn of the TV or radio.

Apple, love em or hate em, make some reasonably cool ads. I was floored to learn a new television ad for their iPod touch was actually a tweaked fan-ad found on Youtube.

Here's the video:

As a believer in empowering people and celebrating success I applaud Apple for making a great move.

AdHack opened my eyes and mind to DIY advertising, although I've always been one to ask "real people" rather than trust a marketeer. It's exciting to see something they've been evangelizing produce such great results.

Their post on the subject links to Digg comments as kind of a proof-of-concept. Man, I like it when Mondays make me happy.

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Bringing Web-apps back to the Desktop - Prism

When I first started learning about web applications I was super excited that my workflow could be unshackled from my computer. I loved them, except for when explorer/firefox/flock/safari crashed while I was browsing another tab.

Mozilla, brilliant folks that they are, has given us an awesome solution.Rather than needing to use a web browser to get to your web-app, prism, well, here's what they say:

Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.

Mozilla Labs Blog » Blog Archive » Prism

I'm stoked on this because I use a boatload of web applications - stuff like the google calendar, gmail, facebook. Really, it's like one of those annoying popup interfaces but rather than popping up out of a website beyond my control, I get to choose what resides inside or outside my browser. I'm a big fan of me running my own show, and a huge fan of others enabling it.

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Marketing and Communicating and Relating to the Public

Now that I'm in marketing and communications I thought I should shoutout a cool marcom/pr group. They are cool, and they fit with the duties of the day:

The DesmogBlog.

oh, and happy action day everyone.

Green Hosting?

OK, I’ll confess, I’m a bit of a greenie. I spend more time and money to buy vegetables for the week by going to a farmers market. I unplug things, turn other things off… You know, all the little things that maybe offset my disgustingly wasteful western ways a bit. But as a tech nut I know my lifestyle has a gigantic footprint thanks to power-consumption and that strange “need” to have an up-to-date computer/cell/laptop/etc.

I’ve gotten on the e-cycling train by donating my older (only slightly) tech to charities, but I always wondered about websites and hosting. I’ve seen server rooms and they certainly aren’t a natural kind of space. Is all of that energy consumption really a step forward from the world of paper?

I’d just like to thank:

http://www.ethicalhost.ca

http://www.aiso.net/

http://www.greenesthost.com/

and others for bringing a bit of tree-hugging hippy back into the mix.

Thanks.