Tag: Tech

Ever get a spam direct message from a friend’s twitter account? I bet you are kind enough to alert them. But make sure you don’t alert them in the wrong way. Simply stating that his/her twitter account is sending spam…

The double-edge funny meaning behind this strip: 1) The internet is so new and different! What a difference 20 years makes. In 1993 Calvin was looking forward to what the internet could bring. He exclaims, “Pretty soon, computers, telephones, and…

For fun, try having a phone conversation where both of the phones are on mute. Earlier today, I called up our Tribune Tech Support to fix a problem on my Windows computer. While he remotely took over my computer and…

If you include the words “Bruce Banner” in a tweet, you could end up having a twitter conversation with @RealBruceBanner. I tweeted a picture of my shirt with a ripped elbow and said, “Do you think Bruce Banner ever learned…

What do all these logos have in common? They are all designed by Ruth Kedar of Kedar Designs. Notice how all the logos are very pointy. The sharp pointy aspects of Google’s logo has always been awkward. The serif on…

If your company is desperate for new customers, you would probably respond to customer inquiries, right? Quark was the king of the design layout world in the 1990s. Every single professional designer used QuarkXPress for layouts. However, in 1999 Adobe…

Translate some lyrics in English and translate them into Japanese and back into English. You end up with some pretty funny results. The Pledge of Allegiance ends up becoming: “United States of America of flag to and that I swears…

Connected cars talking to each other through tail lights? Engadget reports: Smarter headlights could guide you out of a rainstorm, but intelligent tail lights could enable communication between vehicles. At least, that’s the idea behind a collaborative Connected Vehicle Safety…

From “Principles of composition” 1915 by Percy Holmes Boynton: A hundred years ago it took so long and cost so much to send a letter that it seemed worth while to put some time and thought into writing it. Now…

(Calvin and Hobbes comic strip courtesy of Gocomics.) I love how Calvin and Hobbes reruns bring back the past. Take a look at the first line, “I think we should get an answering machine.” Oh, the days of deciding to…

The 15-year-old blogging platform Xanga is about to shut down. To revive the site, they are asking users for $48/year. However, Xanga demonstrated three things not to do when asking for money. 1) Don’t use two spaces after periods. My…

Yahoo’ stock has gone from $15 to $25 in the past year. Why would that happen? All Yahoo does is delete my questions on Yahoo Answers. The reason for the rise in the Yahoo stock price is because they are…

Have you ever gone to ask.com? Ever? I never have. Amazingly, ask.com is the 30th most visited website on the internet! That’s right. Alexa ranks ask.com at #30. ask.com is ranked higher than tumblr at #32. Really? More people go…

Yahoo Answers is like the Wild West for questions. You can ask anything; and the general public answers your questions. With the general public giving answers, you get a range of helpful answers to completely stupid youtube-like responses. It’s a…

Yahoo deleted my question, “Why do ewoks like croquet?” Everyone knows that ewoks love to play the game of croquet. They are woodland creatures, croquet only makes sense for them to play in their habitat. Ewoks are also extremely playful.…

Can you do this in Instagram? Put notes on top of other people’s photos? No. You cannot do that in Instagram. But you can do it in Flickr. There’s many different ways you can ask your fans to leave notes.…

In my six years on twitter I have used smiley 🙂 136 times; frowny 3 times. ow.ly/jUxbi #twitterarchive thanks @jorisl — Matt Maldre (@spudart) April 9, 2013 I like that ratio. 97.8% of the time I’m smiley. Most twitter analysis…

Good ol’ Earthlink. Back in the late 1990’s Earthlink was one of the top internet service providers. Chances are you or someone you know used Earthlink to connect to the internet. Today most people use Comcast or AT&T. Blah. Such…

When i’m on the phone, instead of doodling, sometimes i like to type random repetitive letters. The f and j fit together rather nicely: Yes, these are all hand-typed. There are ten ff’s, 23 jj’s, and 389 fj’s. Photoshop says…

It’s surprising how many websites put silly limits on what your password can be. For instance, character length. Why limit people to 12 or 14 characters? If I want my password to be 18 characters long, let it be 18…

My favorite website and iphone app are being killed by Google. That would be Google Reader. Don’t know what Google Reader is? Or maybe you heard of it, but aren’t sure what it was good for. Then check out my…

Imagine our country if everyone knew how to program or code. I cover this topic on my publishing and syndication blog, “Programming should be taught in all schools to all students.” Now before you reply with, “then our country would…

The wonderful community news website, Everyblock was shut down by NBC News today. Everyblock was the epitome of community reporting and discussion. You want to talk about your neighborhood, Everyblock was the place. Why was Everyblock shut down? Poytner published a…

Who speaks words like a poet? All comment given by bernawi of flickr is like a prance through the drewdrops of morning on the windows of perception. to find the true nature of things, it will break the ice of…

We like to elevate ourselves by looking down on Sammy Sosa, but he’s just a big screw-up. The problem with Sammy is that he has no filter. He just blurts out things in desire for attention. And he does stupid…

You can search within your favorites on flickr. You can’t do that on Instagram. For instance, I searched for “balloons” in my flickr favs, and I got these fun results. Try that, stupid Instagram! Get a free flickr account now…

You know what is a great motivator to get your goals done for 2013? A community website called 43things.com. Add your goals to a list. Then you can write entries about your progress in each goal. There’s thousands of people…

A big congratulations to local Chicago website, thisiscolossal.com. Christopher Jobson announced that his website of “art & visual ingenuity” is able to support his family full-time. The artwork featured on thisiscolossal is truly amazing and inspires me everytime I visit.…

Flickr determines the most interesting images by a combination of views, comments, and favs. Here are my ten most interesting photos from 2012. Along with each photo I give one photo technique that helps make the image interesting. Nostalgia with…

The library of the future is indeed a curious place. Check out my blog post “A library with no books” where I talk about the mac domination, wall screens, DJ librarians, empty shelves, and guillotine doors.

I like archiving interesting articles by “printing” them as PDF files. Here’s a cool four-part series “Redeeming Holy Days from Pagan Lies.” All the interesting articles get put into a folder on my computer. When I share the article, I…