Byte of the Week

Due to the time difference, we’re back home from the parade and the rest of the festivities. We wisely choose to participate only in events that target the whole family. But I’m using the holiday to cheat today because I don’t have a tip to share so much as I wanted to share one of my favorite sites:

TED: Ideas Worth Sharing: http://www.ted.com/

It’s a collection of videos from TED conferences. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. The presenters speak for about 20 minutes on a huge range of topics – but I have enjoyed all of the ones I’ve seen. They speak about their industry but the idea of creativity and innovation always seem to shine through and I always feel like I learn something useful.

I’ve been a fan for a while but I have a renewed interest after attending a TEDx event at the Science Gallery in Dublin last week. TEDx are independent TED events. I wrote a post on it on our family blog, which may or may not be worth reading – but I will tell you that the presentations were great because the presenters had such a passion for what they did. I know a ton more about basking sharks after the event: http://10qs.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/tedx-dublin/

Happy New Year!

I wanted to start the year off with a Byte with the hope that it would keep me on tracking for weekly (not sporadic) updates for 2010.

This site is a month too late for me (now that we’re in Dublin and our house is occupied in MN) but I thought it might help others: Second Porch: http://secondporch.com

It’s a Facebook Application that helps you promote or find vacation housing. I can’t speak too much about adding a property, except that it’s free – but I can say that searching for a place is easy. Each listing includes comments, recommendations, fans and any connection you might have to the location. (So if you have a friend who has a friend who stayed there you might see that show up.) Place are available for rent or trade.

If you have a place to rent/trade it might be worth checking out. Or it may be a way to find nice accommodations for your next vacation.

Happy Holidays!!

I’m totally cheating this week with the Byte. I wrote a fun article for the Blandin Foundation this month so I thought I’d share it. I’ll give you the first 4 cool tools here – but you’ll have to go to the Blandin site to see the rest:
http://tinyurl.com/c9ded5

1. Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) – a real time, text-based chat service. Members can read and send message through the web, cell phone or other handheld device. It’s not new, but it is reaching more and more people every day.

2. Midomi (http://www.midomi.com/) – a musical search engine where you can sing or hum a song to perform a search. Hum a tune and it will get more information for you.

3. Layar (http://layar.com/) – a cell phone application that shows real time geographic digital information through the camera of your mobile phone. Use it when you visit a new town; point your phone’s camera down a street and laid over a digital map will be information such as street names, building names, names and details of local businesses and even reviews from sites such as Yelp (http://www.yelp.com), when available.

4. Square (https://squareup.com/) – a gadget that allows you to accept credit card payments through any device with an audio input jack. It’s a great soon to small businesses; imagine the artist at a craft fair now able to accept payments quickly, easily and cost effectively.

I’m hoping to check out some of the tools in greater detail in the next few months. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks and have a great holiday!

I know I’ve talked about Good Search before – but this is such a good time of year for a reminder of Good Search. Here’s the quick take:

Use Good Search as your search engine http://www.goodsearch.com and your favorite charity will get a penny. You have to specify your charity; you can get a list here: http://www.goodsearch.com/charitylist.aspx. If you are/have a charity to add you can look here: http://www.goodsearch.com/addcharity.aspx  

Also they have coupons on their site. If you use one your charity gets a bonus.

My friend reminded me of Good Search because the school where she teaches just joined two days ago. Already they’ve earned more than $5. So it’s a get rich slow plan – but an easy plan. (f you want to just test it out you could designate her school as your charity: Sobriety High Charter School St Paul MN.)

Two fun web sites today. First, thanks to Rick in Minneapolis for the Solid Waste What to do Site (http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/solid-waste/what-to-do-A.asp). OK fun might not be the operative word – but it’s super useful for finding out what you can recycle, what is potentially hazard and other stuff.

The second is Groupon (http://www.groupon.com) – it’s a super fun one-coupon-a-day service. I have been jealous of this service in Chicago and they are looking at expanding. My hope is that if we all sign up they’ll get going in Minneapolis a little faster.

Today’s Byte is only kind of tech related. It’s a fun site that will help you come up with recipes based on what you have in your kitchen.

Super Cook: http://www.supercook.com

You enter your ingredients and it will give you a list of recipes that requires only those ingredients.

It will remember your ingredients – you can modify the list easily. You could also ask for ideas for recipes that only require a few more ingredients. It will even kick out a shopping list for you.

I thought it would be a good tool for the first week of school

I know I’ve been weak lately with the Bytes. I could send you my synopsis of the FCC rural broadband plan if you’re wondering what I’m doing.

I wanted to at least send something this week – and I ran into a web site that helped me choose my lunch destination today: Yelp http://www.yelp.com – people post reviews of restaurants and other place (shopping, automotive, healthcare, other). You can search by category or specific name.

If it works out for lunch, I may try it for dinner. If I owned a restaurant or shop or automotive or other BtoC place, I’d be looking myself up and finding loyal customers to write about me.

Have a great weekend!

I’ve been so erratic with the Byte these days. Sorry! I’ve just been so busy. But today I’m back with a fun tool:

Jogli: http://www.jogli.com/
It’s a music site. Search for someone and you can find them, their music and lyrics. I know there are a lot of these sort of tools out there. I found this one while updating the Blandin Broadband Toolkit: http://broadband.blandinfoundation.org/toolkit/ – but this is the first one I’ve ever visited that has all of my obscure UK bands from the 80’s. So it’s my fave!

I have a silly fun site for the day:
http://www.myheritage.com/face-recognition

You can upload a picture and the site will tell you what celebrities resemble you. I’m not telling who I looked like – except that pretty much it was anyone who wears glasses.

Have a fantastic holiday!!

We-Care

Thanks to Bill in New York for sending me information on a fun tool that might help get your holiday shopping done and give a little bit back to your favorite charities.

We-Care (http://www.we-care.com/) is a collection of 700+ merchants. When you buy products from them through this site a portion of your purchase will go to the charity of your choice. You can do a search for your charity; if they aren’t listed, you can list them. There is even a page of coupons to get good deals.

If you are a nonprofit you can go and list yourself easily too – for no charge. You will get listed on the site and you’ll get a full, co-branded mall of your own with your colors, message, logo, and a unique URL. You even get some help with marketing tools.

Thanks to Jan in Wisconsin for sending me info on GoodSearch.com. It is a search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities it designates

So there it is; it’s pretty simple. With any luck it will save you a little time and help your favorite nonprofits.