It’s a little late in the snow season for this post, but it’s still worth mentioning The Block. The Block is a boutique Hotel chain, currently with locations in Big Bear and Tahoe that caters exclusively to the Snowboarding set. Founded by Marc Frank Montoya and Liko Smith, and with investors like pro snowboarders Travis Parker, Mikey LeBlanc, Joni Malmi, Jussi Oksanen, JJ Thomas, Kurt Wastell, Chris Coulter, and Devun Walsh, and pro skateboarder Rob Dyrdek. The Block is unique in many ways and gives it’s guests a place to chill after a long day in the powder. The Block features “Signature Suits” designed by companies like Zoo York, DVS Shoes, Spy Optic, Nikita Clothing and even a Vivid room. The rooms feature PS2′s, boot/glove warmers, FREE PBR & energy drinks, FREE DVD, Video-game and porn rentals, flat screen TV’s and many others. They also offer really cool amenities like a waxing room (for your snowboard), a lounge , a poker room and a BBQ deck. With plans to open up in mountain resort communities like Breckenridge, Vail, and internationally in spots in Canada, Switzerland and France. Keep a look out for The Block.

Tags: snowboarding, hotels, theblock, bigbear, tahoe

I just discovered Zonbu and am looking forward to trying one out. Zonbu is a tiny PC that comes pre installed with a bunch of opensource and free software (openoffice, firefox, skype etc.) and uses 1/10th of the power of a “typical” desktop computer. Zonbu’s business model is to charge a nominal upfront fee ($99 and $249) and then $12 – $20 for a monthly subscription. The subscription includes software upgrades, hardware, replacement, support and online storage and backup.

Zonbu is a compact, ultra low power mini with all the bells and whistles:

• Intel-like ultra-low power CPU
• 512 MB RAM + 4GB flash-based local storage
• Graphics up to 1400 x 1050 (16 million colors).
  Hardware graphics and MPEG2 acceleration
• PC-compatible ports for keyboard and mouse
• 6 USB ports to plug-and-play all standard USB accessories
• Broadband ready: 10/100MB Ethernet built-in.

Zonbu is $99 with a two-year subscription plan. With month to month plan, Zonbu is $249.

As soon as I can get my hands on one, I’ll give a complete review.

Technorati Tags: zonbu, green, PC, opensource, computer

Amazon.com recently launched their Zappos competitor called endless.com. Endless sells shoes and handbags at competitive pricing. The site is well designed and it’s easy to find what your looking for. The have some nice search features that allow you to drill down by brand, size and color. The only downside that I see so far is that they have a limited brand selection, compared to Zappos. However, I’m sure that’ll get better over time. As a part of their launch promotion, they’re giving away next day shipping and give you $5 off your order. Not a bad deal. I’m a big fan of Zappos and it’ll be interesting to see if Endless can take a significant portion of their market share.

Technorati Tags: shoes, shopping, amazon, endless.com

Looks like we’re on our way to having a Digg clone for just about every category. I guess Digg clones are the new black. I have to admit though, PixelGroovy has hit on a good niche. I know that a lot of the stories that get “dug” the most, on Digg, are design related. Now, design folks will have the their own spot to digg, um, I mean “groove” design related content.

Zingfu has a fun web service that allows you to pick from many different photo scenes that you can put your face in. It’s pretty cool, you could put your self on the cover ESPN or you could be superman. Zingfu makes it easy by giving you a resizing tool that lets you see exactly when your pic is the right proportion. If you want to have fun with your pics, then check out Zingfu.

technorati tags: zingfu, myspace, photo

The latest web property from Techcrunch, is called CrunchBoard. It’s a new job listing site that charges employers a flat $200 fee for a 30 day listing. Looks like a pretty useful service but is very similar to the 37signals offering.

What ever happen with Edgeio? Does anyone ever find anything there?

Last week I did my first project at Rentacoder.com. I was at first a bit skeptical , mostly because I’ve never farmed out work to someone that I’ve never meet before. I was also a bit skeptical because, quit honestly, they have one of the worst designs and user interface of any website. Myspace might even have a little more going for them in the design department than rentacoder. Never-the-less, I gave them a try. I posted a project for converting a HTML/CSS site to either Joomla or Drupal CMS. After posting my project I received several bids, with varying prices and from varying countries. I ended up choosing a coder in Egypt that had excellent ratings. We corresponded a few times and agreed on price. I explained what I wanted an the Egyptian coder took over. This guy was excellent with English, communicated with me every step of the way and as a matter of fact, he went out of his way to make sure I was happy with the final product. The whole project took about a week and I was extremely happy. One of the cool features that Rentacoder has, that sites like ebay should copy, is a “blind” period for ratings:

• To protect you from a potential retalitory rating, your rating MAY NOT be immediately made visible to the public (including to the other party). This “blind period” works as follows:
• If this was a completed project:
  Your rating will not be made visible until the CODER has rated you as well. This allows both of you to rate the other party honestly, without fear of retalitory action. (If the CODER never posts a rating, then your rating will be automatically made public 2 weeks after the project is completed. If that happens, then the CODER will also forfeit their right to rate you on this project.)
• If this project went into arbitration:
  If you won an arbitration on this project, then your rating will be made public immediately. If you lost the arbitration, you may not rate the other party.
• Once the “blind period” expires and your rating is made public, it MAY NOT BE CHANGED. So please verify it is entirely accurate (below) before pressing “I confirm that all of the above is accurate”.

If you have a project that you need help with. I highly recommend trying out Rentacoder.com. If only Rentacoder would use their own service to contract some design help and UI help, they would be better off.

Yesterday, Techcrunch did a post about a new web browser called Heatseek. It’s a secure browser for porn surfing. It’s a genius idea. With Heatseek you can surf porn and still share your computer with your wife. Read more at Techrunch.

There’s also a new “social” porn video site out that’s gaining in popularity. It’s called Pornotube; BE WARNED THAT PORNOTUBE IS HARDCORE PORN, SO VISIT AT YOUR OWN RISK. As you might have guessed, by the name, Pornotube is a clone of the popular Youtube, except that it’s porn. Pornotube has all the bells and whistles that any web 2.0 site has, including, RSS Feeds, gradients, tags and user submitted content. The content ranges from amateur to pirated professional video. If this is your sort of thing, then check it out. NOT SUTABLE FOR WORK.

technorati tags: porn, free, video, youtube, pornotube,
heatseek

I’ve been using Popurls.com for a few months now and have just recently noticed that it has become a part of my daily routine. If you’re not familiar with Popurls, it’s a web site that gives you the latest web-buzz from all of the best source like digg.com, del.icio.us, newsvine.com, etc. It’s really an addicting site for me because, I now only need to go to one place to see what’s popular on the following sites;
digg.com, del.icio.us, reddit.com, newsvine, metafilter, tailrank, google news, yahoo news, netscape, shoutwire, slashdot, wired, yourpop, nowpublc, furl.net, You can also see and hear the latest from youtube, ifilm, Odeo, heavy.com and flickr.

According to Thomas Marban’s (creator of popurls) blog, Popurls has overtaken newsvine in the amount of del.icio.us bookmarks and now has more than 40,000 views a day. If you want to get the latest news and online entertainment from all of the best sources then check out Popurls.

technorati tags: popurls.com, newsvine, digg.com, tom.ma, photos

Lat34.com is the latest social network to hit the web. I’m not exactly sure when they went live, but I would assume it was recently. Lat34 is a partnership between AOL and Fusion Entertainment that is a community hub (myspace for xsports)for extreme sports fans. It’s currently in beta and will continue to add new features which will include on-demand video and photos. Looks like a good niche to be into and I’m sure with AOL being behind it, they’ll make a good go at it. That demographic is fickle and will need a lot of coaxing to participate in a AOL community.

Lat34.com

technorati tags: aol, Lat34.com, community, socialnetwork, skateboarding, sports