FlaminTiki: November 2004 Archives

Posted by Ryan at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)

Project: The Game

The Plan: Help Harvard proclaim their true school spirit by holding up signs that say 'We Suck'

Link (with video)

Posted by Ryan at 05:46 PM | Comments (0)

100 Scientifically oriented things to do before you die

Some British scientists just came out with this list. Some of the suggestions include "Joining the 300 Club at the South Pole (They take a sauna to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, then run naked to the pool in negative 100 degrees Fahrenheit), or learning Choctaw, a language with two past tenses - one for giving information which is definitely true and another for passing on material that hasn't yet been confirmed by someone else.

click here

Posted by Ryan at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

World Health Organization's bird flu warning: 100 million deaths

Since yesterday, the rest of the world has been buzzing with news of the World Health Organization's warnings of a impending flu pandemic that could kill up to 100 million. These warnings are suspiciously missing from American news sites - we get things like "Godzilla honored with 'Walk of Fame' star" from CNN's front page."

Posted by Ryan at 05:06 PM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2004

Cool Game: Ballotron

French court rules that French-language film -- filmed in French, in France, with French cast -- isn't French enough because Warner Brothers backed it. France surrenders

Posted by Ryan at 08:14 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

Don't ignore road barricades -- they're there for a reason

DJ attending children's sports award ceremony shocks little kids with every obscene word in dictionary (and some that weren't)

Schools ban jocks from shaving their eyebrows -- sadly, no pics

Man jumps off cliff and dies. Residents want sign posted warning that jumping off cliffs is dangerous

Lion eats livestock. Farmers eat lion. The circle of life is complete

Woman, paralyzed for 20 years, walks after stem-cell treatment

Super screen saver seriously spams spammers... or something

Posted by Ryan at 07:57 PM | Comments (0)

Trivia

There were seven pairs of ruby slippers used during the filming of The Wizard of Oz.

It's estimated that 40 percent of players in the NBA have a criminal record.

Experts claim the color combination that has the most visual impact is black on yellow.

The medical term for a nosebleed is "epistaxisis."

Only 0.1 percent of animal species that have ever lived are still alive today.

In poker, a card combination of 9 and 5 is called a "Dolly Parton," in reference to the film in which Parton starred, 9 to 5.

Actor Tom Hanks is a descendant of Abraham Lincoln.

Mallard ducks have 360-degree vision.

Two hundred million atoms placed in a row would measure one inch.

Just 14 percent of Chinese women believe having sex with an animal should be illegal.

During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" only sold about 3,000 copies.

Robert E. Lee was the only person to graduate from West Point without a demerit.

Ninety percent of Brazilian women classify beauty products as an essential rather than a luxury (the average worldwide is 77 percent).

"Cainophobia" is the fear of newness.

Since Neptune was discovered in 1846, it has made about three-quarters of one revolution of the Sun.

Julius Caesar hated cats.

In New York City, rats bite about 311 people in an average year. However, 1,519 residents are bitten annually by other New Yorkers.

The set of glasses filled with different levels of water used to make different musical tones is called a hydrodaktulopsychicarmonica.

Posted by Ryan at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)

Make love not spam

Awesome new project from Lycos - Whenever your computer goes idle, this screensaver requests data from spam sites to increase their bandwidth usage, making it unaffordable for them to spam

Article

Download here

Posted by Ryan at 06:34 PM | Comments (0)

Super Memory: Forget about forgetting

This website is devoted to improving memory, self-growth, creativity, time-management, and speed-learning software SuperMemo

supermemo.com

Posted by Ryan at 06:27 PM | Comments (0)

World Sunlight/Cloud Map

RealTime image of what areas of the World are dark, light, and cloudy...

Posted by Ryan at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)

Torrent Search

Cool new site to search for all kinds of torrent files

Here

Posted by Ryan at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)

Wikinews Demo

New website from WikiMedia that's open source for news...

Posted by Ryan at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)

2.5 Billion Pixel Image

The finished image is 2.5 billion pixels in size - making it about 500 times the resolution of images produced by good consumer digital cameras. The huge image of Delft was created by stitching together 600 single snaps of the Dutch city. If printed out in standard 300 dots per inch resolution the picture would be 2.5m high and 6m long.

'Lunchtime Bet'

The researchers have put the image on a website which lets viewers explore the wealth of detail that it captures. Tools on the page let viewers zoom in on the city and its surroundings in great detail. The website is already proving popular and currently has more than 200,000 visitors every day. The image was created by imaging experts from the Dutch research and technology laboratory TNO which created the 2.5 gigapixel photo as a summer time challenge. The goal of the project was to be one of the first groups to make gigapixel images. The first image of such a size was manually constructed by US photographer Max Lyons in November 2003. That image portrayed Bryce Canyon National Park, in Utah and was made up of 196 separate photographs. The panorama of Delft is a little staid in contrast to the dramatic rockscape captured in Mr Lyons image. "He did it all by hand, which was an enormous effort, and we got the idea that if you use automatic techniques, it would be feasible to build a larger image", said Jurgen den Hartog, one of the TNO researchers behind the project. "We were not competing with Mr Lyons, but it started as a lunchtime bet".

Some Staggering Facts about the picture.

Final image dimensions: 78,797 x 31,565 pixels
Number of pixels: 2,487,227,305
Final image file size: 7.5 Gbytes (24-bit colour bitmap)
Number of source images: 600 x 3.5 megapixels
Lens focal length equivalent to 600 mm on a 35 mm camera
Time to capture component images: 1 hour 12 minutes
Time to compose final image: 3 days, using 5 powerful PCs

Click here to check it out!

[via BBC Technology News]

Posted by at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

Eyetrack Heatmap

Use this tool to see where most readers focus their eyes on a typical webpage.

Posted by Ryan at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)

The Hardware book

"Welcome to the Hardware Book. Internet’s largest free collection of connector pinouts and cable descriptions."

For those of you too lazy to update your blog

Posted by Ryan at 07:13 AM | Comments (0)

Rent a blogger

Posted by Ryan at 07:08 AM | Comments (0)

BBC Radio Streams

Get 'em here

Posted by Ryan at 07:07 AM | Comments (0)

The BlogBox Project

Blogboxes provide exciting, instantly deployed functionality for your blog or Web site. They are free for non-commercial use. Enjoy them and spread the good word!... They're kinda like widgets for your blog.

Posted by Ryan at 07:04 AM | Comments (0)

Target.com selling marijuana for $25.25

Posted by Ryan at 07:02 AM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2004

Apple will launch a mobile phone within 18 months

Teenager sleepwalks off the side of a parking garage

Posted by Ryan at 09:04 PM | Comments (0)

A project focused on providing a database of well designed css based websites from around the world...

CSSBeauty

Posted by Ryan at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

If you thought you could drive to Aspen today, SUV-sized rocks beg to differ (with pic)

Man decides to carve his relatives instead of the turkey after they criticize his table manners

New software lets you predict how ugly your children will be. Ozzy Osbourne surrenders

If 12 people have committed 32 sex crimes, 29 of them against children, how many are in jail? If you live in Massachusetts the answer is 0

Posted by Ryan at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2004

Steve Pavlina: Do it now

Do It Now

by Steve Pavlina, CEO, Dexterity Software

In the article "How To Get More Done in Less Time," I wrote about a simple way that you could gradually enjoy higher productivity without spending more time at your desk. In this article I'll describe additional ways to get more work done every week without putting in longer hours.

Time is your scarcest resource. You can always make more money, but once time has been spent, you can never get it back. When going to college many years ago, I decided to challenge myself by setting a goal to see if I could graduate in only three semesters, taking all the same classes that people would normally take over a four-year period. I knew I would start my own business once I graduated, so that goal inspired me to get out of school fast. There was no way I wanted to be stuck in school while the technology revolution was passing me by.

In order to accomplish this goal, I determined I'd have to take 30-40 units per semester, when the average student took 12-15 units. So it became immediately obvious that I'd have to manage my time extremely well if I wanted to pull this off. I began reading everything I could find on time management and putting what I learned into practice immediately. I accomplished my goal by graduating with two degrees (Computer Science and Mathematics) in just three semesters without attending summer school. I slept seven to eight hours a night, took care of my routine chores (shopping, cooking, etc), had a social life, and exercised for 30 minutes every morning. In my final semester, I even held a full time job (40 hours a week) as a game programmer and served as the Vice Chair of the local Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) chapter while taking 37 units of hardcore computer science and math courses. My classmates would add up all the hours they expected each task to take and concluded that my weeks must consistent of about 250 hours. I graduated with a 3.9 GPA and ended up receiving a special award given only to the top Computer Science student each year.

I wasn't considered a gifted child, and this was the first time I had ever done anything like this. I didn't have any personal mentors helping me, and I can't recall a single person encouraging me. In fact, pretty much everyone was highly discouraging. It took a lot of convincing to get the department chair to approve my extra units every semester. People assumed I was either cheating or had a twin or that I was just mentally unstable. I was perhaps the only student at the university with a two-page class schedule. I persevered by applying time management concepts that most people simply didn't know but that were readily available in books and audio programs.

I didn't tell you this story to impress you but rather to make you curious. The time management habits I learned in college have served me very well in building my business, so I want to share them with you in the hopes that you'll find them equally valuable. They allowed me to shave years off my schooling while also giving me about $30,000 to start my business (all earned in my final semester as a game programmer, mostly from royalties). Without further ado, here's the best of what I've learned about mastering time management:

Clarity is key. The first step is to know exactly what you want. In a Tae Kwon Do studio where I used to train, there's a huge sign on the wall that says, "Your goal is to become a black belt." This helps remind each student why s/he is going through such difficult training. When you work for yourself, it's easy to spend a whole day at your desk and accomplish nothing of value. This almost always happens when you aren't really clear about what it is you're trying to do. In the moments when you regain your awareness, ask yourself, "What exactly is it that I'm trying to accomplish here?" You must know your destination with as much clarity as possible. This is one reason that all your goals must be specific, and they must be in writing. Your goals must be so clear that it would be possible for a stranger to look at your situation objectively and give you an absolute "yes" or "no" response as to whether you've accomplished each goal or not. If you cannot define your destination precisely, how will you know when you've arrived?

The key period I've found useful for defining and working on business goals is ninety days, or the length of one season. In that period of time, you can make dramatic and measurable changes if you set crystal clear goals. Take a moment to stop and write down a snapshot description of how you want your business to be ninety days from now. What will your monthly income be? What level of web site traffic do you want (visitors, page hits)? How many hours will you put into your business each week? What products will you be selling? What will your web site look like? Be specific. Absolute clarity will give you the edge that will keep you on course.

Just as an airplane on autopilot must make constant corrections to stay on course, you must periodically retarget your goals. Reconnect with your clear, written goals by re-reading them every morning. Post them on your walls, especially your financial goals. Years ago, I went around my apartment putting up signs in every room that said "$5,000 / month." That was my monthly business income goal at the time. Because I knew exactly what I wanted, I achieved that goal within a few weeks. I continued setting specific income goals, even amidst occasional setbacks. When I started focusing on shareware marketing in 1999, I was making less than $500 / month from shareware. I set a goal to reach $2000 / month, then $2500 / month, then $3000 / month, and so on. If you are really serious about growing your business, then get serious about setting clear, written goals. If you don't decide how much money you want to make, you'll have to settle for the results of random chance. Clarity can not only save you time -- it can make you very wealthy.

Be flexible. There's a key difference between knowing your destination and knowing the path you will take to get there. A typical commercial airplane is off course 90% of the time, yet it almost always arrives at its destination because it knows exactly where it's going and makes constant corrections along the way. You cannot know the exact path to your goal in advance. I believe that the real purpose of planning is simply so that you remain convinced that a possible path exists. We've all heard the statistic that 80% of new businesses fail, but a far more interesting statistic is that nearly all of the businesses that succeeded did not do so in the original way they had intended. If you look at successful businesses that started with business plans, you will commonly find that their original plans failed miserably and that they only succeeded by trying something else. It is said that no business plan survives contact with the marketplace. I like to generalize this to say that no plan survives contact with the real world.

Renowned author and business consultant Stephen Covey often uses the expression, "integrity in the moment of choice." What that means is that you should not follow your plans blindly without conscious awareness of your goals. For instance, let's say you're following your plans nicely, and then an unforeseen opportunity arises. Do you stick to your original plan (missing the opportunity), or do you stop and go after the opportunity (throwing yourself off schedule)? This is where you have to stop and reconnect with your major goals to ask which is the better course. No plan should be followed blindly. As soon as you gain new knowledge that could invalidate the plan, you must exercise integrity in the moment of choice. Sometimes you can reach your goals faster by taking advantage of shortcuts that arise unexpectedly. Other times you should stick to your original plans and avoid minor distractions that would take you further from your goals. Be tight on your goals but flexible on your plans.

Failure is your friend. Most people seem to have an innate fear of failure, but failure is really your best friend. People who succeed also fail a great deal because they make a lot of attempts. The great baseball player Babe Ruth held the homerun record and the strikeout record at the same time. Those who have the most successes also have the most failures. There is nothing wrong or shameful in failing. The only regret lies in never making the attempt. So don't be afraid to experiment in your business. Sometimes the quickest way to find out if something will work is to jump right in and do it. You can always make adjustments along the way. It's the ready-fire-aim approach, and surprisingly, it works a lot better that the more common ready-aim-fire approach. The reason is that after you've "fired" once, you have some actual data with which to adjust your aim. Too many people get bogged down in planning and thinking and never get to the point of action. How many potentially great ideas have you passed up because you got stuck in the state of analysis paralysis (i.e. ready-aim-aim-aim-aim-aim...)?

Failure is not the opposite of success. It is an essential part of success. Once you succeed, no one will remember your failures anyway. Microsoft wasn't Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's first business venture. Who remembers that their original Traf-o-Data business was a flop? The actor Jim Carey was booed off many a stage while a young comedian. We have electric light bulbs because Thomas Edison refused to give up even after 10,000 failed experiments. If the word "failure" is anathema to you, then reframe it: You either succeed, or you have a learning experience.

Letting go of the fear of failure will serve you well. If you are excited about a new product idea but you are afraid it might not work, jump on it and do it anyway. Even if it doesn't work, you'll learn something valuable and can make a better attempt next time. If you look at the independent developers who are making $100,000 per year or more, you will commonly see that almost all of them had one or more products that failed before they finally hit on one that succeeded, myself included. But I think most of them will agree that those early failure experiences were an essential part of the ultimate success. If your business is just getting started, begin pumping out products and don't worry so much about whether they'll be hits. They probably won't be. But you'll learn a lot more by doing than you ever will by thinking indefinitely.

Do it now! W. Clement Stone, who built an insurance empire worth hundreds of millions dollars, would make all his employees recite the phrase, "Do it now!" again and again at the start of every workday. Whenever you feel the tendency towards laziness taking over and you remember something you should be doing, stop and say out loud, "Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!" I often set this text as my screen saver. There is a tremendous cost in putting things off because you will mentally revisit them again and again, which can add up to an enormous amount of wasted time. Thinking and planning are important, but action is far more important. You don't get paid for your thoughts and plans -- you only get paid for your results. When in doubt, act boldly, as if it were impossible to fail. In essence, it is.

It is absolutely imperative that you develop the habit of making decisions as soon as possible. I use a 60-second rule for almost every decision I have to make, no matter how big or important. Once I have all the data to make a decision, I start a timer and give myself only 60 seconds to make a firm decision. This includes deciding what product I'll develop next, whether or not I'll accept a new licensing offer, or what to write about for my next article. I think people too often delay making decisions when there is no advantage to putting them off. Many people probably spend more than 60 seconds just deciding what they'll eat for dinner. If you can speed up the pace of making decisions, you can spend the rest of your time on action.

One study showed that the best managers in the world tend to have an extremely high tolerance for ambiguity. In other words, they are able to act boldly on partial and/or conflicting data. The software industry has accelerated to such a rapid pace that by the time you have perfect data with which to make any decision, the opportunity is probably long gone. Where you have no data to fall back on, rely on your own personal experience and intuition. If a decision can be made right away, make the decision as soon as it comes up. If you can't make a decision right away, set aside a time where you will consider the options and make the decision. Pour the bulk of your time into action, not deciding. The state of indecision is a major time waster. Don't spend more than 60 seconds in that state if you can avoid it. Make a firm, immediate decision, and move from uncertainty to certainty to action.

Triage ruthlessly. Get rid of everything that wastes your time. Use the trash can liberally. Apply the rule, "When in doubt, throw it out." Cancel useless magazine subscriptions. If you have a magazine that is more than two months old and you still haven't read it, throw it away; it's probably not worth reading. Realize that nothing is free if it costs you time. Before you sign up for any new free service or subscription, ask how much it will cost you in terms of time. Every activity has an opportunity cost. Ask, "Is this activity worth what I am sacrificing for it?"

Apply zero-based thinking. Ask yourself, "Would I have ever gotten started with this project, relationship, line of business, etc. if I had to do it all over again, knowing what I now know?" If the answer is no, get out as soon as possible. I know a lot of people that have a limiting belief that says, "Always finish what you start." They spend years climbing ladders only to realize when they reach the top that the ladder was leaning against the wrong building. Remember that failure is your friend. So if a product isn't working for you, dump it, and move onto something else. There is no honor in dedicating your life to the pursuit of a goal which no longer inspires you.

Locate and recover wasted time. Instead of watching a one-hour TV show, tape it and watch it in 45 minutes by fast-forwarding through the commercials. Don't spend a half hour typing a lengthy email when you could accomplish the same thing with a 10-minute phone call. Batch your errands together and do them all at once.

Apply the 80-20 rule. Also known as the Pareto Principle, this rule states that 20% of a task accounts for 80% of the value of that task. This also means that 80% of a task only yields 20% of the value of that task. In college I was ruthless in my application of this principle. Some weeks I ditched as many as 40% of my classes because sitting through a lecture was not often the most effective way for me to learn. Often I would simply refuse to do an assignment because I determined it was not worth my time. There was one math class that I only showed up to twice because I could learn from the text book much more quickly than from the lectures. I only showed up for the midterm and final. I would pop my head in at the beginning of each class to drop off my homework and then again at the end of each class to write down the next assignment. I actually got the highest grade in the class, but the teacher probably had no idea who I was. The other students were playing by the rules, not realizing they were free to make their own rules. Find out what parts of your business belong in the crucial 20%, and focus your efforts there. Be absolutely ruthless in refusing to spend time where it simply cannot give you results. For instance, don't spend hours adding cutesy graphics to your web site that won't have any impact on your sales.

Guard thy time. Software development takes massive amounts of concentration and sustained mental effort. To work effectively you need uninterrupted blocks of time. When you know for certain that you won't be interrupted, your efficiency is much, much higher. I believe this is one reason that many programmers enjoy working late at night after everyone else has gone to bed and the level of phone calls and email drops off dramatically. When you sit down to work on a particularly intensive business task, dedicate blocks of time to the task during which you will not do anything else. I've found that a minimum of 90 minutes is ideal for a single block.

Work all the time you work. During one of these sacred time blocks, do nothing but the activity you are focused on. Don't check email or newsgroups or do web surfing. If you have this temptation, then unplug your modem while you work. Turn off the phone, or simply refuse to answer it. Go to the bathroom before you start, and make sure you won't get hungry for a while. Don't get out of your chair at all. Don't talk to anyone during this time. If necessary, warn others in advance not to interrupt you for a certain period of time. Threaten them with acts of violence if you must.

The state of flow, where you are totally absorbed in a task and lose all sense of time, takes about 15 minutes to enter. Every time you get interrupted, it can take you another 15 minutes to get back to that state. Once you enter the state of flow, guard it with your life. That is the state in which you will go through enormous amounts of work and experience total connection with the task. When I'm in this state, I have no sense of past or future. I simply feel like I'm one with the code I'm writing. Programming is effortless -- it feels like lines of code are just flowing through me into the machine.

Multitask. The amount of new computer knowledge is increasing so rapidly that by default, everything you know about your business is becoming obsolete. The only solution is to keep absorbing new knowledge as rapidly as possible. So much of what I use in my business didn't even exist five years ago. The industry today is radically different than it was even just two years ago. The best way I know to keep up is to multitask whenever possible by reading and listening to audio programs.

When watching TV, read a computer magazine during commercials. If you're a male, read while shaving. I use an electric shaver and read during the 2-3 minutes it takes me to shave each day. This allows me to get through about two extra articles a week -- that's 100 extra articles a year, enough to keep up on a few monthly subscriptions. This habit is really easy to start. Just grab a magazine right now, and put it in your bathroom. Also, rip out magazine articles or print out on-line articles to read later. Whenever you go out, carry at least one folded up article with you. If you ever have to wait in line, such as at the post office or the grocery store, pull out the article and read it. You will be amazed at how much extra knowledge you can absorb just by reading during other non-mental activities.

Listen to educational audio programs whenever you can. Whenever you drive your car, always be listening to an educational audio program. Nightingale Conant sells excellent ones on a variety of subjects, produced by experts in their fields. Most include six tapes or CDs and sell for about $60, and they are well worth the price. There are many programs on marketing and sales that can be especially useful to independent developers, especially if you know very little about these subjects. The material tends to be much more practical than what you would learn by taking classes at a university. Whereas people with degrees in marketing or business have been taught by college professors, you can learn about these subjects from millionaires and billionaires who know what works and what doesn't. One of the best ways to save time is to learn directly from people who already have the skills you want to master.

Multitasking was perhaps the most important skill that allowed me to go through college in three semesters. My average weekday involved about seven or eight hours of classes. But on Tuesdays during my final semester, I had classes back to back from 9am until 10pm. Because I was taking about a dozen classes each semester, I would have several tests and projects due just about every week. I had no time to study outside of class because most of that time was used for my job. So I simply had to learn everything the first time it came up. If a teacher wrote out something on the board, I would memorize it then and there; I couldn't afford to fall behind. During my slower classes, I would do homework, work out algorithms for my programming job, or refine my schedule. You can probably find numerous opportunities for multitasking. Whenever you are doing something physical, such as driving, cooking, shopping, or walking, keep your mind going by listening to audio tapes or reading.

Experiment. Everyone is different, so what works for you may well be different than what works for everyone else. You may work best in the morning or late at night. Take advantage of your own strengths, and find ways to compensate for your weaknesses. Experiment with listening to music while you work. Pop a CD in your CD drive, and see what effect it has on your productivity. I use the free WinAMP player, which can stream commercial-free radio directly to my computer all day long with a variety of stations to choose from. I find that classical music, especially Mozart, is terrific for design work. But for most routine tasks, listening to techno music makes me work a lot faster. I don't exactly know why, but I'm twice as productive when listening to really fast music as compared to listening to no music. On the other hand, music with vocals is detrimental to my productivity because it's too distracting. Try a simple experiment for yourself, and see if certain forms of music can increase your productivity. For me the difference was dramatic.

Cultivate your enthusiasm. The word "enthusiasm" comes from the Greek entheos, which means literally, "the god within." I really like that definition. I doubt it's possible to master the art of time management if you aren't gushingly enthusiastic about what you're going to do with your time. Go after what really inspires you. Don't chase money. Chase your passion. If you aren't enthusiastic about your business, then you're wasting your life. Switch to something else. Try a new product line. Remember that failure is your friend. Listen to that god within you, and start doing what really excites you. The worst waste of time is doing something that doesn't make you happy. Your business should serve your life, not the other way around.

If you're like most people, you can get yourself motivated every once in a while, but then you get caught up and sink back down to a lower level of productivity, and you find it hard to continue with a project. How easy is it to start a new project when your motivation level is high? And how difficult is it to continue once your enthusiasm fades? Since most people are negative to one degree or another, you'll naturally lose your positive charge over time unless you actively cultivate your enthusiasm as a resource. I don't believe in pushing myself to do something I really don't want to do. If I'm not motivated, then getting myself to sit down and work productively is nearly impossible, and the work is almost painful. When you're highly motivated though, work feels like play.

While in college I could not afford to let my enthusiasm fade, or I'd be dead. I quickly learned that I needed to make a conscious effort to reinforce my enthusiasm on a daily basis. I always had my Walkman cassette player with me, and while walking from one class to the next, I would listen to time management and motivational tapes. I also listened to them while jogging every morning. I kept my motivation level high by reinforcing my enthusiasm almost hourly. Even though I was being told by others that I would surely fail, these tapes were the stronger influence because I never went more than a few hours without plugging back in.

If your enthusiasm level is high, you can work so much more productively and even enjoy the normally tedious parts of your work. I've always found that whenever I want to take my business to a new level, I must take my thoughts to a new level first. When your thinking changes, then your actions will change, and your results will follow. Unless you are a naturally hyper person, your enthusiasm is going to need daily reinforcement. I recommend either listening to motivational tapes or reading inspiring books or articles for at least fifteen minutes every day. Whenever I've stopped doing this, I've found that self-doubt always returns, and my productivity drops off. It's truly amazing how constantly feeding your mind with positive material can maintain your enthusiasm indefinitely. And if you multitask, you can get this benefit without investing any extra time into it.

Balance. I don't think it's easy to sustain long-term productivity, health, and happiness if your life is totally unbalanced. To excel in one area, you can't let other areas lag behind and pull you down. While in college I made an effort to take off a full day each week to have a personal life. I exercised, went to parties, attended club meetings, played computer games and pool, and even had time to vacation in Las Vegas during my final semester. The high turnover rates at the end of "death march" software projects are the result of a lack of balance. To focus exclusively on your business at the expense of every other area of your life will put you in a situation where you feel like everything is an uphill struggle. Keep the balance by paying attention to every area of your life. As your business grows, be sure that your personal life grows as well.

The main goal of time management is to squeeze as much life as possible out of every day. By developing a few new habits that allow you to work more effectively, you'll have more time for family, friends, and your personal life. It is a great tragedy to have to sacrifice personal time because you still haven't finished your work at the end of the day. Fortunately, you can avoid this problem by cultivating your time management skills.

Posted by Ryan at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)

Steve Pavlina: How to get more done in less time

How to Get More Done in Less Time

by Steve Pavlina, CEO, Dexterity Software

Have you ever had the experience of looking back on your week with the sinking feeling that you didn't get as much done as you'd hoped? When building a business, your time is perhaps your most valuable asset, and your income is a direct result of how you spend your time. You cannot buy any more than you are given, and the clock is always ticking. A few years ago, I discovered a simple system that allowed me to nearly triple my productivity, and in this article I'll share some very practical ideas you can apply right away to increase your effectiveness without working any harder than you do now.

Keep a detailed time log. The first step to better managing your time is to find out how you're currently spending your time. Keeping a time log is a very effective way to do this, and after trying it for just one day, you'll immediately gain a tremendous amount of insight into where your time is actually going. The very act of measuring is often enough to raise your unconscious habits into your consciousness, where you then have a chance to scrutinize them more closely.

Here's how to keep a time log. Throughout your day record the time whenever you start or stop any activity. Consider using a stopwatch to just record time intervals for each activity. You can do this during only your working time or throughout your entire day. At the end of the day, sort all the time chunks into general categories, and find out what percentage of your time is being spent on each type of activity. If you want to be thorough, do this for a week, and calculate the percentage of your total time that you spent on each type of activity. Be as detailed as possible. Note how much time you spend on email, reading newsgroups, web surfing, phone calls, eating, going to the bathroom, etc. If you get up out of your chair, it probably means you need to make an entry in your time log.

You may be surprised to realize that you are spending only a small fraction of your working time doing what you'd consider to be actual work. Studies have shown that the average office worker does only 1.5 hours of actual work per day. The rest of the time is spent socializing, taking coffee breaks, eating, engaging in non-business communication, shuffling papers, and doing lots of other non-work tasks. The average full-time office worker doesn't even start doing real work until 11:00am and begins to wind down around 3:30pm.

I've been keeping a time log for a few years now, and I've found it to be an invaluable resource. I find that whenever I stop doing it, my productivity drops off again and I start falling back into unconscious time-wasting habits. You will probably find as I do that your gut feelings about your productivity are closely related to how much real work you actually get done. The first time I kept a time log, I found I only got 15 hours worth of real work done in a week where I spent about 60 hours in my office. Even though I was technically about twice as productive as the average office worker, I was still disturbed by the results.

When I realized that I spent 60 hours at the office but only completed 15 hours of actual work within that time, I started asking myself some interesting questions. My income and my sense of accomplishment depended only on those 15 hours, not on the total amount of time I spent at the office. So I decided to begin recording my daily efficiency ratio as the amount of time I spent on actual work divided by the total amount of time I spent in my office. While it certainly bothered me that I was only working 25% of the time initially, I also realized it would be extremely foolish to simply work longer hours.

If you've ever tried to discipline yourself to do something you weren't really motivated to do, you most likely failed. That was naturally the result I experienced when I tried to discipline myself to work harder. In fact, trying harder actually de-motivated me and drove my efficiency ratio even lower. So I reluctantly decided to try the opposite approach. The next day I would only allow myself to put in five hours total at the office, and the rest of the day I wouldn't allow myself to work at all. Well, an interesting thing happened, as I'm sure you can imagine. My brain must have gotten the idea that working time was a scarce commodity because I worked almost the entire five hours straight and got an efficiency ratio of over 90%. I continued this experiment for the rest of the week and ended up getting about 25 hours of work done with only 30 hours total spent in my office, for an efficiency ratio of over 80%. So I was able to reduce my weekly working time by 30 hours while also getting 10 more hours of real work done. If your time log shows your efficiency ratio to be on the low side, try severely limiting your total amount of working time for a day, and see what happens. Once your brain realizes that working time is scarce, you suddenly become a lot more efficient because you have to be. When you have tight time constraints, you will usually find a way to get your work done. But when you have all the time in the world, it's too easy to be inefficient.

Over a period of a few weeks, I was able to keep my efficiency ratio above 80% while gradually increasing my total weekly office time. I've been able to maintain this for a few years now, and I commonly get about 40 hours of real work done every week, while only spending about 45 total hours in my office. I've learned that this is ideal for me. If I try to put in more time at the office, then my productivity drops off rapidly. The interesting thing is that the system that allowed me to optimize my effectiveness at work also created a tremendous amount of balance in all other areas of my life. Even though I was able to use this approach to triple my business productivity, I still gained plenty of time to pursue personal interests, such as writing articles, running a marathon, and of course... playing lots of computer games.

So if you currently dedicate every spare moment to your business and still feel unproductive at the end of the week, try measuring your efficiency ratio and see if you can gradually increase it while reducing your hours. You may find as I did that working long hours and working optimally are two very different things.

Posted by Ryan at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)

how to make the internet not suck (as much)

Use this file to update your hosts file so that whenever your computer tries to resolve the ip of an advertiser, it instead resolves to 127.0.0.1 (localhost), therefore the ad isn't displayed.

program

hosts file list

Posted by Ryan at 01:42 PM | Comments (0)

Free Photoshop Tutorials

photoshop101.com

good-tutorials.com

Posted by Ryan at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2004

Worth1000 Photoshop Contest: Happy Signs 4

Click here for more

Posted by Ryan at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

Student loses balance getting off school bus, falls through front windshield but isn't injured

Posted by Ryan at 01:19 PM | Comments (0)

Regex tutorial

Learn how to use Regular Expressions

Posted by Ryan at 01:10 PM | Comments (0)

Scalable round edges with CSS

Cool article for web designers...

Okay so my ex-girlfriend is a guy... big surprise there

Posted by Ryan at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

November 25, 2004

The Gender Genie

Inspired by an article in The New York Times Magazine, the Gender Genie uses a simplified version of an algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel, Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and Shlomo Argamon, Illinois Institute of Technology, to predict the gender of an author.

Surprisingly, it's pretty accurate...

Posted by Ryan at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

Coma cure: Doctor saves girl from rabies by "stopping" brain

Driving home for Thanksgivings, I listed to an interview on Minnesota Public Radio with a Milwaukee, WI doctor who saved the life of a girl who had contracted rabies from a bat. The disease is known as having a 100% fatality rate if you do not receive a vaccine before symptoms show, but the girl's doctor didn't accept that and developed an entirely new way to treat the disease. Apparently, rabies causes the brain to attack the body, and that is what causes death. By putting the girl into a coma he managed to stop the brain from being able to do any damage while the girl's immune system defeated the virus. This is a reminder that sometimes the impossible is possible if you don't listen to those who tell you otherwise. The Associated Press is also covering the story, which can be read in any number of places.

[via BoingBoing]

Posted by Ryan at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)

Some interesting pieces of information...

The best and worst bets in Vegas
In the long run, the best game to play is blackjack—play smart and the house edge is only half a percent, i.e., the casino averages just 50¢ profit on each $100 bet. Throw in card counting and you can sometimes gain a tiny advantage over the house, at least until they smash your thumbs with a ball-peen hammer. Worst bet: slot machines.

The best time of day to buy shoes
Late afternoon, when your feet have swollen to their largest size.

How to keep chisels and other bladed tools rust-free
Store them in wooden boxes. The wood absorbs moisture in the air, preventing rust.

How to win more coin tosses
Always call tails. On U.S. coins, the heads side, with its big, solid portrait, weighs infinitesimally more: In the course of 10,000 tosses, the lighter tails side will come up an extra 50 or so times.

The logic behind Mount Rushmore
Washington—the nation’s founding
Jefferson—the nation’s political philosophy
Lincoln—the nation’s preservation
Roosevelt—the nation’s expansion and conservation

What that weird metallic taste in your mouth when you chew on aluminum foil is Electric current. The aluminum reacts with the water and fillings in your mouth to form a tiny battery.

How to grow anthrax in your bathroom
Yeah, right.

The remedy for poison ivy
Baking soda and water. Lather, rinse, repeat.

How the Wint-o-green Lifesavers spark works
The phenomenon of crunched Wintogreen Lifesavers sparking in the dark is called triboluminescence. Chewing on the sugar crystals momentarily releases electrons, giving the crystals a positive charge; nitrogen molecules in the air, their outer electrons attracted to the charge, stick to the electron-free zones on the crystals. The electrons from the sugar crystals, returning, crash into the nitrogen molecules, releasing ultraviolet radiation. And methyl salicylate, the wintergreen flavoring used in Life Savers, glows blue when flooded by UV rays. Tastes great, too.

How to relieve thirst in the wild
A pebble held in the mouth will stimulate saliva production and kill that dry-mouth feeling. Stay on the lookout for neon bar signs.

To ward off diseases, wear gloves, not a face mask
Handshakes transmit viruses seven times more effectively than sneezes do.

How to turn a TV into a tornado predictor
Tornados create electrical interference on the Channel 2 frequency. Tune your TV to that channel (whether or not there’s programming on Channel 2 in your town), turn the brightness almost all the way down, and wait: If the picture suddenly brightens, there’s a twister within 20 miles. Get Toto and head for the cellar.

How to turn a watch into a compass
The sun’s position on the compass varies with time of day, as do the positions of your watch’s hands: By combining the two equations, you can solve for direction. Just move your arm so your watch’s hour hand points to the sun. Halfway between the hour hand and the number 12 is south. (The trick doesn’t work at high noon, for obvious reasons—go have a gunfight and try again later.)

Posted by Ryan at 12:29 AM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2004

How to bypass most firewall restrictions and access the internet

AKA: How to surf the web freely from work

Posted by Ryan at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)

Paper CD Case

Use this website to create a PDF file which can be printed and folded to create a paper CD case.

Posted by Ryan at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)

WriteExpress - Online rhyming dictionary

Posted by Ryan at 07:44 PM | Comments (0)

How to change a habit

Daily Activities To Help Change Habits
"I should change, but I've tried and failed." Does this sound familiar? Often, changing habits does seem insurmountable. Many of us simply don't have enough motivation to change our habits - all of our bad habits - in a way that would truly affect our health. We cling to them because we see them as rewards.

But your habits determine your health. Below is a strategy and focus on daily activities to help you change and eliminate bad habits.

It Takes 21 Days To Break A Bad Habit
To begin with, choose one unhealthy habit you wish to eliminate or change. Or, choose a healthy habit you want to adopt as part of your behavior. If it is a habit to eliminate, you may wish to go "cold turkey" or have a gradual tapering off. Caution: If it is a drug or chemical habit you are planning on eliminating, be sure to obtain an expert's opinion as to whether you need to taper off usage as opposed to quitting cold turkey.

Now that you have decided which unhealthy habit to eliminate, or new habit to adopt, decide on the date you will begin your behavior change. Give this date a good deal of thought and then write it down. For example, "On February 15, 2001, I will become a non-smoker."

In order to ensure behavior change, experts agree that it takes a minimum of 21 days to change a behavior. Again, look at the date you are planning on changing your habit. Count ahead 21 days and mark that date down. Now, make a commitment that you will follow your plan for 21 days.

Helpful Suggestions

Your target date has arrived. It is the first day of your 21-day cycle. Here are some helpful suggestions for habit change:

Write down your goal. There is magic in the written word when it applies to you. Experts recommend stating your goal in positive terms, such as "I want to be lean and physically fit," instead of "I've got to get this flabby body out there huffing and puffing." So, begin with writing down, as a positive goal, the habit you will change.

List your reasons for changing or eliminating your habit. Writing it down will force you to think out in specific terms what this habit represents in your life and the meaning you believe your life will hold for you upon changing the habit. This will also help with your commitment toward taking positive action.

Find substitute routines. For example, if you are changing eating habits and you have identified a particularly difficult time of the day when eating habits are poor, create an activity, a new routine for that time.

Talk to yourself. Tell yourself you're making progress. Remind yourself that you are moving closer to your goal.. Talk to yourself throughout the day about how you are going to avoid triggers that can get you off track and make healthy substitutes.

Recruit helpers for support. Explain to them why you are making this change. Ask for their support. Their support may be needed encouragement.

Be prepared for people who may sabotage your change. Be assertive and tell them what they are doing.
Sustaining Motivation

The following are some suggestions to follow each day in order to sustain motivation and determination:

Review your list of reasons for quitting or changing.

Create mental pictures of yourself as having already succeeded with your habit change.

Make affirmations, positive self-statements about your habit change. For example, "I am filled with so much health and vitality now that I exercise four times a week."

Reward yourself. Make up a list of self-rewards. Reward yourself verbally.

Remember to take one day at a time. If you do backslide, don't label yourself as having failed. Get out your list or reasons for quitting or changing and begin again.
Fatigue, boredom, depression, stress can all make it difficult to stick with your program. But having a relapse isn't as important as how you deal with the relapse. If you are so devastated by failure that you call your good intentions into question, that will make habit change harder for you. But, if you allow for an occasional relapse and treat it as nothing more than a slight misstep that teaches you something, then you're on the right track.

Follow the suggestions in this article, adopt the more helpful attitude of evaluating your progress and accepting relapses, and you will find yourself reaching many of your goals. You will have achieved true behavior change.

Posted by Ryan at 07:26 PM | Comments (0)

MSDN Gets Spoofed From Within: Recommends Firefox For MS Websites

Garbage truck driver accidentally hits dump button at 65 mph. Hilarity ensues

Posted by Ryan at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)

The fear: exploding cellphones

You can officially stop worrying about brain cancer and start worrying about third-degree burns—the Associated Press has just done a story about exploding cellphones and how the Consumer Product Safety Commission keeps getting more and more complaints about cellphone batteries exploding or causing fires (they’ve received 83 such complaints over the past two years). There’s even the obligatory quote from the head of the Wireless Consumers Alliance (which we’ve never heard of, but sounds very impressive) about how basically making cellphone smaller and smaller is turning them into little bombs. Little bombs that we use to make phone calls, that is. The biggest source of the problem: sketchy third-party batteries.

[via engadget]

Posted by at 07:03 PM | Comments (0)

LightSaber remote control will complete you

The hard-to-find LightSaber remote is the perfect finishing touch for any geek den. It includes a built-in library of command codes for cable, TV, and VCRs as well as satellite. Every key press generates an eventually-annoying sound effect, including the “kwwssshhh” arming sound during the first button push. No, not annoying at all.

[via redferret]

Posted by at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)

Today's Links

Flash- Internet for the blind
Interactive flash video, see how hard it would be to be blind and use the internet

Game - Frogmania
Control the frogs so that they eat fireflies

Game - Balls and Walls
Use the walls to bounce the balls and get it by the other person

Game - Pixel Field
Guide the pixels through the minefield

Game - Backyard Baseball
Hit the baseball, that's all that is to it

Cartoon - Can I have a new computer
The funny thing is that I could see someone doing this!

Video - Computer Problems?
Someone that needs anger management

Game - City Jumper
Very addictive game, although I can't get past the fourth level

Link - 20 dollar bill and 9/11
Some lame people fold the 20 dollar bill to represent pictures from 9/11

Link - How fast do you type?
See how fast you type, I type at 68 words per minute with 5 mistakes

Posted by at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

If someone sells you bad drugs, you might not want to call police to file complaint

Man to sue Google for being a search engine

Middle school explodes. Suprisingly, students didn't cause it

Posted by Ryan at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)

Asus Smart Doctor 4.57

ASUS SmartDoctor is designed to satisfy two major goals. One is to monitor graphic chip Status, altering users about abnormal events, such as fan malfunction or chip overheat. The other, as the name SmartDoctor implies, is to cool down the graphic chip smartly when it is not necessary for it to be kept running at full speed. It includes AGP Power Level Monitoring, Fan RPM Monitoring, Overheated protection, Smartcooling technology, and Manual Overclocking.

Download it here

Posted by at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)

Trivia

The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days.

The Wampanoag chief invited to the first Thanksgiving feast was named Massasoit.

The first Thanksgiving took place in the fall of 1621.

The Pilgrims didn't use forks.

Only about one-third of the original colonists were Puritans.

In 1941, Congress passed a proclamation naming Thanksgiving a legal holiday to be observed on the fourth Thursday in November.

The Mayflower's crossing took 66 days.

It's unclear if the Pilgrims at turkey at the first Thanksgiving. At the time, "turkey" meant any kind of fowl.

Evidence indicates that turkeys have been around for more than 10 million years.

Turkey eggs hatch in 28 days.

A baby turkey is called a "poult."

A mature turkey has about 3,500 feathers.

More than 45 million turkeys are consumed during Thanksgiving.

The average weight of a Thanksgiving turkey is 15 pounds.

The Mayflower weighed 180 tons.

The captain of the Mayflower was named Christopher Jones.

There were at least two dogs on the Mayflower.

The typical 15-pound turkey is 70 percent white meat and 30 percent dark meat.

Pilgrim children, boys and girls, wore linen or wool dresses up until the ages of seven or eight.

The Pilgrims never celebrated a second Thanksgiving.

Cranberries are also called "bounceberries."

Thanksgiving in Canada is celebrated on the second Monday in October.

A male turkey is called a "Tom." A female turkey is called a "hen."

The Mayflower was a merchant vessel. Before transporting the Pilgrims, the ship was in the wine trade, and before that, in the fish trade.

The pet food industry uses about 13 percent of U.S. turkey production.

The Pilgrims did not eat cranberry sauce at the first Thanksgiving.

In the typical Pilgrim household, adults sat down to dinner while the children waited on them.

A nest of turkey eggs is called a "clutch."

The "caruncle" is the reddish, fleshy growth on the head and upper neck of a turkey. The red, fleshy growth from the base of a turkey's beak that hangs down over the neck is called the "snood."

The first native Americans to introduce themselves to the Pilgrims were Samoset and Squanto.

Ninety-five percent of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

FROM DribbleGlass.com

Posted by Ryan at 05:54 PM | Comments (0)

Google news results via RSS

Type in a Google news query and you can syndicate it with this cool site...

Posted by Ryan at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)

Color Scheme Generator 2

Use this cool tool to make a color scheme for your website...

Click

Posted by Ryan at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)

Flickr Screensaver v2

Use this program to display a user's Flickr album as your screensaver...

Posted by Ryan at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)

10x10: 100 Words and pictuers that define the time

Posted by Ryan at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)

The Pepsi Spice Project

Q: What is this experiment? A: I will drink Pepsi Holiday Spice for 45 days, and nothing else.. no water, milk, nothing... but Pepsi Holiday Spice.

Wal-Mart heiress pays $20,000 for her homework to be done for her. University of Missouri not happy their brand new basketball arena was named after her, especially since she attends USC

Posted by Ryan at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2004

Today's News

That copier you used to Xerox your butt also printed out its serial number in microscopic print, and the Gov't keeps a list

Posted by Ryan at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)

How to Make an iPod Ad Silhouette person in Photoshop

Posted by Ryan at 05:32 PM | Comments (0)

The 46 Best Freeware Utilities

Posted by Ryan at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)

Koders - Open Source Search

Posted by Ryan at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents

Jason Tuohey, Medill News Service

WASHINGTON--Next time you make a printout from your color laser printer, shine an LED flashlight beam on it and examine it closely with a magnifying glass. You might be able to see the small, scattered yellow dots printer there that could be used to trace the document back to you.

According to experts, several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters.

Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company's laser printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre Pro series, put the "serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots" in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.

"It's a trail back to you, like a license plate," Crean says.

The dots' minuscule size, covering less than one-thousandth of the page, along with their color combination of yellow on white, makes them invisible to the naked eye, Crean says. One way to determine if your color laser is applying this tracking process is to shine a blue LED light--say, from a keychain laser flashlight--on your page and use a magnifier.

Crime Fighting vs. Privacy

Laser-printing technology makes it incredibly easy to counterfeit money and documents, and Crean says the dots, in use in some printers for decades, allow law enforcement to identify and track down counterfeiters.

However, they could also be employed to track a document back to any person or business that printed it. Although the technology has existed for a long time, printer companies have not been required to notify customers of the feature.

Lorelei Pagano, a counterfeiting specialist with the U.S. Secret Service, stresses that the government uses the embedded serial numbers only when alerted to a forgery. "The only time any information is gained from these documents is purely in [the case of] a criminal act," she says.

John Morris, a lawyer for The Center for Democracy and Technology, says, "That type of assurance doesn't really assure me at all, unless there's some type of statute." He adds, "At a bare minimum, there needs to be a notice to consumers."

If the practice disturbs you, don't bother trying to disable the encoding mechanism--you'll probably just break your printer.

Crean describes the device as a chip located "way in the machine, right near the laser" that embeds the dots when the document "is about 20 billionths of a second" from printing.

"Standard mischief won't get you around it," Crean adds.

Neither Crean nor Pagano has an estimate of how many laser printers, copiers, and multifunction devices track documents, but they say that the practice is commonplace among major printer companies.

"The industry absolutely has been extraordinarily helpful [to law enforcement]," Pagano says.

According to Pagano, counterfeiting cases are brought to the Secret Service, which checks the documents, determines the brand and serial number of the printer, and contacts the company. Some, like Xerox, have a customer database, and they share the information with the government.

Crean says Xerox and the government have a good relationship. "The U.S. government had been on board all along--they would actually come out to our labs," Crean says.

History

Unlike ink jet printers, laser printers, fax machines, and copiers fire a laser through a mirror and series of lenses to embed the document or image on a page. Such devices range from a little over $100 to more than $1000, and are designed for both home and office.

Crean says Xerox pioneered this technology about 20 years ago, to assuage fears that their color copiers could easily be used to counterfeit bills.

"We developed the first (encoding mechanism) in house because several countries had expressed concern about allowing us to sell the printers in their country," Crean says.

Since then, he says, many other companies have adopted the practice.

The United States is not the only country teaming with private industry to fight counterfeiters. A recent article points to the Dutch government as using similar anticounterfeiting methods, and cites Canon as a company with encoding technology. Canon USA declined to comment.

Posted by Ryan at 05:17 PM | Comments (0)

How-To: BroadCatching using RSS + BitTorrent to automatically download TV shows

New Page 1

broadcatching

Over the last couple week’s TiVo let slip that they’re going to start adding banner ads when we try to fast-forward commercials (and to make things even more annoying, Congress is considering a bill that might make fast-forwarding through the commercials on DVDs illegal). So we’ve pretty much decided we’re not going to use a TiVo anymore and that instead we’ll go with other solutions (for now) like a Media Center PC, as well as rolling some of our own ways to download TV shows. For this week’s How-To we’re going to show you how you can use RSS and BitTorrent to find and download your favorite shows, automatically, using free software. There are a lot of ways to do this, we cover one example that worked well for us, and there are a couple great tutorials we spotted that are basically the same but offer other ways of downloading, other plugins and more information. You can check them out here and here. If you’re already a pro, be sure to post up your set up and experiences in the comments area.

RSS and BitTorrent

Before we get started, it might be a good idea to introduce a few topics if you’re not familiar with them. We’ll be using RSS and BitTorrent to look for and download TV shows. RSS also known as “Really Simple Syndication” is a way to publish information so other computers can read it in a simple and standard way. In the context of this How-To there are RSS feeds that will tell another application where and when a new TV show is available. BitTorrent is a way to transfer files over the web, instead of download the same file over and over from a central server, which will become slow or busy with high demand, BitTorrent uses the bandwidth of all the people downloading the file and sends parts to everyone as it downloads, so the more people who are downloading the better, and the more you upload, the faster you get your files (it definitely ends the free rider problem of other p2p applications). For downloading TV shows, this of course is a perfect match, the more popular a show is, the easier it is to get.

Disclaimer
Make sure you check with your local, state and country’s laws—In some cases you may be downloading (and uploading) copyrighted material. So far, there hasn’t been a legal case that we know of where broadcast TV networks have stopped or wanted to stop BitTorrent downloads of their shows, but we have heard that pay networks like Showtime, HBO, etc. have sent letters to some individuals for sharing recorded TV. This is all new territory for the most part, and it will be interesting to see what happens and if the TV networks realize that this could be their future distribution chain.

The future of TV?
max While your average TV watcher is probably not going to set up RSS feeds and BitTorrent clients, many people are, and there is a lot of interest in using these technologies solely for the purpose of downloading and watching TV shows.

(Mr. Quirk reminding us of a possible future recently. If you remember the old Max Headroom shows TV companies were locked in a ratings war fought in real-time, changes in viewer numbers affected the stock price and net worth. Stopping channel hopping was vital. One company invented “blipverts” that fed the adverts at high speed. Trouble was: fat viewers [couch potatoes] were exploding and the TV company wanted to keep that quiet.)

The future of TV isn’t certain, perhaps we’ll have set top boxes that do what we’re about to describe, i.e. look for shows you like, download them in a decentralized way over high speed networks, delivering high-definition picture and sound. All the parts are here, it just needs to get simpler.

Getting started
This How-To is fairly straight forward, we’re going to download a Java engine to run a BitTorrent client, along with a RSS plugin which will look for the TV shows we tell it to look for. For our example we’re going to use a PC (Windows XP) but all of this work on Mac OS as well and possibly Linux, but we didn’t have a chance to test that out on the Linux box here.

Installing the Java Run Time Engine
The first thing we need to do is install a Java Run Time Engine, this allows you to run Java based applications on your specific operating system, for our example, we’re using Windows XP.

You may or may not have a JRE already installed, even if you do, it’s a good idea to get the latest one, Java 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 which you can download here. Once downloaded and installed (a reboot may be required) we need to install the BitTorrent client, Azureus.

Installing Azureus, the BiTorrent client
Azureus a full featured bittorrent with multiple download options, queuing and priority, pause/resume seeding as well as detailed information about your uploadind and downloading status.

azureus

Download and install Azureus from here. Run Azureus and click through the settings wizard, this will walk you through any configuration needed. For the most part, clicking through next with all the defaults will work on most systems.

Installing the RSS Plugin for Azureus
Once Azureus is installed and running, we’ll now need to install a RSS plugin. The RSS plugin will watch sites and allow you so search as well as download for specific shows you’re looking for.

There are a couple RSS plugins, for our example we’re going to use RSS Import, which can be downloaded here.

Another one to try out is RSS import Feed Scanner, there’s a link to a tutorial for using this one at the end of the How-To.

Unzip the file and place the “RSSImport” folder in the plugin directory of Azureus, it’s most likely located here, where you installed Azureus.

C:\Program Files\Azureus\plugins

Now start Azureus. If Azureus is running, then close the application and start it again.

In the top menu, choose Tools > Option. On the left side expand the + box next to Plugins
azureus

Click “Activate RSS Import Plugin”.

Under RSS Channels to import, type in a RSS feed, for our example we’re going to use:
http://www.tvtorrents.net/rss.php

azureus

You may also want to try:
http://www.btefnet.com/backend.php
http://varchars.com/rss/suprnova-tv.rss

If you add more than one use a ; to seperate them (no spaces).

The “Filter for channel entries” field is where you add the names of the shows you’re looking for, basically you type the name of the show and subsitute spaces in the name with periods, like this…
viva.la.bam
malcolm.in.the.middle
australian.idol

These are “regular expressions” you can add other filters, such as SVCD oe HDTV versions. Many torrents come in different flavors of encoding, HDTV quality, DiVx, mpeg, etc…

For our example, we’re on the prowl for some good ole’ Cylons action in Battlestar Galactica. So we’re going to use…
battlestar.galactica

If we only wanted the SVCD version, we’d use this
battlestar.galactica.*svcd*

Another option might be to download the HDTV PDTV or DSRip versions, to do this, use.
battlestar.galactica.*[dsrip].*[hpdtv]

For more on this, make sure to check out the RSS Feed Scanner forums here.

And, if you want to learn more about regular expressions, here is a list of handy resources to get started. RSS Import uses this type of filter called regex (regular expressions).

As you learn these, you can test out your filters here.

Downloading
Once the TV shows your specify are discovered, they will automatically start to download.

azureus

You can check out the status as well as all the other information available as you download.

azureus
azureus

It can take hours for some to download, so many users have a computer on all the time that just downloads in the background with TV shows eagerly waiting to be seen at the end of each day.

azureus

As more portable video players hit the market, we expect to see a lot of people then transferring their TV shows to these devices, right now converting is a little tricky, but if there’s enough interest, we’ll do a How-To on that as well.

And there you go, please don’t watch Desperate Housewives, that’s all we ask, thanks

[via engadget]

Posted by Ryan at 04:45 PM | Comments (1)

Dan Rather to resign from CBS

Dan Rather, embattled anchor of the "CBS Evening News," announced today that he will step down in March, on the 24th anniversary of taking over the job from Walter Cronkite. The veteran anchor has been under fire in recent months for his role in a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story that questioned President Bush's service in the National Guard, which turned out to based on allegedly forged documents.
Rather, 73, said he will continue to work for CBS, as a correspondent for both editions of "60 Minutes." He made no mention of the National Guard story in announcing the change, saying he had agreed with CBS executives last summer that after the Nov. 2 election would be the right time to leave.

Posted by Ryan at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2004

Onelook Reverse Dictionary

Trying to think of a word but it won't come to you? Type in the concept here and this will tell you the likely choices for your word...

Click

Posted by Ryan at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)

.HTACCESS files useful tips and tricks

The .htaccess file is a very powerful configuration tool for users of the Apache web server. Here are some quick tips and tricks about how an .HTACCESS file can be placed in the various directories of your web server to provide specific handling of various Apache web server options for that directory.

Click here for more

Posted by Ryan at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)

The Cornell Note Taking System

Cool layout that helps you take better notes...

Step 1: Buy soap. Step 2: Carve soap. Step 3: Get a life

Posted by Ryan at 06:43 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

Escalator with option to turn steps into platform for wheelchairs changes mind, sends man and wheelchair tumbling down stairs

Today's school shooting brought to you by Strawberry Mansion high school in Philadelphia

Scientists have discovered gene that contributes to laziness. Here comes th --

Posted by Ryan at 05:37 PM | Comments (0)

Quick video of an XP computer getting owned by spyware...

Posted by Ryan at 12:51 AM | Comments (0)

Google Scholar Beta

"Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research."

Posted by Ryan at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)

Cool Firefox Extensions

Click Here

Posted by Ryan at 12:39 AM | Comments (0)

hack yourself. you can be happy.

Self-examination can be paralysis.

Don't “remember to breathe” — just breathe. It's a Tao thing.

It's the paradox at the center of all this — remember that, “Am I living up to being the person I want to be?”, is not a question the person you want to be would ask.

If I can leave you with just one thought, it's this:

Stop wasting your time fretting over not being happy.

Just be happy.

How to breathe deeply when you're nervous

Posted by Ryan at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)

November 21, 2004

Vacuuming the lungs

Posted by Ryan at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)

Cool Google Hack

inurl:indexFrame.shtml Axis

Posted by Ryan at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

Japanese G-Cans Project

I think its some huge underground water system in Japan...

Posted by Ryan at 08:06 PM | Comments (0)

Don't just IM... IM Smarter!

Cool program...

use your existing IM client to:
Search your IM chat history...at work or at home!
Discover when your friends update their blogs
Blog as easily as sending an IM
Remember the laundry you just put in the wash
Recall web sites, phone numbers, and email addresses mentioned on IM
...and much, much, more!

A list of default passwords for everything

Posted by Ryan at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)

Default Password List

Posted by Ryan at 07:34 PM | Comments (0)

Flickr: Technique

Cool photo gallery on Flickr

Posted by Ryan at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)

CSS Drop Shadows

Posted by Ryan at 01:58 PM | Comments (0)

Google Cheat Sheet

Posted by Ryan at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)

Starting a business: Advice from the trenches

by Kevin Potts
If you’re like thousands of other designers, programmers and other creative professionals out there, at one point in time you’ve considered starting your own business. Unlike most, you’ve gone against common sense and decided to open shop for yourself. And not just freelance full-time, mind you, but file for the company name, get some stationery, and wade through the legal mumbo-jumbo. Maybe even get a real office with a water cooler.

This article offers real-world advice from the trenches of a small start-up, and is applicable to designers, web developers, copywriters, usability experts and all manner of service providers. Freelancers take heed: there are several items that are just as pertinent to your profession.

Write a Business Plan
The most important thing you can do to prepare for starting and operating your own business. Developing a business plan requires a lot of time and energy, but it’s invaluable for one primary reason — it forces you to come to terms with your business idea. You must decide how you will generate income, what your expenses will be, who your competitors are, and most important, WHAT YOUR BUSINESS DOES. This may seem obvious to you now, but write it down. Think about it. What sets your business apart? What service do you offer that is superior or unique? What’s going to put you ahead of the competition?

Beyond the mental exercises, a good business plan will give you a much better chance of getting a small business loan from a bank than walking in and saying, “I like Photoshop and maybe a can do some websites or something. Gimme money.”

A few years ago, new age business rhetoric said forget the business plan and just run with it. Obviously, that didn't work out so well, so if you go that route, God bless you. The business plan exists for a reason. There are libraries of books written on them and huge websites devoted to developing good ones. Some resources:

SBA
Scott Kramer’s articles on A List Apart
Businessplans.org
Business Plan Archive
Take a few weeks and develop a strong and thought-out plan. Give it to friends, co-workers, even family to read. Your business will be immeasurably stronger because you took the time for this step.

File for a Fictitious Name
A fictitious name (called a doing-business-as or DBA in some states) is the government’s term for your company name. If you choose HyperGlobalMegaSoft as the start-up’s name, it has to be registered with the state to ensure no one else is using it. This will cost about $100, but prevents you from accidentally using someone else’s registered name, or from someone else using YOUR name. Also note that two companies can usually register the same name for different industries. For instance, Luigi’s (design studio) and Luigi’s (pizza joint).

Note the fictitious name is not the same thing as a registered trademark. A trademark involves a whole separate process, more paperwork and additional fees. Unlike a fictitious name, however, a trademark is not required.

Funding
This is a pretty involved topic, and enough books and articles have been written about it to make for years of boring bathroom reading. Advice in a nutshell: start the business with your own savings or borrow from a bank. I highly recommend the former or a combination that includes it, since it makes you pinch your pennies a little more. If you go the bank route, make sure the business plan is polished to a high shine. This may be a good time to hire a professional business plan writer/editor.

There is one Golden Rule: Don't borrow money from family or friends. 99% of the time, you won't be able to pay them back, and on the off-chance you are, it won't be for months or years. The amount is irrelevant; $1,000 or $100,000 can quickly create bad blood.

Get an Accountant
In starting your business and maintaining its future financial health, there is no greater ally than an accountant. He or she (or they if you go with a firm) will be able to give advice on innumerable aspects of your new venture. They can advise on what type of business entity to start with, setting up bank accounts, a means of invoicing and collecting, and more. Most importantly, they also guide you on paying taxes properly and punctually.

Brief advice on accountants:

Go with an accountant or a firm in your state. Each state has different laws.
Make sure the accountant knows business taxes. Do not hire a family-oriented accountant.
Unless, you are really, really strapped for cash, hire an accountant who is not a family member. While it may be tempting to get a family discount, it is better to have an unbiased viewpoint about your finances, and also better to keep your family’s nose out of your funds in general.
Try to trade services! Maybe your accountant wants a new logo, website, or brochure.
Start with a Partner
If you can, start the business with a partner. This person should be another designer or programmer with a level of experience equal to or greater than your own, but with a different skill set. If you’re the God of Annual Reports, your partner can be the Overlord of Identity Design. Having two Annual Report Gods will make for some lacking identity work when the client requests it. And for the record, once again, it will be better if this person isn't family.

“But why a partner?” you ask. “I'm a darn good designer, and I'm really really gonna do this right.”

A partner will keep you on your toes. When you want to buy that $2,000 scanner, he or she should question why. If you want to design a promotional piece, it should be a group effort to get the best results. If you start to slack off, he or she will be there to remind you of business priorities. No one can do everything, and two complementary skill sets create an asset that cannot be reproduced when flying solo.

About Your New Office
When you start a business, the option of setting up an office outside your home has dramatic pros and cons that must be weighed carefully.

Good:

You have a place for clients to visit if they are local.
Reinforces good image (see below). Proper presentation goes a long way, and making your office appear as if you’ve been in business for years (you didn't tell them you were a start-up, did you?) helps build client trust.
You can write off all office expenses (rent, repairs, phone, etc). This will affect your bottom line drastically.
Gets you out of the house. Having a real place to go to work makes the business more real, and forces you to take it that more seriously.
Not-So-Good:

Money out the window. Renting an office costs $250-$10,000 a month, not including the initial deposit. This is a lot of money if you have a thin or inconsistent client base.
Requires additional expense. You will need to get a fire inspection and a certificate of occupancy, not to mention additional phone lines, Internet connection, furniture, etc.
Setting up an outside office for a new business is a case-by-case situation, and depends almost entirely on start-up money and cash flow. Some businesses truly require a place to host clients (ad agencies),and for others it’s not as important (web development). Weigh the advantages carefully against capital, because being locked into a lease without a means to pay is no fun.

Retain a Good Paper Trail
Make sure to keep a solid paper trail with clients, and that means a real, physical file with hardcopies of proposals, contracts, invoices, time sheets and anything else you can think of that relates to the project. This also includes all financial records, bank statements, receipts, deposit slips, etc.

Before beginning your business, establish several important things. First, design a consistent and scalable filing system for all the forms. Whether you organize by client or project is irrelevant, but make sure you can find the information when you need it. Second, make sure to have airtight contracts. I advise against writing them yourself. There are many places on the net where you can get generic forms, such as www.creativepro.com. You will also need to look for NDAs (non-disclosure agreements, for contracting work out to other freelancers), RFP (request for proposal) templates for clients to fill out, expense reports, invoices, and time sheets. Every project is different, so be prepared to make changes on these forms.

And please, when you sign a contract with a client, make sure you have a copy with BOTH signatures. Seems like an obvious thing, but you'd be surprised. Don't do any work without one, because legally, you will have a very hard time forcing a delinquent client to pay without one.

Part of maintaining a solid paper trail is having a good invoice system ready to launch at a moment’s notice. Make sure your invoices arrive in the client’s mailbox while the project is still fresh. Every invoice should clearly mark the amount to be paid and terms of payment (30 days, etc.), and clearly indicate any additional fees resulting from delinquent recompense.

If payment is late, don't be afraid to call the client. Sometimes they just misplaced the invoice. Other times they don't have the money and are trying to slink away. Sometimes, “the check is in the mail.” Regardless, the business that does not call to get paid won't get paid!

Start Small, Conserve Loot
Consider working from your house/apartment to start, especially if you have clients that will never visit you, or if you live in an expensive metropolis (NYC, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, etc). Keep your expenses down! Don't buy a new quad Xeon workstation if your current machine can cut it, or a truckload of networking equipment for two computers. Be cheap! Look for sales at OfficeMax, clip coupons, and just shop smart. You’re going to need the start-up capital down the road, so don't drain it on frivolous expenditures. (And yes, the folded die-cut business card with the metallic ink counts as a frivolous expenditure.)

Don't Undercharge, but Be Flexible
If there’s one thing to remember from this article, it should be this point. Proper pricing is the one thing that keeps the business alive, on multiple levels. When you charge appropriate amounts for the work, the client will feel like they hired the right people; when you undercharge, the client will know this and take advantage of you by demanding similar rates in the future.

If you give every client a discount just to get the job (and this will be tempting, especially in the beginning), you'll find yourself working twelve-hour days and not being able to pay the bills. Undercharging hurts the industry in general as well; undercharged clients come to expect and request absurdly low prices.

Legal Software
Make sure all the copies of your software are retail versions. Do not use “educational” or pirated software. This is very important, and should be part of the start-up budget.

Separate Personal and Business Finances
Nothing much else to say about this. It will save you innumerable headaches come tax season.

Marketing
Even the most reliable clients have dry spells, so make sure you are constantly putting your company’s name in the marketplace. Word of mouth is the best, but getting truly fresh work usually requires spending money.

The Importance of Image
The importance of maintaining a positive image in the eyes of your clients and potential clients cannot be overstated. Know your firm’s identity so you can project that identity to the customer.

The visual identity is critical. Get business cards, letterhead, and envelopes. Design a good logo or pay someone to do it if you’re not a design firm.

Dress the part. When meeting with a client, look like someone who’s come to do business, not some clichéd black-turtleneck half-shaven graphic designer who’s gracing them with your presence half an hour late. It sounds exaggerated, but it happens all too often.

Make the office welcoming. If you entertain clients, keep the office clean, organized and hospitable. Make good coffee. Purchase comfortable chairs. Make sure they have a place to park.

Use Outside Resources
Running a business takes long hours and a willingness to learn. However, there are many services that exist to help businesses succeed and get work. For instance:

Your local Chamber of Commerce
SCORE
Attend business seminars. You can learn a lot and do some powerful networking. Many are free.
Creativepro.com. Full of valuable resources like stock photos, business contracts, freebies and more. $29.99 / year.
Elance.com. A cause of dissention among many designers for the ridiculously low rates you have to work for, but a good place to find work when the rest of the world has shut its doors.
If you still decide to start a business, there’s nothing more I can say except good luck.

You’ve got to have the “fire in your belly,” or you will fail. There are long hours, hard work, and incredibly frustrating and stressful times ahead. But the rewards — being your own boss, being able to work on a variety of projects, feeling that proverbial sense of accomplishment — these are all very real results.

A Special Note for Those Still in School
When I was in school, what I wanted more than anything was to start a business creating customized audio solutions for multimedia content creators. I asked my teachers — they said it was a good idea. I asked my classmates — they thought it was a good idea. Then I took a six-month internship at a “new media” company whose focus was streaming audio and met people so poor they slept in the warehouse with the equipment because they didn't have the experience to succeed in what they were doing. (Incidentally, they didn't have a business plan either.)

Before you start a business fresh out of school, wait and get some real world work experience first. I started my design company when I was 23, and the business clearly suffered because of it. Not because I was young and dumb (well, not that young and dumb anyway), but simply because I didn't have enough street smarts to REALLY succeed.

Technical knowledge and raw talent only go so far. When working at a company, you see how established businesses function: how workflow is managed, how clients are dealt with, how managers treat workers, and the absolutely critical nature of deadlines, no matter how tight. These are invaluable lessons that school does not teach.

Lorry Rescues Car... With Hilarious Consequences

Posted by Ryan at 01:38 PM | Comments (0)

Depanneren

Posted by Ryan at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)

Google Desktop Search Plus (GDSPlus) v1.0

GDSPlus is a free add-on that allows you to specify what extensions the new Desktop Search tool from Google will index. This includes the ability to add new extensions not yet supported by Google. You will be able to search the contents of any file that can be indexed as text. Examples include:

.xml, .sql, .bat

.log (mIRC and Trillian)

.cs, .vb (Visual Studio .NET source code files)

.frm, .bas, .cls (Visual Basic 6 source code files)

.wpd (WordPerfect), .rtf (Rich Text File)

Additionally, adding non-ASCII file extensions such as .wav, .rar, .png, .psd etc. will index just the filenames for search (PDF content is still not searchable, however). You can also remove support for any of the extensions that Google included and you do not want indexed.

Posted by Ryan at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)

Yummy Cake

Two seventh graders in Marietta, Georgia were arrested after serving yummy cornbread cake to their classmates. The cake was spiced with an expired prescription drug, bleach, clay, and tabasco sauce. From an Associated Press report:
"They took it into the cafeteria at lunch time and began passing it out to students, just whoever would take a piece," said Jay Dillon, spokesman for the Cobb County School District in suburban Atlanta.

Some of the students started vomiting after eating the cake Tuesday, officials said. Eleven students, mostly seventh graders, were treated at a hospital and released, Dillon said.

Posted by Ryan at 01:17 PM | Comments (3)

Fun Game

DHTML Lemmings

Posted by Ryan at 04:39 AM | Comments (0)

Effective Notetaking

1. NOTETAKING IS A SKILL

This takes understanding of what you're doing
It takes practice, which involves effort
2. NOTETAKING IS DIFFICULT BECAUSE:

Spoken language is more diffuse than written
Speaker's organization is not immediately apparent
Spoken language is quickly gone
This makes analysis difficult
3. FOUR PURPOSES FOR NOTETAKING:

Provides a written record for review
Forces the listener to pay attention
Requires organization, which involves active effort on the part of the listener
Listener must condense and rephrase, which aids understanding
4. PHYSICAL FACTORS

Seating
Near the front and center
Vision and hearing are better
Avoid distractions
Doorways, window glare, etc.
Peers
Materials
Two pens
Wide-lined, easy-eye paper
Date and topic written on paper
Plenty of blank paper in back
5. BEFORE TAKING NOTES

Prepare yourself mentally
Be sure of your purpose and the speaker's purpose
Review your notes and other background material if available
Generate enthusiasm and interest
Increased knowledge results in increased interest
A clear sense of purpose on your part will make the speaker's content more relevant
Be ready to understand and remember
Anticipate what is to come, and evaluate how well you were able to do this
6. DECIDE HOW MUCH YOU ARE GOING TO DO

Are notes necessary?
Don't be lulled into a sense of security by an effective presentation
Hearing a thing once is not enough. Memory requires:
Review
Reflective study
7. PRACTICE TLQR TECHNIQUE

Tune-in
Listening takes energy
Look at the speaker
Mannerisms will give extra clues
Looking helps focus attention
Question
Nothing will generate interest so much as an appropriate question
Listen
Be selective. Some things are more important than others.
Be alert for speaker emphasis through:
Tone or gesture
Repetition
Use of cue words such as: remember, most important, etc.
Illustration on board
Reference to text
Note especially new words and ideas
Note especially those ideas which conflict with your own picture of the world
"Odd" ideas are difficult to understand initially and require extra effort
You remember things which support your existing concepts, and forget those things which disagree
Review
Glance back over material from time to time to see if a pattern is emerging, if consistency is being maintained, etc.
If possible, clarify points during or after the lecture
8. WHILE TAKING NOTES

Don't try for a verbatim transcript
Get all of the main ideas
Record some details, illustrations, implications, etc.
Paraphrase
But remember that the speaker may serve as a model
Integrate with other knowledge you already have
But don't allow preconceived notions to distort what you are hearing
Use form to indicate relative importance of items
Underscore or star major points
Leave plenty of white space for later additions
Note speaker's organization of material
Organization aids memory
Organization indicates gaps when they occur
Be accurate
Listen carefully to what is being said
Pay attention to qualifying words like: sometimes, usually, rarely, etc.
Notice signals that a change of direction is coming: but, however, on the other hand
Be an aggressive, not a passive, listener
Ask questions and discuss if it's permitted
If not, jot questions in your notes
Seek out meanings. Look for implications beyond what is being said
Relate the material to your other classes and your life outside of school
Develop a suitable system of mechanics
Jot down words or phrases, not entire sentences
Develop some system of shorthand and be consistent in its use
Hr s sntnc wth vwls lft t
Leave out small service words
Use contractions and abbreviations
Use symbols: +, =, &, @
Try to get the hang of listening and writing at the same time. It can be done.
You may practice listening to the news on TV and taking notes
9.AFTER TAKING NOTES

Review and reword them as soon as possible
Don't just recopy or type without thought
"Reminiscencing" may provide forgotten material later
Rewrite incomplete or skimpy parts in greater detail
Fill in gaps as you remember points heard but not recorded
Arrange with another student to compare notes
Use your notes as a learning tool
Review at spaced intervals
Spaced effort is more effective than the same effort spent cramming
We forget 50% of what we hear immediately; two months later, another 25% is gone. But relearning is rapid if regular review is used
Compare the information in your notes with your own experience
Don't swallow everything uncritically
Don't reject what seems strange or incorrect. Check it out.
Be willing to hold some seeming inconsistencies in your mind over a period of time
Make meaningful associations
Memorize that which must be memorized
Sharpen your notetaking technique by looking at other students' notes. How are they better than your own? How are your notes superior?
Practice those skills you wish to develop

Posted by Ryan at 04:37 AM | Comments (0)

November 20, 2004

Konfabulator for Windows

Cool widget program originally for Mac is now on Windows

Download it

Posted by Ryan at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

Hack your way out of writer’s block

* Talk to a monkey - Explain what you’re really trying to say to a stuffed animal or cardboard cutout.
* Do something important that’s very easy - Is there a small part of your project you could finish quickly that would move things forward?
* Try freewriting - Sit down and write anything for an arbitrary period of time—say, 10 minutes to start. Don’t stop, no matter what. Cover the monitor with a manila folder if you have to. Keep writing, even if you know what you're typing is gibberish, full of misspellings, and grammatically psychopathic. Get your hand moving and your brain will think it’s writing. Which it is. See?
* Take a walk - Get out of your writing brain for 10 minutes. Think about bunnies. Breathe.
* Take a shower; change clothes - Give yourself a truly clean start.
* Write from a persona - Lend your voice to a writing personality who isn’t you. Doesn’t have to be a pirate or anything—just try seeing your topic from someone else’s perspective, style, and interest.
* Get away from the computer; Write someplace new - If you’ve been staring at the screen and nothing is happening, walk away. Shut down the computer. Take one pen and one notebook, and go somewhere new.
* Quit beating yourself up - You can’t create when you feel ass-whipped. Stop visualizing catastrophes, and focus on positive outcomes.
* Stretch - Maybe try vacuuming your lungs too.
* Add one ritual behavior - Get a glass of water exactly every 20 minutes. Do pushups. Eat a Tootsie Roll every paragraph. Add physical structure.
* Listen to new music - Try something instrumental and rhythmic that you’ve never heard before. Put it on repeat, then stop fiddling with iTunes until your draft is done.
* Write crap - Accept that your first draft will suck, and just go with it. Finish something.
* Unplug the router - Metafilter and Boing Boing aren’t helping you right now. Turn off the Interweb and close every application you don’t need. Consider creating a new user account on your computer with none of your familiar apps or configurations.
* Write the middle - Stop whining over a perfect lead, and write the next part or the part after that. Write your favorite part. Write the cover letter or email you’ll send when it’s done.
* Do one chore - Sweep the floor or take out the recycling. Try something lightly physical to remind you that you know how to do things.
* Make a pointless rule - You can’t end sentences with words that begin with a vowel. Or you can’t have more than one word over eight letters in any paragraph. Limits create focus and change your perspective.
* Work on the title - Quickly make up five distinctly different titles. Meditate on them. What bugs you about the one you like least?
* Write five words - Literally. Put five completley random words on a piece of paper. Write five more words. Try a sentence. Could be about anything. A block ends when you start making words on a page.

Entire eighth-grade class suspended for food fight on "meat loaf day"

Posted by Ryan at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

Tree in Indonesia secretes magical honey. Winnie the Pooh has the munchies

In a move sure to attract younger drivers, Chrysler boss calls best-selling car "the shizzle"

The Osbournes will not return for another season. Ozzy was available for comment, but no one could make out what he was saying

Today's "130 cats in a $500,000 house" story brought to you by Vernon Hills, Illinois

Hollywood is out of ideas: Mrs. Doubtfire II

Phone dropped into rock-festival toilet returned to owner's mother four months later

New crime wave gripping Alabama: Porta-potty tipping

Man accused of posing as a plastic surgeon pleads not guilty. Among his accomplishments: Giving Mr. Mexico breast implants

Posted by Ryan at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)

Trivia

The base salary for a NASA astronaut is $50,000 per year.

The "number of the beast" mentioned in the Bible's book of Revelation, 666, was actually a mathematical representation of the name Caesar Nero.

Forest fires move faster uphill than downhill.

The skeleton of an average 160-pound body weighs about 29 pounds.

Football was the first team sport added to the Olympics. That was in 1900.

The blood of a honeybee never clots.

An "undecennial" is an 11th anniversary.

Without the benefit of modern instruments, Eratosthenes measured the radius of Earth in the third century B.C. His calculations were within one percent of the measurement determined by today's technology.

The highest lifetime yield of milk for a single cow is 465,224 pounds.

The sound produced by the high notes of a bagpipe is called a "skirl."

During the 5,000 years of recorded human history, polygamy has been much more common than monogamy.

Former President Jimmy Carter discovered a new proof for the Pythagorean Theorem.

The animal with the largest brain in proportion to its size is the ant.

Thirty-five percent of Americans feel a "unibrow" is a turn-off.

In Japan, you can rent a dog as a companion for $20 an hour.

The chair was invented in about 2,500 BC

"Anasteemaphilia" is an attraction to a person because of a difference in height.

[via dribbleglass.com]

Posted by Ryan at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)

Today's Links

Game - Sniper School
Go to sniper school and see how well you can do

Link - Kite Wings
Watch these people fly with skies on

Video - Backflip gone bad
Watch this guy attempt a backflip...and fail

Link - Hardee's new 1,420 calorie burger
While most fast food chains are trying to make their food healthier, Hardee's is going the other way

Link - Turbo - Outhouse
Wow I need to get one of these

Posted by at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2004

Portable Firefox 1.0

Portable Firefox is a fully functional package of Firefox optimized for use on a USB key drive.

It has some specially-selected optimizations to make it perform faster and extend the life of your USB key as well as a specialized launcher that will allow most of your favorite extensions to work as you switch computers.

It will also work from a CDRW drive (in packet mode), ZIP drives, external hard drives, some MP3 players, flash RAM cards and more

Download it

Posted by Ryan at 07:29 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

Man Allegedly Fakes Break-In to Hock Ring

Unlike fine wines, turkeys do not get better with age.Vanilla Ice's Lost Kangaroo?

Lose Weight, Get A Good Grade

Colfax man dies following bizarre mishap at home

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses an Eye

Posted by at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)

Gates is the "World's most spammed man"

Bill Gates receives up to four million emails a day, and is probably the most spammed person in the world. But unlike ordinary users, he has an entire department to filter unsolicited

Full Article

[via /.]

Posted by Ryan at 07:13 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

PETA: Eating fish hurts their feelings

Man no longer wants to play the cowboy after catching arrow in his neck

AOL admits 40 percent of subscribers don't even have computers. Other 60 percent still looking for the "on" switch

Arafat still dead. Doesn't stop him from infecting computers, however

TiVo to slap pop-up ads on screen when you fast-forward commercials

Posted by Ryan at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

PETA: Eating fish hurts their feelings

Man no longer wants to play the cowboy after catching arrow in his neck

AOL admits 40 percent of subscribers don't even have computers. Other 60 percent still looking for the "on" switch

Arafat still dead. Doesn't stop him from infecting computers, however

TiVo to slap pop-up ads on screen when you fast-forward commercials

Posted by Ryan at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)

Today's Links

Game - Rocketman
Very Addictive game

Flash - Icon Story
A flash of icons fighting

Link - Do the funky chicken
Learn how to do the funky chicken

Game - Webcam pong
If you have a wecam you can play this pong like game

Game - Galactic air hockey
A new way to play air hockey

Game - Toss santa
In this game the object is to throw santa as far as possible

Game - Snake
This is not your average snake game

Game - F18 Hornet
Fly the jet through diffrent missions

Game - Mario
A new way to play mario

Posted by at 06:31 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2004

World's longest palindrome

17,259 words

Posted by Ryan at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Mail now using domain keys to fight spam

In addition to beefing up its storage (100MB -> 250MB), Yahoo! Mail has implemented Domain Keys to find spam. The idea is simple: give email providers a way to verify the domain and integrity of the messages sent. Sendmail, Inc. has released an open source implementation of the Yahoo! DomainKeys specification for testing on the Internet and is actively seeking participants and feedback for its Pilot Program. Yahoo! has submitted the DomainKeys framework as an Internet Draft, titled 'draft-delany-domainkeys-base-01.txt,' for publication with the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). The patent license agreement can be found here.

[via /.]

Posted by Ryan at 05:54 PM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2004

November 15, 2004

Think Again!

Click here for more like this

Posted by Ryan at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

Time magazine reports that al-Qaeda has plans to use Mexico as a staging area to smuggle chemical, biological and radiological materials into the U.S. for terrorist strikes

Men setting up funeral lighting inadvertently create more business for funeral home

Colin Powell resigns

Student who wins flying lessons in essay contest crashes during first lesson; vows to stick to writing

Case dropped against woman who didn't know the George W. Bush $200 bill wasn't real currency

Man sets himself on fire in front of the White House

Posted by Ryan at 05:55 PM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2004

Today's News

Woman thought she'd make an illegal U-Turn. Two tons of Mother's cookies thought otherwise

14-year-old lovebirds discuss murdering one's mother, robbing the other's and running away...all while the answering machine tape ran

One Fish. Two Fish. Red Fish. Sue Fish. Having run out of people to sue, lawyers turning on each other

Students super-glue locks, slash tires on school buses as senior prank. Will leave school with a diploma and a felony on their permanent record

Posted by Ryan at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)

Today's Links

News - Plane passengers shocked by their x-ray scans
X-ray maching in UK that sees through clothes

Link - Dog Glasses
They are now selling glasses for dogs

Game - Emulander
Fun original game

Game - Chess
Cool chess game

Game - Balloon Duel
The name gives it away

Game - Loser
Try to hit the loser with the ball

Posted by at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2004

If you have a hotmail

If you have a hotmail account then you recently noticed that they changed the size of the mailbox from 2 megs to 250 megs for free! If you don't have a hotmail account and want one, then you can get one at www.hotmail.com

Posted by at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

Colorzilla Firefox Extension

With ColorZilla you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program. You can also zoom the page you are viewing and conveniently open any HTML element in the DOM Inspector for further examination.

Posted by Ryan at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

RateMyNetworkDiagram.com

HotOrNot for the geeks

Posted by Ryan at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)

Don't feel like blogging today? Try this semi-automatic blogging tool...

Today was really fun.

I got out of bed really late because my alarm clock has broken and I cannot afford a new one at the moment.

I feel a bit strange because we've just moved to Idaho and there's a weird smell in the house.

I'm so sad. My kitten got run over this afternoon. I found him when I was coming home from school. His head was all squished. I took some photos. I'll miss him. Poor kitty.

Last night I had to go and pay Joshua's bail. He's such a jerk. He got arrested for punching the Walmart clerk in the face for refusing to sell him beer. He's only 16!

I want to tell the world that I'm gay.

I am sharpening my knives before I go to work today, because I'm going to cut out Robert's heart and feed it to him for losing my mail.

Today, I got a digital camera! Yes! I'm so ugly. Don't look at my photos pleeeeeze.

I want to say thanks to simon and Abbey and Dave and the other Simon for helping me on Saturday. You guys are the best. By the way, if you happen to find my wallet, keys or underwear, could you SMS me? Adrian has my number.

I went to the doctor yesterday, and he said I have bipolar disorder, which makes me different enough to be interesting, but the same as all the other cool people with bipolar disorder.

You should all do this quiz! It's amazingly accurate. You just put in your name and birthday, and it will tell you you're a moron.

That's enough for now. But I'll leave you with my favourite Buffy fan-fiction piece I wrote last year when I was in hospital.

Created with the Gregor's Semi-Automatic LiveJournal Updater™. Update your journal today!
Powered by Rum and Monkey

Posted by Ryan at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

???

Soap that contains real razorblades. "For decorative purposes only"

Newborn twin boys named "Yasser" and "Arafat." Condition of mother fine, nope not fine, nope she's good after all

Posted by Ryan at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2004

Just in time for Thanksgiving: Photoshop a turkey in an unlikely situation

Posted by Ryan at 08:40 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

Activist attempting to re-enact "Super Size Me" nearly killed by fast food

Rapper Flavor Flav smacks peeing dog with rolled up newspaper on VH1 reality show "The Surreal Life." Oh, that went over real well with animal rights group

Woman struck by train sues railroad for failing to warn pedestrians that trains travel on tracks

Jury finds Peterson guilty

Posted by Ryan at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2004

Today's News

Today's "drunk woman who stuck her hand in a tiger's cage and pulled back a bloody nub" story courtesy of Gentry, Arkansas

Inventors claim the only thing more fun than waiting 40 minutes for a table in a restaurant is being blasted by ads and PowerPoint presentations while you're waiting

Is that an unidentified sub entering Japanese waters or are you just happy to see me?

Arafat actually dead this time. Really. No, seriously. They're not kidding. No, really this time

Painting that appears to be the work of a meth-addicted chimp sells at Sotheby's for record $17.4 million

Arafat still dead

Homeless man snaps after highway crew member becomes latest person to tell him to get off his ass. In other news, homeless people have guns

Surprising no one, Microsoft caught using Google search results to populate its own search engine

Woman runs wrong car off the road thinking it was her cheating ex-boyfriend. (pics of both cars included)

Nader demands a recount; Sometimes the jokes write themselves, sometimes they run for President

Dog has identity crisis, thinks its a cat, jumps off top of building. Vet bills ensue

When sniffing propane in the back of your van, please mind the no smoking signs

Posted by Ryan at 05:37 PM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2004

SMS Guerilla Projector

The SMS Guerilla Projector takes messages sent to it via SMS and projects them onto any surface. Built from a cellphone, a camera, and slide projector by the London-based collective 'Troika,' the idea is to shoot messages onto surfaces that might engender a reaction from surprised drivers, causing them to take wrong turns, veer off the road, or walk to hilarious effect into the bathroom of the opposite gender. Or maybe it's for art or something, I don't know.

[via gizmodo]

Posted by Ryan at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)

Gmail Adds POP3 To Email Accounts

"Gmail has recently added POP3 services to their free email accounts. This would allow someone to use gmail without ever seeing any of their advertisements. They are also providing SMTP, both POP3 and SMTP are forcing the use of SSL/TLS. Very interesting...now where's IMAP and what's the catch?" It's being phased in, though, so not every gmail account yet has POP access.

[via /.]

Posted by Ryan at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)

Trial Begins Over Cobb's Evolution Disclaimers in Textbooks

ATLANTA (AP) -- A federal trial began today in Atlanta over evolution disclaimers in Cobb County schools. A group of parents backed by the ACLU argue that the disclaimers in science biology textbooks are a government endorsement of religion.

"The county put stickers with the following text into the books:"

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.

Posted by Ryan at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)

Winamp is dead

The last members of the original Winamp team have said goodbye to AOL and the door has all but shut on the Nullsoft era, BetaNews has learned.

Only a few employees remain to prop up the once-ubiquitous digital audio player with minor updates, but no further improvements to Winamp are expected.

Winamp's demise comes as no surprise to those close to the company who say the software has been on life support since the resignation of Nullsoft founder and Winamp creator Justin Frankel last January.

The marriage of Nullsoft and AOL was always one of discontent. After AOL acquired the small company in 1999 for around $100 million, the young team of Winamp developers was assimilated into a strict corporate culture that begged for rebellion. Although Nullsoft was initially given a long leash by AOL, It wasn't long until the two ideologies collided.

Frankel and his team were accustomed to simply brainstorming ideas over coffee and bringing them to the masses without approval. So when Frankel and fellow Nullsoft developer Tom Pepper devised a decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing system, dubbed Gnutella, parent AOL was left in the dark.

Gnutella was unveiled in March 2000, much to the chagrin of an unprepared AOL; executives feared the program would encourage copyright infringement and damage the company's pending merger with Time Warner. AOL quickly clamped down on Gnutella, but not before the software's source code leaked. Gnutella-based alternatives soon followed, igniting a peer-to-peer land grab that has yet to subside.

But AOL knew it had to protect its investment and turn a profit from the freely available Winamp. Frankel and crew found themselves in hot water numerous times, but always escaped with little more than a proverbial slap on the wrist.

However, growing displeasure reached a boiling point with Nullsoft’s unsanctioned release of WASTE -- an encrypted file-sharing network -- in June 2003. Frankel threatened to resign after AOL removed WASTE, but remained with the company long enough to finish Winamp 5.0.

Frankel's departure followed AOL layoffs and the closure of Nullsoft's San Francisco offices in December 2003.

With AOL struggling to stave off declining subscriber numbers and 700 additional layoffs planned for next month, the company’s focus has shifted away from supporting acquisitions such as Winamp.

Despite the somber farewell, Nullsoft's former masterminds are proud of their accomplishments. Winamp helped start a digital audio revolution and boasts an incredible 60 million users per month.

After a disappointing Winamp3, Nullsoft developers returned to the drawing board and completed long-standing goals with the release of Winamp 5.0 in late 2003.

Nullsoft's Shoutcast, which pioneered audio streaming over the Internet, is called "the Net's best secret" by its creator Tom Pepper and has reached 170,000 simultaneous users accounting for 70 million hours of listening each month.

For its part, AOL says it remains committed to Winamp, stating it is "a thriving product that AOL continues to support and will continue to support."

But without those who poured their heart and soul into building the software, Winamp seems destined to meet a fate similar to fellow audio player Sonique, after Lycos saw the departure of its development team. Sonique has stagnated for years, and development ceased altogether last March.

Second black hole found at the center of the Milky Way

[via betanews]

Posted by Ryan at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

It's highway shwarma in New Jersey as a truck carrying chickens hits a truck carrying sheep

Xbox helps gamers get in shape. Meeting girls, moving out of parent's house coming during next upgrade

You have 85 years before the coast is flooded. Tell your grandchildren

Massachusetts town official mistakes Puerto Rican flag for Texas flag, and steals it because she hates George Bush. El hilarity sobreviene

Scientists release swarm of specially bred flies designed to eat the heads of fire ants. What could possibly go wrong?

If you're going to donate old clothes, make sure you take out the $19,000 in cash first

Arafat now the opposite of whatever the last update said

Posted by Ryan at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2004

Speegle

Another search engine... this one reads the results to you though...

Click

Posted by Ryan at 05:29 PM | Comments (0)

Top Ten Firefox Extensions

Adblock: We all know that some ads on the web can be pushy and downright obnoxious. Spinning, flashing, rotating ads can sometimes make the web seem like one gigantic billboard from hell. Adblock makes it very easy to customize your web experience by removing ads at their source.

After you've installed Adblock, just right-click an offensive ad and choose Adblock from the menu. Then you can block that particular ad or all ads from that domain. It's entirely up to you how you want to handle it. You can also put an overlay on Flash ads.

Don't forget though that many sites depend on ad revenue to stay in business. So if you're a regular visitor to a site, you should consider turning off your ad blocker to help support it financially.

Get Adblock Here

Image Zoom: If you're an image buff, you'll definitely want to install this Image Zoom 0.1.7 . It adds a handy zoom selection to your right-click menu when you right-click on an image. You can choose from a wide range of preset zoom sizes or you can choose to create your own customized size. It makes viewing images a lot more comfortable and convenient when you need to see an image in greater detail. You can also opt to zoom out of an image..

Get Image Zoom Here

FoxyTunes 1.0 : Listening to tunes on a computer is something most of us do these days in one form or another. FoxyTunes simplifies your listening experience by building audio controls directly into the bottom of your browser. You can Play, Pause, skip tracks, choose your player, show/hide the player, and do all the usual stuff. If screen space is at a premium on your desktop, or if you just hate switching back and forth between your browser and audio player, then FoxyTunes is worth checking out.

Get FoxyTunes Here

easyGestures: Mouse gestures can add a lot to your Firefox experience but who wants to bother memorizing them? easyGestures provides a handy pie chart that you can access to do common Firefox commands such as Back, Forward, Close Tab, Toggle Bookmarks, Search, Home, etc.

You can drag the easyGestures pie chart around to any comfortable spot in your browser. easyGesture is a great extension for those of us who want the convenience of mouse gestures without having to bother memorizing anything

Get easyGestures here

Gmail Notifier: Gmail has become our default web mail service. We make no bones about the fact that we're email addicts. We do so much communicating via email these days that we pretty much can't live without and we always want to know when we have new email.

The Gmail Notifier extension makes this simply by installing a small menu that pops up when you have new messages in your Gmail inbox. You can customize Gmail Notifier by choosing how often it checks for new email and you can choose to have it open your mail in the current tab, a new tab, or in a new window.

Get Gmail Notifier here

Image-Show-Hide 0.1.4.4: If you're on a slow net connection, certain sites with lots of images can slow down your browsing experience. Image-Show-Hide lets you toggle images on or off. Once you've installed this extension, you'll need to enable "auto-reload" when turning images on or off. This will force a page reload when you decide to show or hide images. You'll also need to customize your toolbar to get the Image-Show-Hide icon to appear on it (just drag and drop it via the usual toolbar controls after you install the extension).

Even though we're usually on broadband, we love this extension. Sometimes we simply prefer to have images off while doing our browsing and Image-Show-Hide makes that extremely easy and convenient.

Get Image-Show-Hide here

Web Developer .8: Although we aren't web developers per se, we like the tools included in the Web Developer extension. It adds a menu and toolbar that lets you manage images, cookies, CSS, display size, and other things. If you enjoy tweaking web pages or otherwise digging under the hood then you'll love the Web Developer extension.

Get Web Developer Here

fireFTP: fireFTP is a robust FTP extension that you activate via the Tools menu in Firefox. You can easily drag and drop files from your local directories to the server. You can choose to operate in Binary Mode, ASCII Mode or Automatic Mode. The fireFTP interface is clean and easy to use. If you do a lot of FTPing, you'll find fireFTP a very helpful application.

Get fireFTP here

WebmailCompose 0.5.7: WebmailCompose is a very simple extension that lets you access your web mail with one click. You can opt to compose a new message or read your web mail. It's a handy, little extension for anybody using web based email, particularly when you want to write a new message but don't have your webmail window already loaded up.

Get WebmailCompose here

Homeland Security Threat Level: The paranoid among us will love this extension. Now, instead of having to check the Department of Homeland Security's site to know what the terrorism threat level is, you can now just glance at the bottom of your browser and you'll know whether or not it's time to panic.

The Homeland Security Threat Level extension places an indicator at the bottom of your browser that is automatically updated. If you click the threat level icon you'll be taken right to the Department of Homeland Security's site. How's that for convenience?

Okay, okay...we're being a bit silly here but we just thought we'd throw this one in here for the heck of it.

Get Homeland Security Threat Level here

Posted by Ryan at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

Holiday theme: What the reindeer do during the offseason

Posted by Ryan at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)

Firefox 1.0 released

The internet has undergone a quiet revolution today, as the innovative browser from the Mozilla Foundation, Firefox, has finally been released in a non beta form. Mozilla Firefox 1.0 aims to provide the end user with more choice in a market currently dominated by the Microsoft developed Internet Explorer.

Firefox 1.0 gives the end user the sort of innovation that Internet Explorer might have provided if Microsoft hadn't stopped developing it when they killed off all the competition. Features such as tabbed browsing, pop up blocking, integrated web search capabilities, built in add on support as well as many more features that users will soon wonder how they ever lived without them.

Over the last year or so Internet Explorer has slowly lost market share to other browsers such as Mozilla and Opera. We've noticed an increase in hits from users using alternative browsers, and it certainly is refreshing to see innovation in a market that had previously almost ground to a halt. So much of the end users time on the internet is spent using a browser that it seems almost a shame that new ideas and functionality had stopped appearing in Internet Explorer. Even if all this release does is spur Microsoft to develop their browser further then it's a result in itself.

Firefox is free, and weighs in at a relatively tiny 4.7MB download, which can be found on the Mozilla Foundation website. If you've never used anything other than Internet Explorer, maybe now is the time to give something else a try. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Posted by Ryan at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)

Healthmonitor 2.0

HealthMonitor is a free powerful and featureful monitoring tool for Windows. It works as a Windows Service and check system status (event viewer, disk free space, services status, performance....) and notify the administration by E-Mail or by NET SEND; a database logging feature is also available. The last release has got a lot of new exciting feature such as SMS notification and Check File System

Click here for photos and more info

Posted by Ryan at 04:45 PM | Comments (0)

AURORA ALERT

If it's dark where you live, look for auroras now. A geomagnetic storm, sparked by two coronal mass ejections hitting Earth's magnetic field today, is in progress and intensifying. Stay tuned for updates.

Posted by Ryan at 04:40 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

Man decides to clear jammed wood chipper with his feet while it's still on. You already know what happened next

Arafat -- who was deathly ill, not deathly ill, in a coma, not in a coma, dead, not dead, brain dead, not brain dead, awake and communicating, now reportedly dead again

... Yasser Arafat is finally dead, say Palestinian sources. Should be alive again by this afternoon

... French medical services insist Arafat is still alive and playing Halo 2

Lottery official tries to rig million-dollar scratch-off. Wins up to fifty years on one ticket.

Two kids playing catch-the-grenade discover that it's a lot more exciting without the pin in it

Posted by Ryan at 04:36 PM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2004

Microsoft paid Novell $536 million dollars

Microsoft paid Novell $536 million dollars today, although it might not be enough to fend off a fresh antitrust case, which Novell says it will file by the end of the week. Novell says issues relating to the WordPerfect office suite, which it briefly owned in the early-1990s, are still outstanding.

According to a Novell press release, today's settlement is "related to Novell's NetWare operating system". It's actually around a specific product, NDS for Windows NT, which Novell introduced several years ago, and which Microsoft effectively killed. NDS for NT was a gateway that allowed users to keep password and user management on their existing Novell servers. When Microsoft introduced cryptographic signing of key system DLLs in Windows 2000, which it says it did for security reasons, it was no longer possible for Novell to maintain the product.

The issue was one of the few details to emerge publicly from the European Union's antitrust investigation into Microsoft's server business, which originated with a complaint from Sun Microsystems. Novell had alerted Microsoft to its plans before introducing NDS for NT. But a verbal warning from the former head of the networking group for Windows NT, Dave Thompson (now Exchange Server Product Group manager) had warned Novell that if it proceeded, Microsoft would break the product.

Novell decided to reverse engineering the closed system that was no longer viable, as we pointed out here: "Microsoft had extended the security fence within which third party developers could not go, far enough to kill Novell's product."

The decision was a key factor in Novell becoming a Linux company.

Clearly there's some high-stakes brinksmanship going on between Waltham and Redmond this week, and equally clearly, given that Microsoft has already settled suits with Sun Microsystems and the CCIA, Novell thinks it has a strong hand, and reckons that Microsoft wants to clear the decks of outstanding litigation. Microsoft is appealing the EU decision and suits from Burst and Real Networks are still outstanding.

[via the register]

Posted by at 07:56 PM | Comments (0)

Today's Links

Game - Road Block
Fun game try to get to the red bracket with falling into the black space

Game - Cone Crazy
Go crazy and knock down all the cones you can

Posted by at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)

Make your own flamethrower

Posted by Ryan at 07:12 PM | Comments (0)

Make a clear hard drive case

This is perfect for anyone with a clear pc case. Just add this mod and it will spice up any PC.

If you are intoxicated and get your car stuck in the mud, don't steal a fire truck to push it free. Also, don't call for a tow truck on the engine's radio

Posted by Ryan at 07:06 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

Scientists discover that bees "bumble" while drunk. Still no cure for cancer

Activist chains self to train tracks to protest nuclear-waste shipments. Darwinism ensues

A life expectancy of 120, glow-in-the-dark cats and wiping out diseases with the bite of a banana -- welcome to life in 2020

Posted by Ryan at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)

November 07, 2004

Configure your router for faster BitTorrent download speeds

Now that there have been reports about BitTorrent accounting for 35% of all network traffic, why not configure your router to get the best speeds...

High school students accused of hacking into computer, changing grades, watching too many 80s movies

Posted by Ryan at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2004

Today's News

County health officials searching for two teenagers seen playing hacky sack with rabid bat

Palestinian President who was deathly ill, not deathly ill, in a coma, not in a coma, dead, not dead, brain dead, not brain dead, now awake and communicating

After being arraigned in court for damaging cash register, man takes elevator up to courthouse cafe, swipes money from cash register

Geologists watch in fascination as Mt. St. Helens begins ejecting the equivalent of a thirty-story, magma-based butt-plug

Soldier sends a rose a day to his wife then surprises her by delivering the last rose himself.

People suffer depression from election results. Still no cure for cancer

Posted by Ryan at 09:40 PM | Comments (0)

Send free SMS messages from Telstra X2 Payphones

Disclaimer: this is purely an informative document. It is not meant to be used in any harmful ways, and is illegal to do so.....

That being said... here's how to do it

Basic Exploit Theory:
Okay guys, now for the exploit. We all remember the old straw trick to make
free phonecalls? Well the phone company patched it up so it detects if that
trick is being used. However, the patch doesnt check when using the SMS
feature on the newer X2 phone. The X2 coinbox works on a weighting system,
where the coins are weighed and the weight is compared to the "apparent"
credit that is clocked on the display. The patch, makes the phone check the
weight as the call connects, so if their is a descrepancy, the call will drop
out. The SMS system on the X2 works slightly differently, first sending the
message to the MTMS/Call Centre, and then deposits the money. The straw
trick works in this case as the service has completed by the time the
deposit takes place, so the message is sent before the phone checks the money.

Exploit Method(this will require some knowledge of the straw trick):

1. Insert amount of coins into phone(usually SMS cost on X2 is 20c)
2. Using the straw trick, drop the money out.
3. Hit the button for SMS.
4. Typeyour message and send.
5. The phone will make someweird noises, and possibly call MTMS, after the
message is sent, the phone will work correctly in approx. 2minutes.

Straw Trick(for those that dont know):
1. Insert a straw, length ways, into the payphone,in the gap between the top
of the coin return and coin return flap.
2. Approx. 2/3 of the way from the left, approx. 10cm's back is a little tab
which you hit with the straw. This will return anymoney in the payphone.
3. Repeat step 1 and 2 until appropriate total is reached.

Posted by Ryan at 02:06 AM | Comments (0)

Today's Links

Girl with genetic mutation can't feel pain

Full transcript of Bin Ladin's speech

Free 3gb email account

White boy gets good old Hawaiian beatdown

Posted by Ryan at 02:02 AM | Comments (0)

Today's Links

Link - Optical illusion dragon

Movie - Karate accident

Link - Dot move
Ge through the mave

News - Trick or Treat...want a bear
Man gives a bear to Trick or Treaters

Posted by at 01:51 AM | Comments (0)

Feds: Obesity Raising Airline Fuel Costs

ATLANTA - Heavy suitcases aren't the only things weighing down airplanes and requiring them to burn more fuel, pushing up the cost of flights. A new government study reveals that airlines increasingly have to worry more about the weight of their passengers.

America's growing waistlines are hurting the bottom lines of airline companies as the extra pounds on passengers are causing a drag on planes. Heavier fliers have created heftier fuel costs, according to the government study.

Through the 1990s, the average weight of Americans increased by 10 pounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites). The extra weight caused airlines to spend $275 million to burn 350 million more gallons of fuel in 2000 just to carry the additional weight of Americans, the federal agency estimated in a recent issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

"The obesity epidemic has unexpected consequences beyond direct health effects," said Dr. Deron Burton of the CDC. "Our goal was to highlight one area that had not been looked at before."

The extra fuel burned also had an environmental impact, as an estimated 3.8 million extra tons of carbon dioxide were released into the air, according to the study.

The agency said its calculations are rough estimates, issued to highlight previously undocumented consequences of the ongoing obesity epidemic.

The estimates were calculated by determining how much fuel the 10 extra pounds of weight per passenger represented in Department of Transportation airline statistics, Burton said.

Obesity is a life-or-death struggle in the United States, the underlying cause of 400,000 deaths in 2000, a 33 percent jump from 1990. If current trends persist, it will become the nation's No. 1 cause of preventable death, the CDC said earlier this year.

More than half — 56 percent — of U.S. adults were overweight or obese in the early 1990s, according to a CDC survey. That rose to 65 percent in a similar survey done from 1999 to 2002.

Although the Air Transport Association of America has not yet validated the CDC data, spokesman Jack Evans said the health agency's appraisal "does not sound out of the realm of reality."

With most airlines reporting losses blamed partly on record-high fuel costs, everything on an airplane is now a weighty issue. Airlines are doing everything they can to lighten the load on all aircraft, from wide-body jets to turboprops.

Bulky magazines have gone out the door. Metal forks and spoons have been replaced with plastic. Large carry-ons are being scrutinized and even heavy materials that used to make up airplane seats are being replaced with plastic and other lightweight materials.

"We're dealing in a world of small numbers — even though it has a very incremental impact" to reduce a 60- to 120-ton aircraft's weight by bumping off a few magazines, Evans said. "When you consider airlines are flying millions of miles, it adds up over time."

Although passenger bulk has been an issue in the past — Dallas-based Southwest Airlines requires large people to buy a second seat for passenger safety and comfort — Evans says it's not likely airlines will scrutinize how much passengers weigh in the future. Instead, they are trying to do a better job of estimating passenger weight in figuring out how much fuel they need for a flight.

Seattle-based Alaska Airlines now calculates the weight of children on flights, instead of using adult-weight formulas for all passengers, Evans said.

"Just like we don't control the costs of our fuel, we don't control the weights of our passengers," he said. "Passengers gain weight, but airlines are the ones that go on a diet. It's part of the conundrum we face right now."

___

On The Net:

CDC info: http://www.cdc.gov

Posted by Ryan at 01:39 AM | Comments (0)

November 05, 2004

Today's News

Icelandic volcano could send giant hazy cloud into mainland Europe, disrupting life everywhere except Amsterdam

F-16 fires on New Jersey elemetary school

One-tenth of the world's crops are irrigated by untreated sewage. More green beans, anyone?

Pioneer Corporation creates 25-gigabyte storage disc made from corn. Salsa sold separately (with pic)

Scientists develop vaccine for cancer. Still no cure for... oh...

Luckily, the accident occurred in a Dunkin' Donuts parking lot, so a police officer was nearby

Tips for the criminally inclined: Make sure the bank is not still under construction before attempting to rob it

Posted by Ryan at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)

November 04, 2004

Top ten reasons Kerry lost

10. Voters were in a fever-induced haze because they couldn't get flu shots.

9. Floridians confused by shockingly unconfusing ballots.

8. Maybe it wasn't best idea to begin speeches with "yo mama is so fat" jokes.

7. The endorsement from Osama Bin Laden didn't exactly help him.

6. "Dude--it's the Curse of the Bambino."

5. Should've campaigned more in New Mexico, less in regular Mexico.

4. Turns out voters think it's hot that Cheney has a lesbian daughter.

3. Thought America was ready for a lunatic first lady.

2. Voters seem to really like a weak economy and a badly-run war.

1. Was distracted by late night erotic phone calls from Bill O'Reilly.

Posted by Ryan at 09:44 PM | Comments (0)

After the vote: Who looks more popular?

Red is Bush, blue is Kerry

Posted by Ryan at 09:43 PM | Comments (0)

Apple Rating: WTF is This?

This is so stupid. Apple has added a product rating to their online store, letting users submit reviews of products and give them a one- to five-star rating—unless those products happen to be Apple branded. If it's an Apple-made product, like an iPod Dock, for instance, it automatically gets a 'five Apple' rating, "because we think they’re great."

It gets worse. In the little pop-up FAQ box it reads:

Why can’t customers rate Apple products?
Would you trust us to display less than perfect ratings on our own products? We didn’t think so!

What does that even mean? We wouldn't trust you to... be honest? To take a few lumps if your product is less-than-perfect? What a cop out. If they weren't going to let Apple products be rated and reviewed, they shouldn't have added the feature at all.

Apple Store Front Page

[via gizmodo]

Posted by Ryan at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)

Today's Links

Link - Swirl
Prepare for a headache

Link - Scientists pop a balloon in space

Download - Mouse Odometer
What distance does your mouse go every day?

Link - Huge Bunkbed
Wow this bukbed is big

Video - Overclock your toothbrush
How to overclock your toothbrush

Posted by at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)

BitTorrent Accounts for 35% of Traffic

"According to a reuters article on Yahoo, BitTorrent accounts for an astounding 35 percent of all the traffic on the Internet -- more than all other peer-to-peer programs combined -- and dwarfs mainstream traffic like Web pages." The article goes on to talk about how BT is no longer beneath the radar of those who like to sue file sharers.

[via slashdot]

Posted by Ryan at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2004/11/04/20041104_022200.htm

Arafat nearly dead in French hospital. Israeli troops sent to help "stabilize his condition"

.....Arafat enters coma. Aides claim he's just taking a long nap

Rat causes school bus wreck. "The rat got underneath the gas pedal and she hit the brake, and that's when we went off the road," he said. "All I remember is being rolled around, like I was in a washing machine"

Netscape intern editing CNN names pic of Bush "a$$hole.jpg." Unemployment ensues

Posted by Ryan at 06:57 PM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2004

MPAA to file 200 lawsuits against filesharers tomorrow?

A source who asks to remain anonymous (but generally knows what he's talking about) tells BoingBoing that the MPAA is expected to file a number of lawsuits against movie fileswappers -- possibly as early as tomorrow, Thursday November 4. The number of lawsuits is expected to be in the range of 200, +/-. "They talked about this once before, but held off," he says, "and they've put out an announcement that they're doing a big announcement related to piracy at a Billboard conference tomorrow."

[via Boingboing]

Posted by Ryan at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

Today's News

Ten states pass ban on gay marriage

Teen's KKK costume wins prize, suspension

Statistical analysis of who voted for whom

Man swallows seven-inch toothbrush while brushing. Doctors rush to remove it before Oral B becomes Anal B

Kerry calls Bush, shares recipes, talks about twin daughters and something about conceding victory

Kerry officially concedes

For all folks giving up on the U.S. and moving to Canada, you've got a long wait ahead of you

The bad news: "Stealth comets" could wipe us out. The good news: We won't see them coming

Posted by Ryan at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)

Bush declares broad victory

President Bush declared victory in the 2004 presidential, telling supporters: "We've worked hard and gained many new friends, and the result is now clear -- a record voter turnout and a broad, nationwide victory." Sen. John Kerry, in his concession speech, asked the country to put aside the bitter divisions of the election.

Posted by Ryan at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)

November 02, 2004

I think we know who's gonna win... sorry Democrats

270 electoral votes needed to win


	193 Electoral Votes
VOTE %	52%
VOTE	21,925,509


112 Electoral Votes
48%	VOTE %
20,093,671	VOTE

32% precincts reporting - Updated: 10:14 p.m. ET

Posted by Ryan at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)

Update

270 electoral votes needed to win


	170 Electoral Votes
VOTE %	53%
VOTE	13,061,164


112 Electoral Votes
46%	VOTE %
11,346,726	VOTE

17% precincts reporting - Updated: 9:34 p.m. ET

Posted by Ryan at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)

Latest on the votes

270 electoral votes needed to win


	102 Electoral Votes
VOTE %	56%
VOTE	6,256,029


77 Electoral Votes
44%	VOTE %
4,875,527	VOTE

7% precincts reporting - Updated: 8:46 p.m. ET

Posted by Ryan at 08:44 PM | Comments (0)

Why you should vote for Kerry

because you have no idea what your beliefs are either

If you want to get drafted, vote for Kerry.

Because his face is shaped like an old potato.

Yeah... Kerry's the solution... I'm sure that his "plans" for this country are great. What exactly are those plans, all you Kerry supporters?

Because he is taller than Bush

Because if you don't, his wife will take Ketchup away...forever.

Vote Osama! Vote Kerry!

Vote kerry because Michael Moore told you to.

Posted by Ryan at 08:42 PM | Comments (0)

Why you should vote for Bush

Because his name is shorter.

Four more years!

Because he's not Kerry.

I think we can all agree that John Kerry is actually Frankenstein.
Do you want to vote for Frakenstein? I didnt think so.

because he's so dreamy.....just like Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys

Posted by Ryan at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)

Map

Posted by Ryan at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)

Another election update

You could just go to CNN.com to get this stuff.... or I can keep entertaining myself by updating every 10 minutes

270 electoral votes needed to win

	KERRY
	77
1,528,169 (43% total)

	BUSH
	66
2,050,903 (57% total)

Click map for full results

3% nationwide precincts reporting

Posted by Ryan at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)

Gmail security flaw, and fix info

There's a Gmail exploit that allows an attacker to steal your Gmail cookie, which thereafter identifies them as you to the system, even if you change your password. This seems like a huge problem for Google, above and beyond the actual security breach. Remember that Gmail uses the same unlimited lifetime Google cookie. The data in that cookie is, presumably, extremely valuable for their tracking efforts, and I'd guess that this will be difficult for them to fix in a way that maintains that.

People who regularly sleep more than eight hours a night tend to die sooner

[via boingboing]

Posted by Ryan at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)

More CNN News

STATUS

CANDIDATE

VOTE

VOTE %

Bush
(Incumbent)

1,269,447

58%

Kerry

912,327

42%

Nader

8,207

2% precincts reporting - Updated 7:45 p.m. ET

Posted by Ryan at 07:44 PM | Comments (0)

Some tech political news from Slashdot...

Florida E-Voting Machine Fails

"An optical voting machine memory card
failed earlier today in
Daytona Beach, Florida, sending election officials scrambling to secure the
13,000 paper receipts. Without the paper ballots, all 13,000 votes would have
been lost. Considering how close some predict this election to be, losing that
many ballots would be catastrophic. Let's hope that we won't see any more of
this in the next 24 hours, and that these problems are fixed before 2006."

Monitoring the U.S. Elections Online?

"I'll be on the road all day this election day, so
the only access I'll have is through my PDA/Phone. I was wondering if any
Slashdot readers know of WAP-enabled services or low-bandwidth sites that are
providing (semi) real-time election coverage?"
Nobbin has a similar, but less
bandwidth-restrictive question: "I was wondering where I could find live
results for the coming U.S. election, online. I live in Australia so I can't get
them through watching CNN and so forth. I'm looking for something similar to the
Austalian Electoral Commission's virtual tally
room. So far, Google hasn't turned up much."

Posted by Ryan at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)

Turn an Altoids tin into an iPod charger

Ok, we should note that you could probably turn just about anything that’s the right shape and size into a DIY external battery pack for the iPod (like that one made out of a deck of playing cards), but the latest to pop up is a pack that’s been squeezed into an Altoids tin and’ll give you an extra ten hours of precious playing time.

Full Story

[via engadget]

Posted by Ryan at 07:28 PM | Comments (0)

Current results from CNN

270 electoral votes needed to win


	34 Electoral Votes
VOTE %	56%
VOTE	528,749


3 Electoral Votes
43%	VOTE %
403,736	VOTE

1% precincts reporting - Updated: 7:24 p.m. ET

Posted by Ryan at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)

UltraFastShop theme: Completely unexpected election results

Posted by Ryan at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)

Top 10 Tips: What to Say to Confuse the Exit Pollsters Today

1) "I'm not registered... I only went in for a wee!"

2) "I don't think I can remember, dear. Let me see... uhmm... oh... oooh... uhm... was it, no, no, it couldn't have been, uhm.... just a minute... uhm, I'm awfully sorry about this.... uhm..." (continue until the pollster walks away)

3) "I voted for Ronald Reagan. Oh, you mean this time?"

4) "I voted with this finger on my right hand!"

5) "I voted for the candidate who's wife looks like Dustin Hoffman"

6) If the exit pollster has facial hair: "Would I be a bad American if I told a beardy man who I voted for?"

7) "I haven't told the truth to an exit pollster since 1955 and I'm not going to start now. John Kerry."

8) "Well, thank you for asking young man! First off I voted for John Kerry, then I changed my mind and voted for George W Bush, then I changed my mind and voted for Ralph Nader and then I changed my mind back again to my first choice, John Kerry. By this time I was on first name terms with all six of the election officials. Then security kicked me out of the polling station, so I assume I've voted for Bush."

9) "Are you an exit pollster or the election auditor? If the former, John Kerry, if the latter George Bush."

10) For Electronic Voting Poll Stations: "OH! Have you got change for a dollar? Quarters would be great and I'll go back in to beat my best score!"

Posted by Ryan at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)

Election Day News

When stopped by a cop, don't tell him that the soda can in the plastic bag is what you used to smoke crack. Also don't say there's more cocaine in the suitcase

Man arrested for screaming outside election office while wearing George Bush mask and John Kerry t-shirt

Don't take cholesteral-lowering drugs with grapefruit juice, or you'll turn into a girly man

Male viewers tend to have difficulties comprehending news when a pretty woman is on screen

Voters may have voted twice in Florida. Voters may have voted twice in Florida

Posted by Ryan at 07:12 PM | Comments (0)

Next poll closing

Posted by Ryan at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)

November 01, 2004

Today's Links

Flash - Are you dumb?

News - Dog calls 911

Link - How to dump your girlfriend

Link - SuperMario in under 2 minutes?

Link - Presidents carved into pumpkins

Posted by at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)

Polling Report

Look whos winning according to all of these major, unbiased polls...

Posted by Ryan at 09:50 PM | Comments (0)

The difference

Kerry goes to church to campaign. Bush goes to church to worship.

Posted by Ryan at 09:47 PM | Comments (0)

Here's how the electoral college is looking...

Posted by Ryan at 05:48 PM | Comments (0)

Gravity

Fun game.. Fire an atom amogst gravity sources and don't let it hit the little dots