For those of you who are interested, the Top 10 tracks were as follows with Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” the undisputed winner in the voting:

1. Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty
2. Mr Jones – Counting Crows
3. Paradise City – Guns ‘n’ Roses
4. Sweet Caroline – Neil Diamond
5. My Happiness – Powderfinger
6. Here I Go Again On My Own – Whitesnake
7. Come on Eileen – Dexy’s Midnight Runners
8. New Sensation – INXS
9. Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy – Big & Rich
10. No Rain – Blind Melon

Thanks to everyone who participated!

It seems that of late, the Old Spice Guy has become somewhat of a “go-to-guy” when it comes to online citizens needing honest and straightforward answers to life’s pressing questions. And as of this morning via Old Spice’s YouTube channel, the Old Spice Guy began to disperse his infinite manly wisdoms in a barrage of personalised messages that quickly went viral and prompted thousands of questions to be hurtled into cyberspace his way.

If you’re the studious worker type and missed, or ignored the show as it unfolded today, here’s a selection of the better response videos that were doing the rounds…

• Multiple accounts
• Multiple social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare etc)
• Scheduled Tweets
• Built in link shortening
• Customisable interface (easily change column orders)
• Tabbed layout to maximise usable columns
• Analytics & link stats tracking
• Ability to view user info in a neat way
• Message Drafts
• Visual and audible update notifications

It’s a fairly large shopping list, but one that is easily covered by what I now believe to be the “best app on the block” – Hootsuite.

Why Hootsuite as opposed to the various alternatives?

I’ll give you a couple of examples of why I’m sold on using Hootsuite as my primary Twitter application, but first make sure you check out a great blog post titled, “10 Reasons I’m Switching from Tweetdeck to Hootsuite” from the guys over at “Web App Storm”.

For me, two of the best features of the Hootsuite service are the ability to track statistical information regarding your Tweets and the specific links that you post within (using Hootsuite’s default URL shortening service options), and also the user profile information panels that appear (shown below) each time you click on a user name.

Setting up Hootsuite as a Mac Twitter desktop application

You’re probably wondering how you can make a web-based service into a desktop application without some kind of installer or application environment like Adobe AIR (used by applications like Tweetdeck)? Well it’s actually quite simple using a neat, free program for the Mac called “Fluid”. The following is a quick step-by-step look at how you can be up and running with Hootsuite as your primary Mac desktop accessed by a neat customised dock icon, in no time.

Step 1 – Find a suitable dock icon for your application

It’s hard to go past a more suitable icon than that adorable little Hootsuite Owl we see all around the place these days.

Finding suitable dock icons for all the applications I have set up in the past using Fluid has been a cinch when using “Deviantart” as my search engine. Simply navigate to the “Dock Icons” category section of the site and search for the web application in question – in this case “Hootsuite”. The icon I found for this project you can download from here.

Unzip the icon resource file and place it somewhere where Fluid will be able to find it every time you open your new “Hootsuite” application.

Step 2 – Download and install Fluid for Mac

As long as you are running OSX 10.5 or greater, jump over to http://fluidapp.com/ and download the free Fluid installer.

Note: A similar program called Mozilla Prism is available for those of you on a Windows PC or Linux that will help you achieve a similar result.

Install the application on your Mac and crank it up.

Step 3 – Create your application

Once Fluid starts up, you’ll be presented with a window prompting you to “Create a Site Specific Browser”. Simply fill out the requested details as shown below. When it comes to the “Icon” field, select “Other…” (as shown) and navigate to wherever you ended up placing your Hootsuite Owl icon.

Once you have your icon selected, hit the create button to create your new Hootsuite desktop application.

Step 4 – Add the new Hootsuite application to the dock

You will now be presented with a success message and a few options for progressing. We want to add the new application to the dock, so select the “Reveal in Finder” option.

Find the Hootsuite application you just created by looking for the distinctive Owl icon, and drag the icon to your dock. Drop it in the appropriate spot on your dock and click the icon to open Hootsuite!

If you are asked to log in to your Hootsuite account the first time you start up the application, and when you do you get kicked out to your default browser (Firefox etc):

1. Close the Hootsuite application
2. Open Safari
3. Log into Hootsuite selecting the “Remember Me” option
4. Close Safari
5. Open your Hootsuite application from your dock once again.

This time you should be taken directly into your Hootsuite account screen.

From there it’s just a matter of setting up your accounts and columns the way you want them and exploring the Hootsuite service to find all the amazing features and options that you have for managing your Twitter account(s).

Good luck!

If you’re unaware of the love of the game of ice hockey by pretty much every Canadian with a pulse, then you’ve had your head buried in the sand. You need only look at the reactions to both the women’s and the men’s ice hockey finals at this year’s 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics to understand the passion for the sport that is felt here. I guess you could liken it to the Brazilian’s and their soccer…

Anyway, the Hockey Hall of Fame which is located in the architecturally impressive Brookfield Place on Yonge Street in down town Toronto, is an impressive museum of the game described on the official website in the following way:

Home of the Stanley Cup and the best of hockey, you can DO IT ALL… AT THE HALL. Guests can take shots at real-time goalies; stop the shots of Gretzky and Messier; call the play-by-play of some of hockey’s greatest goals; view hockey flicks in one of our two theatres; get up close and personal with the Stanley Cup; explore the largest collection of hockey memorabilia in the world – all of this plus so much more!

The major draw card, of course, is the opportunity to have your photo taken with the holy grail of hockey – the Stanley Cup which is located in a stunning old bank vault along with all the other major trophies from the NHL, but we also had the opportunity to do and see some other cool stuff like:

• The full historical Winter Olympic Medals Collection
• The opportunity to touch Crosby’s 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics gold medal winning puck
• Chris did a stella job at calling some play-by-plays of some hockey’s greatest goals and…
• Chase Peyton round and round in circles!

Good fun all around and it was really cool to be able to check it all out with the lads.

Here’s the pics. Enjoy.

Opting to get out of town for the long weekend and escape the unusually cool and overcast Vancouver weather, my buddy Chris and I have headed over to Toronto to catch up with the Ashton clan, check out their new digs and to get a decent dose of sun on our skin.

The major event for the day was Vinyl 95.3 FM’s “Summerfest” in Woodbine Park. Corrie is the co-host of the weekday morning show and therefore had some appearance and compering duties to attend to throughout the day as some classic rock acts like “The Spoons”, “Five Man Electric Band”, “Glass Tiger” and David Clayton Thomas (of “Blood, Sweat & Tears” fame) hit the sun-soaked stage in front of thousands of appreciative fans.

We were fortunate to get VIP access to the backstage area where we got access to a bunch of comforts like VIP seating, free food and access to plenty of cold beer! Ryan, Chris, Peyton and I snuck away for part of the afternoon to check out the Hockey Hall of Fame down town, but I’ll save those pics for another post.

A really fun, distinctively Canadian day was had by all and we’ve all just retired to Ry & Corrie’s backyard for some celebratory drinks before bed! Bliss!

Glass Tiger

David Clayton Thomas

The same handsome and super suave Mr Old Spice fella is back with a killer opening line that leads into a continuous stream of question-punctuated dialogue over a number of seamless set changes. The bloke has the “gift of the gab” – let’s be honest.

Check it out below – awesome! I’m off to buy me some more Old Spice products… I’m SOLD!

Needless to say I was well impressed and, although the musical style is a wee departure from the traditional gear I’m listening to these days, I hunted down more of their music on “Grooveshark” and was soon a fan!

I soon heard on the grapevine that Sharon and the band were due to make an appearance in Vancouver at The Commodore in June, but by the time I had found out, the show was sold out which left me keen, but ticket-less.

Enter Canada’s “SCENE” movie rewards program. Being a member of the club and accumulating points each time you go to see a movie does more than provide you with free movies, popcorn and drinks. Yes, you can use your points to buy entries into draws for sold out and other popular concerts in Vancouver.

So I did. I won. And thankfully I made it to catch the fantastic, incredibly energetic performance this evening. I’ve not seen a level of crowd interaction with any touring act in the past, like what I saw tonight. Enthusiastic fans were pulled from the front row and invited to dance on stage with Sharon during selected numbers. While some of the dancing skills displayed were highly questionable in execution, it was pretty cool I have to say.

I don’t know enough about Sharon’s portfolio of songs to run through what was and wasn’t covered on the set list for this evening, so I’m just going to leave you with a few pictures from the show, and with the recommendation to see the band when next they wander into your city, town or village. If you’re into her brand of music you WILL NOT be disappointed!

For a couple of hours today, I moved around the tent city set up at the eastern end of False Creek under the shadow cast by the iconic Science World dome, and along the boardwalk lining the water in front of the former Olympic Village. The sky in the distance over the North Shore mountains may have been black, but the dragon boat crews fighting it out on the water were really lighting things up.

I grabbed a few frames as I went – the best of which are listed below.

The basic idea behind Flickr user “Balakov’s” clever set of images is to take a selection of history’s most famous photos and recreate them using LEGO characters and other blocks in such a way that the original scene may be replicated and photographed using macro lenses.

Here’s just a quick selection of what’s on offer in the series:

To view the entire collection, visit Balakov’s “Classics in Lego” Flickr set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/balakov/sets/72157602602191858/

With your help, I want to come up with a list of say 30 tunes/anthems which you believe make for quintessential listening when buzzing the bitumen and chasing the white dashed line into the unknown distance.

STEP 1 – THE NOMINATIONS NOW CLOSED

Here’s how it will all play out:

1. Leave your top ten (10) suggested tracks in the comments section below.
2. After the next couple of weeks I’ll throw together a list of what I think are the most popular 100 or so songs (depending on what sort of response this gets).
3. I’ll list the 100 most nominated songs in a poll that you can all vote on, and together we can come up with a playlist of THIRTY (30) of the best road trip tunes as chosen by us!

This should be a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to hearing about some great new tracks that I don’t know of, and also seeing what the mix is between old classics and newer tunes.

STEP 2 – THE VOTE

A huge thank you to all of you who went to the effort to submit your nominations. We hardly had any overlaps in nominations at all, meaning we have a huge and diverse list to select from.

So now for the voting. This bit’s, dead simple.

Voting is now open until midnight (PST) on the 23rd July. Simply browse your way through the full nominees list below and select your favourite 15 tracks. After you’ve done that and submitted your vote, tell your friends about it and get at least 5 other people to submit a vote if you can!

Here’s as many of the tracks that I could muster so you can listen to them all before making your vote:

Here’s the nomination list! Remember you only get to vote once!

Please note, I had to trim the odd little-known track from your submissions here and there to keep the list to 100 songs.

Please feel free to share this page with everyone you know. Just click and drag the image above to share using Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, Yahoo! or Email. It’s dead simple.