December 7, 2006

Far Too Much Time In Second Life and Creating Virtual Worlds

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I’ve been spending way too much time in Second Life lately. It really hasn’t been too big of a deal because I mostly just open it at work and let it run in the background. I’m really trying to just help the people at Cambrian House get more visibility for their island called Battleaxe island. In second life the more people that remain in a place the more popular it gets. I’m just doing my part.

Well, it turns out that second life isn’t the only place where you can create virtual worlds. There is a project called Croquet that allows people to build virtual worlds. Here’s the description of the project from their website:

a new open source software platform for creating deeply collaborative multi-user online applications. It features a network architecture that supports communication, collaboration, resource sharing, and synchronous computation among multiple users. Using Croquet, software developers can create powerful and highly collaborative multi-user 2D and 3D applications and simulations.

I think it’s pretty neat that open source software is getting into every form of software imaginable. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future with these virtual worlds. I can see the day that these virtual worlds will be an important medium for advertising. It’s not there yet, but it could be one day. It will be fun to watch and be a part of.

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Swimming Girl Video By A Jewish Dating Site

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I can’t believe that a Jewish Dating site would put out a video like this. I guess I shouldn’t be that amazed, but I guess I would have just expected a more conservative approach to the audience their trying to market to. The video’s pretty funny. I’m mostly surprised that they didn’t post this video on YouTube or some other sharing site where it would become hugely popular.

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Firebug – A New Tool for Web Development

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One of my code monkey friends directed me to a tool called Firebug recently. It’s still in Beta, but who really knows what beta means anymore. Google seems to have changed everything where you never know what you’re getting with Beta. It could be a full production product or it could be crap. I digress. Firebug seems like a pretty cool web development environment to work in and it’s all built into Firefox.

I love the way they’ve designed the website so you can browse through screen shots of the site seamlessly and at the top of the site. Honestly that’s proof that’s faith in your product’s ability to sell itself. Try going to the Net tab and you’ll see how cool Firebug is. It calculates how long it takes for your scripts to load on your site. Here’s how the site describes this feature:

Monitor network activity

Your pages are taking a long time to load, but why? Did you go crazy and write too much JavaScript? Did you forget to compress your images? Are your ad partner’s servers taking a siesta? Firebug breaks it all down for you file-by-file.

That’s a pretty neat feature. Now, I’m just scared to find out the results.

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Send a Unique Gift Basket for Christmas

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I know that all of you out there are wondering why I would suggest a gift basket for a Christmas gift. In fact, I even went as far as to suggest that you get a unique gift basket. Should unique and gift basket really be in the same sentence? Let me just give you an example of a gift basket that I consider unique. It’s not for every person on your list, but for the right person take a look at the Barbeque Gift Baskets:
BBQ Gift Basket

Had you thought of that before? I didn’t think so. Now, don’t all of you go out there and order me a BBQ gift basket. The thought would be nice, but I’m really too lazy to do good BBQ myself. If you are thinking of me, then you probably should take a look at this basket. That has chocolate me written all over it.

What type of basket would you like to get? What other gifts are you planning for Christmas? What are you getting your husband or wife for Christmas? There are so many choices of gifts it is sometimes hard to choose. Not to mention the picky husband or wife that doesn’t really like any gift you give them. They already have it all and don’t want another gift. Ok, I’ll stop ranting. Just get a nice gift basket for Christmas.

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Swear Word Google Search Referrals

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I really love checking the stats for my blog (and really any website I’m running). However, I’m always a little disheartened when people search for some swear word and it gets directed to my site. I understand why someone might get to my site for adult tv or something like that. I don’t like it, but at least I understand that I have blogged about TV and there is a good chance I’ve said something about acting like an adult. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. In fact, if there was a way for me to filter those types of things out I would.

I love getting traffic and I love when websites link to me, but it really surprises me how much vulgarity there is on the net. I’m sure they are spam pages created by robots, but how did they find me? There’s no cure words on any part of this site. I don’t use that language and quite frankly I find it vulgar and unattractive when other people do. I am sympathetic to people that have been raised in that kind of environment and don’t know any difference. I’m still sad that our society is reaching the point where so many people think that vulgar language is acceptable. It’s not acceptable and points to our lack of ability to communicate today.

Trust me, I understand the urge to let out a nice profanity laced tirade. Just don’t tell me that you HAVE to do it. It’s a choice to use that or not. Trust me. You can still communicate anything you want to communicate without that type of language.

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December 5, 2006

Discounts on Gifts for a Husband or Wife

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Getting the right gift for the holidays is important. My personal favorite gift for a husband or wife is called Spoil My Spouse. However, there are also a ton of online discounts available for those who want to buy something a little more traditional. Let me help you out by taking a look at a number of online coupons that you might want to consider if you are planning on buying your husband or wife something online.

A dell coupon would be a nice gift for almost any husband and many wives. Buy just about anything at discount rates from Eddie Buaer and you’ll have a happy wife. The pet loving husband or wife will love one of these PETCO deals. Finally, want not save a little money and use this coupon to Old Navy to buy your husband or wife something nice.

There are so many options out there that you just have to look around and you’ll find deals and creative gifts. They’re worth the extra effort. I guess that means I better get started shopping for my wife.

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Transgressing a Blog

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Many of you have probably wondered why I would transgress my blog like this. Well, let’s just say it hasn’t been purposeful. I just have been distracted with a ton of other things. I have a stack of things that I’d like to blog about, but I just haven’t had the time to flesh them out. So, here’s a little update on what I’ve been doing lately.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working with a community called Cambrian House that basically uses crowds to select, develop and market ideas. Well, I’ve been really blessed to be apart of the community because a couple of my ideas have been approved by the crowds. Right now my first idea is called Spoil My Spouse which has been created and is going through a market test. If you are looking for a gift for your wife then go and try out the Holiday Spoiler that they have going on now. I sent one to my wife and she was so excited that I was thinking of her. It was pretty neat. Plus, I have the best wife and so she deserves a gift.

My second idea is called It’s Just Lunch for Networking (and the name will probably change). It just won the Cambrian House Idea War and now they (and me) are working on developing the idea. The coolest part is that Cambrian House sent out a press release about Just Lunch for Networking and Forbes.com picked up the release. Pretty neat to be quoted on Forbes.com.

Other than that I’m almost done with school. One more class and one more paper and I’m done for the semester. I can’t wait. A number of other things have happened, but not too many worth note. I promise I’ll do better at updating my blog more regularly now.

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