A good example of the commercial use of vanity plates. Blue, an exclusive shoe shop in the Belgian coastal town of Knokke, is showing off with this Smart car with vanity plate BLU-001.

Amazing cycling safety campaign for Transport for London.

I was at Barcamp Ghent with a lot of other Belgian bloggers when I read the news on Twitter of the crashing death of Coolz0r’s blog. We were shocked. In the week that followed, I offered Miel my help in trying to recover the database and restore his blog. But Miel is a busy man and his job at Microsoft takes a lot of time and mental energy. Finally, over the last weekend we had some phone calls, we exchanged logins and passwords and some essential files, and after some analysis and some tweaking and hacking I was able to bring the blog back online.

Miel, however, had already said goodbye and for him there was no turning back. He will focus his blogging efforts on one blog only: micromiel.com. I thought it was very important that the 1800+ articles that Miel has written in the last three years on “Marketing Thoughts” remain available online. A lot of these articles have no expiration date, they remain interesting and valuable even when the campaigns they describe are long gone. Keeping these articles available is not only a tribute to Miel’s talent but also a service to the marketing community.

So, we agreed that I would host the blog under a new name, “Cool Marketing Thoughts“, which is only a small difference from “Coolz0r – Marketing Thoughts”, that I would clearly identify Miel as the author of all the articles that he has written, and that I can keep the blog alive by adding new content.

From now on, this blog will be a group blog. I am looking for contributors willing to write articles from time to time in the spirit, scope and focus of Coolz0r. If you’re interested, write to luc.van.braekel@gmail.com with a short bio and some pointers to previous work.

Work is getting pretty busy too, with the TechDays coming up this week where I need to present 3 days in a row for 6 hours a day. Took me a little preparation time as well to get it all worked out.

Sorry for any delays. I’ve got a few posts nearly done, like the book reviews and a few cool marketing stunts, but I lack the time to style them in a way I feel comfortable with.

I’ll get to it as soon as I can. :)

Take care everyone and have a splendid day!

Stats: 48 cm large, 3 kilos heavy and the cutest face in the universe!
Yey!

(For John: 105.82 ounces and 18.89 inches)

Visit the product promo site :)

I wonder what’s wrong with a simple query as this: forum playlist site:www.nonstopplay.com, and then simply extending the search to make Google show ALL urls instead of the ones they selected.

The fancy sorry.google.com url isn’t going to help me out here. Grrrrr. I hate it when stuff like this happens. It just comes to show just how much control you have over the things you do on the net. Not much. That’s for sure.

I went to sleep again and woke up later this morning, started doing some e-mails and such. Then I got a phone call from a colleague to inform me that David Boschmans had passed away last night. David was the guy that wheeled me in at Microsoft. He was my mentor, my trusted colleague and friend. We shared dreams and hopes. His insights and advice will always guide me.
I could never have dreamt of getting a better mentor.

I’m lucky to have met him. I feel lucky, even when I’m typing this and tears drip on my typing hands. David, My Dearest David. I will never ever forget you. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you so damn much. There is no explanation possible for all the why’s I’m feeling, no person that can fill the empty gap you leave behind.

May God watch over your family and take care of them. Sweet dreams, David.

I’ll be in the US until the 23rd, counting the timezone difference it’ll be the 24th when I get back. I’ll try to post from the hotel or from the conference, in between sessions.

For updates, clips and thoughts, check my other blog… since I try to keep this hobby and my work as separated as possible.

Some pictures were taken with the Nokia N95, a device I have received recently to test it out. I really like the quality of the images and the 5+ megapixels really delivered great quality, for sure, but uploading the snapshots to Flickr through the web browser was really time-consuming. I probably should plug in a USB cable and get the pics to the laptop to upload them in batch, but since I was on the move in Vegas and depending on wireless for the phone I had to do it like that. I do have to say that the wireless connects very easily for the Nokia N95, and that the uploading, once you’ve navigated to the right folder, was very fast. It does consume a lot of battery power though, but hey, it looks cool and it works great. I’ll tell you more about my mobile experience later.

First suggestions for Nokia:

• Have the phone remember the location of the images, it saves about 4 clicks I think, per image (+ moving the cursor to the right link every time). The images are stored on a micro SD card, so navigating to that time and again… that’s just way too hard.
• Need more battery power, for real
• Have the phone remember password settings in the browser. If you have a strong password like $TR0ngPaSSw0rd!, typing it again and again every time your wireless connection drops… Awch
• Need more battery power, for real

Cheers.

Top:

1. Roxorloops (5 comments) by Arnaud De Geynst
2. Boobs Gone Wild (3 comments) by Johan Van Oeckel
3. Sticky Colors (2 comments) by Tim Willems
4. Personal Trainer (2 comments)
5. Information Revolution (2 comments) by Claudia Schiepers
6. Lost & Found (2 comments) by Alejandro La Torre
7. Don’t Pee In The Pool (2 comments) by Tanguy De Kelver
8. Nerd Alert (2 comments) by Dwergs
9. Exam Night (1 comment) by Tanguy De Kelver

So, go ahead and cast your ‘ays’ in the comments. I’ll leave this open for a week. Saturday, the best ad gets the prize.

Some stats from the last 12 months of blogging:

• 33,959,591 hits
• 7,270,868 pageviews
• 2,196,785 visits

… and from two years of producing stuff:

• 4,000 backlinks in Technorati
• 1,662 posts
• 2,452 comments
• 67,674 spam comments blocked

I can’t thank all of you, readers, enough for making this work, for contributing and sending me campaigns and cool links, for sticking to the blog, even if I sometimes let it slip a couple of days because of travel or work load. I hope I’ll be around for a long time, with all of you, somewhere at some point. First one to catch me in real life after seeing this post gets a beer.

Description:

The Wolf King Warrior Gaming Keypad is the ultimate gaming weapon. Perfect for PC Gamers looking for a portable game pad or just looking for more flexibility. The Warrior connects to your computer via USB and is plug and play. It features 55 ergonomically placed control keys commonly used in FPS games. Speed, control and communication is critical in making the moves and decisions that can make the difference between life & death, victory or defeat. This keyboard gives you the advantage over your counterparts who use obsolete technology. Its “one palm size fits all keys” concept will make your movement more precise and deadly to your opponents. Be the Leader Of the Pack with the Weapon Of Champions.

Send your entries through the mail link in the sidebar (Mail Coolz0r) and put ‘contest entry’ in the subject line. I’ll be happy to feature your links and tips. May the best link win. Have your friends vouch for your entry in the comments. The three posts with the most comments and trackbacks are selected for finals, and the audience decides who gets the prize.

Thanks to Nuance for the package. I’m sure it’ll be very well enjoyed!

Mattias sent in the ‘Senses’ campaign. Click here to see it.

I also discovered that it takes longer for me to recover than it used to take. I still feel tired from Friday. I’m getting old. :-) But it was sooo totally worth it. And to all the people that left me a comment with birthday wishes: thank you very very much. I really appreciate it!

I remember having conversations about it with my friends. Most of them are a few years older than me. That’s how I got the idea. They told me that if you make it passed 27, you’re going good. You’ve crossed the gap and you’ll be ok.

30 isn’t a big deal. It’s 27. And now that’s gone. Yey!