Cooling down with a little something different

Couple of hours to go til I hit the Kensington Roof Gardens - well if I can be bothered to trek across London for a few overpriced beers that is! So, since I have time to kill and little to do, I might as well finish up with something a little different.

As you probably guessed by the ridiculous number of posts today, it's been a day of surfing and blogging, and although it's all in the name of a good cause, I think I've about had as much as I can take of volunteering sites! Anyway, in my trawls across the net while piling up information for analysis, I've come across some pretty cool things, so here's a few worth sharing.

Cool Design

For starters check out the The Cool Hunter Blog. How awesome is this? You'd really have to be oblivious to design to not love this.



Cool Software

And then there's the Space Time browser which has an awesome feature which actually brings up the actual pages from each set of results you search for in 3D. All very futuristic. Takes a little figuring out, so read the one page user guide before playing with it. But it works well and also automatically imports everything from Internet Explorer so personally I like it a lot. Free of course. Check it out at http://www.spacetime.com/



Cool Store

Love graphic design? You'll love Upper Playground. There's a store in London just behind Liberties on Gt Marlborough St. and a couple in California. What I love most about them is how deeply design is buried into the way they operate. The clothes are cool; the bags they give you are cool; the catalogue is cool; and they really market to their audience. A great example of design thinking across the whole spectrum if there ever was one.



Cool Concept

And finally something socially cool. Kiva is a site where you can directly connect with and sponsor small businesses in the developing world and help them move towards economic independence. You get emails and so on from the businesses you sponsor and the idea is they repay your loan over time so you can go on and sponsor someone else. Brilliant idea.



On which positive note, it's time to rock n roll. Hope you're having a good weekend wherever you are. I'm off to make the most of loud music and cold beers!