The Daniel Horning Blog

The Daniel Horning Blog protests The Protect IP Act

2012-01-18T09:24:00.000-08:00

More details after the infographic...

via

Many websites are blacked out today to protest proposed U.S. legislation that threatens internet freedom: the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). From personal blogs to giants like WordPress and Wikipedia, sites all over the web — including this one — are asking you to help stop this dangerous legislation from being passed. Please watch the video below to learn how this legislation will affect internet freedom, then scroll down to take action.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Test Contest (Not Real)

2012-01-10T16:39:00.000-08:00

Not a real running contest... yet... if you're curious be sure to follow the HireAHelper Twitter and HireAHelper Facebook accounts for the official notice. Thanks to PunchTab for an awesome contest tool.

God's Abstract Self-Portrait: Me?

2012-01-01T20:46:00.001-08:00

This verse is hard for me. God looked in the mirror while sketching me? Maybe my new year resolution won't be to change myself, but instead to see myself like God does...

So God created man in his own image,in the image of God he created him;male and female he created them.

Gaming and Saving the World According to Jane McGonigal

2011-08-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

The game she mentions at the end looks interesting. Wanted to save all this info somewhere to look at later.

More Good Tunes - The Listener "Wooden Heart"

2011-06-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

I heard a rumor this song is about a church built out of wood washed ashore after a shipwreck. Beautiful.

Mumford & Sons Video of New Song "Raise My Heart"

2011-04-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

"Raise my Heart" (New Song) by Mumford & Sons @ The Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas from danielthemaniel on Vimeo.

Sam and I went to the Mumford & Sons show held live on the pool at The Cosmopolitan. That's right, on the pool. They had a network of interlocking tiles set over the surface of the water that ended up holding a few thousand of us. Pretty impressive design feat if you ask me.

Needless to say, the show rocked. We've loved their music since Sam showed me their video for Little Lion man a little under a year ago, but seeing them live just boosted our Mumford love. One of my favorite things about them is seeing the weight of the lyrics on Marcus' face and even in his body when he sings each song. They mean something to him, every time. That's great song writing.

Lesdog Productions is in Business

2011-03-25T15:40:00.000-07:00

My father-in-law found Windows Live Movie Maker and put this together in about 3 minutes (he added the "He is old - but cool" line, not me). He showed me and I about fell over laughing - not sure if it was the randomness, the dance moves, or the quick cut to the credits screen.

I bet him if I posted this to YouTube I could get him 1,000 views. We're almost to 200 in 2 days, so I'm thinking we've got a good chance.

Help me prove him wrong, it's a short video.

Josh Garrels Video for Words Remain - I Love It, I Don't, I Love It

2011-03-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

This grew on me as I watched it. He's got a very different way of phrasing and singing that, at first, I didn't like because it was unfamiliar. But I kept listening and I think I ended up on a "ya I like this".

Be sure to watch in HD.

Stuff I Found and Like Around the Web

2011-02-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

Snappd.it from Judy's Book
Create a free mobile site.
Create a flyer with your QR code on it pointing to your mobile site.
Customers can check in and leave you reviews quickly/easily from your mobile site.

WolframAlpha
A really good article about what WolframAlpha does.

Demoslam.com
Google's tech demo competition.

These are notes to help me remember sites that I liked but didn't have time to get into at work, but figured I'd share them with you. Enjoy!

Update a few hours after posting: ...the SocialCam app is coming. I can't wait.

Seth Says He Can Prove It

2011-02-07T12:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Seth Godin
I understand your post, Are $300 headphones worth it? wasn't about headphones at all. It was about value and clever marketing. But one statement caught my attention:

"We can prove they sound better!"

While it's no stretch of the imagination to believe that a hyped up set of shiny, endorsed headphones under perform in comparison to a set manufactured by Grado, I just wanted to know how and or where the proof might be? Where you referencing a study or article somewhere?

Thanks,
Daniel

(if this post never gets a response, it's ok, at least I pointed a few people to a great read, Seth's blog.)

Foursquare Infographic Has One Major Disappointment

2011-01-31T11:57:00.000-08:00

Foursquare (the iPhone app, not the denomination - which do you think will be around longer?) emailed me a link to their nifty infographic. I enjoyed looking through the stats on most-checked-in this or that, most checked in train station, most checked in Hotel (Woot Woot - Vegas has the #2 spot!).

But as I scrolled down I hit the "Most Popular Brand Pages" section and was completely taken aback.

I mean seriously people? MTV? Cmon! I don't know who I was expecting to rank first, but man - MTV what a bummer. Maybe it's just cuz I'm a little old school in that I remember when MusicTeleVision used to play music videos. Or maybe it's because I feel like 90% of MTV's programming is weakly produced, poorly-thought-out, mind numbing poison. (Whoa - tell me how you really feel, right?)

At least Bravo and The History Channel were on there. I haven't interacted with Zagat at all, so I have no idea if they deserve to be recognized. And VH1 is just a lesser MTV-evil.

Finally a Free Guitar App

2011-01-15T10:33:00.000-08:00

It seems like this should've happened years ago, and from what I've read, there might have been one other free guitar app back in the day but it disappeared. I finally found a free guitar app for my iPhone 4 - called Guitar Free with Songs (if that's not keyword stuffing, I don't know what is).

It's a very basic, no-frills app. As of yet it appears you get one acoustic guitar with no effects. But really, that's all I want. I'm not trying to write amazing guitar solos or rhythm hooks to change music forever. I just want something I can open up and strum on if I get a creative itch to scratch.

So, thanks Better Day Wireless for coming out with this. I'm sure the paid version is cool too, removing the ads, etc.

Check out a couple more screenshots below:

In-App Home Screen

Menu Can be Minimized for Full Screen Fretboard

Don't Fear Move Day - Shout Out for my friends at HireAHelper.com

2010-11-30T13:28:00.001-08:00

Another Great Video from La Blogotheque and "Take Away Shows"

2010-11-26T13:54:00.001-08:00

Yann Tiersen | A Take Away Show #1 | Dark Stuff | Dust Lane from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I love these productions (I almost called them music videos - but they're really more than that). There's something about watching bands and artists perform their music live, you feel what they feel about the song. And the settings they put the bands in for each song are perfect - whether the streets of France, a small back room with half a dozen lucky friends and fans, or a foyer to an apartment building as the performance intersect with the life of the residents. Why does music mean so much to so many people? The rich and poor, artsie, mathematical, scientific, professional, and free-spirits alike can all be moved by the right tone, the right beat, the right lyric, the right melody. I love that we are all connected by music.

Video on Back Pain Relief from the Quikdraw Rap

2010-11-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

A video embedding test I'm doing for this back pain relief product, the Quikdraw RAP, made by Aspen Medical Products.

Ball of Goodness: Tangled Thread

2010-11-02T15:17:00.000-07:00

Good truth. Sat well with me, made my spirit smile. Like those beach side sunsets with nothing to do afterwards... read it to see what I mean:

(Click here to read the post --->)Ball of Goodness: Tangled Thread: " While Ava took her afternoon nap today I decided to be productive and finish one of the 900 projects I've started. (ok, maybe there are..."

The National Debt Road Trip

2010-10-29T14:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm not one to pick sides. I think both major parties are doing mostly a terrible job of running this country. But this video tells an interesting tale. I'm not so much anti-left as I am anti-this-country's-debt problem, national and personal (why I'm hosting the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University class here in town).

Gestural Guitar iPhone Project

2010-10-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

Tattoos, Business Cards, and Moo

2010-09-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

Sam and I went to get tattoos to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. Our tattoo artist - Chance Gomez @ Red Handed Tattoo Gallery in Las Vegas (definitely go see Chance if you want a tattoo you'll love) gave us his business card (pictured below) and I had never seen a business card like it before.

It was half the size of a normal business card and each card had the image of a different tattoo Chance had done on the front, with his contact info on the back.

Today while I was catching up on emails, I glanced at one from Virb about their new site offering - building websites and hosting etc. and noticed a link at the bottom for free Business cards by MOO.COM to celebrate the new Virb.

Turns out - Moo makes those mini business cards, also called MiniCards. And you can order them to be printed with a unique picture on each card. I also found custom cards, postcards, and regular business cards on Moo and they have pre-designed templates for those less artsie types that have nothing to upload.

Pretty cool if you ask me. Thats my story of Tattoos, Business Cards, and Moo.

PS. I just found out browsing the site that you can also create cards/business cards or whatever directly from your Facebook photos! Seriously. Check it out - Make MOO Business Cards, MiniCards, Stickers, Postcards and Greeting Cards with your Facebook photos.

Blogdentity Crisis Resolved - And a New Favorite Band Clemens

2010-08-21T15:23:00.000-07:00

I know I know... I haven't written in a ~~while~~ long long time. My blogs have had identity issues, but now I think I know what I'm going to write for each. This one will be my freespace for likes, dislikes, rants, band highlights, etc. So lets kick it off with a band.

Clemens - I found them on bandcamp.com just browsing through the artists they host. Very good raw unproduced sound that I can't find anywhere anymore. Listen to the whole album on bandcamp.com here - http://partingwaves.com/

Great Future of Forestry Video

2010-06-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

Great Video from Future of Forestry. "Slow Your Breath Down"

Twitter Followers Disappear

2010-05-10T11:16:00.000-07:00

So I heard a rumor that everyone's twitter followers count was reduced to zero. Supposedly someone found a bug in Twitter allowing them to force anyone to follow them. That's a pretty decent bug if you ask me. I guess when you're as big a target as Twitter, you've got hundreds, if not thousands of people trying to abuse your product all day long. As of right now, it looks like the follower counts are back up. Quick work Twitter!

Mother's Day 2011 Sermon by themaniel

Interesting Fact I Found

2010-01-26T09:54:00.000-08:00

The AMSA reports that

"Between 2005 and 2030, the senior market (age 60 and over) will grow by 81 percent, and it already controls more than 70 percent of all disposable income."

I wonder how that will effect the technology sector/SEO/web marketing?

Robots Not-So-In-Disguise

2010-01-02T15:58:00.000-08:00

From a TechCrunch article, I found this robot website. The writer of the article wasn't that impressed with the actual store for the company, but I thought the robots listed on their site were pretty cool. I knew there had to be some functional, mobile robots out there. Check this one out:

Launch in external player

My Favorite Band/Artist of the Day

2009-12-05T15:41:00.000-08:00

I was looking for a local listing directory called Localeze, and mispelled it and found an article in the Union Tribune online called Localese about local artist Greg Laswell. So, naturally having the curiosity of a 2 month old chimpanzie, I checked out his site/music/videos and really liked the first video I found halfway down the page on the right (I included it in this post...
- scroll down). For the first few seconds into the video I couldn't tell if it was for real or just a home video turned music video, but by the end I was smiling. The song and the dancing just make you feel good. Well done Greg.

How The Day Sounds Official Music Video from Greg Laswell on Vimeo.

Josh Silverman Goes Platinum

2009-11-21T14:44:00.000-08:00

Skype was recently sold for a valuation of $2.75 billion! Wow. That could buy a whole lot of California Burritos. It's also probably the reason behind Skype CEO Josh Silverman's goofy smile during his interview with TechCrunch about the sale. eBay ended up walking away with $1.9 billion in cash, a note in the principle amount of $125 million, and about 30% ownership remaining in Skype.

Probably a good investment if you look at the numbers - Skype is adding 300,000 new users every day! 33% of the usage is video, and Skype's communication minutes make up for 8% of the world's total vocal/video communication. And at a revenue stream of $185 million a quarter... wow.

In the video interview with Silverman, he mentioned...
that Chrome OS doesn't allow users to download software, so unless Google and Skype work something out, Skype might not be an option on some netbooks next year. However Silverman says if Google wants to talk about involving Skype in the new operating system, he'd "certainly be interested in having that conversation."

With the progress Skype is making, and now that it's free to operate independently - I'm not too worried about its future or the future of Silverman's wallet. They'll do just fine. What I want to know is, will Skype become like the next Wal Mart or Google - so powerful that an evenly matched competitor might be hard to find?

Why I am Amazed by Designers

2009-11-05T13:57:00.000-08:00

Our designer here at HireAHelper showed me this awesome video/page takeover for the Honda Insight in response to me showing him the Google Chrome Artsie Facelift video.

I love it when designers/developers think outside the box and write code for videos and programs to take over your window/screen. It really draws you into what ever you're doing. Like that Firefox add-on Cooliris.

True creativity is inspiring and impressive.

Honesty Really is the Best Policy

2009-10-31T13:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, forget SEO, forget search marketing, forget pay-per-click advertisements. I found the newest and best way to get a customer's attention and purchases. Be so blatantly open and blunt about your business and how much you don't care if customers come around or not and you'll offend your audience into remembering you and wanting to buy from you. Don't believe me? Check out the video below as the source of my inspiration for this new marketing strategy.

Now even I want to buy a mobile home from this guy. My favorite part was when he said "A bouncer in Birmingham hit me in the face with a crescent wrench 5 times, and my wife's boyfriend broke my jaw with a fence post... so if you don't buy a trailer from me, it ain't gonna hurt my feelings" followed by him randomly chainsawing some tree branches.

Google Chrome Gets an Artsie Facelift

2009-10-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to point out another reason why I love Google's web browser, Chrome. They've got nifty (that's right I said nifty) themes you can apply to the browser. The cool thing is the themes cover every aspect of the interface like a new skin. Check out the Official Google Blog: Art meets engineering with Google Chrome Artist Themes about it. They have a link to this really cool video with a surprise ending. I went into it not expecting to be surprised, but they got me. I love technology.

Best Blog Ever

2009-09-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Just a little shout out to my favorite blog on the internet.

It has amazing insights into questions like "is there a God?" and "who is God?"

Plus I have a crush on the author.

Microsoft Worried About Malicious Ads

2009-09-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

Image via CrunchBase

You wouldn't see a headline like the one below about Apple

"Stepping up an effort to unmask online attackers responsible for a wave of malicious advertisements aimed at Windows PC users"

Because if you have a Mac you don't have to worry about malicious anything. But a good point is made later in the New York Times Bits Blog article - that all of the free stuff we love to use online like Facebook, Pandora, and Google Maps are ad driven. So it's good that somebody is going after anyone defrauding the ad network. Even if I don't have to worry about contracting virus' or spyware from such ads, I'd still rather keep my favorite internet tools free.

Silly Google

2009-09-17T16:28:00.001-07:00

Doing some keyword research for HireAHelper and came across this interesting report. The top three domains that Google sends it traffic to are at yahoo.com, amazon.com, and wikipedia.org.

Google.com ranks 6th on the list for having content people are finding through their own site! It's like in Miracle on 34th Street, when Macy's starts sending customers to other stores, as an "act of kindness" to make sure their customers found what they were looking for...

Very tricky Google. I commend your craftiness.

Playstations and Tiny Storage

2009-09-16T17:34:00.000-07:00

I got a few metal splinters today at work while cleaning one of the lathes. The one in this picture drew blood. (When you zoom in on the picture you can really see it, I promise)

So, I don't really need one, but I found an 8 gig micro SDHC card from Transcend for about $20! I know, I've never heard of Transcend either but there are over 400 reviews, 80% positive on NewEgg.

The new PS3 120gig is only $299 everywhere. C'mon you can't beat that.

And - today is Mexico's independance day. (No, Cinco De Mayo is not their independance day). Viva Mexico!

Oprah's T-Mobile myTouch 3G Phone Give-Away

2009-09-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

Image by kingston99 via Flickr

"You get a myTouch 3G... and you get a myTouch 3G... and you get a myTouch 3G. Everyone gets a myTouch 3G!" I can just picture her yelling it to her live studio audience.

Ok maybe that's not how it happened but Oprah did work out a sweet deal with T-mobile to provide a limited time discount on their newest shining star of a phone. Just use promo code KICKOFF24 to get $100 off your purchase, making the phone cost just $99 with a 2 year contract. However, I've heard that it's very limited time so hurry up and get your phone!

First Blog

2009-06-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

So I've decided to include in this blog tech deals that I find. I love to window-shop tech-vendors like the Fry's ad in the paper or deals New Egg. And I thought this info might be useful or interesting to a handful of people.

I thought I'd kick it off with external hard drives since that's what I'm in the market for. I don't need anything huge - my Mac's hard drive is only about 50 gig.

So my favorite deal that I found was an Eagle Tech 320GB external drive for about $56. The stats: 7200 RPM 8MB Cache USB 2.0. I've never heard of Eagle Tech though so that worries me. But for a $56 external hard drive it might be worth the try.

Another awesome buy would be this Seagate FreeAgent 750GB for $77. The stats on this one are: 7200 RPM USB 2.0. If you have the money, $20 can double your storage space and upgrade you to a brand I've actually heard of.

I'm still waiting for Fry's to come back with their 1 tb external drive for like $68. It was in a paper ad I had noticed before really shopping around for some storage space so I didn't think twice about it, now I'm kicking myself.

If you're not looking for a deal, but would rather have a quality brand name, well reviewed drive, check out this buying guide on external hard drives. It has a pretty good comparative line-up of drives of differnt sizes