At Real Life News we're always on the look out for new writers and since we've been running this site we've had a wide variety.
We've had some that want to contribute the odd post here and there, others look at it as a long term hobby or stepping stone to bigger things.
Some write on our environment blog, others on footie, but if you fancy a rant about a subject we don't yet cover, we're always on the look out for new ideas.
QR-codes, barcodes read by mobile phones, have been around for a while. They are images that when captured by mobile devices can give you access to content on the web, and so on.
But a temporary installation in New York applies the idea in a novel way.
Taking over four corners of a chain link fence surrounding a redevelopment project, the Houston fence code has been made by filling the gaps in the fence, creating giant symbols.
Even cooler, the way the codes are read by mobile phones means that they deliver different content based on your speed - driving, cycling or walking.
Apple are the masters of product hype and the end product is usually pretty decent. The iPhone has been no exception, creating an easy to use interface for accessing the web in particular.
But amongst all that hype it's easy to forget the other manufacturers aren't sitting idle. Samsung have some nice handsets including what in the US is called the Instinct (I think it's the F480 Tocco in the UK).
Sprint's website features a great comparison of the iPhone and Instinct. Obviously it's biased to the Samsung but makes some good points in an effective and humourous way.
Most large companies don't respond well to criticism of their products by customers. Usually they'll be ignored or get a standard reply thanking them for their comments.
But with online, one customer's criticism can be seen by millions so the reponse needs to be swift and appropriate to be effective.
EA games found themselves in this situation when a customer noticed a glitch in their new Tiger Woods golf game. The customer posted video of the glitch on YouTube and hey presto - a company's PR nightmare.
But full credit to EA, they responded not only swiftly but in the best possible way, with their own video on YouTube. At the time of writing this had been viewed nearly 1.7 million times, and it's excellent.
It's the end of a great Olympics (unless you're Australian) and here's a great little online application from the New York Times showing the number of medals won by each country at every Olympics to date.
Very smart.
And to be fair to the Australians, when you look at the size of their population compared to the number of medals they win, they are high performers.
O.k, this is a very silly game, courtesy of my better half! It features a penguin that jumps of an ice mountain on to what I can only describe as some kind of baseball bat wielding Yeti!
