OK, so I'm all about social media. Back in college I remember a journalism class where a classmate wrote a whole long ranty article about how myspace and facebook were stupid and no one would ever benefit from having them in their future careers. Speaking as someone who's on YouTube daily for work, and occasionally on myspace and facebook to I just have to say, Hey Elana. You were wrong. Motivators is big into the social media thing and I enjoy being the one who gets to play around with it. It's fun. But there are even somethings that I can't get behind.

I got behind Twitter, because I had to. Everyone and their mother was on twitter. Except for my own mother who will never be on any social media site because she's constantly battling the problem of TiVoing her soap operas in Spanish. But anyway, Twitter came along and to me it was just the stalker feed of Facebook. I eventually came to love the stalker feed on FB because it totally keeps me in the loop of everything that I barely need to know. Like for example that my best friend from elementary school who I don't talk to anymore got engaged over the weekend or that Sabrina in accounting now has a new niece. (Adorable by the way, Sabs).

But the major difference between Twitter and FB...is the fact that you know these people. I have people following me on Twitter that I've never known, met or seen before in my life. My only assumption is that they really like promotional products or that they realized we're good people and we're worth following. I've also been told that that's how twitterers roll. They just find people and follow them regardless of whether or not they know them. I'd narrow my eyes and say creepy, but hey man, if google says jump you say how high. And in this case google said jump.

So I popped on to twitter this morning and got my feed updates about those random people that I don't know, when all of a sudden something creeped me out more so than usual. Some dude tweeted (have I mentioned that I also hate twitter because it kills the english language). This is what it said:

 I'm at Starbucks Coffee Company (3421 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA) - http://bkite.com/01Wfd 2 minutes ago from Brightkite  

My eyes practically burst out of my head and I thought how is that possibly safe? And then I saw that the tweet had been sent via BrightKite so I went to BrightKite.com and checked it out.

Talk about stalking for dummies. BrightKite is a new social network that lets you tell people exactly where you are. It's like twitter, but the address version of it. And when you click on someones post after they've told you where they are, you then get a GOOGLE MAP and a satellite image of their exact location providing, their location has street views.

Why does anyone need this? If I were anywhere near Philly, I would have gone to that starbucks and been like Hey guy, whats up. I saw you on Twitter, Say hello to your mother for me. (Sorry, just can't stop referencing Mark Wahlberg talks to animals, it was too funny). But seriously this is stalking made easy, stalking for dummies and I'm thinking the world is a smidgen TOO connected.

PS: If anyone wants to find me, I'm in the Bungalow and that's all I'm saying!

Ever wonder why your singing voice seems to sound so much better in the shower as opposed to when your not?  Well, I recently came across a scientific explanation which may explain how it is possible for someone like my wife to sound like Aretha Franklin in the shower and ah-h-h' herself everywhere else.  See, the shower works as a low-tech sound mixer, modifying your voice in three ways, by volume, reverb, and bass.  Hard and smooth surfaces like bathroom tile absorb very little volume so by containing the reflected sound of your voice the shower raises its intensity, which seems to give your voice more power.  The reflected sound waves create a reverberation which produces a richer and fuller sound as the shower functions as a resonant cavity naturally amplifying your bass tones giving you a deeper and fuller sounding voice... Got it?  Yeah, whatever!!! (lol) Let the real singers sing and those of us who can not just shut-up and listen!!! 

Waterproof Shower Radio & MP3 Player Docking Station with Mirror 

 

A few weeks ago (or it could have been months, I have no concept of time anymore) I blogged about loving my inner geek. I even admitted that I'm not really that much of an IT person, but I can do my fair share of things. I guess I kind of considered myself almost a nerd. But last week, when I caught a repeat of NCIS, I realized I'm out of "almosts." In one of the scenes there was a poster on the wall that read "There are 10 Types of People in the World. Those who Understand Binary and Those Who Don't." I laughed quite hard at this poster and the three people who I was watching it with had no clue why I was laughing. Even when I said, "the poster!" it still went over their heads. I'd never seen this saying before, but I just found it on a promotional t-shirt on Cafe Press. And I almost want this t-shirt, or at least the poster for our office. And if you don't understand it, I don't know what to say except maybe consider yourself one of the "cool kids."

 

Could the world end this Wednesday September 10, 2008? According to IT Pro "CERN – the French acronym for the European Organization for Nuclear Research – have been putting together a 16.77 mile tunnel, lined with sensors and 1,600 superconducting magnets across eight sectors, which are held at an operating temperature some 271 degrees below zero." The accelerator will be used to slam particles into each other to try to recreate the Big Bang. According to some scientist who disagree with this project are saying that when the particles collide it may cause a black hole and if a big enough black hole develops the world could end as we no it. Another concern is that a number of small black holes will build up and that these may join together over the pending months, wreaking increasing devastation with Planet Earth causing potential earthquakes eventually breaking the Earth apart. I guess we have to just have to wait and see.

 

Keeping up Terek's theme of automotive talk, I figured it would be a good time to talk about Nissan's All-Around Collision Free prototype. This new advancement in automotive safety is really something else. According to Gizmag, "The new additions are a Side Collision Prevention (SCP), which assists the driver when changing lanes, and Back-up Collision Prevention (BCP), which automatically sounds a warning and applies the brakes if a collision is imminent during a reversing maneuver." Hopefully this new innovative way of thinking will help others invent new technologies like this one to reduce automotive collisions. Majority of people that I have observed don’t really pay attention. They are merging into another lane without looking, talking on their mobile, eating food, or even applying makeup. Hopefully in the near future we can have some type of robot to drive us around or better yet have the car drive me around, did someone say autopilot.

 

Thinking that your USB flash drive's design is a little bit blah then this might be the perfect fix for you. Granted I think you should try this with a not so expensive USB flash drive just to save you the ache of knowing that you messed up a fifty dollar USB drive. On Evil Mad Scientist they came up with a really cool how to: How to make a Sawed-off USB Key. View the image below to see what I am talking about. Hey but if you don't want to go to such extreme lengths there are always promotional USB flash drives.

 

If you are one of the million plus people who have recently purchased a new iPhone and are totally disappointed with the battery life then this post is just for you. I was searching through the web for reviews on the new 3G iPhone and i decided to go to my number one source of information Gizmodo. It was on Gizmodo that I found this really cool post that I thought might be helpful for all of you new iPhone users.
How To Maximize Your iPhone 3G's Questionably Adequate Battery Life

Talk about water, water, everywhere in Dubai they are planning to build some $281 million dollar fountains, which would then name it the largest in the world. According to Gizmodo ~ "At 825 feet long, the unnamed fountain will be 25% larger than the Bellagio fountain. Powering the fountain will be pumps capable of shooting columns of water approximately 450 or so feet into the dry Middle Eastern air. A light and sound show produced by a network of 6,600 lights and 50 projectors will illuminate the burgeoning Dubai skyline at night. About 22,000 gallons of water are expected to cycle through the fountain at any given time when it is completed in 2009." That's what I call living it up.

 

I am not technologically savy, (I can't connect VCRs to the TV or set up the Wii)...but thank goodness my well abled fiance can! While I do not dare dabble in things I could easily break, delete, or forever ruin, I do always carry a USB at the request of William. Yes I am the girl with the oversized bag filled with everything from my wallet to my tide stick...and now a USB. To my surprise it is VERY useful. Just the other day we were at a friends and were talking about music (some new Radiohead live recording came out) and on the spot I pulled out my USB and loaded the files on his computer and then grabbed a few of his music files. My USB, The rubberized Mini USB 1GB is a little brighter in color so I do not lose it in my bag.

Technology is advancing faster than you can say "Technology is advancing faster!" Case in point, my digital camera's autofocus went about a month ago and I returned it to be repaired. It had been a Christmas present, and I had the latest version, the 8.1 megapixel. When I was informed that it would be junked out, I was upgraded at no charge to the new 10.1 megapixel version. Second case in point, Apple's latest verion of the iPhone (I want one!) hits stores on July 11. It's only fitting that promotional products, or rather promotions in general, keep up with the trends of technology.

Toyota recently developed a motion sensor screensaver, to work in conjunction with the newest laptops, which have motion sensors in them. The image of the Toyota Hilux on a mountain appears. Turn the laptop one way and the car moves. Turn the laptop the other way and the car moves again. Shake your laptop up and down and the car will bounce. If you throw your laptop down a hill, I bet the car will roll down a hill. Go try it and tell me what happens.

Motion sensor or not, I don't need to be in IT (but I am) to tell you, shaking your laptop and fully testing the ability of this screensaver is NOT recomended.