My Name is Kate

links for 2007-12-30

• Travian - Browser Game - Romans, Gauls, & Teutons
  Travian is a browser game with a world full of thousands of users who all begin as the leaders of small villages. Seems similar to the Impressions Games City Building series, but with Hello Kitty style illustration.
  (tags: browser entertainment game virtualworlds)

links for 2007-12-28

• CBC Radio Vancouver needs your help to move to FM • • Inside the CBC
  For folks in the Vancouver area ... this post gives you the deets on how to show your support for CBC's move to FM.
  (tags: cbc vancouver)

links for 2007-12-27

• Argh! Are Beach Balls Driving You Mad?- MacLife
  20 Mac time savers that will speed up your workflow.
  (tags: Apple Mac gtd)

Northern Voice 2008 Registration is Open!!

Registration for Northern Voice: a personal blogging conference in Vancouver is NOW OPEN!

Conference is February 22 (Fri) and 23 (Sat), 2008 at the Forestry Sciences Centre, 2424 Main Mall, UBC main campus.  The cost is really reasonable: attend one day for $40 or both days for only $60.

To me, NV is a perfect blend between an unconference like TorCamp and a more-scheduled conference. Friday is the unconference bit; Saturday will have a vetted slate of speakers along three tracks.  Schedule will be posted soon on the Northern Voice site.  And it sells out every year, so, register now!  I had a great time last year -- really looking forward to it again!

Canadian Blog Awards - Nominations Now Open til Jan 11

Dani from Postcards from the Mothership just let me know that the Canadian Blog Awards are now accepting nominations for the best Canadian blogs.  Nominations are being accepted until January 11, 2008.  The rules ...

Eligibility

All blogs written by persons living in Canada or by Canadian citizens living abroad are eligible for nomination. In the case of group blogs, the aforementioned persons must be significant contributors to the blog.

Organizers of the awards must abstain from making any judgment as to eligibility of other participants in only the categories they have also been nominated for.

Voting

(2006 & 2007 Awards) Two rounds of voting will take place with each round lasting 7 days. The first round of voting will include all nominees. The second round of voting will narrow the list of nominees in each category down to the top 5 from the first round of voting.

There are several categories ...

General:

• Best Blog
• Best French-Language Blog
• Best New Blog
• Best Group Blog
• Best Blogosphere Citizen
• Best Blog Post
• Best Blog Post Series

Political:

• Best Political Blog
• Best progressive Blog
• Best conservative Blog
• Best Non-Partisan Blog

Interest:

• Best Personal Blog
• Best Photo/Art Blog
• Best Humour Blog
• Best Entertainment/Cultural Blog
• Best Business/Finance Blog
• Best Religious Blog
• Best Sports Blog
• Best Activities Blog
• Best Media/Celebrity Blog
• Best Family Blog
• Best Local Blog
• Best Sci/Tech Blog
• Best Sexual/Gender Issues Blog
• Best Podcaster/Vlogger
• Best Military Blog
• Best Education Blog

So, honour your fav blogger by leaving a comment in the appropriate category.  The folks over at the CBA's are trying to get a bit broader participation this year .. so spread the word.  And if you're graphically inclined, maybe you'd make a nice blog badge we could all use to link to?

To touch someone's heart with design ...

Elegant, stunning site by graphic designer Jonathan Yuen.  I have such respect for designers who can create amazing pieces like this.  The illustration and the animations are lovely.

FYI .. the title of this post comes from a quote from Stefan Sagmeister whom Jonathan states is one of his inspirations.  TED has posted the video of Sagmeister's talk from TED 2004 ... the topic is how design can make you happy.

h/t to Leigh for the link to Jonathan's site.!

links for 2007-12-15

• PensionBook - Your Facebook in 30 Years
  Got this via Jeremiah's twitter. So awesome. And terrifying. But, if we want our apps to have longevity, we have to imagine how they will evolve with us. Great piece on several levels.
  (tags: funny parody facebook)

links for 2007-12-14

• RANDOM.ORG - Integer Generator
  In case you ever need a random integer or number sequence generator. Via http://www.canadianbeauty.com/ It uses atmospheric noise as the random element. Cool!
  (tags: random tools generator GTD)

Golden Compass Daemon Chooser has a Social Component

I discovered this fun little toy from the new movie, The Golden Compass via Ingenue's SL fashion blog.  I was intrigued by it because not only is it a "personality test" widget (incredibly popular on the interweb) and a great tie-in with the book/movie, but it has a social component as well - crucial, in my mind, to the success of these types of promotions.

How it works: you take a 20-question personality quiz to get your initial daemon.  Then, you can email a link to your friends or post your interim results on your blog or MySpace page.  Then, your friends can provide feedback, through agreeing/disagreeing with 5 qualities of your daemon, on whether or not they think your daemon matches you.

So, here's mine .. the Snow Leopard.

Now, I have to warn you, when I tried to respond to the "how do you rate your friend's daemon" part, I had a little interface trouble.  The "next" button isn't appearing for me.  It should be on the bottom right where there is the tiny little whoosh of brown.  You should be able to click there to move the questionnaire along.

It will be interesting to see if enough people disagree with my daemon, if I get any notification of it changing.  Otherwise, it is supposed to become "solid" in 12 days.  So, we'll see what happens.  But to me, this is a neat way of getting friends involved in these popular personality quizes aside from just the "cool" factor.  It would be great if they were networked in some way as well.

Mystery Birthday Presents ... are they from you?

So, I'm back from honeymoon and a week in Toronto.  One of the nice things about being gone for almost a month is mail ... lots and lots of mail.  Especially when it is a package from Indigo that contains:

and

Now, I didn't order these.  I'm assuming they are a birthday present from someone.  But the two likely suspects have been eliminated.  There is no note in the box.  The packing slip doesn't contain any information.  So, did YOU send these?