Tweeting cat door, social apps, college basketball
Thursday, April 9, 2009
I thought this was very cool: “Twitter-Enabled Cat Door Tweets a Kitty’s Comings and Goings.” The cats have RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags on their collars. A connected laptop automatically tweets each time the RFID door is activated. You can follow Gus and Penny (the cats) on Twitter. Coincidentally, the clever guy who set this up is actually rather close by, in Salem, Oregon.
Also, since IÂ haven’t quite figured out how much I’m going to let Twitter replace (or integrate with) the pop culture topics I tend to write about here, this post may be slightly redundant with my recent Twitter status updates.
Social networking apps
I’ve been playing with social networking applications quite a bit during the past couple of weeks, particularly those that can simultaneously interact with Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed.
For Windows desktop clients, I’ve determined that it’s basically a cross-posting competition between Twhirl, TweetDeck and Twhirl’s successor Seesmic Desktop. All three are Adobe AIR-based desktop applications and there are a lot of bugs to be worked out between them, especially for effective Facebook integration. The following was big news for TweetDeck fans this week: “TweetDeck Plugs Memory Leak; Launches Facebook Integration for All.” I also tried a number of Firefox add-ons and toolbars, including Friendbar, TwitterFox and the experimental FireStatus Firefox add-on. There are many more Firefox add-ons for Twitter/Facebook status updates (like Power Twitter).
What’s my verdict? Well, check out this tweet. (Hint: I currently have a preference for the Firefox add-ons over the desktop clients.)
College basketball
I managed to correctly pick North Carolina to win the NCAA Tournament, but finished second in my office pool. I was glad to see Penn State win the NIT. Was also glad to see Oregon State win the CBI.
Art and graphic design
Take a look at all of these pop culture variations of da Vinci’s Last Supper: “Suddenly Last Supper.”
Here are five types of logos explained: “Logo Design Basics: The Five Types of Marks.” There are marks, letterform marks, wordmarks, abstract marks/symbols and emblems.
Ever wanted to find a photo of a certain color using Google Image Search? Problem solved: “Search the rainbow.”
I also found this interesting: “YouTube tour reveals Google data center designs.” It’s not so secret anymore.