A long time ago, I heard about a currency tracking project called Where’s George. The idea is pretty simple, really. Someone in posession of United States paper currency enters the serial number of that currency into the site and then spends it. Eventually, someone else who comes in contact with that bill will enter it into the site and add their own note about where they got it or where it’s going. To speed the process up, someone writes “wheresgeorge.com” on it, prompting the next owner to participate.
How does it work?
1. Go to the site and log in. If you don’t have an account, create one.
2. Select the denomination of the bill ($1, $5, $10, etc.)
3. Select the series the bill is in (2003, 2003A, 2006, etc)
4. Enter the serial number like the one above.
5. Enter your zip code if not already filled in.
6. Enter a note. Most people just state where they got the bill and where they might spend it.
7. (optional) Add a note to the bill asking people to participate (see the example below)
8. Spend it somewhere so others can join in.
I get it, but why?
The best place to find your answers about the site is their FAQ, but I can tell you why I not only participate, but decided to write about it. For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard things like “you don’t know where that’s BEEN”. When I was younger, it was an often response to coin money entering my mouth, and usually followed by me choking on said coin money. As an adult, I’ve heard people speculate on where their bills came from. Several times, friends have wondered if their singles were once nestled in a stripper’s G-string. Well, now I’m just a little closer to finding out. These days, I don’t put money in my mouth anymore, but it’s still nice to happen upon a bill that the site tells me has been across the country a couple times.
Your Challenge
Open up your wallet or purse and pull out all the U.S. or Canadian paper money and enter it into the site. The note should say “Entered in contest at JoeTech.com”. Then come back here and post the tracking URL to the bill into the comments below. Do as many as you like. When I return from BlogWorld next Monday, I’ll pick a random winner, who will get the bill pictured above (which started out in Hawaii, by the way) and $20 via PayPal.
Since the 3G iPhone hit the shelves, Apple has seen a tremendous amount of feedback from popular media, blogs, and consumers alike. While many loved the new device, a lot of us also hated it for various reasons. I have also chimed in with my own thoughts, good and bad, on my new iPhone and the love/hate relationship I have had with it. Apple seems to have listened, recently promising their iPhone 2.1 software update with plenty of fixes and some new features just for good measure. About 15 minutes ago, I got a notification that the update was available. Wanting to avoid the peak of the download rush, I plugged in and updated right away, getting my iPhone to 2.1 pretty quickly. Here’s what the update claims to include:
iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following:
• decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
• significantly improved battery life for most users
• dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
• improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
• faster installation of 3rd party applications
• fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
• improved performance in text messaging
• faster loading and searching of contacts
• improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
• repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
• option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
• Genius playlist creation
The first thing I looked for was better reception, simply because that’s what I find most wrong with my iPhone while in my office. Immediately, I noticed 4 bars and 3G. This is pretty rare for me in my office. While playing in the App Store, I noticed 5 bars. Could this really be? I have had slightly better reception over the last few weeks, with only a couple dropped/missed calls, so it’ll be a little harder to test, but I’m finally confident for the first time about my iPhone purchase.
UPDATE: “improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display” is a big fat FAIL. As soon as I answer a call, it drops back to 2 bars.
So far, I’ve also noticed the increased loading speed of my contacts. The rest will take some time and some playing around, but it’s good to see Apple responding to our concerns.
Now… Apple, How about the SMS system. Can you bring real picture messaging to the iPhone and get rid of this lame system where I have to go to a site with an impossible-to-remember username and password to see my picture message?
Pretty, isn’t it? That’s not all. According to Apple, the new iPod Nano boasts some cool new features, too:
iPod nano rocks like never before. With the new Genius feature, iPod nano makes playlists of songs that go great together. Give it a shake to shuffle your music. Turn it on its side and flip through albums with Cover Flow. All this and more now comes in a stunning, curved all-aluminum and glass design.
This fourth generation iPod is the thinnest yet, has a bigger screen, and comes in 8GB and 16GB models, starting at $149. Not too shabby, but will it convince current iPod owners to fork out the cash for a new model? And what about all those iPod Touch owners? Apple didn’t forget you. Today’s announcement included a new iPod Touch, with up to 32 GB of storage and the new iTunes 8.0, providing the “Genius” technology found on the new iPod Nano.
The iTunes make-over I knew there were some changes worthy of mention when I had to wait an hour for it to sift through my music, applying updates. A little warning would have been nice, but maybe most people don’t have 13,000 tracks to process. Once it finished making me wait, I noticed an immediate difference. The tidy list of tracks I’ve come to expect has gone on vacation, replaced by album covers. This “Grid” view option replaces the “Album” view found in previous versions of iTunes. While it looks neat, it seems counter-productive. This is emphasized when you have a very eclectic taste in music, like I do. In my case, more than half the screen has question marks where the album covers should be.
While it may SEEM counter-productive, there is some silver lining. You can click an album to play that whole album, which isn’t terribly exciting on its own. When you switch from the “Albums” view to “Artists”, “Genres”, or “Composers”, however, clicking an album cover or image will play all the tracks by that artist or composer or in that genre. At the top right, where I almost missed it, is a slider to adjust the size of the album covers. Another nice benefit is the ability to simply grab drag any album cover or genre image to a playlist to add all of its tracks.
What makes a genius?
Genius is Apple’s try at something Pandora is doing currently and I tried some time ago with a web site (I sold it in 2006). The idea is pretty simple. Combine information about relationships between tracks in a person’s playlists with similar information from everyone else to enhance the ability for the software to suggest new relationships. In short, it should give me a list of tracks I might like, based on music I already own. Having created such an algorithm myself, I know how complicated it can be and won’t expect too much from this new feature. That said, I decided to try it out, using the simple instructions provided by iTunes.
To make a Genius playlist, select any song from your library and press the Genius button at the bottom of the window. Genius playlists and recommendations will get even better over time, as more iTunes library information is gathered from you and other Genius users.
After highlighting Love Song by Sara Bareilles, I clicked the little Genius icon at the bottom right of the screen and was disappointed to learn that the Genius hiding in my iTunes had noting to offer “at this time”. I tried a few other songs by other artists with the same results. Once again, I understand why, but it’s unfortunate that I couldn’t really give it a try. I figure a month from now results should start showing up, so I’ll have to wait and see.
Apple’s big party and array of new releases may not squeeze any green out of my wallet, but I’m sure it will boost their sales as usual. Maybe Apple will invite me to their next party to give me a closer look at their new items and features.
Have you moved up to 8.0? Will you open your wallet for the new hardware?
First and foremost, I did not find this out on my own. Credit goes out to tehinternetz on Twitter who mentioned this article. I thought it was pretty cool and just had to share.
This trick is extremely easy and fun to play around with, but the practical uses are limited. Regardless, it can be good for a laugh. All you have to do is visit any web site and then replace the contents of the “location” or “url” bar with the following and hit enter.
After you’ve done this, you’ll be able to edit everything on the page. You can make it say whatever you want. As OpenJason.com suggested, you can fake Google Adsense earnings, put yourself in the top position on Google, etc. Below, I’ve provided a couple snapshots of my few minutes playing around. Click on any image for the full size.
I’ve tested this out in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Chrome. I did all my editing in FireFox and it’s pretty easy, actually. You can click on any text to edit it. Many of the keyboard combinations you would find in Word and other WYSIWYG editors work here. For example, you can highlight text and then press CTRL+B to make it bold or CTRL+U to underline, CTRL+I to italicize, etc. Want to edit an image, just click on it and resize, cut, paste, etc.
I’d love to see your screen shots, so post any you do in the comments.
