BedJump - The Ultimate Hotel Test

Checking the bathroom, checking WiFi, calling your mom, checking fire exits or taking a shower? What are you doing when you arrive in a new hotel room. I am sure you do some of my mentioned options but are you do a bed jump on your arrival? If you like bed jumping on your hotel room bed than BedJump.com is your site to show the world your bed jump. Simply jump onto your hotel bed in a crazy way - take a photo and upload it to BedJump.com. Ok BedJump.com is not the new YouTube but a sort of and when you click deeper into the site you will discover that it is only a sub site of HotelsBySite.net - a website for Hotel rates and booking. I like how websites discovering the YouTube effect for marketing activities. You should really take a look at the bed jump sessions - very funny!

bedjump.com bed jump websquirrel

Bribing Bloggers The Microsoft Way

Are you an active blogger? Did you get the Microsoft and AMD gift - a new Acer Ferrari Notebook with pre-installed Windows Vista Ultimate for free? You don't? Well, there are some bloggers out there who got one of those notebooks and there is a lot of discussion out there if this is a good way or not. Microsofts PR Agency Edelman is responsible for this kind of christmas gifts for bloggers to buy good coverage from the heavy active bloggers out there. As reported, there are some bloggers that rejected the gift and send it back to Microsoft - which is a great! - I don't think that this was a good and intelligent act from Microsoft. Read more about this here.

microsoft notebook acer bribing websquirrel

Countdown For Christmas And Blogger Still Not Working!

I don't know what Google thought about releasing the final version of Blogger - see my post here - when some of the things are not working on this new tool. Many bloggers having a lot of trouble migrating their blogs to the new plattform, many - incl. me - have trouble saving page elements - you get a nice ajax error when you want to save your page elements and a lot of warnings inside the editor - but it seems that nobody cares at Google. When you look at the code - it seems they disabled some parts. Is the Google Blogger Team already in christmas mood? I am not happy about this situation and many others too. I know - it is a "free" product - and when you get something for free don't ask why it is not working! Free means often: "We make it free so we don't need to bug hunt - because it's free" - I don't like that and I hope Google will do a fix in the next days. For now I wish you all a happy holiday and all the best for 2007. I will leave for some days to Austria in the Alps and hope we have some snow - normaly they have tons of snow - but this year it seems the global warming effect does it's first attempt in th Alps!

UPDATE:
The site http://status.blogger.com is not working - you get a forbidden 403 error
Go to Blogger Groups to read the full mess of all the bloggers out there who have problems and using a "free" product


google blogger beta error bug websquirrel

Blogger Beta - We Are Out Of Beta!

Yesterday some of us using blogger.com reported a lot of problems with the blogger plattform. I saw that Google was working on some stuff on the site - Firebug shows me some xhtml errors - you could not save page elements the whole day and there was a big problem with layouts on some blogs. No everything is fine and some Google employe announces:

I'm excited to share the news with you that Blogger is now out of beta!

Wow! It seems that Google is rid of betas! So, whats new on Blogger.com. First of all you can make blogs private - a feature that many wanted to see and now you can do it. On a new permission tab you can say if you want to have the blog only viewable to blog authors, only people you choose or anybody. if you want to make your blog only viewable to friends you need to enter their email address so that they can access the blog. Also new, additional feed options: You can now have feeds for all comments or even individual feeds for all comments on a specific post. Blogger now supports RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0.

We’re excited about the new version of Blogger, both for what it can do now (which also includes access control for blogs and better input fields for post dates) and what we’ll add to it in the future, now that we have a new, stable, powerful infrastructure to work with. We’re done with “beta,” but we’re far from done with the new Blogger.

Bloggers who use the "old" blogger tools can click on "Switch Now" to migrate their blog to the new Blogger plattform. I hope the layouts of all those blog will not crush during migration - because the new Blogger Plattform uses absolutly different templates!

Read some more infos and buzz about Blogger here
Read about big problems with the new version over here

UPDATE: I still have problems saving my site elements! And I can't save my page elements - same problem as yesterday. And my feedburner subline will not shown on new posts. Perhaps better sign Blogger as Beta again?!

google blogger beta out+of+beta launch websquirrel

Blogger Beta Trouble

At the moment it seems that Blogger.com has some problems with their system - or they are working on some new stuff. My blog design is actualy looking like crap and when you want to change wigdet settings - you can't save and get some strange xhtml errors. Perhaps some new features coming up soon.

UPDATE:
For all of those who had problems with their blog layout - simply go to Template Edit - expand the widget view and save your template - and the layout is back in old freshness!
Seems that Google did made some changes - read the posts here

To Many Ideas In My Head

Sometimes I think my head will explode, because I have definitly to many ideas for new internet ideas in my head. The ideas are of course not all worth a try and sometimes not easy to monetize but it is really fun to think about how this and that idea would perform. My most problem, I don't have the time to all those ideas and my girlfriend is killing me with all that ideas in my head. I will write down some of my ideas here and perhaps there is someone out there who can bring it to live - I would be happy to see the ideas going into reality.

My last idea jumped into my brain when I got my first christmas package for this year from UPS. I love getting packages - and christmas packages from my dad or mum are always great! Than I thought - it's great getting packages and you don't know what's inside - you need to open it - but can this happen on the internet? I don't know about a service that let's you send presents packages with different things inside to a friend or family member e.g. for christmas. You can buy gift cards from various websites yes, but you can't put them into a package with some other gift cards to send them to a friend. Wouldn't it be great to fill a virtual package with gift cards from Amazon, iTunes, Apple, GoDaddy your favorite wine store or what ever - wrap a virtual nice paper around - incl. some nice cards and than send the package online to your friend or family via email. On top it would be nice to send this package via offline mail - as a normal package.

Anybody out there that love this idea? Send me your thoughts to squirrelweb@googlemail.com

We Finaly Made It Again To The End Of The Year!

We made it again to the end of the year - what a surprise! No Atomic Bomb, no Meteor hit, no Vulcano eruption that destroyed our whole blue planet. If you are not a heavy working business man/woman and love the christmas mood - like me - you are more chilling than working. A good thing to chill is to read something on the web and listen to music. And what would be better than review the year with a move over to Google Zeitgeist 2006. Since some years, Google is listing different top searches in different categories ranging from "What's Hot" over "Milestones" to "Sports". The Design of the Zeitgeist page is great - I love it. But take a look over by yourself - it is worth visiting. Google Zeitgeit 2006!

google, zeitgeist, year-end, 2006, websquirrel

Is There A Google Phone On It's Way?

New Mobile Phones everywhere! After many announcements and rumors of the Apple iPhone that will perhaps launch coming monday, UK Magazin The Observer reports today that Google is planning a Google Phone in cooperation with mobile carrier Orange.

Google is on the move. The internet giant has held talks with Orange, the mobile phone operator, about a multi-billion-dollar partnership to create a 'Google phone' which makes it easy to search the web wherever you are.

Executives from Orange had several meetings in the Google Headquarter "GooglePlex" to discuss details about the Orange and Google branded phone. The Phone will not be a revolutional thing but it probably will make surfing the net with a mobile phone easier. The article further on says, that it has probably a video screen like an iPod Video and has build in software from Google which will dramaticly improve surfing the net with a mobile phone or device. I think Larry Page and Sergey Brin already saw the iPhone :)

Read the full story here

google phone iphone orange websquirrel

Jajah VoIP Client On Apple IPhone?

There are many rumors about the Apple iPhone but more and more details poping up. Today Voice over IP Service Company Jajah says it is in detailed discussions with Apple about including their service into the new Apple iPhone. My question: Is the iPhone a normal mobile phone or is it something different ? Because I think that mobile operators don't like the fact that they want to include the Jajah software on the new iPhone so that customers can make calls for free or even cheaper than using Verizon or what ever. Of course - you need a data plan for using Jajah - but I think the iPhone has WiFi on board ... let's wait and see.

apple, iphone, jajah, voip

Buying Christmas Songs On iTunes!

Today I feel the Christmas seasons mood and I sit in front of my iMac clicking through iTunes music store to search for some nice christmas songs. There is a lot that you can buy, from small songs up to special editions with nearly 80 songs for 25 EUR. I can't decide what I want to buy. When I think back into the old days of buying CD's I see me in a shop with some CD's in my hand without listening to the songs but buying these CD's anyway. With iTunes it is different, you click here and there - listen this or that song and at the end you fly through a different genres of music within minutes. Did you ever thought about that buying christmas songs is a waste of time - because after 24th december - you will never hear those songs - except one year later - but than I am sure I sit again in front of iTunes and search for new Christmas songs. But one thing changes, we have probably a new iTunes version - that hopefully supports a feature like - I love this song but don't want to buy it now - favorites.

I Wanna Wii Too!

Rent some Friends with Fake Your Space!

Dont you have enough friends on myspace, facebook or frienster? Are your friends looking like boring and unatractive people that nobody want to talk to? Want something fresh on your friends list? If yes, than you should take a deep look into Fake Your Space where you can invest $0.99/month to buy friends for your myspace, friendster or facebook profile.

First of all I must say - what a great idea - two seconds later I say : "how bad is this" - are the number of friends the new money on social networking pages? On Fake Your Space you can select who will be your friend and pay for it - damn easy.

You can select from hot girls with tiny white bra's, nice looking boys or perhaps some more natural girls - it depends on you. What you see is what you get. Make your own decision on this new site.

fake+your+space websquirrel myspace frienster facebook

Need A Christmas Gift? Weekendr Is For Sale!

Weekendr our Social Networking Platform is for sale. If you are seriously interested - read the full story here.

Just In Time vs. Take It Easy Posting?

Did you ever thought about the right time of a blog post of a hot story? It is very importand. Yesterday I talked about that with a friend of mine. We came to the conclusion that posting a hot story later than all the other geeks out there could be the key to more hits on your blog. You ask why? Well, when a new story comes up many blogs are writing about it and soon all those blogs are available on Technorati. Now think about that you post a day later about that story - where are you on the technorati normal search results? Yes, you got it - you are on top and all the other blogs are further down on the result page. Also, think about that not all readers of blogs are that heavy info geeks - some of them hear about the story days later - but want to read about it. That's one reason why blog visits often grow up days later you posted a big story.

Mr.Digg knows (most) everything about Apple's upcoming iPhone

I think it's cool to drink beer in front of a camera these days!

kevin rose diggnation iphone apple

Lost One Of Your Gloves?

I know this is completly off topic but I want to show you this. A guy who catches lost gloves on photos. He seems to be a cat and glove lover cuz all what he can report is about cats and lost gloves. So far, he reported about 86 lost gloves all well documented with pictures and a nice little text below. Perhaps you will rediscover one of your secretly lost gloves - take a look at Mad Times. His new blog is also reporting about lost gloves - take a look over here!

Manual Madness

This is excactly what I hate about new stuff that I bought somewhere. My new digital camera has a 5 page quick manual - and the 230 pages manual is on a cd. So I need to print it out and buy a new toner casette and paper too. I called the customer service and said that I don't have a PC or any other computer and I also don't know what a printer is. Now they ship me a printed manual for free!

Digg For Hot Deals!

German startup DealJaeger launched it's plattform these days. DealJaeger is a sort of Digg for best deals, products and price comparison. Members of the plattform can submit hot deals that they found on the net or even in offline world. Visitors can than vote (like Digg) for this deal.

After the short sign up you can start submitting deals to the plattform. It doesn't matter if you have found a great deal on Amazon or on your local shop simply submit it with some easy steps. When you submit an Amazon product they grab data directly from the amazon website and you only need to add a few more details like tags or additional informations if you like.

After you submitted the deal other users can click on a button to vote for that deal. On the product page they also show other offers from different hot deal pages - so you can directly compare the price.

A cool feature is that you get an email if someone has a better deal for your submited product. You can than submit a better deal if you found one. So you are always up to date with the newest deals on your submitted products. Every product has also a sort of percentage flag that shows the actual difference to the first submitted price.

What I really miss - or I didn't found it - a sort of alert function that sends me an email if prices of my watched products will go lower. I think this is a must!

Overall Dealjaeger looks like a great service. At the moment it is only available in german - but I am sure it will soon go live in english too.



dealjaeger hot+deals websquirrel