The Carver's House

I've always wanted to go into some kind of business but, unfortunately, business savvy is something I sorely lack in. I'm the kind of guy who'll readily give discounts to most any friend or family member (if not for free), unless of course I get the biting feeling that some kind of abuse is going on. But I still dream of having my own business, something not directly related to making comics. I've entertained ideas for food cart businesses. While there are a lot of cheap franchises out there in which I can get my feet wet, I still have hesitations over running something that isn't an idea I can fall in love with. Unless, of course, I fall in love with the basic need to earn more money and experience. Business ideas are a dime a dozen, and a lot of them are deceptively simple. King of Balls comes to mind, with their oh-s0-deliciously-sweet red gulaman, the closest to a cheap and addicting sugar bomb I'll ever get. But here are a few of business ideas I've run...

Junnifer: "Uyyy!! Meron na akong iPad!" Zoorlah: "Anong iPad? iPOD, 'ka mo! Nagpapaka-American twang ka pa diyan!" Junnifer: "Hindi nga! iPad ang pinakabagong ni-launch sa pataasan ng ihi ng mga tech companies. iPAD, gawa ng Epol!" The feature-rich color-screen iPad, which conveniently looks like a widened iPod Touch, has a suggested retail price of $499 for the 16GB model, thus trouncing the $489.00 Kindle DX and most other tablets and e-readers in the market. It looks really, really enticing. I can hear little I- want-one's coming in from all over the globe. Time was when you either had a PC or an Apple, a PC smartphone or an iPhone. But with the iPad... you either choose to have it or nothing at all. At least until someone attempts to lock horns with it. As for me, "iPass." To view the mouth-watering video, visit the Apple website .

From Yahoo! News: "...a Taiwanese-American strategy consultant who goes by the Web handle "jozjozjoz," thought it was funny that the camera had difficulties figuring out when her family had their eyes open. So she posted a photo of the blink warning on her blog under the title, "Racist Camera! No, I did not blink... I'm just Asian!" " And something simple I cooked up (click image to enlarge). Read the entire news article here.

With the e-book market growing by leaps and bounds in the Western world, it will be a matter of time before we'll be seeing e-book readers in our friendly neighborhood electronics shops. Amazon recently opened up its Kindle device for international markets, while Barnes & Noble entered the fray with its Nook reader. Sony has been churning out improvements for its own devices, while the industry is holding its breath for the 2010 release of Plastic Logic's own "Kindle killer," the Que. Then there's rumors of the Apple tablet which can conceivably blow everyone out of the water. During a photo shoot a couple of months ago, a stylist toted a Kindle, and the device looked like a must-have. She took me through the features and I was excitedly intrigued despite the price. White lights: (from left) Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Nobel's Nook, Sony's e-book reader (images from edopter.com , apcmag.com , and biztoolbelt.com ) Having an e-book reader does ha...

While select few have been making their rounds of Google Wave , here's another potentially time-wasting, but nonetheless cool, app from the Mountain View, CA idea factory. Google Building Maker lets users create three-dimensional renderings of structures found on Google Earth. View the video below then give the app a test run--and try to not be addicted while you're at it.

So I'm creating this blog post using the Beta release of Windows Live Writer , which is a WYSIWYG editor for blogging. What it does is that it downloads that portion of your blog where your posts appear and, using your blog's CSS template, allows you to write and edit your blog entries with greater control over how it will appear, as shown in this screenshot. Notice that the graphic has a drop shadow around it--it's one of the features of Windows Live Writer. There's also a "photo paper" setting, which places a wide white border around the image. Another cool feature of Windows Live Writer is the ability to add: TABLES!               and maps from Microsoft Virtual Earth . Windows Live Writer works with numerous blogging services-- Windows Live Spaces , WordPress , LiveJournal , Typ...