You haven't heard of StumbleUpon?

It still amazes me to hear that people haven't heard of StumbleUpon. Even with the proliferation of Twitter, Facebook, and personal blogs (even though I was late to join that bandwagon), StumbleUpon has surprisingly stayed on the down low. Yes, it's normally one of those little symbols included in the flood of social icons you see everywhere, so I can see how it's overlooked, but it still amazes me to hear that people don't know what StumbleUpon is and all it's glory.

StumbleUpon allows you to do just that, stumble... on the web (A). Some of the most inspirational things I have come across online haven't been passed to me by teachers or co-workers, rather this simple little browser add-on button (B). All you do is sign up and press the button. The result, a random website.





Sure, we all want to see baby animals with adorably misspelled caption bubbles, or pictures of "Epic Fails" but Stumble can be a little more powerful than that. Specify your interests (C), anything from Graphic Design to Forensics, to Skydiving, then Stumble. This results in web content more relevant to what you actually want to see.

So, if you don't already have it, I strongly encourage you to get it. Whether you're searching for a source of inspiration or are just bored out of your mind, StumbleUpon is a perfect way to spend (waste) some time.



[Now for my shameless plug] You can start by "Stumbling" this page (D). It'll take you to a link to give me a "Thumbs Up." When this is done, it adds that page to the StumbleUpon database. This allows other Stumblers to find more web content thus growing StumbleUpon and making it a richer online application. Plus you can help promote your blogs and web pages... Give it a try!

Amazing iTunes Add-Ons

This isn't so much a design related post, but if you're like me, music is something that strongly supplements creativity and inspiration. I recently made the switch from PC to Mac so these kinds of things might be old news, but I'd like to share none-the-less. Take a look at some of these iTunes add-ons... maybe you'll find something useful too. Oh, and they're all free.

1. iConcertCal

This one just blew me away. I never have really come across one amazing source for finding out both new cd releases and concerts around me until I came across iConcertCal. What makes it so impressive is that it looks at the artists in your iTunes library and automatically fills a calendar in your iTunes visualizer (View > Visualizer > iConcertCal).

The visualizer then shows you both CD releases and any concerts near you. All you do is set a city and a radius in miles (A). It's simply amazing: iConcertCal

2. AutoRate

I am one of those people who keeps an extremely clean and organized iTunes library. Call it obsessive compulsive or whatever, but every song must be spelled correct, capitalized, classified, labeled, etc. and yes rated.

Sometimes my ratings are pretty biased but AutoRate takes your metadata and automatically rates your songs based on how you listen to them.

It takes data such as play count, skip count, and how often you listen to a song. I tried it out and it is incredibly accurate. It also gives you the ability to customize how it rates (B) and there's also more advanced settings too. It makes creating playlists much easier (and better!): AutoRate



Here's another handy hack that I recently read about. To enable half-star ratings on a Mac (C), close iTunes, open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and type "defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE" and hit enter. Reopen iTunes and click between the stars... sweet! If you decide later that you don't want them, use "FALSE" instead of "TRUE".

3. Last.fm

I'm brand new to this and I'm liking it more and more everyday. Last.fm automatically keeps records of your listening habits and recommends bands that aren't in your library but are similar to those that are. It also supplies some detailed information about the bands as you listen to music from your iTunes (D). It's pretty cool... I'm finding more features in it everyday: Last.fm



That's it.... hopefully you're as excited about these things as I am.