Top blog for web 2.0 / startup news

Techcrunch is a great blog which seems to be the first to know about everything web 2.0. Many of articles give a great overview of all the sites within a particular sector. Michael Arrington is deeply embedded in the silicon valley scene, for instance going to the invite only E27 Summit - a conference at Stanford university for entrepreneurs age 27 or less who have a startup company. I assume door to door squegy sellers need not apply, what ever their age. An ex-lawyer, his connections are mainly due to a number of key barbeques given at his house (no really)

AJAX WHOIS lookup

http://www.ajaxwhois.com/

Tilt-shift photography

http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=1760

http://www.gerardpetremand.ch/Html/aut.html

http://www.hamiltonsgallery.com/photographers/barbieri/ob-virtual.html

Really wonderful photography that makes real-life situations look like models because of the extremely short depth of field.

Mobile-review.com

I love mobile-review.com
Badly translated mobile phone reviews, done in painstaking detail. They use russian coins as indications of phone size - how big is a 10 rubels coin? And various other bits of Moscow ephemera appear.

"Now you can obtain only one colour solution – that is black. And then at least one operator version in another colour will appear which is typical of Sony Ericsson. The body plastic is dull-black, it is like coal and resembles graphite. No lacquer glow, the body is not easy to soil. That is the first time the company uses various colours for asymmetrical areas (different colours for various buttons). The central part of the phone features an orange Walkman button, which attracts our attention. A silvery Activity Menu button is to the right. And a-la metallic navi button divides the composition in the center. Such colour scheme makes a new youth phone style. We could call this a brave experiment, but then experience with Sony Ericsson K700 comes to mind, that model was both successful in business society and among youth audience despite decent design. And here the company stakes on this experience. The back of the phone also features two orange insertions, a Walkman logo, a self-portrait mirror is painted in orange. Nevertheless it acts perfectly, however it is not demanded much. But its colour is an integral design element."

Englishman in New York » Blogarithms: Rocketboom

Englishman in New York » Blogarithms: Rocketboom

Cat chasing the tail

Worried geek blogs about his server preparations just in-case he ever gets slashdoted or dugg - the obviously immediately gets digged, dug, slahed dotted etc. etc.

TechCrunch » Del.icio.us Competitors Try Paying Users

TechCrunch » Del.icio.us Competitors Try Paying Users Two small startups trying to kickstart adoption

Geeky podcasts of interest

Robert Trivers - What Do We Know? Apparently the most influential evolutionary theorist alive today, it's a funny and profound talk on the theories of deception. Great factoid that, when asked if they believe they are in the top half of their profession, 94% of academics answer 'yes'. Digg.com, a links site where the users decide what's interesting. Ninja geek factor. Save browsing time and lisenting to the site founder Kevin Rose read out and comment on the top links via a podcast e.g. episode 30 He's joined by a friennd whoose name I can never remeber. One day search technology will be able to count the frequency of the words 'dude' and 'freaking' in mp3 files. When this happens, this podcast may well beat Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. TWIT - This week in tech I got into digg via this highly rated and very professional produced weekly show. Again, it an american geek fest, but it's saving factor is one of the contributors John C Dvorak. His function is the same as those two old grumpy blokes in the muppet show (Statler and Waldorf?). Although he's down on almost eveything, he's a great foil for the other windbags on the show.

Some interesting podcasts

Some podcasts (ugh, sorry) I've enjoyed particularly. From IT conversations. Reason for writing this is that I want some more recommendations really.

Steve Wozniak
He's a proper geek, but quite entertaining and has some good anecdotes about growing up as a phone phreaker.

Brewster Kahle
Also known as the guy who started the Internet Archive, working to provide 'universal access to all human knowledge'.

Ben Saunders
A guy who went to the Arctic by himself

Malcolm Gladwell
The guy who wrote the Tipping point, with some nice observations


Bruce Shneier
He looks like a total loser, but he has some interesting points about security. No, really

Roll your own maps

http://www.planiglobe.com/

Outputs to illustrator

And it's Web 2.0 too.

I've been looking for something like this for ages. They're adding more features and detail; at the moment it's pretty basic but it's still very useful if you just need a simple map for a country selector or other such rubbish.

On Performancing

I'm writing this using Performancing, which is a Firefox extension allowing you to add a blog entry without having to go and log in and wait and enter and etc. It appears as a pane in Firefox so you can just add a blog entry immediately. Awesome.

http://performancing.com/firefox

Airvertising takes off

The million dollar homepage moves into the real world. Yes, companies have discovered you can use google maps to place adverts . Hopefully the resolution will improve to the level where I can sell off my back lawn in East Sheen.

Download movies from Google video

Download movies from Google video, YouTube, iFilm] http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php Useful. especially if you like Backstreet Boys.

Play old console games in your browser

Very very good. Most games you can think of from NES, Genesis, Master system etc. http://game-oldies.com/

Every logo of everything ever

http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/ Pretty much every logo. That's where I got the 2012 one from by the way.

Web 2.0 roundup

What is Web 2.0? The best Web 2.0 Web 2.0 generator I'm using Netvibes now to bring all my favourite bits together (email, weather, flickr, bookmarks, rss feeds [including the one from this blog].