HR Geeks

HRGeeks has a group started by Sean on LinkedIn (needs a logo!). For those un-aware (I hope everyone knows what LinkedIn is by now), LinkedIn is a social network site for business. Plaxo was first, but LinkedIn grew to great popularity recently, after activity has slowed for a year or two. Now Plaxo is making a comeback. If you did not know, www.linkedin.com and www.plaxo.com.

HRGeeks also has a group profile on the new local directory site Connect321. Go to www.connect321.com, search for HRgeeks group (or browse). Feel free to join the group there. Also feel free to add businesses or reviews! Take note that unlike LinkedIn and Plaxo, Connect321 is a local company so let’s show them some love!

In addition to this marketing, t-shirts are in the works (hopefully by Thanksgiving).

I recently was linked to Flash Earth. This site allows you to switch between satellite map views with a click of the mouse. Compare Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft VE (Virtual Earth), Ask.com, OpenLayers, and NASA Terra.

Images are presented via an all Flash interface and the speed you can switch between services and at which the overlays are changed is quite amazing.

I thought Google had really good images of Norfolk till I switched over to Microsoft VE. Here is an example of the Norfolk Southern coal yard and train depot. (Left: Microsoft VE,Right: Google)

Thanks Erin.

I just saw this, referenced in the New Yorker:

Strand Bookstore “Books by the Foot”

Interesting way to build a library – they can customize the set of books you get based on topic and aesthetics (all old leather, all hardback, etc).

Seems to be pretty cheap as well, depending on how widely you read!

Steven Speilberg used this service to furnish Indian Jone’s library, in the new Indy movie, as well as his own home.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the service, but I’ll give it a brief overview for those who aren’t.

Last.fm is a website (http://www.last.fm), formerly known as Audio Scrobbler, that keeps track of the music you listen to. It works as both a seperate player, and a plugin for Windows MediaPlayer, iTunes and other apps (and runs on Win/OSX/Linux). Every time you listen to a song with your media player (including your iPod!), it logs it to the website, and over time, produces a ‘radio station’ for you, both of the music you have listened to, and songs/artists it thinks you will appreciate based on your listening history. This music is then stream-able over the internet to you, or your friends. Back before MySpace and FaceBook REALLY exploded, it also had a proto-social networking system – people who listened to the same music were grouped into ‘neighborhoods’, that you could browse around and check out. This was based on the usually-correct assumption (in my experience) that people who listened to lots of the same music, tended to enjoy the same stuff all around. In addition, it provides a neat historical overview of what you’re listening to, when you’re listening to it, and what your top tracks / artists are. This service has been going for a little over 2 years now.

Ok, so that’s Last.FM. Today, I ran across a project called ‘LastGraph‘ by Andrew Godwin. It takes your listening history and does this:

Click to Open full size (2992×414)

It’s a Django-based web-app based on what appears to be a school project by Lee Byron. Godwin took Byron’s idea, and webified it, allowing you to create custom ‘wavegraphs’ of your listening history.  The service is, unfortunately, down now due to overwhelming popularity, but Godwin says it should be back up soon.

Here’s a hilarious spoof video, contrasting Django and Ruby on Rails.

You just got bitten by the snake!