• Idée Labs
  Some really extraordinary ways to search images using colour, tags… even other images.
  (tags: image search online flickr color tagging)

At the very end of a post about professional public speaking (more about Tod’s public-speaking series of posts soon – they’re fantastic, and this one is actually hilarious), Tod Maffin offers a piece of advice that just about every Mac user should take to heart:

Mac machines by default make a chirping sound each time you hit a volume key. You can turn that off by going to System Preferences, then Sound, then uncheck “Play feedbackwhen volume is changed.” Really, the last thing you need is a speaker-destroying chirp that glues your audience to the ceiling. Lousy client relations.

It sounds pretty distracting and unprofessional in a client meeting, too. Or in the middle of a podcast recording (I’ve heard plenty of those). I’ve just made the settings change – I encourage you to go do the same if you’re the kind of person who takes their MacBook out in public.

A quick tip if you want to check out something nifty: this map at the Vision Vancouver election site.

 

It’s easy for supporters to add their names, and the way they pop in and out is engaging and kind of cute.

The site was built by our friends at Communicopia, and the map comes from them geniuses at Biro Creative. Kudos.

• ReadWriteWeb Jobwire – The latest hires in Tech and New Media industries
  If you're one of those folks who like to/need to track where the movers and shakers are heading in the wide world o' tech, this site's going to be invaluable to you.
  (tags: rww news web2.0 people)

Take it from someone who’s been there.

That feeling you have right now that your entire country is about to make a giant, catastrophic mistake and you just can’t get anyone to listen..?

…You get used to it.

We’ve been kept pretty busy at Social Signal (I’m not complaining, not for a minute, and not because I don’t have a spare minute to use for complaining, although I don’t, and even if I did I’d have used it up in this parenthetical comment) so blogging on my personal site has been pretty sparse this month.

But I’ve been assiduously bookmarking sites in Delicious, secure in the knowledge that they would appear as daily posts on my blog. That’s thanks for the automated blog posting feature Delicious offers – a feature that’s been just invaluable in letting me feel as though I was still delivering something of value to You, The Reader.

Assuming, of course, that it had been working, and hadn’t broken in, say, early September.

Heh, heh… boy, that would have sucked, huh?

Uh-oh.

When Delicious did its big major upgrade thing, it apparently broke the automagic blogging for a lot of people. (For this guy, it was in August. Only the coding gods know why mine kept working until September.) So there are some pretty big gaps in my posting this fall.

I think I’ve got it fixed (turns out I needed to re-enter my username and password, and change the mysterious “blog number” from “0″ to “1″).

What have you missed? After the jump:

Read on…

• Second Life entrepreneurs have a friend in Canada Post
  They're offering a package of resources for anyone who wants to launch e-commerce within SL – including a build for an actual, erm, virtual store.
  (tags: secondlife canada_post rgm)
• Chatelaine.com: Chatelaine Walking Club
  Chatelaine's entry into the world of branded online communities. I was tipped to it by the ad on the wrapper of our morning paper last week, which also included a little fitness guidebook and discount coupons – now THAT'S a promotion budget.
  (tags: online_community chatelaine rogers fitness branding rgm)
• The 10 worst ads of the season
  Politico's take on the bottom of the barrel for the 2008 U.S. elections. Me, I think one or two of McCain-Palin's latest deserve a spot there.
  (tags: politics 2008 election usa advertising video list)

If any good can come out of this ugly, sad fiasco, it’s if people start reflecting a little more before they jump into the fray. From Hilzoy:

To the people who jumped on the bandwagon: think about the responsibilities that come with having an audience. When a story like this hits, you can try to convince people to withhold judgment until the facts are in, or you can lose your head along with everyone else.

He was speaking broadly, but given the powerful urge us social media types feel to get out there right away and start sounding off, that’s a message bloggers should take to heart.