The other day I was reading the update notice for one of my iPod touch apps. Buried in the fine print was the mention of a new web site launching today, January 18th. The web site is by the same people who brought you the Appvent Calendar in December.

Every day, a different iPhone/iPod Touch application will be free for 24 hours. It remains to be seen whether they will branch out from the games-only theme of December, but if you have the hardware it’s worth checking out FreeAppADay.com.

#1: I know naming characters is tough, but this is the first time I’ve heard of someone doing market research with Google adwords to name their character. It’s interesting to see that names do make a difference. Now I’m curious if there are class or culture biases at work with the names–too bad the author doesn’t reveal the names.

#2: Not sure what to make of this: Random House Canada and McClelland & Stewart are closing their rights departments and outsourcing subsidiary rights sales/management to an independent agency. From the article:

The Cooke Agency International will handle the selling and licensing of foreign rights, permissions, and dometic book club sales. The selling of first and second serial rights will be handled by the Publicity departments of each company.

#3: Got an iPhone or an iPod Touch? Love handmade, geeky stuff? Yummypocket over at Etsy makes some really neat holders for the iPhone including an Etch-a-Sketch holder and a cassette holder.

#1: An article about how US newspapers are laying off their best specialized reporters, in this case science reporters, in the name of budget cuts. The unerring capacity for the media (and not just the US media) to get science news stories wrong drives me crazy, so this article caught my eye.

#2: You can’t trust those iTunes App Store reviews. What a shocker (not really). The short version: PR firm offers iPhone app developers excellent reviews on iTunes store … for a fee. Ethics? What are those?

#3: Speaking of ethics and the like: You may be familiar (or not) with a Friday night ritual on Twitter called #romfail in which a romance reviewer mocks a book of the week line-by-line. Well, it seems some people have had enough of this practice. There’s also a roundup of other posts on the topic.

#1: Some very cool bookshelf projects to be found on Instructables.com. Originally I went there for the Inverted Bookshelf, but they also have a Hidden Door Bookshelf, a bookshelf made of encyclopedias, and an Invisible Bookshelf. There’s more, I’m sure, if you poke around the sidebar for related projects on that site.

#2: If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you might find the video below of interest. It shows how to make a dock for the iPhone/iPod Touch out of nothing but binder clips. I don’t have the right sizes handy but the next time I’m at the dollar store I’m going to stock up and try it out. Be warned the video has a soundtrack (you won’t lose any information if you turn the sound off since the instructions are given as captions only):

#3: How could I not link to a series of posts called “How NOT To Be a Douchebag Author 101“? It’s a series of posts by a book editor on how authors can navigate the publishing world without being a jerk/pain about it.