ProBlogger is hosting a group writing project/contest for writing Killer Titles for your blog posts. I am participating, and submitted 9 Super-Sexy Betas to Crave Right Now. I’m a huge fan of helping people blog better, and this group writing project is all about people coming up with creative “Killer Titles,” reading other bloggers’ work, discovering new sites, making friends, and having a virtual kumbaya around a campfire. ProBlogger will randomly select a participant, and award them with a $2000 identity design (logo) from logo designer David Airey, but they’ve challenged all of the participants to select their favorites, and post their winners.

This is the Day 2 List of Lists. If you missed it, check out 12 Lists with Killer Titles - Day 1

Tuesday’s Lists

• 5 Simple Steps to Fantastic Fruit Pies by ZestyCook ( Cory)
• 7 Ingredients Of Magnetic Blog by Sunil Pathak
• 46 Simple Ways to Save Cash Now with Green Travel by Elizabeth
• Daily Blog 26: Top 10 Reasons People Don’t Like To Read by Chris Verstraete
• 9 Super-Sexy Betas to Crave Right Now by Shaun McLane
• The 10 Best Olympic Gold Blog Titles for Free by Christoph Merrill
• 5 reasons you should use plain text to save your data by Rarst
• The 114 Most Fuel Efficient Cars From 2005 by Mike
• 120 Proven Ways to Boost Your Brain Power by Luciano Passuello
• 5 Small (But Big) Ways to Beat Depression Every Time by The Daily Minder
• Internet Marketing: 6 Steps for Using Scarcity Tactics with Integrity by Edward Mills
• Top 10 Webcomics for Total Geeks by mrmuggles
• 3 Reasons Why I Refuse to Use Lightroom by Brian Auer
• Banish Blogger Butt in 7 Beneficial Ways by Stephanie Quilao
• 10 reasons why I wouldn’t be without my scissors by Sue
• Top 10 Scrapbooking Articles of All Time by Karen

Check back tomorrow for the next group of participants, and keep in mind, there’s still time to participate. If you think you can write a post with a Killer Title, head over to the group writing project page for more details, and to sign up. If you write a list, you’ll be added here!

ProBlogger is hosting a group writing project/contest for writing Killer Titles for your blog posts. I am participating, and submitted 9 Super-Sexy Betas to Crave Right Now. I’m a huge fan of helping people blog better, and this group writing project is all about people coming up with creative “Killer Titles,” reading other bloggers’ work, discovering new sites, making friends, and having a virtual kumbaya around a campfire. ProBlogger will randomly select a participant, and award them with a $2000 identity design (logo) from logo designer David Airey, but they’ve challenged all of the participants to select their favorites, and post their winners.

The first group of participants was released today, and as I was reading through the titles (some really great ones), I decided to pull all of the lists and post them here in a four-part series. The cool thing about this project is in teaching people how to write “Killer” titles, using a list is always near the top of the….well, you get the point. It should provide you, the reader, with plenty of content to keep you busy for the week. ProBlogger will be announcing the winner (randomly selected) on Friday, so wish me luck!

Monday’s Lists

• 9 Of The Best Ways To Present A Website To A Client by Jacob Cass
• Top 10 Ways To Save Money Building Your New House by Todd
• 5 reasons to be Canadian and definitely forget that you were ever Latino (In Spanish) by Guillermo
• 17 Ways To Increase Advertising Income On Your Website by Rob Malon
• 12 Things to do in Denver Besides the Democratic National Convention by Mary Jo
• 10 Ways To Grow Your Senior Photography Business by Lori Osterberg
• 2 Reasons Why Women Should Vote for Obama by Trisha
• 5 Title-Writing Lessons You Can Learn from Naked Beds by Susan Payton, The Marketing Eggspert
• The top 5 bands that I would erase from history by Roberta
• 5 reliable wineries that can help you learn about wine by Bill Wilson
• 18 sites that pay you for writing by Suzanne Roman
• “F*ck Martha Stewart” 11 Lessons from the Movie “Fight Club” by Joe Lucas

Check back tomorrow for the next group of participants, and keep in mind, there’s still plenty of time to participate. If you think you can write a post with a Killer Title, head over to the group writing project page for more details, and to sign up. If you write a list, you’ll be added here!

One last thing….I’d love to know what you think about these titles. Killer? Lame? Tell us what you think in the comments. We always love hearing your opinion.

Other funny programming quotes and thoughts

Funny programming Tshirts

If you’re a reader of this site, you know I’m a sucker for betas (and if you’re not a reader, feel free to subscribe and become one). I spend a few hours a day searching for new sites, and if they have a beta tag, which most of them do, I’m hooked. These 19 sites are currently on my radar, and I’ll do my best to explain why. You’ll find a mix of open betas, private betas, and even an alpha or two mixed in for fun. By the way, if the title to this post caught your attention, I’ve accomplished my goal. I’m participating in a ProBlogger group writing project, and you should too. Here are the betas!

Buxfer is free online personal finance software for budgeting and expense management. I’ve been using it for about a week, and I’m very impressed. It auto-syncs with your banking info, and auto-categorizes most of the transactions. I’ve tried Mint, and a few others, and I think I’ll be sticking with Buxfer. Keep in mind, it does ask for your banking info, so if you’re not into giving out that type of info, this site’s not for you.

Are you effing kidding me? This site kicks so much ass, but sadly, will probably be gone soon. I have no idea how it’s made it this far, but Mygazines (clever) is a service I’d gladly pay for. They claim they are a free place to browse, share, archive and customize unlimited magazine articles uploaded by you, the Mygazines community. Okay, but what about having every magazine sitting on the news stand right this very second? Cosmo? Yep. Men’s Health? It’s there, as well as hundreds more. You better go there sooner rather than later, because like I said before, I don’t see this one being around too long (although, I hope it stays for good).

WTF? Is that Facebook? Nope, but from what I understand, Fwix was developed from a guy that was part of the Facebook design team (I could be wrong, but I know I read something like that. Google it if you want to find out more). The site claims to show you the most popular activity in your area. It looks amazing, and they just added Orlando tonight, so I’m very excited. Basically, the site aggregates local info from Technorati, craigslist, indeed, newsvine, eventful, and a ton of other sites, to bring you all the local content you could ever want.

Maybe the most anticipated beta in recent months, Tweenky is HOT! It’s still in private beta, but I was lucky enough to get whitelisted today, and I can tell you - it lives up to its hype. Think of Twitter baked into gMail, and you have an idea of the UI for this incredible beta. But Tweenky is like no other Twitter client. It has the normal goods like replies, public timeline, and archives, but standouts out above the crowd with features like identi.ca integration, folders (so cool), saved searches, and a slew of other unique tricks. I have no idea why I was selected, but I’m glad I was. Bookmark this site, and check back daily so you can get involved the day it’s released to the public. By the way, feel free to follow me in Twitter.

There are so many sports sites, and I’ve always thought they lacked the information I was looking for. Now that OpenSports is here, my search for the perfect sports site has ended. If you’re into sports - any sports - this is the one and only site you’ll ever need. After registering for OpenSports, you’re allowed to choose an NFL team and an NCAAF team, and you’ll be spoon fed news about those teams from all over the net. But the fun doesn’t stop there. You can dig into teams standing, schedules, players, player stats, and anything else you need to know. Currently, the sports covered are: Fantasy, NFL, NCAAF, MLB, NBA, NHL, and Olympics.

I haven’t registered for this site yet, but it looks interesting. The site claims they are an open and productive community for sharing feedback, a place to interact with other passionate users like yourself and with the product development teams, and a way to fix, improve and shape
the web apps you love. Sounds good to me. Looking at the homepage, you see it has a list of recent activity, and the reason for the activity - new feature, new bug, etc. I’ll probably sign up for this tonight and will add an update with any new info I find. If you’ve used the site, tell us about it in the comments.

I currently run about 300 websites. Most of them are for my Orlando real estate and pool service businesses, but a few are just for fun. I’m always thinking on new sites, but I usually have to write the domain name down, and search for it later, and hope it’s available. Not anymore. With Domtxt, you just text your domain name idea to IDEANAME, and they’ll send you a text telling you whether it’s available or not. If it is, they also send you a code that you can enter into the site, and it will allow you to purchase the domain name.

MeGlobe is a site that does instant messaging with instant translations. I have a sister that speaks Spanish, making it difficult to speak with her, but with this site, it’s a breeze. I can see this being a huge asset to companies trying to offer global support for their customers. According to their about page, they are a free web client lets you type in your own language, but sends a translated version, in near real time, specific to the native tongue of whomever you are chatting with. The best part is, the service is free!

Zapproved was all over my feed reader yesterday, so I had to check it out. Zapproved has one mission: to invent technology that minimizes organizational and social barriers to decision-making. They allow you to make a proposal, send it out, and watch the process get handled for a smooth agreement. I don’t have a need for this site, but after playing with it for a few minutes, I can tell it will be a huge benefit for office managers, and cube dwellers everywhere.

Yes, FriendFeed has been around for awhile, but today they launched a new beta version, and it makes the original version just seem clunky. FriendFeed aggregates all of your social data into one place, and allows you to see what your other friends are doing in their social neighborhood. FriendFeed picked up some major steam when Twitter was suffering from little birds carrying whales around. FriendFeed poster child Robert Scoble has also had a large part in bringing FriendFeed a little more into the mainstream (although it’s still a very long way from BEING mainstream - and I like it that way, thank you very much). The beta version rids you of your tabs, and juices up your sidebar. You can now group all of your friends, and watch that groups feed. There’s so much noise on FriendFeed that being able to watch groups make the site a million times more usable. If you liked FriendFeed before, you’re going to love it in beta. You can find me on FriendFeed here.

Have I missed anything? Know of any betas that deserve to be on this list? Tell me about them in the comments. I might turn this into a regular feature if I get good feedback, so feel free to tell me if you got anything out of this post.

One more thing, I told you in the beginning that the title to this post was inspired by the ProBlogger group writing project, so if you think you can write a better title for your own post, head over to ProBlogger and sign up for the project. There’s a cash prize involved, but I think there’s a lot more to be gained from this project than the cash.

These holes are not only amazing, but some of them are really terrifying! The sheer magnitude of these gaping holes reminds us of how men will scar the earth to pursue their quest for power and wealth.

Apparently the largest ever hand-dug excavation in the world, this 1097 meter deep mine yielded over 3 tons of diamonds before being closed in 1914. More Info - Wiki Link

A glory hole is used when a dam is at full capacity and water needs to be drained from the reservoir. This is the ‘Glory Hole’ at Monticello dam, and it’s the largest in the world of this type of spillway, its size enabling it to consume 14,400 cubic feet of water every second.

This is supposedly the largest man-made excavation on earth. Extraction began in 1863 and still continues today, the pit increasing in size constantly. In its current state the hole is miles deep and 2.5 miles wide.

This incredible geographical phenomenon known as a blue hole is situated 60 miles off the mainland of Belize. There are numerous blue holes around the world,
but none as stunning as this one.

I’m pretty sure most people have seen this one. It’s an absolute beast and holds the title of largest
open diamond mines in the world. At 525 meters deep, with a top diameter of 1200 meters, there’s
even a no-fly zone above the hole due to a few helicopters having been sucked in.

The mine is so huge and the area so remote that it has its own airport with a runway large enough to accommodate a Boeing 737. It looks equally cool when the surrounding water is frozen.

These photos are of a sinkhole that occurred early this year in Guatemala . The hole swallowed a dozen homes and killed at least 3 people.

That’s all the holes we’ve got for you. Know of any others? Tell us about them in the comments.

See the Rest

From MSNBC:

Today, cutting-edge astronomers use space-based observatories to gain a sharp view of the stars and advance our understanding of the cosmos. But appreciation for celestial bodies dates back to ancient times. Many cultures built structures in ways that suggest they were in tune with Earth’s annual trek around the sun. Other structures appear to take constellations and planets into account. Click the “Next” arrow above to learn about 10 of these ancient observatories. Each page includes an image taken by GeoEye’s Ikonos satellite, shown in this artist’s conception, as it flew 423 miles above Earth at an average speed of 17,000 miles per hour.

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From ChrisBrogan.com:

We really can’t deny the fact that businesses are testing out Twitter as part of their steps into the social media landscape. You can say it’s a stupid application, that no business gets done there, but there are too many of us (including me) that can disagree and point out business value. I’m not going to address the naysayers much with this. Instead, I’m going to offer 50 thoughts for people looking to use Twitter for business. And by “business,” I mean anything from a solo act to a huge enterprise customer.

Your mileage may vary, and that’s okay. Further, you might have some really great ideas to add. That’s why we have lively conversations here at [chrisbrogan.com] in the comments section. Jump right in!

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From Uncoached:

Seinfeld as you guys probably know by now, was/is my favorite show on television. And in addition to the many quirks and observations the show has been responsible for, I also think that it’s responsible for being the catalyst to many acting careers.

Some of these actually surprised me, but there are 12 actors that stand out whose careers really seemed to blossom after appearing on the show. For the record, before we even start, I’m knocking off Brad Garrett, Teri Hatcher, Kristen Davis, and Marcia Cross. Garrett was big in the 80’s with stand up. Hatcher had already been in Tango and Cash, and Davis and Cross were already on Melrose place.

These actors? You’d be hard pressed to know who they were before making their presence known on Seinfeld

See the List