Wow, some people have some serious hacking skills. That, and a lot of time. This guy built his own interface that allows him to connect the Guitar Hero controller for the Playstation up to his Commodore 64 on which he plays a Guitar Hero clone he calls Shredz64.
That’s very geeky… and cool!
Get more information at Toni Westbrook’s website and here is more about his Shredz64.
Colorado Springs, Colorado - Zarra Studios LLC announced today the release of iWeb Buddy. iWeb Buddy is a post processor application for iWeb that is designed to bring additional functionality to iWeb that professionals and “pro-sumers” have come to need on their web sites.
iWeb Buddy allows you to have multiple domain files with iWeb so that you can keep your sites separated into their own files. iWeb Buddy also post processes web pages created in iWeb; allowing the user to add Google Analytics, Social Bookmarking, Haloscan comments and custom HTML code to your website automatically.
In addition, iWeb Buddy remembers your settings, account numbers, etc. making it easy to update your website whenever you make a change in iWeb.
With iWeb Buddy, a user can “monetize” their websites that they have created in iWeb by being able to track the traffic on their sites, add custom html code for shopping carts and more.
Explains Marcus Zarra, owner of Zarra Studios, “iWeb is a great website design application. It is geared for the consumer but it is so close to being truly viable for professionals to use but it is missing a few key features - iWeb Buddy brings those features to iWeb.”
Features:
* Use multiple “domain” files with iWeb
* Add Google Analytics to your website
* Redirect your RSS feeds to sites like Feedburner
* Fix the RSS links on your iWeb blog pages
* Add Social Bookmarking to your blog posts
* Add Haloscan comments to your pages/blog posts
* Add Custom code to your web pages (WITHOUT IFRAMES)
* Add Mint site tracking to your webpages
Pricing and Availability
iWeb Buddy is available today for $25.00 USD for a single user license. A family license is also available for $35.00 USD. A demonstration copy is fully functional for the first 30 days and can downloaded from Zarra Studios website.
Congratulations on this release, Marcus and Zarra Studios!
So this is pretty cool. My friend Kip says that it would make me look like a dork if I showed up with one of these at an open mike night, however, I don’t think I’ve ever been to an open mike night where *everyone* didn’t look like a dork. It’s a cool piece of gear. And by the way, I’ve never done and don’t plan on doing an open-mike night, no matter what Kip says.
If you’re not familiar with Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, you should take a look at his book or at least read the about page on his site to understand this post. In a nutshell from Chris’s site:
The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.
In an attempt to explain what Twitter is to those who are not familiar, I’ve said that it is the long tail of celebrity. Ok, so that is probably pretty dumb since now I also have to also explain what the long tail is. I probably need to keep searching for a better definition, but when I say that it’s the long tail of celebrity, I simply mean that everyone who uses Twitter can be a celebrity…
to a certain extent.
Once you have followers on Twitter, you could be considered a celebrity of sorts. You’re not one of the big names, the hits, but you could certainly be considered a niche–especially in the case where your followers are only friends or family.
Thanks to Marcus I have started to follow some independent software developers for the Mac on Twitter and find many of their tweets (Twitter posts/updates) to be interesting. There’s lots of noise too, but you can quickly filter through that. What I’ve learned from following these guys is just the sheer amount of time these guys seem to spend coding. I know that’s what it takes to be successful as an indie, but it’s just fascinating to me to watch these guys update what’s new in their development processes.
To me, guys like Wil Shipley, creator of the award winning Delicious Library and Daniel Jalkut, developer of MarsEdit are celebrities of sorts. I don’t know Wil or Daniel personally and they don’t know me from Adam, but Twitter has enabled me to see what’s going on with the most recent developments in the latest version of each of the applications they develop and maintain. It’s highly interesting to me.
I see them as successful at doing that which I would personally like to do as well. I’m not star struck by these guys as tends to be the case when people are fascinated with Hollywood celebs, however, there is certainly an element of admiration as they are the real deal in independent Mac OS X development. They actually have applications available for purchase and are living the dream.
If my theory is right, then everyone can be a celebrity by using Twitter. Just don’t go taking yourself too seriously, throwing public tantrums, and getting caught driving drunk like the regular celebrities do every time your followers number rises. Remember, you’re still in the long tail–you’re a niche, not a hit.
You can catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/perlmunger. It’s not terribly interesting, but if you follow me, I’ll be your celebrity.