At many concerts these days, there comes a time when everyone opens their cell phones to shed some light. I am always amazed when I see that. It wasn’t that long ago that the mobile phone was a rare novelty, now it is an accessory that has pretty much crossed every socio-economic position in life.

When passing a stranded motorist, I (for better or worse) feel less compelled to stop. In the “old days”, it would be nice to stop and see if you could, at least, get them to a phone so they could call a family member, or friend.

Now, it is pretty safe to assume that they have placed that call and are simply waiting for help to arrive. I don’t want to get into what one should do when a stranded motorist is seen, but I do find it interesting how normal the cell phone has become.

That thought has often let me to wonder who uses pay-phones anymore. Perhaps I don’t want to know the answer, but it has seemed counter intuitive that they raise their rates as demand decreases.

With that thought in mind, I appreciated coming across this list of 10 businesses facing extinction in 10 years.

I will have to do some thinking of other things that seem to be going away. I will add them to these posts as future edits. If you have any to add, leave them here as a comment!

(Others I thought of)

• Personal correspondence by mail
• Air popcorn popper.
• (Update) Polaroid
• (Update) Actual Yellow Pages?
• (Update) Newspaper Classifieds

So I am wearing a shirt today with broad horizontal stripes. They alternate between a dark color and a light color.

I am also on my 4th cup of coffee.

I spilled a little on my shirt.

The stain HAD to fall on one of the light colored areas.

Normally that wouldn’t bother me… but again, I am on my 4th cup of coffee.

One of the biggest battles I fight, on the sites I manage, is educating those who contribute content on “image use rights”.

More than once, I have had to talk to someone who has used an image they found on Google Images.

The simple reminder is this:

Just because an image is on the Web, does not mean it is in the public domain.

Many of these sites are fairly high profile, so it is possible that we could get caught.

I must admit that I have done that on my personal blog, and that type of use is somewhat sketchy. I try to avoid it, but the Creative Commons license provides some great opportunities. Here is a blog post that goes into detail on using images on your blog:(excerpt)

Use Flickr’s Creative Commons search to find photos. You can then include these photos in your blog, and mention the Creative Commons license as well as the original photographer to give proper credit. (If you have a Creative Commons license for your blog as well, you can additionally use photos with a share-alike license, so it’s a good idea to add CC to your blog.) Wikipedia lists some other free-to-share images resources.

However, I have (way too often) seen this done for corporate promotion purposes.

Websites like istockphoto.com provide a fairly wide array of images for only $1 – $2 for web ready versions.

If an image isn’t worth shelling out a couple bucks for, it probably isn’t worth placing on your website.

Worse than that was when I have seen content on our sites that has done a direct image link to an image stored on someone else’s server. Not only does that “steal” bandwidth and images from someone else, but it also gives someone control over your content.

More than once I have seen someone place an image on their site with a direct link, only to be caught by the image owner and have it replaced by an anti-theft message, or something obscene.

All that said, if $2 is too much for you to shell out for your web site’s stock images, here is a collection of free stock image collections (all legal)

I am a big, somewhat tough guy. There are not a ton of things that can get me blubbering. I appreciate a good love song, or a song about eternity. Worship music can move me to a place like no other.

But, the one theme in music that can get me blubbering like a baby is a song about daughters. As the father of three, there is a new emotion there that I really can’t explain.

This evening, after we put the 3 down, we had the local country station on. This song came on and it wasn’t long before we started bawling.

Another video that worked on me recently was “How to Say Goodbye” by Michael W. Smith. It didn’t help that the girl at the beginning looks slightly like my oldest.

I pray that they always make me cry.

Sorry about the apparent “link-fest”, without much to say.

I guess I am using the Blog concept for its original intention this week.

Here is a great article on priming a blog for receiving activity in the comments area:

The following took place between 1am and 2am:

Here is a cool image.

The tallest building from each of the 50 states.

All placed together.

I read, this weekend, that Marcel Marceau passed away.

I am speechless.

Emerging Technology: that’s what I do. I at least that’s what they call it at work. The more I consider the name, the more I realize the planned obsolescence in the title. Once the “Emerging Technology” is embraced, it is no longer “Emerging”.

Fortunately there will always be something new on the horizon, but it is easy to get wrapped up in today’s “emerging technology” to the point where you are still wrapped up in it when it is no longer emerging.

Around today’s media environment, lots of terms are thrown around. Terms like:

• Blog
• Podcast
• Portal
• SMS
• Mobile Web
• Web 2.0
• Tags
• Social Networking

These are all exciting terms that each represent exciting activities. However (push come to shove), most media consumers don’t give a lick about the terms, and many are scared off by them.

The responsibility of the content creator or distributor is to show the consumer what type of impact many of these terms can make in their lives.

It’s not “Podcasting.” It’s having audio and video delivered automatically to your computer.

It’s not “Blogging.”  It’s a digital journal.

It’s not “Receiving SMS.” It’s having news delivered to your hip.

It’s not “Facebook.com.” it’s catching up with those pals you haven’t seen since highschool.

Many of these items require less “Geekyness” than anything in Web history, but the concepts are still being led by (and named by) the “geekdom” to the point that their appeal to the mainstream can be hurt.

Media consumption is continuing to change. But “Mainstream” is still the “Mainstream”.

The new teaser poster!

And… it comes out on my birthday weekend!

and!! if you need to see some video footage, check out this link!