As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?


You are here: Home / Archives for Web and Technology / Software

The Random Link button

by

Hey did you notice the Random link button in the sidebar yet?

If you click on the button it will open one of the sites in my blogroll in a new tab or window. Isn’t that just the greatest thing?

Please let me know if you come across a site that’s not working or that is offensive. I haven’t gone through my full blogroll lately so I’m not sure that all of the sites are working. Hopefully they are and you can discover some new sites.

Also, if you use WordPress and if you’d like to get a random link button of your own just visit Owen the creator of the Random Link button. It’s easy to set up.






Have you ever wished you could track your teens movements by GPS?

by

Have you ever thought about GPS tracking and how handy it would be to equip your vehicle with a GPS tracking unit? I’m sure many a parent has thought of how nice it would be able to use a teen tracking system when their child is late coming home.

Are they ok? Did they get in an accident? The road conditions are bad, could they be in a ditch some where, where it would be hard to find them? All parents have those thoughts from time to time don’t they?

livewiregps.gif When GPS first came out, and even as recently as last year it was much too expensive for the average home owner to have installed in their cars. The cost of the unit and monthly service fees were just too high. Now there are user friendly systems for under $500. GPS systems like the LiveWire by lightningGPS, see photo, make tracking affordable to small businesses and families alike. You can even see how the livewire LightningGPS works by watching this short demo.

If I were a business owner with a small fleet of cars or trucks I’d most definitely consider using the Livewire GPS tracking system and I can see how easily it could be used to track a teenage driver as well.

Would you ever consider using a GPS tracking system on your vehicle? I’d love to hear your reasons why or why you wouldn’t use one.

My reasons for thinking this is a great idea, especially for tracking a teenage driver are simple. 14% of all deaths due to motor vehicle accidents involve teenage drivers, plus these driving deaths occur on weekends at least 53% of the time. 1/3 of these accidents were related to speeding.

Just think, if you were able to track the driving movements and driving habits of your teenager you could sit down and talk with them about their activities and perhaps prevent a fatal accident from occurring. It’s all about saving lives and keeping teenagers safe as far as I’m concerned.

Also, as I mentioned earlier. Suppose you set a midnight curfew for your teenager. They went out with friends and now it’s two in the morning and they still aren’t home. Worried? Well, you could just use the real-time location of a mobile unit system that comes with the livewire GPS to see if the car is moving and to see where it is. If it’s moving you can even track what speed it’s traveling at. If the cars not moving you can see if it’s in a remote location and possibly send help directly to the vehicle if you are worried that your child might have been involved in an accident.

You can of course also use this system if you discover that your cars been stolen. Did you know that approximately 1.7 million vehicles were stolen last year in the U.S. yet arrests were made in less than 15% of these thefts. Having a GPS system in your vehicle might not only help you assist the police with recovering your vehicle, but it might also help catch the thief.

I bet your insurance company might even appreciate it if you had a GPS system in your car. Perhaps they’d lower your insurance rates. Now wouldn’t that be nice.

Obviously I can think of hundreds of reasons why having a GPS system in your car would be a fantastic idea. I’d love to hear your ideas on the subject.

A better way to share and manage photos

by

I’ve just come cross a site that is a combination of a photo management and storage website as well as a social network. The site is called Pixamo and it’s located at www.pixamo.com. The site sounds like it’s not only a great way to manage your photos but also a way to connect with friends, and meet people who share common interests.


Membership with Pixamo is free at this time, although they might create paid accounts at some point in the future.

What I like about the site is that if offers complete control over your photographs- who sees them – only you?, friends? or everyone?

Oh and their tagging system. Pixamo strongly encourages it’s members to tag photos with keywords that describe the photo, in that way, photos are grouped together by their tags rather than having folder upon folder of photos that may or may not go together.

For example. If I upload a number of photos – some of Toronto’s lovely beach, some of the flowers and plants in my garden and others that were of my family, if I tagged them appropriately I’d be able to simply click on the keyword flower, or garden and every photo that I’ve tagged with the keyword photo or garden would come up for me to view. I really like using a simple method like this to find and sort my photographs.

If you’ve marked your photos for public viewing other members of Pixamo can find both you and your photos when they search the site. You might make new friends when you discover others with common interests such as gardening.

So, if you are like me and have a lot of photographs stored on your computer, why not upload them onto Pixamo and share some of them with others who might be interested in seeing your photos?

Meta