Emily Chang's SuprGlu / ehub

Brightkite is a location-based social network that enables people to take their online profiles with them into the real world and make real-world friends. URL: eHub Interviews Brightkite.

(By Kim Lau) My fiance and I recently moved to Los Angeles and inherited a large garden, which includes, but is not limited to: roses, figs, artichokes, lemons, loquats, oranges, figs, and grapefruits. I have been known to kill bamboo. Clearly, we needed guidance, information, and resources, a lot of which I found online. Learning how to garden is like learning a new language. For those who've always wanted to connect to other gardeners, get advice about compost and plants, and trade seeds and stories, this round-up is for you.

I've spent the past few days exploring food website BooRah, which I can only describe as a localized restaurant information mecca. BooRah's Brian Warren and Nagaraju Bandaru graciously offered me a guided tour, which I hungrily accepted. The conversation was both informative and professional, and I was left with the impression that BooRah is not only a capable product, but that it is in capable hands as well. URL: BooRah Makes You the Restaurant Guru.

I have been an avid Diigo user for some time now. I use it to manage my bookmarks, to take notes, and organize and share my research. It's even become my primary blogging tool. Each time I think that I've finally mastered Diigo, they add some new feature or enhancement. Now, with the newly released Diigo V3, Diigo comes bounding into the social networking world. While it seems like everyone is getting into social networking these days, most are building communities around who knows who. Diigo, leveraging its success as a knowledge sharing tool, is building communities around who knows what.

Shopping and the Internet are a perfect marriage. Combine equal parts user curiosity, materialism, need for research, and a dash of social networking, and you have a great recipe for happy users and advertisers. Finding the perfect item, be it the perfect pea coat or the most eco-friendly couch, has never been easier, or a more fun diversion. The following sites are all vying for your attention and shopping prowess with endless options for sharing your finds, which is as it should be.

There are dozens of ways to keep a calendar, make a list, or get reminders online. A few web offerings do all three very well. A human personal assistant is best but, for many, not in the budget. Until you reach that stage, consider three free sites that are serious competition for your personal assistant needs.

"Photophlow is a web application that lets you share photos in real-time. It is meant to be used for all types of interactions around photos - organized activities such as group critiques and tutorials, as well as just plain hanging out and sharing. Photophlow has a chat component, but it offers a lot more than "chat with photos". It's deeply integrated with Flickr so you can comment on photos, "fave" them, tag them, etc., all of which are reflected on Flickr and are also shared with the group you're interacting with in real-time..." URL: eHub Interviews Photophlow.

Travel is a necessary fact of life. We travel to visit far-away families and friends, or we travel for business. Most people, if you ask them, will say "We love to travel", but if you press further, they will admit that it's not exactly the act of traveling they love, but the end result - being away from home or escaping the stresses of their personal or professional lives. The romance of travel is often obscured by the stresses of hunting down the cheapest airfares, researching hotels, and looking for the best experiences while avoiding the tourist traps.

Recently, I was given an awesome guided tour of personal finance application, SpendView. Nikhil Roy and Nikunj Somaiya have taken SpendView from concept to fully functioning closed beta in the space of about nine months. I was honestly pretty nonplussed about looking at yet another personal finance app. (This might have something to do with the shape my finances are in, maybe...) By the time we were done, I was totally excited by what I saw!

One of the most pleasant ironies of our fast-paced, technological Internet era is the renewed interest in all things handmade and do-it-yourself. People who wouldn't otherwise have picked up so much as a ball of yarn are now learning to sew from tutorials online, trading tips with other people with the same crafty interests, and even selling their creations. In some cases (happily, more than a few), they are able to make enough money to quit their day jobs and make their crafts their sole source of income.

MakeMeSustainable is a catalyst for change, empowering individuals to reduce their environmental impact by connecting how we feel about our environment with how we choose to behave. We provide users with industry-leading energy management tools that allow them to fully understand their carbon footprint and begin taking actions to decrease their environmental impact and financial costs on a real-time basis. MakeMeSustainable also seeks to foster the growth of communities concerned with the environment and the rising cost of energy, helping individuals encourage their friends, and family to be a part of this growing movement for change. URL: eHub Interviews MakeMeSustainable.

Today is Blog Action Day. Today, bloggers all around the world will call attention to issues concerning the environment. Thousands of unique voices will be discussing these issues in thousands of unique ways. In typical eHub fashion, we're going to look at saving the environment Web 2.0 style.

I've been using Opera's Java-based mobile browser for what seems like eternity. I don't even remember how it ended up on my phone to begin with. What I do remember is that it has outperformed every other mobile browser I've tested on my handset. You can bet that I went straight to the Opera Mini website as soon as I found out that a new version, version 3.1, was ready for download. When I got there, I almost missed the link to the new beta version of Opera Mini 4.

In case you hadn't noticed, healthcare is one enormous economic sector. In the United States, spending on healthcare in 2005 was calculated at $2 trillion, which is 16% of GDP. Other countries aren't off the hook either: across the globe, healthcare spending is exceeding the rate of economic growth. So, it stands to reason that web entrepreneurs and even large corporations are increasing their offerings to meet such a voracious demand.

"We are about making it easier to teach, learn and to know what is going on with your children if they are in school. Teachers want to teach; they don't have time to do much more than that. haiku LMS takes about 15 to 20 minutes per week to maintain...haiku LMS lets teachers put a classroom website online quickly and easily, with no need for technical experience. Our focus is to give teachers the tools they really need to communicate with students & parents without extra fluff or hard to learn features..."

Alcohol is all about socializing, which makes it the perfect experimental playground for Internet junkies and drunkards. There are all sorts of tools for finding the perfect wine, keeping in touch with other fans of your favorite beers, or mixing the perfect cocktails to show off for your next party. I believe that as with food, alcohol, in all its forms, is something to be savored, and should be uncomplicated and enjoyable. Alcohol is one part of adult life that is all about having fun!

With my graduate student wife and two younger siblings all focused on squeezing the last bit out of summer, I was almost hesitant to say that my latest topic was to be online student organizers, Notely and Stu.dicio.us. As it turns out, I was able to enlist the opinions of real live students, without which I would not have been able to finish this article. We set out to find which was the better student application. What we found is that there is really not a better or a worse, but a difference in how you approach studying that matters. Are you meticulous or free form? Are you introverted or extroverted? Do you take careful notes or do you just discuss things after class?

Six Apart takes its long-anticipated Movable Type version 4 out of beta and into the spotlight. Let's take a look at the revamped blogging system and take it for a spin.

eHub would like to thank our ad sponsors this summer, including Newsberry, Yumondo, Talkety, Hypediss and Stylehive. Contact us if you would like to become an ad banner sponsor.

I've recently discovered that talented geeks also make great chefs and restaurant critics. So many of the qualities that make geeks so valuable as your personal tech support and computer programmer - obsessive attention to detail, an eagerness to learn and research, and a fascination with process - make them wonderful in the kitchen. Along those lines, I've found a wealth of sites, built by talented geeks to cater to theirs and our food and cooking obsessions.