New Google Doodle Has Star Trek TOS and a Terrified Red Shirt Ensign

September 7th, 2012 by The Shark Lady No comments »

The new Google Doodle is pretty cool – it features Star Trek: The Original Series. The Google letters are all shaped as the main characters of the show – Kirk, Spock etc, and there’s even a terrified red-shirt ensign, who knows things aren’t going to end well for him.

This interactive doodle allows you to play around the bridge, activate the transporter and go on an alien-fighting mission with Kirk and  that poor, misfortunate ensign. In short – pretty cool work, Google! I really hope to see a TNG doodle of this level, and soon.

Make it so.

Turn Notepad into a basic Logbook – Neat Trick!

May 10th, 2012 by The Shark Lady No comments »

Notepad has been around forever. I use it mostly to clean text that I copy from the web or from Word documents, or as a temporary place to save notes, passwords and pieces of code. If I need to do some serious editing or coding, I use Notepad++.

It turns out you can use Notepad as a basic logbook. And here’s how:

  1. Open Notepad or a new Notepad file.
  2. Type .LOG (use uppercase) in the first line of the file. Press Enter and go to a new line.
  3. Save the file. Close the file.
  4. Re-open the file and watch the magic: Notepad adds the current date and time to the end of the file and places the cursor on the line after, so you can start your entry right away.
  5. Type your comments, save and close the file.
  6. Every time you open the file, the current time and date will be added to the end of the file and the cursor will just wait there for you.

 

Etsy Raised $40 Million Dollars

May 10th, 2012 by The Shark Lady No comments »

Etsy, the online community for selling hand-made art and general goods, is gaining popularity fast. The site has been around for several years, but at first it was considered a niche site, for small businesses and artists, who needed a platform to sell their hand-made goods. Sort of like eBay, but much smaller.

The site has gone through several changes in the last few years. It now offers advanced tools for sellers, that allow them to advertise their shops, there are versions of the site in French and German, and in the mobile spirit – an iPhone app. Last year, Etsy had the biggest holiday sales in its history.

On Wednesday, the company announced it was raising a $40 million Series F round in venture financing. Investors include Index Ventures, Accel Partners and Union Square Ventures among others.

Etsy has 875,000 sellers who are actively selling art and other goods on the site. The site has about 15 million users worldwide.

Is Etsy really worth that much money? Business Insider think it does, and explains why.

Wololo

March 21st, 2012 by The Shark Lady No comments »

Click to see large image

Related and very well done:

Gaming is Up – 56% of Households Own at least One Current Generation Gaming Console

March 10th, 2012 by The Shark Lady No comments »

Gamers have more choices than ever when it comes to satisfying their fun needs. There are consoles, PC games, mobile games, web games and many in-between choices. It seems that the amount of choices isn’t confusing for gamers, but helps in fueling the gaming industry.

According to Nielsen, total gaming time is up 7% in 2011. 56% own at least one current generation gaming console (such as Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) as of January 2012, up from 50% last year. Gamers increasingly play across multiple screens: 24% play on two or more of a console, a PC or a mobile / tablet device, up from 17% in 2009.

Where do gamers play? 65% of consoles are located in the living room. Nintendo Wii leads (75 percent) but Kinect for Microsoft Xbox 360 is helping to shift that platform toward communal spaces.

Not surprisingly, people buy a lot of their games online. E-commerce shopping trips for games are up 3 percent over last year, while other channels experienced declines.