I have been meaning to share restaurant.com with everybody for a long time.  If you love to eat out you need to bookmark this site.  The whole premise of the site is that you can buy $25.00 gift certificates for only $10.00.  You can find restaurants by zip code, state, or popular city.  You will probably not find the big chain restaurants on the site, but you will find your favorite local restaurant.  This has also forced me to try new places and now have some new favorites.  Check out restaurant.com and let me know what you think.  If you every get to the Des Moines, Iowa area you can take advantage of the site by eating great BBQ at Kin Folks Texas BBQ in Altoona.

Restaurant.com Website
http://www.restaurant.com/

Web Of Trust is a a web browsing tool that I came across recently.  This tool installs as an extension on your favorite browser.  WOT will then warn you about risky sites before you click on them.  The nice thing about the tool is if you go to a site directly it will pop up a banner warning you.  You can then select to continue on to the site or you can surf in a different direction.  WOT currently has almost 27 million sites rated and is growing every day.  I was pretty surprised to see that out of the 27 million about 3 million are rated dangerous.  This tool has really saved me a couple of times over the past couple weeks.  So I encourage you to stop on over at their site and check it out.  Stop back by and let me know what you think.

Web Of Trust
http://www.mywot.com/

WOT Forum
http://www.mywot.com/en/forum

With the current 2010 Olympics going on I was curious to see if you could experience a bobsled ride.  It turns out that you can at one of the Olympic parks in the United States.  Lake placid offers a Bobsled experience for only $75.00.  They also have a skeleton experience, but I don’t think I would be brave enough to handle that.  Check out the link below to find out more information if you have ever thought of taking a bobsled ride.

Lake Placid Bobsled Experience Homepage
http://www.whiteface.com/activities/bob.php

Mat Hester and Brian La Mee have started up a new podcast series talking about exercise.  They just released episode one on both of their blogs.  It is really interesting to hear both of their stories and how they have changed their lives.   It was glad to hear that they were not only talking about weight but also putting on lean muscle.  Stop by and have a listen and let me know what you think.

Podcast On Exercise Episode One
http://blogs.technet.com/matthewms/archive/2010/02/09/podcast-episode-1-of-the-triathlete-and-the-fat-guy-our-story.aspx

It is interesting to see new technologies and how they can be used.  CNN has published a video clip with a new camera technology that is pretty amazing.  The clip allows you your to turn the camera anyway you want along with being able to zoom in and out.  The panning and zooming can be done while the video is actually playing.  It will be interesting to see how this technology is used moving forward.  Follow the link below to watch the clip.  Let us know what you think.

CNN Video Clip Of Haiti With New Camera Technology
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/01/world/haiti.360/index.html

It is way to easy to get caught up in an everyday lives and be consumed by the small things life throws at us.  In our culture today we seem to look at things in a negative light instead of a positive light.  I can personally say that I get stuck in these ruts and forget to realize everything great that is happening around me.  When this happens I try to recognize it and find somebody that I can lean on to make me realize that life is truly amazing.  I recently ran across some You Tube videos of Nick Vujicic and was truly amazed by the story in the video.  He was born without limbs but this major difference has not deterred him from his dreams.  He has an amazing personality and a true love for life.  In just five minutes of learning I wanted to know more about this amazing person.  Check out the the video links and site below.  Let me know what you think!

You Tube Video Clips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3LFBqvvW-M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo_24_qTNac&feature=related

Life Without Limbs Site
http://www.lifewithoutlimbs.org

Life Without Limbs Site (Video)
http://www.lifewithoutlimbs.org/media.php

I stumbled across a site tonight that allows you to search Google and Bing side by side.  I am a huge Google fan and currently use them as my default search engine, but I do think Microsoft is stating to catch them.  The below site will let you quickly compare search results between the two engines.  Check it out and let me know what you think about it.

Bing Vs. Google Site
http://www.bing-vs-google.com

The last few posts I have shared talk more about life then they I do about technology related topics.  Sometimes is helps to take a break and read about non technology topics to refresh our minds.  Derek Sivers has an excellent post about Tom Williams.  Even though this post has been around for a while I just stumbled a crossed it.  Derek was able to sit down and learn about Tom Williams story.  There are several parts of the story that amazed me, but the first one what how he was hired by Apple at age fourteen.  That in itself is pretty interesting story, but that is just the beginning.  Tom shares that having relationships with people is very important.  These relationships should be genuine and you should also be working on strengthening them.  One of the quotes from the story is “At the end of the day, all you have is friends.”  This is so true but how many of us really do get to know the people around us?

The other part of the story is just a small part at the end.  John Williams has taken all of his knowledge and has started a very unique project.  The website is called GiveMeaning.com and was formed in December of 2004.  The site focuses on online fund raising emphasizing creative fund raising ideas and other unique charity donations.  The site and project is open to everybody in the community who care to participate.  If you are interested in raising money for your charity you can submit your proposal through the website.  Only proposals accepted by the group can perform fund raising through the site.  The biggest thing I found interesting is that any amount of money can help.  So if you five or five hundred dollars a charity would be very happy to receive your donation.

Please stop by Derek Severs site and read all about Tom Williams.  Also please stop by and check out www.givemeaning.com.  Hopefully you can find or start a charity that you can contribute to.

Derek Sivers Article On Tom Williams
http://sivers.org/tom-williams

GiveMeaning.com Main Site
http://www.givemeaning.com/

I am a big believer in learning about life from other people.  Thankfully I have found some important people to follow and have applied some of their principals.  The ones I have been able to get myself to adopt have been life changing.  Bob Parsons has a list on his website that states his sixteen rules for success.  There are several of them that apply to the technology field.  My favorite one on the list is get and stay out of your comfort zone.  I completely agree with this rule one hundred percent.  I have made the most progress in life when I tried new things.  Almost all of the time I look back and wonder what I was so worried about.  So the second favorite one on his list is always be moving forward.  I also agree with this point one hundred percent.  You should also be trying to make yourself better.  If you stop doing this not only will you not grow but you will start to move backwards over time.  If you get a chance stop over and read all sixteen.  I think you will probably agree with all sixteen points as something you could and should live by.

Bob Parsons Sixteen Rules Of Life And Business
http://www.bobparsons.me/bp_16_rules.php

Black Friday shopping in in the US is only a day or two away.  There are allot of great deals to be had when it comes to electronics.  I am personally looking for some cheap LCD displays for my home office setup.  Staples seems to have the best deal with 21.5″ LCD screens for $90.  Gizmo has a great writeup on all the electronics.  They do great job at pointing out what deals are also not really deals.  The only tip I have is allot of these deals will show up online over the next couple of days.  This allows you not to deal with all the crazy people that will be out and about.

Gizmo’s Black Friday Guide
http://gizmodo.com/5409460/black-friday-deals-the-only-list-you-need

BlackFriday.ORG – All The Ads
http://www.blackfriday.org