Travel. That single word sparks thoughts of exotic beaches, hidden towns, memories, and enjoyment. Techlife has covered unique mapping tools, making your own maps, finding the perfect place to stay and more. Our diverse readership, You; often comment how much travel is a part of your life.

Meet Travelista (Techlife slang for Travel Expert) Anne Hornyak, who holds a Masters in Music; loves photography and travel; and has a day job advising Travel and Convention Bureau’s. We asked her to help Techlife readers with an education in what travel means in today’s super connected world of mobile sharing, bite size ideas, and off the path finds.

Techlife: How did you get started in the Travel and Tourism industry?
Anne Hornyak: I began my tourism career with Chicago Plus, a regional tourism office for Chicagoland. As a staff of one, I mostly managed marketing projects for the 17 Chicagoland Convention & Visitors Bureaus but also handled everything from finance to social media.

TL: What do you do today for the industry?
AH: I work mostly as a Social Media Strategist for tourism clients. I’m a cofounder of #tourismchat, a biweekly twitter chat focusing on social media in the tourism industry, and frequently tweet and blog about the same topic.

TL: Why is online travel and tourism so big? And how big is it?
AH: People love to travel and share their experiences with others. Social networks, especially Facebook, are perfect for this type of sharing. Many are also planning their trips, searching for the best discounts and then booking these trips, all online. Everything from Frommer’s to Budget Travel, Expedia to Priceline, Flickr to YouTube and travel blogs to a simple Facebook update about a friend’s recent trip…it’s all online. The travel industry is massive. Over 7.4 million U.S. jobs are directly related to it.

TL: How do you disconnect from the digital realm?
AH: I used to joke about needing a “social media detox” every once in a while but it has become rather habitual lately. Whether hiking in a state park or photographing lighthouses along Lake Michigan’s coast, I have to make time “off the grid.”

TL: What digital tips do you have for a traveler pre-trip?
AH: Research! Ask your Facebook friends and Twitter followers for recommendations and tips. Take advantage of CVBs (Convention & Visitors Bureaus) in your preferred social networks. Many of them are on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube, and have blogs and interactive websites that can help you plan your trip. Find them on your network and connect before you travel.

TL: In-trip?
AH: Have fun! If you have a smartphone, send photos and updates to your friends on Facebook and Twitter but be sure that it doesn’t get in the way of your experience. If you’re on Flickr, upload your photos regularly so you can add descriptions and geotag them accurately.

TL: Post trip?
AH: Talk about it! Create photo albums on Facebook, upload Flickr photos and YouTube videos, write a special blog post and add write reviews to TripAdvisor. Share your experience with others who are in the research stage.

TL: As of this question being written you had 3,673 Followers on Twitter who have seen 16,406 updates via your username “WhosYourAnnie“. What’s one thing you never talk about? Why?
AH: Tweets about my family and personal life are usually kept pretty vague. The internet is public and safety is the primary concern. I’ve received a few google alerts for random things I’ve tweeted about my dogs. I don’t need to give stalkers extra information.

TL: What percent of your followers and updates are related to your career?
AH: I would say that 65-75% of my followers are somehow related to the travel industry, either as travel bloggers, CVBs, or people who just like to travel and talk about it. Probably 50% of my updates are conversational replies, most of which are to friends within the tourism industry, leaving around 30% as content tweets directly related to my career.

TL: Is Twitter your main channel?
AH: Most definitely! To me, twitter is all about connecting and having conversations. It’s a little surreal but some of my closest friends, a few I have yet to meet in real life, started as twitter followers.

TL: Last question, Who’s Your Annie?
AH: I’m your Annie.

Cameras exist everywhere today, from ATM machines to mobile phones to government meetings. With the increase of the lenses surrounding our world, the artist inside springs forth from all walks of life to see the moments captured from a falling leaf to a speeding locomotive.

While many mainstream photo storage sites attempt to appeal to photo artists, Lance Ramoth felt differently. Lance’s vision was fotoblur.com which now includes both a website and a printed publication, Fotoblur Magazine all crowd sourced or created by the artists from the inside. With a passion for photography and technology Lance’s efforts tell a story of hardwork and love. It is an inspirational tale in how a niche can evolve into a group collaboration in this case, photographers who believe in the Art of the Moment.

Techlife: How did fotoblur.com start?

Lance Ramoth: I first started Fotoblur as a side project in 2007. I had been quite active in a number of other online photo communities and was actively submitting my photos to various printed publications. At first, Fotoblur was just a small corner for a few of the photographers that I had met at other communities where we could have complete autonomy of how it all would work. I got a lot of input from the first group of members and that helped shape the way Fotoblur works today.

TL: How has your focus changed since you started?

LR: Well now we’ve grown. Although we are still very small in terms of other photo communities we have some amazing photographers from all corners of the globe. Now we focus on aesthetics of the design, providing a cleaner and simpler user interface. We’re always looking for ways to improve how the community members interact with one another based on what we see them doing. From day one, the development of Fotoblur has been an organic process, allowing the community to determine where our focus should be applied. Fotoblur Magazine, which started a year after the initial launch of Fotoblur, has also been a main focus.

TL: Do you love how fotoblur.com has grown?

LR: Indeed. I love to see how the members interact with one another. They are very supportive of each other and have created a very positive dynamic environment. This I couldn’t have developed in the code, or the design, but comes from the members. How the community has grown amazes me every time I’m browsing the gallery.

TL: What’s your favorite photo of 2010 so far?

LR: Wow, there are so many. We have a section of featured images where I select, based on my opinion, the best images of the day. The community also has its own voice in the Community Favorites section of the front page. The way the community favorites works is that each member can promote an image that they appreciate, and the ones with the highest number of promotions makes it to the front page for that day. So its a good mix of the community favorites and editor’s choice that goes into showcasing the best of the best.

TL: What’s your favorite story a photographer has shared with you?

LR: Most photographers can leave descriptions of their images and some are quite moving after reading them. For instance photographer Greg Brophy submitted an image that was quite moving after reading the description.  Apparently the subject of his photo was a dear friend who died at an early age and the image seemed to be a tribute to her.
James Andre Mortram posted images of individuals who suffered birth defects from the drug Thalidomide*. The image was so striking it was published in Fotoblur Magazine, Issue 5.

Images have been submitted depicting war, activism , hardship, and culture.  People post images of all types. Some are purely artistic in nature but some have messages that teach us about something that has touched another individual.

Background of Thalidomide:
Thalidomide was sold in a number of countries across the world from 1957 until 1961 when it was withdrawn from the market after being found to be cause birth defects in what has been called “the biggest medical tragedy of modern times”. It is not known exactly how many worldwide victims of the drug there have been, although estimates range from 10,000 to 20,000.

TL: Has publishing fotoblur.com changed your life?

LR: Not really. Fotoblur has become an extension of my creative interests. Its a bit of work obviously to meet our deadline for Fotoblur Magazine but its also fun. I never know which images the community is going to select as the top images for publication so that is always exciting. Seeing the breadth of talent out there is inspiring and bringing that talent together and formulating a way of presenting it, also in an artistic way, has been both a challenge and creative endeavor.

TL: Has there been any negatives to fotoblur.com?

LR: Sure. We’ve had our handful of trouble makers in the community. I think you get this with any online community where members are mostly anonymous. But what I’ve found is the strength of the community takes care of this.

TL: What should new readers and users expect to see in the next 12 months?

LR: Expect to see some amazing work both on the site and in the published magazine. Word is spreading, and we’ve had some amazing artist join our ranks within the past year, so expect more of the same awe inspiring photography you’d come to expect from Fotoblur in the future.

TL: Are you currently working on any other projects?

LR: Fotoblur is a full time job that takes most of my spare time. As a technical person at heart I’m always fiddling with new technologies and approaches to problems that I can use to better the user’s experience. We’re excited by the fact that HTML5 has been gaining a fair amount of traction this year and hope to incorporate more of this technology into Fotoblur in the future.

TL: What’s a dream job for you?

LR: Anything thats creative. I love the creative process whereby you have the opportunity to build something from nothing. To have ultimate freedom of creativity and expression is all that I could ever hope for in a dream job.

TL: What’s a dream photoshoot for you?

LR: Where I enjoy the world around me. I like to take long exposures when I shoot whereby each image can take up to 4-6 minutes to expose. This gives me the opportunity to soak up my environment. It slows down the world in such a way that I feel at one with it. This is a personal experience and can be very spiritual in nature.

TL: Have any famous people or photographer’s who you were surprised to find fotoblur.com fans?

LR: Oh yeah. We’ve had fine arts photographers such as Cole Thompson, Russ Martin, Marcia Martin, Jennifer Short, Tom Hoops, Xavier Rey, and Pierre Pellegrini join our ranks, plus many more. We’ve also recently had some large followings in Italy and Saudi Arabia. But we have many intermediate to beginning photographers as well. Fotoblur is a dynamic landscape where all can benefit from the social aspects of the community. It has brought photographers from all over the world together.

TL: What’s your advice for someone who has up to now just shot their family and friends for getting artistic with photography?

LR: Shooting family and friends can also be artistic. Photographer Jennifer Short makes it her main subject of work. Regardless, the advice that I would suggest is that the camera is just a tool and that it takes an artist to create the art. An artist attempts to communicate through their photos. Whether its emotions, wants, needs or desires, attempt to communicate that in your photos.

For me its about communicating the loneliness of life’s journey. Yes, I have family and friends but I’ve always felt alone and my images depict this feeling.

At Fotoblur we view photography as an art form. Its a matter of expression and personal experience. To shoot for the sake of shooting is not conducive to being an artist. We want photographic artists at Fotoblur and that’s what each one of us is trying to develop in ourselves.

At the time of this writing the Fotoblur community was just shy of 5,000 users, with 5 published magazines volumes, and nearly 43,000 images.  Along with an active comments and forums section of the site, the growth of a niche community based on a something you love is a great  way to get other passionate users involved who want a hand in creating a place for, in this case photographic artists, to gather and trade tips, admire work, and get inspired.  Where do you find inspiration for your passions?  Share it with us in the comments.

Ok be honest, did the headline scare you?  It scared me.  Did you think Techlife did a 180 degree turn? Well we didn’t.  We still sit squarely in the camp of “where the crossroads of technology and life intersect.”  So again you ask yourself, why is Techlife covering a hundred pushups, two hundred situps and two hundred squats?

One word: Mashup.

We have covered mashups in the past, see the archives.  Basically a mashup is taking two or more separate things and combining them.   In our column we often cover technology mashups so today is something a bit different.

A little over a year ago, Steve Speirs created the website HundredPushups.com.  The concept was simple to inspire and help people achieve a goal that seems difficult to most, to do 100 consecutive pushups. Wait, wait — don’t go.  Don’t stop reading cause, ewww he mentioned fitness and feats of strength. I know this is the holiday season and Festivus is upon us.  But you can do this.

Steve’s idea is something we often pass on to clients.  When you are sharing information, keep it simple.  HundredPushups.com provides an easy to follow six-week plan, some simple printable worksheets and that was it.  The interest spiked enormously due to the simplicity.

Even better Steve’s community of fans stared building mashups.  For regular readers there are three iPhone/iPod touch applications that act as digital tracking tools for people in each of the three programs.  Swedish developer Viktor Nordling created a web app for those regular Techlife readers, pushuplogger.com.  Finally, a fan named Eddie created the mashup for you long time readers, a Pocket Mod of the entire program that fits on a single sheet of paper in foldable Pocket Mod format.  This was my favorite item.

Steve was inspired by the outpouring for his well crafted website that he soon rolled out the sequel, twohundredsitups.com.  Same concept, different muscles, new goal. Most recently he launched twohundredsquats.com.  Steve’s brilliance was to keep all three sites nearly the same.  Fans who understood one program can easily start the next.

Now for mashup, the Techlife challenge.  I sit behind my monitor way to much.  Cranking out good articles for the faithful.  I have started my new year’s resolution early and I want you to join me.  My goal stated publicly, is to achieve the Techlife 500. The goal is to max out with being able to do in a continuous test, one hundred pushups plus two hundred situps plus two hundred squats totalling 500 reps.

Who’s with me?  Add  a comment below if you are joining and feel free to check back here and update us on your progress.

Data, a collection of organized numbers and labels, comes in many shapes and sizes.  Ever made a gut decision only to regret it later?  Well, note to self, your gut is not located anywhere near your decision making center.   And decisions made on data are educated and analytical.  Wait a sec, I thought this was Techlife?

Having accurate information, helps make informed decisions.  I could talk about how your business would be wise to look at the numbers, but we’ll instead use baseball.  Let’s face it, it’s a lot of fun to use a sport that has heaps of data.  Sean Forman over at Baseball-Reference.com has compiled the statistics universe of baseball.  He has organized baseball stats for teams, players, eras, and more.

Will having better data help you in Yeti Baseball? Not likely.  Will it help you in betting on baseball? Quite possibly.  Alright, skip the explanation already, let’s get to it, you’re losing me.

Flamethrowers

As of June 30, 2009, pitching phenom Tim Lincecum of the San Franciso Giants had pitched in 74 career games.  He had 15 games with at least 10 strikeouts, placing him 6th all time. Other fireballers who started hot careers ahead of Lincecum were Dwight Gooden, Herb Score, Kerry Wood, Mark Prior and Hideo Nomo who ranged from 27 games to 16 games respectively with 10 plus punch outs.

Baseball-Reference.com Blog and Stat of the Day writer Andy Kamholz, also ran the data on flamethrowers in their first 74 career games with at least 8 strikeouts, and Linceum is number 1 with 39.   Followed again by Gooden, Wood, Score, Prior and Nomo who ranged from 38-33.

Homeruns

Babe Ruth hit a lot of homeruns; 714 to be exact.  Baseball-Reference.com has a log of every homerun he ever hit.  But they provide even more data about each homerun.  They document play by play:

• HRs in order they were hit
• What number HR it was of the season it was hit
• What number HR it was in the game
• Date
• Matchup (teams)
• Pitcher
• Inning it was hit
• RBI from that HR

and comprehensive data of Number of HRs:

• Against by Opponent
• Against Left/Right Handed Pitchers
• Against Pitcher (by name and count)
• By Ballpark
• Inside the Park

Award Winning

Baseball likes awards.  From Cy Young for pitching, MVPs, Triple Crowns, Gold Gloves, Silver Sluggers to managers and rookies of the year, most of these are decided by numbers.  Which lead players to the hallowed halls of Cooperstown, where Baseball’s Hall of Fame stands as the ultimate achievement based on statistics.  Baseball-Reference.com has broken down the awards winners by stats, years, teams, and streaks.  Slicing data to make the game more enjoyable and understandable.

Final Thought

A simple design, easy access to information and tools for the casual to the stat freak allow Baseball-Reference.com to shine in data display.  As you imagine how a data rich environment with insight and analysis would help your company or organization, keep in mind this site took 10 years to get to the point you see today.  Working with a professional can help you understand your data, interpret it and come out hitting  homeruns.  Stop making calls from your gut, save that for peanuts and cracker jacks.

The Dojo's Cubed Addict - Multiplayer Real Time game for Android, Mac, PC and Linux.

As we meet with client’s the hardest thing for them to wrap their arms around is that on the web, your business is instantly global.  “Awesome, bring it on.”  “Yeah, so, no big deal.”  These are some of the common answers we hear from client’s.  It is then we sit them down and using their enthusiasm or lack thereof, we coach them on doing business in a global economy.  It’s not always easy with i18n (shorthand for internationalization) and l10n (shorthand for localization) and social networking and web 2.0 and e-commerce.

Now imagine adding mobile customers to the mix.  That is exactly the challenge David Kainer of The Dojo experienced.  Provide his customers a gaming platform globally that easily works for all mobile devices and Linux, Mac and Windows computers (<=computer download link, start playing today) based customers.  He also added in multi-player real-time , and to top it all off…it is all FREE.

Techlife sat down with David, who from his Sydney office, works with the London office to learn about The Dojo.  How?  Why? How hard?  It’s all in there, and we even cover why he chose Google’s Android first over Apple’s iPhone. 

Techlife: What is The Dojo?

David Kainer: The Dojo is a global platform for uniting game players in interactive gaming, irrespective of platform. It’s aim is to provide great multi-player experiences on mobile and online and really begin to blur the boundaries between the two. Best of all – it’s free.

T: How did you come with the idea for The Dojo?  Was it based on something?

(more…)

In Techlife’s day job we advise clients to, “Get a fresh perspective, take a unique look at things.” Most of the time clients ask us for help in this effort. After all, it isn’t easy to achieve a fresh perspective, but when you do, LOOK OUT! because the effect can be startling and eye-opening.

We love that feeling. When the world turns over on itself. It is exciting to realize things can be different with just a shift in perspective.

For a few years, an artist in London, known as Slinkachu has been providing a fresh perspective on life, by placing his art all over the city without permission and then photographing it. Interesting you say, but how does that provide a fresh perspective? View the following pieces and then keep reading and see how your perspective changes.

(more…)

Techlife readers are really amazing. You send in some of the best things on the web. Once again loyal reader Dan found a gem, with Alan Becker’s Animator vs. Animation movie. It follows the story of a small Flash animated stick figure as he wreaks havoc on the flash desktop of his maker.

Watch Animator vs. Animation on Techlife TV

Being the inquisitive bunch we did a bit more research and found that this gem is really part of of a larger collection of work by the talented Mr. Becker. After the success of Animator vs. Animation, Alan built Animator vs Animation II. In this story, the animator does the unthinkable and risks his entire computer to a stick figure’s wrath.

Watch Animator vs. Animation II on Techlife TV

Alan’s wild success was recognized by the world,  and he teamed with Charles Yeh and Atom Films to create Animator vs. Animation: The Game, which is a blast. (pun intended). And then the duo modded it a bit and created Animator vs. Animation: The Game SE (Special Edition).

There are a lot of small touches Alan added to these animations, be sure to keep your eyes on areas like the backgrounds and text labels to catch all the attention to detail. I enjoyed Animator vs. Animation, as you can see the care and effort Alan put into his first masterpiece in the genre. Animator vs. Animation II is great second effort with some out of the box thinking and a real ending. I hope Alan is plotting Animator vs. Animation III, I’ll be watching.

Alan’s inspiration likely comes from the original Stick Art films. Stick art animations have been around for a long time, and are often violent and a bit comedic. What’s your favorite? Post the link below.

People everywhere are excited for MLB’s Opening Day. It is a day when everyone has a clean slate. Everyone has an even shot (at least the media gives that impression.)

We all know the owners and players are in this to get paid. Well once again, loyal reader Dan writes in with an Opening Day gem to give Techlife readers their shot at a payday. (Pete Rose, this one’s for you!) I was a bit skeptical at first, but it’s free money and fun too. Nearly as good as fun at the old ballpark.

CentSports is a new kind of social gaming site where you risk nothing but can win real money. First off the site gifts you $.10 to bet on sports. Lose that and get another gift of $.10 and so on. (Yep, they are unlimited in their generosity.) Start winning and you can cash out as soon as you reach $10. Sound to good to be true? Sounds more like spam you might get, right? Trust Techlife it isn’t. It is actually a lot of fun

Do you like hardwoods, frozen ponds or field of dreams? CentSports has NCAA, the NCAA Tournament, the NIT Tourney plus the full slate of NBA games. They also have NHL hockey and starting today they have baseball’s MLB all ready for Opening Day action. They are planning on adding soccer and bringing back boxing and tennis. (Apparently those pesky tennis players will retire mid-match which screws up the betting a little.)

As a person with little knowledge of sports betting it is a lot of fun to learn on someone else’s dime (pun intended). They have all the standard bets including point spread, money line, over/under and let you parlay or combine these bets to get higher payouts.

The best part is the social aspect of the site. You can see what others bet, invite friends, publicly chat about each bet made and send private notes too.

How can CentSports fund the payouts? Advertising. They have a unique feature after placing a bet you will get the chance to see an ad which can give you bonus cash if you win. (Hint: Always hold out for near the top tier of the bonus.) There are other ads scattered around the site as well.

Overall: If you like sports and are too chicken to try using your own money, you can’t lose. Literally! CentSports is sports gambling for the rest of us. No skill required.

I hope you try it out and see if you can beat me, I was up to nearly $2. Let us know in the comments what your user name is and we can add you to our friend list on the site.

A winter wind whips a lone rider on his trusty sled. With only a small hat and a candy cane scarf his entire existence is to ride the line. Can he keep it up? Will he make it? Only you will determine it. Only you can make the flight of the Line Rider.

It’s been a while since Techlife has brought us another in the series of Friends of Line Rider. Can you tell we missed the little guy? Today we find ourselves enjoying Line Rider Zada v1.3.

A modded Line Rider version with everything that is missing in the first Line Rider. Use the eraser, speedups and zoom for a better Line Rider experience.that is Zada!

Line Rider Zada is really quite the fun afternoon and perfect for adults and kids alike.

Techlife was talking to Nintendo support (new site design) yesterday and picked up a great little nugget. As many people know there are all sorts of old console games in the Wii’s Virtual Console. One thing they all lack is “save game” ablity.

If you click on the blue house button while playing a Virtual Console game, and then from that screen click on Wii Menu, the Virtual Console game is paused and you can play other games, disc or Virtual Console games and then come back to your “pause game”. It’s a pretty hidden trick.

The rep I spoke with had not heard of it this hack or trick until after they started working with Nintendo. Seems like a great idea. Thanks Nintendo Support Guy Matt!

Also of note, with the tens of thousands of Wii’s being sold a month, the support rep said they are lucky if they field a thousand calls a month, the Wii is pretty easy to use and pretty durable. I thought that was a pretty interesting comment.

Techlife has just learned that XGen Studios is now a developer for the WiiWare program.  Might Stick Arena or Stick Arena Ballistick be released for the Wii one day? We were pretty shocked too. Nintendo has a developer program with the Wii, known as WiiWare for smaller developers to build content for the platform. Combined with all we know about Stick Arena’s long awaited title, it appears a multi-platform release might be in the works at some point. While we can’t confirm this, a recent press release from XGen says:

XGen Studios is developing an original title for Nintendo’s upcoming WiiWareâ„¢ service…

It goes on to say:

…inspired by an existing cult classic from the studio, and will allow up to 4 simultaneous players while leveraging the unique capabilities of the Wii Remoteâ„¢…

and

…classic game play enjoyed by Millions is coming to your living room in the form of a new title with compelling additions…

and finally

…jump-in, jump-out casual style appeals to a broad audience for both quick and extended play sessions…

Reading between the lines it would appear that we are in a for a treat. The real question is will the 6.3 million Wii owners be able to interact with the PC gamers, I would think they won’t. But your username might port between the two, allowing a character to travel with you. Imagine playing Stick Arena Ballistick on your Wii online and on your PC online.  Once we all are playing Ballistick on the PC, imagine having a party and Grandma slices Uncle Charlie, only to find herself on the end of a barrage of gunfire.  Brings a whole new meaning to “The war at home.”

And in other Stick Arena Ballistick News…there is an impatient group of loyal Techlife readers who have logged over 700 comments about how excited they are for Ballistick. For all of them, I want to give them a heads up, an exciting announcement is coming shortly. We are targetting next week on Techlife and TechlifeTV the news. As a teaser, we have confirmed that there are 6 new weapons for Ballistick. For a bit of fun, we are going to release their initials…

• CG
• LS
• TH
• FT
• CS
• RG

Got any guesses? Let the comments begin!

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What do you do with all the Amazon Gift Cards you got for the holidays?

Amazon has long offered some treasures, one treasure that’s been out for a while is GOAT, a mammoth book about boxing legend, Muhammad Ali. Ali’s nickname GOAT, (Greatest of All Time) is among his many nicknames. And the tale of the tape is this 800 pages measures at 20 inches by 20 inches and weighs in at more than 75 lbs. Of course the Champion Edition is the one to have, setting you back slightly at $11,250, but hey, it’s on sale right now saving you $1,250.

The regular hardcover GOAT book is on sale for a steal at $3,600, a $400 savings off the list price. There were a total of 10,000 printed and the first 1,000 are the Champion Edition. All of them are signed by Ali and Jeff Koons the author, with the Champion Edition additionally coming with silver gelatin prints.

As always Ali is a trend maker. The NFL followed by creating Super Bowl XL Opus MVP Edition (Leather Bound) a special limited run item available for just $40,000. Of course the limited MVP Edition has a signed page by every living Superbowl MVP, and only 400 were made. Of the 20,000 Opus run, it too measures 20 inches by 20 inches with 850 pages it weighs more than 80 lbs. Both the MVP Edition and the Super Bowl XL Opus Limited Edition contain embedded microchips to ensure authenticity. Oh yeah, that limited edition is available without the signed MVP’s for just $3,000, but seriously who wants that?

And while your gift certificates might leave you a little short, the next time you give a gift, tell the person they should apply your gift card to either book. It will at least get a laugh. Let us know how many of these books you will be buying in the comments.

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In a twist of great writing and marketing the folks at Rolling Stone Magazine have done a blogger friendly job with their recent feature. Simply titled:

The Almost-Impossible Rock and Roll Quiz

58 questions.

4 decades.

It is like playing Guitar Hero 3, fun with rock and roll, but you likely won’t walk away thinking you are a master after the first time.

1960s sample question – How many songs on Abbey Road are credited to George Harrison?

1970s sample question – Which 1974 film inspired the title of Aerosmith’s “Walk this Way”?

1980s sample question – According to a 1986 El DeBarge single, who’s Johnny?

1990s sample question – What was the last officially released Guns n’ Roses single?

Surprisingly to me I scored a 29 = to “Whiz!” How did you do? Let us know in the comments.

Our readers are really the best. Where else would we get Penguin Baseball? A reader sent in this flash game gem, where you take batting practice, except replace Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez or Prince Fielder with your favorite abominable snowman, the Yeti. Cute lovable penguins jump from a cliff (pitch themselves) and you take aim.

From what I can see there are two types of power hits. The moon shot gets you at most 490. The more line drive takes the svelte penguin aerodynamics and really can increase your score. Our reader said, “It took awhile and I think I am still missing something, but beat 593!” My best was 587. What can you do?

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Everyday you use many websites. But which of them are everyday websites?

Everyday websites are defined as sites you visit nearly everyday, often multiple times. Useful, fun, informative but most importantly not because someone sent you a link. Techlife is interested in the sites you choose to visit. (online applications count too.)
Google? Yahoo? MSN? Sure these are the most common. NYTimes? ESPN? Wikipedia? These are popular, too. But I am looking for the deeper, more interesting sites and the reasons.

I will post mine here:

• Google Docs has become a regular for word processing and spreadsheets. I am constantly using it for collaboration with others.
• FeedCrier to help me pick the best things to read via RSS. Lifehacker, Engadget and Gizmodo pop up pretty frequently.
• I have been playing too much of Casual Collective’s Multi-Player Desktop Tower Defense. A lot of Techlife readers have joined me with a free invite.
• I use SmartMoney’s portfolio tracking tools and sometimes Yahoo’s Finance tools to watch and learn about the economy and stock market.
• I use Tmobile’s Sidekick Desktop Interface to manage my mobile Sidekick device’s online calendar, address book and notes applications. (no link available for general public, subscription only)
• I watch and edit Techlife TV on Chime.tv. I often just browse other channels and watch for a while, like regular television.

I really want to know what sites everybody else uses and why. Post them in the comments.

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