Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Web Secret 421: creative destruction

 Today's lesson is "creative destruction."

Creative destruction: a term coined by economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. Used in a variety of areas including economics, corporate governance, product development, technology and marketing.

Use this concept in a sentence.

The iPhone, introduced in 2007, (that's less than 10 years ago people,) all but killed the market for not only regular cell phones but also PDAs, MP3 players, point-and-shoot cameras, wrist watches, calculators and voice recorders.

This is life in the 21st century.

"Creative destruction is the industrial and societal evolution that has driven human progress forward since a distant ancestor smashed two rocks together and created a spark. In the age of exponentially advancing technology and major social changes, creative destruction is set to be the new normal. We are at the very beginning of the next Cambrian explosion; Fortune 500 companies and the closed minded individuals won't survive it. But if you're reading this, you just might make it ;)." from the Creative Destruction blog.

The recipe for survival is open mindedness and hanging on to experiences that are tech proof.

Walking in the park, playing cards, talking to a friend.

Going somewhere very quiet.

Shhh.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Web Secret 420: Lush and the mini USB

I am sometimes oblivious to the technical marvels that surround me.

But from time to time, I can be blindsided with awe.

It started with my birthday - a rather major one this year which I wanted to celebrate by hiding under the covers.

So I did the next best thing, I booked myself for an 80 minute "Synaesthesia" massage at one of only two "Lush" spas in the US.

Lush is an all natural, ecologically minded UK company that makes bath and cosmetics products. I discovered them during a trip to England in the 90s.

Their newest venture, the Lush Spa, recreates the experience of being in an English cottage in the 19th century - think "The Shire" where the Hobbits live in Lord of the Rings.

I opted for Synaesthesia because it promised to take me away and cleanse my mind via "a journey of personalized massage and sensory delirium." The Lush people actually paid a composer to write music to accompany the experience.

And it was absolutely great.

The music was memorable and I immediately ordered the recording from Lush in England. I was promised a vinyl version and a "companion USB."

Two weeks later I opened the box. At first I couldn't find the USB aka flash drive.

That's because they sent a mini USB card.

The size of a penny, the width of a dime.

And this tiny, tiny, tiny little piece of plastic held the entire Synaesthesia soundtrack and a full length movie of the English countryside set to the music and sounds of the Synaesthesia experience.

And it was good.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Web Secret 419: The Grid

I consider myself pretty cutting edge when it comes to understanding social media and surfing the net.

Until I hang out with my 22 year old son. He has an extreme awareness and grasp of imminent technologies.

Stuff that is, (far more rapidly than you would expect,) coming soon to a laptop near you.

He likes to talk to me about these technologies before I have had my morning double espresso - he is a morning person - and I don't always process what he is telling me until months later.

So about 6 months ago he started telling me about "The Grid" - a new technology that will allow artificial intelligence to design a website.

That seemed pretty far fetched to me - it sounded like a sequel to "The Matrix" movie series.

But guess what? My son is one of the first people to build a website using a beta version of "The Grid".

The Grid is real.

And I just wasn't cool enough to see it coming.

In case you need audiovisual aids to grasp it, here is an under 2 minute explanatory video put together by my friends at Sandwich Video.



Oh.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Web secret 418: websites that are useful

Thank you TechWorm.net for a list of very useful websites.

My favorites:

10Minutemail.com - lets you create an email address that will self destruct after 10 minutes. Beat spam with this disposable e-mail service.

Date to Date Calculator - calculates the duration, which is the day count and the number of days, months and years between two dates. Among other things, it can be used to find how many days old you are and the weekday you were born.

Web Capture lets you take full HD screenshot of any webpage and convert that screenshot into JJPEG, PNG and PDF formats.

Use Google without country restriction - When you enter google.com , Google redirect you to country domain like google.in or google.co.uk. If you want to use Google without any country restrictions, open google.com/ncr. Useufl when you want to get more than the US centric perspective

Virustotal - is a free online virus scanner. that analyzes suspicious files and URLs and facilitates the quick detection of viruses, worms, trojans, and all kinds of malware.

Empowering.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Web Secret 417: websites that make you smarter

Thank you interesting engineering.com for your list of websites that make you smarter.

Here are some of my favorites:

Unplug The TV - and open this link instead – every time the site will generate a new video for you to watch and improve your mind.

High Brow - sends 5-minute long courses direct to your inbox every day. Take a break and learn something new!

Lingvist promises you will learn language in 200 hours.

Creative Live - take creative lessons in photo and video, art and design, music and audio, crafts and even life from the greatest creative minds in the world.

Investopedia - provides financial news digests that are fairly easy to understand even for those of us who don’t know the first thing about money.

Drawspace - always wanted to learn to draw but never got a chance? Drawspace provides lots of lessons whether you are a rank beginner or a skilled amateur.

I think I'll unplug the computer.