Lifestyle posts

Justin Bieber. His name alone has become synonymous with levels of rage and annoyance previously unheard of amongst internet users worldwide. For every hater, however, Bieber has an army of preteen girls to defend his honor. Born on March 1st, 1994 in Stratford, Ontario, Bieber is now 16 years old. While he’s known for his pre-pubescent, high pitched voice, he is also capable of playing drums, piano, guitar, and trumpet. If you’re reading Techi, I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re not a fan of his work. Nevertheless, his musical aptitude cannot be denied. Now, talent is great and all, but…

Oh, Yahoo, you’re this, you’re that, you’re everything and nothing. What are you up to now? Uh… David Beckham, you say? Then again, I guess the World Cup starts in… Oh, Jesus, three days?! The hell have I been? I guess Yahoo’s not exactly got a bad idea recruiting Beckham. But why? Beckham’s part of Yahoo’s latest effort to… uh… be, I suppose, and will be serving up exclusive World Cup and football content for 2010-2011, pimping Yahoo’s products all the while. The goal (ahem, goooooooooooal) of the campaign is “to drive more people to search, use and talk about Yahoo! through exciting and…

When Twitter finally hit the mainstream press in 2009, you could essentially predict the comments on every fluff piece put out by a magazine or newspaper: Twitter is stupid, it’s “for twits” and “my God, I can’t believe anyone would be so stupid as to use this idiotic service”. As it turned out, those people were, well, completely and utterly wrong; Twitter unarguably has its uses, and has been a boon to millions everywhere. Yet these days, there is a lot of chatter – much of it on Twitter, no less – that new location apps like Foursquare or Foodspotting are stupid, pointless and “my God, I can’t believe…

Productivity, or “getting things done” is the primary goal of the digital generation. Before computers, people actually worked to earn a living – now life moves so quickly simply organizing your to-do list requires the very best tools. Enter Producteev2, a new task management tool just released today that promises a wider and more integrated reach than any of the other myriad utilities available. Free to individuals. The concept is simple: Web apps are all the rage, but their workflows are complex and dynamic. By combining your productivity with the tools you’re already using, such as Facebook,…

Several years ago, we were satisfied with our preferred chat network. We were eager to connect with our friends, family and contacts via instant messaging. Then social networking crept into our lives. Now, we are overzealous in our quest to add as many friends as possible on Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz. Many of us are finding it hard to keep up with our networks, while some of us are reveling in the social chaos. With everyone jumping on the social networking bandwagon, web apps like Threadsy found a niche to pull all of your social threads into one place. Threadsy is a TC50 finalist (Techcrunch’s…

After a slew of loud criticism, Facebook have rolled out new, more understandable privacy controls. At the core of the changes is what Facebook calls a more simple approach to privacy and a universal setting that will control access to data across the platform. Now, change your settings to ‘friends of friends’ and it will apply to all your interactions with Facebook. Also, applications and external websites will now have to ask permission for access to any sort of private data. The only problem? It won’t matter. Your Data Is Like Crack To Facebook Facebook makes the bulk of its money in much the same…

Finally, there’s, like, numbers and stuff to back up what I’ve been saying for a couple years now – old people haven’t a goddamn clue how modern social networking rolls. For all the people whose parents leave ridiculous, long, embarrassing public Facebook wall posts… this one’s for you. The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a report that more or less states the obvious: young folks are the authority on how to manage oneself on social networks. First of all, let me clarify that ‘old’ for the purposes of the study, as well as this article, constitutes anything over 30 years of…

Over the past couple of days, it feels like half the web is chatting about the finale of Lost. But whether you think the surprising ending or the show itself was worthy of all the hype, one thing is clear: people are heading to the internet to talk about it. But giving people a chance to talk about TV isn’t the only way the web helps our affection for the boob tube. Here are 5 ways the internet is making TV better: 1. The Real-Time Water-cooler Okay, hands up: how many of you watched Lost or other popular shows with smartphone in hand, tweeting your reactions? And it was awesome, right? While luddites whine…

Ah, Summer! It’s the time of the year that even the most stereotypical geek who spends his time coding in a basement can’t wait to get out into the warm sun and fresh air. But just because you’re heading out, doesn’t mean it’s time to let go of your precious technology. Far from it: summer is often the best time to make use of all the incredible tech we’re lucky enough to have access to. Here are some essentials for enjoying summer – while still continuing to geek out. eReader/iPad Few things are more summer-y than sitting under the shade of a tree and kicking back reading a book, newspaper or magazine. But…

Back in 2006, Architect John Kormeling was asked to build a modern day pavilion in the Netherlands that would be based solely on the them of ‘Better City, Better Life’. It was a challenge by the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, to generate ideas for livable cities in the 21st century. This amazing design looks like something I used to watch in the cartoon, The Jetsons, back when I was young. John Kormeling would later name this entire pavilion ‘Happy Street’. If you are still confused at what I am talking about, watch this video and it will explain everything. As this idea is gaining world wide recognition,…