State of Your Art – State of Your Art offers high quality printing services. Their swanky website is straightforward and easy to navigate through. You can order a print of a picture you photographed yourself or choose one from their free gallery and artist collections. Their print-on-canvas option is something I believe would appeal to many, so be sure to check it out. The ordering process is simple, just follow these three steps (excluding payment): choose or upload your desired photo, specify size measurements and provide a shipping address. Twelve days later, your chosen piece of art will be hanging on your wall. The only downside to State of Your Art is nailing down your selections….. As for me, I would go for one of my own photographs, although SYA’s gallery offers very attractive alternatives such as the one below.
Mother Nature Network – Mother Nature Network is a one-stop green resource offering original programs, articles, blogs, videos, and how-to guides along with breaking news stories. Mother Nature Network wasn’t designed for scientists or experts. It was created for all us lazy persons seeking to-the-point information on green related issues. My visit to this wonderful site taught me a great deal of environmental facts, but one particular news story made the most impact. On September 20, one city did the unthinkable — it banished cars from its streets for a whole day. Click here or scroll below to see where this happened. I seriously think all major cities worldwide could use the same strategy to raise public awareness. Don’t you?
Serious Wheels – I was a huge fan of Hot Wheels as a kid, and could play with those small cars for hours on end. Why am I sharing this with you? Because exploring the Serious Wheels blog filled me with the same excitement as did my car toys in my youth, and I relived that auto-love once again. All grown up now, I still think one should keep on dreaming…. My dream cars would be the 2010 Hamann Ferrari California F149, the 2009 Alfa Romeo Spider, and a fine collectible car to complement my list, the 1941 Cadillac Fleetwood Sedan.
SpareFoot – SpareFoot offers an easy way to find storage space for whatever you need stashed, locked away or simply, stored at another location for any period of time. The SpareFoot marketplace has storage listings of all shapes and sizes, with everything from available units at your local storage facility to the garage, bedroom or parking spot at your neighbor’s house. In the same way that Expedia.com makes it possible to find the best deal on airplane tickets and hotels, SpareFoot makes it possible to find the best deals on self storage, all from the convenience of a single location on the web. If you have a space you’d like to rent for the storage of someone else’s stuff, SpareFoot can help out. Here’s how.
11 Points – Each and every post in this blog includes a list of 11 things. Doesn’t make sense? Creator Sam Greenspan takes different subjects and breaks them down to a list of 11 pointers. Why 11? Look at this post’s title again, which is Greenspan’s blog motto. To be honest, the number’s importance is rather trivial. What you should focus more on is this blog’s excellent content, and yes, the lists are right on the money. My favorite lists are: 11 Yearbook Photos That Musicians Wish We’d Never Seen, 11 Most Ironically Banned Books Of All Time and 11 Things The Bible Bans, But You Do Anyway.
Crush the Castle – The name says it all. Use the trebuchet to throw rocks at the castles. Kill everyone in one shot and earn a golden medal. For daily updates of our most favorite games, click here.
Clikthrough – Watching an online video is a no brainer. You click on the play button and watch. But what if you wanted to get more out of a video, like learning more about an artist’s apparel brand or knowing who is that gorgeous babe standing behind the drummer? Sounds impossible, I know, but Clikthrough makes such quests possible by offering videos where everything is clickable. This unprecedented feature allows you to see products, people, places and more, and receive all the relevant information on a side menu. I tried out this technology on several videos, and especially enjoyed the info I was able to retrieve from the Hot and Cold one. I learned for example that Alexander Rodriguez, the groom in this video clip, is a high school friend of Katy Perry. It made me think about the power of good networking…
All in all, I think this a great application. Its only downside is its current limited variety of videos. I wish it included more than just music videos, because it would have been wonderful had it offered full length movies using this amazing technology. Although this might be too much to ask for at this point, I am quite sure that with time and increased exposure, Clikthrough will have a much larger database users could enjoy.
360 Cities – There are many ways of exploring our wonderful world, and doing so online is possible via maps, stories/blogs, photos and videos that circulate the Web. That’s all nice and dandy, but is it enough? Despite the copious number of tools and applications one can use to learn about locations and cities around the world, it’s impossible to get the true ‘sense of the place.’ Personally, I think that technology, however sophisticated and advanced, will never be able to substitute the experience of one’s actual presence in a physical environment.
As of today, the only two exceptions to this are the Holodeck on board the US Enterprise (Star Trek) and 360 Cities. The latter does a wonderful job at bringing us closer to the ‘being there’ feeling. How do they do it? As the site’s name suggests, they provide 360-degree views which are possible thanks to their network of panoramic photographers. The site’s admirable concept and good execution made me spend a couple of hours in this site, which actually felt like 10 minutes. Although all locations featured on 360 Cities are spectacular, my personal fave is Roof4 in New York City.
Waze – Waze is a social mobile application that enables drivers to tap into road intelligence. What’s that exactly? The service is based on real-time user feeds and is constantly updated with road maps, alerts on traffic and accidents, and other important data. This provides users with the fastest route to get to wherever they need to go.
How does it work? Map and traffic updates are automatically collected and generated as users drive with Waze activated on their mobile device. This can be referred as passive updates, but drivers can also actively report and update other users with what’s happening on the road. Think about it, you can get essential info on accidents, police traps, weather hazards, cheap gas offers and more. The video below offers a great explanation on the Waze service. It begins with an all too familiar driving dilemma: choosing between three different roads leading to the same destination… Enjoy and drive safely.
Font Capture – When writing a letter, a story, an essay or any other content, I usually alternate between the following word processor fonts: Times New Roman, David, Arial and Verdana. For those of us who aren’t masters of typography, there is a new way to create fonts of your own in a fun, easy and creative way; Font Capture allows you to convert your own handwriting into a Word font. Sound’s complicated? Well, it’s as easy as A, B, C; go to this link and follow the four simple steps. Download and print the template, fill it out it in your handwriting, scan it back and there you go, you have your very own unique font. My handwriting is pretty bad and often illegible (and that is an underestimate). Nevertheless, I created my own font – below is the result, using Word.
Cork’d – Cork’d is a playground for wine lovers, where ‘vinophiles’ can review, share and discuss wine in a fun, interactive way. Here you can rate wines you’ve tasted, keep track of wines you’d like to buy and learn about new spirits entering the market. Once a member of the society of wine lovers, you are encouraged to share your favorite wines, wineries and grapes with your community of drinking buddies.
Chairman and owner of Cork’d, Gary Vaynerchuck, is a variegated person who is known as a wine specialist hosting his own wine reviews on tv.winelibrary.com, and who is also an enthusiastic lecturer. Below are two videos showing Gary’s remarkable knowledge – extending far beyond Dionysus‘ world – as well as his admirable public speaking capabilities. I really enjoyed these, hope you will too.
Wooster Collective – Wooster Collective is “A site that is dedicated to showcasing and celebrating ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around the world.” In other words, it is a unique blog displaying all sorts of street art in the form of images and videos, and all entries are accompanied by informative texts. If you want a preview of what is offered here, check the amazing video below. Enjoy!