Since I signed up for e-billing for my cell phone carrier, they were kind enough to give me a free phone skin from Skinit.  I chose a nice black/white/grey design that I think complements my Evo just perfectly.  I chose not to use the skin pieces for the front of my phone because I like the look of the design just being on the back.

Check out Skinit to see if one of their many many designs could suit your fancy.  Don’t forget I’m running a contest for the month of April (2011) and will be giving away a free skin at the end of the month!  Enter to win!

I’ve had my HTC Evo (Android phone) for about a year now.  I think the design of the phone is amazing by itself.  I love how it feels and I love how it looks.  Today I want to share how I took an awesome phone and made it look a lot cooler.

You could use stickers to spruce ‘er up a bit, like I have on occasion.  BUT…

I’ve got a better idea

Check out Skinit.com for custom skins and make your whole phone look cool while personalizing it for your own taste (I’m now advertising for them as an affiliate!).  They make skins for an amazing amount of phones and devices and they have an amazing amount of different and assorted designs to choose from.  On top of that, you can even create your own design!

How do I know?

My phone carrier recently allowed me to order a free skin from Skinit.com for switching to e-billing.  I jumped right onto it and am currently waiting for my own skin.  I’ve seen them around before; my sister’s ordered them in the past for her phones.  They do look really cool and she’s been really happy with them.  I also have read reviews for Skinit and they say they don’t offer much by way of protection but that they really do spruce up the phone’s looks.

Check them out!

I think if you took the time to check Skinit.com out for yourself, you’ll see how really easy it is to order a really cool skin for your phone or device.  All there is to it is choose your phone, find a fitting and beautiful design, and order your skin.

NOW For The Contest!

After describing how really cool Skinit is, I’m hoping you can be tempted by the chance to win a free skin from Skinit!  Yes, I am willing to give anyone who is willing to participate in this contest at chance to win a free skin.

Here’s the deal.  To enter, all you need to do is:

1. Follow me on Twitter (@timmyjohnboy) AND
2. Tweet this post (click to tweet) AND
3. Find one more article anywhere on Timmyjohnboy.com and tweet it.
4. Leave a comment on this post linking to both tweets (using your real email address in the email field so I can contact you if you are a winner).

Not that hard, right?  The contest starts now and ends on April 30th (EST time zone) so get tweeting!

At the end if the month a random winner will win the free skin.

If you have a website or blog (which happens to also be a website, I know) and you want a good looking way to share some sort of announcement, you should try one of those cool notification bars people install at the top of their sites.  It really isn’t all that difficult to do now that the Hello Bar is on the scene!

I used to use a plugin for WordPress from MaxBlogPress called Max Banner Ads.  It really isn’t all that difficult to use but I am using WordPress and I know not all people running websites use WordPress.  The Hello Bar will work for anyone willing to copy and paste a small bit of code.

The other reason I bring up a new tool like Hello Bar is because of how simple it is to create, personalize and implement a banner ad using it.  It’s as easy as designing it and grabbing the code.  It really is so simple a chimpanzee could do it… maybe.  Either way, it’s easy.

Luckily I don’t have to go into many more details because Jackson over at The Daily Buggle and Jeffry over at MakeUseOf have both already covered it (here and here).  My reason for sharing about it again here is to say that I have a few invites to give out.

Let’s see, I have 5 invites and all I need is something to make you do in order to be in the running for one of them.  Decisions, decisions.  Why don’t I have you tweet this article for me, link to it in the comments, and tell me you love me!  OK, maybe just the first 2 will do  I’ll give you to this Friday, December 10th, 11:59 PM EST to complete those 2 steps.  I’ll announce who’ll get them sometime Saturday.  When you comment, use a valid email (I won’t share it) because I’ll need it to give you the invite.  To be clear, in order to be in the running for an invite for a Hello Bar account, you must:

1. Tweet a link to this article for all your Twitter followers to see,
2. Comment at the bottom of this post linking to the Twitter post you made (so I know you tweeted, you see)
3. Do this by 11:59 PM Friday, December 10th
4. I’ll randomly choose 5 people and announce them Saturday sometime

Oh, I love so much making you work for stuff!  LOL!  I hope you don’t mind.  It’s all in the fun!

I know I’m a week late but for the month of November I’d like to begin giving away gifts to Timmyjohnboy.com Newsletter subscribers.

[SUBSCRIBE!]

Each week I’d like to give out a $5 eBay gift certificate. There’s a hitch though. To be in the running you have to one, be an actual newsletter subscriber and two, make one MEANINGFUL (not spammy) comment on one blog post anywhere on Timmyjohnboy.com.

Please use the same email address on the comments as you have on file as a newsletter subscriber because this is where I will be sending the gift certificate email.

I’ll send a gift card to one random subscriber at the end of each week (Saturday, EST time)

Sorry, one win per person

[SUBSCRIBE!]

Hey, 2010 is finally upon us!  A new year coming is a great cause to celebrate!  This past year has been exciting for me and my online endeavors (in no particular order)!

• I began a corny little photo blog on Posterous.com,
• I began to write for one of my favorite tech blogs, MakeUseOf.com!
• I began Tweeting (finally)
• We had an interesting series of Techie Interviews
• We did some testing of Google Voice and Gmail
• I tested Wetoku a few times (a really cool online video interviewing tool)
• We also got to witness a great new Christian blog (GodlySheep.com) start up by my good friend and fellow blogger Brett Barner
• Part of the year I did pretty good keeping up with Timmyjohnboy.com but I also have become lazy during some points (please forgive me).
• I also helped build a few other sites and pages including a church’s site for a friend (firstbaptistfernwood.com – still needs some theme work) and the teen site for Friendship Baptist Church (friendshipbaptist.us/teens)

Sounds pretty busy huh?  It was a blast!  Keep following because I’m sure there is much more to come!

I want to thank those of you who have not forsaken following Timmyjohnboy.com!  MANY of the email subscribers that joined us from last New Year’s contest are still subscribed so my only conclusion is that you’re still readers!

I want to have a contest to kick off 2010!

In the past year I had two contests (I believe), the New Years contest asking for people to subscribe for email updates and another contest looking for Twitter followers.  This time there are a few hoops I’d like to see people jump through, so hang on to your socks!

What do I need to do?

To enter, all you have to do is subscribe to my feed!  In fact, you can even unsubscribe after the contest ends!  Leave it to me to make you WANT to stay on!  Choose either to subscribe to receive updates in your email OR subscribe to the feed in a feed reader!  THEN stop back by this post and wish a Happy New Year to all my readers (and me of course!).  When the contest ends, I’ll randomly choose a winner from commenters that are subscribers.  If you leave your happy wishes via an audio comment or webcam comment, and you win, I’ll add a $5 Amazon.com gift card! NOTE:  YOU MUST ENTER THE CONTEST CODE GIVEN IN THE FOOTER OF EACH POST IN THE FEED - In other words, when you subscribe and you begin to receive updates via email or feed reader, you’ll find a special contest code at the bottom of each post. When you get the code, enter it into the TEXT of your comment NOT the audio or video comment!

What will I win?

You will be entering to win a brand new t-shirt from my Zazzle store!  There are SEVERAL shirts to choose from but for some reason thePing Pong shirts sell the best.  To be totally honest, the winner will actually be receiving a Zazzle gift card which I HOPE will in turn want to purchase a t-shirt from my Zazzle store!  Remember, if your comment is either audio or via webcam, and you win, you’ll ALSO get the $5 Amazon.com gift card!

When will it start/end?

The contest starts NOW January 1, 2010!  I will end 2 weeks later, January 15, at exactly 11:59PM EST so any comments left after that time will not be counted!  The next day I will contact the winner and make an announcement as soon as contact is made!

OK, in summary:

1. Enter by subscribing and find the contest code, comment on this post wishing me a Happy New Year (entering the code into the text area of the comment)
2. Enter to win a free shirt from Zazzle (actually a Zazzle gift card) – BONUS: If the winner has left an Audio or Webcam comment, they’ll also get a $5 Amazon gift card!
3. Contest dates: Begins January 1, 2010 and ends January 15, 2010 at 11:59PM EST

Look forward to hearing from ya’ll!!!!

I’ve noticed how quickly news travels now, especially when there is a video involved.  Remember the incedent with Ryan Moats and the police officer?  How about poor old lady being tasered?  Many of us have seen these videos and have our own opinions about them but just think back 5 to 10 years ago… would so many of us have known much about them?  Probably not.

In a recent post on the Google Blog, the subject of “digital activism” was discussed.  I think it’s a very interesting thing to ponder in light of fairly recent events in some very closed nations.  There were some videos being circulated from China, and even Iran showing some goings-on.  Sites like Youtube have really opened the door for people to get their points across!

A few weeks back I was interested to watch a youtube video of someone making a point.  There is a movement in New England about camera rights and particularly in court rooms and other public places.  The movement is an interesting one but not really what I want to talk about today.  It made me think about how easy it is today to make video content and how easy it is to share it with others.

Check out the video and share some of your thoughts in the comments.  Tell us a few things:

1. Has the impact of the digital age been a good thing or not, and why or why not?
2. In what ways has digital activism changed how you think or feel?
3. Obviously the idea of activism is to help others see your point of view.  Does this video help you see the activist’s point?  Why or why not?

I ran into an article, titled “Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu” and it caught my attention.   I know that there are VERY significant differences in Operating Systems, and I’ve heard many of the arguments as to why one OS is better than another.  Once reading through the article, I understood where the writer was heading.

Apparently the writer had his son, who had been using Ubuntu for the last few months, give Windows 7 a test drive.  One of his son’s opinions was that there really wasn’t much of a difference, at any that effected him.  You see, he pretty much “lives” within a web browser so the operating system had little effect on him.

This is the part that interests me because I think many people these days fall into this category.  As the Internet evolves, web applications seem to be replacing desktop applications (Google Docs being one example).  People are using web-based email, word processors, time management solutions, to-do lists, social networking tools, and the list goes on.

At home, most of what I do is through my beloved web browser, Portable Firefox.  I check my email, work with Google Docs, read the news, and so on.  In fact, since I’m using a portable version of Firefox, I’m not even really using a browser located on my computer.  Either way, the Internet is undoubtedly taking the place of local programs.  Isn’t there a term for this phenomenon?

Can you think of tools you used to use which resided on your computer that you now have replaced with a web-based application?  How many programs do you still use on your computer?  What are some cool web-applications you’ve come across that you find useful (or fun)?

Thank you to all of you who participated in the Amazon Gift Card Twitter Giveaway!  Tonight @ 4:00 PM EST, the contest ended and now we finally have our winner:

@BrianEarley of iBrianEarley.com

Congratulations BrianEarley!

UPDATE:  Contest over!  Congratulate @BrianEarley for the win! (post announcing the winner)

It’s time for another contest @ timmyjohnboy.com.

This time I’m reaching out to twitter!

As many of you know, I’m fairly new to Twitter. Although I was apprehensive at first, I’m loving it so far. I love being able to share quick links and quips with both my twitter friends AND my Facebook friends.

With this contest, I want to offer the chance to win a $25 Amazon Gift card to anyone who does the following:

1. Follow me on Twitter (@timmyjohnboy)
2. Tweet the following: “I just entered to win a $25 Amazon gift card and you can too!  Read the post (http://is.gd/qzss) and enter!”

The contest will end Friday, April 17 at 4:00 PM EST time.

I will share the winner in a feature post at that time and I’ll DM them details as to how to collect the prize.

UPDATE! Good question, Mark from DarnGoodReviews.com!  The winner will be drawn from a hat!

Update #2! Sweetening the deal!  If I reach 100 followers, I will make the gift card $30!  So keep ‘em coming!

Congratulations to Dan from New York!  He’s the winner of the $25 gift certificate for Amazon.com!