Filed Under: Cereal Code

Don’t know much about UX and UI, but this photographic infographic by Ed Lea visually shows how a web application works in a language we all understand—cereal! 

Filed Under: Scoop Poop for Free Wi-Fi

Some dog owners just can’t be bothered to pick up after doggie’s doo doo—but what if something were offered in exchange…perhaps…free Wi-fi? That exchange of services if just what Mexican web portal Terra is doing in Mexico City parks to incentivize dogwalkers to put away their smartphones for a minute and deal with real…shit.  Ten parks will be equipped with special poop-weighing, Wi-Fi dispensing boxes that provide free internet access for everyone in the park based on the weight. More of a publicity and education effort than a long-term service, Terra shows that even shitty ideas can become good marketing. 

Love listening to music on YouTube? Hate the clunky interface and totally unrelated ”related videos”? Never fear, internet music addicts, Tubalr is here! Your friendly web app DJ, Tubalr allows you to effortlessly listen to a band’s or artist’s top YouTube videos without the ads/spam videos/inefficiency that YouTube can bring. Just type a band’s or artist’s name into the search box and select only or similar, and Tubalr will instantly serve up an excellently selected playlist of YouTube videos in its own sleek site. Perfect for parties and discovering music!

Recently, Mashable compiled a surprising top ten list of the most-tweeted moments of all-time. Why now? In case you’ve been living under an analog rock, Tim Tebow’s 80-yard overtime touchdown pass Sunday night propelled him to #2 on the Twitter’s most popular moments ever. His athletic feat was equally as impressive as the online reaction—even above Babyonce! And Steve Jobs! And #1? Looks like Japan has a proactive Twitter population. Based on how many Tweets per second (TPS, duh) an event sets off in the Twitter-verse, we can glean some interesting insights into what people think is worthy of actually tweeting about—and this list had more than a few that left me scratching my head.

1. Castle in the Sky airs in Japan (25,088 tweets per second on Dec. 9, 2011

2. Tim Tebow’s overtime touchdown pass (9,420 tweets per second on Jan. 8, 2012)

3. Beyonce reveals her pregnancy at MTV Video Music Awards (8,868 tweets per second on Aug. 28, 2011)

4. Troy Davis executed (7,671 TPS on Sept. 20, 2011)

5 & 6. FIFA Women’s World Cup (7,196 and 7,166 TPS on July 17, 2011), for both the end of the final match between the U.S. and Japan as well as the Paraguay vs. Brazil game, respectively.

7. Steve Jobs resigns (7,064 TPS on Aug. 25, 2011)

8. New Year’s Day in Japan (6,939 TPS on Jan. 1, 2011)

9. BET Awards (6,436 TPS on June 27, 2011)

10. UEFA Champions League, Barcelona defeats Manchester (6,303 TPS on May 28, 2011)

11. Steve Jobs passes away (6,049 TPS on Oct. 6, 2011)

12. NBA Finals (5,531 TPS on June 13, 2011)

13. Japanese earthquake and tsunami (5,530 TPS on March 11, 2011)

14. East Coast earthquake (5,449 TPS on Aug. 23, 2011

15. Raid on Osama bin Laden (5,106 TPS on May 2, 2011)

.com? So passé. The Dot Com Boom came and went, now it’s time for the Dot Anything…Anarchy? Whatever we call it, the domain-name space will soon be limited only by humans’ creativity and wit. So when can I register.abbyisawesome? Well, from January to April 2012, with new domain names going online later in the year. 

The Wall Street Journal reports,

The organization that regulates the world’s Internet domain names Monday approved changes that will allow companies and individuals to potentially register any name they like in almost any language as a Web address, a step that could change the way users navigate the Web. Under the new rules, those who register names can use suffixes beyond the traditional .com or .net—or simply have a one-word Internet address. 

The purpose of this change? Companies can solidify their brand presence, banks and others can augment their online security, and entrepreneurs could potentially sell second-level domains. 

A top-level domain name of up to 63 characters of just about any string of letters can be registered, Icann said. For instance, someone could turn “asknotwhatyourcountrycandoforyouaskwhatyoucandoforyourcountry” into a domain, with no suffix. Applicants will need to spend $185,000 upfront just to apply for such a unique name, however, though traditional addresses would still cost a small fraction of that.

But you do have to earn it—a committee will approve based on business model and plans for the domain. So, fortunately there will be some order to this potential messiness.  .awesome!