Internet Balloon race is on

Image via Wikipedia

The World's first Internet balloon race is on, and I'm in it - and it's passing over the Snipperoo home page

I need support, as I missed the beginning of the race. Five people need to support me - so give me a boost please. I'm CamelWidget - click on 'Help me to go faster'

Excellent widgets using Gigya - and it's not too late to take part. Nice thing is - it's a widget to take part and a widget to  promote being in the race. Very imaginative Orange!

Related articles

• Housekeeping - Orange Balloon Race Edition [via Zemanta]

Registering A New Domain? Don’t Use Network Solutions • Startup Hustle

In my previous life as Mr Domain Name I ran up against the monster of the industry, Network Solutions. They were the most horrible company I ever encountered. It seems that even now, many years and many changes of ownership later, the dna remains. They are seriously bad. I'm just passing on the meme:  Registering A New Domain? Don’t Use Network Solutions

Gogle Gadget button = Windows Start Button?

Something subliminal going on here? This is the new Google Gadgets button as announced on their blog:

And this is the Windows Start button:

Am I seeing things or is there a subliminal message going on?

Department of I Don't Think So

Tests 'reduce pupils to widgets'

Head teachers say tests can lead to the humiliation of pupils Pupils have been reduced to widgets on a production line by the high number of tests in England's schools, head teachers have warned.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Supermarket 2.0

Funny! The Supermarket if it went 2.0 - everything's tagged.

glumbert.com - Supermarket 2.0

Wilfers waste time on the web - Trends & Ideas - BizReport

From the Department of So Tell Me Something New. I thought this was what the term surfing the web was coined for. It is the Situationist derive or drift in action, and we salute Wilfers.

Wilfers waste time on the web

Wilfers waste time on the web The internet has spawned a new group of individuals who aimlessly wander the web and who are not quite sure what they logged on for.

by Helen Leggatt

This new breed of users are called wilfers. They surf the web without any real purpose, often forgetting what they were there for in the first place. The term is derived from the phrase “what was I looking for?”

The U.K., it seems, is full of wilfers. Almost a quarter of the 2,412 Brits surveyed by YouGov for Moneysupermarket.com, admitted they had spent 30 percent or more of their online time wilfing.

Dedication to the cause

Lars-Christian from Bloggst has promised that if enough people "sign up, I will change my name to Bloggst!". Bloggst is a site for probloggers, those who like to make money from their sites. Now, I know where he is coming from, it can be a struggle to meet user targets at the best of time and all publicity helps. I can assure you that when we get to our first million users I will be changing my name to Ivan Snipperoo (not).

If you sign up, I will change my name to Bloggst! If enough people register here, I will change my name to Bloggst. Published by Lars-Christian Today If you sign up, I will change my name to Bloggst! Am I crazy? Probably. But you didn't misread the title at all! If enough people sign up for Bloggst within the year, I will actually change my own name to Bloggst. And no, I'm not talking about my "online name", I am talking about my actual, real-life name. Here in Norway the rules for name changes are very lenient, and every person can change their own name twice in their life, and you can use whatever name you please, and I am one hundred percent certain that I will have no problems getting "Lars-Christian Bloggst" approved.

Blaughing

StickiWidgets got this first:

Flickr Sidetrack

A lot of badges and widgets use images from Flickr. They are a good source of widgetfill. So I guess I'm allowed this little sidetrack.
Every time, for at least a year, I go on to Flickr there is this message on the front page in my account:

Welcome to Flickr!.

Printing? Can it be true?

Well, it's true if you're in the U.S.... with more countries coming online soon! Get 10 free prints with your first order! Click here to set yourself up for printing.

So what's wrong with this? Not much, just: 1. Good grief, by now I've got the message 2. I'm logged in so you know I've got the message 3. I'm not in the US, you know that 4. Stop f***ing insulting me - in over a year you have made no progress in getting UK printing sorted, you really don't care 5. Stop going on about it 6. You are supposed to be the most amazing interface designers in the world yet you leave this abomination on your front page week after month after year.

Ah, I feel better now.

Comix for your site

Make your own comic strip with Comeeko and widgetize it. (Thanks to Mashable)

Just for the heck of it

Just wanted to try something crazy from RockYou

- Get Your Own

Ah, I feel much better now.

We interrupt our regular program

The man from Feedburner asks what $1.2 trillion can buy….

what would you rather do?

immunize every child across the globe, fund aids and cancer research, educate every preschooler in the us, fund universal healthcare, fully fund nuclear non-proliferation initiatives, commit to delivering cost-effective solar and other alternative energy solutions, etc etc etc…

or invade iraq? wow…enough said…

oh…and, this doesn’t even take into consideration the value of the lives lost in iraq or the cost of future conflicts (stemming directly from our current mid east policies)…

anyways…back to our regularly scheduled programming…rss 24/7

A Widget Jingle

   

Stumbling across BuddyLube yesterday (following the MyBlogLog story), we were, ahem, struck by the persistence of their jingle. Then we thought - hey, it's the first Widget jingle ever (and no doubt the last). It starts out "If you're looking for a widget that's cool, dub, dub, dub, dot buddylube ..." and plays every time you go to their site (and then some). If you want to hear it, click the eyeball.

What are they?

BuddyLube is the premiere Web 2.0 marketing management and advertising agency. We are comprised of youthful pop culture aficionados who are passionate about the Web 2.0 culture and the emerging companies we believe offer a unique, lasting product. During our Alpha program we scope out the top companies in each core Web 2.0 space. We then move into a Beta testing period that ultimately leads to a full blown Client campaign. These are Buddy's ABC's. A relationship with Buddy is committed and exclusive. He lubes the best and loses the rest. Spread the lube.

Lost?

I got this from VCMike's blog. He got it from iA in Tokyo . If you're feeling lost, maybe this will help?

Blog Title of the Year

Barack Obama Doesn't Know What a Widget Is - Internet Marketing Meets Politics 101.

Barack Obama doesn't know what a widget is, neither does John Kerry, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and I highly doubt Hilary Clinton does either.  I know, the next question is "what about John Edwards?" Well likely he understands the concept of the widget, especially in light of him announcing his candidacy on YouTube, and I'm sure that Robert Scoble has schooled him a bit as well.

Politicians, politicians, politicians

So we started the day with a politician Shimon Peres, who at least spoke english (though I suppose Hebrew wouldn't have been too much use in this hall). We've just had a French presidential candidate blathering on (and incredibly he was joined on stage by a famous French journalist). And we're promised this afternoon another French presidential candidate (who will no doubt be joined on stage by whoever happens to be passing). I don't know how much rumbling of discontent there's been - but frankly I didn't pay my conference fee to be pitched by politicians. I think the organisers should put their egos away and resist the blandishments of all politicians and let us get on with our navel gazing.

Calendar Mashup Widget

Calendar Mashup Machine.

Huh? 30 Boxes now lets you build calendars out of all sorts of information like photos and blogs. You can use calendar data too if you want and you don't need to be a member of 30 Boxes to build one. This form lets your generate the code to link to or embed a calendar on your own website (aka widget).

Thomas Hawk covers it brilliantly (and gets quite carried away).

Stealing Scoble's Brain

To try out a couple of things, I made a widget called Search Scoble's Brain. You can see it in the right hand column of this blog.
This is a widget made with code from Google's new Co-op Search. Using Co-op search you can make your own search site, defining only those sites you want to use. You can enter sites manually, and I made a Widget Search site like this. But you can also import an OPML file to define what sites to search. So I decided to steal the legendary Robert Scoble's OPML file, from his Bloglines' Blogroll, and use that to create a unique Robert Scoble search site. The Co-op search site gives me the code for this search. I made the image myself! Bundled all this together and hey presto, I can 'search Scoble's brain'. Or something like it.
Seriously, you can now search on all the sites that Robert Scoble thinks are interesting.
And you can take this widget and put it on your own site, manually or using Snipperoo. Or make your own. Here's the code:

<div align="center"><img src="http://snipperoo.com/images/icons/scoblesbrain3.gif" width="150" height="182" alt="Scoble's Brain" />
</div> 
  <!-- Google CSE Search Box Begins -->

<form id="searchbox_005716045753694707681:b3k2zpnugws" action="http://snipperoo.com/scoblesbrain.html">
  <div align="center">
    <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="005716045753694707681:b3k2zpnugws" />
    <input name="q" type="text" size="15" />
    <br />
    <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" />
    <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9" />
  </div>
</form>
<div align="center">
  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=searchbox_005716045753694707681%3Ab3k2zpnugws"></script>
  <!-- Google CSE Search Box Ends -->
<br>

Geek Golf, Runner Up Prize

David Singleton finally got his Geek Golf, Runner Up Prize. I should know, I posted them.

Sticker collecting

Filing cabinet, originally uploaded by ivanpope.

We inherited this filing cabinet from the previous occupants of our office - a skate gear company. They have used it as a collection point for some great skate stickers and graffito. We've decided to extend the collection with Web 2.0 style laptop stickers rather than sully our beautiful MacBooks, unlike these people:

These are from the wonderful the laptop sticker pool at flickr

WeLoveHoroscopes

Actually, I don't love horoscopes - but this is a great widget from WeLoveWidgets - and they promise lots more widgets that are 'totally different from the kind you usually see on MySpace, Yahoo!, TagWorld or other widget sites.'

Light Entertainment

What would happen if "Taxi Driver" were made in these adventurous times in film? Get your handkerchiefs out for the most inspiring movie of the year!

From iFilm - with great widgets for every video.

Hype Machine audio blog aggregator

I was reading last week's Observer Music Monthly and there were reviews of a whole bunch of new albums that I'd like to try; Hype Machine to the rescue - it's an audio blog aggregator, so you can read reviews of many of the tunes and hear some of them too.

They've got a nice widget that you can customise and then add to your site:

Flickrinspector

flickrInspector 0.1.1.2

Find out all about yourself with flickrinspector. Add this code:

<a href="http://netomer.de/flickrtools/inspector/?nsid=98894332@N00">ivanpope's flickr score: 1594</a> 

to get this:

ivanpope's flickr score: 1594

Blaugh? I nearly died.

This is not really one for you sidebar, as it's a big cartoon, but Blaugh will give you a daily internet funny if you embed this code:

<a href="http://blaugh.com/" alt="bLaugh Comic of the Day" title="bLaugh Comic of the Day" target="_blank"><img src="http://blaugh.com/cartoons/comic-of-the-day.gif" width="447" height="250"/></a>

Crazy Golf Party

  DSC00047.JPG 
  Originally uploaded by ivanpope.

As there is a Crazy Golf course right opposite the d.construct party venue, we decided to hold the first ever Geek Golf tournament during the party. Prizes!

Get Skinny

Track your weight with this widget from SkinnyR - oy, vey.

ClickMyBut

Speaks for itself.

Miniclips

Games, games, games - just post the code:

[Had to take the live version out, it was just too big and fugly]

Boucing RSS icon

From 3spots blog

Relatime

Clocks, lovely clocks, from Relatime.

(Don't forget that all these are in our new Snipperoo Directory at directory.snipperoo.com - and you can add your own or anyone else's widgets there yourself. Please do.)

Streetsign

Make your own streetsign!

PimpMySpace

Pimp My Space!

BannerBreak

Generate any sort of banner. Like this:

http://www.BannerBreak.com/ - Free Banner Maker

or this:

http://www.BannerBreak.com/ - Free Banner Maker

Some Flash Toys

How about some Flash toys for your site?

[Quick Update: I put two toys on my site and it totally screwed the site up, so I took them off again. If you want to try them, let me know how it goes]

TypePad Hacks

In case you hadn't noticed, I use TypePad from Six Apart for this (and my other) blogs. I've been using TypePad for more than two years now. I wouldn't say I'm a power user in by any means, but I've learned to get around it and use it to more or less do what I want. But it can be frustrating and Six Apart are not the fastest to change and add things (though their user support has always been very efficient and friendly).
Anyway, as Blog software is key to the Snipperoo project, I was dead chuffed to see artist and designer John T Unger pope up with his TypePadHacks blog. It's worth a visit to read all about it, but the essence is:

I believe that blogs have the power to change lives, and sometimes the world. I believe this because it happened to me and I know I'm not remotely the only person who can say that. So I started this blog to try to make TypePad an even more powerful tool for change. I figure with enough help from other bloggers, it's possible. It's certainly worth a shot.

And if you're wondering who the heck is John T Unger, then this should answer your question:

Gabbly

Put a chat window on your site with Gabbly. You should see a live Gabbly on this site - chat on!

Fill in this:

The code looks like this:
<iframe src='http://cw.gabbly.com/gabbly/cw.jsp?e=1&t=http://blog.snipperoo.com' scrolling='no' style='width:180px; height:200px' frameborder='0'></iframe>

And you will see a chat window like this:

Slide

Slide builds slide shows for you. You can make a slide show from  your own images or subscribe to a slide show of other people's images. You can:

• Get your favorite sites via RSS
• Use Slide with eBay - solution for both buyers and sellers
• Watch a feed from a Flickr tag or photostream.
• Subscribe to a photocast from Apple's iPhoto.
• Make a feed using photos from your computer.

It's simple to generate most of these. To make a slideshow from Flickr, enter a word or a username. Here's a Slide of Flickr photos with the Tag 'brighton':

The code is generated with one extra click, and it looks like this:

<embed src="http://widget.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="l" flashvars="site=widget.slide.com&channel=423463" wmode="transparent" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" width="600" height="200" name="flashticker" align="middle" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"/>

And here's one called LiveScience AMAZING IMAGES that I found on the site:

And here's a show generated from the keyword Bush on Google's News service:

Disasters R Us

NetDisaster.com lets you add snippets of code that will put disasters on your page. From meteors to vomiting men, it's a horror show. But fun. Go on - you know you want to.

[Update: I've taken the disaster off the site, only because it put a small graphic up that obscured the top entry title on the page. You can see the effect at this link - http://www.netdisaster.com/go.php?mode=baby&url=http://blog.snipperoo.com/

Odeo - love the sound of my voice

Odeo is some lovely technology and a very simple to use site. You can make your own recordings and send them to people or distribute them as Podcasts. Now, I never really got the point of podcasts - listening to other people droning on. But, after trying out Odeo and listening to a high quality playback, I realised that the quality of my voice is supreme and there must be people out there who would listen with pleasure. So I recorded a short nothing sort of message.



Simplicity itself. Then I clicked on 'HTML' and was presented with the code which I have pasted here:

Written in Flash, which makes a change:

<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0" width="476" height="80" align="middle"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="any" /> <param name="movie" value="http://odeo.com/flash/audio_player_fullsize.swf?ver=1.03" /> <param name="flashvars" value="audio_id=837688&audio_duration=68.071&valid_sample_rate=true&external_url=http://media.odeo.com/files/u/y/6/draft_56252_out.mp3" /><embed src="http://odeo.com/flash/audio_player_fullsize.swf?ver=1.03" width="476" height="80" allowScriptAccess="any" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="audio_id=837688&audio_duration=68.071&valid_sample_rate=true&external_url=http://media.odeo.com/files/u/y/6/draft_56252_out.mp3"/></embed></object>

PersonalDNA

I am a Considerate Inventor. Well, that seems about right. Take the PersonalDNA test and put the results on your site:

The test is easy to take and gives you a variety of graphical results to paste. You can send them to your family and friends and ask them to assess you. Scary but fun.

Cool Snippet Marketing

I often find these snippets by noticing interesting sidebar items in blogs that I read. One of the most interesting bloggers is a guy called Fred Wilson, a VC in New York. His blog is subtitled Musings of a VC in NYC. It's a great read.
So today I noticed he had this strange advert type thing in his sidebar:

It didn't take a moment to track down what must be one of the most original bits of marketing thus far. OK, it's not much use if you aren't local, or you don't know the Shakeshack (and frankly, I've never heard of it). But doesn't it make this burger joint the coolest on the planet? At least until the next thousand outfits try this on.

ClockLink

Want a clock for your blog or site? Get one from ClockLink. They are about designing corporate clocks with your logo on them - but they give away a bunch of cool clocks like these.

It is very easy to make a clock and set the time zone - but they use the embed tag, which some services will strip out.

 

 

or you can make counters like this. You set the date to count to and the text: