January 17, 2008
Have you seen this site? www.erietube.com. No?
Better yet, post a video from your camera-phone.
Now this is some funny stuff man:
http://www.erietube.com/kickapps/service/displayMediaPlayPage.kickAction?mediaType=VIDEO&mediaId=130436&as=3766
This proves why Erie (and the surrounding townships) is such a great place to live. Where else can you see something so COOL? Nowhere, that’s where. There’s also a really cool video of a guy surfing in Lake Erie during the winter.
January 13, 2008
Talk about breakthrough moments: My father in-law discovered that he can send text messages from his cellphone.
He told me the story of when he was a boy, his family had a party line installed with a bunch of neighbors. He couldn’t make a call unless none of the neighbors were using the line. To “dial”, he would tell the operator: “D2432 calling L8432″. Pretty crazy right?
The next advance happened when the operators were removed from the equation and the caller dialed the entire number themselves, from their telephone with a seven-foot cord.
Now he communicates with anyone, anywhere, with a push of a couple buttons, completely wireless. Now he doesn’t even have to talk!
I was wondering how my kids will communicate when their day arrives. How will cell phones be different in ten years? In twenty years? My kids will most likely be saying, “Dad you actually had to send your text messages manually?”
Crazy right? We’ll see!
October 23, 2007
Part 1: Teach an old dog new tricks.
I’m a frequent GoErie.com visitor. I’d say in any given week, I visit the site eighteen to twenty-five times. I always want to see what’s the breaking news, local sports headlines and the blogs of local writers. One thing is different these days, I’m able to link to stories from outside the site.
Due to a prohibitive registration process, visitors were never allowed to link to stories directly. The action was meant to learn information about GoErie.com visitors so the company could better serve it’s consumers. Now I can say, “Hey Peter, check out this story about the Bills, they are finally on the right road.” Or, “Dude, Dear Abby talks about being naked.”
Now you can pass the article link to your friends and family like you’ve always wanted! There’s still the social bookmarking tools at the bottom of each story of course, or you could e-mail it right to your friend in SoCal from the article.
Link on my friend, link on.
Part 2: Search until the cows come home.
One more thing about GoErie.com that I recently started using quite a bit. A global search engine is available at the top of every page. Try some sample search terms why don’t ya? Looking for a pizza shop close to your apartment, a landscaper maybe? The comprehensiveness of the yellow pages is now bolted directly to the expansive GoErie.com and all it’s components.
Perform a search for ‘Honda’. You’ll find Honda cars and motorcycles for sale in Classifieds, an article about Bianchi Honda’s grand opening in the Archives, an obituary of a gentleman who sold Hondas for a living…and the list goes on.
Get your search on. It’ll save you some major time…it did for me.
October 13, 2007
It’s been a while, I’m sorry for remaining silent.
I just attended the District Two conference meeting here in Erie and a recurring question kept coming up, “What are some trends you’re seeing?” The question was asked about the different facets of the ad industry – print, broadcast, online and futures of ad agencies. To answer this question, one of the participants played a video about surface computing.
What is surface computing? Basically, imagine how you use your computer on a daily basis…then throw that usage method out the window.
To help visualize surface computing watch this. Or better yet, watch Jeff Han literally play around with his prototype. This type of technology is incredible to watch, and even more fun to play with.
Imagine how this type of technology will change your daily interaction with the computer. The machine conforms around you instead of the opposite. Designers could practice some amazing free-flow design methods. Because of the true gigantic desktop interface your multitasking wouldn’t be (to quote Brian Bronaugh from Mullen Advertising) “doing a lot of things average, but rather doing a lot of things really well.”
Imagine replacing your whiteboard, television, even wallpaper with such a device. It could happen in the not-so-far future, but who knows what will happen. Remember BETA? HA!
September 12, 2007
I’ve been bringing home work more and more often it seems. I think my wife is getting a little fed up with it. Know how I know? “Jeff, I’m getting a little fed up with you bringing work home.” Perceptive, aren’t I?
I genuinely enjoy my job. I love the people with whom I work from the clients to my immediate coworkers. I enjoy surfing the massively-large Interweb and figuring out where dollars can be squeezed out of it. I admit, I have a hard time letting go when I leave the office at five (rarely do I leave on time).
The fact of the matter is, my industry is starting to encompass my daily life on a very personal level. I get text messages of severe weather alerts, top newspaper headlines for the day and notes from friends. E-mail follows my Blackberry, firmly attached to my hip at all times. I have a widget the exports Automotive.com stories for reference in my McSpeedy blog. And thank God for wireless Internet (I don’t steal it anymore, thank you) and my notebook computer. God forbid I’d have to sit at home in a room with nothing but my PC. Thanks to the wonderful folks at Linksys I can sit in my living room and watch the BBC and work online also.
Do I need to unplug? Probably.
Unplug…ha, there’s a strange concept. My wife and I drove down to Virginia recently to help move one of my family members and she has a habit of sleeping a lot in the car due to adverse effects of motion sickness medication. So when she’s asleep, what do I do? Check my e-mail of course! I know I’m not the only one out there who reads e-mails/text messages while driving…in fact I’ve drove past others while they were doing it so fess up!
I have to admit, checking e-mail while driving the PA Turnpike isn’t the smartest thing so eventually my wife took my Blackberry away from me. What was she thinking? How could I function without my WAP connection to the world.
I digress…to the point of why I’m writing this. Am I more successful at my job because I can answer e-mail from nearly anywhere? Will my information overload subside so I can actually be really productive and get my crap done? One can only hope because in my 20 months of employment here, it hasn’t slowed down yet. Will there be a point where I just start losing ground and my productivity chart dramatically plummets?
In any case, send me an e-mail/SMS/MMS/Google Talk/IM/Blackberry Messenger note and let me know what you think 
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