MyChingo.com

This is the coolest free web based service I've seen in a long time. I'm brainstorming right now about how to feature this service on SingingBirthdayCard.com

MyChingo is a web based voice recorder/audio feedback system that you can implement on your website for free. I'm pretty excited about it.

a king wothout a crown

More Hip Hop Reggae Hacidic Jewry from Matisyahu.

Matisyahu

If you've never seen an Hacidic Jew get funky, you're about to. Check out this video of Matisyahu.

Top 10 things they never taught me in Design School

Interesting read for all you aspiring designers out there on what it really takes to be a successful Designer.

read more | digg story

How To: Start your own Podcast

It's surprisingly easy to join the ranks of Podcasters. In fact, you probably already have most of what you need. Once you've recorded your broadcast, you simply put it online and distribute it to others through an online syndication technology called RSS (Really Simple Syndication).

read more | digg story

Trade Your Old CDs For A Free iPod

MillenniumMusic.com is a used CD retailer based in Charleston, South Carolina. You need to send 35 cds for an iPOD shuffle. They'll give you a 2 gig Nano for 65 cds. The top of the line video IPOD will cost you 175 cds.

I just got my 30 gig iPod in trade for 160 CD's (many were accepted at half value) plus $18 cash.

I learned about this site over a month ago, but I didn't want to post the story about it until I knew they were legit. Well, I just got my 30 gig iPod in the mail from them today - so - yeah, they're legit. I sent in 160 CD's and 5 dvd's.

They gave me partial credit for a bunch of the cd's, and rejected a few. In all, they credited me for about 127 CD's. So, I paid another $18 and got my iPod. I'd reccomend this service to anyone with a ton of great CD's or DVD's that they're willing to part with (sort of - you can rip everything to your hard drive first), but not a lot of cash to spend on that iPod they've been wanting.

One thing to keep in mind, you do have to pay to ship your stuff to them, and 160 CD's are kind of expensive to ship.

Do a little research on the sales history of your titles before packing them up. If the album is pretty new, by an artist whose getting some airplay (not neccesarily top 40), or if it has one or two songs that charted once upon a time, and it's in good shape, You're likely to get at least partial credit for it.

Be smart about it. Don't send in cd's from local/regional bands, or bands you know no one has heard of. It might help you to know that all of the 9 cd's of mine that they rejected were movie soundtracks, so keep those out of the box no matter how many good songs are on them. They do take DVD's, even ones you got cheap. I picked up Spinal Tap for $10 a year or so ago, and got full credit for it, same with the old edition of Tron.

Also, they do call you once they have your cd's, and you can use that opportunity to haggle a little. I ended up emailing back and forth with my sales rep for an afternoon, and made sure I got double credit for some double cd's they had apparently counted as singles, and I convinced him to give extra credit for a CD/DVD special edition set. I was impressed with their willingness to negotiate.

read more | digg story

Awesome unique barcode designs

Barcodes are usually pretty boring, these guys are changing that. Check out their unique designs.

read more | digg story

John Aldrich - Freelance Jingle Writer

I think I'd like to try my hand at this.

Fitness Jumpsite!

I found this simple, basic, and very useful site dedicated to fitness. It's got alot of great information about getting and staying fit. Now, if only I can put some of this information to use.

Check it out.

Download 400+ Royalty Free Stock Photos for Free!

Download 400+ quality royalty free stock photos for free. Note that these images range from 400kb to around 1.5mb, and are 1200 x 900 to 1600 x 1200. Fantastic resource for websites, Flash animations, playing with Photoshop, etc.

read more | digg story

The use of colour in web designing

This article explains the use of colour, what colours signify, and how to find colours that fit with each other in your web pages.

read more | digg story

What if Microsoft designed the iPod Packaging?

Here's a very entertaining video parodying Microsoft's "let's really over do it" design approach, in contrast to the bare-bones look that makes Apple's products really stand out.

Click here for the video.

Mixitforme.com closes down

I had a bad experience with this website several months ago, and I was happy to hear that they really got what was coming to them. After months of complaints lodged against them with the Rhode Island BBB and Attorney General's office (I filed one of those complaints), on March 27, 2006 - agents from the FBI, Secret Service, US Postal Service, RI State and Providence police raided the offices of Mixitforme.Com and executed a federal search warrant. Read more.

The company is now closed for business, and will be filing for bankruptcy - according to Mixitforme.com lawyers.

Basically, the big thing this company did wrong was take over $20,000,000 in orders, and let a relatively small number of those orders go un-filled. In my case, they took much longer than promised to fill my order. In fact they never filled it, and only after numerous phone calls and emails from me, would they admit to not having the product to ship me. They ended up giving me a full refund (if you don't count 3+ months of interest on over $6,000 on my Discover card), but getting that out of them was nowhere near pain free either.

I'm very happy Mixitforme.com will not get another change to screw a customer. I've noticed that their website is no longer accessible, and my only wish now, is that I could grab their domain name and point it to SingingBirthdayCard.com. Maybe a little extra business for me could help make up for all the extra headache they left me with. But I'm sure hundreds of other be-guiled Mixitforme.com customers have the same idea.

The Raconteurs - Hands & Yellow Sun @ Irving Plaza

A little more Raconteurs to watch

The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes (live on Conan)

Whoo!

Diet Coke X Mentos

Diet Coke and Mentos never looked so beautiful together. This is really amazing!

The Church Sign Generator

This site is pretty cool. You can put any saying you want on to a photo of an actual church sign. The guy who came up with this is some kind of Photoshop genius.

churchsigngenerator.com

Ian McKellen on X-Men, Magneto Prequel

Here's an interview with Ian Mckellen from the website SuperHeroHype.com

He discusses the upcoming Magneto spin-off movie, and the new technology used in X-Men: The Last Stand, that will allow him to play himself at a much younger age.

I just saw X3, and was blown away by the effect used in the opening sequence of the film, where Magneto and Professor X appear in a flash back that is supposed to take place 20 years ago. It was absolutely subtle, and totally convincing. They really looked younger. Patrick Stewart looked just like he did in the first episodes of Star Trek: TNG. No makeup was used, instead photos of their younger selves were somehow mapped on to their faces.

Amazing.

Tahitian Noni lays off 130 workers

My employer just laid off 130 of my co-workers. Here's their explaination why - as told by the Daily herald.

GRACE LEONG - Daily Herald

Tahitian Noni International laid off 130 employees in Provo and American Fork in a move to shift resources from its central Utah office to key regional offices and markets worldwide.

The layoffs, which represent nearly 8 percent of its global work force of 1,650, took effect Thursday and affected departments including training and support, call centers, marketing, and lower executive management in Provo and American Fork.

After the restructuring, the Provo-based dietary supplements maker's offices in Utah, which traditionally provide support for the company's global operations, will have 720 workers.

Its Provo headquarters and call center had 600 workers, while its American Fork research and development, manufacturing, and distribution plant had 250 workers.

The affected workers were given "very generous severance packages, outplacement support services, letters of recommendation and had their health insurance extended for two months," said Shon Whitney, the company's vice president of marketing communications.

The company last laid off 45 workers in 2002 in a cost-cutting move, he said.

"Thursday's cut backs took place across all departments," Whitney said. "Several managing directors and directors were also laid off."

"As we grow globally, it's hard to manufacture and provide international support from just one central location," Whitney said. "We will continue to have more than 700 workers in Utah. But we won't be as centralized as we used to be. We will continue to do R&D, product development manufacturing for North and South America from Utah.

"We're not restructuring the entire organization for cost-cutting reasons this time as much as we're shifting resources and jobs outside of Utah to seven of our key markets in the U.S., Japan, China, Taiwan, Germany, Norway and Sweden."

"By growing our regional support offices, we can move faster as a company and cater to markets in those countries as they are very different from Utah in terms of culture, product, customer service and even technology needs," he said. "We need to put our resources in areas where our sales are coming from."

While the United States is Tahitian Noni's largest market, accounting for 40 percent of its total sales of $530 million this past year, the remaining 60 percent of its sales are derived worldwide.

Japan is the company's second-largest market, accounting for 35 percent of total sales; Europe accounts for between 10 percent and 15 percent, while other markets worldwide account for the remainder.

Whitney said he couldn't immediately specify how much the company will spend on its globalization initiative, nor could he specify how many jobs are being added at its regional offices worldwide. The company is opening a manufacturing plant in China this fall and planning additional support offices in Glendale, Ariz., Japan, Taiwan and Germany.

Last year, the company opened four business support offices each in Japan and Taiwan, and three more offices in Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and New Jersey.

Founded in 1996, the company is operating in 73 markets worldwide and has manufacturing plants in Tahiti, Japan and Germany.

Grace Leong can be reached at 344-2910 or gleong@heraldextra.com.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.

How To Backup Your Mac Intelligently

Here's a thorough tutorial of how to best backup your Mac.

read more | digg story