clear.your.mind

I haven’t been using networking sites a lot lately (linkedin, facebook, etc) those are kind of boring to me, I hate going around “bothering” people with the “Javier asks if he can join your network” kind of message those web apps spread over everyone’s emails. Some people take it well (like me) others believe they are spamming them with those. I like more the one-to-one approach in which I just send an email to talk about things and see if I can invite them to have a beer or something; in case they are in another country, it gets more difficult, but not impossible.

Twitter is an excellent tool to let everyone know what you are doing right now. I know I know, I’m six months late with this, but believe me, it has a great business potential. I can let know everyone I work with (clients and employees) where I’m and what I’m doing all the time, even through my cellphone; which is invaluable. People out there is saying the BlackBerry is evil because it forces you to stay online or in touch 24/7, I say this is the cure for the BlackBerry syndrome. With just 1 minute, you can open your account and through your cellphone or instant messenger you can actually keep everyone up to date with what’s going on with you at the moment. This breaks with the urgency of “I will email Phill to see where my project is right now” or “Let’s email John to see if he forgot about our project, it is about a week now that I don’t get any answers from him”.

With Twitter you have instant update on the table; everyone will know what you are up to, and everyone will know what you are doing. Last week, it was an ugly week for me, lots of deadlines and lots of fun too (doing something that it may change some people’s way of working… it’s beautiful, will talk about it when the client allows me. Kevin, thanks!) and some other things that are extremely interesting (Branden! it is a go!) and Twitter has helped me with the rest of my clients and people I work with during those days.

It is an excellent tool for communication, and I will integrate to my blog when the new site comes live. Right now, you can find me at http://twitter.com/doncabrera

We all know the future in books is the digital and portable format (maybe) and Amazon, being one of the world biggest distributors knows it too (maybe) and they came up with the most extraordinary invention of all times (maybe), a digital reader.

It’s called Kindle and it just launched today, you can read about it on EndGadget, but you can see some pictures of it too before that!

EndGadget Kindle Launch

Look at Jeff Bezos face, he is so proud!

Can someone remember this episode? the “homer-car”? looks like an “homer-car” situation on Jeff Bezos face there!

1990 is back!

We all know Mr.Bezos is one of the most brilliant minds out there, he is probably the first and ultimate entrepreneur and business owner for most of us, a living legend, but hey, this Kindle thing looks awful, no doubt about that either (just a personal note!). If they can make it look like an iPod (technology wise too) they won’t have any problem with it, but if not…

The “laundry soap” or Kindle, as Amazon called it, it has a built in WiFi connectivity and it can download books in a breeze, one of the smartest ideas ever (we are all tired of software install, download to the pc, etc).

Looks ugly even up-close!

We really hope they can make it look better (maybe not 2008 if they don’t want to go that far, but they could use some 1995 radios as design base! they can really benefit from those ones! anything better than this thing!) and we know they will in the future. It will be beautiful and easy to use. Even the software inside looks ugly (they didn’t had 37signals on their pocket? maybe is time to use some of those talents there hey…)

Kindle is promising, it is what’s coming, and you saw it first here, at clear.your.mind. Tell your kids!

I don’t remember when I stopped making my searches at Google and began doing them at Youtube; but the fact is that I use Google just for looking into blogs, or specific things like a piece of javascript code I want to work with; and that’s it. If I want to see an upcoming movie release, I just Youtube-it and find the trailer/teaser or even the Behind the Scenes. Same thing happens to games, and to books in some cases (I even catch a Stephen King book reading a couple of weeks ago!)

Google has made a great job for the web, it is actually the fahter and mother of today’s Internet, clear, simple and cool enough to let us use it without showing us stupid yellow/red banners blinking all over the place (Altavista, Yahoo, AOL, where are you guys?). Google has made the Internet, what is today (in part). Youtube is what’s coming if you ask me. Haven’t you noticed how new gadgets now don’t come with a “Google” feature? but with a Youtube feature? (iPhone anyone?). I know I know, Youtube was bought by Google, but hey, Youtube isn’t Google, and it wasn’t made by Google. That means Google bought their competitor and made it their own partner, that’s very cool actually.

I’m not saying Google will disappear, it will just go for a vacation until it reorganizes itself. Blogger wasn’t a hit. Google Video wasn’t a hit either. Google stats was definitely not a hit. Youtube, it is indeed, a good hit for Google, since most of us don’t even use it anymore to look for entertainment (cellphones review, gadgets review, games review, movies review, books reviews, etc) now we just Youtube-it.

Funny how things turn out right?

Now this is interesting: at Pixoo.us there is a new web app going on (yes web 2.0, we know you are here!). The idea behind this is actually very clever; it takes you just a couple of seconds to upload your profile photo and photoshops it to make you look better for all those linked in, face book, youtube services that requires your face there (like my twitter http://twitter.com/doncabrera).

As you can appreciate, the outcome of a photo that went through Pixoo service is very good. Yes, it looks like photoshoped but hey, it looks better! Now, I don’t know why people would use this kind of service… (shhh…I know… me too!)

I didn’t knew Twitter at all, just by name until I saw Guy Kawasaki has an account there and I thought “wait a second… that may be an interesting online app”. With all the mambo-jumbo going on around web 2.0 and 15 web applications coming out every few seconds that actually don’t do too much or nothing at all, I wasn’t very aware Twitter was the ultimate system to keep clients, friends and family updated about daily tasks.

Of course, first I went and see if there was anything better in Design terms (sorry, can’t help it) and found Pownce which is a more clean version of Twitter and beautiful as well. Both have weak and strong points, but Pownce has a better interface than Twitter which is calling me until today.

Have to say it, I went and opened my account in both, but I will stay with Twitter because is much more easier to make updated through my messenger account, and through my cellphone (pownce doesn’t let you do that!).

If anyone wants to follow me, my twitter is http://twitter.com/doncabrera and I’m updating everyday.

Loja Do Arco is the name of an excellent online shop where you can get your Moleskine in no time. The web is in Portuguese so it’s going to be a little difficult to English speakers to browse through, but they also have their content in English, the only drawback is their are using both, Portuguese and English at the same time (I would love to only see an English version!); that aside, it’s one of the best shops I evern come across. The reason? they love to serve their customers.

I bought a Moleskine just to test the service, and withing 1 day they answered me saying they already made the shipment! So it’s incredible quick, and trusty. You can pay via credit card or PayPal, which is marvelous this days where no-one seems to know PayPal is growing as fast as Google.

Of course, I will post some pictures when I get the Moleskine, in the meanwhile, enjoy their web and order a Moleskine if you can!
Thanks Gaston for the English corrections! and have a nice travel!

Toda y I saw a post at WebmasterWorld (actually, a friend of mine saw it and let me know!) it is one of those useful posts at a forum you can’t let go very easy. As the title says, it shows 25 signals to identify a crappy web site… some discussion has taken place on the web about the 25 points on the list, but it’s clear that if your site contains one of those, you don’t need to worry, just contact your webmaster or fix the error yourself. For example, my blog has sometimes misspelled words, that’s obvious, because English isn’t my first language, but that doesn’t mean my blog is a crap! that just means I have to get better at my English!

So here’s the list!:

1. Reciprocal link request pages.
2. No Privacy policy.
3. Outdated copyright date or last modified date visible on the pages.
4. Error pages that don’t send 404 headers or send content regardless of the page requested/querystring entered.
5. Massive numbers of incoming links from link farms.
6. Dead/404ing links.
7. High link churn.
8. No published contact address, email address or phone number.
9. A high bounce rate (surfers clicking back on their browser and selecting another search result).
10. Too much duplicate content.
11. Whois info for the domain which is the same as other domains previously penalized or banned. (Could also be true of adsense publisher/affiliate ID’s and other identifiable footprints)
12. Use of/links to affiliate programs that are known scams
13. Domains previously used for spam or that are blacklisted.
14. Stagnation (Site never changes)
15. Excessively long URI’s/URL’s (query strings or folder and file names)
16. A high percentage of affiliate links vs regular outbound links.
17. No / very few outbound links.
18. No / very few inbound links.
19. All inbound links are to homepage only
20. Outbound links to questionable/spammy/crap sites.
21. Profanity or explicitly adult language on a non-adult site.
22. Too many spelling errors.
23. Contains unrelated subjects (ex: a site that reviews toys and tries to sell insurance or viagra).
24. Lack of interest from social bookmarking sites.
25. MySQL or PHP errors in the pages

Privacy Policy can be also in form of Legal Notice or just the word “Terms”, like some sites have. Either ways, not having a Privacy Policy doesn’t mean your site is crap, just means you don’t have posted yet your Privacy Policy and you might need to do it quickly! :)

I love this video, I simply love it. I’m so tired of people who say “dont call it web 2.0, it is just nice color gradients on a minimalist design” and that’s so not true. Michael Wesch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology of the Kansas State University made a video that is moving the floor at YouTube, it’s a very easy explication of what Web 2.0 really is and I encourage you all to stop for a second, and watch this video.

It was worth it don’t you think? We need more videos like this. Thanks Mr. Wesch!