Age verification tool of the week

Source: The Poke

Creepy, yet awesome: Dumpster Drive lets you share your unwanted digital files with complete strangers.

Dumpster Drive: File Sharing For Your Digital Trash from Justin Blinder on Vimeo.

Mac OS X: Dumpster Drive may be one of the strangest file sharing services you'll ever come across, as it's geared towards sharing files you don't want with people you don't know. What seems bizarre and potentially pointless, however, is actually a really compelling idea in the sense that one man's trash is another man's treasure.

What Does It Do?
Dumpster Drive is a very simple concept. You install the app, choose a location for your dumpster, and add any items you don't want. Within the app, you can empty your dumpster and your digital trash will be added to the community trash pool. Anyone else using Dumpster Drive can dig through that trash pool and download any files. When you do, however, that file now belongs to you and nobody else can download it. The idea is one of transferring file ownership from someone who doesn't want it to someone who may find it useful.

Is It Safe?
This idea, of course, comes along with some security implications. When you download someone else's trash, you don't know what might come along with it. Currently there's no information discussing how Dumpster Drive is dealing with the potential threat of viruses and malware, so you may want to be careful about the trash you choose to download.

Why Would I Use This?
Dumpster Drive is a file sharing service you're probably going to either love or hate. You may find it to be completely useless or oddly compelling. While its appeal may not be immediately obvious, it's an application that's about curiosity and extending the lifespan of the digital things we often see as simply disposable. The internet is filled with places where we indirectly pry into the lives of strangers. Dumpster Drive just takes a more candid approach.

Currently Dumpster Drive is Mac-only, but the source code is available on GitHub so others can use it to make versions for other platforms.

Dumpster Drive

Source: Lifehacker.com (Adam Dachis)

Office manager of the week

Type Table

Font nerd alert! Here’s a three-dimensional way to express your love of letters.

The Fontable, designed by Alessandro Canepa and Andrea Paulicelli is a new concept featuring letters A-Z in lower and uppercase as well as the numbers 0-9. Each table is made from a single sheet of steel in white, black or red. The adjustable legs are anodized aluminum.

Order a single letter or a whole word.

Available at Outdoorz Gallery.






Source: Elvis Design

The Sunday Times ‘Social List’ – like a rich list for geeks - what number are you?

The Sunday Times Social List is a nice idea from The Sunday Times, giving 'the people' their own rich list of sorts. It's visually well done and as is the case with a lot of things like this at the moment, it's the data that paints the picture. Give it a go here.

Business cards for kids

Ogilvy Brazil have created these superb personalised business cards for children at the Red Balloons English school.

Red Balloon, an English School for kids, asked its students what they wanted to be when they grow up.

Based on their answers, Ogilvy Brazil designed personalised Kids Business Cards. "Result: more kids believe in their dreams and more parents believe in the importance of English for their kids' future," say the agency.

RedBalloon Kids Business Cards from digous machado on Vimeo.

Source: Creative Review

Friskies have created iPad games for cats. Screen protectors not included.

Friskies, the cat food brand has introduced a trio of iPad apps made just for the most precious of household felines. Via Cat Fishing, Tasty Treasures Hunt and Party Mix-Up, iPad owners can alternatively swoon and gasp in sheer horror as their cats bring claw after sharpened claw to their iPad screens. It's half cute / half horror-inducing to watch.

Orange Lucky Likes

Really lovely and original social engagement idea from Orange: They've launched a competition inviting users to enter a lucky dip of Facebook Likes. Users connect through Facebook and then randomly choose two anonymous like buttons. The correct choice will be rewarded with prizes, whilst the wrong choice will leave the reader with an undesirable like on their Facebook page, such as “Gillian McKeith and toenails”.

#Winning on Twitter: The Top 10 Promoted Tweets

VW, Papa John's—and Twitter—win by 'keeping it real', using links and launching new products.

VW
Engagement: 52%
Why it worked: Linked to a live unveiling of the New Beetle, teased during Super Bowl.

Google
Engagement: 38%
Why it worked: New tech products resonate, and Google used Twitter to launch Google Instant, NexusOne and Chrome.

Old Spice
Engagement: 36%
Why it worked: Connected paid tweet to existing social campaign. Brought Old Spice guy out of retirement on Twitter.

Ford

Engagement: 34%
Why it worked: Auto category strong on Twitter. Linked to exclusive “spy photos” of the Mustang Boss 302.

Papa John's
Engagement: 34%
Why it worked: Good timing and a social component encouraged users to submit and retweet photos of people receiving a heart-shaped pizza.

Hollywood Records
Engagement: 27%
Why it worked: Another product unveiling, this time a Selena Gomez record release, which name-checked a retail partner (iTunes) and latched onto a popular hashtag.

IamROGUE
Engagement: 26%
Why it worked:: This wasn’t the launch of a show but a key part of building buzz for the build-up, with first images of the new “Wonder Woman” series.

Twitter
Engagement: 25%
Why it worked: Twitter users have a keen interest in, well, Twitter. Here, Twitter uses its own platform to promote its new web client. This tweet earned 5,971 re-tweets.

Xbox
Engagement: 25%
Why it worked:Contests, giveaways and premieres tend to perform on Twitter. Microsoft had already successfully seeded organic conversations for #gears3beta, which became a Trended Topic.

Source: Storify

Fonts as dogs

0 to Awesome in 6.24 seconds

The must-have accessory for every dog - the iBone is here.

Buy it here.

You Can Now Tag Pages in Facebook Photos

Ever had the urgent need to tag the Coke can you’re holding in that Primrose Hill picnic picture on Facebook? Well, now you can, as the social network has added the ability to tag Pages in Facebook photos.

Starting today, users will be able to tag Pages for Brands & Products as well as People (more options coming soon) in their Facebook photos.

Tagged photos will appear in the Photos tab of a Page, rather than on that Page’s Wall, and anyone can tag a Page — even if a user hasn’t “Liked” it. Page admins can also nix photos from the tab by going into Edit Page > Posting Options > and unchecking “Users can add photos.”

For those who concerned about their privacy, Facebook assures us that privacy settings will still apply; if your photos are visible to everyone, everyone will be able to see the tagged snap, and if your photos are set to “only friends,” only friends will be able to check out that pic of you standing in front of the local Rite Aid.

This move could definitely be beneficial to certain brands. Imagine if people started tagging themselves wearing, say, Levi’s jeans. All of those snaps would then go to the Levi’s Facebook Page and result in free advertising.

Will you start tagging brands and celebs in your Facebook pictures?

Source: Mashable

Karen Cinnamon in 'Freelancing Matters' Magazine

Feature in Freelancing Matters magazine, May 2011.

Today's Google Doodle honours 76th Birthday of 'Mr. Men' Author Roger Hargreaves

If you've checked out Google today, you'll notice the cuteness has no bounds with different Google doodles riffing off Mr. Bump, Mr. Men, Mr. Rush, Little Miss Magic, Little Miss Shy and so many others. If you're in the right age range, you'll recognise the images from your childhood as those conjured up by British author and illustrator Roger Hargreaves, whose birthday Google celebrates today with these awesome renditions.

Hargreaves, who died in 1988, would have been 76 today. He is best known for the Mr. Men and Little Miss books, which started with Mr. Tickle in 1971. The books have thus far sold more than 100 million copies in 28 countries.