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Produce Your Own Video, Stop the Country’s Decline!

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Do you have that stubborn friend who insists on voting for the worst of the two evils? Now you can actually make a difference for your country without actually taking much time or effort to do so! If you want to send a wake-up call to someone who can’t take precious time out of their day to vote, then check out this site. Simply enter their name and e-mail address. They receive a link to a short video of a news report that explains the importance that their vote makes. The Flash video cleverly and seamlessly imports their name into the news report. I was a bit disappointed that the newscaster didn’t actually speak my name however. I’ve already seen Flash sites that use speech synthesis to convert electronic text to audio.

This is just like the talking computer WOPR from the classic movie War Games, just not as cheesy. Microsoft has several products centered on this. The Microsoft Speech SDK is actually pretty easy to use, if you want to write your own Text To Speech application. This is already built into Vista, simply select the “Ease of Access Center” icon and your computer will start talking. The Narrator program will speak the text you have displayed on your active application. It is highly customizable to support other languages and voices.

News At Seven has done this. They randomly select news stories, and then have a gaming engine render the newscaster. Text to speech makes the newscaster “speak.” You can download a video clip from their site here.

I’m not an ad wizard, but I could see this kind of thing being used as effective advertising. With your own Facebook account, they already know your name and interests. If you are going to display an ad on your site, why not do a Flash advertisement where the actor in the commercial speaks your name? For example: “Ed Hassinger, Gears of War 2 is out now! It is on your Amazon wish list and they have free shipping!”

Now hear this: GO VOTE!

Posted in Eclectica, Tips, Video | No Comments »

Bicycles Built for Bass

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

When I was in high school, the windows of our house would routinely shake from the deep sounds of bass from passing cars. My parents hated it, but to me it was unique signature of sound from either one of my friends or another kid in the neighborhood. You see, each car and sound system could be associated with an individual person, and the frequency of bass and shaking of windows told me long in advance just who was driving up the street.

For my generation it was cars and trucks. For this generation, it might be bikes.

Made In Queens is a documentary about “Stereo Bikes.” Produced by MTV2 Films and directed by Nicolas Randall and Joe Stevens, the film follows a group of young Trinidad and Tobago immigrants living in the Bronx as they tinker and build custom mobile sound systems … on bikes!

Frankenbike

BassZilla

No joking. These kids are serious. Check out the system specifications for BassZilla, pictured above.

Four 16-volt car batteries powering four 15” bass speakers in back, two 6.5” mids over two 6×9” mids up front. Two 3,000-watt bass amps and one 2,000-watt mids amp. DVD touch screen with navigation and music equalizer. A 22-tooth chainring. Heavy duty chain, rims, tires and custom-welded support brackets.

Regardless of how ridiculous this may look to you, these kids are doing positive and constructive things. Check out the trailer for the movie, and catch it in theaters if you get a chance.

So what do you think? Mobile dance party, or public nuisance? Personally, I can dig it. =)

Posted in Eclectica, Music | No Comments »

Maker Faire Fun

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

What a great time we had attending the 2nd Annual Austin Maker Faire. There were so many professional looking and marvelous creations. I had to keep reminding myself that it was ordinary people who had made these things with their own time and money. I was also very impressed with how many different types of exhibits there were for us to see. There were robotics, music, science & engineering, arts displays and lots of activities for the kids.

The only regret was that we didn’t have time to see everything. Check out this video coverage from KXAN.com.

The first event we witnessed was the “Life-Sized Mouse Trap Game.” It got a lot of attention from faire attendees and safe to say was a big crowd pleaser. Notice the crane on the left of the photo above. On the final stage of the trap, the crane dropped a heavy safe on whatever was being “trapped.” In the demonstration we watched, the safe completely destroyed a dishwasher.

Next, we watched the ArcAttacks Musical Tesla Coils make music. The Tesla coils shoots electricity that would hit a grounded electric guitar and other musical instruments. The result is unique music that had a metal-sounding tone. Though it is supposed to be a music show, it was the bolt of lightening that really excited the crowd.

The last event we saw was the RoboGames, which was actually the first-ever Battling Bots Texas Cup. It was a fun experience to witness the event live, instead of on TV. For safety the battles took place inside a large greenhouse-like structure. But you really didn’t notice that you were watching the event through safety glass (Lexan). Sitting in the stands, we could still smell burning metal and hear the grinding and scraping of steel saws and pumping of hydraulics. The battles were intense, and one had to be stopped because a robot hit the Lexan safety window so hard that a panel dislodged from the frame.

It was lots of fun to go to the Makers Faire. If it comes to your town, I recommend you make the time to experience it for yourself.

Posted in Eclectica, Events | No Comments »

Do You Jelly?

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

A recent Wired article touted the advantages of working from home for the employee, employer and even the environment. Plus, with gas prices where they are, we can include your pocketbook on that list. Let’s face it – no distractions, no need to put on make-up, and the ability to throw in a load of laundry in between conference calls. What’s not to love?

However, we are social creatures, and home office walls can close in just as quickly as cubical walls. So an inventive group of young professionals began the Jellies – organized groups of remote workers who meet once or twice a week at a coffee house, café or someone’s studio apartment (pretty much any place with Wi-Fi and plenty of seating) to work with other professionals in the same situation. These groups, located all over the world, provide the perks of working outside of the office plus the ability to socialize, vent and bounce ideas off of one another.

What a fabulous idea! Even for us office-workers who need a change of scenery to get those creative juices flowing, this seems like an ideal venue.

What I want to know is why aren’t there more women doing this? If you check out the video on the site, the majority of people who “Jelly” are men. Yet women are stereotypically the more social gender, the communicators. Jellying seems well suited to our work style, so why are we folding laundry for our “break” and not grabbing a latte and croissant while chatting it up with a fellow Jelly?

Posted in Cyber Sisterhood, Eclectica | 1 Comment »

New Twist on Google Maps Aimed at Potential Voters

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Yesterday Google unveiled a U.S. Voter Info Map. The idea is to encourage more people to vote by putting registration, absentee and early voting information in one easily accessible place online.

Despite a lot of interest in next month’s presidential election it seems only about 1 in 4 Americans who could vote have signed up to cast a ballot, according to a recent Census report. The timing is on target given that voter registration deadlines in most states are less than a week away.

The Voting Information Project and the League of Women Voters are also involved in developing the voter information map.

Since you’re online anyway, check out the site and follow updates on how you can confirm your local polling place address. There’s also a cool public service video that features a lot of familiar faces.

Posted in Eclectica, Tips | No Comments »

Destination Green

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

Something special is under way on one of our sister blogs and it’s worth calling out for anyone interested in big ideas – in this case, saving the planet.

My colleague Todd Dwyer, who blogs about the ReGeneration movement, has teamed with Sarah van Schagen from Grist.org to drive across the U.S. to talk with people and share what they’re doing to help sustain our natural environment. See, hear and comment on their reports – 15 cities in 15 days – at ReGeneration.org.

If you like what you see on the site, please take a moment to join more than a quarter million of us who are part the global ReGeneration movement.

Posted in Eclectica, Environment | No Comments »

New Webapp Lets You Memorialize the Deceased

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

Like many cub newspaper reporters I unglamourlessly cut my professional teeth writing obituaries, or obits as they’re called in the trade. Well, it turns out serial Web entrepreneur Jeff Taylor (Monster.com and Eons.com) today turned on a new site - Tributes.com - after concluding that “obituaries are the last section of the newspaper to migrate to the Web.”

You can get the scoop in detail from the New York Times and Lifehacker, but in a nutshell here’s how it works:

The new site hopes to become a portal for people wanting to memorialize or learn about the lives of friends, family and the widely known. Obituaries of up to 300 words can be placed for free. More verbose entries with multimedia cost up to $80 a year. For $300, your tribute can be posted in perpetuity with an option to share with others, who can add comments (for a fee).

It seems Mr. Taylor isn’t first with this idea. The Times reports he’ll be competing with Legacy.com, which is owned by the same outfit as the newspaper. The new site does have (no pun intended) a couple of interesting wrinkles: a funeral home finder and a searchable database of the Social Security Administration’s “Death Index” combined with information from funeral homes, with dates of death for 84 million Americans going back to the 1890s.

Call me old fashioned, but maybe there’s a reason obits are the last section of the newspaper to move to the Web. What do you think?

Posted in Eclectica, Social Media | No Comments »

Tech-cessories for Star Wars Geeks

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

With the first animated Star Wars project from Lucasfilm Animation, “Star Wars, The Clone Wars,” out in the theaters this past August, it seems that Star Wars fever has hit again. It’s hard to go to a store, whether it is Best Buy or Toys”R”Us, and not see something Star Wars themed when you first walk in. But let’s talk Star Wars tech-cessories.

Mimoco is jumping into this revived fan base with its new Star Wars USB Flash Drive Series.

Just pop off the head and out comes a USB key!

Whether you’re a Chewbacca, C-3PO or Han Solo fan, you can buy your buddies and save away in Star Wars galore. Each is available in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB storage and even come with exclusive Star Wars MIMOBOT content like mimoByte sound software, and the mimoDesk personalization suite of icons, avatars, wallpapers, and screensavers. You can even buy your buddy a “hoodie” to protect the key. They are as low as $39.95 USD making them an affordable way to show how big of a Star Wars fan you really are.

These limited-edition keys are truly a must have for the Star Wars enthusiast and are selling out quickly given the resurgence of Star Wars memorabilia and collectibles. Can’t imagine these won’t be worth a little something extra in several years.

Do you use technology to show that you are an über-fan?

Posted in Eclectica, Storage | No Comments »

Wow! That’s a LOT of Ideas

Friday, September 12th, 2008

An historic mark has been set on IdeaStorm - 10,000 ideas! I want to first and foremost thank the entire community for all the input - ideas, votes, comments and conversations! We launched this site to provide a public venue for people to give us their ideas and vote on what Dell should be doing. Obviously, you have a lot of input for us and we absolutely appreciate it! Let’s start by taking a little trip down memory lane…

IdeaStorm History:

Feb. 16, 2007 – First official community idea submitted is Home technology makeover show (By the way - this was recently Partially Implemented with www.dellmeansbusiness.com ! J )
May 2007 — First BIG idea implementation with Don’t eliminate XP just yet
August 2007 — Caroline, until this point known as delladmin_1, came out of the closet
October 2007 — IdeaStorm got its own blog
November 2007 — IdeaStorm upgraded with new look and colors
January 2008 — The IdeaStorm torch at Dell was passed from Caroline to dawn_l, kara_k and jackie_c
April 2008 — Storm Room was added to the Dell Community Forum to provide a place for IdeaStorm members to carry on conversations not directly related to ideas
July 2008 — vida_k takes on the role as IdeaStorm manager
Sept. 11, 2008 – 10,000^th idea is Glass Across Entire Screen by rsecord

And a few fun facts and tidbits:

Highest-ranking idea (and not surprising, also the most commented on with 1,830 comments): Pre-Installed Linux | Ubuntu | Fedora | OpenSUSE | Multi-Boot from dhart
Lowest-ranking idea: Now You Choose - Concept 1 (posted by delladmin_1 for concept testing)
Largest Category: Accessories (1,787 ideas)
200 ideas have been Implemented or Partially Implemented to date
26 of the 200 Implemented ideas are related to Linux
11% of all ideas are about Linux
john_h - the voice of Linux at Dell - has contributed 68 comments

And I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight some of the dedicated user community! As many of you know, you can view the top contributors here. But did you also know the the following facts?

jmxz has submitted the most ideas at 264
robinjfisher submitted only one idea and still has the third-highest ranking
phubert has provided the most commentary with 4,433 comments
jervis961 has voted on the most ideas — all but 14
sugarbear has been one of our most active (and positive!) contributors across all Dell community properties, including IdeaStorm, Dell Community Forum, and many of the Blogs

So, what does this all mean and what’s next?

As noted above, we have implemented 200 ideas or 2%. Is this good or bad? In my opinion it’s good, but not great. We neither set goals on how many ideas we expected to receive from the community , nor how many we thought would be feasible to implement. As a company, we believe in listening to our customers and IdeaStorm has enabled thousands of employees across Dell to do just that in their everyday work. This helps us prioritize and validate the work we do. We have also done things we never expected to do just because of the feedback on IdeaStorm - offer Linux and keep XP around for as long as we have - just to name a couple.

As requested by many ideas, we are planning to upgrade IdeaStorm with a new look and feel as well as some new features and functionality toward the end of October. You will be hearing more from me on that over the next couple of months.

And finally, as Michael Dell has said, “A company this size is not going to be about a couple of people coming up with ideas. It’s going to be about millions of people and harnessing the power of those ideas.” So as long as people are here giving us ideas and voting on them, we will be here to listen, engage and respond.

Thank you!

Posted in Eclectica, Social Media | 5 Comments »

Now You Can Map Your Name

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

Ever wondered where your last name is most common?

The answer may be a few keystrokes away thanks to a huge database linked to a Web site called Publicprofiler. Visit the site, enter your surname and you’ll see a color-coded map of the countries where it is most common. You can read about Gina Trapani’s discoveries over at Lifehacker.

I gave it a try and found that a lot of Popes live in Scotland, where my brother discovered a Pope coat of arms some years ago. I also clicked on the U.S. portion of the global map, and found that most Americans with my name live in North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia.

I have to say this information looks spot on. Most of my relatives on that side of the family tree live in those three states.

Posted in Eclectica, Tips | 3 Comments »

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