MSN has a handy feature for finding out gas prices. Simply enter your zip code and a list of pump prices are listed. This is similar to Gas Buddy, if you’ve ever seen that site. From what I read in the newspaper over the weekend, Gas Buddy relies on users to report the gas prices as they change. MSN tracks prices based on what people are spending at each gas station. So, even though Gas Buddy might be slick, MSN’s just might be more accurate. Either way, they’re both handy little applications. Enjoy!

MSN Gas Price search (click here)

Gas Buddy (click here)

*Thanks Bryan!

Several “watch t.v. online” sites have been popping up around the internet, but most are not legitimate. Hulu has been in private beta for a while now, I was one of the lucky ones to get to test it out, and let me tell you it’s slick. I watched several episodes of my old favorite T.V. show “The A-Team” during my beta testing. The presentation is great, and the video load time is good, but probably depends on your internet speed. To give you an idea of the stations that have signed on with Hulu – here’s the massive list:

FOX, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. Television Group, as well as Access Hollywood, AST Dew Tour, BNET, Bravo, Broadway Video, CenterStaging, Chic.tv, Chiller, CHOW, CNET, Comedy Time, E! Entertainment Television, ExerciseTV, FEARnet, Ford Models, Fox Atomic, Fox Movie Channel, Fox Reality, Fox Searchlight, Fox Sports, Fox TV Studios, Fuel TV, FX Networks, G4TV, Gamespot, Gamespy, Hidden Universe, IGN, Image Entertainment, Lionsgate, LX.TV, MEN7, Mojo, Movieola, My Network TV, National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Digital Shorts, NBA, NBC Sports, NBCU TV, NHL, Oxygen, Paley Media, Red Bull, Reveille, Salient Media, SciFi Channel, Shout! Factory, Sleuth Channel, SpaceRip, Speed, Sundance Channel, Taste TV, The Fight Network, The Golf Channel, The Onion, The Style Network, Thought Equity, TV Guide, TVG, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Twentieth Century Fox Television, Twentieth Television, Universal Pictures, USA Network, Versus, Vuguru, WatchMojo, Wine Library TV and World Wrestling Entertainment®.

This is definitely a break through in television online. Makes me wonder if everyone will be watching t.v. online in the future, and home televisions will be giant computer monitors… hmmm!

Check it out: Hulu.com

I meant to post this a while back, but haven’t had the chance. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock (like I have been), here’s a good video to hear about Googles new open source phone technology.

I’ll definitely give this a whirl.  Can’t wait to see what they’ve done with it.   I’m new to Thunderbird, and am really loving it.   I receive maybe 1 spam a day, as opposed to 30-40 day, as I was receiving on my Mac Mail.    Click here for more info on the Firefox 3 test day.

If you have one ethernet hook up, and a bunch of people that also want to use the internet, follow these tips on this Cnet Video: Make your laptop a hot spot. Vista, OSX and XP.

“Under sunny skies, Google.org chief Larry Brilliant drove a white plug-in Prius emblazoned with the Google colors into a parking bay whose roof is covered with solar panels, part of the company’s 1.6 megawatt solar installation – the nation’s largest. He got out of the car and grabbed one of the retractable power cords hanging from the roof and plugged in the Prius to applause from the Googlers and guests.” Read more.

MonroeTalks.com – I still remember walking away from the Publishers office with my head spinning.. she had an idea to create a community website for Monroe County, and suggested we launch it in the next 6 months. With a lot of research, an amazing team of managers and employees – we were able to make it happen.

MonroeTalks offers registered users a place to discuss anything and everything about Monroe County, or, whatever they’d like. Users can also create their own photo gallery as well as post events to the calendar. The topics of discussions are still displayed on monroenews.com, in the top right sidebar.

How was it built? I started looking around at other community websites in the beginning of research, and stumbled upon the wonderful world of Drupal. Drupal is an open source (free) software that allows users to build a community website. We specifically really studied ModestoFamous, a community site built soley on the Drupal platform.

For the photos we first decided to use another open source software, Gallery2. The problem the developer was having was merging the two systems together, he was having a tough time with it, and the gallery just didn’t look as good as we imagined. A month before launch, we switched to another open source photo gallery software called Coppermine, which has proved to be much more flexible for the developer to work with and a lot more user friendly for users.

The forums are utilizing Simple Machine Forums, which are much more robust than most forum systems out there.. also open source!

We weren’t really thrilled with the calendar system that Drupal had to offer, and were really struggling with a solution. A few weeks before launch, I was reading an article that our Publisher had passed along to me, about Pittsburgh Live. I checked the site out and found they were using a calendar system called Helios. Helios, for a single licence costs $149, which isn’t bad for the amount of options it offers, including a reverse publishing feature already built in.

What’s next? I think we’ll find out what users have to say. The response to the site so far has been good. The first day we received well over 3000 unique visitors. If you have any ideas for future development, please submit some ideas – we look forward to hearing from you!

A big thanks goes out to everyone that helped make this project a success! We really put John (codemonkey) through the ringer on this project, and he’s still with us, so that’s a good thing.

Check it out, and let us know what you think! MonroeTalks.com

Business 2.0 magazine is suggesting Pleo, the robotic dinosaur to be the next hottest holiday toy. This thing is pretty amazing, it has a built in camera so it can see where it’s going, it is sensitive to touch and will be selling for a measly $300! Just, whatever you do, don’t get him wet!

MyPunchBowl.com – Planning a party? This is a pretty slick site for creating your party plans and inviting people all with a very simple interface. Site integrates Google Maps as well as a comment posting section for party guests to alert you whether they’ll be attending or not. Now I have a reason to throw a party – so I can try this site out!

If your a geek like me, you’ve probably already seen everything that was at last weeks Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. All of the big tech bloggers were on site, recording videos of some of the most amazing concept and newly released gadgets of 2007. CNET has just released the Best in Show Awards on their site. To see more of the CES – on a down to earth level, check out Jonathan Coulton’s (Code Monkey) blog for a few great videos of exciting new gadgets.

1-800Free411 - Away from a phone? Find all the free phone numbers you need right here. Has this website heard of Google?!!

TheFoundBin.com – Lose something? Check out this lost and found website using Google Map technology. I lost my bottle opener key chain somewhere between Monroe and Grand Rapids, wonder if I should post that.

Travel Gadgets! The cell phone projector is interesting – cell phones need to advance a little further first though.

FootNote.com – Access millions of original documents – most never seen on the web before.
I checked this out, some of the content is free, most you have to pay for. Some very rare stuff on here, I was browsing through old Civil War photos. Interesting.

Cell Start: Start your car from your cell phone. Of course, you need to install an automatic car starter, but after that you can send a message from anywhere to start your vehicle. No longer do you have to be in a specific range to remotely start your car. WOW.

Well folks, here it is. The long awaited, new and improved Apple iPhone. If you remember, Apple released a phone a year or so ago, that was a complete flop. I think this one, if it does all it says it can do, will definitely out-do the previous.
The iPhone has a list of amazing features. Not only is it a telephone, but it also serves as an mp3 player, a web browser (wi-fi enabled), touch screen display, video playback.. the list goes on and on. The iPhone will cost between $499 and $599 depending on the hard drive size. I bet this price will come down substantially with a 2 year contract. My only concern is that the carrier is Cingular. I haven’t heard too many good things in the past about Cingular’s coverage.. but now I’m curious. Anyone with a Cingular phone care to enlighten me on the coverage? Well, I look forward to seeing this come out. If the price is right, and the phone does what their saying it can do – I might just own one of these soon!