In May, the Discovering Identity blog will be four years old.  A lot of water has gone under the proverbial bridge since our humble beginnings in May, 2005. With over 800 posts in the bank, it is time for a facelift of sorts.  Hopefully, this new look will be a bit easier to look at, more functional and with better access to the variety of information I contribute to cyberspace.

A few credits are in order.  Many thanks to:

• My son Dave, a web design genius, who introduced me to the Firebug and MeasureIt Firefox plugins that helped me make sure the HTML was balanced just right.
• My wife Claudia, for putting up with my late night sessions at the computer.
• My daughter Angie, mommy blogger extraordinaire, for my new photo.
• Greg Johnson, Ryan Thrash and SpiffyCorners  for the CSS-enabled rounded corners.
• Yourminis for the widgets that provide easy access to Flickr and RSS feeds.
• CodeLifter.com for the Javascript used to present random quotes.

If any of you have advices or critique, please let me know.

Technorati Tags: Discovering Identity, blog

• Samsung's Papyrus E-book Reader Joins the Party – but lacks wireless
  "In the battle for e-book reader domination, Samsung's Papyrus—a new touchscreen model—proves to be a formidable foe against the Amazon Kindle and Sony PRS-700 behemoths."
  (tags: ebook amazon sony kindle samsung)
• Warning: Tweet with Care
  (tags: Humor Twitter Non Sequitur)
• Rumor Mill: Acer launching Android phone in September – FierceWireless
  Acer will launch its first phone running on Google's Android platform in September, according to the Philippine BusinessMirror.
  (tags: mobile android acer)
• Want to revew an interesting collection of innovative business card designs?
  So you want some business card design inspiration? Well here you have 400 creative and beautiful business card designs all on one page.
  (tags: graphics businesscards)
• Laptop class warfare: Apple vs. Asus | CNET News
  A little more than a year after the launch of the MacBook Air, a new luxury laptop has arrived from Dell. This calls for another look at the notebook versus Netbook argument, the computer equivalent of bourgeoisie versus proletariat. In this case, Air versus Aspire; Adamo versus Eee."
  (tags: apple laptop sony netbook dell asus)
• Sprint Looks to Power Gadgets Beyond Cellphones – WSJ.com
  "The Overland Park, Kan., company is now talking with companies such as GPS device maker Garmin Ltd., Eastman Kodak Co. and SanDisk Corp., which makes storage devices, about delivering wireless Internet service for their products, according to a person familiar with the matter."
  (tags: mobile sprint)
• Smart Phones are Edging Out Other Gadgets – WSJ.com
  "Smart phones — beefed-up cellphones such as Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and Apple Inc.'s iPhone — come with an operating system, do email, and surf the Internet. They also offer digital music, digital camera and personal-navigation features."
  (tags: mobile smartphone)
• #Identity Fraud Hits Cars, Too! FBI breaks up $25 million 'car cloning' ring.
  "Capping "Operation Dual Identity," arrest warrants for 17 people were executed in Tampa and Miami, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; and in Mexico City and Guadalajara, Mexico. They were accused of "cloning" vehicles, which is making stolen cars look like legal ones."
  (tags: Identity automobile identitytheft)
• Komodo dragons kill Indonesian fisherman – what a terrible way to die!
  "Komodo dragons, the world's heaviest lizards, can grow up to 3 meters (10 feet) in length and have a toxic bite that they use to kill prey such as buffalo, returning to feast when the animal succumbs to the poison.
  "Despite their ungainly appearance, the carnivorous reptiles can run as fast as a dog in short bursts, jump up on their hind legs, and kill animals with a blow of their powerful tails."
  (tags: lizard komodo)

Just a little reminder from Non Sequitur to watch where you are going when you are Twittering.  The life you save may be your own.

Technorati Tags: Humor, Twitter, Non Sequitur

• Twibes – make personal Twitter people recommendations
  "Below are the people you follow. Click the 10 people who you find the most interesting, entertaining, undiscovered, or inspirational."
  (tags: twitter)
• TOTUS: Teleprompter of the United States
  (tags: TOTUS Obama politics)

A bit of visual hilarity to end a long, productive day …

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the post, David A Stein for the artwork and @mikepfs‘s tweet which triggered my attention in the first place.

Technorati Tags: TOTUS, Obama, politics

• 50 Great Widgets For Your Blog
  "We’ve assembled a list of 50 useful or simply cool widgets for your pleasure. And remember, the first rule of widgetizing your blog is – don’t overdo it!"
  (tags: blog Widget)
• SuperNews! Twouble with Twitters // Current
  "A young man struggles against the pressure to Twitter his life away."
  Great video!
  (tags: twitter Humor)

No that isn’t my age … although sometimes my kids think so.  It is the number of entries I have posted to this blog since its humble beginning on May 13, 2005.  Now, almost four years later, this post is number 800.

In celebration, I poked around the Internet to see other things for which the number 800 is significant.  Here are my favorites.

The Atari 800 computer was announced in 1978, the year I graduated from college.
Shrewsbury, England, was founded in 800 AD.  That’s even older than I am. There were no computers back then. Al Gore hadn’t yet invented the Internet … or global warming.
According to the Urban Dictionary, an 800-pound gorilla is " An overbearing entity in a specific industry or sphere of activity. A seemingly unbeatable presence always to be reckoned with; whose experience, influence, and skill threatens to defeat competitors with little effort. In the software industry, Microsoft would be considered the 800-pound gorilla."  Yikes!

So that’s it for my 800th post, to close out another fine day in Mesa, AZ. Not too profound, but a bit of fun for me.

I can only hope the next 800 posts be as enjoyable as the first 800.  Thanks for stopping by!

Technorati Tags: 800, Gorilla, Atari, Shrewsbury

• Abe on Facebook
  (tags: Lincoln Facebook)
• Sticky Notes for Websites | An interactive sticky note bulletin board for your website
  "Put a sticky on your website.
  Unique communication with your visitors. Post news and events.
  Let visitors speak. Filters prevent unwanted comments.
  Get notified of new messages by email.
  One line script change."
  (tags: notes sticky bulletinboard)
• More Twitter Clouds and Fascinating Games
  (tags: Twitter Tag Cloud games words)
• American Council on Exercise: Whole-body Exercise Band Workout
  "Exercise bands are great exercise accessories. Not only are they portable and easy to use, they're extremely effective for developing muscular strength and endurance."
  (tags: fitness health exercise resistance)
• Resistance band exercises: Sports Injury Clinc
  "Here is a list of exercises which can be performed using resistance bands. Click on an exercise to view a description, video, the muscles being worked and related injuries."
  (tags: health exercise resistance)
• Microsoft Geneva: #Identity Management – information and resources – from @karayem
  Wide array of information and resources about Geneva claims based platform
  (tags: Identity IdentityManagement microsoft Geneva)
• Cisco Acquires Camcorder Maker – WSJ.com
  The acquisition of Pure Digital Tecnology "is the latest move by Cisco to diversify away from its core business of selling computer-networking gear to businesses."
  (tags: Cisco PureDigital)
• Carbon Footprint, Climate Change, Go Green | EarthLab.com
  Calculate your carbon footprint … mine is quite high because of all my travel.
  (tags: energy environment green)

I don’t know who put this together, but "Abraham Lincoln on Facebook" is the funniest thing I’ve seen on the Internet all day.

Enjoy!

Thanks Garry Bartle, for sharing this bit of hilarity.

Technorati Tags: Lincoln, Facebook

In response to my post yesterday about clouds of followers at Twittersheep, Mark Kolb (@outwitme) sent me a link to his site, OuTWITMe, that has, among other fun and games, a cool three-dimensional cloud of major words found in the most recent tweets of a user you specify or Twitterverse at large.  Poking around the swirling cloud and following the train of consciousness it engenders is a stimulating experience.  The two-dimensional snapshot posted on this blog doesn’t do justice to what Mark has provided.

Elsewhere on the site are some fascinating Twitter-based word games that appear to have the potential to be absolutely addicting to a word geek like me:

"Outwit Me is your home for a variety of unique Twitter games that have been specially crafted with artificial intelligence. You are here to be challenged, entertained, stimulated. We are here to engage your mind and of course to outwit you."

With names like Tweet Quiz, Tweet Words and TWord Chains, these games all played through Twitter and appear to not be trivial. It appears that some really intellectual activity is happening north of the border, where the governing philosophy is "to present intelligent challenges for tweeters with some time on their hands."

Technorati Tags: Twitter, Tag Cloud, games, words