The 5min Blog

Having Judy Garland as an all time favorite, quoting Will and Grace at least once a day and being a member of a book-club, I think I’ve earned my space at any Gay Pride Parade.

Commemorating the Stonewall Riots, many Pride Parades take place in the month of June, so in the last weeks, we’ve seen how the cities of San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, NYC, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and many others have colored up the streets and added some cheerful spirit to the daily life.

And this is not over-July and August will witness the birth of rainbows in cities like Copenhagen, Munich, London, Madrid, Vancouver and Stockholm. So if you’re around any of these cities, don’t be shy-go out, be proud! You can even make your own flag:

Just keep it gay!

Tags: Gay Pride Parade, gay rights, Judy Garland, LGBT, Oscar Martinez, Stonewall Riots, The Office, Threadbanger, Will and Grace, World Wide Entertainment

In a world where being mean to girls has become a national sport, it’s always nice to close your eyes and think about the only guy that will never betray you. The one that will always support you, no matter what, and that will think only the best of you: your dad.

Coming from a family of just girls, my dad made it clear that he had never wished for a boys and that having three princesses was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. And still, whenever we need advice, we go to him, because, as we say to each other “he’s the best”. And it’s the best therapy: for him, I have Audrey Hepburn’s looks and Albert Einstein’s brain. And if things don’t work out for me, it’s just “because I’m too good”. Call it distorted reality, I call it love.

But when it comes to special occasions, I find myself in trouble. Despite having so many things in common and being able to talk about everything with my dad (from the origins of the Universe until the food in Buenos Aires), when it comes to presents, we never seem to choose the right present for him. The only time when I was sure that he would like what I was getting, was when I bought a copy of the Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. But I can’t go on buying Bergman’s masterpieces and giving them to my dad for any occasion. After all, an occasion is only special if you make it special.

Like Father’s Day. For some, a commercial day, but for me, a great opportunity to tell my dad that I still think he’s the most handsome man in the world and that he will always be my hero. But words don’t make a present, so I better start thinking about another director he might like, and if I don’t find any, get my crafty side out:

Even if he doesn’t like it, he won’t have the heart to tell me so. After all, besides having Hepburn’s looks and Einstein’s brain, he thinks I’m as gifted as Van Gogh, so, how could this go wrong?

Tags: Albert Einstein, Audrey Hepburn, daddy's girl, DadLabs, Father's Day, Ingmar Bergman, Van Gogh, WatchMojo, Wild Strawberries

For weeks now we’ve been working at full capacity to bring you the latest version of 5min’s Smart Player - the third major release of our flagship distributable player - now sleeker, noticeably lighter, faster and above all - more customizable than ever before, making it the ideal white-label player solution for your site.

During this time and since the release of the player’s previous version, we’ve been making every effort to listen to you, our Content Partners, Distribution Partners and the 5min community itself in order to bring you the best possible player to suit your needs across every online outlet - the result is a new and improved Smart Player, armed with new customization, content delivery and monetization options for an enhanced viewing experience alongside more control over the player’s overall look and functionality.

The same all-in-one player, now with more customization options than ever before, to ensure seamless integration on your site, on your blog or any of your web pages. With such a smart, simple way to add 5min’s quality how-to video content to your site, you can now define your player, tweak and skin it, and create a custom-made video section for your site or blog - all in minutes and with a lightweight snipper of code. One of our goals was and remains to make relevant distribution of quality how-to’s a cinch - whether via the embeddable default Smart Player, through our VideoSeed product range, or our dynamic video widgets Now, with a new player in tow, we’ve also made it easier for you - publishers, bloggers, site owners and content creators - to gain maximum control over the latest Smart Player and make it totally your own.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be rolling out with the new player across our Partner websites, so keep your eyes open and let us know what you think of the changes we’ve made.

So, what’s new? Below are some of the highlights of the new 5min Smart Player:

More Display Options to Choose From:
The latest version of 5min’s flagship player is now more customizable than ever before, allowing full customization on a per-publisher level — you get total control over the display of your player, from color scheme to branding to sizing, so that you can create a player which suits your website’s needs to a tee. Publishers can also choose which Related Videos are featured within the player and how.

Lighter, Faster Player Behavior:
Now more than 3 times faster in behavior and response, 5min’s latest Smart Player is built with ActionScript 3, designed for high-level functionality and lighter, faster performance — with an initial weight of under 100K, the Smart Player has never been so impressively lightweight and sleek. 5min’s new Smart Player is event-driven, providing a higher performance rate and fine-tuned capabilities alongside a wider variety of customization options, skins, and display preferences. From shorter to loading times to record-time response, the Smart Player has never been faster to use.

Different Ratio Options:
Designed for ideal viewing in either 4:3 or 16:9 format — choose your ratio display settings according to your needs.

Better Branding & Personalization:
More possibilities than ever for content creators and publishers - now you can add a watermark logo to accompany your content in the video area itself, benefit from better branding and even opt for a permanent branded banner addition to appear right below the player.

Streamlined Ad Unit Placement:
The new Smart Player is available for use in all sizes provided via 5min’s VideoSeed range, and supplies an optimal placement of 300 x 250 ad units on your site.

Smart Ad Management:
The new Smart Player incorporates a 3rd party integrated platform for management of video ad inventory — all ads can be easily and accurately managed through this new component, providing up-to-date in-house reporting for your content and monetization of such. All player options may display all ad types and are compatible with a companion banner, for a maximum number of ad views.

Distribution Made Simple:
With the latest Smart Player, it is now more simple than ever to share videos - one click within the video player to embed, send to a friend or share through any one of social networks and web services supported.

In addition to the new and improved Smart Player, you’ll probably notice some exciting changes on our watchpage:

- We’ve made the move to a 16:9/widescreen display as default.
- Easier, more intuitive navigation — now you can easily browse your favorite categories directly from the new watchpage.
- Discovery, made simple - now more than ever it’s simple to find more of the great content you’re after, with the new watchpage tabs.

Stay tuned for the many more great and exciting changes we plan on unveiling in the coming months - we’d love to hear your comments!

Tags: 5 Minutes, 5min, 5min.com, changes, navigation, product update, site changes, Smart Player, Smart Player 3, SP3, video watchpage, Widescreen

If I had to define myself with a drink, I’d go with whiskey. But of course, when it comes to drinks, you can’t be entirely monogamous.

You will have to do some cheating in between: it’s better to pair that delicious brie cheese with a Casa Lapostolle’s Clos Apalta wine, make yourself a White Russian if you want to go bowling, enjoy a Mojito while you spend your holidays in the Caribbean, but most of all, drink some delicious girly-looking Cosmopolitans when you go out with your girlfriends for a Sex and the City night.

Because yes, staying home writing short stories and  feeling like William Faulkner can be fun, but going out with your friends, holding pink looking glasses is better.

So, get on those heels and try your Grey Goose L’Orange Cosmopolitan, but don’t have too many, or you’re gonna end up sending embarrassing text messages to Mr Big.

Tags: alcoholic drinks, classic cocktails, cocktail recipes, cocktails, Cosmopolitan, Grey Goose, Grey Goose L'Orange, Grey Goose vodka, mixed drinks, mixology, Mojito, Sex and the City, Whiskey, William Faulkner

Being the obsessive type, a large portion of my teen years was dedicated to cataloging, organizing, arranging and re-arranging my vast music collection. These were the days of CDs, and my walls were like a jewel-case museum. What?! Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power sitting shamelessly next to Gang of Four’s Songs of the Free? Not on my watch, buddy! I was like a rabid watchdog, constantly weeding through obscure sub-genres and alphabetic hierarchy, making sure that certain ends of the music world shall always remain parallel lines, never meeting on my shelves or rubbing up against each other in CD cases.

When The Cult of iPod took the world by storm in late 2001, suddenly all of my extreme and tedious efforts were rendered useless - the world’s population had made the migration to individual MP3s, and music libraries left at the mercy of the shuffle. The secret to surviving this brave new world, once you get past your jewel case inhibitions? Smart tags, with which you could easily look up and find music in your collection - no matter how deep you buried it, easily create playlists according to genre, artist, album, year or just about anything else. And how could we forget the glorious vanity of skimming through your iTunes albums’ artwork?

However, people don’t walk around toting baskets filled with goodies, and life ain’t exactly a picnic - sometimes, even tags are missing in action when you desperately need them. Sure, you could - in theory - spend hours or possibly days manually fixing all those missing tags in your iTunes stash, but come on, this is the 21st century we’re in. Enter FixTunes, and you’ve got yourself a sweet little solution that mostly does the job.

FixTunes is completely automated, meaning you don’t need to overwork your fingers by typing, and is quite flexible, allowing you to either go song by song and approve the new information it locates for your tracks and albums, or to just sit back and let the magic happen. Of course, nothing’s perfect - this will become clear when you try to look up information for covers or remixes of original tracks, or bands who are pretty much doomed to obscurity, but all in all, this is a sweet deal. To work some Mary Poppins magic on your iTunes collection, just check out this handy video tutorial from VitaminCM.com:

Go forth an catalog your tunes, kids! Got Mac tips or playlist suggestions? Drop us a line via email or comment on this post.

Tags: album artwork, Apple, fix missing tags, Fixtunes, iTunes, iTunes library, iTunes tags, iTunes tips, Mac Monday, Mac tips, missing tags, MP3, MP3 tags, song titles, VitaminCM.com

With everything going on in the world today, one wouldn’t necessarily think that a little bit of hair, or lack of, can cause such a fuss. But while nuclear threats, world hunger and the slow extinction of bees leave most people somewhat indifferent, nothing gets a conversation going like a woman choosing to shave off her head. What is it about bald women that fascinates us?

Legend has it that the mother of all bald women, Sinead O’Connor, first shaved her head after being politely asked by her record label to be a little more feminine. Her model of a beautiful woman who’s both rebellious and fragile has been with us ever since. In cinema we had Demi Moore in G.I. Jane who also invested in a matching set of muscles.

Robin Tunney as Debra in the cultish Empire Records took fragile to a whole new and disturbing level. In Alien 3 Sigourney Weaver was playing a part originally written for a man and gets pregnant with an alien baby, so clearly an ambiguous look was needed.  Similarly, everyone’s favorite Natalie Portman’s V for Vendetta transformation from a frightened little girl to a tough freedom fighter/terrorist required a buzz cut.

No wonder bald women got a bad rep. Long hair is one of the strongest attributes of femininity, when women decide to cut it, they seem to reject the whole concept. Many saw Britney’s famous encounter with a shaving machine as hitting rock bottom, personally I thought it was her brief moment of clarity, the point where she wanted to turn her back on the industry that built and crushed her with delight.  I envisioned her joining a Tibetan nunnery and becoming the new Mother Teresa. A month later she got extensions.

This excellent video from Gillette will show you how to best shave your head:

Tags: Britney Spears, Demi Moore, Empire Records, Gillette, Natalie Portman, shave your head, shaved head, Sigourney Weaver, Sinead O’Connor

Although I’ve heard people say that “Global Warming is a myth”, I know I can’t really trust popular knowledge on this one, as I was also told that “bacon isn’t meat“. So yes, I can grow bacon in my backyard and the climate change that the world is experiencing now, isn’t real.

That makes us realize that if there’s something we can’t start making urban legends about, is the environment, reason why every 5th of June, the world celebrates the World Environment Day (WED), searching for attention and political action from all the governments of the world.

Some people believe that by caring for the environment they will be tagged as tree huggers and will start looking like Oscar Bluth, but I can assure you this will not be the case. Just look at the guys from Green House, who show us a bunch of green tips that will help the environment. You don’t have to change your habits drastically to become a green person, you just have to remember that for everything you do, there is a green alternative:

So, on this June 5th, make your own New Green Year resolutions, and start following these green tips. After all, your planet needs you!

Tags: Arrested Development, For Your Imagination, global warming, Green House, UN, World Environment Day

Unless you’ve been living under an Oprah-proof rock for the past few months, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about Twitter, the micro-blogging service that’s managed to rock the web and stir up a craze, from its early adopters to the latest celebs who are signing on and tweeting their hearts out.

While using the website itself is a decent way to tweet and get the latest updates from the feeds you follow, I find that that for a true web-addict like myself, who already works with dozens of open tabs at a time, substituting my Twitter-dependency to the use of desktop clients has been a refreshing change, especially with some of the great Adobe Air-based clients available for Mac users, providing a sleek and very intuitive experience. However, with so many fresh desktop clients surfacing out there, it can be a little confusing - so, which Twitter desktop client is the ultimate pairing for your Mac? Below is a rundown of some of the best Twitter desktop clients for Mac - depending on your needs and use of Twitter, one of these is bound to be the ideal Tweeting solution for you.

Tweetie:

As an iPhone fiend, Tweetie was the one of the more obvious choices for me when their desktop client for the Mac was released, as Tweetie had already managed to secure a spot as favorite on my iPhone. One of the greatet advantages of Tweetie is the enabled support for multiple accounts, meaning I can navigate both my personal Twitter account and 5min’s Twitter account, for example, all without the troubles of multiple sessions, login frustrations or any hassle. Interestingly enough, Tweetie was first developed for the iPhone and only then migrated to the Mac OS X. Another huge pro with Tweetie is the handy little bookmartklet, which allows you to morph any web page you are browsing to a tweet in a simple, straight-forward way - a great idea if you’d like to, say, share links to interesting videos with your followers on Twitter. Using Tweetie, a double-click on any Tweet will enable you to view the entire conversation, which is a great way to stay in the loop. So, what’s the best part about Tweetie? Since it’s not based on Adobe AIR, the program’s memory footprint is a petite one, allowing you to tweet your little heart out without having to worry about your Mac slowing down, freeing more memory for other awesome things, like playing Plants vs. Zombies.

The bitter side-dish? Tweetie’s offering is displayed in a single-column mode - this may be a downer for you if you prefer to receive all your Twitter information in one go, including @replies and direct messages (DM). Personally, I find Tweetie to be a wonderful desktop client despite this drawback, as it allows me to maintain the same experience I have with Tweetie on my iPhone.

TweetDeck:

When I first started to use a desktop client for tweeting, I hopped aboard TweetDeck, one of the more veteran desktop clients on the Twitter scene. There are many wonderful things about TweetDeck, but the real pitch was its super-easy searchability, and an integration with TwitScoop, a web service that tracks trending topics throughout the Twittersphere. TweetDeck also includes the option to receive status updates from your Facebook friends, meaning you’ll have all the updates you need in one place. One of TweetDeck’s awesome features is that it allows you to create groups of different users and categories, such as “Work” or “Friends”, and view them each in their own display.

The possible downer is the fact that being Adobe AIR-based, overdosing on TweetDeck may lead to your Mac behaving a wee bit slower as its memory is devoured by an incessant rain of feeds. On a sidenote, after about a month and a half of using TweetDeck, I developed somewhat of a Pavlovian reflex to the sounds the app’s alerts voice with each incoming update, and ended up feeling a little like Dwight Schrute. Bottom line is this - if you need ALL your Twitter data concentrated in one place and a few sleek columns, TweetDeck is the desktop client for you.

Twhirl:

Twhirl is another friendly Twitter desktop client based on Adobe AIR, created by the awesome folks at Seesmic and compatible with both Windows and Mac platforms. Twhirl also happens to be the more social of the bunch, if you ask me, connecting to multiple Twitter, FriendFeed, identi.ca and Seesmic accounts, as well as smooth integration with Twitter-based services such as TwitPic, TweetScan, Ping.fm and more. Obsessive types like all the wonderful Tweeples on my team will surely appreciate Twhirl’s spell-check feature, too - because even if you’re confined to 140 characters, you shouldn’t be out there embarrassing yourself.

Mac Lounge:

Mac Lounge is another terrific desktop client tailor-made for Macs and iPhones, which also supports multiple accounts. The interface is extremely intuitive and will be quite familiar to Mac users, not to mention it’s very easy on the eyes. All of the frequently-used functions are conveniently located on the left side-bar, including the option to view all your tweets, everyone on the public timeline, your friends/followers, sent and received direct messages, everyone you follow, and so on. A big selling point for Mac Lounge is the ease with which you can follow entire conversation threads, displayed as reply chains. With Mac Lounge, you can easily choose from a wide range of options for every tweet - retweet, link to a tweet, copy a tweet, etc. The app is currently in beta, and I can’t wait to see what more they have in store.

Nambu:

If Twhirl is the super-social of the bunch, I’d label Nambu as the cosmopolitan desktop client - in fact, Nambu enables you to translate any Tweet into plain English with a simple keyboard shorcut. Nifty, huh? As with TweetDeck, you can create groups to better help you track your followers and the different types of feeds and information you receive. Nambu is also great for lazy Tweeples, as it auto-completes usernames as you enter them. All in all, Nambu is like a hybrid between EventBox and TweetDeck, albeit with lesser integration with third-party services such as Facebook and Friendfeed. The real cherry on top? Definitely the de-clutter factor of Nambu, which automatically organizes your replies into conversation threads, resembling text message history, so you can keep abreast of updates with a breeze. Too bad Nambu’s iPhone app is not as slick, but hey - you’ve got Tweetie for that.

Tags: desktop clients, iPhone, Mac, Mac Lounge, Mac Monday, Mac OS X, Nambu, TweetDeck, Tweetie, Twhirl, Twitter, Twitter apps, Twitter clients, Twitter desktop client

I don’t know if style is genetic or if it’s influenced by the environment, but either way, Rome has these two reasons to be a beautiful and trendy city. Centuries of Fine Art can’t be ignored, and Rome is the living proof of it.

Yes, life is beautiful when you stare at the Fontana di Trevi, wishing that you were a Fellini character, while you enjoy your delicious Frutti di Bosco gelato.

The truth is, Rome has so much style that just by being there you feel that the the sky is bluer, the grass is greener and the birds sing better. Not only fashionistas find their way in Via Veneto, but even priests and nuns have their own boutiques where they can find some Red Carpet looking clerical outfits.

If you’re in the need of some beauty around you, take a Roman Holiday! Because unfortunately for us, mortals, who live in the real world, there’s little hope to ever see our cities find the perfect balance between elegance and knowledge, keeping a relaxed atmosphere. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Tags: Anita Ekberg, City by City, Federico Fellini, gelato, Life is Beautiful, Morcheeba, ON Networks, Roman Holiday, Rome, via veneto

“Your hands are your business card to the world.”

That was one of those mantra I repeatedly heard at a tender, young age, directed at almost every girl and woman within close proximity of my grandmother, who was the culprit behind these type of sayings. These priceless pearls of ladylike wisdom would ultimately stay stuck in my head for years. Not to say she wasn’t right - with the paranoia-driven beauty rituals I’ve deployed since my days in kindergarten, my hands have indeed managed to not only to be a source of pride, but also contributed some cold, hard cash to my nest egg, following some obscure hand modeling gigs for jewelry catalogs back in college. Yes, I am 100% not kidding.

Over the years, I’ve maintained a somewhat unhealthy relationship (bordering on addiction) with nail polish, and to this day remember to always carry hand creams in heavenly scents on my person (Confession: 5min’s content ladies happen to be Bath & Body Works junkies), because you never know when you’ll feel that itch to hydrate, rejuvenate and what not. Secretly, of course, I long for society to wise up and return to the glorious days where a lady never left the house without a dainty pair of gloves. If you think about it, it makes sense, as our hands are parts that are constantly exposed to the damages of the sun, chemicals, urban grime and an endless list of other foes who stand in the way of perfection.

Oh, yeah - and aging. That’s right, I know my hands and nails are shockingly stunning now, in my twenties, but I also know that in a couple of decades I may find myself longing to bring back the glove-toting revolution all on my own, with the inevitable appearance of wrinkles, sun spots, and evidence of natural progression (unless I discover I’m one of those immortal types, that is).

Which is why I was super-stoked to discover this video from The Doctors, where I learned about hand rejuvenation procedures available to those on a quest after the perfect pair of hands. In this segment, you can see how Radiesse, a calcium-based filler, is injected between the tendons on top of the hand. The filler adds volume to the area and lasts up to two years, leaving you with a plumper, healthier and younger looking hands.

Check it out and find out more about hand rejuvenation surgery:

Tags: beauty rituals, CBS, cosmetic procedure, cosmetic surgery, hand protection, hand rejuvenation, hand rejuvenation surgery, plastic surgery, The Doctors