Daily Grit by Wes Thorp

That guy next to you at the urinals might be taking a picture of you with his Google glasses

You've probably heard of Google glasses, a wearable computer that resembers a pair of specs.  This New York Times story is a great account about how they can change everyday life.  Wink with the glasses on your head and they take a digital photo.  The reporter talks about standing at a row of urinals where guys were wearing these things.  See what happens.

I'll be watching the Steve Jobs interview on 60 Minutes tomorrow night

Steve Jobs fascinates me. I'm particularly interested in his search for his biological parents. He found both, but never wanted to meet with his bio dad. What about his belief in God. How was it formed and how did it evolve? Anybody buying his biography which is being published on Tuesday?

Re-examining the blogs I read on a regular basis

I have found that the number of blogs that I read on a consistent basis has been dwindling over the past year.  I can't explain it.  Of course, I'm loyal in reading the blogs of my family members, my son, my son-in-law and my daughter-in-law. 

But what about others?  In my Google Reader, I find myself going to the blog of our Wild Birds Unlimited store almost everyday.  And I follow some on the Wall Street Journal  subscription site.

Here locally there are few blogs about mid-Michigan news or Lansing City Hall news.  And the political blogs in our state reek of partisanship and I find most of them have a blah-blah-blah sort of quality.  Church blogs in our area seem non-existent and so that leaves me to look outside the area.

On the homepage of this blog, I have in the right margin a heading for blogs I read.  I'm redoing this and I'll be sliding candidates in and out.  I'll read them for a bit and make a decision on whether they're worth sharing with you.

What blogs do you read on a regular basis?  Do you have any you would like to share?

LINK: Here are easy ways to expand your Google search skills

Most of my baby-boomer friends use Google's search engine and most can find pretty much what they want.  But how can they expand those skills, including finding what they want quick.  Check out this list of neat, easy-to-use tools from Google.  It's worth a look.  Thanks to Refdesk.com for the tip.

There are super-easy tools to find weather for a specific area, stock quotes, time in any area around the world, sports scores, sunrise and sunset anyplace, book search where you can find actual content, recent earthquakes anyplace in the world, people profiles, synonym search and much more.

Check out the "iPad Show" podcast produced in Jackson, MI

Okay, I've got an iPad and I really like it and that's why I was attracted to this story in the Detroit Free Press about this podcast-the iPad Show-about the device that's produced just down the road and has a worldwide following.

The story really demonstrates the power of the web in connecting people with like interests.

These guys produce the show from a bedroom and get thousands of downloads from around the world.  The show is not slick, but seems to be interesting to anybody with an iPad or anybody thinking about buying one.

Have you watched it?  Has it been helpful?  Any other good podcasts worth watching?

 

Check "voice-over" on this video about OExchange expanding web content sharing

My son-Justin Thorp-has talked about web standards ever since he was in high school.  He's had a vision for it and its many different aspects and most recently, it's with standards for sharing web content-OExchange- with all services.  This has power to pass along information.  The product is from Clearspring Technologies where he is the community manager.  The voice over for this video is done by him.  Check it out.

What about your privacy?

How much privacy do you have?  Quite a bit?  A fair amount?  A little?  None?

My son, Justin, in his blog - Oatmeal Stout- brings up the topic in light of the high participation of all age groups on social media like Facebook and Twitter.  He points to a CNN column by Mashable founder Pete Cashmore who writes about a new camera that you wear around your neck and which takes a picture every 30 seconds.  It's a visual log of your daily life that you can put online.

Does getting one interest me?  No.  You?

You need to read this if you or your kids are on Facebook

These statistics about Facebook take my breath away:

• More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)

• 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day

• 8 million users “fan” Fan Pages each day

They are from Brian Solis' blog PR 2.0-The Future of Communication starts here.

These numbers and the others on the post show the huge power of Facebooking.

Any reaction?

Kidnappers hold your personal info hostage

It's unreal that hackers are getting into our personal computers and taking our personal information hostage and holding it for ransom.  How do you protect yourself from getting slimed by these thiefs?  Associated Press provides some details.

Banking online, more popular than going to the bank

I would have never guessed that online banking would surpass banking in person this quickly.  But, according to eMarketer Daily, 53 percent of banking today is done online.  Wow.