“Throw me something mister!” is something New Orleanians learn to yell at riders of parade floats at an early age. For the two weeks leading up to Mardi Gras each year, we do a lot of catching—beads, doubloons, cups, stuffed animals, even coconuts! We love our parades, both as spectators and as riders.

For over a hundred years, the design of carnival floats didn't really change. The Mystick Krewe of Comus began with two floats built on cotton wagons. To this day, the “old line” krewes still build their floats on wagon platforms. This works fine when a krewe doesn't plan to put more than 6-10 people on each float. The “super krewes,” such as Endymion, Bacchus, and Orpheus, however, need a bit more support than what an old wagon can deliver.

The modern carnival float needs to hold anywhere from 20 to 100 riders, and all the stuff they throw. A simple wooden frame won't handle all that weight, so today's floats start with a steel skeleton built on top of sturdy axles and heavy-duty tires. Before the artists get their hands on them, a “parade float” doesn't look a lot different than the “truck floats” you see on Mardi Gras in the Elks and Crescent City parades. Just like a trailer a big rig hauls across the country, the float is designed to haul heavy loads.

And don't forget all the beer!

Here's the trick, though. We expect more of a show from our “regular” parades than we do from the “truck” parades. We want a spectacle along with our beads and doubloons. Once the float's skeleton is complete, a second frame is built around it, this time made of wood. This frame isn't the simple box of the steel skeleton, though. The wood frame will be uneven, wider in some spots than others, while still meeting the specifications necessary to make it through the streets of New Orleans on parade night. This uneven-frame design has been around all the years of the cotton wagons. It's what turns the floats into flights of fantasy. Once the wood frame is built out around the secure skeleton, it is covered in wire mesh, and the creative process truly begins. Floats are paper-mache creations, works of art in plaster. The wire frame is covered over and whitewashed, a canvas to become a scene from mythology or a platform to feature a figure from history or a politician being satirized.

The white-plaster float is then turned over to the painters. They've already worked with the krewe to transform the parade's theme into sketches and concept drawings. Now they take those drawings and make them a three-dimensional, full-sized reality. Rollers, and paintbrushes go to work to get the basic color scheme down. Once that's done, artisan brushes and air-brushes apply the details. Soon, those white shells tell a story.

Floats have had decorations and props on them for decades. The problem with classic figures on floats is that wood and plaster make a float top-heavy. That forced designers to limit the size of figures, or to keep them in the center of the float. Modern plastics and fiberglass now give float artisans more options. Lighter weights mean a figurehead can now extend dramatically from the front of a float, a bird's wings can spread and soar, or flowers can shoot from a vase. These props and figures are essential for day parades in particular. Organizations like the Krewe of Mid City use colored aluminum foil to improve the reflective quality of their floats. “Day glo” paints now add to the spectacle, enhancing the daytime show.

The day parades are wonderful family events, but it's the night parades that make carnival time in New Orleans special. Dating back to that first Comus parade, floats were accompanied by torch bearers, then eventually the “flambeaux” carriers. The classic flambeaux kit was a bucket of kerosene attached to a wooden pole. Gravity fed the fuel into burner spouts. Light the fuel and march! As illumination technology developed, railroad/highway flares were also used to light the floats.
It wasn't so much electricity as the gas-powered generator that changed float lighting. Instead of external lighting, the floats themselves could carry incadescent light bulbs. Some krewes, such as Hermes, and Zeus out in Metairie, designed floats with neon lighting as well (Greek gods and their lightning bolts). A number of parades kept the flambeaux carriers out of tradition, but lighting was no longer a problem.

An even newer technology development raised the bar on float illumination when the Krewe of Orpheus introduced their “Leviathan” float in 1998. Leviathan was the first float to incorporate optical-fiber lighting. Combined with microprocessor control, fiber-optics make for a very other-worldly effect on something we locals have known all our lives.

Happy Mardi Gras!

And what do you do with it all when the semester's over? You did well in classes, so you don't need the textbooks any more, and it's going to be really hard to fit that fridge in the car for the drive home. There are always used-textbook stores or “book exchange” storefronts around big schools, but they peel off a percentage of your selling price for overhead. The amount of money you get back makes you wonder if it was all worth the bother.

Some schools (like the University of New Orleans, once upon a time in the dark ages, when I was an Education major there) will set up non-profit book-exchange programs, run by student government or other organizations. This is 2012, however, and that means there ought to be an Internet-based solution, right? You bet.

GivePals.com home page

Enter GivePals.com, developed by a group of folks who attend or graduated from the University of Houston. The site kicked off in October, 2010, and now has over 2000 users.

What's the idea? GivePals.com goes back to a business model that Facebook used but abandoned years ago: keep a lid on “user communities” within the site. When Facebook first got started, a prospective was required to sign up for the site with an email account from a school. For example, if you go to University of New Orleans, you'll use your uno.edu email to register. Don't have one? You can't sign up.

This sounds like a simple concept, but it's important. Sure, there are other sites where you can buy and sell stuff—it's what makes the Internet go around. There are a number of problems with the more-public sites, such as Facebook, eBay, and Craigslist.

Textbook confusion – different schools have different policies with respect to textbooks. The Math Department at Univ. of Houston may choose totally different books for first and second semester Calculus than Texas A&M, for example. Advertising your books beyond your school's immediate community isn't going to help.

Shipping costs – Nobody's going to pay to ship your used dorm-room fridge from Houston to New Orleans. By the time you both sorted that out, the buyer just as soon have gone to Target and bought a new one.

Cashless transactions – Trading stuff online is always problematic. The issue is trust. You have three books you want to trade. Somebody else needs those books. They're short on cash, but they've got an iPhone you'd take in trade. Sounds like a good deal, if you could just check out the merchandise. With a localized community focusing on your school, you can make an appointment to do the deal in person, each side inspecting the other's goods.

Privacy – Limiting who knows your information is essential for many college students. For many, this is their first time living on their own, away from home. Many folks want to limit how much personal information they give out.

Crazies – An extension of privacy concerns, many of the public sites have issues with stalkers and other brands of crazy people. Nobody wants what they consider a simple transaction like selling last semester's math textbook to turn into a situation involving restraining orders. Sure, this can still happen inside a limited community, but you lower the odds dramatically when you restrict the user base.

That's the bottom line of the “limited-community” business model. You only connect with people on your campus. It's clear the guys behind GivePals.com get this, because they hint at the potential of on-campus connections beyond just textbook sales. They're right, buying/selling/trading textbooks could very well lead to more interesting relationships, both business and personal.

GivePals on Facebook

Yes, both business and personal. When people say “meet someone,” or “start a relationship,” they immediately think dating. There is so much more to the people you meet in school than dating! The folks at GivePals.com recognize this and encourage community-building.

GivePals.com

is still considered “in beta,” meaning, “we still have bugs to work out.” They're the beginning of a trend to return from the macro-sites like Facebook and Craigslist to more manageable (and more-secure) online communities.

One of the great developments in the mobile shopping world is the movement of actual malls with their own applications. Many of these shopping malls are offering apps that let you do price comparisons over the phone. This allows potential customers to weigh pricing while on the go, one of the major helps in holiday shopping.

Amazon Mobile

The use of Amazon Mobile has continued to attract even more people during the holiday season. With an instant source of item comparison across different platforms, the application has become a necessity to many holiday shoppers. The application is available on BlackBerry, Android and iPhone. What Amazon Mobile does best is an instant price comparison between what’s in store and what’s online. During a time when frugality is often a necessity, an application like this is more valuable than ever. Amazon Mobile also contains a customer review section where you can study the popularity and reliability of different products.

The use of mobile applications for shopping continues to grow just like the rest of the digital world. By the time holidays roll around in 2012, expect even more advancements to make shopping more convenient and easier overall for gift buyers during the season. Not to worry, because using some of the current applications for shopping can provide better quality and money saving this holiday season as well.

Guest Post By: Melinda Carter

Your house is the designated location for the extended family's Thanksgiving celebration this year, but you've never cooked a turkey? Don't sweat it, here are some apps for your Android phone that will help.

Key Ring Reward Cards

Grocery shopping...Best Buy...Barnes & Noble...you name it, everybody's got a "rewards" program of one kind or another. They give you those little cards to put on your key ring, but what self-respecting geek with a $400 smartphone wants to be that low tech! Since you need to cover that data plan for your Galaxy Tab or iPad, download this app and rack up the rewards when you buy the turkey.

KeyRing is geared more for phones than tablets, since it's designed to put up the barcodes of your various reward cards. Use your phone's camera to scan the card's barcode, KeyRing stores it in the app. When you get to the grocery, call up the approriate card and save! Additionally, KeyRing presents a number of "special offers" right on your device.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade by MyCityWay

Looking for the Snoopy balloon? Pikachu? The Rockettes? This app's really designed for folks going to NYC to see the parade in person, but it's still fun to virtually follow its progress.

MyCityWay offers a number of apps for various cities, presenting a wealth of information, maps, and quick facts.

ChefTap

In many families, Thanksgiving is not the meal for innovation. Everybody remembers maw-maw's oyster dressing, or Aunt Mary's sweet potato casserole. Forget that low-carb veggie medley you saw Rachel Ray making a few weeks ago, everybody wants the green beans with the fried onions on top!

That's where ChefTap comes in. It allows you to locate and import recipes from other websites. You actually found a good approximation of maw-maw's dressing? Pull it into ChefTap, then set your tablet up as a cookbook to make it happen. One of the neat features of ChefTap is its ability to import recipes from blogs. Your cousin has a food blog? Make her put up Aunt Mary's casserole, and you'll be able to pull it into your tablet.

ChefTap's recipe is solid--note the alternating backgrounds for procedure steps. Even if you're using a small display on a smartphone, you won't mistake a teaspoon for a tablespoon.

BigOven

OK, yeah, I know. Nobody really liked Aunt Mary's sweet potato casserole, right? You're a grown-up now, and you want to start traditions of your own. Where to begin? How about with BigOven's database of 170K+ recipes? BigOven is one of the most popular recipe apps available.

If you're a relative novice to cooking turkey, trust me, use a recipe. You can't just toss the thing in the oven. There's prep work to be done, and you've got to make sure it cooks all the way through. Yes, I know, you do computers for a living and you know how things work. RTFM! In this case, it's the recipe, and BigOven's a great place to start.

OpenTable

You didn't listen, did you? Thought you could just cook the thing, and now you've got a burnt carcass even the dog doesn't want. Never fear! Lots of restaurants near you know your type and are more than happy to help pick up the pieces.

OpenTable is more than just a restaurant listing site. It's a full reservations system for the places listed by the service. While on a trip to Montreal, Canada, recently, I had dinner at the bar of a lovely little bistro, Modavie, in the old town. Next to me were two terminals, one was the house point-of-sale system, the other was linked to OpenTable, so the hostess could verify reservations and review a real-time seating chart.

But that's not your concern. You're standing in front of a ruined turkey and you need a place to eat! Call up the app, and let it search based on your location. OpenTable will show you who's open and what's available. If you're willing to wait a couple of hours, you can even make a proper reservation, instead of just going over and hoping they can seat you.

One or all of these apps will make your Thanksgiving experience more fun, but they'll continue to work for you year-round.

Happy Thanksgiving!

App photos are from my Nook Color, rooted, with CyanogenMod7 ROM (Android Gingerbread) installed. Photos shot with my Google G2 (HTC), also running a CM7 ROM. QR codes generated using qrcode.kaywa.com.

Edward J. Branley is a partner at Yatmedia, a local social media consulting firm. His latest book is Maison Blanche Department Stores, available at bookstores around town as well as on-line resellers. He is @YatPundit on Twitter.

The Aim

Skill Switch NOLA caters to simplicity and strives to take money out of the equation, at least at first. A person can offer a skill they have in exchange for a skill someone else may have. It is a favor for favor barter system that also offers a chance at collaborative skill sharing. Andrew hopes that as more people take part and continue to introduce new skills, the site will build a supportive community. “Money is not our goal,” he also explained, “…more importantly, we want users at Skill Switch NOLA to learn something new or share what they know.”

Getting Started

Thanks to an easy and streamlined design, starting a profile and offering a skill, or browsing through other offers, is quick and painless. It takes less than five minutes to set up an account, and less than that to offer a skill in return for another skill. That being said, at the step in which you offer your services, its best to be as specific as possible and to place as many tags as you can. After that, it’s a matter of being patient and browsing through other profiles to see if there is anything interesting going on.

The (Hopeful) End Result

It’s a tall order, but a great start. With the ease of use within the website, the only missing element is more people. The idea with the website is to build a new type of community, and to make it thrive. And it's going to take more than just creating an account; people are going to have to start talking about it. So is there a skill you have that you’re just dying to offer to people? Do you need help or advice from someone who has a better knowledge base on the subject matter? Then check out the website and start up a profile! It’s free, unique and has the potential for creating a community that stands far apart from the rest.

Check it out: www.skillswitchnola.com

What I like the most about this application is the focus on pictures and simple star rating. You can instantly upload a picture and give a five-star rating. One of the things people pay the most attention to in reviews is the pictures and just how hungry it makes them. It doesn’t hurt New Orleans has some of the most amazing and beautiful food ever; this is a great place to share Nosh!

Features
Website: It’s a great social networking tool. Allows users to add friends from your contacts and social media networks as well as make new friends from the site. You can check out the great food nearby or all over the country as its being uploaded. It’s not only a great tool for our local community, but when visiting out of town, you can also search for restaurants and their menus via Nosh.

Foursquare Integration: Nosh allows users to check-in and share photos and recommendations of their dishes with friends on Foursquare.

Home Nosh: Nosh allows you to add new places classified as “private” to showcase your skills in the kitchen, without showing your address.

Nosh Website Widget: Website owners can share their nosh'd dishes through embedding the widget on your website.

Overall, I find this application useful to check out the menus and see a picture and quick rating. Great for quick reviews of restaurants before visiting. It’s also great for those who just love food photography; you can find many great user generated photos. I experienced minimal issues on my Android phone, outside of GPS/Network issues uploading; which isn’t from the actual application. I definitely recommend you check out this app and showcase some of the great New Orleans food at your favorite restaurants and your own kitchen.

We hashed out most of the details but we still can’t come up with a name.  So we’re looking to you for help!  Help us name our new video show and you could win a $25 gift card to best buy.  See the form and rules below.

Rules (For All  You Rules Breakers)

• Only one entry per person
• Contest ends on 8/12/11
• NOLA Tech team, family members, and pets are not permitted to enter
• NOLA Tech reserves the right not to choose any of the name submitted

House Bill 55

Enforcement Is Also A Key Issue

Although the bill could be useful in protecting children online, law enforcement must find ways or decide how they would impose it. “The question is enforcement” said Andrew Tuozzolo, local New Orleans attorney and Chief of Staff to Senator Karen Carter Peterson. “With these laws on the books, law enforcement can now pursue leads on these crimes” said Mr. Tuozzolo. Enforcement is a key issue because even though a law is on the books, it doesn’t necessary mean that it’s always enforced. It’s up to local law enforcement (police, local sheriff, etc) to decide how to handle cyber crimes.

How Cyber Crimes Are Handled In New Orleans

The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has a cyber crime unit to deal with issues such as this. Last year, the Louisiana Attorney General’s High Technology Crime Unit Partners setup a joint effort with NOPD to launch Operation Lookout. Operation Lookout is an undercover internet crimes operation conducted in the New Orleans area that has resulted in the identification of forty four individuals involved in the exploitation of children. Operation Lookout has resulted in:

• 12 Child Pornography arrests
• 9 Indecent Behavior with a Juvenile arrests
• 7 cases involving juveniles downloading child pornography (counseled and released)
• 9 Indecent Behavior/ Child Pornography cases have been referred to other agencies for apprehension (ICE, FBI and other local agencies.)
• 14 cases involving Cyberstalking, Sexting, and Cyber bullying

More information on House Bill 55 can be found on the Louisiana State Legislature’s website. You can also report cases of internet crimes against children to the Louisiana Attorney General’s High Technology Crime Unit at 1-800-256-4506.

Listen To Episode 23

• Invoice ASAP
• Drink Deck App
• Verizon Tech Challenge
• Code for America

Using Shopkick

Shopkick Nearby Screen

Using the app for the first time, you’ll be prompted to accept or decline location services on your phone. From there, you can access the Me screen, which allows you to invite friends and add a social feature to shopping. You can collect kicks and level up for doing various things, and as you level up, you can get more items on your bonus board. The Faves tab has location deals of stores ranging from American Eagle Outfitters to Best Buy. Selecting a deal will tell you the location of the store, the item that is discounted or on sale, and gives you the option to like it, share with friends or save for later. Shopkick has partnerships with Web Seal, West Elm, Target, Sports Authority, Simon Malls, Macy’s Crate & Barrel, Best Buy, American Eagle Outfitters, GAP, Babies R Us, and Sephora with many more stores to come. Another great feature is the Nearby tab, which does just what it says. It checks for store near your location for daily deals.

What Makes It Different?

The app takes the experience of shopping and turns it into fun. Checking in at Best Buy, I was rewarded with 60 kicks that I could use toward my next purchases. It’s like Foursquare meets Facebook meets gift cards meets some of my favorite stores all in my phone. I can use my rewards to donate to a charity, buy Facebook credits, purchase an instant gift card, buy movie tickets, or even get big ticket items such as a Sony Bravia TV. Granted, it’s a lot of kicks, but still. In a Chuck E. Cheese’s-style fashion, I can open up the ticket counter though my phone and get what I want as long as I have enough tickets.

Screenshop of Faves Tab

How Can Local New Orleans Businesses Benefit?

Local New Orleans businesses can also benefit by partnering up with Shopkick so that people can find stores or restaurants within the city to get deals or discounts. Businesses can apply in the Shopkick Local section to be considered for selection. Any local business can apply and any can be selected. The company’s preferred type of businesses are places like restaurants, bakeries, yogurt shops, coffee shops, and fashion stores. Other factors that will help in selection is if the business has less than twenty store locations, have a good Yelp rating, the business design stands out, or if the business is located in a shopping area.