SOMEWHAT FRANK

Free Online Video Guitar Lessons

Strumming a six-string guitar can be a very relaxing exercise but it is not something you can learn to do well overnight. It takes time to practice and perfect your skills. Read/Write Web recently wrote an article listing a number of web 2.0 sites and services for musicians. I recently found one that was not mentioned but is worth mentioning called JustinGuitar.com (no this is not Justin.tv).

Happy BlogDay 2007

BlogDay is here again. BlogDay is the one day celebration of the blogosphere created by Nir Ofir also of BlogTV fame. BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On BlogDay bloggers highlight or recommend five other blogs to their blog visitors aiding the discovery of new blogs on the Web.

Moo Stickers Arrive (Literally)

Moo, a UK-based printing startup, puts an unique and personalized spin on traditional items like business cards and notecards. Moo loves to print as they continue to roll out additional offerings. In mid-July, Moo announced the launch of Moo StickerBooks.

Poll: Are you getting an iPhone?

The iPhone frenzy has been brewing all week across the country. I just was curious to see how many Somewhat Frank readers were going to get an iPhone immediately. Take this poll and let me know.

After A Long Web 2.0 Week: How Much Time Did It Take Off Your Life?

After a long week of traveling from Chicago for TECH cocktail to San Francisco for a week of Web 2.0 Expo events as explained by Mike Arrington, I feel like I may have shaved a few days off my life. Is there a way on the web to find out the impact of this week of sleepless nights and long days at the expo? If you’ve ever wondered just how long you’ll be taking up space on project earth, several sites are available to project how long you will could live. Based on how you complete a series of lifestyle questions, the sites calculate a projected age you will live to celebrate, or put another less popular way, your death age.

Internist Dr. Michael Roizen is a pioneer with health related questions to determine how one’s daily habits contribute to their good health with suggestions on how to live longer. At Dr. Roizen’s Realage.com you can calculate your “real age” based on your lifestyle, eating and drinking habits, and even how often you floss your teeth.

If you want more information, including how long you will live, (and why would you really want to know that?) you can log on to LivingTo100.com for those under 50 years of age, and to Eons.com for those older then 50. Each site walks you through a series of questions on health, diet, exercise, family, attitude, etc. and then calculates how long you will live.

So keep eating the broccoli, taking the vitamins, blogging daily and having fun you should live a long and happy life on the web.

Photo Attribution: stephcarter via Flickr

Vent Your Frustrations to the Web?

Do you get frustrated at school, work or home? Do you need to get it off your chest? You are not alone! While many look for ways to blow off steam (i.e. exercise, sex, drugs, alcohol & rock-n-roll)  B*SH recently launched to attempt to provide a safer, web equivalent.

B*SH, the self-proclaimed "new four letter word," is very simple site that allows users to post their rants, raves and complaints about home, work or school on the web for all to see. The idea is that the Internet is so vast that some of it could be used for venting. B*SH users can then come by and rate others complaints. Though it may sound like a great idea after a dozen beers at the local pub, B*SH appears to be more of a novelty site with no clear revenue intentions. To date B*SH has received a very limited number of user contributed complaints. Maybe people just would rather complain to a human in person than type their gripes on the web.

Rather than clogging up the Internet with negativity, I would suggest taking your B complex vitamins, exercising regularly and getting enough sleep to combat frustrations and remain happier. I guess you could scream at the top of your lungs too (like the image above), but I don't know if it will work.

Photo attribution: LaFilipinaNegra (Half Pinay)

A Web Of Superheroes

So you probably have seen by now the slew of articles that start out "What superhero are you?", "What superhero am I?" or "I am <fill in the blank with a superhero name>." To further amplify the signal of this blogospheric chain-letter, I will participate in one final meme of 2006. A few weeks ago I was tagged for the "5 things meme" and participated by posting 5 things about me - this time it is the "superhero meme." Upon answering a number of random questions on a rather amateur looking, Google Adsense-heavy web site, I received the following results: 

You are The Flash

The Flash 80% Superman 75% Iron Man 70% Robin 57% Spider-Man 50% Hulk 50% Green Lantern 45% Batman 45% Supergirl 42% Wonder Woman 37% Catwoman 30%

Fast, athletic and flirtatious.

I guess all those years of childhood wearing superhero underoos have somehow paid off! Which Superhero are you?

Photo attribution: POSITiv via Flickr
 

Mix-Mas: A Virtual World For Sending Customized Holiday Greetings

With the holidays upon us hopefully you have sent your holiday wishes to all your family and friends. However, if you have not and you are still looking to send a holiday greeting you could send them a dancing elf greeting or you could give something a little more interactive a try. I recently was sent a greeting via Mix-Mas, a product created by Mantis, which brings holiday greeting customization and social interactivity to a new level. Mix-Mas is a flash-based web service that lets you send holiday greeting that all live together in a holiday greeting virtual world.

With Mix-Mas you can create a custom avatar to represent you in your greeting. The avatar will live in the Mix-Mas virtual holiday greeting world. While creating your avatar you can select from a number of options very similar to WeeWorld. A screen-shot of the creation screen can be seen above. After creating your avatar messenger you can send the greeting to anyone. I have created one here. Upon recieving the greeting you are directed to it in the Mix-Mas virtual world as shown below.

You will notice a number of other avatars which carry the messages as well. If you click on any avatar they will display their holiday message adding a web 2.0 social hook to the holiday greeting product. You can see my holiday greeting here or search Mix-mas by avatar name (i.e. Frank Gruber). If you still need more details check out this Mix-Mas video demo or by clicking the video below.

Bottom-line: Mix-Mas is a fun new way to send online holiday greetings. Create a custom avatar and send a holiday greeting today. Happy holidays!

Dance Like An Elf: Spread Holiday Cheer

Officemax has produced a suite of holiday themed micro-site flash applications with viral marketing in mind.  One of the applications in particular enables you to fulfill your holiday dreams. That's right you can dance like an elf on the Internet with Elf Yourself!

A friend of mine pointed the site out to me yesterday and of course I needed to immediately elf myself. Unfortunately, I don't drop to the snow and show off my break-dance moves but I still bust a move with the best of them.

The Officemax tab in the lower right corner of the site offers a view of the additional micro-site applications which all seem to be focused at spreading the Officemax viral email messaging cheer. Some of them include:

Reindeer Arm Wrestling
Yes I'm Working
North Pole Dancing
Don't Shoot Your Eye Out!

Check them out or just elf yourself and drop some slick dance moves in an elf costume today. Happy holidays!

Betocracy: Create Prediction Markets

Betocracy is a new site offering easy to use tools for the creation of prediction markets on websites. Though in Beta, Betocracy has markets covering the Democratic Presidential Nominee in 2008 as well as a Stock Market for the popular Second-Life multi-player role-playing universe. Betocracy was created by freelance web developer Yaron Koren.

Prediction Markets are best understood like a combination of a stock market and the bookie at a horse race, where users bet for or against events occurring.  The event can be anything: will the horse win the race, will the stock price go up, or, who will win the election?  The Washington Stock Exchange is a similar product dedicated to the political arena.  The website uses points instead of money, so there is no real risk of great loss (other than the time spent on the websites using predictive markets).

However, Betocracy is quick to point out that even the points reflect real value in the terms of predictive data. According to Yaron: 

"...the administrators of a site can always choose to reward those who have done well on their markets, where laws permit."

It will be interesting to see if Betocracy can truly play fortune teller.

Special thanks to LBJ for assisting with the information in this article.

Holiday Gift Guides For 2006

Have you been too busy to focus on holiday shopping thus far? There is still time to shop if you know what you are looking for. If not, there are a number of gift guides online. I have consolidated some of them below. If you have a blogger or web 2.0 fanatic to buy for you might think about one of the three following options:

1.) The FooBar Poster - You have probably seen this poster by eBoy as it has been popping up everywhere.
2.) Cool tee shirts - I particularly enjoy the tee shirt collection by Mule Design. Hugh MacLeod from Gaping Void offers gear while Begin Five also of online comic fame also offers some tees.  Finally, don't forget TECH cocktail gear!
3.) Lap desk - Ideal for night blogging.

Online music or movie gift cards (i.e. iTunes, etc) are also great gifts if you are looking for other options. UPDATE: Digg gear is pretty sweet too! If  you are shopping for gifts for a gadget lovers you might want to check out:

FM Holiday Gadget Guide
CNet Holiday Gift Guide
Extreme Tech Geek Gift Guide

If you are shopping for a gift for a man, Playboy and MenEssential give pointers:

Playboy Holiday Gift Guide
Holiday Gift Guide by MenEssentials

Uncrate has put together gift guides for women and children:

Women's Holiday Gift Guide
Kid's Holiday Gift Guide

Make Magazine has created a fantastic gift guide for open source hardware and software development:

The Open Source Gift Guide

Finally, if you are looking for the perfect gift for someone at the office you might want to check out the Office Toy Store. Happy Shopping!

Blog Tag: Five Things About Me(me)

Eric Olson, TECH cocktail co-founder and friend, and online marketing guru Lee Odden both tagged me recently to participate in a holiday version of blog tag. According to Lee's post:

"Jeff Pulver started things off with this Holiday version of Blog Tag and this is the way it works: Once you’re tagged by another blogger, you write five things most people don’t know about you and then “tag” five other bloggers."

Though it’s a little off topic for Somewhat Frank I think it falls under the web life category and I respect Eric, Lee and Jeff  so I took a crack at it.

Five Things You May Not Know About Me:

1. I was once pulled on stage while watching a taping of the The Tonight Show with Jay Leno because I forgot to put my cell phone on mute and it went off while Jay was doing his thing. As a result, I got brought up on stage and asked to dance while a few women from the audience stripped my shirt off in front of the entire audience which included my grandmother, Aunt and sister.
2. I used AOL to go online for the first time. I remember my younger brother and I surfed the web for hours and were made well aware of the impact of our surfing when the phone bill arrived and we were found to be dialing into a long distance number for dial-up service. Oops!
3. I found out earlier this year that while vacationing in Cancun I partied with Paris Hilton. I had no idea until this photo surfaced.
4. I have sailed across Lake Michigan with my dad and brother in-law.
5. I am the Frank J. Gruber the fifth or V if you want to go by the roman numeral. Yes, I come from a long line of Frank’s. The name of this blog, Somewhat Frank, has the more obvious candid meaning but secondarily is based off the fact that I am the fifth and grew up being called by my initials, F.J. – so in essence, I am truly somewhat Frank.

The rules say that I now have to challenge five others. I know it probably off topic for some but think of it as a quick vacation post from your normal blogging routine: Brian Oberkirch, Jeremiah Owyang, Veronica Belmont, Orli Yakuel and Mike Arrington - you're it!

Philanthropy Through Technology

Let me guess: you’re sitting at your computer, skimming through this article looking to see if anything applies to you, so you can get back to that list of ALL those things that you simply MUST accomplish.  I’ll save you some time: it DOES apply to you, so slow down and ingest…

As many of us experience every day, a reoccurring theme in blogs – in any social commentary, really – is the increasing pace of our world.  Thanks to pay-by-touch features, e-ticketing and Crackberries (to name only a few), our insatiable quench for time is placated by technology.  Gadgets, gizmos and thingamabobs (my non-techie lingo for widgets, applications and start-ups) create time for your “to dos”, but what about the things that aren’t on that list that we still want to accomplish?

As a non-profit enthusiast, I am thrilled that this “technology creates time” phenomenon now extends extensively into philanthropy.  No matter whether you’re a proponent of a particular cause or you just want to help out, technology has, yet again, stepped up and delivered TIME for you to fit it in.

For enviro-minded people, TerraPass helps counter the carbon dioxide emissions created by your lifestyle… and you don’t even have to leave your computer!  Just plug in your car’s information, your flight plans, your energy bill, etc. and TerraPass crunches your carbon dioxide output.  No it’s not just to make you feel guilty; this site also enables you to donate an amount to alternative energy sources to offset your damage.

Scared that putting your foot in the door of a charity will result in a non-stop barrage of calls, letters and requests?  Fear not: One Brick is a commitment-free nonprofit volunteer organization pointing you quickly to what needs to get done and who needs your help.  Sign up on your terms to bypass the tedium of long-term planning, meetings or orientations.

Sometimes you don’t have to do anything but be consumer to help. Apple just announced the iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition.  More than just a sassy color – Apple donates $10 of the purchase price to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.  Inspired by U2’s Bono and other AIDS advocates, Apple’s offer exemplifies many retail campaigns to bring simple charity support to the masses. For more on the (RED) campaign check out this recent article by Read/Write Web.

GoodSearch, a product that has been highlighted previously on Somewhat Frank, allows you to designate a donation to the organization of your choice each time you perform an online web search.

Kiva is a really interesting non-profit that allows you to loan money to entrepreneurs in under privileged parts of the world. This process is called micro-finance. Eric Olson highlights his first micro-finance payment to Kiva in detail here.

Thanks to philanthropic techies, we can all now find the time to help out.  I'm sure I left a few organizations out so please add others you know of in the comments section!

This article was a special guest contribution to Somewhat Frank by the extremely talented writer, Kyle Bradbury. Thank you Kyle.

Second TECH cocktail Smoothly Downed

Last night (October 12, 2006), Eric Olson and I hosted our second TECH cocktail in Chicago at the Gramercy. As we first envisioned nearly 8 months ago, TECH cocktail 2 brought together the technology enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, bloggers, podcasters and corporate masterminds in the area. With the list of rsvp'ed guests at 400+ for the evening by the events start time, I was a little leary as to if we could keep every guest smiling. I feel like that if the 350+ guests that did attend even had a quarter the fun I had I would consider it a great success. Judging by the feedback I have gotten, I think we can rest assured we pulled it off smoothly.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You...
I am extremely thankful to a number of people and companies that made TECH cocktail even happen. First of all, a quick thank you to Eric Olson for being great partner in TECH cocktail crime and more importantly a great friend. Secondly, thank to all of our sponsors which included  midPhase, mk Capital, Coastr, Liquid Talk, Chicago.com, Digital Bootcamp and Chicago Enterpreneurial Center.  Thanks to all the companies that were willing to go under the hood and showcase their products. This includes eSigma, GrubHub, Pawky.com, Planypus and Time59 - thank you. Thanks to our three film crews which include Liquid Talk, Stone Cliff Productions and TechnologyEvangelist.com. Thanks to Jonathan Wolter for working registration and spreading some TechSocial love. Thanks to guys from Freshwater Venture who brought some pretty sweet company baseball cards. Of course, thank you to my family and friends for coming out and supporting the movement. Don Loeb was even in from San Francisco to attend - thanks for coming Don! Finally, special thanks to Jeff Pulver for coming over from New York to attend and pick up a tab on several hundred rounds of drinks.

Event Photos & Reactions...
Here are the photos tagged techcocktail2. 
Here is some of the buzz from the blogosphere:

• TECH cocktail 2: Wrap & Thank you - TECH cocktail (Official Tc2 thank you)
• About Last Night… (David gives his perspective)
• TechCocktail - a great party - tins ::: Rick Klau’s weblog (Glad Rick made it to this one!)
• I even wore a tie! (Dan from midPhase wore a tie)
• Tech Cocktail 2: What a Party: Technology Evangelist (Thanks for coming down!)
• About Last Night: TECH Cocktail 2 in Chicago - The Jeff Pulver Blog (Black AMEX, enough said - thank you!)
• TECH cocktail 2: Good Times, Lessons Learned - Chicagoist (Thanks for covering the limo situation so well)
• Chicago Beta (This is exactly what we wanted to see happen - more events!)
• TechCocktail tonight in Chicago « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger (Thanks for the plug Robert, wish you could have made it)

TECH cocktail Specials...

We also took the opportunity to introduce a new TECH cocktail product called TECH cocktail Specials (techcocktail.com/jobs) a job listing board that we hopes helps to connect employers with jobseekers surrounding TECH cocktail events. Not to mention, proceeds will help to support future TECH cocktail events. If you are interested in giving it a free trial please feel free to email and I will hook you up. The site was developed by Phraction.

With two TECH cocktails downed smoothly - we will see you at TECH cocktail 3!

Tagged: techcocktail2

9/11 - Five Years Later

The world changed forever on September 11, 2001 - we will never forget.

*Image taken of a flag which was recovered from ground zero at the WTC.