- Ladies: Having a hard time figuring out your clothing size? This little web app will help.
- Fun with math: Dividing one by 998001 yields surprising result.
- Fun Android toy: Wreak havoc on (and RickRoll) unsuspecting Wi-Fi users with the click of a button using Network Spoofer. Might as well just install Linux on your phone while you’re at it.
- Redbox puts the kibosh on WB’s 56-day waiting period.
- Monty Python troupe to reunite for film Absolutely Anything.
- Tom Green (not that one) vs Tom Green (that one) and who has the rights to @tomgreen (Tom Green the comedian and his fans are idiots, basically).
- How can a free conference call be free? Here’s how.
- Using Wireshark to capture, filter, and inspect packets.
- In 24-hours, Reddit saves an orphanage (read more).
- SOPA Protest Day: the largest digital protest ever. Now we just need to get rid of ACTA.
- HTML5: Use the new and shiny responsibly. Look up HTML5, CSS3, etc features, know if they are ready for use, and if so find out how you should use them.
- Looking for a car on craigslist? Carsabi will make that process a lot easier.
- Ever wanted to grab the dominant color or palette from an image? This tool will help (get the code from github).
- You knew the day had to come: A Fleshlight-holding iPad case (link safe for work, can’t guarantee that anything past that is).
- One hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second — and YouTube is helping you visualize that.
- 45 Incredibly useful web design checklists and questionnaires.
- Getting e-mail notification overload from all the social networks you’re a part of? Use this site to tame things.
- Bellbot is a simple little bit of code you can put on your site that will play a noise (bell, applause, etc…) whenever somebody buys something or does something on your site that triggers the code.
- ThemeSquirrel is a great collection of WordPress themes.
- Google Public Alerts is Google’s new platform for disseminating emergency messages such as evacuation notices for hurricanes, and everyday alerts such as storm warnings.
Category: Randomness
Reading Material
Reading Material
- This photograph is not free. This photograph is free.
- Speaking of photos, here are 60 completely unusable stock photos.
- Hope this blog keeps up: 1000 Tiny Thing I Hate.
- When you have a need for a 55 gallon jug of lube, Amazon has you covered (be sure to read the reviews).
- Just because: the Cat GIF Page.
- Google is no longer going to maintain Sky Maps, instead making it open source.
- Have a load of ads on your site? Google’s going to penalize you in search results.
- For those of you who don’t know a thing about F-stops, ISO ratings, exposure times and the like when it comes to photography, this handy-dandy image will help you out.
- Prepare to ace your job interview with this interview one-sheeter.
- Appifier allows you to create a native iOS app for your WordPress site in minutes.
- Olly Moss has some great movie poster re-dos.
- Morbid thoughts: This Is How You Die.
- Simple guide for getting started on git.
- For my reference, the Movable Type reblog plugin is over on github. Now if I could just find a way to get everything that’s currently on BendBlogs.com into that pluging, I’d be all set.
- Google Music Importer will allow your offline Google Music to be played in any player on your phone, as well as the ability to move the files off your phone as well.
- Marble Arena 2 looks like a pretty sweet game that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Reading Material
Plugged up with a bit of a head cold, but wanted to get these off my desktop (videos coming…uh…whenever…)
- Look at this street view. Now move the camera up.
- 35 Incredibly Useful Android Apps for 2011 (be sure to follow the links there for links to games as well).
- Teardown of the nifty Nest thermostat.
- Relive the reboot experience for a bunch of classic OSes.
- In case you hadn’t already seen this story last week, PayPal made somebody destroy an expensive violin to get their money back.
- Speaking of violins, could you pick the Strad?
- Planning ahead on major purchases this year? Here’s the best time to buy anything.
- Simple an easy way to record an MP3 on your computer.
- Automakers have made great strides in fuel efficiency in recent decades, but the mileage numbers of individual vehicles have barely increased. An MIT economist explains the conundrum.
- Professor seeds the web with trojan horse essay, just to see where it ends up. Somebody handed it in.
- 2011’s Best Posts on MetaFilter (don’t know if this post regarding the music from O Brother Where Art Thou? is included, but it shoiuld be).
- From the creator of ClockwordMod created a root-less tether.
- Easily clean up your permissions on a bunch of social media sites at once.
- If you use fon, be aware your password is being stored in plain-text.
- Subway fare and pizza prices go hand-in-hand.
- Abbey Road has a web cam with people regularly recreating a certain album cover.
- News networks are ignoring SOPA legislation.
- Mac Classic II vs. Macbook Air: Which boots faster?
- Great list of well-done hacker-journalism in 2011.
- Second Crack is a very simple static-file Markdown blogging engine. It’s totally unnecessary and unsuitable for most people (which the author even admits), but it’s still kind of interesting to me.
- Looking for sheet music? There’s a large collection of public domain music at IMSLP.
- Make a resolution to learn to code.
- visitor.js is a handy little script to personalize your web site based on a ton of variables about the visitor.
- What’s behind that short link? Found out with unFurlr, created by the awesome folks at Mailchimp.
- I really wish I had the hardware to play with VMWare more as its high availability features look awesome. Anybody have some old servers they want to get rid off so I can learn a thing or two as I’d really like to gain some more useful experience in this stuff.
Reading Material
- The best indie games of 2011.
- The 20 best Android games for 2011 from the Android Market.
- Top YouTube videos for 2011, straight from Google.
- While a lot of these I knew (and use frequently), many I didn’t: Environment variables in XP and Vista/7.
- 30 Best Sources for Linux/*BSD documentation.
- It’s time to end the war on drugs.
- Study links winning football and declining grades (done by economists at the University of Oregon, which is an appopriate place for that study).
- Why (and how) we’ve switched away from Google Maps. If I could convince one of these map providers to use the home-numbering data that I helped put together for a local Sunriver map, getting guests to units would be a lot easier, as the numbering scheme is a bit weird on some of the streets.
- Six writers, four producers, and the lyrics still suck.
- Death to .DS_Store.
- 10 More Common Misconceptions Dispelled.
- Great idea, might do this for the geek keys I have at the office: RJ-45 key chain and rack.
- Scheduled sending and email reminders in Gmail.
- The Hassle-Free Guide to Ripping Your Blu-Ray Collection. I have a Blu-Ray player now, just need a Blu-Ray drive for my HTPC to rip some of these things on.
- How NES Games (specifically, Super Mario Bros. 3) are made, in Japanese picture-book form.
- Tens of millions of HP LaserJet printers vulnerable to remote hacking.I can’t seem to find a list anywhere of the printers that are actually vulnerable, so I have no idea of the old HP 4100s I have here at the office need upgrades. I don’t have any of them attached to the internet, so I’m not too worried, but if anybody has a list, please share.
- Disney females brought to life (original artist is here).
- Using computer science to solve Where’s Waldo (“Where’s Wally” if you’re outside the US).
- Great list of online learning centers (my oldest daughter has been playing on Khan Academy now and again, but the list here is good for everybody).
- Automate your Dropbox with Dropbox Automator. Now that I have nearly 20GB of space on my Dropbox account (using my COCC.edu e-mail address, the ol’ Dropbox/Adwords referral game, the getting started tab, the Dropbox 2011 Quest, plus the social-media freebies) I might have to start using it more often for larger files and collections.
Dec. 29th is Move Your Domain Day, and other SOPA Rants and Thoughts
While GoDaddy reversed their SOPA stance because of public outcry from fairly big names (and smaller single entities), you should still probably look at other options because SOPA is just such an ugly thing. It would mean the end of major sites with small teams. Naturally, groups like the RIAA are behind SOPA — the same RIAA who pirated $9 million worth of TV shows.
Seriously, if you don’t know anything about SOPA, read up here, here, here (linked to before), here and here. Oregon’s own Ron Wyden is trying to propose alternatives to SOPA.
Many folks (except maybe this guy) are trying to move their business away from SOPA-supporting companies, me being one of them. I manage 60+ domains personally as well as for a few companies I work for, and am slowly moving them away from GoDaddy.com to NameCheap (affiliate link — use that to transfer/buy, and I get a few pennies) for this along with a few other reasons. While GoDaddy.com is cheap, so is NameCheap, and their support/service has been better (and good lord, GoDaddy is always trying to upsell me a boat load of crap I don’t need/want every time I try to renew something there). NameCheap is joining in on the call for a move your domain day on December 29th with $7 transfers, and they’ll donate $1 to EFF for each domain transferred. While I can’t afford to move all my personal domains at once, I will be moving them when renewal time comes up (I’ve already moved several of the company-managed domains I deal with). There’s an easy step-by-step guide to move your domains from GoDaddy to Namecheap.
Why do poorly-written laws like this even see the light of day? Seriously, Congress, it’s not OK to not know how the Internet works (similarly, it’s not OK to not know how Congress works).
</rant>
Reading Material
- The pr0n index “is a very silly web application that tells you what percentage of the internet for some given search phrase appears to be about porn” (safe for work, don’t worry).
- While I’m not a LAN-Party type of guy, you have to admire the effort this guy put into his house. Here’s the back-story and the technical FAQ.
- Hacking Google for fun and profit.
- Are you the guy that always makes an idiot out of himself at the office holiday party? Let Office Party Rescue make your moronic behavior look tame.
- Rain makes everything better.
- What started as a personal project, quickly became an obsession for New York photographer Jamie Livingston, who managed to take a Polaroid picture every day for 18 years. You can see the photos here.
- Horses**t: One man’s rebuttal to iOS fanboys.
- What if you did Twitter by mail?
- From zero to Go: launching on the Google homepage in 24 hours.
- Interesting project: Web hosting for your DropBox (comments that might better explain this).
- The single-lane Super Highway is mesmerizing to watch thousands of user-created cars drive by.
- Future Drama is taking another look at yesterday’s future.
- I’m thinking about trying out Geckoboard for giggles to get a bit of a real-time status board at an office I work at (if it could tie in with the Navis stuff, it’d be even better).
Reading Material
- Please donate to the Internet Archive.
- What really happened aboard Air France 447.
- Who says computers can’t be beautiful? This one blew me away.
- Xeni Jardin has breast cancer.
- Here is a great review of Twilight: Breaking Dawn.
- Animated GIFs of cats, set to music. What could be better?
- Are you a torrent user? What have you downloaded?
- I was helping a friend redirect her old blog to her old blog to her new one, and these articles were immensely helpful in making sure I got the redirects setup properly.
- Creepy genetic portraits.
- Mythbusters stunt gone wrong damages home. What I want to know: Was the myth confirmed or busted?
- A very expensive car crash involving eight Ferraris and a Lamborghini.
- Nintendo’s Miyamoto Stepping Down, Working on Smaller Games. This man’s impact on gaming is legendary.
- It’s the little things that instructions easier to follow. Like on the Dropbox download page.
- ‘Investigative blogger’ doesn’t get journalist’s protection, Portland judge rules.
- BootMed’s main goal is to help the average Windows user to recover a computer that will not boot. It’s a live CD that most provides easy-to-use fixes.
- Gow is a lightweight alternative to Cygwin.
- I had been using PHDL for better looking (and more useful) directory listings, but h5ai is a really nicely done Apache index that beats the pants off PHPDL. See the demo here. Now I just need to go through and make this the default on my server…
- What’s on your learning list?
- This is a good look as to how SOPA would be abused: ICE releases popular hip-hop blog’s domain after year of deception.
- F**k Passwords (great rant, but obviously a naughty language warning here).
- Videos to come over the next day or two. I have a bunch of those to share.
Reading Material
- Kon-Boot is another handy way to bypass a Windows password prompt.
- Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda (Slashdot founder) interviewed by Matt Haughey.
- The US Government’s $200,000 Useless Android Application.
- The Federal Social Media Index is a great way to see how federal agencies are engaging with their audiences through twitter (Andy’s introduction).
- Need an image? Just type any_keyword.jpg.to in your browser. Like apple.jpg.to (Hacker News comments).
- The footage the NFL won’t show you — the All-22 shot.
- This Indiana Jones looks so much better than that Crystall Skull crap that was actually released.
- Something for my reference: Deplying Windows XP Pro with all Post-SP3 updates and drivers (I didn’t know DriverPacks existed).
- fPrivacy Chrome Extension allows you to opt-out of those annoying Facebook application privileges (RequestPolicy will give you similar protection on Firefox).
- Dwolla looks like an interesting service for microtransactions, now that everything under $10 is free.
- Image ad blending works really, really well.
- It’s amazing what folks will do with Photoshop. Check out these before and after pictures.
- Great list of Linux commands that I wish I knew about (there are some real gems in there).
- It’s lonely in the modern world…
- Look, you moron, my name is… (naughty language warning).
- Fine examples of idiots who can’t park a car.
- Twilight, reimagined as a tragedy.
- Religious user freaking out about the FreeBSD logo.
- PATRIOT Act Gives Foreigners Good Reason to Avoid US Clouds.
Reading Material
Hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving. I will not be getting up at the crack of dawn for Black Friday, as sleeping in is a far more valuable use of my time than waiting in line for deals. Yes, there are good deals, but I don’t have money to spend anyway, so what’s the point?
Meanwhile, here some links to occupy you for a bit:
- A CPU-burner, but Escape The Map is kind of a cool promotional gimick.
- Forward this to the folks in your family who aren’t as Internet savvy: How SOPA would affect you.
- Back to the Future (and its sequel) have nothing to do with the movies. They’re well-done photographs of the same people in the same setting in the past and present-day (warning: couple NSFW).
- Something to put on my Christmas list: Space Invaders (original reddit post is here).
- Wondering if Sprint is upgrading their towers? Their new site will tell you (and it looks like they have upgraded some of them locally).
- In his own words, why Jim Romensko left Poynter.
- Mounting a hard drive as a folder on your Windows PC.
- If you’re the geek in the family, and you’re heading out of town for the holiday, you know that your family’s going to want you to look at their computer. Set it up so that you don’t have to make the trip in the future.
- The future, according to films.
- Didn’t know Remote Desktop had this functionality: Forward local drives to remote machines.
- Great office project: RFID-powered beer machine (read more from the folks who created it on this reddit AMA).
- Need some help writing those 500 word essays? How about some positive reinforcement with kitties?
- Everybody’s got a talent in life. This man’s is being able to scream the 300 baud carrier signal.
- While runas is a handy tool, RunAsDate is really handy to trick the program into thinking it’s different date.
- Bookmarking this for future use: System Restore Explorer.
- While I’ve always used Process Explorer, What’s Running looks pretty slick as well.
- The Font-Bot Project, battling for the future of type supremacy with type-based robots.
- Great list of single-purpose web sites.
- Monitor the web sites your PC is connecting to.
- Another one of the bookmarks: moment.js is a lightweight javascript date library for parsing, manipulating, and formatting dates.
- How to access your machines using DNS names with dd-wrt (another one for the bookmarks that I need to setup my house).
Reading Material
Need to get a bunch of links off my plate here…
- Two new Fed GPS trackers found on SUV.
- In defence of the Google chef…
- I have no idea what these people do, but their “About Us” page is pretty fun.
- parallel-flickr is a work-in-progress that mirrors Flickr photos, retaining permissions and URLs.
- Speaking of Flickr (and the killing of a crapload of trees), 24 Hours of Flickr is an art project featuring print-outs of all the images uploaded to Flickr in a 24-hour period.
- Apparently Commodore USA still makes computers.
- The folks at Sesame Street are trying to figure out who their original Gordon was 42 years ago (the actor was only on the test pilot, replaced afterwards). Can you help them?
- Windows 95 was distributed on 13 floppy disks and I probably still have nearly all of them somewhere.
- One dude’s rant as to why you shouldn’t use MongoDB, though there are Hacker News comments to the contrary so take it all with a grain of salt.
- If you do any e-mail marketing at all, be sure to checkout Emailology, the science of looking good in the inbox.
- Finally some clarification for us Yanks as to the difference between Great Britain, UK, British Islands and British Isles.
- Cards Against Humanity is like Apples To Apples for jerks (which, really, is how I like playing Apples to Apples anyway).
- If you’re trying to keep up with of all the Occupy (insert city here) news that’s coming through social media, Occupationalist gives you a nice little dashboard to easily keep track of it all.
- See, there’s a scientific reason I like working in the dark.
- Cardio does have to be boring if you have an iPad.
- I’ve seen some of these creative applications of music notation, but I had no idea somebody actually tried playing “Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz“. You can see the performance here.
- Oldie but a goody(ie?): One man’s quest to find the origins of Windows’ “Autumn” wallpaper.
- How to calibrate your HDTV and boost your video quality in 30 minutes or less.
- Hadn’t heard this story: Homeland security wants Mozilla to pull “Domain Seizure” add-on. The add-on in question can be downloaded here.
- Steve Jobs’s Real Genius.
- Need CSS docs? InstaCSS will help.
- It’s still better than Comic Sans: A typface made with leg hair.
- Channel.me allows you go beyond link or screen sharing and lets you navigate through the same website with folks.
- Freelancer? Work from home? Feel like you need encouragement from bosses and/or co-workers? Here you go.
- Schema.org is something I came across recently in homes to get Google to index some of the content on a site I work on slightly better (primarily user-reviews, in my case).