Tag Archives: links

Technology, eh?

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Here’s a story about what I spent doing the night after my first exam for semester 2, 2009.

Borderlands was was preloading on Steam with the Left 4 Dead 2 demo , Stargate Universe S01E05 was downloading in glorious 720p, and my intertubes were a little clogged. With nothing else to do (study was postponed until Monday), some NCIS (the original) was in order. Unfortunately, this didn’t satisfy my geek curiousitys as much as I wanted it to – while it was certainly enjoyable, I needed something else.

Problem number one: on my Mac, I use a Fluid-based SSB (Single Site Browser) tied into Google Reader for my RSS feeds. The exact reasons why are probably best left to another blog post, but it works, and I’m happy. The fact that it’s Reader inside an SSB isn’t the issue, however.

Continue Reading →

Some Miscellaneous Links, The ShoveBox Clearout Edition

Thrust is a interpreted stack-based esoteric programming language where all of the language constructs are based on the word thrust. In the language stacks are referred to as ‘thrustors’ and are the sole storage location. Each thrustor has a numerical identifier.

via Ima Blogg : Thrust.

What exactly is jQuery?

How can it make my life easier as a developer? How do I get started? Well, jQuery makes writing Javascript fun again and really allows you to take advantage of some of the more difficult aspects of Javascript with relative ease. Today, we will have a look at how to get started with jQuery, and writing your first script!

via Simple Guide: How to get started with jQuery.

The 2 oz., pocket-sized OWC Express USB 2.0 Enclosure offers bus powered* personal storage performance in an ultra-portable design. With no AC adapter needed, a USB connecting cable and carrying sleeve included, and compatibility with Macs and PCs, the OWC Express puts your music, photos, and personal data in the fast lane.

via OWC Express. (Besides, it’s all pretty and shiny. And stuff.)

grow open-ended mosaics

via Landscape Urbanism Bullshit Generator.

Click on “Illustration” or “Pencil” to create a new iPhone Mockup in either style.

via iPhone Mockup Generator.

Cheat sheet is a reference tool that provides simple, brief instructions for accomplishing a specific task. I have collected a set of best cheat sheets for web developers. Please feel free to suggest some of the cheat sheets I did not mention.

via xHTML and HTML Cheat Sheets.

Following our series of HDR images of famous city we have an incredible set of photos from New York City, the city that never sleeps. The photos are from sites like Flickr and DeviantArt and we hope you enjoy it. You can check out the other posts of: Berlin, Rome, and Paris. Also let us know if you have nice HDR photos from your town.

via Amazing HDR photos of New York City | Abduzeedo.

iPhone Tracking How-To from Instamapper.

via Instamapper – Free Real-Time GPS Tracking.

It all started with an eBay auction for a new G4 Powerbook. My friend Cory wanted me to sell it for him just days after he bought it. Probably because he realized that, aside from looking cool, he had no real use for it. For the sake of an easy sale, I just pretended to sell it as my own, with a starting price of $1700, and the “Buy It Now” option for $2100.

via The P-P-P-Powerbook Prank.

Introducing the new Light For Life™, an entirely new take on portable “flashlight” technology. With a charge time of just 90 seconds, the Light for Life UC3.400™ has the longest uptime and fastest recharge on the market, all in a durable, environmentally-friendly package.

via Light For Life.

Every day thousands of misspelled auction items on eBay fail to sell because they can’t be found using eBay’s built-in search tools. To find these so-called ‘fat fingers’ eBay misspellings you need to use a specialised eBay typo search tool such as this one.

via TypoThis.com.

Awesome.

via Team Rocket Intro Sequence.

AppleScript is a simple Macintosh-only programming language that can control and automate actions on your Mac. AppleScripts written for iTunes can manage files and track information, create playlists, interact with other applications, and perform many other tasks which otherwise would be repetitive and time-consuming.

via Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes.

Woot, inspired by Rob’s hard investigative look into the economy of lols, has done the deep googling necessary to track the elusive wooooot (and w00000000t).

via “woot” index.

One Line Ascii Art for Twitter, IM, Text Messages, and Status Updates.

via One Line ASCII Art.

Yesterday a Twitter post (a tweet) by Mashable’s Pete Cashmore became so popular that traffic from Twitter crashed a blog. This sounds very similar to a common social media phenomenon originally known as the Slashdot effect (and later also the Digg effect), where a post on a popular social media site pushes more traffic than the target site can handle.

via Dawn of the Twitter Effect.

Most people get worried about how much energy reserves we have left, but as this graphic shows, that’s the least of our problems. The real problem is the materials we use to make things.

via How Long Will Our World Last.

Synected enables shortened URL creation on your own blog. Rather than relying on services such as tinyurl.com or bit.ly, Synected lets you easily create and use short links based off your own domain. This releases you from dependence on a third party — a server error on tinyurl no longer prevents visitors from reaching your site. In addition, it strengthens your brand, keeping your domain name in view of your audience even on Twitter and other micro-communication platforms.

via Synected. (Useless to use it on this blog, because the URL alone is 30 characters [including the http:// stuff], which is the maximum that Twitter will display. I’d buy kar.la, but it’s isn’t available.)

This morning I set Outspoken Media up with it’s own URL “shortening service” so to speak and Lisa thought you guys might want to know how I did it. With all the talk of Tweet-Jacking and concerns regarding the branding you’re doing for URL shortening services instead of yourself, it only makes sense to create your own internal URL shortening service if at all possible.

via WordPress URL Shortener How-To.

Enter iTunesFS, a FUSEOFS based file system for your Mac, which makes all your iTunes™ playlists available as folders in Finder™! And – not only that – as you can see in the screenshot below, version 1.1 adds support for iPod™s in the very same manner!

via iTunesFS.

This is so pointless, but utterly, utterly cool at the same time. Ba-doom TISH! 🙂

via Instant Rimshot.

All in all, I have to admit that I’m very please with both apps. However, I think the flexiblilty of The Hit List makes it a clear winner in my book. For me, The Hit List is a grown up version of Things. I hope that Culture Code will take heed of some of the things in THL, and hopefully they can win me back in the future.

via Things vs The Hit List. (This too reflects my thoughts almost perfectly – IMO, The Hit List is a far better GTD client than Things is – however, the lack of a iPhone app makes me cry. :()

Phew! Now that those links have been cleared out, ShoveBox is useable again! 🙂

15 Links: The Browser Clear Out Edition

It’s that time again – my browser desperately needs a clear out, so here we go…

  • Weebly
    Their tagline is “Create a free website and blog.” I don’t know how well it works, but it seems to be a nice version of either Tumblr, or WordPress.com – except not purely related to blogging. Sure, do it. Whatever.
  • Wikipedia’s List Of People Who Have Mysteriously Disappeared
    This is pretty freaky, actually – it’s not like we know for _sure_ that those people pre the 1800 actually did disappear under mysterious circumstances. Only two entries in 2008, however – some Russian who could have been the victim of a political murder plot, as well as a Florida resident who has recently been taken off medication. Mysterious? You be the judge.
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailers
    If the trailers are that good, then you know the movie will be. Hopefully it isn’t too long, though – last time my sister and I went, the queues were massive. The movie is out July 17th, so strap yourselves in – July seems to be gearing up for a ripper of a month.
  • 30 Exceptional CSS Navigation Techniques
    Another smashing post from Six Revisions (not to be confused with Six Apart, mind you), this article will not only tell you how to achieve stunning navigation, it’ll also tell you how to do them using CSS – which is, of course, completely awesome.
  • Gizmodo explains the difference between $100 and $100, 000 speakers
    An interesting read, if a little long. Wait, I think that’s been said before – in that case, it’s a great read, however, it’s a little long. Filled with information, though – so read it anyway, and hopefully you’ll have learned something by the time you get to the end. 🙂
  • 12 Gauge Shot Glasses
    Yeah, you read that right. 12 Gauge. Shot glasses. Not shotgun, but shot *glasses*. What could be more awesome (or stupid, if you’re so inclined) than alcohol and shotguns? 😛
  • Tweetlite flashes tweets in morse code
    To be compltely honest, I don’t quite understand the point of this one. It’s actually quite pointless, unless you really love Twitter and your morse code. Well, whatever brings in the green, yeah?
  • Cosmic Nitro
    From the guy who developed Galcon for the iPhone [iTMS Link], comes his latest creation, Cosmic Nitro. It’s basically a pretty rehash of the “space-invaders” like genre, similar to Missile Command, where you have to defend your city from waves of incoming stuff (including toxic waste, comets, asteroids, aliens, etc). It’s not bad – and at $1.19, it’s probably worth it. [iTMS link]
  • iTypeFastr
    From the dark side of jailbroken iPhones, comes a custom keyboard. Unlike other keyboards for the iPhone, this keyboard comes with a custom layout. No, it’s not dvorak, (someone make this, please), but it does change the size of the keys to reflect an updated QWERTY layout. It makes the most-frequently used keys larger (so they’re easier to press), all without making any of the other keys smaller by using up all the available keyboard space. Again, your mile may vary – I haven’t personally tested this cos I can type fine on the standard iPhone keyboard anyway.
  • Tweetie for Mac
    The excellent @chartier takes a look at Tweetie for Mac, from the guy who made the iPhone app of the same name. It’s damn slick – the interface is as good as any, and besides – it’s nice to see Cocoa-based Twitter apps (AIR sucks, btw). You can tell it is a beta, though – there are certainly features missing, and the current feature-set seems a little lightweight for my liking. It’s not as featured as Twhirl is, for instance. It is being released on Monday, so keep your eyes on teh (sic) interwebs (sic). 😉
  • Apple market share shows negative growth
    Oh great. I’ll pin this one on the Global Financial Crisis, then – thanks to the PC market crashing haphazardly around the US (see what I did there?), Apple’s market share has also taken a tumble as a result. Sure – it’s not right to pay $500 for a logo, but it’s so much more than just the brand, you know?

And lastly, we have:

  • Apple WWDC developer videos
    The interview from Cultured Code was the only one I actually watched, but I’m sure they’re all excellent. It’s especially interesting to see if they actually went through all the steps in the video, or if they were putting on a show for Apple… I’m sure it’s the former, though. Those Germans know how to do things right. 🙂

And we’re done for another week. Cya, and as usual, comments below. Doing links (esp with “Smart Links”) in WordPress actually sucks. Next time, I might just be a lazy blogger and put in the links – none of this fancy <a href=”link here”>some text here</a> crap. Pfft. Screw that. 😛

15 Links – The Somewhat Epic Edition

Haven’t done this for a while, so here’s a few links that I’ve picked up from the interwebs these couple of days…

COÖP
Sure, it’s flash. But it’s damn cool anyway! Sorta like a LED-scrolling name badge, but in the standard OSX-style tickbox instead. From what I can gather, it’s some sort of design-based website. Thanks to @decryption for this one.

start.io
This has been labelled “Web 2.0” at it’s best – and it’s not hard to see why. Essentially, start.io is a collection of links for your customisable pleasure, that anyone can access. You can sort you links out, and then people who have similar interests to you can see which websites you like the most!

40 Excellent Logos Created with Helvetica
Could you spot Helvetica from a mile off? Okay, name a brand that features Helvetica as it’s logo. Name two. Name another? In any case, this site decides to showcase 40 logos that have two things in common: they’re all awesome, and they’re all based off Helvetica.

Bloody Scammers
This is a JPEG link that shows an interesting conversation between a Skyper and a scammer. Well, at least the scammer was honest?

Sad Roo Is Sad
Another JPEG link, again from Twitter, this one shows a kangaroo – with what seems to be a tear. Awwww….

RSS Lamp Shades
Aw, c’mon now. This is just too awesome not to share with you. I mean, nothing says “web geek” better than RSS Lampshades. Now, if only they made Facebook or Twitter ones…

Have Gadgets Turned Us Into Lazy Morons?
Well, have they? There’s an amusing graphic on the page that shows the evolution of the human species, you know homo erectus, etc, and at the end, there’s this pic of a guy hunched over a computer keyboard, peering into a monitor… Gold.

Periodic Table of Game Controllers
I love how they’ve left out the actual outlines of the controllers themselves. Full size is an epic pic indeed, you can view it here. I’d love to have this in my room, blown up to poster-size and hanging on my wall…

Periodic Table of Typefaces
Just like the gaming one above, this periodic table is once epic pic. I probably wouldn’t want it as a poster (just because I’m not a designer), but still – it’d be ultra cool in any case. Egads! Where is Verdana?! They left my favourite typeface out! 😮

It Takes Roughly 17 Hard Drives To Stop a .50 cal Armour Piercing Incendiary Round
This is excellent – guns and hard drives. Seriously, though – a .50 cal? Armour piercing? If all that wasn’t enough, incendiary? I’m so there, and you should be too. Not Safe For Work, because there’s death metal and lots of swearing.

Flammable Water
Not actually flammable water, per se, but the fact that a couple in the US managed to light the *gas* that was coming from their water supply? Sounds like another Humberto Vidal disaster waiting to happen. (As a side note, I saw the “Seconds from Disaster” clip about the aforementioned disaster… Things like that just shouldn’t happen.)

Laser Dial
No, it’s not a laser telephone. It’s got nothing to do with telephones at all, actually. Instead, think more along the lines of a laser sundial. It’s super cool, and I want one.

Masked Man Demos iPhone 3.0 Beta
This is a vid of a masked man (who likes to say like, like, a lot) who goes through pretty much every iPhone OS 3.0 feature you can think of. Or poke a finger at. See what I did there?

Sanwa’s Throat Microphone
Awesome throat mike is awesome. I want one, even if the only reason would be to look like a Navy SEAL/USMC Force Recon/Delta Op when I’m skyping, haha! 😀

5 Facebook Profile Pic Hacks
Very interesting. Very interesting indeed. I will have to look into doing one of these at some stage, just to “spruce up” my facebook a bit.

16 Links – The Catchup Edition

Right, so I actually hate it when I leave my computer alone for a day. It pretty much gaurantees that I’m gonna have 1500+ RSS items to read the next time I’m on, which means a solid hour of looking through them, trying to find ones good enough to post up on here. In any case, I’ve somehow managed to find 16 that are worthy of your attention today, in between all the Uni stuff, and all that. So enjoy. Or else.

6 Dreams Jobs That Would Actually Suck
Yet another list from Cracked. Interestingly, it’s all on the one page, instead of the idiotic “12 items spread over 4 pages” deal that they usually do. Props to them.

Usability Analysis of Apple.Com
It’s not so much usability, as it is transparency. If a site is usable, then all those “features” of usability will also be transparent to the user – if some site is harping on about how “usable” it is, then it probably isn’t.

A Pic of Some Girl’s Tee
While some would consider this inappropriate, what’s so inappropriate about a girl with a T-Shirt that says she loves G9? I have a couple of mates that love the Logitech G9, as well. (Thanks, Digg). Bonus points if you thought the other meaning – then noticed the amount of tatts on her arms. Ugh.

A Sith Lord Timeline
As much as I hate to admit this, I’m not that huge a fan of the Sith. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re all evil, or maybe i’s because all of them seem to adorn strange headgear – either way, the Dark Side just doesn’t do it for me.

I Survived The Bush Administration
…and all I got was: (tick all that apply)
crippling national debt
diminished civil liberties
illegally wiretapped
my shoes stolen at the airport
cavity searched
invaded
imprisoned without charge
abducted, then tortured
an economy in crisis
…AND this lousy T-shirt. (Thanks, Digg.)

How-To: Watch Movies In Your Terminal Window
This comes to you courtesy of Stupid Geek Tricks. The quality is horrendous, I wouldn’t recommed it. Also note that this trick is for Linux users only.

BBBBBBRRRRRRRAAAAAAAIIIIINNNNNSSSSS!
Funny. Comic.

The 30 Best Features of Windows 7
Most of these are actual valid features, unlike the “Why Windows  is better than Mac” article from the same people. Most of these features are also the reason that I’ll be running a Windows 7 gaming machine. Ooh, yeah.

iTunes App Sorting Concept
Apple – this would have worked from the beginning. Please, I’m sick of manually sorting apps on my iPhone, and it’s a major pain when you’ve got a couple of very full homescreens.

7 Ways To Make Your Laptop Battery Last Longer
Seriously? I expected “hacks”, not a list of common sense reasons.

Top 10 Halo 3 Kills, #15
An excellent montage of excellent Halo 3 kills. I had no idea some people could be so accurate with the sniper rifle!

The Kogan Agora, Android-phone.
Is it just me, or does that look like it’s made of incredibly cheap plastic? Fail.

Googly-Eyes Clock
If I could only figure out how to tell the time on them.

AT-AT Boombox
It’s awesome.

Space Invader Ice Cubes
Because you can, that’s why. And personally, why the hell not?

Why does this iBook have a BSOD?
Who knows. In any case, it’s a marketing fail. Everyone knows that iBooks can’t run Windows, therefore, no BSOD is possible.

Phew – that’s it. Apologies if my comments were getting a little rash as I approched the end – sometimes, you just have to click on the link to find out for yourself.

Comments below.

16 Links: The Engadget Edition

So I just had the task of trawling through all the Engadget posts that I missed while I was away (some 43 pages of posts). I must say, Endgadget has turned into something that doesn’t quite cut the mustard for me. Maybe I’ll have to start subscribing to Gizmodo – maybe they’ll have a better SNR. 20 out of 440+ isn’t so bad! /sarcasm.

In any case, there are a hell of a lot of links, so I’ll just get right into it:

DIY Screw-Nut Rings
Corny? Undoubtedly. Geeky? For sure.

DIY Prosthesis in Tasmania
A post on Engadget, about Tasmania! Woot!

DARPA’s 1.8 Gigapixel digicam
Whatever happened to “less is more”? Then again, this is DARPA we’re talking about…

Cell Phone Reunion
iPhone is bad-ass. Owning one doesn’t make you so.

LaserPup
Lazors fire! PEW PEW PEW!

Recompute – the cardboard PC
Cool design. Recyclable exterior.

Windows 7 SKUs
Wait – how many versions?!

Tokyoflash’s Heko watch
Again, this is the watch I’d be wearing. If I wore watches.

Seagate’s 2TB HDD
Lots of data (to lose).

Western Digital’s 2TB HDD
But this ones’s GREEN-er.

Days to 1 million
How long did it take to each smartphone to hit 1 million units sold? FYI, the iPhone 3G took 3 days.

Gigapixel image of Obama’s inaguration
Because we need a mega-close up, okay? You can buy one of the devices, too!

Canon doesn’t suck
No, they do not. For those of you that don’t know – no, Canon do not make vacuum cleaners.

Windows 7 Beta Impressions
It’s good, actually. Better than Vista, and better than XP.

Apple vs Palm
A good read, if a little long.

That’s it!

Go away – I don’t want your comments anyway. 😉