So I  started downloading applications.  There are a ton of them in the “market place”. A few pretty cool ones, but the best is Google Sky Map.  It turns you phone into a personal astronomer.  Want to know where Uranus is? (insert joke from a 7 year old here).

Using your Android phone orientation sensors, just hold the phone towards the sky and the screen displays the stars and planets regardless of cloud coverage. It uses the device’s compass, GPS, and accelerometer to see the constellations, planets, and stars.

And best of all, it FREE!

What’s your favorite Droid or iPone app?

The overall show was uninspiring. The major manufactures had little to offer in new designs. There were a few new concept cars and most of the major auto manufactures were there.  Ferrari, Lamborgini, and Nissan were absence. Ford, Cheverolet, Audi, Honda, BMW, and Porsche had very good showrooms.

We went on a weekend which may have been a mistake. We showed up early, but it got crowded fast. Now I love kids but…there were 1000′s of 5 year olds lined up to sit in cars while their parents took the cutest pictures. I guess the playgound at McDonalds was closed. 

 Here’s a slideshow of my favorite cars.

Standouts:

2010 Cheverolet Camaro

2010 Jeep Concept Car

2010 Fisker Hybrid - Irvine California

2010 Toyota

2010 Volvo Concept Car

2009 Austin Martin Convertable

2010 Spyder

check out the 2008 LA Auto Show pictures

- Steve Hart

Hot Prints

What’s the catch?  They will insert removable ads in between the album pages.  Also, there is a 1 album a month limit.

Try out there Facebook App:  http://apps.facebook.com/hotprints/entry.htm

You will get one FREE photo book per month (including shipping) sponsored by Hot Prints select advertising partners. You can also buy your book for $2.99 with no advertisements.

Dont worry the advertisement will be a removable insert and will NOT share the page with any of your photos. (offer subject to change)

Instead of  http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=615109271

You can now have  http://www.facebook.com/stevekhart

You can sign up for a username starting at 9:01 p.m. PDT on Friday, June 12, 2009, by visiting http://www.facebook.com/username/. After selecting one for your application or company name, you will see a green check mark indicating that the name is available before you actually claim it.

Consisting of at least five characters (alphanumeric or full stop) the ability to register your http://www.facebook.co.uk/username will become available on 12:01am EDT on Saturday June 13th, so if you really want your name (and it happens to be John Smith) then I’d get there quickly as they’ll probably be gone pretty quick in this Facebook vanity URL land rush.

To stop people from getting a load of names this will only be available to accounts that are already open and active, and you will also need to be careful about what you choose because they will not be able to be changed after selection.

-Steve Hart

After registering, you can select that artists you want to track concert dates.  You can either search by artist or select a recommended artists.  Once it picks up your tastes, it will start recommending bands and artist. They do a good job of finding ‘like’ artists.

You  can also import your iTunes library and they will set up concert tracking for all artists in you iTunes library. they also support importing music from services such as MySpace Music, Last.fm, Pandora, iLike or Rhapsody.

Once you have your artists and bands selected, you can have their service notify by email of up coming concert dates.  They also have some great API’s to embed your selection into your site. 

Once you’ve found a concert you like, Livekick helps you find the best and the cheapest available tickets online from many ticketing web sites.

Under the hood, Livekick has developed a robust live concerts search engine that continuously searches large ticket web sites such as Ticketmaster, Livenation, Stubhub, Tickets.com and eBay as well as user-generated content sites such as MySpace Music.

- Steve Hart

PamelaNOTT @ triumph-pitg.ru

Phil Simon  @ philsimonsystems.com

ArianaDaft  @ scazy.ru

Jessicaphaws @ dnevnikblondinki2.ru

Freelance Biz  @ proofpositive.com

Alex Hwang @ thetechadvisors.wordpress.com

Michael Olson @ rpxnow.com

your sister @ travelpod.com/members/laurihart

Richard @ nitropdf.com

Check out thier sites!

Leave a comment on my blog and you’ll end up on my wall of fame.

- Steve Hart
Technorati Profile

]]> http://www.stevekhart.com/2009/05/thanks-for-the-comments/feed/ 0 http://www.stevekhart.com/2009/05/bored-with-the-internet-comic/ http://www.stevekhart.com/2009/05/bored-with-the-internet-comic/#comments Sun, 17 May 2009 19:30:02 +0000 stevekhart http://stevekhart.com/?p=427 I came across this great comic from the team over at http://xkcd.com.

- Steve Hart

Here are my suggestions:

1. Submit sitemap to Google – WordPress XML Sitemaps Submittal to Google
2. Have a Twitter, Facebook, and Delicious accounts
3. Distribute your posts to various social sites:
   • Focus on Twitter, Facebook, and Delicious or other sites within your industry
   • Check out My Social Network Publishing Model
   • Brand your microblog post with your site name – see www.twitterfeed.com
4. Create a Twitter direct mail auto response to new followers
   • Check out Twitter Follower Auto-Responding Email Message
   • Brand your blog in the direct message
5. Fully utilize the WordPress SEO fields
6. Become part of the community – Post comments on other sites with references to your blog. They will in turn post on your blog
7. Check your site out at www.googleRankings.com Website Diagnostics Panel
8. Cross site linking is key – find other sites that will link to your site and return the favor
9. Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts. What is TrackBack? Essentially what this does is send a message from one server to another server letting it know you have posted a reference to their post. The beauty is that a link to your blog is now included on their site.
10. Review your sites stats to see what posts are driving traffic, and focus on those topics
11. Blog on a consistent periodic basis so your readers know when to check back
    1. Create a “Rap up” post reviewing the post from the past week or month depending on your post frequency
12. Promote your posts on Digg and StumpleUpon. Unfortunately these are manual processes
13. Make sure you tag your posts!
14. Create great content
    • Ensure you blog has a purpose
    • Create hyper links to other sites within your posts
    • Link Building Tricks for Search Engine Optimization SEO
    • Use graphics/photos – pay attention to meta tags (Alt tag, description, link url) .
    • Ask your readers for their opinions and or suggestions
    • Focus on hot topics and keywords
    • Post titles should contain relevant keywords. Use catchy headlines

Remember, driving traffic takes time. If your blog is new, don’t expect lots of traffic.  Stick to it and keep blogging. If your content is good, readers will find you following the steps above.

If you have other suggestoins, I like to hear from you.

- Steve Hart

Here’s the catch…you only get 25 business cards and they’re based on your free Google profile page.

Not a bad deal…they’re free.

To get your free business cards, go to http://www.google.com/profiles/me and set up a profile.  Add as much information as you can.  Once saved, you should see the “Freed Business Cards” offer at the top of the page. Walk yourself through the iprint.com process and your cards will be shipped free of charge.

Update: 5/11/09 – here are the cards I received:

- Steve Hart

Here’s the latest in entrepreneurial social networking money making schemes.  Post your twitter account and price and let the money roll in.  Now Twitter has a policy about not selling names, but I don’t know how they’ll enforce it.

- Steve Hart