This year, fellow gamers, we should focus on the season of giving. What with the recession and all, people are probably feeling less generous with spending their hard-earned cash (that is, if they even have a job). But what is Christmas (or the holiday season, if you prefer) without the lavishing of ridiculously expensive gifts on loved ones and your favorite lazy-blogger (that would be me, by the way)?
It’s still not too late to visit Stuart Hughes exclusive elite gadgets (yes, it’s exclusive and elite) to purchase a £299,995 solid gold Nintendo Wii with diamond encrusted buttons.
If that’s over your budget, you might want to buy a £199,995 PlayStation 3. This is probably the only time that a PlayStation 3 is a third less than the price of a Wii. That’s a pretty good deal. Really!
In any case, even if you can’t afford to buy me a console that would blind my corneas when I polish it, I still want to wish you Happy Holidays and may all your presents be like the above (or better)!
After trying out Pearltrees today, I have to say I’m incredibly impressed. It was featured on CNN.com as a possible next big thing on the web and since its beta launched on Wednesday, there has been massive scrutiny in the online world over its social-network-meets-categorized-mind-map-bookmarking style. The webhounds have definitely stirred and are barking up this flash-based (pearl)tree.
What Is It
On the surface, Pearltrees is (are?) a fancy bookmarking system that’s guided by a visually intuitive drag-and-drop interface. Each “pearl” can either be a stand-alone link or a category, a “pearltree”, with branches of pearls extending from it, thereby grouping pearls into a cohesive map of ideas. As far as I can tell at this point, pearltrees can grow exponentially – with the user at the helm of creating and categorizing each branch of each pearltree or re-branching by, literally, plucking it off like an over-zealous gardener with new shears, and linking it to some other category. The possibilities are endless.
Pearltrees also comes with a downloadable add-on (I’m currently using the firefox one) which allows you to automatically create a pearl of whatever site(s) you are currently on. The pearl can then be put in a pearltree category or a drop-zone. The drop-zone is essentially like a the desk of a schoolgirl. Pearls can be stored there and filed away later, or – if everything gets too cluttered – dumped into the bin. Easy.
There’s definitely an emphasis on organizational ability and aesthetics here. You don’t want to be a messy pearl-gardener, so you’d want to keep everything trimmed and neat. Think online bonzai and you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly. Otherwise watch the helpful video on www.Pearltrees.com.
I’m sure everyone has experienced this – you’re driving, great song gets played on the radio, you bob your head and sing along… and then the radio deejay casually doesn’t mention the name of the song, or the band. This happened to my roommate and I about a week ago. All we remembered was that it was on KSCU and some of the lyrics of the song. She went on this wild goose chase and googled up lines from the song. Voila, oneresult. The lyrics of the song on a post at suicidegirls.com and nothing else – whoever posted it didn’t mention the title of the song, or the artist. At this point, I told her it was time to give up.
Fortunately, she didn’t. She contacted KSCU but their list showed an 11 minute gap between one song and the other with our “mystery song” conspicuously missing. Apparently, if the artist isn’t available on Amazon.com, (and therefore, probably unsigned) they don’t show up on the online playlist. So, no luck there. And then she tried googling the lyrics again – but this time, google had removed the link! Luckily, she bookmarked it and managed to retrieve the full lyrics that way and finally, finally, she asked her friend Greg to help her out. BAM! – Doctor Nurse. Music has never sounded sweeter than when found like this.
Sacks get a dose of
