Wubble -- The Word Unscrambling Game

For all of you parents who are looking for a thought provoking game for yourself or for your kids check out "Wubble". Wubble is an anagram word scramble game created by Garth Humphreys of Gizmoko Games. Garth is a Graphics Designer and Web Developer. His areas of focus are Drupal and Flash.

Wubble challenges the gamer with a series of words to unscramble. Wubble is available for easy download and installation via the app store on your iPhone or by visiting the iTunes App Store.

Web Design for Pimps Book Overview

An Overview of the Web Academy's Wordpress and GIMP class and an overview of the book "Web Design for Pimps"

The Social Refrigerator

10 years ago (in the year 2000) while working for the Netscape/Sun Microsystems alliance, I was doing some research on the future of IP addresses. IP addresses are unique numbers assigned to devices on a computer network to allow for communications between those devices. Most computers use version 4 of IP addressing which allows for approximately 4.3 billion (4.3 x 10 ⁹) unique IP addresses. With the proliferation of mobile devices and other internet accessible devices, IP address exhaustion was/is predicted to occur in the next few years. Version 6 of IP addressing was constructed in 1998 and it currently can accommodate more than 3 x 10 ³⁸ IP addresses. That is 3 followed by 38 zeros or three thousand trillion trillion trillion IP addresses.

With a number that large, we can assign unique IP addresses to almost anything.

Because of version 6 of IP addressing, every device in your home could have a unique IP address. Currently, your home computer, wireless printer and smart phone are probably the only 3 devices in your home with IP addresses. In the future, your TV, your DVD player, your refrigerator, your washer, your dryer, your fitness equipment, your A/C, your alarm system, your wrist watch, your running shoes will all have IP addresses and will be social.

As people spend less time watching television and more time on the internet and more proportional time on social media sites, advertisers will fight harder to attract your attention. Making consumer devices more social is the next progression.

Your new social electronic devices and home appliances will look and function just as they did in the previous generation accept they will have a social component. After purchasing your device/appliance you will have the ability to opt into its social features. Upon starting you would give the device/appliance your wireless network information and your social media information (ex: Facebook ID, Twitter ID).

Social Refrigerator:
Imagine your refrigerator having internal cameras and knowing when it is full or empty and automatically sending images of its contents to your social media sites. This information would be huge for top consumable brands such as Kraft or Pepsi.

Social Washer/Dryer:
Image your washer/dryer tweeting every time you do your laundry. “Eric just placed a large load clothes on heavy cycle in his Maytag washer”. This would be extra advertising for these brands.

Social Fitness Equipment:
Every guy likes to brag about how much they can do in the weight room. “Eric just benched pressed 160 lbs 25 times in 15 minutes”. And this would not be “bragging” because the equipment is tweeting about my accomplishments.

We are in a new age of openness and connectivity and these are just a few of the foreseeable possibilities. So, what do you think?

Web Design for Pimps

I’ve been getting a lot of criticism over my choice for my new book title “Web Design for Pimps”. I will attempt to explain my reasoning for selecting such a title.

I am a big fan of the “Dummies” book series. One of the 1st Dummies books that I ever purchased was “HTML for Dummies”. I purchased this book years after being a competent HTML programmer. I loved the book but I hated the title. Why? Because I am not a dummy. I am a guy who happens to want to learn a few new things about HTML. I am a guy who wants to take what I learn and make a few dollars practicing my craft.

So, to the reader of this blog, you are not a dummy. If you are like me, then you are a go-getter, who wants something out of life and will do whatever it takes to accomplish your goals. You work hard and you use resources to the best of your ability. Now, I could have called my book “Web Design for Hard Workers” or “Web Design for People Who Use Resources to the Best of Their Abilities”. Those titles are extremely uninteresting. I wanted a title that would get your attention and remain true to the concepts of the book.

According to wikipedia.com, a pimp is an agent for prostitutes who lives off their earnings… with the pimp using techniques such as psychological intimidation, manipulation and physical force to control the prostitutes he sends out to work. In my world, you, the reader of this blog are the pimp. Web technology is your prostitute. Thus, “Web Design for Pimps” was the title that I selected for the book. In addition to finding technical information on WordPress, HTML and FBML, I will give some basic information on how to earn revenue.

So, if you are offended by this title, I do apologize. When you see it on Amazon or on the shelf at Borders, you can place this book back on the shelf and purchase a Dummies book. For everybody else, let’s figure out how to increase our knowledge and get paid at the same time!

So, what do you think?

The purchase a copy visit Web Design for Pimps - WordPress on Lulu.com

Atoms vs. Bits

In my ongoing quest to rid the world of this horrible thing called paper, I suddenly realized it’s all about atoms and bits. I know, I know… You are thinking “What the heck is EHAM talking about”.

Let’s start with some simple definitions.
Atom: a basic unit of matter which is the building block of everything in the universe.
Bit: also know as a binary digit. Computers use bits to determine the value of data and instructions.
Byte: is 8 bits. 1 English letter or character equals 1 byte.
Atoms are expensive. Assuming that my calculations are correct, there are about 91 billion trillion atoms in 1 sheet of paper.

Feel free to check my math…
A standard sheet of letter sized paper is 8.5 inches by 11 inches which translates to .2159 meters by .2794 meters. According to answerbag.com, the thickness of a standard sheet of letter sized paper is 0.00003 meters which is 111,111 atoms. With that, we calculate the width of the sheet to be 799,628,830 atoms and the length to be 1,034,813,780 atoms.
The dimensions of a sheet of paper in atoms:
Length = 1,034,813,780 atoms
Width = 799,628,830 atoms
Height = 111,111 atoms
As we all know, volume = length * width * height which gives us a total of 91,940,678,300,260,581,191,400 atoms which is 91 billion trillion atoms.
I hope these calculations are correct. It’s been 25 years since my last high school chemistry class and 23 years since my last college chemistry class. A big shout out to Mr. Keeney from Walled Lake Western High School and Dr. Hammer from Michigan State University. I have not talked to these dudes in over 23 years.

Data Stored as Bits on a Hard Drive:
As of May of 2010 a standard 1 terabyte (1 trillion bytes) hard drive weighs about ½ of a pound which is about 36 trillion trillion atoms.

Data Stored as Atoms on Paper:
We can fit about 40 characters on a single line on a sheet of people. We have about 50 lines total on both sides of a sheet of paper thus we can fit about 2000 text characters on a double sided sheet of paper. A piece of paper weights about 1/100 of a pound. 50 sheets of paper weighs about ½ of a pound and is about 36 trillion trillion atoms. 50 sheets of paper can store 100,000 characters which is 100,000 bytes.

If we have 36 trillion trillion atoms to work with then we come to the following conclusions:
50 sheets of paper at 36 trillion trillion atoms equals 100,000 bytes of storage
1 TB hard drive at 36 trillion trillion atoms equals 1 trillion bytes of storage

Storing data as bits is 1 million times more efficient than storing data as atoms in the traditional method (ie paper).

Bits are cheap and become cheaper every 18 months.
Atoms are expensive and are potentially damaging to the environment to harvest.

In a contest of Atoms vs. Bits, there is no contest. Bits win!

What do you think?

Technology Hate

Many of you know that I recently wrote a book titled "Social Media Branding in the Age of Obama". The book is not political and mainly focuses on social media technology that Barack Obama used to get elected. In addition, I started the Web Academy which offers free web design to anyone interested in learning. I recently got a lot of hate based on the success of my book and the Web Academy. I created this 2 minute video which is based some recent hate that I received. This is a spoof and is not intended to speak negatively about political parties.

Enjoy!

EHAM

Facebook "Like" Feature

Facebook has opened up its “Like” feature. Now, you can insert a Like Box into the body of your web. With a Like Box on your web site, you can integrate your Facebook fan page experience and your web site experience. Check out the video.