Is web 2.0 about to change the way we schedule?

Until recently, digital calendars and scheduling tools were just copies of the diaries, organizers and day timers that still compete for desk space with cell phones, laptops, desktops, and our other digital lifestyle accoutrements. Nothing seemed capable of replacing the big handwritten reminders in red and black, but new innovations in web 2.0 technology might have the answer.
Despite the explosion of digital tools, we still waste up to 30% of our time on mindless tasks like trying to schedule appointments. Without email, cell phones and some kind of calendar, it would be near impossible to schedule a basic conference call. First we pick an appointment timetable, send out an email and then follow up with phone calls. Now comes the hard part; Smith can only make it one day, Johnson the next day, Cohen the right day, but only at 3 pm, etc… The real timewaster comes from trying to resolve the schedule so that everyone can agree on a time.
Maybe the online services like Yahoo calendar, Google calendar, 30boxes, and Hipcal can help? With them, you can post all the information on a shared web calendar and everyone can check the schedule without you having to send out reminders. That’ll save you a few emails, but it won’t help you resolve the core problem. Some collaborative calendars let people edit the content, allowing them to change the time based on their availability. Great, now every contact is moving the calendar to fit his or her schedule and you’re still no closer to fixing the appointment or timetable for everyone. So it’s back to the phone calls and email tag while you try to juggle everyone’s preferences until you find a compromise.
So far, not so good. Online calendars and scheduling tools, despite their well-publicized technological advances just aren’t improving on the old method. But it’s not all bad news on the tech front, there’s one newcomer who might be heading in the right direction. WikiTimer is a little digital assistant cross scheduling tool that took a different view. Rather than simply try and digitize or improve appointment books and calendars, WikiTimer decided to focus on the real problem of resolving the schedule. It’s got the collaborative calendar that lets you and your contacts highlight your available times, but behind that it’s got an algorithmic problem solver who uses the information to actually schedule the appointment for you. While you sit back, the WikiTimer communicates with your contacts and politely engineers them toward a compromise. Without any stress or wasted time, the automatic scheduler has resolved your appointment. It’s like having your very own intelligent digital assistant.
If the WikiTimer is a sign of things to come, then it’s fair to say that we’ll be chucking out the old and welcoming in the new at long last. For business people, the home employed, freelancers, and those of us who get forced into arranging family reunions, this kind of tool will take the pain our of getting things done. That said, until I can convince Great Aunt Alice and her sisters to go online, web 2.0 isn’t going to solve every problem.

Edmund Read is independent business consultant with a specialization in new technologies. Lead consultant to innovative new companies like www.peerio.com and www.talkingdates.com . Most recently a senior consultant to the Futurist Fund, www.futuristfund.com . Spare time spent as a freelance copywriter, fiction ghostwriter, compulsive reader, and self proclaimed gourmet.

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Travel Jokes
Traveling can be a humbling experience, particularly when you travel to a foreign country. Such experiences, of course, give rise to travel jokes.

Travel Jokes

1. Three brothers are sitting at the bar in a Moscow establishment. An older man is sitting at a table behind them and has obviously had too much vodka. He stands, walks up to the first brother and says,

“Your mother is a vicious, greedy woman!”

The brother tells him to shut up and go sit down.

After about 5 minutes, the old man stands and walks up to the second brother,

“I sleep with your mother whenever I want!”

Disgusted, the brother tells the old man to bugger off.

A few minutes later, the old man stands and starts walking towards the third brother. All three brothers turn around and yell,

“Dad, go home!”

2. You’re at a bad hotel when the bed mint moves.

3. “Visi, Vermini, Vomnui” – I visited, I freaked, I threw up.

4. The President’s Vacation

George and Laura Bush take a vacation to Crawford and decide to go the grocery store. In the checkout line, Laura recognizes the man working at the register as an old high school boyfriend. After chatting, they leave the store and George says,

“Wow, imagine if you had married him. You’d be married to a grocery store clerk now instead of the President of the United States.”

Laura rolls her eyes and says, “No. I’d be married to the President of the United States.”

5. “Veni, Veneri, Vamoosi” – I came, I caught a disease, I ran away.”

Typically, just the act of traveling produces more than a few funny moments. Get out there and go.

Rick Chapo is with NomadJournals.com - makers of travel accessories. Visit us to read more about Internet travel articles.

Downloading Online Movies
There are many online websites for downloading movies, though the legality issue was still a major question mark until recently, especially since sites downloading music like Napster were shut down. The big news for many computer junkies recently was that the companies of Movielink and CinemaNow are recognized as being the first major online sources for legal downloadable movies in the United States. Previously the studios were shy about licensing online stores for anything but video rental, but now that has changed.

Movielink has managed this breakthrough by pushing forward with the backing of Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Sony Pictures, and Warner Brothers. Cinema Now is in a similar situation, which is part of the reason why these companies are experimenting to see how the downloads process works. Movie downloads for new releases become available on the same day as the DVD release, and there is an ever growing backlist of previously made films all ready. The one thing to keep in mind that makes these downloads different than others: you can not burn anything onto DVD, the download will only stay on your computer and can not be copied.

Pricing, according to studios, is currently "competitive" with the DVD release, which in many peopleï¿½s minds makes it a bad buy, being way too expensive for what you get. Classic movies are generally be priced at $13.99, with some movies priced as low as $9.99. New movies are all over the map. King Kong, for instance, will sell for $19.99, compared to $14.96 + shipping from retailers like Amazon. The Bad News Bears (2005), on the other hand, sells for $26.00 online at Movielink, which is essentially the same price Amazon is carrying at the moment. Most of these offerings, however, will not offer the extras found on today's DVD and you instantly sacrifice the ability to take your movies with you on the go.

Encrypted or not, the standard DVD is at least portable. All in all, this makes movie downloads from these sites, even with the reassurance of everything being acceptable and ï¿½legalï¿½ as really weak.. Until a better pricing appears, it would seem that these companies are doomed to failure. At least they would be, if the movie companies did not own them. Wait for a better deal.

Dave is the owner of divx-movies.info and free-movies-download-full.info websites providing information on movie downloads

Memories Are Forever When You Create A Photo Album
It took the digital camera to make me finally create a photo album. You see, I had a virtual photo album on the computer, one which would show the images that I had taken, and where I could arrange them in whatever configuration I wanted.

I realized then, that I had to create a photo album, or forever lose track of all of my precious memories. I simply didn't know where anything was anymore, so I set off to by a lovely hardbound book to create a photo album to organize all of my most precious pictures so that I could show them.

With the prevalence of digital cameras and the fast pace of life, few people really take the time to create a photo album anymore. This is really a shame.

I could even design covers or text for my digital photo album, which was pretty neat. It was so convenient, that I rarely bothered to look at my old pictures any more. I just wasn't up for the effort of digging through them anymore.

I had always kind of wanted to create a photo album, but had never gotten around to it, and over the years I had become pretty good at hunting for just the image which I wanted in my box of pictures.

Then one day, I was having over my sons fiance. She's a sweet girl, and I decided to embarrass him and make her feel part of the family by showing off some of his baby pictures. But when I looked for them, try as I might, I couldn't find them at all.

When you create a photo album, you make something that not only showcases your photos, but arranges them in the personal style that shows you really care about what you are doing.

If you make your own photo album, you can not only select what photos to include, but what kind of book to use, how many per page, and where in your home to display it.
I first decided to create a photo album about a year ago.

Ironically, I didn't even think to create a photo album until I had been using my digital camera for a good while. Back when I used to use my normal, analog camera, I would keep all of my pictures in boxes, and I could go into them and look at them whenever I wanted.

Life is an accumulation of our cherished memories save them by creating a photo album.

How You Meet Adwords, Google AdSense’s Fraternal Twin?
They are the fine men and women who are willing to part with some coin of the realm every time a visitor to your web site chooses to click on an AdSense ad. Google grabs the cash from the AdWords' member’s account, keeps some of it for themselves, and gives the rest to you. How much they keep and how much give away is a State secret, but who cares; just as long as we’re getting ours each month.

How AdWords Works

AdWords provides pay-per-click advertising to merchants who are willing to shell out anywhere from a minimum 05 .05 per click all the way up to a maximum of $100 per click. Can you imagine anyone paying $100 just to have someone click on an ad?

Anyway, the advertiser joins the AdWords program and gets a control panel similar to the one that we AdSense users get. They can write their ads, pick their keywords, and establish an advertising budget. They get tools to track performance as well as to help them pick keywords. There are no monthly minimum spends required and they can turn their ads on and off at will.

Once an advertiser is happy with their ad, it gets released to the network and shows up on web sites like yours and mine. That’s if the keywords on your site match the keyword requirements of the brand spanking new ad, of course.

They can’t “buy” their way to the top

Google doesn’t simply push the people with the highest paying ads to the top of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). They use a rather fair methodology that takes into consideration not only the maximum CPC (cost per click), but also includes a secret recipe for determining an ad’s placement based upon the number of clicks the ad receives. So, at least in theory, an ad paying .05 per click could rise above one paying $5.00 per click if it’s more popular with Google’s audience.

I say “in theory” because if the owner of the $5 ad is paying attention then he or she will see that they are being bested by a lowly nickel ad and do some serious rewriting to get back up to the top where they belong.

Personally, I’m not sure that I have the guts to invest a lot of money into hoping that people who click on my ad will actually buy something, since I still have to pay Google whether I make a sale or not. But, as a dedicated AdSense user, I’m sure glad that my AdWords brothers and sisters have more nerve than I do. And you should be thankful as well.

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