Weather 2.0 - Global Warming for your Blog, Website or MySpace

AccuWeather, a company well established in the weather market since 1962 and so called World’s Weather Authority™, made it's jump into the web2.0 tub by offering a sort of widget/add on for any website, blog or even MySpace to jump on the train of blogging. The service is called netWeather and is available in english and spanish. After a simple sign up and configuration your weather location you can choose between different colors, layouts, metric and language settings. You than get your code that you can paste onto your blog, website or MySpace site (Flash Version).



I really miss a login to edit my settings later on - because you need to sign up again to get a new code - eh? Anyway the widgets is nice to have if you are a weather fan. I am a big weather fan and I have two weather stations in my house to track the weather just for fun and to see that we have 18 degrees by the end of november (normaly around zero).

I also took a look at a little Add-On for FireFox called ForeCastFox which is really great. You can get a 7 day forecast, heavy weather warnings, and neat icons displayed in your favorite FireFox bar. There is a lot of settings that you can change to create your own personal weather forecast with data from AccuWeather as well - reaching from temperature, air pressure, humidity, fog and many more options. You can update the weather database with a click, can export your profiles for other computers or friends and can use different profiles for different areas. For all FireFox users that want to track weather and check the next snow storm - it's a must!

I am sure there is still a lack in Weather 2.0 web applications - but the air is getting thinner and I am sure we see something in the future. AccuWeather and other weather service provider can do more for home weather fans. I hope there will be some more in the near future. If you know a good service - please drop a comment.

accuweather widget forecastfox weather add-ons addon websquirrel

Where Do You Want To Live?

Ever thought about leaving your country or town to get into some new adventures? If you prefer the save way and want some informations about your new area take a look at Neighboroo.com. Neighboroo offer a nice service to get some regional informations about a special area. You can search their database by throwing in an address or simply drag and zoom a map to find your place.

After you find your place you can get detailed informations about it by doubble clicking on the map. You get a short information overview about the location like zip and metro or district and about the people who living in this area like median age, married with kids and an average household income.

You get also direct informations on the map itself by colored regions. The colors shown on the map are lifestyle phase categories and range from "College", over "Family" to "Retiree". Yellow means e.g. young family, whereas pink shows us regions with retirees.

Clicking on the "more info" link you get access to a page with even more details. They offer informations about real estate, people, ethnicity and crime. If you want a more detailed analysis about a special area they do this as well but you can't get that information from the website - you need to contact them.

Neighboroo seems to be a helpfull tool for all who need to decide in which region they want to stay. But it could also be very interesting tool for marketing managers and local advertisers.

neighboroo websquirrel

Is Zeeya A New FaceBook?

Zeeya is a new international social network for students around the globe. During the easy sign up process you need to enter some details about your country, region, city and school. Later on you can match people that visited the same school to find them. You can than reconnect with them, or make new connections - they call it academic connections! The plattform offers a mass range of options for building your community. You can start your own discussion and invite friends to this discussion, you can have a full email service integrated to stay in contact and they even offer a weekly newsletter that you can send to your contacts. So when you have some contacts that are interested into your latest golfing results - simply send them a newsletter.



Zeeya also offers a LinkedIn like connection linking service. You can see friends of your friends and connect with them if they agree. When you update your profile with different informations you can also find members with the same goals or interest. Zeeya also allows to upload your images to show them to your friends. Zeeya has a neat design but I couldn't find any special things that makes this plattform a bit more valuable than other social networking sites. I like the newsletter thing that you can send to your friends - it is nice to have when you want to keep everybody in the loop about your activities.

Zeeya has some big search options where you can search for things like: tags, first name, last name, school, status and hobbies. This makes it very easy to get in touch with others that share the same informations. Zeeya of course needs big attention to get as much members as possible to make it more valuable - otherwise nobody will use it.

zeeya, social, network, students, school, facebook

Do You Like Games?

When I first heard about PC Casual Games I was thinking of very lame small games that are less attractive, not worth playing and overall a waste of time. Since three month I am stepping deeper into this area and I found out that there are a lot of great games on the market that are far better than the most AAA titles. For me, a game must be easy to understand - means easy to get into - and hard to master with hours of motivation to play it again and again. Normal PC games with a handbook of 100 pages and a learning curve of a week or more are not any longer my famous games - you know I am 37 :) Also, PC Casual Games normaly can be tested for about 60 Minutes before you can buy them and than the price is about $9,99 to $19,99 - which is very ok!

To make a decision which games are hot or not I stumbled upon Gamezebo.com, a really great resource on the web when you are looking for your next big PC Casual Game. Gamezebo has all the details of the new games, quality reviews, previews and often a look into the industry and new upcoming titles.

Gamezebo that launched in January 2006 is one of the first Websites devoted to PC Casual Games and I think many will follow because the market for this little crazy time killing games is growing from day to day. Beside normal review writing Gamezebo also offers PodCasts and a weekly email "What's New & Hot" to stay up to date with latest informations about the PC Casual Games Industry. Of course you can also subscribe to their RSS Feed or left comments on their reviews and previews. In a special section called "Behind the Game" they are covering insides of game development and companies who are involved into this business.

Take a look at Gamezebo! I am sure you will find your game and if you are interested into pre-testing games - Gamezebo offers a special services that lets your participate on testing earlybird titles from major PC Casual Games developers.

gamezebo websquirrel pc games casual

Reply! Your Decision Engine

Today I found Reply.com a new service that lets you check valuations of nearly every house in the US and also check valuations about cars and trucks in your area. I am very amazed about this service because here in germany this is not possible due to security regulation. I know that there are some lists available - but they are not open to public and for estate managers only.

On Reply.com you can enter any address and you can see the valuation of houses in a special area. The best thing is that you can contact the nearest real estate managers to buy the house and you can make an offer for buying a special house.



When you click on a house you can also click on a comparison list to list houses with the same attributes, can do a review of this house and you can check the neighborhood profile and see if this is your area to life in or not.

They also offer a market property trend where you can see how the prices in a special area or only for a special house are performing. Reply is a great resource for everybody who wants to know if the neighbor has a more valuable house or for those who want to buy or rent a house and need detailed informations.



reply.com real+estate websquirrel cars trucks decision

QuestionForm - Powerfull Online Surveys!

In the last weeks I took a look at different survey tools on the net - there are many professional tools out there where you need to pay for and there are many - mostly free - that are simply not what you expect from a survey tool. Today I stumbled upon QuestionForm a Portuguese startup that recently launched there very nice online survey editing tool, that let you create surveys within seconds. After sign up you can easily create your new survey by giving a name and edit your survey in a clear editor. The editor provides you with different types of elements such as text-field, multiple-choice, single-choice and star-ratings, that you can drag and drop on your survey. The editor also alows to use elements in a matrix form for different sorts of survey styles. The very well designed interface has many options and from the toolbox menu you can also do a preview or save your survey and you can add different languages in which your survey will be displayed.



When you are done and happy with your survey, you can save and publish it. Actualy there are 3 different options availble to publish your survey to the masses. You can either email and invite others to join the survey, can get a direkt link with your own username domain to your survey or can put your survey onto your blog or website by adding a little code snippet to your website or blog.

On your dashboard you can choose from different options for your survey. On the Alert-Tab you can either subscribe via RSS to your survey results or you can opt-in to get an email when ever a survey response is made. On the statistics tab you can view detailed statistics about your survey and on the Response-Tab you can take a look at your survey responses in a detailed view. You can also export the data to an excel file which is really a good option and not every survey tool offer.

The application is in beta state and has some little bugs that I found during my editing. But I also saw that they are working on the tool - because some bugs were gone during my test. Ex: I couldn't change and save my survey name. Overall the application looks very clear and easy to use and I hope they fix all bugs and release there mentioned other survey options to full access. When I look at the account options - I see that they are planning some paying plans too - but this is not included at the moment.

questionform survey web2 web20 websquirrel

Unfaithfulness

Sell Your Books On Amazon

One of my favorite things on the web is selling items on the web. When there is something that really changed my life it is selling items on the internet. My girlfriend uses Ebay to sell her old clothes every year to refresh her wardrobe. Or, did you took a recent look onto your bookshelf? If not, do it now. I am sure there are a lot of books that you never took a look at. I have a lot of tech books on my shelf every year that I only needed for a short time or dropped reading it cuz of getting bored. Last week I took again a deeper look and saw eight books that I don't need anymore, are to old to use or are simply not used and I know I never use them. You will ask - why I bought them -- don't ask! - Ex. I bought the IIS Admin Book - because I like the colored cover! If you want to sell books, Amazon is your friend - because it is really easy to sell books within minutes. I put all my eight books on the Amazon Marketplace within 10 minutes and you will not believe it - one hour later the book "Flash 8 Powerworkshops" were sold. Yesterday I sold another book. But you can not only sell books - I am also selling some old mobile phones and my Garmin GPS tracker. Amazon is of course not the cheapest way to sell books - because they take a big cut from your earnings - but it is really the fastest way.

amazon books sell marketplace

Whats Up With Blogtopsites.com

I am using Blogtopsites for a little ranking for my blog since I started last week on this blog. My rank went up every day through yesterday. Since 24 hours or more - the rank didn't move a pixel - so I took a deeper look at my stats on the blogtopsites page and it shows the graph beside.

It seems that I have -37 uniqe users today and -97 page views. :) Strange stats! I searched the website from blogtopsites but don't saw any news about technical problems. Seems they have or had a server problem or bigger downtime.

blogtopsites stats

Post Google Docs & Spreadsheets To Your Blog

After my last post with blogger I discovered a new feature from Google Docs & Spreadsheets. You can now publish your Docs & Spreadsheets directly to any blog.

I don't know how long this feature is present - but I think they updated it today - or they only inserted this label to blogger beta - which I am using right now. You can test this feature when you go to your Docs & Spreadsheet dashboard and choose "publish" for any document. A page will be displayed where you can setup your blog settings.



During setup your blog on Docs & Spreadsheets you can chosse from different blog provider plattforms.

Actualy they support the following:
Blogger, Blogger (beta), BlogHarbor.com, BlogWare.com, LifeJournal.com, Wordpress.com, SquareSpace.com

It is also possible to setup your own hosted blog by using different APIs. After the easy setup you can publish any doc from Docs & Spreadsheets to your blog with a click.

google docs+spreadsheets post blog

Getting Real And Reset Your Brain

I recently finished reading "getting real" from 37signals. When I first heard about 37signals and the Ruby on Rails Framework I was impressed about that it is possible to create a new web framework without being Microsoft or some other big company. It really pushed me. I am an old classic ASP developer - learned it in early 1999 - switching to rails was a great step for me but I am happy that I finaly managed it. The Book "getting real" has complete reset my brain and turn thinking into another direction about web development and starting a web buisness. Since I am over 35 - I am happy about every simple thing in this world :). I am using simple software, simple web applications and playing simple pc games. I don't need more and I have more space in my brain for other things. Getting Real is the best book to learn how to make big things happen with a small team and thinking small instead of too big. It tells you to drop things from your concept, tells you not to include any feature that customers requests, tells you to keep your team small, and to keep everybody involved into everything. I really like how they think about doing a new web application and they gave me the feeling that small teams can achieve big things with less mass. If you are a web entrepreneur and want to start something - this is your book.

getting+real 37signals book

MyBlogLog

Some of you already know it - I am the founder of weekendr.com. Yesterday I tried to insert weekendr.com into MyBlogLog profile but I saw that it was already taken by someone. I wonder but than I saw that you can add any website to your profile without being the owner or author. Today I added apple.com to my MyBlogProfile - great :) It seems that MyBlogLog dont care about this problem. I wrote them an email why somebody added Weekendr to his profile - but no answer yet! Of course you can not insert the tracking code to the page - but anyway it is not ok that you can add other websites to your profile -- somebody interested in Microsoft on the profile page?

Update: I got an email from Eric of MyBlogLog today - they fixed the weekendr problem and it is now added to my profile - thanks guys for the fast reply! I also understand now why there is no site authentication - if there would be one - nobody could add it's MySpace, Vox or other blog to MyBlogLog - and that would be very bad.

mybloglog websquirrel weekendr

Typepad - The Madness Continues

Canceling a payed Typepad account seems to be very difficult. After I tried to cancel my Typepad account on Sunday (see my post here) - nobody get back to me about the error during the cancelation. My Typepad Account is still active and I didn't get any customer feedback from Typepad about my cancelation problems. I am really pissed because on December 8th - my recurring payment will happen. I tried to open a new customer support ticked - but no response. I tried to mail a contact person that is listed on the germany Typepad contact page - but this mail returned with "unknown user" - today I send an email to Typepad US - I hope somebody can help me on that. If not I need to cancel the billing from Typepad when they charge me again. I thought Typepad is a serious company - and when I search on Google I didn't found anybody with the same problem - so I think it is a single problem on my account. If anybody out there has a tip or the same problem - please drop me a comment.

Update: Typepads Customer supports woke up and sends me an email that they cancel my account now. It seems that they are doing some major server upgrades and this was the reason why the account cancelation didn't work on my account. So everything is fine now!

typepad cancel+account madness

Christmas Gifts 2.0

CenterNetworks has a great idea about secret christmas gift exchange - that we all know very well from our company xmas parties every year. Some like it some hate it - I personly think it's great - when you have cool people in your staff. You know everybody grabs a name from a pool of people and than he/she needs to buy a little present for this person. On the xmas party than everybody gets it's gift and mostly don't know from whom :) CenterNetworks name it Gift Exchange 2.0 and offer an easy full Gift Exchange Service now on their website. I think it is a great idea and when you want to get a secret gift on xmas it's time to join the service.

Read the full story here

xmas christmas gift exchange centernetworks websquirrel

Mac OS X 10.5 Hacked?

This is a bit off topic on this blog but it seams that someone hacked a preview version of OS X 10.5 leopard to run on a standard PC. German website heise.de is listing a link to 2 images (1)(2) and a link to a forum that shall tell us that someone did it. I am not sure if this is serious - but I am sure it is interesting for some readers.

update: here is another image

mac osx 10.5 leopard pc hacked

CrossLoop: Easy Screen Sharing With A Snap

When you read my post about my Mum and Dad trying to connect to the internet you know what it means to give the best 24/7 parents support as possible in this new world called "The Web". The most problem is - I am not always beside my parents to help them. Even when I can call them - it is not easy for me to follow the problems they encountered during their first steps on the internet. This is the point where CrossLoop jumps in! CrossLoop is a very easy to use desktop screen sharing application that lets you share any desktop with another user that can logon to your pc. I know there are many other tools on the market - but CrossLoop is different - it's easy to use, no hassle with endless setups on your router and has a clean looking interface.

After free download from the CrossLoop website the installation is going very well. When you have a firewall like McAfee or Norton it shouts one time but after you agreed on the changes the setup process is done in seconds. When you start CrossLoop you can either choose if you want to login into some desktop using the "Join Tab" or if you like to share your own desktop by pressing the "Host Tab".

When you want to join and logon to a friends - or your parents - desktop type in your name and enter the access code that your friend has given to you. After some seconds you have full access to the desktop of your friends PC and of course to the full machine. When you choose "Host" CrossLoop will provide you with an access code that you need to send your friend so that he can logon to your desktop.

CrossLoop is actualy only available to PC's running Windows. I hope there will be a Mac version soon. CrossLoop can be used on many ways - you can even use it as a Server Remote Access Tool - instead of the Microsoft Remote Access. The plus side is an easy to use application and really fast setup, the downside is that you can't share files - not yet! On the other hand and to say it with "getting real" from 37signals - or with the book from Seth Godins "Small is the new big" - the application don't needs any more features - it's great and I love it!

...and I am sure I will use it on my parents computer to help them 24/7 on their trip into the new world of internet!


crossloop desktop+sharing screen+sharing websquirrel

One Laptop Per Child

When I frist read about "One Laptop Per Child" I was really impressed about the idea and at the same time I was thinking - "will this ever happen"? And yes, it seams so - the "One Laptop Per Child" OLPC project is on its way - first units were manufactured on November 14.

Many put in Herculean efforts and as scheduled the first build of X0 was begun on Tuesday afternoon November 14th. About 35 operators assembled the laptops with the over-site of the entire technical team from Quanta and Mark Foster and Mary Lou Jepsen from OLPC and David Woodhouse from Red Hat on hand.

Today the OLPC anounced that the first hardware were shipped to developers and they also released a complete list of the hard- and software specs of the device. The device is really compact with a dimension of 7.5 to 9.0 inches, is 2.5 inches thick and has a weight of around 1.5 Kilos. You get the full hardware specs here.

I hope this project will be a big success for our world!

laptop child olpc

A Google Day

Did you ever thought about how google is changing your every day life? If not, try to make a list of things you do with google for one day. At the end, I am sure you will end up with a list like mine. You will be surprised about how much you use Google and it's services. Please to know that in Europe you can not use all Google Services. Google Checkout e.g. is not avail. yet.

Here is my Google Day:

07:00 / checking mails via google mail
07:30 / bike tour through the city and park - using google maps for planning
08:00 / checking stocks with google finance
08:15 / reading news on google news
08:30 / checking my google analytics charts for my websites
09:00 / chating with some friends on google talk
09:30 / doing some research with google search
10:00 / read newest blog posts with google reader
10:30 / meeting and chat with a developer on google spreadsheets
11:30 / checking my google calender and enter some new meetings with a developer
12:00 / upload some images to google picasa
12:30 / writing some new blog entries with google blogger
13:30 / manage my ads with google adwords and adsense
14:00 / reading some posts on google groups - searching for a coding solution
15:00 / doing some google research on the web
16:00 / translating a spanish text with google language tools

What are you doing with Google?



google services day life

Mum And Dad Ready For The Internet?

My Mum is 63 and my dad is 65. Both are in good healthy conditions and are ready for new things. They are even interested into the internet and are willing to maneuver around all the obstacles to get into the internet. My mum and dad are not surfing the internet - yet - they only see that you need it more every day and that you are a damn looser if you don't use it. My mum said yesterday - that most TV-Shows always point the viewers to a so called www address at the end of the show to get more informations. This is a sad point when you are really interested into it but can't get it to work to read the information. It is like you want to read the newspaper but can't reach the newsstand. You are locked out for informations - which is really bad.

It is not the problem that they don't want to use it the biggest problem for them in using the internet is to get using a PC and than surf the internet with all the hassle that users without a geek-brain have every day...viruses, updates, settings - you name it.

"I thought it's like watching TV!?"

I first thought about a Mac and gave my mum my iBook to see if she get it or not and how she is stepping into this new world. After some hours with cake and coffee in front of OSX - I saw that it is a huge step for my mum and also for my dad and they both compare a PC or internet surfing machine with a TV. Of course it is not the same - it is more like driving a car without knowing anything about cars.

For the next weekend we aggreed on a new meeting with a new try to get into the internet and of course with cake and coffee - I prefer the nut cake. I am sure it will be a hard work - to get them happy - and I am sure I will provide them with the best parents-customer support in that time. Perhaps at the end - I also can finaly explain my parents what their son is doing all day long, because they don't understand it and think I am doing some none serious jobs.

to be continued...

mum dad internet pensioner online

TypePad Madness

I am a Typepad user since 2004 and I was very happy with everything except some speed issues and the not very good prices. I payed 90 EUR for a one year account and can't even edit my HTML or CSS. Thats a bit weird because there are much better offers our there that has great options for free. Me and my girlfriend are running a private blog since 2004 and yesterday I managed to import the typepad blog data into a free wordpress blog. It was very easy! After the import I wanted to cancel my Typepad plan because my recurring typepad billing is on December 8. I clicked on Account and than on Cancel Account. After pressing the final cancel button it took some minutes before an error message poped up...

TypePad has encountered an error. The requested page could not be found or the requested action could not be completed.

heeeee, whats that? Very nice and not very customer friendly. Are they doing it to prevent customers from behing canceling their accounts? I am really pissed and delete all my credit card information in my account - but I am sure they can charge me anyway if they want. I wrote an email to the customer support and get an answer to try it again cuz it could be that there was a problem with the server - Mr.Typepad : I tried it 5 times including one time this morning - allways the same problem. I wrote them back to cancel my account today! I am sure they will write back "Sorry, you need to delete your account by yourself - please try again"

typepad cancel+account error customer+support

Two Ideas!

Perhaps I don't know it but I have two ideas about new web applications that would be really great to have and to use. If I am wrong or this applications already exsist please comment below.

1/ Feed-Subscriber-Identifier
Feedburner is a really nice tool and many of us are using it. I have 12 readers so far but there are some out there that have over 130k and growing. I wonder if there is someone out there who can code a Feed Subscriber Identifier like a sort of MyBlogLog but only for feeds and not for visits. Wouldn't it be great to know who is reading your blog? I think it will be possible with cookies - but I it will probably a problem with feed reader clients. Or is there any sort of application that can do that?

2/ Browser email client for all my mail accounts
There is Gmail, YahooMail, AOLMail and many others and of course normal domain pop accounts. Why is there no web application that can handle all my mail accounts within one web client application that works like Gmail? Perhaps I am wrong and didn't found this application so far. I know there is netvibes that can do this - but I only want to use a browser based mail client. If anybody know a solution, please let me know.

Any coders out there who want to code that applications :)

mail feed identifier gmail aol yahoo websquirrel

Basecamp On Your Mobile

When I wrote about Ta-da list some days ago I mentioned that it would be great to have mobile access to your Ta-da list. Today I found a post on Signal vs. Noise that there is a mobile application of 37Singnals Basecamp available. With Phonifieds Software you can access your Basecamp account very easy in a well designed interface right from your mobile phone.

...Phoniƒied Basecamp is an application that allows you to access your Basecamp™ account from your mobile phone. You can download a copy of your To-do list to your phone and update information without having to use a computer. You can also check milestones and configure an alarm on your phone when a milestone is upcoming...

This is of course not a client software for Ta-da List, but as you all know Basecamp has a To-Do list integrated. So I think I will switch to Basecamp to manage my To-Do. The only problem at the moment is that you can only use it on a special phones.

...Phoniƒied Basecamp currently supports Nokia S60 (Series 60) phones, Blackberries, and Palm Treos running PalmOS. More devices are in the works...

I see more and more applications made it to the mobile world and I like using this new sort of mobile software. This is only possible cuz there are a lot of new phones on the market that are more a small Personal Computers rather than a simple phone to call someone.
Would my mum use Basecamp on her mobile?

basecamp Phonified mobile websquirrel

Watch out for the paparazzi! What Is Your Bloglebrity!

CenterNetworks has pointed me to Kineda.com - a cool thingy that let you check if you are a A,B,C or even D blogger. Well I am a D-Blogger (so far) but I am working to get into the Celebrity A Class ;) If you are brave enough put your Bloglebrity Class Rank on your blog.

Here is mine:


bloglebrity kineda centernetworks websquirrel

Great :)

btw: someone grabed the domain: techcrotch.com :)

techcrunch dog laguna

Mobile Mail On My New Nokia 6280

I am using a new Nokia 6280, which I got for € 1.00 when I extend my contract with the carrier. Ok I am happy with my carrier - so why not. The Nokia 6280 is a pretty new phone and I am happy about the really big screen and nice resolution - it feels good when you look at the screen.

My most importand thing that I use on my mobile is mail. I have around eight different mail accounts and I want to check all of those email accounts and not only one account. Ok, the first thing that I recognized with my new Nokia is that it can only check one email account at a time. errrggg... Ok, I can switch to another account by a complicated menu switching. It seams that Nokia didn't learn a lot since the last s40 phones -and it seams that they really want to shift heavy email users to their business series.

Ok, I now have a 6280 and not a Exx..something - so what I need is an email software that will do the job for me, because the internal email software is near crap and really slow. The first that came into my mind is Gmail App for mobiles. After a hassle to find the download link (you can't access it from europe without a trick) I downloaded the Gmail App and tried to connect to my account. After some seconds I have a new problem: it will not connect because of my phones connection and security settings... Well, did I say that I only want to check my emails?
To short down a bit - I managed to update the phone with 5 heavy Firmware downloads that took me 1 hour! After that update madness it is working like a charm. Gmail is a great application - easy to use and damn fast. The down side: You can only check your Gmail account. So I need something better - a sort of Outlook for my Nokia! I remember a post from Om Malik about MovaMail. After the download of MovaMail I am impressed about the functionality and easy interface - very nice. After some short setup I am ready to check my eight or more email accounts with a snap. Great! On the down side: It is not free - but they only charge $2.95 per month by sms and you can use a 30 day testing trial - which is ok when you are a heavy email user like me.

This story shows me that the future is near - but not close enough to the customer. Do you really think that my mum can install 5 firmware updates on a Nokia? And btw. to update your firmware you need to install first a special internet protocol that is avail on the Nokia setup page. Have fun!

nokia 6280 mobile mail gmail movamail

Fasten Your Seatbelt And Turn On Your iPod! We Are Ready For Take Off!

Apple announced today a cooperation with major airlines like Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United to integrate iPod support and connection in their jets. Travelers can not only charge and power their iPods, it is also planned to integrate the iPod into the onboard audio system. Users of the Apple Video iPod can also stream their own stored videos to the build in display in the seats. Apple promise to make this service available step by step from mid 2007. More airlines will follow and there are some rumors that you can soon surf the iTunes Music Store from those Airlines as well. Have a good flight!

ipod airline airplane cooperation klm united

Using Flickr For Research

Flickr is an enormous resource for everthing that can be put onto images. I am wondering and interested how you are using flickr. Most of you using flickr for uploading, storing and sharing photos - but I think there is a lot more usage for flickr.

Did you ever thought about using flickr to get information about your next holiday travel location? I did - and it's working very well when you don't travel to a place where nobody has been before. You see the real pictures of a location and not pictures from your travel agency - very useful. And if you are interested you can even watch at photos from the location that are not travel related, can find people that were at this place or living at this place, find special locations that are worth a visit. Ex. here you can find different sort of images from Oslo and surroundings: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/oslo/clusters/norway-vigeland-sculpture

Or, did you ever tried to find a special item on flickr. Lets say you want more images from a special car. I am sure you get it on flickr. Interested in images from a Hummer - you can get it here: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/hummer/clusters

Want to buy a new MacBookPro and find people that already has one. you can go here: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/macbookpro

You see, flickr is more than a simple image storing system - its a great and valuable resource for getting different sorts of information. Wouldn't it be great to merge Google and Flickr :)

I have prepared a little survey to get more informations about flickr usage. Take 20 seconds to take the flickr survey "How are you using flickr?". Right after the survey - you can see the results from other readers. Thanks for your participation!
Go to the Flickr Survey

flickr usage survey websquirrel

Hot Temperatures in November

Today we have 11 degrees here in germany on a rainy november day. For all who don't know much about normal temperatures in germany - we normaly have around 5 or lower at this time. The weather forcast for thursday is really strange - because the temperature will reach 20 degress - on summer we normaly have 30 degrees here - this is amazing. You see 20 degrees in mid november is really a bad sign. I bought a new coat for the winter season - I think I don't need it anymore. Experts say that we get summer temperatures at around 40 degrees in 5 to 10 years. This is of course nothing that has anything to do with the web - but it is changing our lifes too and I mentioned that I also want to write about personal things on this blog. I hope that we will have a bit more less temperatures at christmas which is only a few weeks away, to get into the right mood.

global+warming november germany

Ta-da List is wonderful

Ta-da List from 37signals isn't new - I know - but it is still really fresh. Yesterday i saw again how I love this application. It is so damn easy to use the application that it makes fun to create to-do lists. I am using Ta-da List some months now and I am very happy to move my to-do lists from the pen and paper style to the web. I even share a to-do with my girlfriend to list all things that we need to buy on our next supermarket visit - very usefull. I definitly miss a mobile access btw. and a sort of easy reminder. Perhaps I should give RememberTheMilk a try - which has a mobile access. Ta-da List and RememberTheMilk are one of those applications that change our life in a really dramatic positiv way.

37signals tada ta-da rememberthemilk todo

Granola with Cinnamon

Yes, christmas is near and what is the best to prepar for christmas - put cinnamon in every dish. Even on small sausages. Today I discovered that cinnamon in my breakfast granola is tasting fantastic with a sense of christmas flavor. And to finalize - try a liquorice tee with cinnamon too - Happy Xmas - you should try it.

cinnamon Granola xmas christmas

Why I love Google

When I first heard about Google for me it was just another new company that want to start a search engine. The low end design on its frontpage made me think of a students project (I know, it was one). But after some deeper look I started loving Google. This was in the year 2000. Now six years later I am Googles biggest fan. I am using Google Search, Gmail, GTalk, Adsense, Adwords, Calender and of course the latest big thing - Google Docs & Spreadsheet. I can only say - I Love it! I have a Firefox Bookmark Folder which show only Google bookmarks to all my services.

In my team we are working with several developers around the globe. One from Spain, one from Australia and another one from Germany. We are all connected using Google Docs & Spreadsheet and it works really well and easy. It doesnt matter what your PC OS is running for software - you can use Docs & Spreadsheet simply in a browser of your choice. One of the biggest benefits is to share documents with others and work on them from different places. It made our work much more flexibel and easy. Today you can run a company from you bed by using the internet and Google - its fantastic.

Another big thing from Google is Google Reader. It’s wonderful and I use it all day long. I have tested many RSS Readers that can be installed on your OS - but all of them - that I know - needs to run somewhere in the background to keep track on the feeds - thats sometimes a bit annoyingly. Google RSS Reader is exactly what you need. I tried Bloglines for a while but I dont liked the design and the interface - it is just crapy and definetly needs a refresh.

google love gmail why+i+love+google webmonsters

Welcome to Web Squirrel

Every day I see that the web is changing my life in a very dramatic and fast way. For a long time my TV is not my first choice of information and watching movies. Every thing I need I can find on the web. Last sunday in the evening , my girlfriend was in the kitchen - surfing with her iBook to read the latest news and I was sitting in my room using Google Reader to get the latest information. I saw that our life changed a lot. When ever we need to find something we use the web, when ever we want to buy something, we search the web. In this little blog I will write about the new life with the new web. I called it Web Squirrel - because I saw a Squirrel on the tree in front of my window during this blog setup.