Looks like WordPress is finally out of beta and open for anyone to sign-up for a FREE account. I signed up for an account just so I could explore the features. It looks to have all of the same basic functionality as the non hosted version. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re in the market for a hosted blog service. Click Here to take a look at WordPress free hosted blogging.

Also, check out blogsome.com for another free WordPress hosting service.

technorati tags: blog, blogging, wordpress, blogsome.com, hosting, free

When I was a kid, my mom worked for Sears. Needless to say, our house and closets were furnished with Sears products. I remember getting the Sears catalog and looking at the same sections over and over wishing for certain toys, guitars, Go Karts and sporting goods. I usually didn’t get the items I wished for but my Mom did her best to please. Once a year, at Christmas time, Sears would put out a special Holiday catalog called the Wishbook. This catalog was real special for me and other kids because it was devoted to kids. The wishbook had all of the cool toys in it. The reason I bring this all up is because someone has posted all of the pages of the Sears Wishbook from 1979 on Flickr. It was a cool trip into the past. Click Here to check it out. Make sure you check out all of the Star Wars toys. If you had one each of those toys they would be worth a fortune.

technorati tags: sears, wishbook, flickr, christmas, photos

Peter Rukavina made one a cool Google mash-up of his hometown bus system called thebus.ca. Now he’s put the making of up on his wiki site “rukapedia”. He has everything on there, so that you can make a exact replica of his Charlottetown Transit Map. It’s pretty cool. Click here to check it out.

technorati tags: google, thebus.ca, mash-up, Peter+Rukavina, transit

If you ever need to waste some time, this game can help you do it. It’s basically like monopoly, or just like it. You roll the dice, buy property, and pay rent when you land on someone else’s property. You know the story. It free; CLICK HERE to check out.

technorati tags: games, free, monopoly , ruby+on+rails , ajax

oolsi.com is a cool web blog.

“We believe everything should be free! This site will keep track of websites and tools that share this philosophy and look at freeware in other aspects of life — ie. saving money, living cheaply, making things yourself, and self learning.”

Since I’m poor and living on a trust fund…I mean savings. I need all the help I can get. Here’s a list of 10 Tips on saving money via oolsi.com:

• keep a record of what you buy for a month so you will have a general idea of where money goes
• stop buying on impulse. think about how much real use you would get out of something.
• make your own lunch and bring it to work in a paper bag
• buy generic aspirin, cold medicine etc, and generic food brands at the supermarket.
• have hobbies that are inexpensive- like knitting. collect leaves or postcards instead of baseball cards.
• make money from your hobby. sell your little knit booties at Etsy.com.
• stay healthy and save on medical bills. bike whenever possible to get excercise and save gas.
• shop for clothes at thrift stores
• dont buy books or subscribe to magazines– rent them out or read them at the library.
• buy foods like rice, flour and noodles in bulk

technorati tags: oolsi.com, tips, money, DIY, freeware

For those of you who have been to Canada or live there. Then you know that the one screwed up thing about Canada is buying beer. There are lots of places to buy beer and great beer being made in Canada. But, the government has some screwed beer laws. First of all you can only buy beer, to take home at state liquor stores or a chain owned by a consortium of beer companies called The Beer Store. It’s hard to buy beer in Canada past 9:00. The laws may have changed since I was there several times back in the early 90’s, but I remember spending a significant amount time rushing over to the Beer Store to buy a half rack of Kokanee. Never-the-less, now you can go online to the beerhunter to see a map with all of the stores selling beer and if they’re open or not. It’s something that most people in the states don’t need, because of the convenience of the local 7-Eleven. Anyway check out beerhunter.ca for a cool Google Map mash-up.

technorati tags: canada, google+maps, mash-up, beerhunter, beer

According to Om Malik‘s blog: Google may be in talks to buy photo facial-recognition startup Riya for about $40 million. Riya was profiled on Techcrunch a while back. It sounds like a very cool technology. The way Riya works is similar to Flickr except you can tag actual faces in your photos and Riya’s software will recognize it moving forward.

If Riya takes off it would be a great deal for Google. Imagine the possibilities for photo facial-recognition technology?

Read more about it at Om Malik’s blog Gigaom
And at the business2.0 blog.
Read the Techcrunch profile here.

technorati tags: riya, Om+Malik, flickr, techcrunch, news, news

There’s an interesting post on a site called internetousider. Basically they’re hypothesizing about how much more money Google, Yahoo, AOL or MSN could make if they were to put 2-3 more ads on their on front-page. It’s pretty funny to think about. Take a look at internetousider.

technorati tags: google, msn, aol, monetization, yahoo, advertising, adwords

I came across allyourwords.com this moring and had some fun playing around. Instead of me trying to describe what Allyourwords.com is, I’l llet them do it for me:

AllYourWords.com is a social word association engine. Enter a word and you view the website associated with that word. Or, if you come up with a new word, you get to associate it. You may also re-associate words to your liking.

But what’s the point?

Does everything need a point? Anyways, there are many creative uses for AllYourWords.com:

* Associate your name or words that describe you with your blog — get discovered!
* Associate interesting, obscure words with your web page and attract people who think like you.
* Associate your company name with its webpage.
* Associate your pet’s name with pictures of your pet.
* Associate your friend’s, parent’s, sibling’s, or significant other’s name with a surprise page for them, and then tell them about this site.

technorati tags: tags, social+bookmarking, words, word+association, blog

I signed up for Google Analytics yesterday. It was great timing because I was in the process of shopping around for an analytics package anyway. You know everything google does is great but for some reason they were having major problems with this launch. I guess with all of the thousands of servers they have, they figured they could handle it. Guess again. It’s been more than 24 hours and finally my stats are showing up. I’m pleasantly surprised at what I see. In the past I’ve used WebTrends and have demoed Omniture and HBX. The Google analytics package looks just as good as any of the others that I’ve used. When I get in and track some specific stats and play around a little more, I’ll give a more detailed report.

Click here to sign up for Google Analytics.

technorati tags: Analytics, digg, google, webtrends, websidestory, free, MeasureMap