Erik turned me onto this site about a year ago since he knows the creator, and I guess and I just wanted to let you guys in on the secret.

For all the sports nuts : this website will let you know what you should be watching on TV. For example, I just got an alert to turn on the UConn vs. Baylor game because it was coming down to the last possession. The system takes into account ‘points’ which users can add to a game and you can participate in yourself, or you can be even lazier like me and just sit back and let the system work for you. There also is a bot that goes around somehow ‘watching’ all the games going on at a certain time and applying its own algorithm of points to a game. If a game picks up enough ‘points’ then the website sends you a text message telling you there is an event you need to watch along with the status of the game (score & time left).

Therefore, if it comes down to the last few minutes and a game is tied or close then your gonna get a message. Same with if there is an ongoing upset in progress or something like that. Any event that a true sports fan would want to watch live, it will let you know. You can configure the channels you get on your tv, so that when you get the messages it will tell you what channel to turn on to see the action in progress. Also, I don’t let it send me baseball updates, only football, which cuts doown on the messages but really also lets me specialize on what I care about. When I get an Are You Watching This message I know its something I want to click to.

Worth a look at , and if you want the site has alot more activities you can be a part of, but so far I stick with just the updates.

AreYouWatchingThis.com

Personally, I have always thought IM bots are annoying, but in the past few weeks google has opened up to them and there are one or two useful ones out there, so without leaving your im window you can find out a bunch of good information. A website launched, and was later dugg, called imified.com that is going to be the basis for this post. 

Sign up here. Request an invite and then sign up with that (it only takes a few minutes for the invite to come, I don’t think they are screening them or anything right now)

After you do that you can start building your bot. Its super simple php, you just grab the msg from the user via the  line :

 $u = $_REQUEST['msg'];

and then you can do whatever you want with that msg. Right now I have a simple one running for bucketofawesome.com (add awesome@bot.im to your friends list to talk to ‘him’).

He really is just a test, but say hi, hello or howdy to get him started. If you follow the imified documentation you can get a few other details from the im, such as what visit # is this to your piece of code by this user. So you can step the user up the ladder depending on their visit. Then you can obviously reset that #, call back old messages from the user, etc…

If you really wanted to (though documentation is only for their side of the project) you could integrate this into a current cms to make it interact different ways for different users, and verify a user account etc…

Mine right now is just a series of if statements… if one thing is said do this… and if the user types the word ‘new’ it pulls the newest 3 articles from BoA, sends the list to the user, and if the user sees a title he hasn’t seen before, he can click the accompanying link to take him/her to the homepage.

Honestly, I can imagine my code getting really advanced and doing some cool things, checking to see if there are new updates since their last visit, OR you can even push messages to your im followers via HTTP Post if you wanted to update like a tweet when you post something new.

There are limitations though…. and most of those are on the side of the instant messenging program. HTML doesn’t really work beyond <br> (at least in gmail) so links are a pain … having to type out the whole thing obscures the rest of the text and makes it ugly. However, i think it has some cool potential if you have some good ideas for it.

If someone can help me with some stuff, I want to make a dreamincode one, I just need some help with particular sections. Comment below.

**Note : imified.com was recently dugg and had about 24 hours of downtown because they got hit at a perilous time between site chnages and a couple other worst case scenarios. getting your registration approved may take more time than normal right now.

If you have a 360 or PS3 you need to grab this program. PlayOn Beta is out and lets you stream hulu, youtube (soon netflix) and a host of other media options to your device. Very cool for hulu, and a great out for the PS3 fans out there who are upset that Microsoft was first to integrate with Netflix.

I set it up on my computer, nothing to set-up it ran out of the box, and my 360 and Ps3 picked it up . Then I started browsing all the tv shows on hulu in seconds, quick with no loading times that I have experienced.

This is a 60 day trial, after that it costs 30 bucks, but for now, use it for free. After that make your pick between this and the new 360 dashboard (if you have those options).

Pretty cool site if you are stumped on some color combos. I think they are all web-related, but I use them in print design also.

COLOURlovers™ is a resource that monitors and influences color trends. COLOURlovers gives the people who use color - whether for ad campaigns, product design, or in architectural specification - a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.

CSSTux, one of many CSS gallery websites I keep on hand in case I am running out of ideas or need some inspiration.

Couple of tools that Erik Stark commented about. You should already have something like browsershots in your arsenal of testing supplies, but if you don’t hit it up. Just drop in your URL and wait a few minutes to get your screenshots in a bunch of different browsers. Much easier than keeping an army of outdated software on the system.

Also, untested by me, but a cool idea. VectorMagic. Erik says it is pretty cool so if your in a major time crunch and don’t want to re-do a raster you have saved, just drop it in this and see what you get.

Anytime I come across a DIY that lets me pull out something from my geek box (the old box in the back of the closet holding all the old technology I can’t make myself throw away) I file the idea away for a rainy weekend. This is one of those :

Use an old wireless router and printer, combine them by hiding the router in the printer, and you have a wireless printer without buying the expensive components from best buy. I have 2 fon routers lying around which is what this article uses, but really any router would probably work after you flash it with a linux bios.

Full article here : diy-wireless-network-printer

Dreamhost has been my host for a couple of years now, and I can not say loud enough how awesome they are. Their prices are ridiculously low, and what they give you is insane. I am running 6 domains right now, and using only 10% of my alloted space.  They are always up with the newest tech, and I really can’t say anything about their customer service, because I have never had to use it in 3 years. Thats the best kind isn’t it?

One of the cool things about it is that I can offer you some referral price cuts. There are a bunch of these out there, most just wipe out the sign-up cost of 50 bucks. Mine does that and then some…

Go to Dreamhost, pick your account and for promo code enter GETTHEHOOKUP taking $50 off your order (knocking out the set-up fee) and giving you that disk space 10% boost.

The best deal though comes with a free-registration :

So, go to dreamhost. Type in MASSIVEHOOKUP to get $50 off your purchase (knocking out the set-up fee) and then a free domain registration.

Yeah, its some shamless advertising but think about it. Dreamhost is the best host, I wouldn’t recommend it if it wasn’t , and these deals are pretty awesome. In the last week I signed up NateMcGuire.com (nate.mcguire@gmail.com) and erikstark.com (not up yet) (starkec@gmail.com) so if you want some testimonials send them an e-mail.

These are my first themes for Firefox which you can find more info about in the sidebar link. But here is the download for the University of Texas one :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8247 (you will have to log-in since this is an experimental theme) also, if you would like please submit a review that way I can pull this out of the mozilla sandbox and throw it up as a standard theme for download. Thanks.

Preview image :

Both themes are not a huge update just injecting a little bit of flavor into the theme.

For the Dream.In.Code Version check it in the sidebar, its still earlier in the testing phase so I haven’t uploaded it to Mozilla yet.

I checked my google analytics today and apparently 42% of my readers are morons. Please, look in your browser right now, look in the top right corner, if you see an ‘e’ then you are who I am talking to.

It is 2008. Use Firefox. Firefox 3 is out. It is the fastest downloaded piece of software in the history of the universe. No really, it has a guiness record. Mozilla.com

It is faster, more secure and better than what you are currently using. Remember those tabs that Internet Explorer ‘invented’ for you? Firefox had them first, and IE followed, just like its following in compatibility with internet languages and usability. Firefox is the standard, use IE and you are behind. Get it now.

Winkflash.com is your new favorite website for printing digital photos. If you have some time to spare and don’t need your photos this instance, skip the run to your local Walgreens or Kinkos and fire up firefox.

Normal 8 cent 4×6 prints are 6 cents until the 15th of July. Use the code JUNE256. I thought 8 cents was ridiculous but 6 is insane. Also has every other size but the only ones I tested were 4×6. I am interested to see if 450 dpi images (new high resolution photo prints they just released) improve the pic that much, but thats just curiosity; the prints I got look great.

Hit it up, great tool to remember to save some cash.