...based on the scores and reviews of several critics websites, magazines, newspapers, etc.  Similar to Rotten Tomatoes. So far, this is the closest.

http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/ 

Web Development 

• ASP.NET - Everything you wanted to know and do with .NET stuff
• 4 Guys From Rolla - The guys who've been into programming since Classic ASP days
• W3 Schools - One of my favorite ones
• Developer Tutorials - Lots of nice random articles
• Smashing Magazine - A site that's really good at digging for well designed sites.

 There are a ton of other sites that are useful out there that can help improve the site but these will just do for now. 

Complaining is easy. The path of complaining is also easy. Nothing is ever perfect and all a complainer has to do is voice things that could be improved when they see them. Sure enough certain things could have been better, and sadly they get compliments about how they did someone a favor or helped avoid spending money on something, and ignorant people agree. This only encourages the complainer.

Here's the thing with complaining - lots of people don't want to be around them. However, if you're giving constructive criticism, that's different. You're helping. But, back to topic.

At a group level it only gets worse. Complainers start forming up into groups where they can complain about similar stuff. It leads to acceptance... and makes people that complain together feel happy together. Groups of complainers will then onslaught other groups as this makes the group only feel that more important. And if you dare complain about something another complainer seems to like, now you just fragmented the group. If you are going to be in the group all you can do is continue complaining about the same things.

So, over the last few weeks and months I've been trying to be better about how I view things, but I suck at it. Instead of trying to enjoy them for the good parts, I've focussed more on what could have been better. In the lack of new positive things I've come across during the past month or so, I've (sadly) complained. I avoid talking about something simply because I have nothing nice to say about it.

I think it's harder to be positive and have resolve. Now I'm not saying that we reach a happy attitude about everything? Or should we? Would it be better to be positive all the time or is that just as bad as being negative all the time? I know it annoys me to be around people that even though they are shoveling crap into their mouths will continue to claim that if you don't like it you are clearly using the wrong tastebuds... and they are like this ALL the time. How do you reach a happy medium?

They say that it's a bad idea to talk about your business. I find it the opposite. Some people put too much emphasis on the idea and not on its execution. Some people believe that their idea is so original that it must be protected at all cost. But when the "build it and they will come" method doesn't work, they're puzzled. Why is this?

Prior to the internet, this worked. Nowadays, you have people online providing feedback in seconds as opposed to days. If you are planning on releasing the next Google or Facebook, think about how they got out there. They just built it and created a good enough framework to build off. These companies had a vision and learned to see how the public reacts to their products and adjust from there. 

It's similar to a football team that overprepares for the game. They do all the planning but they forget about the details - tackling the competition. One missed tackle and boom, game over.

Now that's not to say that you just start putting things together and see if your project sticks, there has to be a balance. You have to have a roadmap when building things. What must you have for this product release? What could you live without or do later that will not impact the company in a major way in the future? 

Any thoughts are welcome.

We've all seen Texas Hold'Em, Street Racing, The "Farm" game, and a whole slew of other gaming goodness in Facebook. But what if you want to actually make use of your social network? This is in order of usefulness. 

10. Marketplace by Oodle

The Oodle Marketplace is a great alternative to going to Craigslist and Ebay in terms of selling items privately. But with the power of Facebook, your friends now get in the mix and you will be able to share pictures and other items on the Oodle Marketplace. It's biggest drawback is of course the size of the community.  

9. Flixster

Looking to see which movies are good to watch. Do you value your friend's opinions than the critics? Flixster is a great application that extends the website's functions to Facebook and uses it with good reason. Friends of friends who install the application can also put in rating and comments on recent theatrical releases or old-school movies.

8. eBay Auctions

Ever tried posting some things you have in your garage that you thought some of your friends my be interested in? If you answered "yes", it's probably fair to say that you've probably posted a bunch of links on your wall, profile, etc. But why do that when you can install a facebook app that does it for you and shares with the rest of your friends? It's a great app that also displays the current bidding price on all your items. Great time saver. Wish there was an app for Craigslist.

7. Simply RSS

Stream almost any website that has a "XML" or "RSS" button labeled on it. You should be able to stream your blog too? Why waste the time cutting and pasting or hitting the "share" link? Get this application and get it over with. 

6. SocialCalendar

SocialCalendar has changed lately since the developers of the facebook application are beginning to charge for certain things but to be able to share a calendar with your friends and do RSVP, guest management, and invites within your Facebook world, this works best. You can keep your brithdays or coordinate plans/events with your facebuddies and never miss anything important again.
 

5. Yelp 

Interface everything about Yelp into Facebook. Favorite restaurants, places, and a bunch of activities you can share with friends. It's a good app that provides a stream of updates that can alert the rest of your friends and puts a little nice looking gadget on your profile.

4. Picasa (developer Alan) or Flickr

Is one of my favorite Facebook apps. If you're the type of person who is tired of having to re-post whole albums after taking up a whole lifetime to post an album in Friendster or MySpace, this is the answer for you. The application install a tab on your profile and retrieves the comments. Pretty cool stuff.

3. My Restaurants

Why read a bunch of food reviews from strangers when you can read them from your very own friends! The best restaurant suggestions we get are from friends anyway. What really surprised me was seeing a large selection of restaurants from the get-go. Then again, I maybe lucky. So far, I have added many restaurants from their database and not one restaurant I actually visited was missing. Don't be surprised if you happen to find your most obscure restaurant here. 

2. Cities I've Visited (developed by TripAdvisor.Com)

Probably one of the most popular and useful apps on Facebook. Where have you traveled? Create an interactive travel map to share with your friends and help them plan their trips. When it's installed, people can see all of the cities you've visited worldwide and see certain stats of places you've visited. You can provide ratings to nearby restaurants or gauge your knowledge of that place through a simple rating system. It's even tagged as a Facebook verified app - something that works well for Facebook users.

1. Selective Twitter Status 

Some Facebook Twitter apps love to be annoying. Maybe you don't want to send every single update of how much you love hot dogs or whether you're having your haircut today. If you're the type of person that would rather annoy your friends less and send only the updates you want in Twitter, install this app. It's a great help and is considered really useful when you want to start doing some marketing.

What the heck is this all about? What's all this code? Let's say you run a blog, a store, a forum, anything. Let's say that you've decided to change the name of your site from "TheOldCompanyName" to "TheNewCompanyName" and all of the areas in the blog, store, or anywhere on your site where you use that word needs to be changed. Let's say that your pages are not your simple HTML pages. Instead, the content of your site sits inside a database - like *ahem* SQL Server 2005 or something.

Basically, I had this situation where I wanted to keep my old site but wanted to change the domain name slightly like "http://archive.radcastro.com". Previously it was called "http://www.radcastro.com". But since I changed the domain of the old site all of its references which use "http://www.radcastro.com" are broken. So if you used something like <img src="http://www.radcastro.com/Photos/Family.jpg"> it would break. Why? Because now it should be <img src="http://archive.radcastro.com/Photos/Family.jpg"> for the image to display. So below is a little sql script that you can run on SQL Server 2000 or 2005 that will allow you to enter a table of your choosing and replace any phrase or text. It's pretty powerful stuff and this is why I blogged it. God knows that I'll use something like this in the future. Imagine having an online store and you want to rename hundreds of products. Super useful stuff.

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