I have noticed a trend emerging in my decidedly urban Minneapolis surroundings: places that have Wi-Fi that should not. For instance, Arby’s. Although I love a hot-from-the-fryer potato cake as much as the next person, grease slicked fingers and laptop keyboards don’t mix.

Another inappropriate place for Wi-Fi, I feel, is busy intersections. With the Minneapolis municipal Wi-Fi network it is possible to check your email in traffic and surf the web while waiting for the light to change. I have actually seen people do this.

Since I express myself best in Haiku, here it is:

Wi-Fi signal finds
All who seek a connection
So please drive safely

YouTube has just added a great new feature: video annotations. Video annotations are little text boxes, word bubbles, and spotlights you can add to your videos.

These little information nuggets have some serious potential to make the now common place web video experience a little more engaging. Regrettably, the first wave of annotated videos will likely be comprised of wise-guy comments overlaying groin injury videos.

To see this cool new feature in action click here.

And in case you don’t know what a favicon is, it’s that small image next to the URL of the page that you’re on.

In Google’s case, the voluptuous small “g” (Google) has replaced the big “G” (Google). Are they rebranding? Is it an attempt to appear less corporate and more humble as it increasingly dominates the search market?

A few years back our friend Dave Schroeder of Pilotvibe decided it was time to put the Midwest on the ‘flash’ map, and started Flashbelt.

For those who don’t know - its an incredibly educational and inspirational 3 days of presentations, panel discussions and workshops. Speakers typically have a focus, whether industry (advertising, commerce, education) or specialty (flash audio, as3, animation etc) and often are well-known for their groundbreaking work in a specific area or project. Its a refreshing mix of Adobe Scientists, authors/gurus, well known designers/developers and independent experimental producers. Our own Nick Longtin even presented last year.

Whether you are someone who sells interactive projects, designs for the web, or develops flash interactive or other, I would highly recommend catching at least a couple of presentations. You will learn and walk away inspired. It rivals the feeling of Spring in Minnesota for the interactive industry.

June 8-11th in Minneapolis, MN - See you there

Behind the glitz and glamor of a few Web 2.0 brands are some truly terrible work environments. Workspaces even coal miners wouldn’t care for. Valleywag has been collecting photos and horror stories from some of the most egregious offenders here.

To be fair, I will admit that even at ArcStone we occasionally force employees to work in less than ideal situations. Take for instance, the above photo showing an ArcStone blogger diligently writing without a chair or table.

(This post started here and will end ridiculously)

To quickly recap, I recently found myself pondering the deeper facets of life and the universe. The budding Friedrich Nietzsche inside of me was twisting and turning, unable to rest. The ultimate question in question? If I could buy anything, and I mean anything, what expensive things would I buy? The list continues…

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4. A $20,000 .mp3 player

The TrexStor i.Beat Organix .mp3 player is the geek’s ultimate bling. Adorned in 18-karat gold and 63 one-karat diamonds. Its wrist strap is made from aquamarine jewels and admittedly I don’t know what those are, but I want them. I can just imagine running into an iPod user on the street. Our conversation would go something like this:

iPod guy: Awesome, my iPod just shuffled to REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Loving You!”

Me: My iPod is covered in diamonds.

iPod guy: …(cries)

I used to be an Apple fanboy but Apple just doesn’t seem to have class anymore. I don’t even think they have a product with gold or diamonds. Then again, Steve Jobs isn’t necessarily known to be an innovative thinker so I won’t be too hard on him.

All the same, Apple will be lucky to have even 5% of the .mp3 market in 5 years with jewel-encrusted devices like the i.Beat Organix on the rise.

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5. The New York Yankees

The Yankees are America’s team and I love America so much that I would buy them in blink of a George W. Bush eyelid if I had the chance. I also love baseball and Coney dogs. Completely justified purchase, no doubt.

First order of business with George Steinbrenner out the door and the kid-phenom at the helm (that’s me, by the way), would be to replace those outdated pinstriped jerseys with American flag-inspired gear. A prototype of the new pants already exists.

Second order of business… sign Air Bud* to a lucrative contract. Air Bud brings marketing power and raw talent to the team.

Third order of buisness… trade A-Rod and Andy Petite to the Minnesota Twins for Nick Punto.

Then… sit back, eat 6 Coney dogs, and enjoy the game.

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That’s all the time I have for today! I’ll leave you with another one of my favorite quotes, this time from Nietzsche himself: “Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?” Definitely, especially if you are super rich and can buy happiness. Tune in next time, world.

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*Buddy the Wonder Dog, a.k.a. Air Bud, died 10 years ago this February but was father to dozens of healthy pups who have become famous actors themselves. With the world hanging on every one of my words right now, I’d would like to take this opportunity to pay my respects to Buddy; An inspiration to an entire generation, he is loved and missed everyday.

We have a whiteboard hanging on the wall near the front desk at ArcStone’s Minneapolis office. The intent is to keep track of who is offsite, telecommuting, or out on an errand. In reality, most of us never use it properly. We forget to erase our names when we arrive at the office, forget to put our names up the day before if we plan to telecommute, or neglect to ask someone else to write our status on the board if we’re out sick. And, since it’s hanging on the wall at the office, you can’t read it if you’re working offsite.

In response to the shortcomings of the community whiteboard, ArcStonians have turned to email. We often see messages to the office distribution list, announcing when a team member will be available and where they’ll be during the course of the day. I’ve never liked it; I somehow manage to miss the notifications from members of my project teams.

But, as always, there was a better solution. We recently subscribed to Google Apps, a set of productivity tools offered by Google that includes calendaring. It’s allowed us to have company-wide shared calendars without the hassle and expense of using Zimbra or Microsoft Exchange Server for our email. Google offers an API for their calendar service; you can quickly write web application code that reads data from a Google Calendar and manipulates it. And the idea for the virtual in/out board was born!

The virtual in/out board is nothing more than a ColdFusion page that reads data from a shared calendar. When someone wants put their availability up on the board, they create an event on their own calendar and invite the in/out board as an attendee. The page checks the calendar for updates every five minutes or so, and refreshes the display (which is an otherwise unused PC at our front desk). We even have the data available in the ArcWeb, our custom time tracking and business management application, for viewing by offsite staff.

I’ll never have dry-erase marker on my hands again!

Move over Betty Crocker, there’s a new Sara Lee in town.

Today, ArcStonian Pamela Schott brought in a batch of what she calls Oh! Henry bars. They should be called Be-Still-My-Beating-Heart bars because I’m in love.

I want to be locked in a prison made out of Pam’s Oh! Henry bars so I can eat my way to freedom.

I want to collect them like baseball cards, only to eat my whole collection and start all over again.

I want a device hooked up to my desk that rewards me with a bar every time I click my mouse.

I want Steve Nash to practice his free throws with them, shooting at my mouth.

I want to travel back in time so I have more time to eat them.

I don’t want to write anymore because it means I’m not eating.

Welcome to stimulus season. If you’re stumped for ideas, check out what your fellow Americans did with it on How I Spent My Stimulus. You can even add your own stimulus story…

See excerpt below. (Thanks for the tip, Pam.)

I helped a friend move some furniture this weekend. Up at 7:00 am! Earliest I’ve been up on a Saturday in several months.

Reed DeLapp spotted quite the photo opportunity near the IKEA furniture pick-up, and his iPhone came to the rescue. The quality of iPhone and Treo photos is quite impressive. I don’t think I would even attempt a photo like this with my Motorola Razr, and when these photo opps com along, it’s nice to be prepared (ask Nick Longtin if you’re not convinced).

Check out this tool!