Polaroids

Looking for a way to turn boring ol' JPEGs into Polaroids?



I knew you were!
This site is too cool for school: http://www.polaroidonizer.nl.eu.org

Enjoy.
Dave

freefone

This week's Marketing Magazine features an interesting ad for a new product called freefone.
According to their website: Freefone is North America's only public courtesy telephone and digital video advertising system. Freefone offers unparalleled targeted marketing potential for advertisers and unique customer service improvement for host locations, while providing free local telephone calls for consumers.

The idea is that these free phones will be installed at popular locations where normal advertising is often not permitted, ie. Hospital for Sick Children. There's also locations at Staples, Cadillac Fairview Shopping Centres, many universities, colleges, hospitals, restaurants, and supermarkets.

They claim you will be able to reach a "very exclusive demographic", like students. What I don't understand though, is that students are the largest group of people with cell phones.

Not to mention, I question how well the screen advertisements really work. Do you remember any from the last time you were forced to view commercials while you pumped gas in your car?

How are you to notice anycommerciall when you're carrying on a conversation on a phone?

I don't predict this to be the most innovative advertising medium of our time. But who knows, they said the television wouldn't amount to much either.

www.freefone.com

Dave

Orb-a-licious!

I've been digging around the net trying to figure out how to broadcast my MP3s from home to the office. Much digging and a few newsgroups later and voila: ORB!



Podcasting is lovely, but I was trying to find a way to do it for free, with as little work as possible. Orb is awesome! Just download it and install it, then configure your folder with your music, and you're good to go.

Now I can listen to my 5,000 songs from work. It also recognizes genres, so I don't walk out of the office for a coffee during Loretta, and return to Zeke!

Check it out here: www.orb.com

Cest bon!
Dave

Bikes & Buses

I try to ride my bike everywhere in the city. Sure, I use the car to get groceries, and for much longer distances. I timed myself getting to work recently; it took 12 minutes. Not too shabby, considering it takes about 30 - 40 by streetcar. Forget about paying for parking!

You have to pay attention on your bike, that goes without saying. If you're willing to drive a car in Toronto, then you should try to bike it once in a while. If you can get from point A to point B in a car without hitting anyone, or anything, then you should be able to do it on a bike. In fact, you're more likely to pay better attention on your bike than in a car. It's trickier to yab on a cell phone, or flip through the morning paper, while you're peddling through the streets of T.O. Never mind trying to drink coffee!

If it's hills that are holding you back, the TTC recently introduced a new bus bike rack! Ride down hill to work; then hop on the bus when you're heading home. A pretty great initiative by the TTC!



Now all we need are a "few" freakin' bike lanes!

For more: www.toronto.ca/ttc/bike_racks.htm
For more about cicyling in the city: www.biketoronto.ca and www.city.toronto.on.ca/cycling/

I can see your house from here (almost)!

The good folks at Google have done it again. Enter your town, and zoom in for a very nifty street map! http://maps.google.com/

For an even better view from satellite, you can try www.keyhole.com/. Although it's just a short trial download - too bad.

Dave

(UPDATE 2)

Google bought Keyhole, and they're now offering the satellite service for free! Check it out:

http://earth.google.com/

(UPDATE 1 )
A new site has combined Google's maps with Craiglist's (www.craigslist.com) apartments and houses for rent. This is a pretty cool site if you're digging for new digs: www.housingmaps.com

Ann Coulter is dumb

Fox News quotes:

Ann Coulter: Canada is "lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent"; Carlson: "Without the U.S., Canada is essentially Honduras"



Fox News is funny. It's funny because it's almost entirely CRAP! It's also sad. Sad because so many Americans believe their reports.
CBC's program The Fifth Estate did a story on Fox News back in January.
You can watch the episode here: www.cbc.ca/fifth/sticksandstones.html

If you don't have 40 minutes to kill, then at least watch the interview between host Bob McKeown and raging Republican, Ann Coulter. It's only 3 minutes, but it's 3 minutes of pure gold!

There's some fun clips of Coulter here too: http://mediamatters.org/items/200412010011

Dave

Toronto Photo Blogs

More and more Toronto photo blogs are popping up on the web. This is one of my favs. I bet you can't stop hitting the day before button!



Enjoy.

http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/

Deep deep in the muddy

I don't like SUVs, I never much have. Hummers are shockingly disturbing to me as well. There's nothing worse than seeing a single person driving one of those gas-guzzling beasts around are smog covered city. A big argument has always been that those vehicles are made for off roading, not stay-at-home-mums. What's a city dweller with a SUV to do?

The problem has been solved! According to an article I came across on the BBC's site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4087850.stm

Instead of heading for the nearest field and churning up beauty spots, drivers can pay a few pounds for a bottle of real, diluted Shropshire mud.
A quick squirt and gleaming "Chelsea tractors" can be transformed into round-the-world voyagers more at home on the High Veldt than the High Street.



This is just about as pathetic as the spray-on sweat featured in Steve Martin's "The Lonely Guy". For single people who don't want to actually jog, but still want to try their best at discovering love along the jogging path.

For more fun with spray on mud check out: http://www.sprayonmud.com/

This just in...
Spray on mud, designed for to make an SUV look like it has been off road, now being used to defeat speed and red light cameras.
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/04/454.asp

Come Out To PLAY!!!

A buddy of mine recently emailed me this:
http://eu.playstation.com/iw_images//assets/video/warriors_the/warriors_trailer_1_320_qt.mov

I'm not a huge video game fan. There's some games I'm into, but I've never been a die hard gamer.

I AM a BIG movie geek though! When I saw that Walter Hill's 1979 classic film, "The Warriors" is being made into a game...well nuff said right?



Check out more here: http://www.rockstargames.com/thewarriors/

Welcome back...

Welcome back to the all new davemadethis blog. I decided to make this more of a general area for my daily thoughts.

I'll include links to the hottest, weirdest, most interesting new items I stumble across during my day.
Nothing much else to add at the moment.

If you're interested in a website that kicks butt, lemme know. Just click the title image above, and you'll find yourself right slap dab in www.davemadethis.com land!

Cheers,
Dave