I like this quote from fast company.

"The question on the table is whether big data--that is, the accumulation and manipulation of massive quantities of information--will change our world, or whether it's just another overhyped technology with a too-good-to-be-true story line."

I had been hosting all my websites with a particular hosting company that were know to be particularly focused on Drupal. I must have been with them for about 4 years. I survived their terrible start up phase, the slow servers, the outages, the full sql table errors that were thrown to my visitors. I lost money in sales due to these errors but I stayed on, partly because I believed they would improve, party because they were affordable, and partly because I hated the thought of moving 20+ sites to another host (I now host with bluehost). I even signed up other clients to their services.

You already know pinterest is hot like butter on a buffalo. You also know instagram and twitter love consuming mobile phone photos like a lawn mower eats grass. And who knows what is going to happen with Oggl from hipstamatic. The challenge for most of us is how to intelligently create a pinterest / photo experience on our ecommerce sites without heavy custom development that requires ongoing maintenance. Enter, Olapic.

Olapic does a few cool things but essentially you can import and display photos from around the interwebs using hashtags and similar. If your panicking about how to control what appears on your site you needn't, there is full control over what goes up and what doesn't. Curated people, curated.

What would Olapic be cool for?
You can have customer product photos appear on your product detail pages.
Run hashtag photo competitions and have sexy looking pinterest style pages showcasing all the entries to the competition.

In Olapic's words they you can collect, curate and display photos from facebook, instagram, twitter and more.

I'm not one for predicting the future but I do think that after today's launch of Blackberry 10 that they are back in the game.

Amazing recovery, although time will tell if I am right.

Been a little busy lately which removes the ability for me to scratch my blog itch. Lots of projects coming out the blender that need attention. Like crying little digital tamagotchi pets everything needs my attention.

Things taking mindshare:
Using asana
eBooks, and what if you wrote one
Productivity apps
desk.com mobile app
'drafts' iOS app
Drupal Commerce
Ubercart multicurrency
Bikes

Nothing to see here essentially, yet.

I just upgraded two machines to Mountain Lion. The first being a Mac Mini mid 2011 with no problems. The second being an aluminium Macbook. The Macbook audio was dead once installed, all I got was a cross out audio option when trying to increase or decrease the volume. In System Preferences the only thing that showed was headphones and even they didn't work.

I am sure Apple are working on the fix but for now you can do this:

• Open Activity Monitor found in Applications -> Utilities folder.
• Click on the CPU button at the bottom of the Activity Monitor window. The one to the left of System Memory.
• At the top change the drop down that says 'My Processes' to 'All Processes'
• In the search box next to that type this in, or part of it at least. Even typing 'core' will find it.
• Search for coreaudiod
• Select it and then click 'Quit Process'

You might find it doesn't quit. I clicked quit and force quit. Either way once you have done this you should find your audio is back.

I always believe there can be no shortage of places to advertise your business. The big thing these days is getting your business rankings lifted in the search engines. It is harder and harder to find places to list your business without paying money. I always liked the idea of having a free online business directory so if you have a business and want it listed to increase awareness and get some link love then list it for free on www.myCanadaBusiness.com

myCanada Business is a free business directory where businesses can promote and advertise their services and products.

In this day and age SEO is the chasis to the car, it's the foundations to the building and the soles on the shoe. It should come first and the website you are building or redesigning should draw it's structure from it.

It is still difficult for some businesses to understand why SEO is so important. You don't know the business your missing by not having a properly optimized site.

You can't build a new house until the foundations are laid. So with SEO you need to start with keyword research and analysis to understand how the site should be structured. It doesn't hurt to have a content plan but allow your content plan to adapt to the results of your SEO research.

Search Engine Optimization analysis will tell you what your potential clients are looking for which in turn allows you to target them accordingly with effective landing page and copy writing.

I am putting together the top 10 Drupal Websites list. Why? There seem to have been a whole bunch of really nice sites launched in the last 6-12 months so this is the opportunity for people to vote for, or add their favourite. We get to all see Drupal websites we may not have seen. And we get to give some link love.

Add your favourite(s) below in the Comments.

I still like the development seed sites

http://developmentseed.org/
http://openatrium.com/

Simple design - effective usability and nice content placement. They don't look Drupal.

The Whitehouse Drupal site is also quote nice.

Add your favourite Drupal sites and lets get compiling a Top 10.

It's difficult to get an iPhone 4 at the moment. Either it is a new Apple strategy to keep everyone going back to the store everyday to queue in the hope of being successful, or they really are just dysfunctional at allocating and building units as needs expect.

Interestingly no one seems to be talking about iPhone stock shortages in Canada. In Vancouver, the Pacific Centre store has a queue out the store and out to the street daily. The sign up process is fairly slow so it must take them hours to finally get a phone, and I feel sorry for the poor buggers at the back of the line who get told to go home.

What is frustrating is that the store staff are none-the-wiser as to when stock is expected. This seems a little lame.

So if you know where there are stocks and supplies of the iPhone 4 in Vancouver or Canada let us know will you.