As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been working feverishly with the Drillsheet Team to get DrillSheet.com ready for a release in March. It took us until the last day of the month (March 31 was the release date), but it is now available for everyone to use (and is free)!

We have a lot of new ideas that will keep us continuously updating DrillSheet.com to give our users more features, and a better product. We feel that bringing the Bowling world to the Internet has been highly needed, and we hope our Bowlers enjoy this product as much as we do!

On a side note, Hillary Clinton challenged Barack Obama to a bowling contest. He recently took a few minutes from his busy Campaigning schedule to bowl a 10-year old girl. He only shot a 37, and lost to her 47. I highly suggest Senator Obama signing up for DrillSheet.com, and not to hesitate to ask for a few pointers!

Today's website: DrillSheet.com

By now, most people have heard about the $100 laptop initiative, also known as "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC). The goal of this project is to create a laptop cheap enough that through donations, laptops can be given to child all around the world. After multiple prototypes were built, a model has been selected and started production. Where they able to get the model to only cost $100? No. They have settled on a $200 price tag, and it looks like what is offered in the laptops are worth the extra cost.

Until November 26, you can buy a laptop for yourself or someone else you know. The cost for you to purchase one is $400. It will get you one laptop, and will pay for another laptop that will be given to a child in a developing nation. They call this the "Give One. Get one" plan, and I hope it is a huge success for them!

Today's website: One Laptop Per Child

This past week, I have seen a bunch of billboards around town that are promoting Google's 411 service. I did not hear about this in the news, so I had to jump on Google's site to see what this is all about. Amazing! Google has created a 411 (company information) service that you can call at any time. It is 100% free to use, and they even give you a 1-800 number to use so you will not be charged long distance. I called up the number this morning and was really impressed by the quality of the call.

The first thing asked is what City/State you are looking up. After that, you have to say the company name or the category you are looking for. I tried my sister's company, and it found it no problem. It offered to connect me immediately, if I wanted more detail about the company, or if I wanted the company data to be sent to me in the form of a text message. How awesome is this! Of course I asked for a text message, and things got even better. The company name, address, and their phone number was sent. They also included a link to a map image to show where the address is located. This truly is really well done.

Another feature that was nice was the ability to type in content using your phone's dial pad. I have a Pocket PC phone, and was not able to use my QWERTY keyboard, but using the number pad worked perfectly.

This is going to be a number I will not be able to forget, and will be something that I pass along to everyone that I talk to. It is a really nice service, and will save you some money if you have used other 411 services in the past. I hope you enjoy!

Today's website: Google 411

What a great website request I received the other day! I was asked to take a look at Spokeo and talk about my thoughts on the site. At first, I thought "Great, another feed reader", but after I registered and started fooling around with the site, I really got to like it. To me it is an RSS feed reader, but the interface is fun and easy to work with.

When you start off with a new account, Spokeo is nice enough to start you with a few website feeds that they like to be updated on. It was a great way to help understand how the site was setup, how to navigate around, and what the site will actually look like before you even put in any of your own data (usually you would be looking at a blank site until you start populating the site with other websites you want to track). It is simple to delete feeds, so you can remove any of these default sites from your buddy list. When you want to add buddies, it is as simple as adding the URL to their website...Spokeo will do the rest! A really nice feature in this area is that you can add a friend's page from a major social network like Last.fm, Myspace, Flickr, Twitter, etc.

Now for a couple things that I wish the site would let me do...First, some of the terminology did not seem to fit well. This is nit-picky, but it was confusing to me at first! The one that really stood out at me was "Buddies" on the list of sites you are following. When I think of buddies, I think of Eric or Heather, not the website name that they write on. You can easily change the name of the site to your buddy's name, but it would be really nice to have that option when adding the site initially! If this was done, it would make more sense to me to name this section "Buddies". Another thing that I wish I could do is to change the buddy icons for each site. It would be nice to be able to upload a picture or give a URL to a picture that would be used when I roll over a buddy's name. Right now, when I roll over a newly created buddy, a generic Spokeo image is shown (I am not sure if this will get populated with something more relevant in the future, but it would be really nice to have something related to my buddy). I would also love to be able to change the thumbnail image to the left of each buddy's name.

I really am enjoying the site all-together, so I expect that I will keep using its services. If you are still unsure of what the site does, I suggest reading "The Story" section on their About page. Also, I hope (when I finally get out to California for a vacation) to get the chance to attend one of the monthly open lunches they have and be able to meet the creators of Spokeo!

Today's website: Spokeo.com

Today's site has been around for awhile now, but I have not "really" gotten into it until a few days ago. Justin.tv started off as a website where you could view Justin 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He attached a camera to his hat and wore it wherever he went. Now that the site has grown, and the popularity has jumped, the site is a collaboration of many people with live web cams that you can watch. With the live video feeds, you can also participate in chat rooms. The chat rooms are specific to the video feed you are watching, and most of the time has the person that is being filmed writing and reading in it!

Probably the 2 most viewed people on the site are iJustine (recently known for her 300 page iPhone bill video) and Naked Cowboy (the guy that sings on the streets of NYC). I am currently watching Sarah Meyers. It looks like she is at work, so she is not doing a lot of interaction with the chat room or the camera (just sitting at her desk). I am keeping it on because the music she has playing on the feed is really relaxing and enjoyable to work with! Enjoy the site, but don't get too addicted to it!

Today's website: Justin.tv