Have you had to teach your parents how to use a computer? How many hours (or weeks!?) did you spend just getting the basics down with them? I feel for you – honestly. I’ve been there, done that and hope to never repeat the experience again.

Go ahead – tell us your best horror story here in the comments. What’s the most frustrating, funny or outrageous thing that happened when trying to teach an old dog some new tricks?

Teach parents tech?

What really happens when your kernels panic?

Check out more awesome comics over on Blaugh.

Kernel panic [COMIC]

Windows Phone 7 devices hit store shelves today in the United States. Have you gotten your hands on one yet?

Did you get your hands on a Windows Phone?

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I am a fan of both comic books and The Far Side, so purchasing this collector’s set made perfect sense!

Gary Larson calls The Complete Far Side, the massive two-volume collection of his Far Side cartoons, an “18-pound hernia giver.” Sure to give any coffee table a solid workout, the handsome and heavy 1,272-page “legacy book” is a must for fervent fans; over 4,300 single-panel comics with more than half in color and 1,100 that have not appeared in any book form before.

If you know of other cool or geeky comics I should own, please let me know!

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The Ultimate Far Side Comic Strip Set

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My friend Duncan Riley posted a link on his FriendFeed yesterday, and I had to check it out. The link said that you could build your own cartoon. I love cartoons, and I love trying to create new things, so this works perfectly! You can simply drag and drop… edit… and go! With GoAnimate, there’s nothing to install. It’s all done online. Create and share your animation in just minutes.

GoAnimate can do loads of stuff! While we do our best to make it easy to use, it is always hard to pack so many features onto a computer screen and make it easy for say a chiwawa with its legs attached behind its back to use. Whether you have trouble creating animations or you want to learn about the more advanced features of the application, this page is the place to be!

You can use any of their hundreds of pre-installed images, or upload your own. There are cool backgrounds, sounds, and of course animations you can edit and change. Create your comics, share them with your friends, and build a fan base for your work. At this point, you can even embed your cartoons.

I’ve never seen something quite like this before. It’s pretty powerful stuff, and tons of fun. Be sure and share with all of us whatever you create!

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Have You Ever Wanted to Animate Your own Cartoon?

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I have always loved comic strips. However, there’s a problem. I cannot draw! Thankfully, I found BitStrips online. I can now easily create my own comics… for free! Bwana joined me on this video, and let me create “him” in cartoon form! Feel free to add me as a friend and use me in your own comic strip.

• Imagination. The creator of a Bitstrips comic must have an imagination, to be able to create weird and wonderful comics. This imagination will help them to design new and different comics that are different than all the others. Without this key feature, the comics you create will probably be dull and boring, getting you no laughs or good comments.
• Characters. Once you have taken the plunge and created a Bitstrips account, you will want to waste no time in making yourself some characters. I think it’s a good idea to create a lot of different characters, so that you can include new ideas quickly and easily. I also think that each character should have a main focal difference to the other characters you have created. This could range from a hat to a beard or maybe the hair style. Just remember to keep your characters cool, different and original.
• Good story. This might seem an obvious point. Some people take too much time making new characters and giving them good poses and props. They then forget to make their comic funny and witty. A good idea would be to test it out on your friends and family before publishing your comic strip. This way you can gauge their reaction, and get feedback on possible improvements, prior to uploading it to the Internet.
• Respect. I think this is one of the most important points. You must respect other people in your comics. There is no point in putting racially offensive content in your comic. No one will find it funny, and you will probably have your account banned. It’s best to keep your comics nice and clean.
• Last but not least… enjoy yourself. That’s the whole point of making comics. You must enjoy yourself. If you follow these tips and have the same passion for comics that Chris and I both have, you will no doubt have a lot of fun on this site.

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How to Put Yourself and Friends in a Comic Strip

One of my ‘Net friends sent me a social network invitation earlier today – but it wasn’t just any ol’ invite. The email came with a ‘Chris Pirillo’ comic caricature inline. I responded to the email asking how he did it – not realizing that it was generated through a site that apparently just launched: BitStrips.com.

Now, you know I’ve always been a fan of ComicLife.com (and yes, Plasq is a sponsor) – but this is a different kind of site / service / content generating application. Within minutes, I was creating my own comics. The advanced controls are a bit awkward, but it really is simple to figure out.

They want to drive traffic back to their own site, but I just downloaded the PNGs and uploaded ‘em to my Flickr account. That’s what they should do on the backend, IMHO – because all of my friends already use Flickr. I did these three in succession of one another, after getting a “LOL” reaction from my chat room.

Enjoy?

We don’t have blue eyes, but… that makes it all the more creative, eh?

How to Create Your Own Comic Strip

I’ve been waiting years for this moment! You can finally download the first beta of Comic Life for Windows.

Comic Life gives you a super-quick and easy way to create astounding comics, beautiful picture albums and enticing instruction booklets to name a few of the many possibilities.

Included are professional and fun templates, ready to drag and drop onto your page for instant attractive photo layouts. Or if you like to be in control, position your photos and panels how you like and save them for later use.

It’s one of those applications that you just… must… have.

Comic Life for Windows Beta!

I can’t think of the last time I set any site as my default “start page” (other than my own, or a local document of collected links and search fields). I was checking referral logs for bLaugh and noticed that Protopage and Netvibes kept popping up. I had visited each of them a while ago, but never really bothered to return to either – portal sites aren’t really my thing.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that our daily comic was toggled as a default widget on the primary Protopage tab! So, not only is Protopage the best designed AJAX portal, but it also has the best sense of humor. Okay, so maybe I’m a bit biased with the second claim – but it’s still incredibly thrilling to see just how many people have picked up on bLaugh since its launch a few months ago. Technorati reports that we’ve moved up to 831 (3,919 links from 1,353 blogs), though Hugh has been around substantially longer and has a insanely better numbers (and rightfully so).

Comic impressions are different than text impressions and/or video plays – just like most Web images (read: banners) have always been better played for branding purposes. For instance, there’s virtually no way of telling how many people read bLaugh on a daily basis through mass aggregation services like Protopage, Google Reader, Bloglines, etc. I can tell you one thing: I certainly welcome the use of our feed and/or API by any third-party. Brad and I have already been profitable with our madcapped adventure – without having to resort to venture comical capital. GoDaddy seems equally as happy! Move over, United Feature Syndicate and King Features Syndicate!

My Favorite Portal: Protopage

When we released the bLaugh API, I was hoping that some enterprising developer would use it to create something fun. Mike from Singer’s Creations just unleashed Comicazzi tonight. Essentially, it’s a desktop app that will let you drag and drop bLaugh comics onto your current wallpaper. If that doesn’t sound very exciting to you, I’ve suggested that the interactive comic viewer eventually include other Web comics – hence, the generic “Comicazzi” title. If you would like your comic to be included in the app, you’ll have to talk to Mike about it (and give him an easy way to access the images). I’ve also suggested that Comicazzi eventually call on the Flickr API to help people build dynamic wallpapers from Flickr iamges, too. Fun times! Download it!

Comic Freeware

Sean Hickey has created an amazing workflow for both Brad and myself in bLaugh comic publishing. In doing so, he’s also created a WordPress plugin for the comic (found on his own amazing WP Plugins directory). It’s Sidebar Widget compatible, BTW. I thought it would have been nicer to see bLaugh show up on my Admin Dashboard page – but this’ll do for those who don’t wanna dink with the JavaScript stuff. No matter, I’ve updated our comic syndication page (which now includes MySpace options).

In other (semi-related) news, bLaugh is the world’s first comic to have an API. Yes, you can download the bLaugh API documentation (PDF) immediately. Sean conceived of and crafted it himself, telling me that REST functionality is coming. I couldn’t do that, largely because there’s no REST for the wicked (and I’m a wicked, wicked little man). Plus, I’m not a developer.

The World’s Funniest API

Who does this remind you of?

Okay, so… Brad and I released this comic on bLaugh today:

Should be chuckle-worthy, though it wasn’t the original strip. I showed another image to friends, with some of them suggesting that we hold it indefinitely – and others suggesting that we run it immediately. If you’re offended easily, you don’t want to see this: the comic we chose not to run.

Did we make the right decision in not running the original version? It’s culturally offensive (playing on stereotypes), but so are countless political cartoons these days. I personally think we did the right thing by going with the ski-masks. Last thing I’d ever want to do is incite an interracial (or international) incident.

Is This Offensive or Funny?

For some reason or another, choosy users choose bLaugh. At least, that’s what the readers and staff of BusinessWeek Online report. We just received a “Best of the Web” award in the Humor category. I’d still like to see bLaugh pushed out and shared on more Web sites, portals, and print media. Who else won?

• The Onion
• The Joy of Tech
• Rocketboom
• gapingvoid
• Go Fug Yourself* (tied)
• Ze Frank* (tied)

I suppose this means they want us to do a parody of their brand. “BusinessWeak” sounds kinda funny, especially if we do a mock cover? Until then, I guess today’s bLaugh will have to do…

bLaugh is a Reader’s Choice

I’m going on record by stating that user generated content is often user generated CRAP. Still, that didn’t stop me from forcing Brad to publish today’s bLaugh with an empty caption bubble. We’re asking the audience – all two of you – to fill in the blank. I’m hoping that Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Whigs, and “Islamic Fascists” will be able to drop the debate for just a moment and make the world a funnier place…

My suggestion: “That’s the last time I install a patch issued by Homeland Security developers.”

The Great Political Cartoon Experiment