Category: Weekend Web
WEEKEND WEB: Virtual Easter Egg Hunt Roundup
Happy Easter! After searching for a while this morning, I present to you today a…
Virtual Easter Egg Hunt Roundup
Amongst the many lame online Easter Egg hunts that I found, three stood out as inventive, technology-filled, and even somewhat fun to play with:
- GigaPan Troy Hill Easter Egg Hunt - Use the GigaPan technology to zoom and pan your way through a picture to find all of the Easter Eggs (and other random items) hidden within.
- Wieden + Kennedy London PhotoSynth Easter Egg Hunt - Microsoft’s PhotoSynth technology was most notably used to unite thousands of photos taken at President Barack Obama’s inauguration but now W+K has used it to create a virtual Easter Egg hunt throughout their reception area. If you’re on a Mac, use this link instead.
- Interactive Video Easter Egg Hunt on YouTube – I’m not a huge fan of interactive YouTube videos, mostly because it takes forever to load each subsequent video clip on my computer, but if it works for you, this Easter Egg hunt is worth checking out. Here it is embedded for your convenience:
Got any other cool virtual Easter Egg hunts? Comment!
TweetWEEKEND WEB: Welcome to Zombocom
You can do anything at Zombocom. Anything at all. The only limit is yourself…
Welcome to Zombocom
Some time around the year 2000, I stumbled across a completely pointless and yet oddly-intriguing Web site referred to as Zombocom. It is completely useless though worth a visit every now and then, just to hear the mysterious voice repeatedly telling you how Zombocom is the place where anything is possible. Make sure your speakers are on.
Now, a search turns up some more information about this Web site that has been around since 1999…
From aboutus.org:
The site is believed by some to be a parody of much of the advertising of the dot-com boom, as it seems to hype up an interesting service but does not offer one. However, its creator, Josh Levine of 15footstick.com, intended it to be nothing more than a piece of absurdist comedy.
As for the site’s name, Levine has explained it thusly in an email from 2001:
well as it turns out zombo is an african word, a region in angola and an african surname amongst other things. i chose the name based on a different definition however. a friend of mine used the word, “zombo” to refer to a male zombie (a zombie being female) which is what she learned in her english class. she also learned from this same teacher that bartender is used for the male gender and bartendee the female.
i thought that this little apparent misconception was so cool that i decided to make a song about zombo:
everyone knows he is zombo / no no he’s not zoro / zoro leaves a mark that’s a z / but zombo doesn’t leave anything / zoro needs a mask just to see / but zombo doesn’t need anything…
and when it came time to name the web site the name zombo just sort of popped up.
In the same email Levine mentioned that he does not intend to change the site from its current form.
It’s a strange explanation about how the site came to be, but it doesn’t really matter. The infinite is possible at Zombocom.
And it looks like the infinite is possible on Twitter now as well.
TweetWEEKEND WEB: Tour the Planet with Earth Album
Flickr is an excellent resource for browsing unique photos from all over the world, but sometimes it’s tough to find ones about a specific region with a keyword search alone. Through a handy mash-up, there is now an interface to…
Tour the Planet with Earth Album
Earth Album presents users with a map of the world, powered by Google Maps, and pops up a row of photos based on wherever the user clicks. For the above map, I clicked somewhere on Florida and a bunch of colorful pictures taken all over my home state appeared, including one excellent shot from Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando. Zooming further in on any city causes the pictures to become more specific to each area.
It’s incredible how many photos there are from just about any area of the world. Earth Album serves as a fantastic way to take a trip to cities you’ve never even heard of and easily see what those places look like through the eyes of photographers.
TweetWEEKEND WEB: Two Helpful Design Aids – siteInspire and flipping typical
Every designer needs a little help once in a while. I’m not sure what to call writer’s block for designers, but whatever it’s called, it happens from time to time. Today I’ve stumbled across what seem to be…
Two Helpful Design Aids
siteInspire
Inevitably, when I design a new Web site, there are some (many?) similarities to every other Web site I have ever designed. Sometimes I look for other sites to base my new layout on, but I try not to copy other designers’ work if at all possible.
Enter siteInspire, a site that categorizes existing Web sites by style, type, and theme with the purpose of enabling Web designers to find other sites on which to base a design. Sites featured on siteInspire have been submitted by their designers, so they’re meant to be used as inspiration for new designs and thus there are no worries about copying without permission.
Being able to narrow down designs by category greatly helps in finding a design that is appealing. Looking for a new blog design? There are 85 on siteInspire to choose from. Want to design with muted colors? There are 19 options for that too. Very handy.
flipping typical
When working on an offline project, selecting the right font is often crucial to a successful design. But with hundreds of fonts installed, it can be very tedious to repeatedly search through them all to find the perfect one.
Enter flipping typical, a unique Web site that actually has very little online content. Instead, the site simply consists of the words “flipping typical” written in every font on your system. Each instance of the words can be clicked on to enlarge the type at the top of the screen for a better view. It’s a quick and easy way to find that one font you were looking for. I’m definitely bookmarking this one.
Do you have a favorite helpful online design Web site? Comment!
TweetWEEKEND WEB: Listen to Any Song at justhearit.com, For Now
I never get too attached to any particular Web site, as it can easily disappear without notice at any time. I’m especially aware of this when it comes to sites like the one I am spotlighting here. As long as this site sticks around you can…
Listen to Any Song at justhearit.com
That’s right – ANY song. By typing in a song title, artist, or album at justhearit.com, a ton of search results will come up from all over the ‘net and each is full playable right there on the site. Most results are music files that Just Hear It is pulling from various other Web sites, but it also searches YouTube for matching videos.
I tested the service by searching for “Drain You” (by Nirvana), “Higher Ground” (specifically looking for the Red Hot Chili Peppers version), “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” (the Walt Disney World attraction version) “Grim Grinning Ghosts” (from The Haunted Mansion attraction at the Magic Kingdom), and “Within You Without You” (by The Beatles). Sure enough, Just Hear It found every single song and each one was exactly the version I was looking for. In addition, several live and demo performances of “Drain You” were pulled up and “Higher Ground” also turned up the Stevie Wonder version. In fact, all of the searches resulted in multiple versions of each song.
The site is 100% Flash-based, so it runs a little slow on older computers, but it definitely does what it claims to. It also claims to be legal, which I’m not so sure about. Their “About” page says they are paying the license fees from performing-rights organizations which allows them to legally play the songs.
However, it is very easy to figure out how to download and keep many of songs. For instance, simply visiting the “Activity” window in Apple’s Safari browser while playing any song on Just Hear It makes each song file’s source becomes visible – and none of the songs are hosted on justhearit.com. In fact, many of the songs are being pulled from random Web sites, potentially using their bandwidth without their permission (though I can’t say for sure that Just Hear It hasn’t written to all of them for permission). One example is the top result for “Grim Grinning Ghosts” was an MP3 being streamed from soundofmagic.com, a popular Disney audio site.
So for now, you can enjoy hearing just about any song at Just Hear It – at least, while it lasts.
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