Search Results for: celebrity

So You Want to Create a Celebrity Blog, Huh?

You’re a celebrity addict, and want nothing more than to be the next Perez Hilton, right? And you also love the color pink, and want your celebrity blog to be covered in it. Or maybe you’re just a celebrity renegade that wants to unleash tons of celebrity smut, and make a little money doing it.

So you acquire your domain name, and start blogging about who’s sleeping with who, who’s DUI or addictions are wrecking their life (yet making them millions of extra dollars they really don’t need.) And yes, you post so much the list of celebs that you created as categories is longer than the list of Heidi Fleiss’ employees… that Charlie Sheen alone seems to know.

Traffic is starting to pick up, you have even been buzzed a time or two by Yahoo, and you think you are in the process of developing a killer celebrity blog.

One problem.

You don’t have any images on your site, and celebrity blogs NEED images to succeed. Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t you, right?

Ah, yes, peer pressure, like back in the day when someone told you to drink it because everyone was. What the heck, you do a Google Image Search on Paris Hilton and start saving every image you can to your desktop. It’s like Christmas morning, seeing over a million images of the jailed princess herself.

Can you image the database and photo album you can publish with all of those images from Google? Now before you get all hot and bothered by this, spend a few minutes to check out these fine articles:

Perez Hilton Sued By The Paparazzi

Access Hollywood | Blogger Perez Hilton Sued For Copyright Infringement

Web Host Drops Celebrity Blog PerezHilton.com After Copyright Complaints

Uh oh.

Yes, let me cut to the chase. And I’ll do it quickly, before you get sued, or sent a Cease and Desist letter. Just because your friends drink alcohol (or partake in any other illegal activity) and get away with it doesn’t mean you will be so lucky.

You see, a majority (if not 99%) of the celebrity images found on Google, MSN or Yahoo image search are there illegally. Which means if you take stolen property, that makes you a thief too. And to be quite honest, it’s really not worth taking the risk. But if you feel the need to walk on slippery rocks, don’t be surprised if you fall.

Here’s the best part.

It’s preventable, and it can be preventable cheaply. For $50/month you can have access to thousands of celebrity images, and you can place them all over your celebrity blog without the fear of being sued. I’d like to introduce to you one of my bestest friends in the celebrity blogging world…

Friends, meet PR Photos. PR Photos, meet my friends…

Originally posted on July 30, 2007 @ 6:00 am

Recipe Finder, the Largest Recipe Search Engine Launched

Recipe Finder Home Page

There is something to be said about going out to eat at restaurants. There is the factor of being able to relax and have someone else do all the work. There is also the factor of getting excellent food (depending on where you go, of course) which you might not be able to make yourself. Then again, there is the cost to consider. Eating out regularly can very quickly drain your bank account.

It is thus no surprise that more and more people are turning to their own kitchens for food. Even those who may not be natural cooks are trying their hand at cooking. It has helped, of course, that spending some time in the kitchen has become a cool thing. Turn the TV on, and you will find countless cooking shows featuring just as many celebrity chefs. Go online and you will not be lacking for recipe web sites.

One of the newest of these web sites is Recipe Finder, a search engine that provides users with more than a million recipes. What this web site does is collate recipes from hundreds of other recipe web sites and makes sure that the presentation benefits the user.

Just like with Google, you only have to enter a word or a phrase to search for a recipe. What is great about Recipe Finder is that you can make your search as generic or as specific as you want. For example, you can simply enter the name of a dish. Alternatively, you can specify ingredients to include or exclude in your search. If you want to be even more specific, you can refine your search by specifying details such as calorie count, number of servings, and cook time.

You can also control the way you view your search results. First, you can view the results as text, with a small image and a short description of what to expect of the dish. Second, you can view the results as pure images – and you can base your choices on the presentation of the dish!

If you are a stickler for organization, Recipe Finder has the menu and calendar to offer. Using these features, you can plan your meals in advance. Using your Facebook account, you can log in and save your plans. And speaking of Facebook, Recipe Finder also provides options to share your favorite recipes. That way, you can share good food with those who matter. Of course, there is always the good old printing option if you want something tangible.

Are you looking to expand your cooking knowledge? Let Recipe Finder help you!

Originally posted on October 3, 2011 @ 8:09 pm

Fuck Deadlines

I’m surrounded by independent designers and programmers so I get to hear a thing or two about client experiences and what is going on behind the scenes of independent design “firms”. One disturbing trend that I noticed this year is that deadlines no longer have any meaning. We set deadlines for our own tasks or clients might ask us of deadlines for their projects and we will provide them, but more and more I am seeing these deadlines not getting met. Whether it is the client’s fault or our own these deadlines come and go faster than startups.

Have we always lived in a world where deadlines have no meaning? Have we become so full of ourselves in this Web 2.0 world that we have created our own celebrity status and feel that we are above such things? I suck the most at meeting my own deadlines and instead of getting angry or frustrated at myself for missing them I simply make excuses. Do you do that with your client work?

Maybe you are at a job and the current client doesn’t fit with how you work because you don’t do deadlines. Deadlines are too restrictive and hinder the creative process right? Missing deadlines is an addicting thing. You miss one and make an excuse and realize it isn’t so bad to miss them so you miss another one and another. Soon you laugh internally at the thought of setting a date for the project to finish or maybe you still convince yourself that this one time you will actually get it done.

It never happens.

Designers and coders expect to get paid what they feel they are worth and when they do are they fulfilling the expectations of the clients that have paid them? We want money yet don’t want to help our clients make that money back by doing stuff when it should be done. If we lose these clients no worries because we have five more potentials sending us emails right? All we need to do is pump out one nice looking website every two months and a couple more clients will trickle in and the ones that were complaining about missed deadlines will disappear and our reputations will go untarnished.

I can’t say if doing bad work ever catches up to you in this new digital world, but if that day ever comes to pass a lot of us our fucked. Till then, fuck deadlines, it can wait till next week.

Originally posted on December 12, 2006 @ 7:21 am

Women 2.0

Something interesting happened to me the other day. While I was browsing around the web reading all the great Web 2.0 sites out there, I realized that a majority of these applications cater to men. Not because of the purpose that they serve since they are “made” for all sexes, but being designed, programmed and coded by men there usually isn’t an ounce of female input involved in the product. Now that may be par for the course, but isn’t that a bit strange?

Look at both MySpace and YouTube and you will find that the people with the most friends and watched videos are women. If you have any sort of knowledge about today’s economy you know that women control a majority of all major purchasing decisions. I know at my parent’s house nothing major gets bought without my Mom’s go ahead (sorry Dad). Same with my grandparents.

Looking at the MySpace pages of my friends that are girls and I find that they put a lot more time and effort into customizing their pages than the guys. Admittedly I am sometimes stuck with the stereotype in my head that men are superior to women when it comes to technology (male ego will never leave it seems), but it’s funny when I hear guys ask a girl “how did you get that on your MySpace page?”

Let’s take this argument a step further and look at product design. Apple’s iPod had a great design from the beginning which could easily appeal to both sexes. When Apple released the version of the iPod Mini with multiple colors rarely did I hear guys talking about which colors they were going to get, they were focused on specs. However, the idea of having a personalized color of an iPod seemed to appeal to the females and I wouldn’t be surprised to see if more women owned iPods than men.

Apple’s competition could match the specs of the iPod and could even offer a lower price but, you could tell that the designs that were coming out were all about what the men thought was good design. This is just one of the gajillion reasons that I brought Tyme White on board at 9rules. She does everything that a guy can do in her position (and more), but also offers something a man could never do and that is give us the female perspective on things that we so desperately needed. Now we still have a long way to go to understanding where she is coming from on certain things, but believe me when I say we are starting to get on the same wavelength no matter how much adjusting it takes.

Ever go to a club and wonder why women get all the good deals (2-4-1s, drink free till 1am, etc)? It’s because men don’t like going to clubs where women aren’t around so it’s essential to get the women to your club first. Dating sites follow the same creed. Celebrity gossip/popculture sites are some of the most highly traficked sites on the web. The funny thing about Calacanis paying people to submit stories to Netscape is that maybe the way to beat Digg isn’t by taking the best submitters around, but by appealing to women and the other demographics that Digg doesn’t even touch.

So next time you design something or have an idea about a new site, ask a female what she thinks about it and you will get a honest answer which will go a long way in letting you know how successful you will be. Males think all of our buddies ideas are good so really we aren’t much of a help to each other. However, if it doesn’t appeal to the ladies then it probably shouldn’t appeal to you either. And don’t think this entry was about equal opportunity for women. No, no, my interests are far more selfish. This was more about opening my blind eyes to opportunities that have been around since the dawn of time and how stupid I am for just now recognizing them. Yeah Mom I know, you told me so.

Originally posted on August 3, 2006 @ 10:46 am