I’m loving my HTPC once again thanks to my new keyboard from IOGEAR. This is a tight wireless keyboard with a laser trackball, perfect for surfing the web from your couch. Check it out at www.iogear.com/product/GKM561R/

I’m not crazy about Java, but this video is great.

I’ve been working on a GIS project for the last few years, and the one challenge that doesn’t go away is how to easily collect Latitude & Longitude coordinates for locations.  Today I discovered LatLng Marker within Google Maps Labs.  Here is a description from the tool author:

Adds an option to the context menu that lets you drop a mini marker showing the latlng of the position that the cursor was pointing at when the context menu was evoked

Thanks Marcelo C for creating such an awesome tool.  I’ll be using this in my GIS projects.

I really like this video from Michael Bungay Stanier from Box Of Crayons; it inspires me to do more great work.

At Large: The Strange Case of the World’s Biggest Internet Invasion (Paperback)

Written by David H. Freedman

A very cool infographic showing the Linux Kernel. You can drag, zoom and click on the map to learn more about a specific process!

On a recent trip to Seoul Korea, 3 things really stood out for me. (1) Gasoline prices average $6.00 per gallon and the people still love to drive. (2) Samsung makes killer automobiles that look like a hybrid between a BMW and a Mercedes Benz, which they don’t export to the U.S. (3) They have shopping malls that open at 10:00pm and go until 6:00am the next morning.

Here are a few photos taken during my 36 hours in Seoul.

What do you think? Have you tried Chrome yet?

Bing maps recently added the ability to add custom Twitter feeds into their maps, it’s called Bing Twitter maps. The map uses Silverlight 3 by default, but the nice part about it is this: If you don’t have Silverlight installed, the map falls back to plain Javascript, which is recognized by all web browsers.  I took Microsoft up on their offer and plugged my Twitter feed into their maps.  The code is super easy to implement and add to your own site.

HTML code:

This demo shows my Twitter feed and Bing maps.

How about you?

I’d love to hear from you if you are using the Bing maps API; go ahead and post your links in the comments section.

I’ve been doing online meetings for a few years now, mainly using Microsoft Live Meeting and Webex from Cisco. While these 2 products are excellent tools for conducting online meetings, they have a cost associated to them which can be difficult to handle if you are a freelancer trying to work with a shoestring budget.

Today, I’d like add a free alternative to your toolbox. Yugma web conferencing allows anyone, anywhere to instantly share their desktop and ideas online with others. It works on Windows, Mac and Linux and it’s free if your meetings have less than 20 users.

Of course they also have a professional version that you pay for, but I’ve been really happy with the free version so far.  I highly recommended it if you need to share your desktop with someone else far away.

HTML has a tag known as <sup> which stands for superscript text. This tag properly places text half a character above the baseline.

Example:
bite size technology, design and marketing ideas^SM

In order to achieve the service mark symbol as you see above, you need to align your “SM” text to the top of its line-height and decrease the font size to 50% of its original size. The following code samples will produce the service mark symbol on your web pages.

CSS code:

HTML code:

Let me know in the comments section if this code helps you, or better yet, share it with others who might need it.

HTML can easily render the registered trademark symbol.

Exposed Elements ®

To produce this yourself just type the following HTML code:

Most people have heard of Google Chrome by now, a new web browser that is supposed to be faster, simple, and fully standards compliant. What most people don’t know is that Google Chrome is built from Chromium, an open source web browser with the same bells and whistles, but without all the Google branding.

After a full week of using Chromium, I like it so much that it has become the default web browser on my little netbook. Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer to use Mozilla Firefox with a few must-have plugins on my desktop for heavy-duty web development work; but this gives me another option.

What about you?  what is your favorite web browser?

I took a few photos while visiting Tokyo this past week.

Let’s face it, data can sometimes be boring. I recently discovered a really cool way to visualize your data and make it more interesting. Let me ask you a simple question — which one of the examples below is the easiest to understand?

(1)

(2)

We can all read the data in the 1st example, but the pie chart quickly puts the data into perspective for most of us.

Did you mouse-over the pie chart? This interactivity is made possible with gRaphaël, an open source javascript library with a goal to help you create stunning charts. We are basically using pure code to render scalable vector graphics (SVG) on the fly.

If you want to visualize some boring data for your next project, head over to gRaphael for more examples and to download the source code. Remember that a picture is worth a thousand words.

An ambiguous animation painted on public walls. The results are simply stunning! Bonus: viral video

Made in Buenos Aires and in Baden (fantoche)

Bryan Eisenberg has written about 69 Free (or low cost) Tools to Improve Your Website.  The article focuses on conversion so this isn’t simply a list of cool things you can do, there are some very useful suggestions for business owners as well.

ATM rebooting

When I pulled up to this ATM I noticed the familar BIOS info loading on the screen. I quickly realized the ATM was starting up and decided to stick around and wait until it was ready for me to use it. A few moments later the ATM started to reinstall Windows XP in what appeared to be an attempt to repair itself. Pretty cool right?

A few moments later the repair process finished but the system never came back and the ATM returned to the boot menu and started the whole process again.  It was stuck in a loop!

The bottom line here is that the user experience was designed very poorly.  it would have been nice to see some type of splash screen while the ATM boots up instead of displaying all kinds of critical info to its users.

flip video

Today I had the opportunity to attend Cisco tech days to get the inside scoop on network technology straight from the network experts. One interesting thing I learned is that Cisco puts back 12% of their revenue into research and development (R&D) each year; this translates to approximately 5.2 billion this year alone.

The hot topics were voice over IP (duh), virtualization, unified communication services and TelePresence. What exactly is TelePresence? think of it as video conferencing on steroids! Imagine a conference room table with seating on one side and 3 large 60 inch screens on the other.  The idea here is that you can see the people you’re meeting with in high-def. (it allows you to see their face reactions when you propose your new plan). Overall, it was a very informative session and I even walked away with a little gadget. a flip video.

thanks Cisco!   BTW Peter did a great demo

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you probably heard about Ubuntu; the FREE operating system that kicks ass. Ubuntu is open source software, that means that thousands of developers around the world work on it. Personally, I’ve been using it since version 6.04 and it keeps getting better! The new version due out this month.

Use a condom

Here is a good example of how beautiful imagery can attract viewers from your market niche. In this case, these images appeal to automobile enthusiast and gear heads from all over the world.  The bottom line is to always use the best quality imagery that you can afford in your marketing efforts.

Ferrari F70 - Industrial Design by Emre Hüsmen

Renault Concept

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Websites like www.stockvault.net give you ability to use professional looking stock photography for free. Use these resources to build your small business website.

Are you interested in building up your clientèle? Would you like to increase the size of your business and generate more traffic? The guys at 30 Day Challenge have done all the hard work for you and chopped it up into bite size pieces of marketing goodness. Yes, in 30 days you’ll learn how to turn your ideas into a profitable business. It’s definitely worth taking a look if you want to learn tips and tricks from the pros.

http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com

The word “branding” is often tossed around in business and marketing circles and many times missing the mark. To me branding is more than just having a pretty logo and matching stationary to go along for a business. Sometimes, it’s a good idea to step back and think of the perceptions of those you want to influence; are you giving the right impressions?

A brand is the collection of perceptions that your customers have about your business.

Branding is the management of these perceptions at key touch points, places like your website, online & print ads, social networks and so on. This of course is my interpretation of this very broad topic and I am curious to find out, what does branding mean to you? please leave your thoughts in the comments below.