- The Vendor/Client Relationtionship in Real World Situations.
- I didn’t know video game graphics could look this realistic.
- The Background Dope on DHS Recent Seizure of Domains.
- Five Lessons Netflix Learned withUsing AWS (I think the Chaos Monkey idea is a great one).
- The Big Picture has their photos of the year series going: Part 1, 2 and 3.
- Wiki’s should have an ignorance test.
- Why one man rated the book as “very good”.
- Booboo Kills Yogi.
- 22 Essential Resources for Android Owners.
- Steam’s Holiday Sale has begun, and this Reddit thread will make it easier to follow.
- For the serious geeks: vmail is a Vim interface to Gmail.
- I don’t know where this hilarious image came from, but more parents should be given this in poster form.
- The NYT geeks are smart folks: Using flat files so elections don’t break your server.
- Those molesting pat-downs aren’t working: Man boards plane with loaded gun in carry-on.
- Favimon is a RGB-style battle of Favicons.
- I’m mostly book marking this for my future reference, but unRAID looks fairly interesting.
- Nudity detection with JavaScript with nude.js.
- Speaking of nudity, Accidental Penis (Safe for work, don’t worry).
- Google Labs has debuted Books Ngram Viewer which allows you to type in a word or phrase in one of seven languages and see how its usage frequency has been changing throughout the past few centuries. Naturally, somebody tried it with “penis” and there was apparently a spike in the early 19th century that has a bit of a phallic shape to it.
Category: Randomness
Reading Material
Reading Material
Time to get some of these links off my desktop…
- Cool Facebook profile picture using the new profile layout. Directions and examples (along with PSD templates) on reddit, gremlin media.
- Google Wave is now Apache Wave.
- Instant Virgin Detector: The Hover Hand. Speaking of Baby-makin’, one man’s quest to create the ultimate soundtrack (warning, NSFW language).
- Interesting interview with the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit.
- Interesting tidbits in an interview with Mario’s creator.
- Interesting audio recording of a speech made by JFK before the American Newspaper Publishers Association where he warns the press about the secret societies that are the real power in global affairs.
- Everybody’s got a talen: Girl who can really burp.
- DMV finally decides to not move to south Bend. Personally, I wondered why they chose such a lousy location, as that area of town is a pain to get to from pretty much anywhere in town. Their current location is fine and owned by ODOT already, so wouldn’t it be a cheaper lease? Maybe I’m missing something.
- Glenn Beck, the lone voice of reason in an age of hysteria.
- Looking for a place to work? Find a desk near you.
- Meet Robert Gagno, the Rain Man of Pinball.
- If you’re looking for free data recovery software, I’ve heard good things about this one.
- Now that I have an Android phone, I really need to start playing with the cool apps out there. Gmote looks kind of fun, and wirelessly syncing music to my phone would be nifty — if I could get it to work (still playing with the new Winamp for Android).
- Agent 8 Ball is a really well-done HTMl5 game.
- A new “What Is A Geek?” venn diagram.
- I honestly cannot believe I haven’t seen PostSecret before. I could spend all day looking through their archives.
OK, that’s enough for now. Enjoy!
Reading Material
- Use iRedMail to quickly setup an open-source mail server with Postfix, Dovecot, Amavisd, ClamAV, SpamAssassin and RoundCube.
- Special Relativity Simply Explained.
- 10 Registry Tweaks for Windows 7.
- With a bit of copy/pasting, you can get Google Translate to beatbox for you (more here and here).
- How did 7,000 Twitter users balance the budget? Like so.
- 9 Alternatives for Windows Home Server’s drive extender.
- The Maximum PC (boot) Magazine “Lust Lists” from 1996 and 1997 show how far we’ve come in the last 14 years or so.
- Google and Microsoft cheat on slow-start. An interesting read for network junkies and programmers looking to speed up Web application response.
- Great list of free PC games, updated fairly regularly.
- US judge says lesbians can be “cured” by male soldiers.
- The Top 10 Daily Consequence of Having Evolved.
- Tax Cuts: The party that says no does it again.
- Reuters is already showcasing their best photos of the year, apparently ignorant to the fact that there is still another month in 2010.
- Interesting Discussion: I’m a veteran that believes that Julian Assange has done more to assure your freedom that most veterans including myself.
- Great tool for editing Outlook’s nickname files from the always awesome NirSoft (I think I’m going to be putting NirCmd to use here soon).
- A BitTorrent-based DNS is being created to counter US Domain Seizures. The Dot-P2P project is here.
- That’s just stupid: Paying roughly $15,000 for 10 minutes of World of Warcraft time on a 80,000 square-foot screen just for the experience.
- “Hello, is Dicksmash McIroncock available?”
- An interesting read about who a prominent sex blogger really was (link SFW, but following links on the article might get you in trouble).
Reading Material
I wouldn’t expect much in the way of posting over the weekend, as I plan on unplugging and spending time with family as much as possible. That, and I’ll be playing with my new phone that Best Buy gave me (long story for some other time, but Best Buy and the Geek Squad did the right thing when their repair company FUBARed my repair, and I applaud them). Meanwhile, here’s some fun to keep you entertained until I get back:
- Running multiple instances of DropBox (you can try using Dropboxen as well).
- Thank goodness Sarah Palin never made it to the White House, as she seems to think that North Korea are allies.
- If you’re looking to come up with color schemes for a design, this site could be immensely useful.
- A computer virus built for subtle nuclear sabotage.
- Donkey Kong Country Returns running at 1080p (or what the Wii could look like if it was high-def instead of limited to 480p).
- Booking marking this for my reference so I can update my JavaScript Facebook buttons.
- Daniel Radcliffe proclaims “I am Harry Potter” (though this guy has to be his biggest fan).
- Good starter HTML5 templates.
- Tutorial to retain chapters on your WDTV.
- If the bank is trying to foreclose on your, demand to see your mortgage note.
- NexusFont looks like a pretty sweet Windows font manager.
- The Armadillow looks so cheesy, but I’m considering buying one so I don’t lose feeling to my arms when I’m sleeping next to my wife.
- Another reason I voted for Ron Wyden: Oregon Senator Vows To Block Internet Blacklist Bill.
- With the TSA miffing everybody, it’s one great story after another.
- I don’t know who’s behind Running Superfans, but it’s a pretty fun site for running geeks like me (I don’t do the running like I used to — damn back problems — but I do still love the sport).
- The Ghosts of Amsterdam superimposes some pictures from the 40s onto modern photos of the same location.
- It’s not production ready, but pure CSS GUI icons is pretty darn slick.
- 9eyes is a fascinating tumblr blog showcasing intriguing Google street view photos.
- I wonder if this game has auto-steering. What do you think?
- More respect for Warren Buffett: He’s taking his “I’m not paying enough in taxes, and neither are my fellow billionaires” campaign to a new level, highlighting his contention that he pays a lower tax rate than all of his office employees.
- If Ikea made instructions for everything.
- I won’t do free design work to win your business, and here’s why.
- Motor Trend Magazine Disembowels Rush Limbaugh.
- How many floppies would it take to install Sims 3 or Photoshop CS4? A bunch.
- Hulu is lowering the price of Hulu Plus and expanding it to more devices (including my WDTV Live Plus).
- Pat Sajak is a funny dude.
- Documenting for my reference: My Hyundai fuel guage problem and a possible test to confirm.
- There are some NSFW GIFs here, but GIFSoup is an easy way to convert a YouTube video to an animated GIF.
Everybody have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving, and don’t hurt yourself on Black Friday (I’ll be staying home, thankyouverymuch).
Reading Material
- Autopsy of a Pentium III (I still have several of that exact processor in servers around here — mostly firewall/routing boxes running pfsense).
- Ask joins Jeeves in retirement, leaves search engine space.
- Anti-pollution efforts in Chinese city are too effective for city to afford.
- Anybody who knows me knows I used to be a hardcore college media junkie, even have contributed to a book on the topic, so I always like to see what the big boys are using to manage their sites.
- A map that’s bound to offend everybody.
- Speaking of maps, what if the largest countries had the biggest populations?
- Opera holds the Web’s most valuable secret.
- Great way to visualize how a regex expression works.
- What the U.S. can learn from the Dutch about teen sex.
- Quote of the day: “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” (Plato)
- Handy commit message generator.
- After the repair guys at Geek Squad finally get me my phone back (has been two months now), I’m probably going to try to install Android on my Touch Pro.
- I may or may not have linked to this before, but I couldn’t remember: MakeMKV is a simple program to make MKV files from DVD and Blu-ray disks.
- Think you can fix the nation’s finances? Have fun.
- That “missle” off the California coast that nobody could explain? It was a plane.
- Interesting service and device that allows you to take credit card payments on your iPhone or Android.
- Among other things that your cell phone might be able to do: Diagnose STDs
- 10 Free Drupal Themes for Small Business.
- Awesome Fonstacks is a quick and simple way to create a font bundle with ready-to-go CSS code.
- Fake Science is for when the facts are too confusing.
Reading/Watching Material
First off: Cheap plug. I’m playing with the Central Oregon Symphony this weekend, and I’d encourage you to come out and see the show. The piano soloist we have coming to play with us is phenomenal, and it’ll be a great show. Concerts are free, click here for ticket info.
OK, enough of the plugging, let’s get down to business (videos are after the jump).
- “A law suit will be filed for the obvious decrease in revenue from my ads last month, totaling $7.34.”
- You can’t get good Internet access in many parts of the US, but it’s good to know that Mt. Everest is networked.
- Tourism posters from Star Wars.
- 10 Ways to get more from Google Voice.
- Type-a-file gives your web typography a head start.
- I might have to dig out my old Diablo II disks and play this amazing mod.
- These subtle antimated GIFs are some of the most well done I’ve seen.
- Did somebody just try to buy the British Goverment?
- How I Became A PC: Five Steps from Mac to Microsoft.
- The days of a browser being 2-6x faster than another are gone.
- Why is there a USB drive sticking out of the wall? Good question.
- Make your Websites run faster, automatically, with mod_pagespeed.
- Nice infographic comparing educational spending to spending in other segments.
- Useful tips on building a mobile website.
- Using Google Contacts as a Unified Address Book.
- Google sues the United State of America.
- Flash vs HTML5 in a game of pong.
I Suck
I’ve been so busy at both work and the minute I leave the office lately that I rarely want to turn on my computer when I get home. I’d rather just plop myself on the couch after going all frickin’ day and watch some TV. Even though we canceled our cable last month (we’re poor), there’s still plenty to watch with Netflix, Hulu, and the network channels (and a Windows 7 HTPC to allow us to do it all easily).
Just the same, this blog hasn’t gotten nearly the personal attention it deserves. I suck. I certainly wouldn’t deserve a Best Of Central Oregon nomination (but wouldn’t argue with you if you were to submit this site for a nomination). While uber-blogger Jon will probably get the nod (deservedly), it’d just be nice to knock that egotistical jerk off his high horse.
(Note: Before the hate mail comes in, Jon and I go way back, and anybody who knows Jon or I know that neither of us have egos, especially Jon. I just like to poke fun at him, as he would do to me.)
Anyway, back to the link dump for the evening:
- How to Break Into A Windows PC (and prevent it from happening to you).
- Secret button sequence bypasses iPhone security (Apple’s confirmed this, will release a patch).
- Why you should make sure you never sign into your Facebook account in a public place.
- Billy Joel’s coming to Rock Band 3 out of spite.
- There are some dang good ideas here for the enterprise developer.
- How to create a shortcut that kills every running Windows process.
- Incredible 360° view of the entire sky.
- Fun little toy: Complete vector graphics editor that will run in a browser.
- Follow up pictures from an aforementioned little girl’s day out.
- 50 Powerful Time-Savers for Web Designers.
- Free Content Delivery Network using DNS cache.
- “Green” toilet paper? Yup: one brand is going tube-free.
- A husband of wife whose unborn child had a congenital deformity with no chance for survival decided to confront abortion protesters.
- Want to hide from Facebook’s various services? This will help.
- If you set up things right, Google will change their logo for you on your birthday.
- If you’re a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) Junkie, this site’s for you.
- Just because Google exists doesn’t mean you should stop asking people things.
- Need to keep track of what time zones major cities are in and what time it is there? Every Time Zone might help.
- The GOP’s doing their best to kill NPR, and NPR’s doing their best to expose the lies of the GOP.
- Amazon’s AWS now has a free usage tier.
- This is hardcore: Hosting backdoors in hardware that can bypass any anti-virus.
- Google has open-sourced their auto-update software.
- Anybody a Quickbooks and Windows 2003 Server whiz? I could use your help.
More tomorrow, as I have a bunch of videos to share…
Reading Material
My early parts of the week are slammed, so blogging will be light on those days (with rehearsals for various groups taking up most of the time). That being said, here are some links that needs to be shared.
- The glorious GIF renaissance.
- How to buy a round-the-world plane ticket (I didn’t even know such a thing existed).
- Turn any image into an 8-bit style graphic.
- If such a thing only existed…
- How to make your own DVDs from almost any video file.
- What small gestures give you faith in humanity?
- Extreme racial segregation in America’s biggest cities.
- Big shocker: US and Canada have priciest cell plans in the world.
- Bit.ly and Goo.gl have their own QR code generators for their services.The McFarthest spot is now eight-miles McFarther.
- For the sake of humanity: Gandhi pleads with Hitler.
- Want to make yourself look even more false? 8 Photoshop tutorials for retouching your profile pic.
- Developers battle with over 100 different versions of Android.
- Want to buy a beer for someone to say thanks? Buy them a Pint (the site was developed by a couple o’ locals).
- A good friend of mine is selling pressure washing supplies and I’m just trying to help them out a bit, as they’re Good People™ and need all the help they can get.
- Happy 25th, NES.
Reading Material
- Ben Heck creates another masterpiece: A Xbox 360 Slim Portable.
- CC&Rs are really obnoxious. This is a great way to fight back.
- In case you hadn’t seen it (watch here or here), the Banksy-created Simpsons opening http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/the-simpsons-explains-its-button-pushing-banksy-opening/.
- TechSpaceBend is running an UnConference this week and it looks like a load of fun.
- Why I love Reddit: A little girl who has a terminal disease is picked on by jackass neighbors. 4Chan makes the neighbor’s life a living hell (which I support, as the folks were jerks), but Reddit responds by spoiling the little girl rotten for which the girl was grateful.
- Apple trademarks “There’s an App For That.” I guess to avoid getting sued, I should put ™ when printing that here. Or not.
- Entitifier will quickly convert and escape any nasty characters that should be entities.
- If you need to create a quick-and-dirty 16×16 icon, here’s a simple site to help you do it.
- Subway.com had some hideous code that amazingly rendered (see the ugly HTML source here). Subway fixed the problem, thanked Reddit. It’s still ugly code, but not nearly as much as before.
- Finally, a use for all those unneeded phone books: walls for a shed.
- Thanks to the Army and a bunch of scientists, we may have found out why honeybees are dying.
- gmapcatcher is a great little tool for offline map reading.
- Do-it-Yourself Doodler produces some interesting results.
- Using Photoshop channels to remove backgrounds from images.
- Put this on the list of things I didn’t know Photoshop could do: Multi-object editing with Smart Objects.
- A breakdown of all the various fees that airlines charge.
- A site dedicated to Web Apps and how to use them: NothingToInstall.
- How many computing cores is too many?
- VideoEgg acquires Six Apart and creates SAY Media. Six Apart created MovableType, the software running this site. Despite this news, the product is not dead and here’s a great several part write-up as to why you should use Movable Type.
- Modern gamers are pansies compared to classic hardcore gamers.
- If a file exists, there’s a torrent of it. If not, Burnbit will create it.
- Everything you wanted to know about computer keyboards but were afraid to ask.
- I was playing with Fedora on a laptop the other day, and this installation guide came in handy.
- I wasn’t aware such an event existed, but a local windshield repair guy won the Windshield Repair Olympics.
- Use dropbox to trigger torrent downloads.
- AES Encryption explained with simple animations.
- Before Michael J. Fox was in Back to the Future, Eric Stoltz was Marty McFly.
- Line Rider done entirely in HTML5.
Reading Material
- Anatomy of the recent 64-bit Linux exploit.
- Good selection of minimalist wallpapers, though this one might become mine soon.
- In case you didn’t notice, full half-hour newscasts are back on KOHD after they killed them off earlier this year.
- Speaking of local media, KTVZ’s experimenting with their own social network (I keep telling them that I’ll sell them — or anybody else — bendforum(s).com for stuff like this).
- Speaking of social networks, Facebook is secretly building a phone.
- What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republicans? I’ll tell you what they did ….
- Intel’s plan to put anti-virus vendors out of business.
- Maps of Europe according to stereotype.
- Satellites orbiting earth by country and it also shows how many are dead and how many are still functional.
- The stories of the Unicorn Pegasus Kitten emerge.
- Want to kill some time? Play astroids and blast any Web page.
- Apparently Jesus plays for the Lakers.
- Good collection of typographic sins (the PDF is really handy).
- ISPConfig looks like a pretty good open source control panel software.
- Google Voice comes to iPhone.
- Those anti-vaccine folks need to get beaten senseless: 9th baby in California dies from whooping cough.
- Great interview from 1986 with early programming pioneer Grace Hopper on David Letterman.
- I’m done building Facebook apps for clients.
- jQuery plugin for radical Web typography.
- How to crack a forgotten Windows password (though most of the it’s easier to just reset it using something like Ultimate Boot CD).
- It’s amazing (and disgusting) what can be done in Photoshop.
- Free real-time continuous backup software using Genie-soft Free Timeline.
- Looking for a Groupon for Bend? ZingDealz is about as close as you’re going to get.
- Why I’m starting to not trust banks: Lauderdale man’s home sold out from under him in foreclosure mistake.
- If you’re a fan of Dexter (I don’t have cable, let alone Showtime), you’ll probably like this reddit thread started by Masuka (aka C. S. Lee). I thought the guy was awesome in Chuck.
- Why? No idea…A web server written in PostScript.
- Simple way to have an automatic e-mail reminder.
- AMD’s retiring the ATI brand, so here are 20 important moments in ATI’s history.
- Need a simple business card idea? How about a simple “Google Me” card (with template)?
- A bunch of designers redesign American currency
- 100 Best First Lines from Novels.
- In case you needed to kill off many hours of time, here’s an Open Source clone of Transport Tycoon Deluxe.
- Good to know they’re being productive with their time: UN to appoint Earth contact for aliens.
- The words Google Instant doesn’t like.
OK, that’s enough for now.