Thursday, May 31, 2007

Barbie Girl on the Cello

An odd and extremely intriguing rendition of Barbie Girl done on the Cello.

Stumble Upon

The primary tool of this website is a beautiful little Firefox add-on called StumbleUpon. This device is somewhat similar to an online dating service. You tell it what you like and it finds matches for you. Only the matches are web pages that you might find interesting. If you tell Stumble Upon that you like photography and computers, you may be getting pictures of the naughty bits of some super hot systems. Just don't let your parents catch you looking at that stuff. As well, you get the option to tell Stumble Upon what you like and what you don't like. Suppose you have the same two interests of Photography and Computers. Well if you click the Stumble Upon button, and you find yourself on a Russian surrealist photography site, and that's not exactly what you wanted, you can click the don't like button and the chances of you getting something similar is slimmed down. Inversely if you like a website that you find, you can click the I like it! button and you will be directed to more websites like the one you said you liked. In that sense it is an ever evolving web tool and a growing web community.

Yes it is a community. See, in order to start stumbling, you must make an account with them, but don't worry. Your private information is safe. This account is only used for tracking your likes and dislikes and what your topics of interest are. However, people can view what you like and don't like and see if they have similar interests as you. There is a friend system in place, but I my self have not delved into the vast Stumble Upon community.

The toolbar you get when you download Stumble Upon is very easy to use. It has the large Stumble! button, the Like/Dislike buttons, a Send To button so you can share your findings, it even has separate channels so you can stumble through videos only, or your friends likes only. I personally love the fact that you can stumble through your individual interests, and then pick favorites out of those.

All in all, Stumble upon is a must for the true surfer, and I fully recommend adding this to your daily life. Even if you only have five minutes to spare, you can easily click Stumble! and find something new and intriguing to brighten your day.

To find Stumble Upon, or learn more about it go here: http://www.stumbleupon.com/