Guess My Crime & Stuff White People Like
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 | Funny | No Comments
Did the above character get busted for Shoplifting? A DUI? or a Failure To Comply?
I won’t give away the answer, but that’s the basis behind a new site called Guess My Crime!
There you are presented with numerous, real-life mugshots and are asked to guess what they really did based on the photo..
If you want to have a good laugh go check it out, you’d be surprised how some photos can be REALLY deceiving.
http://guessmycrime.blogspot.com
While I’m on the same category, here’s another recent gem Stuff White People Like.
My favorite I think is #68 – Standing Still At Concerts
You definitely have to read through some of these numbered items, a few will almost make you cry.
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com
Get Chris Anderson’s “Free” for FREE!
Monday, February 25th, 2008 | Books, Business, Marketing, Promotion, Unusual | 2 Comments
It must be nice to be the editor of Wired Magazine, because to promote his latest book entitled “Free,” Chris Anderson is going to showcase a chunk of it in next month’s issue of the magazine and as a clever promotion you can register to get a FREE copy. It’s only for the first 10,000 people who sign up, so hurry before it’s too late.
To sign up for your free copy of Wired Magazine featuring Chris Anderson’s new book, just follow the link here: Get “Free” for Free.
A nice way of promoting the very material that he’s trying to sell, the business of “free.” From what I’ve read so far, it’s all about the marketing technique of providing the user with a free service or product. In return you end up with a company evangelist who will, “potentially,” purchase your products. Not only that, but because they were hooked when it was free, their more likely to relate the brand to a positive experience, which would better enable them to share it with friends/co-workers/family members….. I think you can see where I’m going with this one.
Anyhow, sign up if you’re interested… I just thought that I’d pass the info along.
Once again, here’s the link: Get “Free” for Free.
Enjoy!
Adobe AIR + Flex Builder 3 Final Released!
Monday, February 25th, 2008 | Adobe, AIR, Flex, Software Update, WebApps | No Comments
Today Adobe announced the release of both the latest version of their AIR project as well as the final release of Flex Builder 3 (A GUI front-end for the now open-source flex platform). This means those beta’s copies that you’ve been using are soon to expire.
Adobe AIR, formerly code-named Apollo, is a project that lets developers use practically any programming language to build Rich Internet Applications (RIA’s) that can be deployed across almost any operating system. It also allows the developer to create an application that can store data offline and easily re-synch later on when re-connected to the database/internet. There are already a handful of applications out there that are build around this project, with my favorite being Pownce. Speaking of which, feel free to stop on by my profile on Pownce here: www.pownce.com/brentter/ and add me as a friend if you’d like. It’s a combination message board, calendar, file exchange server, and image host. To cut down on server load they’ve incorporated Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service) to house all their file storage needs.
Another useful implementation of Adobe AIR is a desktop-based app that lets you check on your Google Analytics accounts without ever having to open up a browser. You can sign-up for the beta download on About Nico’s site.
Download Adobe AIR (for free) from the official Adobe AIR page.
Flex Builder 3 Pro clocks in at a whopping $699 with the standard edition coming in slightly cheaper at $249. If you are a student or teacher however, they STILL offer a free copy to those that apply (which I think is one of the best things any software company could have done). The Flex 3 SDK can be found on their official Flex page for a free download if you don’t want to shell out that kind of cash for the complete Builder Application. Apparently there is a big difference between the standard and pro edition too – with the pro version including built-in memory/performance profiling tools, their “Advanced Datagrid,” and comes with its own set of scalable charting components for “rich data visualization.”
Flex Builder 3 was in beta for quite a while, which let users learn how to utilize it’s advanced database manipulation features, most of which can be viewed on the Flex Showcase site.
Today’s announcement was most likely timed to coincide with the big 360|Flex Conference that kicked off today here in Atlanta, GA. It runs from the 25th-27th and features some of the leaders in Flash/Flex development. Day passes are still available if interested.
Something interesting with Flex is it gives you the ability to manipulate whatever you design with other programming languages in ways that were almost un-heard of using flash. My favorite is its integration with Ruby On Rails. RoR can be used as a streamlined back-end solution for your web-app, using Flex as a pretty front-end to display the data. A really great site I’ve come across with helpful examples of Flex/Rails in use is Derek Wischusen’s site – FlexonRails.net. If you want to see an example of both pieces of technology being used in new ways, check out his post where he explains (with source code) how to do a Server push with Ruby on Rails using Flex, JRuby, and BlazeDS. Another interesting one is where he tries to integrate as many new forms of languages/services as possible is his post on integrating Flex, BlazeDS, and a web-app framework for Scala called Lift
Read more about Flex Builder 3 and the Flex SDK on Adobe’s official website – www.adobe.com/products/flex/
Make 3D Models out of Regular Image Files
Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 | algorithms, computer graphics, photo-manipulation, visual effects | No Comments
Ok, I came across this the other day. I don’t know how old it is but definitely something you’ll want to check out. It seems the fine folks over at Stanford have created an engine that can convert your regular pictures into 3-D models. It takes your two dimensional photo and essentially gives you the illusion of a three-dimensional “fly-by,” showing you depth and range, even though it was all from an originally flat image file.
They’ve got a whole gallery up of cool ones (which is where I pulled the above example from), plus you can register to upload your own photos to be sent through their computer algorithm.
To Make your own 3D photos, or to just learn more about the science behind the process, visit the stanford site here – http://make3d.stanford.edu/ or just for the quick (i.e. layman’s) version of how it works, here’s a link directly to their FAQ.
Pretty cool stuff.
Here’s something similar that also passed my way, 360Cities.net – 5.000 VR-panorama-shots in more than 42 cities…. all integrated in a Google Maps mashup.. if you live in a big city, chances are you can get a 3D view of your town, for instance, here’s a 3D Atlanta…..and of course, you have to check-out their page for Egypt…. simply amazing.
Get your tech/web fix here…….
Friday, February 22nd, 2008 | New Beginnings, Site Information | No Comments
So after a long time of running Everything’s Better With Brentter, an advertising blog that I would post campaigns/news that I found to be interesting, I have decided to begin a new blogging venture. Recently, I realized that my daily intake of information/links had been headed in a more interactive direction, to the point where, similar to nerds in High School cafeterias across the nation, I found myself not feeling welcomed even in my own playground. That’s where this site comes in. Here you will find anything that doesn’t feel at home on brentter.com, but that I feel should be shared (and or re-shared, depending on my sources).
So if it’s web/tech related, it’ll go here, if it’s advertising related, it will still be posted on www.brentter.com…. Eventually I might even startup a third weblog on brentterrazas.com to house my personal ramblings, but for now I think these two sites will keep me busy enough.
So that’s the plan, now all that’s left is to see how long this experiment will last… comments, suggestions are always welcome… Seeing how this is completely new, I will be playing around with various features until this site fits my needs…. so stay tuned!
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image courtesy of Terence Chang – who’s currently working hard like an entrepreneur but still playing hard like a billionaire. Checkout his blog and maybe he’ll show you how.
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