Google Patents Search

google logoToday Google released a new version of their search too geared specifically to searching the over 7 million patents housed in the U.S. Paten Office. I have to admit, this search is a little bit addictive, and about a million times more user friendly than the one at the patent office site. I think this is interesting in a few ways. First, the novelty of finding weird obscure patents and who owns them. I’m also finding it’s interesting to limit the search by location or by submitter or company. The second aspect of this is that I think it will bring a little more spotlight to the entire patent process here in the U.S., and the recent talk of our system being broken. All this is right on the heels of Goggle’s recent patent on their search results interface, which seems a bit obvious to me. But I’ll let the supreme court figure that one out.

PikiPimp

Pimped ScottPikiPimp is a quick easy way to pimp your photographs. Just do a quick upload and then drag and drop the various pimp accessories (for lack of a better term) on top of your photo and then watch as zany hijinx ensue. Once you’ve created your pimped out masterpiece, you can easily embed it into your site with a quick copy and paste of some code.

“What do ya th’o’t o’ muh new fro an’ da bling bling ah’m wearing? you know das right!”

2006 Holiday Gift Guides

theme.gifAs I’ve done the past couple years (though a little late this year), I’ve compiled another list of Holiday Gift Guides for that hard-to-buy-for geek on your list this year.

Or, if you get a gift that you don’t need/want… maybe someone else at Regiftable does.

If I run across more, I’ll keep this up to date. Or if you know any others, let me know, and I’ll add ’em to the list.

Elfster Secret Santa

secretsanta.jpgWell, now that the holiday season is officially upon us (post-Thanksgiving makes it official), I found some helpful sites for all those secret Santa gift exchanges out there. Elfster.com and SecretSanta.com both take the pain out of organizing a Secret Santa gift exchange. You set up an exchange, and then list all the participants. It sends out e-mails and after the sign-up deadline, it will automatically match up secret Santas. Anybody want to set up a Secret Santa Exchange to test these sites out? Leave me a comment if you’re interested.

Turkey Day Gadget

turkey.jpgI wanted to find some special Thanksgiving gadgets for today, but couldn’t come up with much in the quick Google search that I tried. I did find something pretty interesting, though I don’t know if it would be categorized as a gadget. It’s called Season Shot, and it’s basically shotgun shot made out of spices, so you don’t have to remove the shot from your turkey. You just cook it with the shot in it to add flavor.

Load your gun with Season Shot and let the hunt begin. Watch as your bird is seasoned on impact leaving no harmful waste behind in the environment.

Forget about removing shot, prepare the whole bird for dinner! The Season Shot pellets will melt in the oven seasoning the entire bird.

Enjoy! No wasted time, no wasted meat, no waste left behind. Finally there’s a better way!

Guess The Logo

I like to keep my eyes open for different logos, whether that be on the web or driving around in the real world. This fun little game test how well you remember common logos from several prominent web companies. I got a 68.92%. See how well you fare a logo identification. (hint: Amazon is smiling at you)

Fresh Logic Atlas

Fresh Logic AtlasThere’s just something about data being displayed geographically on a map that’s cool to me. Maybe that’s why I like playing with my GPS and geocaching so much. I ran across a neat integration of maps (MSN Live Local) and community data last night. It’s created by a company called Fresh Logic Studios. In their Atlas Project, they offer the typical mapping functionality that you can find all over the web (zooming, panning, directions, etc.). They also offer some great overlays providing local data for a lot of things. There are geographically tagged blogs, gas prices/locations, movies, phone book data, and wifi hot spots. They’ve also got new feature in beta for tracking a GPS device. Currently they only provide software for Windows Mobile devices, but they offer the API to hook your GPS device to a map and track where it’s located. There are a handful of good mapping tools out there, but Fresh Logic seems to take that base level map and add a nice collection of tools on top of it.

Congress In 30 Seconds

Who’s tired of the political ads on TV? I know I sure am! Who would have thought I’d ever want the good ole ads for toothpaste and beer back… ads that are actually selling something rather than badmouthing a political opponent. With less than a week to go before the midterm election there has been an obvious pick-up in the frequency of the ads. I guess I’m in the mindset right now that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. There is a fun website that helps make that possible. Congress In 30 Seconds gives you all the tools (including video and sound clips) you need to put together your own political ads… showing that it really doesn’t take much to make a political ad for TV.

Another Awesome Mentos Fountain

From the same guys who put together the first “Awesome Mentos Fountain,” comes another one. This one uses a domino effect involving 251 bottles of Diet Coke and 1506 Mentos all tied together to create a really cool fountain chain of fizzy Mentos goodness.

A video used to be embedded here but the service that it was hosted on has shut down.

Firefox 2.0 Released

firefox.pngGet it while it’s hot! Firefox 2.0 has just hit the net. They’ve added a nice list of new features. Most notable are the visual refresh (cleaned up the buttons) and the tabbed browsing improvements. My favorite new feature is the new inline spell check, that checks any text you enter into a form for spelling mistakes (i dunt spull gud). If you use Firefox (and why wouldn’t you?) this is definitely worth the update. Get your download now!

MOO Flickr MiniCards

Moo LogoMoo! isn’t just what a cow says, it’s a nice little printing solution hooked into Flickr. For a limited time, they had an offer for Flickr pro members to receive 10 free MiniCards, which I quickly jumped on. Well, my MiniCards showed up yesterday and they’re kinda neat. They’re about the size of a stick of gum and are pretty decent photo quality. The small size meant I had to crop down the photos, but on some of them the skinny cropping gave it a nice effect. I was also able to put several lines of text on the back (I added my site URL) along with my flickr icon (a roll of Mentos).

The process of sending photos to Moo is pretty straight-forward. They’ve got a great interface similar to the Flickr Organizr to just drag and drop photo choices to Moo. You can then crop them and add text to the back before handing over your credit card numbers to make the final payment, which is normally $19.99 for 100 cards. I really like how they turned out and would love to have 100 cards to do whatever I want with, I just don’t know if I’ve got enough unique photos in Flickr to make 100 cards. So if you’ve got twenty bucks sitting around and a full Flickr account, give Moo a try.

moo-card.jpgmoo-spreadmoo-back

New Mentos Flavors

new mentos flavorsI recently received a new shipment of Japanese Mentos from newly badged (no I don’t have any badges) Mentos Ambassador Roth. Within this shipment were a few new flavors I’ve never seen before and (as of this writing) never tasted before. Grape, Strawberry and Mint are available in the U.S., though these wrappers are brighter. The new flavors include Apple, which I think is different than the U.S. Sour Apple. Citrus Mango, which is the roll I’m really looking forward to tasting. The last flavor, Juicy Cassis, is the most unique in this package. I have two of each flavor in this package, so that means I get to try one of them, with the 2nd going into the archive. Also, rumor has it, Mentos Ambassador Roth will be returning to Japan and could probably pick up a few more rolls if a certain flavor turns out to be delicious.