If any of you guys follow Digg closely, you might have noticed an amusing article to hit the homepage a few days ago called You Might Be Addicted to Digg If. If you’re a keen observer, you might have also noticed this list was hosted on a new startup site called ListZe. This is a fun project I built with a buddy of mine (Parker) to help fill an untapped market of social organization and list management.

Lots of people out there have great ideas of informative or comical information they’d like to toss out as a list and submit to digg or reddit, but they don’t want to setup a whole blog or website, and then get limited static functionality from it. ListZe is a bit different. On this site, anyone can create a list and add items to it. Then other members can come along and add their own items that might have been forgotten originally. This is a great social collaboration tool in itself. Next members can vote items on any list up and down, effectively sorting the list in decreasing order, polarizing the items with the best (usually the funniest) up top, and the worst items on the bottom.

It’s a great site that could prove very useful to a number of people. Here are a few example lists for you to see the kinds of lists we serve:
- Funny Bumper Stickers
- 2008 Presidential Candidates
- Funny Blonde Jokes
- Excuses for Sleeping at Work
- Funny AIM Away Messages
- The Best Movies of 2007
- Amazing but True Facts
- Fun things to do at Walmart
And many more. View the complete list.

Yesterday I closed a large business deal, netting a nice profit. To treat myself, I picked up a new Movado. I’m not the biggest watch connaisseur, however I do appreciate a well made machine, and have started building a small collection. I’m also a firm believer that every man needs at least one nice watch.

I know it’s very traditional, but I didn’t have a Movado, so I figured start with the classic. I picked up a Movado Temo… a brand new line. The reason I chose this one was mainly the unique subtle triangle-design in the band.

(stock photo)

To see my actual watch (with horrible lighting), check out my Flickr set.

Now, you’re probably wondering about the 2nd part of the title, Hairballs. My wonderful girlfriend, Laura, is a huge animal person, and recently started her own blog, which she cleverly entitled Laura’s Hairball. The interface is a work in progress (sorry for the horrible photoshop on the cat), however it’s off to a nice start. She’s planning on using it as a general topic blog, discussing anything from current news to posting random jokes or pictures. Again, it’s still in it’s infancy, however if you swing by and leave her a comment, I’m sure she’d appreciate the feedback (and encourage her to post more frequently)! Good luck Laura!

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Tired of your desktop wallpaper? We can help!

I’m burning through the last few hours of my vacation now, on the plane returning home. It was a great trip ““ seven days in an oceanfront house we rented on St. Croix, an island in the US Virgin Islands. The plane ride is four hours each way however, and because of my inability to be inefficient, I can’t sit around and spend eight hours reading gossip magazines or doing crosswords. After much deliberation, I decided the best way I could spend my time would be to work on gaining backlinks for Desktop Nexus, my recently launched company for desktop wallpapers.

The only problem is airplanes aren’t the best vehicle for wardriving, so no internet. No problem. I’ve decided to promote Desktop Nexus through guest posting. Over the past six or so hours, I’ve designed, outlined, and written lengthy, high quality posts targeted to a few specific industry authority blogs that accept guest posts. Now granted, I’ve never guest posted on any of their blogs, however I’m assuming if they get an email with the post attached, and with as high quality as they are, the blogger would have no reason not to run it. Good, free, unique content is hard to come by these days, haha. At the end of every post, I’ve included a few sentences about me, with a few links to this blog and Desktop Nexus, as is the industry accepted standard for author citations and credit. I figure if I can get 4-5 of the articles to run, that’ll be about 10 high PR, high authority backlinks, with targeted anchor text… plus the traffic I might get from readers clicking on the links themselves. It makes sense. When I’m at home or at the office, I rarely have time to sit down and actually think out good content, as I’m usually programming or working on something seemingly more wholesome. Granted I could have written Digg-bait posts for the Desktop Nexus blog and hoped one of them went popular, however that’s very risky and borderline dirty SEO. Plus, (and more importantly) it also feels nice to help out some of the larger blogs I follow every day, as well as their readers. If any of the thousands of potential readers in these blogs’ audience are genuinely helped or inspired by my posts, then I feel like I’ve done something worthy of this time.

I’m not a morning person. I never have been and I probably never will be, however recently for work I’ve been having to wake up early, and as such, I’ve put together a few tips that help me get by.

• Don’t eat breakfast - Just grab a glass of juice, and eat lunch early if you get hungry. When I eat a full meal in the morning, I feel weighed down and groggy all afternoon.
• Reward yourself - Tell yourself if you go to sleep early, you’ll get up a little earlier and swing by Starbucks, or some kind of reward. Motivate yourself to go to sleep early, as that’s the key.
• Don’t hit that snooze button - I know it’s tempting, and I know “a few more minutes won’t hurt anything,” however you must resist. You set your alarm for that time last night for a reason, and the voice of reason is dulled when you first wake up.
• Take a Shower - I’ve tried taking a shower in the evenings before I go to sleep, and in the mornings when I wake up… and I’ve found taking one in the morning works much better for me. That kick-starts my energy for the day, and without it, I’d never wake up.
• Play music while you’re getting ready - Some might not have this convenience (roommates, etc), however if you turn on the radio or TV while you’re getting ready, it helps get your mind thinking for the day, rather than enjoying it’s grogginess.
• Open your blinds before you go to sleep - What seems to be one of the smallest things makes a huge difference. If you open your blinds before you go to sleep, when your alarm goes off in the morning, the sun beaming in through those slats might just give you enough energy to smile and want to get up.
• Cherish the morning - There’s a certain empowering energy in being up early… the birds chirping, the dew in the air, serene tranquility… cherish it. Walk outside and take a deep breath. Learn to enjoy mornings, not dread them. They really aren’t so bad.

Hopefully these help you as well. Good luck!

Desktop Nexus is a wallpaper site with the vision of stepping over the boundaries of traditional wallpaper sharing… and I will go as far as saying that it is currently one of the most technologically advanced wallpaper galleries in the entire world.

Completely member oriented, anyone can upload wallpapers, then the community votes if they’re a high enough quality to be added to the galleries, or if they should be deleted forever… all driven through the “Pending Additions” categories. Heavily endowed with AJAX and RSS, meta-moderation, voting and tagging, it’s truly fresh in this industry.

For example, if someone uploads a 1024×768 wallpaper, Desktop Nexus will automatically resize and remaster that wallpaper for another visitor who requests it in say, 1600×1200. It then goes a step farther and will show an AJAX script to allow any user to instantly crop (interactive) or stretch the wallpaper to create a widescreen version for anyone who requests it… so essentially one wallpaper of any size is uploaded, and Desktop Nexus will make it available to anyone with any resolution… completely bypassing previous limitations of wallpaper sharing, standard aspect ratio or widescreen.

Now, let’s take a quick visual tour of the coolest parts of Desktop Nexus.

AJAX Wallpaper Uploads, plus the ability to upload ZIP files for Mass Uploads (upload dozens of wallpapers at a time!):

And after the wallpaper is uploaded, it undergoes a voting process where the community decides if it’s quality is good enough to be added to the galleries:

Wallpapers can be tagged with descriptive words to link similar ones together. AJAX technology helps suggest commonly used tags as you type.

Our tag clouds are a great way of quickly seeing what’s popular in each gallery.

Every member (quick, free signup) gets a My Desktop Nexus profile they can tweak and customize, allowing them to share everything from their hobbies to their favorite wallpapers.

I have big dreams for this site, and for nearly a year I’ve poured my heart into it, spending a week on a small detail most users would never even notice. I honestly believe this site could become the next YouTube, as to this day there is no household name for wallpaper sites. There is a dominate site in almost every industry, but wallpapers is 95% scattered small sites. Before when I wanted a wallpaper, I went digging through Google Images, sorting through the low quality and odd size images. Sure, Webshots did pretty well, but I believe they shot themselves in the foot with advertising in their downloadable client. We can do better. I want someone to be sitting in their chair and decide their desktop background is getting old, and for the first thought through their mind to be “Desktop Nexus”.

We’re still tweaking the site and adding new functionality all the time, so stay tuned. I’d also appreciate any feedback you have on Desktop Nexus. Thanks!

Go There -> Desktop Nexus Wallpapers

Last night I finally got to see a movie that has been recommended to me countless times, and I had been wanting to see for a while, Boiler Room. It was absolutely incredible. If you are in sales, or even business at all, definitely check it out. Twice.

That’s right, watch it once for entertainment, then watch it again for personal gain. Boiler Room has some of the best sales pitches and closes I’ve ever seen. The second time watching it, consider it instructional material. The hardest part of this is you have to separate yourself from the immoral side of what’s actually going on in the movie. Don’t get caught up in the characters or plot, but simply watch the techniques of selling.

Watch Giovanni Ribisi (the main character)’s rebuttals to common objections and excuses. Watch him move the conversation in any direction he wants, always aiming for a close. Watch his psychological techniques, saying lines like “I don’t care how much stock you pick up,” rather than saying “I don’t care if you buy stock or not.”

No matter if you’re cold calling clients, following up on hot leads, or talking face to face with a customer who just walked in the front door of your shop, this movie demonstrates some sales techniques, that if mastered, can prove invaluable to your business.

Now, if you don’t have time to watch the full movie, or if you’d rather have a quick recap, here are a few of the highlights I’ve found on YouTube:

This one isn’t selling to a client, but is a great, persuasive speech given by Ben Affleck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvICN8DNMpY

This video is GOLD. A cold call that appeals to virtually every sales technique in the book with brilliant execution. The end gets a little harsh and pushy, more than I’d personally like to go, however it’s still an amazing sales close.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yunGYX2_uBE

Here’s another amusing conversation of Seth analyzing a telemarketer that called him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW-PHukzdgM

Here are some great quotes from the movie:

“Move around, motion creations emotion.” - Very true. When you’re selling your product, don’t be still. You need to be passionate and energetic, excited as if you honestly believe it’s the greatest product in the world. Stand up, walk around, move, get some blood flowing. Your pitch will increase in power exponentially.

“There is no such thing as a no sale call. A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock, or he sells you on a reason he can’t. Either way, a sale is made, the only question is who’s going to close, you or him?” - An absolutely brilliant line that I’ve never heard or thought of before. Your job in sales is to disarm any inhibitions and or excuses the other end might have. Consider each call a battle- either you win or they do. If you lose, at least go down fighting. You’d be surprised how many calls that seem hopeless can turn around in an instant.

“I just want you to test me out.” - This is a great quote for closing a new client. It shows you have confidence in your product, otherwise you wouldn’t say it. It’s an indirect way of saying “if I believe in my product, you can too.”

“… you’d be pretty excited about my next idea, right? Of course you would, you’d be out there handing out my business cards, wouldn’t you?” - This line was particularly interesting for me. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it’s a cool line to add to your book, and pull out at the right time. Often times during a sales call you come around to asking hypothetical questions about how good the outcome of them buying your product would be. An example of this in use, “If my widget increases your productivity by 500%, you’d be happy wouldn’t you? (I suppose so.) Of course you would! You’d be handing out my business cards wouldn’t you?” This is a great line for reinforcing their positive image of your product, while easing the mood a bit and still maintaining a level of professionalism.

Boiler Room, despite it’s immoral plot, is one of my favorite movies to date. Check it out.

Ratings for the new James Bond: Casino Royale are through the roof. Every review site on the internet is hailing it as the best Bond movie yet. I love James Bond, but I HATED Casino Royale.

This post has a bit of spoilers (not too bad though), so if you haven’t seen it yet… don’t. And if you have seen it, don’t see it again.

They killed every aspect of James that made him, well, Bond. When I think James Bond, I think girls, cars, gadgets, and a charming smoothness that make guys watching want to be exactly like him. Let’s analyze these in order. First girls… I’m not going to talk about this one in too much detail for fear of my girlfriend slapping me, but they casted ONE girl in the whole movie that attempted to tackle this bullet point. The second aspect of James Bond is cars. Granted he drove an Aston Martin DB9 Sport, which is a gorgeous car, and in one scene he jumps into the car in hot pursuit of the bad guy, and you expect a wild, explosive, Bond-like car chase. However to my dismay, that scene only lasts 20 seconds and the car is absolutely destroyed. Kinda sad for a car enthusiast. Next in line is gadgets. In Casino Royale there quite simply are no gadgets. There’s a cell phone with GPS and a GPS tracking bug… that’s about it. Impressive. Finally is Bond’s famous charm. In Casino Royale, he simply doesn’t have any. He’s egotistical and arrogant. He couldn’t care less about other people, and is completely sappy near the end. At one part my friend turned to me and asked “Is this James Bond, or a chick-flick?”

And another thing, Daniel Craig does not look the part of a smooth super-spy. Throughout the entire movie, that kept nagging at me in the back of my mind… he doesn’t look the part. Absolutely horrible casting.

This movie has tried to reinvent James Bond, but they’ve destroyed him. If they had not slapped the “James Bond” brand on it, and instead made a completely different movie, with a new name… it wouldn’t have been half bad. However they instead tried to expand on an existing image, and they ruined what was a good series. It almost seems like they made a separate movie, realized it was slightly similar, so they went back and changed a few parts so they could call it James Bond.

One example of how they’ve destroyed James Bond, was a scene where they asked him if he wanted his martini shaken or stirred… to which he replied “Do I look like I give a damn?”. I’m sorry… but James Bond would NEVER say that. He’s always polite, charming, and smooth…. not rough and a jerk, like he came off in this movie. I could go on ranting, but I think I’ve said enough. If you’re a James Bond fan, and you enjoyed this movie, can you PLEASE enlighten me as to why? Because as of now, I think that was the absolute worst James Bond movie I’ve ever seen… and I’d even go as far as saying it’s one of my least favorite movies overall.

Quite sad, really.

I picked up the DVD for Jarhead the other day, and throughly enjoyed it. There were a few parts that were a bit extreme, but overall it was a very intense, well made movie. It makes anyone who watches it NEVER want to be a Marine (as long as you’re sane), heh. Jake Gyllenhaal is a fairly unknown actor (to me at least) who does an absolutely phenomenal performance, especially when paired with Jamie Foxx. I’d be curious to hear from an actual Marine how accurate this movie is, but from my perspective, it looks very realistic (or at least the studio did a good job with it).

And on that note, some links.
- IMDB: Jarhead
- Official Jarhead Movie Site

I don’t think I’ve done any plugs on this blog before, but I have to say, I’ve never been so impressed with a keyword service before, as I am with Wordze. Levi (boogybonbon.com) dedicates countless hours night and day to building this service up, always messaging me to check out his latest additions and newest features. It’s a service that truly listens to customer requests, and acts on them.

But beyond customer support, the quality of the system he has in place is extraordinary. You can query a single keyword, and in a fraction of a second get back a hundred thousand highly-relevant keywords. And with the API it’s easy to tap into your current operations… then using it’s flexible search options… you can always find the exact keyword lists and keyword research (!!!) you’re looking for. Comparing Wordze and his competitors is like comparing apples to oranges. Sure, the other services have been around longer, but there is no doubt in my mind that the outstanding quality and flexibility of Wordze, Levi will easily surpass them in the future.

Check them out: Wordze Homepage - Wordze Tour