Lessons we can learn from Digital Media: iWant

I have an apology to make fellow blogsters – somehow in the craziness of uni holidays and my paid employment, i missed posting two blogs as part of my #wedm class. For those of you who waited with bated breath, i apologise for leaving you hanging! As a consequence, i will now be coming at you, not once, not twice but three times this week to catch up me up on my postings before my last #wedm class on Tuesday. *sniff*

Source: pdadb.net

This post i am dedicating to a problem that afflicts many of us – an urgent and persist need for an iPad. Before the iPad i didn’t even realised there was a void in my life that the iPad needed to fill. Now i know. I have i terrible case of the iWants for an iPad. I often get bouts of iWant as i am very susceptible to the power of suggestion. I have actually banned myself from travel features in magazines as it just makes me want to max out my credit card and get on the next flight out of here!

The iWant for iPad is something new for me. Normally i can justify the object of my iWant. Travel, well that’s all about life experience, learning and keeping me sane. A new pair of shoes, do i really need to explain the functionality of shoes? duh! A book/DVD, existentialism or learning. Desert, well i’m still hungry! But the iPad fits into its own special category. iWant it because i do.

My little brother is somewhat of a technobuff. He was dismissive of my iWant for an iPad. “You do realise they can do practically nothing. At least wait til they bring out iPad 2 with a camera or something useful built-in. Your shitty four-year old Macbook is better than a Gen 1 iPad “. My response? But it’s pretty.

I am clearly not the only one with a bad case of iWant an iPad. Although overall projected sales of iPads are down slightly on initial estimates, a whopping 250,000 Aussies have already snapped one up, according to The Australian’s IT section

Source: smh.com.au

So a quarter of a million Aussies already have one? So there must be something about an iPad aside from its design? Right?

Well, Apple’s latest offering for the Mac Book Air is apparently based on the iPad’s design. According to Apple Chief Jobs, the new Mac Book Air runs  on “flash storage like the iPad rather than hard drives like conventional computers, it can power up instantly and store data twice as fast”. It’s also incredibly light and damn sexy if i do say so myself!

For people who are like me and have an irrational iWant for an iPad, perhaps you should check out PC World’s Guide to 6 Reasons Why You Want and iPad and 6 Reasons You Don’t. And me? after researching the new Mac Book Air, i think i have just added a second iWant to my list! ooops.

And for those who do not have iWant, here’s a video for you!

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Lessons we can learn from Digital Media: Google Cooking

Source: madsilence.wordpress.com

So far i have blogged about at least two of my passions in life – politics and art. This week I am dedicating my post to a third passion, food! As someone who is not very organised, i often find myself staring at a half empty pantry trying to figure out what the hell i can pull together that will taste half decent and have some kind of nutritional value. As a student, like most of us, i became deft a testing out new flavour combinations (please never ever let anyone convince you to combine hokkien noodles with sweet corn and ricotta cheese!) Thankfully for my poor body, we now have the internet and millions of experts and foodies around the world to tap into. I am now a keen proponent of Google Cooking.

Google Cooking is a basic concept, you simply type in the ingredients you do have at your disposal, Google does its thing and up pops a selection of recipes featuring the ingredients. Unfortunately, Google Cooking is not my invention, according to The Washington Post, the term was actually coined by Judy Hourihan, a former Massachusetts software engineer, who is said to have invented the phenomenon in 2001 with salmon and Swiss chard.

Source: google.com

 

The Washington Post quotes some interesting stats on cooking, quoting 33 million visits to culinary-related Web sites in September 2005 (according to comScore Media Metrix) I would imagine five years on, those figures are a lot larger! The Post are not the only news source not the only one interested in this new way of cooking. The Guardian trialled dinner a la Google with a combination of salmon, cabbage, bacon, leeks and cumin, raving of the success, raving “half an hour later and the fridge was empty, there were bite marks on the plates and my wife wanted to know where this sudden facility for good food had come from.”

Source: mysupermarket.co.uk

The problem i have found with Google Cooking is that it relies on you having a fairly well stocked basic pantry. A quick test with the limited food in my fridge – leeks, tasty cheese and ham elicits recipes including leek, ham and cheese cabbage rolls from Foodland Ontario; Ham and leek gratin from The Dog’s Breakfast and Versatile leek and cheese quiche from Epricurian Table. As you can see from all these recipes, they rely on you having cabbage, potatoes and eggs sitting there ready to use. I also learned that a brand, aptly named Bachelors makes a ‘Cheese, Leek and Ham’ flavoured Pasta ‘N’ Sauce.

Research Buzz’s Cookin’ with Google has a few tips that might assist you in your Google Cooking foray:

* Try searching for both items plural and singular. Searching for avocado apple gives very different results from avocados apples.

* Sometimes if you enter too many items you’ll narrow down your search too much. Try starting your search with just two or three ingredients.

* Try tossing in a cooking-related word, like broil or sautee. Conversely if you want to avoid certain words you can also exclude them; try excluding words like fry or lard.

Good luck!

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Lessons we can learn from Digital Media: Procrastination

I don’t do computer games. They bore the socks off me. Instead of sitting for hours going cross-eyed whilst wielding a joystick, i waste my time on the internet. I am a master of the procrastination surf. In a hat tip to fellow #wedm blogger Savvy Affirmations’ post on StumbleUpon last week, i thought i would round-up a few of my favourite time-wasting sites for your procrastination pleasure.

Source: failblog.org

My number 1 website for instant guilty pleasure is of course FailBlog.org. I have whiled away hours on this site and even contributed one or two of my own. For those not in the know, Fail Blog publishes user images and videos of ‘Fail’ situations. With the tagline “Helping you feel better about yourself every day“, Fail Blog never ceases to amuse and always picks up my mood. It’s only been around since 2008, but it won two Webby awards in 2009 (People’s Voice humour and People’s Voice Weird). It was sold to I Can Has Cheezburger and now boast easy links to the entire Cheezburger network, 47 different websites including lolcats, Failbook and Engrish Funny. There’s a whole day’s worth of procrastination just there!

Source: gofugyourself.celebuzz.com

Next up is the Fug Girls. Go Fug Yourself is the blog by Heather and Jessica, who use the blog to bag the crap out of badly dressed celebrities. For those unaware of the lingo, see the blog’s definition of “Fugly“. For the record, i much prefer the filthy version! The beauty of this blog is the bitchy acerbic comments. This recent post about Michelle Tratchenberg is a classic example:

“M.Tracht’s posture and the fact that the gown seems to be slipping down her torso makes the whole thing look like a tent. And if you can set up camp in it, you should never wear it. Unless it is a fur turban the size of a Jacuzzi. Then you should find a way.”

In the same ilk as the FailBlog Cheezburger sites is FML. Based on another example of internet slang, FML features short sentences sent in by readers outlining something shit that has happened to them. Some are hilarious, some just plain stupid. Readers than rate each others FMLs as either “I agree, your life sucks” or “you totally deserved it”, with a tally of how many people agree.

Source: http://www.fmylife.com

 

Another classic blog,  shared by parent friend of mine on Facebook, is Shit My Kids Ruined. This blog is a place where frustrated parents can relieve their frustrations at having their lives ruined by snotty nosed kids! I often visit this blog when i question my life choices as my mates settle down!

Source: shitmykidsruined.com

 

Finally, if you haven’t wasted enough time already, you can always hit up the US Apple website and watch movie trailers. Hours of entertainment! Just don’t blame me when your assignments are late!

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