Top Ten Reasons Programming is Hard
Of course while writing a post about why programming is hard one of the reasons came and bit me right in the behind. You see I originally started writing this list in Coda, my main code editor. About 70% of the way through I stepped aside to grab some more coffee and when I came […]
Reddit owns Digg Top Ten
Reddit is taking up all ten spots on digg.com right now.
The John McCain Language Explained
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. -from 1984 by George Orwell While browsing reddit.com this morning, I came across a link to an op-ed piece in the Washington Times by none other than internet expert John McCain. In the article, John makes a legitimate argument that the internet must remain free and […]
We MUST Go to Mars
Last night I watched the first episode of Cosmos. Having read the book while in high school, I was excited to watch the video of Cosmos, especially as I’ve heard a ton of good things about it. Plus, space absolutely fascinates me. While deciding on possible college majors while in high school, Astrophysics/Astronomy kept bouncing […]
Let’s Share Feeds
Now that NetNewsWire has synced up with Google Reader, I’ve found myself using Google Reader and it’s shared items functionality heavily. Not only do I love sharing items with people I’m connected with on Google Reader and FriendFeed, but I also really love seeing what other people are sharing and liking. For that reason, here’s […]
UnGoals for PodCamp Boston 4
In an article for Directory of Boston about PodCamp Boston 4, I talked a bit about some of the big names leading big talks at #pcb4. Though I’m sure the “A-team” will deliver great presentations and lead engaging discussions, they’re not what I’m most excited about PodCamp 4. Rather, it’s the impromptu discussions that’ll develop […]
Web Apocalypse: Twitter DDoS, Kill IE6, Paid Online News, and Facebook Issues Oh Noes!
Well today and this week is turning out to be quite the day for web-tech related news. Perhaps calling it the web apocalypse is a bit much, but it certainly seems the past month or two has been filled with crisis, huge news stories, and other signs the web is growing ever more powerful and […]
Google Voice Mobile
Looks like Google has started giving out invites to Google Voice for people who signed up for invites. I see that two of my blogging buddies got Google Voice. Jim Gaudet thanked Google for Google Voice and Justin Wright slyly added a Google Voice widget to his sidebar. With the rush of new Google Voice […]
Tweetdeck on the iPhone
Yesterday, Tweetdeck released an update to its desktop AIR Twitter application and also released a free iPhone version of Tweetdeck. After playing around with the iPhone Tweetdeck, it’s giving Tweetie a serious run for my most used iPhone Twitter app. The new desktop release of Tweetdeck comes with a sync feature (as well as multiple […]
My Facebook Vanity URL / Username
As you may have heard, facebook allowed users to pick a username starting at 12:01 AM today. I logged in and tried to get myself a vanity URL ending with “adamp”, but alas it was already gone. I settled on facebook.com/adampieniazek, which at least matches 95% of my other social network usernames. I also grabbed […]
Three Cool Products from Mass Innovation #3
Last night I attended Mass Innovation #3. It took a few minutes for us to find the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation, where the event was held. The directions read a little bit like a treasure map: in the mill building right next to the river, look for the Museum under the smokestack […]
Mass Innovation Tonight | #roofup #bostweetup wrap-ups
Last week I wrote about three networking events going down in Boston last week and this week. Well, there’s one more to add to the list and it’s a great one. Mass Innovation Nights, founded and organized by the super awesome Bobbie Carlton [@bobbiec], is an event in Waltham, MA where local technology companies can […]
42 Great Twitter Users to Follow
No official post today but bounce on over to The 42nd Estate and check out my list of 42 great twitter users to follow for #followfriday. They’re all great people and very worthy of you follows, check them out and let me know your favorite tweeters!
Chill Cone & Constructive Caterpillar say Twitter is Down
Well, I’ve seen the fail whale but the chill cone and constructive caterpillar are new. Down for scheduled maintenance, eh? Would’ve been nice if they just went ahead and took it down yesterday, according to schedule rather than randomly but alas, such is life when fail whales dominate the day.
The Vin Diesel Formula for Whether You Should Proceed with Potentially Dangerous Technology
A few days ago one of my facebook buddies (my profile on facebook) commented about how he was: supporting Skynet by linking Facebook and Twitter. Having earlier taken the “Could you survive a Zombie Invasion?” quiz, I knew we would be safe from zombies as I am apparently all that is man when it comes […]
I’m a Winner!
Yay! Last month I wrote about a huge contest giving out tons of awesome wordpress themes at Blog Oh Blog. Well, I was one of the lucky winners and have chosen the uber-popular and nice Thesis theme. I’m quite pumped as I’d considered purchasing Thesis in the past as it’s a very nice and flexible […]
Use CommentLuv? Show Andy Ur Luv!
I’ve been using Andy Bailey’s fantastic wordpress plugin, CommentLuv here for a couple of months now and love it. The plugin basically allows other bloggers who leave comments to also leave a link to their latest post, or with the new edition of the plugin choose from their ten latest posts. It’s a great idea […]
Apple Gave Me a New iPhone!
Apple’s great customer service comes through! A few days ago my iPhone stopped responding to any and all inputs. Even iTunes would not see the device. Well, Darrin, the Apple genius guy, was able to get my old iPhone working but still exchanged it for a brand new iPhone just because of all the issues […]
This Blog Now iPhone Friendly!
Check it out iPhone visitors, this blog is now super iPhone friendly. This blog appeared 99% fine in Safari on the iPhone before [some videos wouldn’t play due to lack of Flash] but now it’s optimized so the text fits perfectly on the screen. Sure, all the advertisements and other personal theme stuff goes away […]
3 Cool Signs
As I twittered earlier today, I finally bit the bullet and sent Yahoo $25 to upgrade my flickr account to the Pro version. For anyone wondering why my photos section has been sitting at 200 photos for a month or two now, that’s why! You see though flickr is great, their free accounts are limited […]
Come and Get Your Commentluv!
It’s all over the blogosphere already and this blog should have had it months ago but nevertheless I’m still proud to announce the addition of commentluv to this site! That’s right, now when you comment here you’ll automatically receive a (followed) link back to your most recent post! I love my readers and commentators, you […]
20 Mac Applications I Just Deleted
Lately I’ve felt the need to get rid of a lot of clutter in my life, both physical and digital and operate on a more minimalist spectrum. I’ve spent the past few days organizing e-mails, catching up on RSS feeds, and centralizing my files. Let’s take a look at twenty of the Mac applications that […]
We Have an Entrecard Winner!
As you may know, this blog was hosting an Entrecard contest with a grand prize of 1,000 Entrecard credits! Well the contest has come to an end and we have a winner! What’s that, you didn’t know about the contest? Well, if you subscribe to my RSS feed you’ll never miss such an opportunity again! […]
Reminder: Entrecard Contest Ends Soon
I had a few issues on the backend of this blog this morning that have taken all day to get resolved but I wanted to remind everyone about the Entrecard contest that ends in two days. The turnout has been great so far and we’re now up to 968 EC credits that are up for […]
900+ Free Entrecard Credits!
So I’ve been a member of the Entrecard community for a couple of months now and though I’ve gotten a bit extra traffic from the site I don’t think it’s the best use of my time or bandwidth. As such, I’ll be removing the Entrecard card from this blog in the next few days and […]
Back Up and Running
Something happened overnight to my site and it was not accessible this morning. If you tried visiting here this morning and were denied, sorry. The issue seems to be fixed at the moment (knock on wood). I’m not sure if the issue was from wordpress or my theme or something else but I solved it […]
Social Coupon Savings
All over the internet we’re seeing the rise and enduring popularity of social network sites. Digg, myspace, facebook and other social networks are among the most trafficked sites on the web today. Yet, with most social networks you contribute content but receive little to no compensation for your time and effort. Not so with a […]
Worst Ad Ever
It’s times like this when you start wondering if Google Adsense is worth it: [Edit: Image removed but it was an ad for this guy.] Is it the worst ad ever? All I know is I feel dirty now. Damn you contextual advertising, this post was not positive!
Quick Apple Safari Tips
Did you know holding the control, alt/option, or command/apple keys while hovering over links in Apple’s Safari browser on Mac OS X brings up new options? For instance, holding control will bring up a menu (the ‘right click menu’) when you click on a link. Holding the alt/option key while hovering will download the linked […]
Quick Note to My Feed Readers
Welcome to my new subscribers, I see quite a few of you made your way here from my recent Battlestar Galactica Top Ten list. Welcome and feel free to contact me with suggestions, complaints or advice. If you haven’t signed up for my feed, it’s a few seconds away at this link. To all my […]
My Redirects to WWW Work!
Yes! A long time ago (in this galaxy, not one far away), after reading Daniel’s WWW or no-WWW? post I implemented an Apache redirect in my .htaccess file to redirect my non-www address to www.adampieniazek.com/. It worked, but all non-www addresses would redirect to my homepage instead of to each individual page (for instance, adampieniazek.com/about/ […]
eDropper: The Automated Entrecard Dropper
A few weeks ago, I joined the blogger community Entrecard. A few days later my blog set new records for highest traffic in a single day, according to both wordpress stats and awstats. WordPress stats: awstats: Clearly, this Entrecard site had tons of potential to be a huge source of quality traffic to my blog, […]
My Very Own Big Fat RSS Icon
Photoshop is ordinarily a big mystery to me. Not sure if it’s because of a lack of understanding of the program or my limitations as an artist (I can draw a mean stick figure, but that’s about it) but I just don’t find Photoshop very intuitive or easy to use. Well, thanks to darrenlondon’s video […]
Going Down to South Park – Free Episodes Online Now!
Following in the footsteps of Hulu, the creators and copyright holders of the animated cartoon South Park have decided to release all South Park episodes online for free of cost but supported by advertisements. In a huge contrast to content interrupting Hulu ads, the advertisements on South Park Studios appear on the site itself, and […]
Awesome Services from Scribbles and Words
I just found an awesome blog called Scribbles and Words run by the polymathematical Jay. His blog’s design really sticks out for its simplicity and uniqueness. It’s apparent that Jay has tremendous design skills and an ability to write in a captivating yet easy to read way. Jay is offering up these artistic skills to […]
Gmail Thinks Google Alerts is Spam?!?
Picture says it all. How does Gmail classify a Google Alerts e-mail as a spam message?
My Top Five Most Played Artists in iTunes
So I was just taking a look at my iLike’s most played artists chart and thought it’d make for an interesting post. So, without further ado here are my top ten most played artists according to iLike.com (keep in mind, these charts don’t take into account music I play on my iPhone or otherwise). The […]
I Found a Space Laser Beam! AKA Google Sky is Wicked Awesome & Cool.
Google Sky is easily one of the coolest things I’ve seen on the internet. For years, I’ve been fascinated with the stars in the night sky and now there’s a zoomable map of them at my fingertips. Google Sky is wicked cool. Check out this green space laser beam I found:
Hulu Adds Full-Length Movies
I just logged into Hulu today for the first time since the site went public and noticed they’ve add full-length movies to their video collection. This addition is great news, but from my very limited time checking out the movie section, it seems advertisements still pop up during the movie. I understand that advertisements fuel […]
Hulu Goes Public Today!
Just two days after I (finally) reviewed Hulu.com they (finally) decide to open to the public after four and a half months of being in beta. I approved of Hulu then and I still approve of them now. Hopefully, now that they’re open to the public, a larger diversity of advertisements will flow in thus […]
Hulu Review
A while back I got into the Hulu beta program (note: I still have 5 invites, send me an e-mail if you want an invite) but did not really use the site too much at the time. Recently, however, I moved my television out of my room and into the basement. Since then I’ve barely […]
Updates Galore
After catching some suspicious behavior on this blog, I decided it was wise to finally upgrade to the latest release of WordPress during my Saturday afternoon. After backing up my wordpress install and database, I set about disabling my plugins and then deleting old wordpress files. Then, this blog was ready for the new wordpress […]
Sales and Tech Carnivals
I’m participating in two carnivals this week and wanted to share them with you. Over at Technology Matter, the First Carnival of Tech is happening. In addition to my post from last week about the Redzee search engine, there were several other sites with great content. Check out the carnival when you get a chance. […]
RedZee, A Wicked Unique Search Engine
Jeff from Iambetterthanu.com posted a real interesting link to his pownce page today. It’s a link to a new search engine that gives previews of the sites in its search results (I know, not that unique, ask.com and snap.com among many others feature previews). The fact it provides previews of sites isn’t all that unique, […]
Web Quotes and Counterpoints III
We haven’t discussed my buddy Ronald Jenkees in a while, so let’s check out what’s happening on his youtubes. From the Ronald Jenkees himself: My friend accidentally figured out that Oklahoma’s Malcolm Kelly’s freestyle went perfectly with my beat “Remix to a Remix”. So he helped me cue the video up and it’s actually cool. […]
Red Sox Clinch Home-Field Advantage
Though the AL East division was all wrapped up before Saturday night’s Red Sox game (#161 on the season), home-field advantage was still up for grabs. With the Sox win that night, we now are guaranteed home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and end up tied with the Cleveland Indians for the best record in baseball. […]
Not My iPhone
I ran into an iPhone hacker today. My iPhone is at its original settings as voiding the warranty on a $350 device is not fiscally realistic, right now. So, today was my first chance to play with an open iPhone (still locked to AT&T, which is not a BIG deal) and it was awesome! Being […]
Coming Soon: Free Ronald Jenkees CD!
I know I’ve been slacking a bit with this blog; the combination of very nice weather and lack of classes until 2008 have been quite the distraction (must take advantage of it while it lasts)! For those readers who saw I bought an iPhone and have been waiting for my opinion, it’s been one week […]
Good Things (iPhone) Come Cheaper to Those Who Wait
For the past year, my cell phone service has been on a month to month basis, as my contract ran out last August and Verizon Wireless eliminated the plan I was under. Since I didn’t want a cheaper/more expensive plan, I stayed in a month to month plan. Now, one year later, my decision has […]
Something Facebook Doesn’t Know
I logged into my facebook account earlier today and saw this sponsored ad in my news feed: For those who don’t know, State Street is a global custodial bank for institutional investors. In other words, a bank for super-rich groups and people. The confidentially agreement prevents me from citing specific clients, but think hedge funds, […]
The Modern Charismatic Military
War, the business of a military, requires an immense commitment from a leader’s followers in order to result in success. To obtain such a strong commitment, military leaders should and are charismatic. They build trust among their followers to the point of followers trusting their leaders with their very lives. One of my first thoughts […]
3 From Every Tree: My Favorite Blog Project Entries
Last week, I wrote a post about 3 Useful Del.icio.us Tags, Life Quotes, & Traffic Generators, which was part of a blog project contest hosted by Daily Blog Tips. Well, the full list is up and after reading through all 115 entries, it’s obvious there’s a lot of quality bloggers on this list! You can […]
3 Useful Del.icio.us Tags, Life Quotes, & Traffic Generators
Daniel from Daily Blog Tips is running a blog project revolving around the number three, so here are three sets of three useful things: tags, quotes, and traffic generators. 3 Useful Del.icio.us Tags I’m a big fan of del.icio.us and a while ago noticed people were tagging articles with toread for articles and blog posts […]
Start iTunes & Last.fm Simultaneously
Inspired by Paul Stamatiou’s post on a Finder plugin to restart Firefox, I decided to tackle a long standing personal issue with iTunes and last.fm. For those not in the know, last.fm is in essence a music tracking program; any song you play in your iTunes gets sent to the last.fm site, where you can […]
Pingoat’s Important Secret Announcement: Free Quality Blog Traffic
After I published the, Umass Amherst – School of Management 697PP: Perspectives on Leadership, post last night I went to Pingoat (as usual) to ping a ton of sites and inform them of my latest post. Immediately, something caught my eye (I’m wicked observant), this not so usual message was posted at the top: Pingoat […]
Click…Click…Click: How a Virtual (K)Ubuntu Penguin Saved My 50GB Music Collection
Late yesterday afternoon, I was cruising around the internet, listening to some music and doing a few other miscellaneous tasks. I was wicked relaxed and thought it was a good idea to kick my legs up on my desk and rest my laptop on my lap for a few minutes…well I forgot the USB cord […]
The Strategy of No Strategy
Professor Stookey [Principles of Management – Umass Amherst] made a very good comment in the description for this post that Robbins and Coulter rely on "rationality, logic, and order" to describe strategy and how to implement it. In my mind the word strategy implies a logical and ordered plan of action. I feel that growing […]
It Just Works: How Apple’s Planning & Strategy Create Intuitive Interactions for Consumers
Pending any errors or glitches, I’m done with my group project for my Statistics course (10% of the final grade), so now all I have to do is take the Statistics Final and I’m done with the Spring semester! To mix things up a bit, tonight I’m posting the last essay for my Fundamentals of […]
A Social Network Revolt: Numbers, Banned on Digg.com
Ironically enough, there’s a social network revolt being staged right now at digg.com, for the exact reasons I highlighted in my previous post. A certain set of numbers are spreading like rapid-fire across the internet. The numbers are an encryption key for HD-DVD that will let individuals watch HD-DVD’s on unsupported hardware and software, for […]
Freedom, Banned in Boston: Mayor “Mumbles” Menino Fumbles with WiFi
By modern standards, I’ll be discussing some old news tonight, but it’s important and a topic I want to throw in my two cents on. A little over a week ago, a Boing Boing reader discovered that the popular group blog was banned on Boston’s WiFi network (for more background on the story, Google “WiFi […]
Integrated Marketing Communications: Amazon.com
The goal of this essay, for the Fundamentals of Marketing class at Umass-Amherst, was to “Explain what it means to have “integrated marketing communications”. Include issues such as how to measure results. Pick a company and describe how you view their use of Integrated Marketing Communications…”. I’ve yet to receive a grade for this paper, […]
Oh Crap: I Deleted the Wrong del.icio.us Account!
As you may have deduced from the title, I had two del.icio.us accounts where I stored my bookmarks online for handy reference and storage. Yesterday, I decided to delete one of the accounts as it was mostly a collection of links I had imported into a new account; well, even though I was very careful […]
Why I Spent $1800 on a Macbook Pro
The assignment for this essay was to write about the consumer decision making process. Choose a product that you bought recently. It must be complex buying behavior. It should not be something that is an ordinary purchase or that you purchase on a regular basis. Describe your purchase as it pertains to each stage of […]
I’m a Browsing Maniac
Ever sit down at your computer to do something wicked productive, say write a blog post, e-mail, or essay, and instead up with a browser window that looks like this? The joke is, Flock [a “social web browser” based on Firefox, with cool stuff like integrated del.icio.us, flickr, and my new favorite, snippets – see […]
Prestigious Education: What is it?
An article on Boston.com, The Triumph of Victor Valley Alums: Or why you shouldn’t sweat it if you don’t get accepted to an Ivy League school, goes into a detailed discussion on why high school seniors shouldn’t worry if they didn’t get into the absolute top tier of schools. Tom Keane, tells high school seniors […]
The Social Benefits of Dynamic Pricing versus the Equity of Price Neutrality
The assignment for this essay was to give my take on dynamic pricing, which is the practice of constantly updating a price to take into account the external and internal enivornment and situation of the buyer and seller (for instance “a soda vending machine that raises the prices as the temperature goes up”), from the […]
Internet, Say Thank You to the Telegraph
So far, the only class I can say I’ve completely uploaded is the Communications class I completed at UNC-Chapel Hill during the Spring 2006 semester. The class analyzed the role technology had on improving modern communications and vice versa. The class starts by discussing the telegraph and how it kick-started the modern communications era by […]