I believe winning from these great blogs will add extra to this award for Darren.
The Laudatio says:
Darren Cronian has single-handedly set the benchmark to which other consumer-focussed blogs should aspire. Controversial, relevant, thorough and, perhaps most tellingly, much better than something mainstream media organisations are trying to achieve.
In the week before the award Darren was very nervous and even in bed with the flu.
I wasn’t aware how nervous he was until, only after I had heard of his success on Twitter, I red his post Travel Awards and Blogging:
I’m not sure why but I’m nervous about the awards; I’m not too great around people I don’t know, and what about if I do win, the thought of getting up and collecting my award – nervous.
I still remember fondly that Darren once kicked my *ss to go on with blogging and he became a real virtual friend in the meantime: Never hesitating to share his experiences with anyone.
Some time ago I came across Piclens from the company Cool Iris via a recommendation from Internet Guru Doc Searls. Doc has no search function on his Blog. A severe neglect! At first I couldn’t find his post back.
As an aside: He also recommended Flickrfan in a post Less T, More V , but that is for the Mac aficionados. I have no Mac.
Eventually my persistence did find me Doc’s: Nice Plugin.
Another aside is that a commenter to that post advised to have a look at Photo Synth. I didn’t (yet). What is Piclens?
Piclens is available as a plug in for Firefox and some other browser flavors to view large numbers of pictures on sites like Flickr. It is an amazing quick way of browsing around a lot of photos. Much quicker than Flickr’s slideshow and also much quicker than Adobe Bridge or Adobe Lightroom of Adobe for those who work with it. Brilliant!
The Full Screen
My first impression:
Wow! Cool! but you can’t link to the photo you like. This has been fixed with version 1.6.3 and hence I believe it is ready to become a mainstream plug in.
The Full Screen with one photo in the centre zoomed in
and following you each time you move your mouse
A video wall alike browsing screen
For these examples I used the ITB2008 Berlin Travel Blogger Summit Flickr Pool.
A Screen with one photo zoomed in maximally
Be aware!
Today the plug in page of Firefox only offers version 1.6.2 without the tagging and linking possibilities and not yet version 1.6.3 with the tagging and linking! That you should obtain from the Piclens site.
Piclens now for Youtube!
It took me some time to find out how Piclens would work with Youtube. It is only a small indication somewhat forlorn on the site of Piclens:
The only way to open a Youtube video search
You always should launch Piclens first from your tool bar where it installs itself. In the Piclens screen you then open the Youtube search tool of Piclens which you find at the top of the Piclens screen.
But then you have something!
The result of a Piclens search on Youtube. The video starts playing immediately!
I like this instruction video and its song best
Here is the video itself:
The song is “Technologic” by Daft Punk, also a must have:-)
Further goodies
You can download a tool to make your own site Piclens compatible.
There is a WordPress plug in: A must investigate.
Disadvantage
I see one big disadvantage of Piclens. Flickr Photos are uploaded under various licenses and cannot be copied easily. With Piclens you can make a screen dump and avoid the license protection of Flickr easily.
Rest assured: I am not trespassing copy rights here, because most photo’s I showed you are my own.
Post Alia
Today again Philippe Wolff was talking about the perfect storm he sees in the online travel world. See Kevin’s post at Travolution’s Blog. Well I would say this small plugin will definitely add to that storm!
As first Director of Sleep at a hefty UK pnd 60,000 Travelodge appointed Wayne Munnelly in January 2006: “To ensure that guests get a good night’s sleep in the hotel group’s 25,000 UK beds.” Apparently he was succeeded by Leigh McCarron.
He does not “sit on” the Board of Travelodge and he is not “married with children”. Puns intended, because although English is not my mother tongue I doubt Travelodge is using proper English on their site.
So where other hotels only have a Pillow Menu, Travelodge has real pro and he shows it:
According to an April 7th, 2008 Press Release Research by OnePoll in March 2008 carried out among 2248 Britons showed that the top 5 artists getting Britons sound asleep are:
1. Coldplay
2. James Blunt
3. Snow Patrol
4. Take That, and
5. Norah Jones
I kind of like it. I may even continue with a separate category: “The Director of Sleep Sez”
The Travelpod is Travelodge’s answer to a tent and can become a movable Pod Hotel.
From its July 28th, 2006 Press Release:
Travelodge has produced the ultimate accessory for lovers of outdoor entertainment. Forget waterlogged tents – now you can have for the first time, a mobile bedroom or ‘Travelpod’ to make even the fussiest festival-goer feel at home.
The room comes complete with a luxury double bed, bedside tables, lights, duvet, pillows, fully carpeted floor, dressing table with light, mirror, chair and even its own WC.
The palatial pod is sealed in a 6 metres (Length) by 2.4 metres (Width) x 2.6 metres
(Height) clear polycarbonate glass box but inside has features that you will find in any Travelodge hotel across the country…
Wayne Munnelly, Travelodge’s Director of Sleep said:…”This summer we are running a few private trials which will allow me to work on the levels of light, noise and privacy allowed by the Travelpod. We will be opening up the test to customers next summer, targeting festivals and other major outdoor events.”,
From its August 20th, 2007 Press Release:
Today Travelodge unveiled its second generation Travelpod – the world’s first mobile hotel room. This latest version has been designed with new features in response to findings from the initial Travelpod trials in 2006.
The modified Travelpod is 40% bigger than the initial prototype. It has been styled in the hotel company’s contemporary room design, incorporating a red, white and blue colour scheme… and has – Air conditioning – Heater – Flat screen TV – DVD player with a collection of DVDs – Ambient lighting which includes bedside lights and a illuminated headboard – Tea / coffee making facilities – Washroom with biodegradable toilet and washbasin with running water facilities.
In addition, the furnishings are made from recyclable timber and lighting has been designed to use low wattage bulbs. The room comes complete with a luxury double bed, bedside lights, duvet, pillows, fully carpeted floor, window blinds, dressing table with light, mirror and chair.
The palatial pod is sealed in a 6 metre (length) by 2.4 metre (width) x 2.6 metre (height) clear polycarbonate glass box, but inside, the features replicate the conventional Travelodge hotel room just recently re-designed.
Leigh McCarron, Travelodge’s Director of Sleep said: “The Travelpod is a ground breaker in outdoor accommodation. We ran some tests on the original Travelpod concept last year and those findings have been used to develop this second generation model for customer trials.”
The new Travelpod will be tested over the next couple of months and the general public will have the opportunity to participate in trials by entering a prize draw at www.travelodge.co.uk.
My musings:
It seems a great concept, a trailable hotel room, or is it just a publicity stunt and aren’t they planing to do anything with it?
Do I miss something? The dimensions are exactly the same. Then where does the 40% more come from?
I wonder who will be the present Director of Sleep..and whatever that may be “A Director of Sleep”?
This is a re edited post originally dating back a year. (Yes I am trying to getting organized).
Some time ago I was inclined to kick my MyBlogLog widget from this Blog, because its server didn’t respond quick enough and caused hung pages on this Blog and several other Blogs.
My first introduction to Bloglog was by Guillaume of Hotel Blogs who had the widget already quite some time. I got curious and registered in January 2007.
Basically MyBlogLog was about counting. Counting the incoming and especially the outgoing links as a tool for the Blogger. The main reason seemingly to make it possible for the Blogger to see the clicking through in detail, as Google Adsense gives such a tiny little bit of information. Community building is also possible, but only as an afterthought I believe. The best part of MyBlogLog still is its recently revamped widget, especially because you can visualize your visitors if they also have a MybloLog account.
In January 2007 My Bloglog was acquired by Yahoo. See: The Jig is Up.
Browsing around I hit upon the Everybody Hurts post on the Blog of Mybloglog
It all came down to the fact that a lot of people were using MyBlogLog to spam. Shoemoney pointed it out and the result was he was banned from MyBlogLog. An example of killing the messenger. MyblogLog cured the problem and apologized to Shoemoney and case closed.
In their recent revamp they are trying to make MyBlogLog a sort of center of your community building. It is not bad, but BlogCatalog does it a bit better. I don’t like it that MyBlogLog apparently allows non Blog authors to join and seemingly to incorporate non claimed blogs as well. The advantage of the also recently revamped BlogCatalog is that you can unfollow feeds of “friends” in you dashboard. But both are worthwhile to pursue.
