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Still, It’s No Narwhal

Now if you feel that you’re all alone

And you notice all the birds have flown
Well then, baby, you should be a’knowing
That they had a reason to be going
Because a predator’s been around
Darlin’
Peep ouuuuuut
Peep ouuuuuut, peep out and see

Owl, he’s there
And he’s got one eye on youuuu
Owl, he’s there
And he’s seeing every thing you dooo

And when you’re lying there in the bath
Or when you’re outside pumping your gas
When you’re buying pumpkins in the market
Or you’re visiting La Brea Tar Pits
Or you’re out buying an ice cream cone
Darlin’
Peep ouuuuuuut
Peep ouuuuuuut, and then you’ll see

Owl, he’s there
And he’s got one eye on youuuu
Owl, he’s there
And he’s seeing every thing you dooo

Owl, he’s there, he’s always watching you
Owl, he’s there, it’s getting kinda creepy too

He keeps notes on when you go to bed
He swears he’ll see your lover dead
The cops his hideout haven’t found
Because he never lands on the ground
He stays in high branches of course
Where restraining orders aren’t enforced
Darling
Move ouuuuuuuuut
Move ouuuuuuuuut, just flee

Owl, he’s there
He’s taking candid shots of youuuu
Owl, he’s there
He swears he’s gonna marry youuuu
Owl, he’s there
He’s swearing that his love is truuuue
Owl, he’s there
And he’s seeing every thing you dooo

Wear this shirt: as a warning. Wear a button-up. Keep your back to the owl and he won’t be able to see it. Open it slowly so the other person can see. Nod imperceptibly and then button up again.

Don’t wear this shirt: to Hooters. They’ve got cameras everywhere.

This shirt tells the world: “Who, me?”

We call this color: Roy-owl Blue

Design Placement: Centered

Design Size:
3X – S: 6.5” x 12.6”
WXL - K4: 4.87“ x 9.45”

Pantone Colors: 106C – 165C

Please check our sizing chart before you order. The Woot Tee follows a classic closer-fitting style. If you prefer a baggier look, order a larger size. If there is not a larger size, consider starting a belly-hanging-out trend.

Discuss this product

Price: $10.00

I want one!

woneill: Tunnelblick installed on my hackintosh. Now it's fully usable as a work laptop replacement. #fb

donttrythis: Recursion: when your wife falls asleep WHILE watching videos from cutethingsfallingasleep.org, THUS becoming one of them.

donttrythis: @billprady Done!

These old-school footballs are individually handmade from rich, supple leather for a vintage look, feel and smell!

Click Here: Read Full Post and Comments

coomaria writes "The HoneyGrid scans 40 million Web sites and 10 million emails, so it was bound to find something interesting. Among the things it found was that a staggering 95% of User Generated Content is either malicious in nature or spam." Here is the report's front door; to read the actual report you'll have to give up name, rank, and serial number.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

bennyboy64 writes "Australia's Minister for Communications wants internet providers and the film industry to sit down and work out a solution to stop illegal movie downloads, despite a judge ruling in favor of an internet provider not being responsible for policing illegal downloads. The film studios first dragged internet provider iiNet into the Federal Court back in November 2008, arguing that the ISP infringed copyright by failing to take reasonable steps — including enforcing its own terms and conditions — to prevent customers from copying films and TV shows over its network."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ian Lamont writes "Computerworld has put together a collection of interesting, funny, and just plain weird Superbowl television advertisements from tech companies — excluding Internet retailers. Everyone has seen the Macintosh ad that played during the 1984 Superbowl, but there are a bunch of other gems, starting with a long-winded ad for the Xerox 9200 from 1976. The funniest is probably EDS's 'herding cats' ad from 2000, but there are some oddities, too, including a bizarre ad for Network Associates depicting a Russian nuclear missile launch, and a very dated ad for Sharp from the mid-1980s. Intel has one ad in the collection from 1997, and it turns out that it is returning with two ads this year that it says feature 'geek humor.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "The first electric dental drill was patented in 1875; modern drills grind the diseased portions of teeth away at up to 500,000 rpm. But dentists have been seeking less invasive ways of wiping out stubborn, tooth-decaying bacteria. Now Live Science reports that bacteria-killing jets of plasma could soon replace the drills used to treat cavities in our teeth. Researchers recently demonstrated that a small, blowtorch-like device emitting a relatively cool beam of purple plasma could eliminate oral bacteria in cavities, leaving more tooth structure intact than a drill does. To test how well 'cold' plasma jets (about 100F or 38C) sterilize tooth material, researchers took slices of dentin from extracted human molars, doused them with bacteria, and torched them with the plasma jet. An inspection via a scanning electron microscope of the damage done to the germs shows bacterial remnants had holes in their cell walls. When the plasma jet fires, it charges oxygen in the surrounding air, creating highly reactive molecules that can break down the bacteria's defenses. Researchers believe the technique could be available to general dentistry in three to five years."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

fysdt writes with this excerpt from TechCrunch: "An analysis of Dunn and Bradstreet data shows that of the 237,843 firms founded in 2004, only 19% had women as primary owners. And only 3% of tech firms and 1% of high-tech firms (as in Silicon Valley) were founded by women. Look at the executive teams of any of the Valley's tech firms — minus a couple of exceptions like Padmasree Warrior of Cisco — you won't find any women CTOs. Look at the management teams of companies like Apple — not even one woman. It's the same with the VC firms — male dominated. You'll find some CFOs and HR heads, but women VCs are a rare commodity in venture capital. And with the recent venture bloodbath, the proportion of women in the VC numbers is declining further. It's no coincidence that only one of the 84 VCs on the 2009 TheFunded list of top VCs was a woman. ... Additionally, it is harder for women to obtain funding than for men. ... historically, women-led companies have received less than 9% of venture capital investments; in 2007, the proportion of funded female CEOs dropped to 3%."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "US government policy is that photos produced by federal employees as part of their job responsibilities are not subject to copyright in the US. But Kathy Gill writes that after originally putting official White House photos in the public domain, since January the Obama White House has been asserting that no one but 'news organizations' can use its Flickr photos taken by the official White House photographer, who is a US government employee. This change appears to be a heavy-handed response to last month's controversy resulting from a billboard that implied the President endorsed The Weatherproof Garmet Co. after the company used an AP photo of the president for a Times Square billboard. However a New York law already protects individuals from unauthorized use of their image for advertising, and the billboard was quickly taken down. Gill writes, 'Whatever the reason, the assertion of these "rights" seems to be in direct contrast to official government policy and is certainly in direct contrast to reasonable expectations by the public, given that the photos are being produced with taxpayer (i.e., public) money. Ironically, the same Flickr page that claims (almost exclusive) copyright also links to the US copyright policy statement.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "While waiting to see if the iPad is a game-changer, this CS student continues to take class notes with pen and paper while her fellow students embrace netbooks and notebooks. Why? In addition to finding the act of writing helps cement the lecture material in her mind, there's also the problem of keeping up with the professor: '[While taking notes on a laptop] every five minutes I found myself cursing at not being able to copy the diagram on the board.' So, when it comes to education or business, do you take notes on a notepad/netbook, or stick with good old-fashioned handwriting? Got any tips for making the transition, or arguments for staying the course?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

bhagwad writes "Beginning January 28, Paypal has been reversing the payments made to any Indian provider of services. In addition, Indian users have been unable to withdraw their money to their bank accounts. As a result, a large number of Indian Paypal accounts have a negative balances running into the thousands of dollars. The worst part is that users weren't informed beforehand — the funds were just whisked away. Indian providers have gone ballistic, with over 2,000 posts on a thread on the reversal of payments and over 700 posts on this thread about the delay in transfers. Paypal hasn't given any explanation to this behavior other than they're looking into it. Although Paypal claims in the above blog post that payments made for 'Services' are not being reversed, this is not true. All payments not made for 'Goods' with a shipping address have been reversed — in fact, the Paypal e-mail tells the Indian sellers to encourage their clients to lie and claim that they're paying for goods with a shipping address instead."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

skatepark builder writes "David Prowse, the 74-year-old actor who has enjoyed a long and varied career filled with roles such as Darth Vader (Star Wars Episodes IV, V, and VI), is starting 2010 off with two major accomplishments. His victory over colon cancer earlier this month means he'll live to see his top billing in a film premiering next month at the South by Southwest Film Festival. The People vs. George Lucas is a documentary attempting a balanced examination of the love/hate relationship Star Wars fans have developed with the filmmaker and his work over the past three decades. Director Alexandre Philippe distances his film from the one-sided fan rage films that lambaste Lucas, even though the title would suggest otherwise. According to the trailer, The People vs.George Lucas exposes the full spectrum of opinions on Lucas, including those like Prowse, who still refers to him as a 'master.' Philippe captures these opinions through filmed interviews, but perhaps more interestingly, he crowdsourced the commentary by soliciting fan submissions over the internet. The clips seen in the trailer appear to be funny, highly inspired, and are probably more concise than the recently released 70-minute YouTube evisceration of Episode I."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Curlsman informs us that the first beta of Ruby on Rails 3.0 has been released ( release notes here). Rails founder David Heinemeier Hansson blogged that RoR 3.0 "feels lighter, more agile, and easier to understand." This release is the first the Merb team has participated in. Merb is a model-view-controller framework written in Ruby, and they joined the RoR development effort over a year ago. Reader Curlsman asks, "So, is version 3 of RoR going to be a big deal, more of the same (good or bad), or just churning technology?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alphadogg writes "A Chinese man was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in a US prison this week for trafficking in counterfeit Cisco Systems gear. Yongcai Li, 33, will also have to pay the networking company nearly $800,000 in restitution after being the conduit for hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of counterfeit computer hardware, the FBI said Friday. Prosecutors said he procured the fake gear in China and then sent it to co-conspirators in the US. His alleged co-conspirators have not been charged. Li was arrested by FBI agents on Jan. 9, 2009, in Las Vegas — while the annual Consumer Electronics Show was taking place there. Two years ago, the FBI claimed to have seized more than $78 million worth of counterfeit equipment in more than 400 seizures"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "CNET's hunch that Google might run a Super Bowl ad entitled 'Parisian Love' proved to be well-founded. The ad just ran (did you know that you can search the Internet using Google?), and Apple certainly doesn't have to worry about losing its claim to having produced the best Super Bowl ad ever. In fact, you might want to check out the spoof 'Parisian Love' apparently inspired — 'Is Tiger Feeling Lucky?' — if you want to see a better pitch for Google."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

quaith writes "Quinn Dombrowski, a member of the University of Chicago's central IT staff, has been recording the graffiti left in the Joseph Regenstein Library Since September 2007. To date she has photographed and transcribed over 620 pieces of graffiti; over 410 of them are datable to within a week of their creation. She has now published in Inkling Magazine a statistical analysis of the entire graffiti collection covering such subjects as love, hate, despair, sex, anatomy, and temporal fluctuations of each of these. After November, both love and despair graffiti drop off significantly until spring, while sex graffiti reaches its one and only peak in December before declining for the rest of the school year. The story includes links to all of the original graffiti photos, which the researcher has made freely available to use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CounterPath X-Lite '.wav' File Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

Sun Solaris 'CODE_GET_VERSION IOCTL' Local Denial Of Service Vulnerability

Darth Vader Shadow Alarm Clock (Image courtesy StarWarsShop.com)
By Andrew Liszewski

The image above is just a prototype, and is subject to change according to StarWarsShop.com, but those of you who don’t spend your time whining about how George Lucas stole your childhood might find this a cool addition to your Star Wars collection. It’s your run-of-the-mill battery-powered alarm clock with snooze function and a digital display, but when the alarm goes off an ominous silhouette of Darth Vader is projected on the wall, beckoning you to join the dark side of waking up. $26.99 though only available for pre-order now since it won’t ship until May of this year.

[ Darth Vader Shadow Alarm Clock ]

Sportpong (Image courtesy Sportpong)
By Andrew Liszewski

I don’t think anyone’s ever lamented the lack of physical activity required for playing a game of Pong, that’s what tennis is for, but someone, somewhere, felt that the classic video game could use a bit more physical interaction, and hence Sportpong was born. Setup appears to be a little complicated since the game requires overhead projectors to be mounted and a decent sized area (the minimal dimensions are 4 meters wide by 7 meters long) but playing Sportpong looks to be as easy as it was with the original Pong.

Virtual paddles appear to be connected to each player’s foot thanks to a simple reflector they attach to their shoe, and the goal, as always, is to bounce the ‘dot’ past your opponents’ goal line. While Sportpong isn’t available for sale, the system can be rented out for special events by contacting the creators in Switzerland, and while it’s not posted on their site, the cost is probably mostly dependent on where they need to bring it.

[ Sportpong ] VIA [ swissmiss ]

'Steven Seagal Is: The Final Option' SNES Game (Image courtesy 1UP)
By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re still lamenting the fact that Duke Nukem Forever will never see the light of day, you might want to look away, since this news could be even harder to take. Way back in September of 1993, game publisher TecMagik announced that they had secured the rights to make a Super Nintendo (and Sega Genesis) game based on Steven Seagal. Oddly enough the game wasn’t based on a specific Seagal movie either (this was just before Under Siege came out making him a big name movie star) so TecMagik had signed him based solely on how well his previous films had done in the VHS rental market.

'Steven Seagal Is: The Final Option' SNES Game (Image courtesy 1UP)

Sadly the game, which had Seagal wandering around with a female sidekick, fighting baddies in an effort to save her son, was never released. A 1994 release date was pushed back to 1995, and eventually the title disappeared after TecMagik announced a similar N64 title, which also never came out. The game’s graphics used the Mortal Kombat technique of filming live actors which were converted into somewhat-lifelike sprites, though a stand-in was used for Seagal since they figured people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference given the low-res digitized images. Deep down we would have all known though, so maybe the game’s demise was for the best.

[ 1UP - Lost Levels: Steven Seagal Is: The Final Option ] VIA [ GoNintendo ]

chatman

By Evan Ackerman

The internet can be a lonely place. You have no idea who you’re really talking to, whether they claim to be a 48 year old guy in his mom’s basement or a hot lonely teenage girl (like me), which is why instead of real people, you need Chatman. Chatman is a friendly yellow PC accessory who has no secrets and is “destined to become every kids new best mate” thanks to some fancy artificial intelligence software. Chatman spies on your instant messages, web surfing, gaming, and social networks and somehow “gets involved” by “tell[ing] you exactly what he thinks and how he feels about the discussions exchanged.”

In addition to moving eyes, arms, ear things, and an LED emoticon mouth, Chatman has 3 personality options, 25 moods (whatever that means), and over 500 different actions. You can program Chatman with new actions and stuff, but before he’ll use them, they have to get approved by his parent corporation. Incidentally, while Chatman won’t actually prevent you from visiting no-no websites, he will tattle back to your parents and verbally chastise you. There isn’t a lot of information on these features specifically, and that makes it all seem a little bit sinister, like Chatman is actually designed to be some nanny software in a kid-friendly and “fun” (sort of) disguise. Your friendly, round, and yellow little bit brother should be available around Easter for nobody knows how much.

[ re:creation ] VIA [ Pocket Lint ]

digital-cosmetic-mirror By Gaurav Kheterpal

The Beauty and Cosmetics Industry is going through a serious transformation and Shiseido is amongst the leading companies driving this change to make you look better. Shiseido has just launched a Digital Cosmetic Mirror which allows you to test your make-up without even having to pick up a Mascara brush. The in-built camera in Digital Cosmetic Mirror scans your face and gives you tailored recommendations. Choose your make-up options from the list of recommendations and see the results they’ll have on the screen.

Virtual Make up is easy and more importantly, it’s quick!

[ Shiseido ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

chromeos1

By Gaurav Kheterpal

Even before the buzz around the release of Apple iPad could settle down, Google has set the alarm bells ringing for Apple by releasing the first images of its much anticipated concept – The Google Tablet. Much like the iPad, the Google Tablet will have a sleek and stylish design.

The device will offer innovative features like contextual actions triggered via dwell (What does that even mean? -Ed.), UI Zooming for multiple tabs and an ability to create multiple browsers on the screen. Google has collaborated with a number of leading hardware manufacturers to implement this concept and once it comes to life, it might well turn out to be the iPad killer. Or perhaps this secret Apple project will.

[ The Chromium Project ] VIA [ TechCrunch ]

If you watched the Super Bowl this evening you'll have seen a video from Google called "Parisian Love". In fact you might have watched it before, because it's been on YouTube for over three months. We didn't set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it's had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.

If you like it too, we hope you'll watch the others. Enjoy.

Posted by Eric Schmidt, CEO

Tetris is, together with Mario, Pong and Pacman, one of the retro classics. Henceforth, it’s hardly surprising to see spin-offs of the game.

Most of those spin-offs, however, stay incredibly close to the original. If it ain’t broken, why fix it – right? So the game’s ported to yet another device, donned in a new shiny interface and let be.

The other developers don’t waste time wondering ‘why?’, but think ‘why not?’.

Looking aside from the inevitable failures, here are some of the more original and innovating spin-offs. Three very different Tetris online games that grew from the same retro classic.

First-Person Tetris Online Game

At first glance, First-Person Tetris looks pretty regular, aside from the double screen interface. However, once you start playing this Tetris online game, you’ll notice that this game embeds ‘First-Person’ with another meaning.

Tetris online game

Turning your block is not possible. Rotating everything else, is. You can spin the room in the right position, and slide it around your block. All the while, your block attracts the ‘bottom’ of the TV set. Almost as if it were falling.

Besides being fun, original, and very much addicting, First-Person Tetris really gets your head spinning. You probably won’t be able to finish the game without hugging the ground. Or the first few levels.

Tetris vs Triangle

Tetris online game No, there’s nothing wrong with that screenshot. Tetris vs Triangle was created in response to a ‘create a game with a stage smaller than or equal to 100×100 pixels‘ challenge. If you don’t feel you’re up for the job, always remember that your browser has a built in zoom function.

The real challenge, however, lies not in the game’s size. As you can see in the screenshot of this Tetris online game, there are a few new elements in the screen; purple blocks and a little triangle.

Your objective is to clear the playing field of these purple, static blocks. Get rid of them by vanishing the whole line. Just filling up those blanks. Sounds easy,right?

No, that little triangle has a gun, and he/she is not afraid to use it. If you can’t avoid the bullets soaring past, you’ll turn purple yourself. You’ve got an infinite supply of lives, but getting shot still makes the game a lot harder, and once you hit the top, it’s still game over.

Tetoris (Tetris HD)

This Tetris online game went viral some time ago. The concept is simple, and actually very similar to the original Tetris. The only difference is an upgrade of the resolution and size of the playing field. Often dubbed ‘Tetris HD’, this game makes retro available for the HD-crazed masses.

The screenshot above no doubt shows that the high resolution can offer quite a challenge. Not necessarily due to difficulty, but because of the time you spend trying to fill a line. One gamer commented: “It took me 15 minutes, just to lose on purpose.” Another cried out his dramatic tale of messing up the final block in a line.

As I’m sure you understand, Tetris is not the most satisfying game to play. It gets either frustrating or boring. The game is probably most praised for its arty concept, and for the joke that this game’s developer intended it to be.

What do you think of the games above? Which do you deem the most interesting, or the most addictive? Let us know about any other Tetris spin-offs that we’ve missed!

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Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

Submit Your Web App

Devcheatsheet – is a directory of quick reference cards and free cheat sheets for programmers, developers, engineers and alike. It provides you with cheat sheets pertaining to a wide range of topics like operating systems, security, programming, engineering, applications etc. This website doesn’t actually store the cheat sheets but aggregates them from various sources. Read more: DevCheatSheet: Quick Reference Cards & Cheat Sheets For Developers.

		Avatara – Avatars are supposed to represent you on the web and static images do it pretty poorly. Avatara is a 3d avatar creator that makes it better by letting you create a customized 3D avatar for all your social network profiles. Read more: Avatara: 3D Avatar Creator.

		List-O-Matic – Navigation menus are hard to create if your skills in HTML and CSS are less than excellent. List-O-Matic is a neat lnavigation menu builder that solves this problem by helping you generate CSS style navigation menus without writing any code. Read more: List-O-Matic: CSS Style Navigation Menu Builder.

		StorageFront – StorageFront makes it easy for you to find a local self-storage units by simply entering your address or zip code. It has a database of over 40,000 locations and lets you narrow down your search by amenities such as climate control, 24 hour security, car storage, online bill pay, etc. Read more: StorageFront: Find Self-Storage Units In Your Area.

		FacteryLabs – If you are looking to verify a fact or need to search for few lines of information on a particular topic, then a search results page with links to sources isn’t the quickest way to get that information. You’d rather have the fact right after you hit search, and that’s exactly what FacteryLabs does. Read more: FacteryLabs: Real Time Fact Searching.

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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logonstudio_icon If you have your own computer, you would more than likely like to personalize your computer any way you can. Anything from color profiles to background images to laptop stickers are fair game. Well now you can easily create a custom logon screen if you are running Windows XP, Vista, or 7, using LogonStudio.

I know in the past it has been possible to change the logon and logoff screens in Windows but the key to LogonStudio being useful is in the ease of use. Why the option to create a custom logon screen hasn’t been built into Windows automatically, I’ll never know (I guess in Windows 7 they have finally done so).

It’s an easy download and an easy tool to use. Let’s see what it’s all about.

custom logon screen

Go to the site and click on the download link.

custom logon screen

It will eventually take you to a CNET downloads page where the program file is hosted. Once downloaded, install the program and you are good to go! At the end of the installation process, open the program so we can take a look at the options.

custom logon screen

As you can see by the screenshot, there are 5 buttons along the left side named “Load”, “Download”, “Create”, “Upload“, and “About.” Let’s go through each one to see what our options are in creating your custom logon screen.

Skip the “Load” button until we download a logon package (aka “skin”). So let’s go on to the next button for now.

Download

When you hit the “download” button you are directed to a website called WinCustomize containing a directory of many packages to choose from.

logon screens

Browse around and find one you like. For the sake of this article I will be choosing Light Blue Crystal.

logon screens

Once you hit download, the next step may depend on your browser. Since I am using Firefox, I am faced with a decision to either open the file directly with LogonStudio or to simply download and save the file to a folder. The easier option would be to open the file directly but for the sake of seeing how the “Load” button works, we’re going to choose to save the file. Just choose a location you can find easily.

Load

When you click the “Load” button, you are then given the opportunity to browse your hard drive for the file you just downloaded.

logon screens

Double-click the file (it will have the file extension “logonvista”). You will then have the package showing in the list of available packages.

windows xp logon screens

You can then either double-click on the package or highlight it and click the “Apply” button. This will effectively bring you to the logon screen showing your new custom logon screen.

Create

The “Create” button is for those who already have an image that they want to set up as the logon screen.

windows xp logon screens

After clicking the button, just fill in the blanks, browse for the picture you are looking for and click save. This will create the package and show it in the list for you.

Upload

If you want to upload a particular package that you created and you think others will like, you’ll need to register. I have not tested this option but if you do, let me know how it goes!

About

Clicking the “About” button will obviously tell you more about the program.

windows xp logon screens

It will also give you a link to check for updates.

You now have a simple way to create a custom logon screen for your Windows computer! Do you have a different option? Let us know!

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monitor your name I recently wrote about how you can find out when someone searches Google for your name. If you are interested in who is looking for you and your general online reputation, you are probably equally interested in finding out what is being said about you online.

People could be spreading information about you or your business that you should rather be aware of. Rather than to regularly scan the search engines for results with your name, you can automate the process of monitoring your online reputation and be notified once there is a new entry containing your name. This will also work for any other subject that is of interest to you.

In this article I will introduce three services that allow you to monitor your online reputation and set up alerts for specific topics.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts provides updates of the latest Google results relevant to your search query across Google (comprehensive) or within different categories, such as news or blogs. You can choose to receive updates as-it-happens, once a day or once a week. They are subsequently delivered to your email or you can set up a personalized feed.

google alerts

To receive email updates you do not have to sign up with Google. However, as a subscribed member you can centrally manage all your alerts about your online reputation.

who is writing about you

As you can see from the example above, I have used some standard search engine operands. You can use these signs and keys to get more specific search results. So for example “Keane AND Berlin” will only return results from indexed sites that contain both keywords. A while ago I wrote an article on Google operands, which may come in handy now.

Trackle

Trackle is a service dedicated to tracking your personalized information online. To receive updates, you must sign up with your email address and password. It’s quick and simple. Once you’re in, Trackle offers many more features than Google Alerts. First of all, you can receive updates via the web portal, email, SMS, or through your feed reader.

The biggest difference between Trackle and Google Alerts is that Trackle has a lot more entertainment value. They have prepared search queries, known as Tracklets, and made them available through their Tracklet catalog. The categories include books, health, people, and travel. You can browse the catalog and add any of the Tracklets to your subscriptions.

search information online

To set up a custom search, type in your query into the text field in the top right that says “Research company, person, product, or topic“. It will direct you to a page with results from the past three days, like the one shown in the screenshot below.

From that page you can further select the types of results you’re after, for example narrow your results by credibility, select categories, and discover other users with similar interests.

track content

Once happy with your definitions, click “Track this search” to enter the next step in which you define how the results are delivered to you. The search can be run every hour, every 4 or 8 hours, and once a day. Moreover, your search will not be executed forever, you can select a duration of up to four weeks.

set up search alert

Your inbox shows the latest alerts and within your subscriptions you can see what you’re tracking and eventually update it.

manage search queries

Other interesting features of Trackle include a widget for your website or blog or the option to create a custom newsletter.

Social Mention

Another way to receive a quick overview of your popularity or impact in the social media world is Social Mention. You can search blogs, bookmarks, comments, videos, a lot more or simply everything.

GoogleAlerts09

The results page provides a detailed analysis of the query. If the coverage is too broad, you can narrow down your search by specifying details in the advanced search.

The data can be downloaded as a CSV/Excel sheet and you can subscribe to alerts via email or RSS feed.

search yourself online

If you found this information helpful for managing your online reputation, you may also be interested in the following articles from Saikat:

10 Uses of Google Alerts For A Freelancer
Topikality – Improve Google Alerts & Get The Articles You Want

How do you keep up to date with what’s being published online?

Image credits: buzzybee

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Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

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Team-Maker – is a simple and handy random team generator that lets you create teams quickly and easily. Creating diverse groups can be tedious and time-consuming, not to mention worrying about the problem of bias or favouritism. This online tool solves these problems. Read more: Team-Maker: An Easy Random Team Generator.

		CallMyTeam – Managing and coordinating a lot of people when you are on the go is best done through a phone, as you can communicate and provide instructions in real time. However, you can only usually contact few people at once using a phone. Call My Team is a web service that allows you to make phone conference calls with up to 10 people all at once in a teleconference instantly. Read more: CallMyTeam: Make phone conference calls with up to 10 people at once.

		TweetWhatYouSpend – is a free cash tracking tool that will allow you to record and track your spending quickly using Twitter. If you have ever wondered where you money goes, or if you just easily overspend, this easy tool will keep your budget on track. The best value feature of this tool is that it allows you to manage your spending right from the point of sale to monthly budget management. Read more: TweetWhatYouSpend: Cash Tracking via Twitter.

		Unprofound – Designers and bloggers alike need quality, eye-catching photographs to make their good content great. Such photographs used to be hard to come by, but in the age of Flickr and the Creative Commons Licenses, free photos with no copyright aren’t uncommon. What is uncommon is quality photography arranged in such a way to make life easier for designers, who generally care just as much about color as content. Read more: Unprofound: Free, Quality Photos With No Copyright.

		Calameo – is an easy document sharing and publishing service that lets you create online magazines from your offline documents. You could upload PDF files, spreadsheets, word documents and powerpoint presentations to create reports, magazines, catalogs, brochures etc and publish it online. Read more: Calameo: Easy Document Sharing & Publishing Website.

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secure computer systems Installing and using a system is one thing and managing it efficiently with an eye to secure your computer system is quite a different game altogether. Things can get cumbersome pretty easily specially on Linux computers, even more so if you are a new user. There are tons of commands, thousand of locations to look into and a variety of configuration files that you can edit.

Some time back we showed you how you can administer a Linux server using Webmin and a browser. Let’s look at another tool aimed at something similar, only this time it is a command line tool, albeit the only command you need to remember is “proshield”. ProShield is available for Debian and Debian based distros (think the likes of Ubuntu and Linux Mint).

The installation process for Proshield is a little different than the simple apt-get command that you are used to, simple nonetheless. All you have to do is to download the DEB package and double click on the downloaded DEB file (or if you are so inclined you can also do this via dpkg -i <fullpath of the downloaded deb> inside terminal). All the dependencies will be taken care of automatically and you will have ProShield installed in no time.

ProShield does a lot of heavy lifting for you. Keep in mind that everything that ProShield does to to secure your computer system can be accomplished separately as well, without requiring ProShield at all. However, ProShield looks at a number of important areas of your system to decide if it is secure, up to date and well backed up. If you are a new user, ProShield is great for you as you might not know where to look for the required information and how to resolve the issues. On the other hand, if you are an experienced sys-admin, ProShield can be a valuable addition to your favorite tools that can simplify maintenance and to greatly secure your computer system.

As detailed on ProShield’s webpage it performs some important tasks like helping you in backing up your system weekly, checking for extra root accounts, checking for correct access control permissions, checking to see if apt is fetching only the information that is required, deleting unneeded packages from the local archives, synchronizing the system clock and plenty more.

secure your computer

ProShield is a command line tool that is very simple to use. All you have to do is to issue “sudo proshield” and follow the prompts. ProShield requires that you are connected to the Internet for proper functioning, so you should keep that in mind. If everything is fine, ProShield will set about its task and examine the system for you offering status and seeking input where ever necessary. After it’s done ProShield offers a set of recommendations based on your computer’s analysis.

secure your computer

So now you know where you need to put in your efforts to fine tune your system. You can now set out to follow these recommendations if you know how or want to, or you can stick around and ProShield will also help you fix these issues. Hit Enter and ProShield starts resolving the issues one by one. Read the description and instructions carefully and choose an option (usually something as simple as a Yes/No), ProShield will do the rest for you. This continues till ProShield goes through each and every issue and tries to resolve them. At this point, depending upon your choices you have potentially resolved all the issues reported by ProShield.

secure your computer

ProShield will even backup your computer if it has not been done in a long time. While it doesn’t offer all the features of a sophisticated backup software, it still lets you choose the important locations to backup and would create a Gzipped backup archive for you to use whenever you might need to restore back the files and folders.

secure computer systems

Overall ProShield is an excellent tool which is useful for new users and experts alike. It checks your debian (debian based) Linux install to identify potential issues that can compromise security, tries to optimize apt functioning, manages local package archives and most of all – it is simple and easy to use and can save you a lot of time with just a single command – ProShield.

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Live Webcast Goes Wrong (Video)
The State of The Internet (Pic)
How to Recover From Social Network Addiction (Video)
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If you would like to keep up with all latest Geeky Fun additions, please subscribe to the Geeky Fun feed here. You can also subscribe and get the latest additions via email.

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Il 430Xn.102098423
These are lovely.

Pt 2527
I also like these fishing lure earrings from CRAFT volume 03...

And of course, iPhone home button earrings...

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The forces that affect buildings and other structures can be modeled inexpensively and quickly by using the humble drinking straw. Usually, the projects built with drinking straws are rapid build. Storage can be an issue if you plan on having students work the design over multiple classes, or saving the structure for reference. This really becomes a problem if you are doing the same project with a full load of 5 classes. By doing the project in a single class period, you can easily reuse the straws, having students discard any cut ones and replenish them with new for the next group.

For fasteners, there are a few options. Tape can work, but is hard to remove if you are reusing straws. This can be good if you are aiming for a more durable product. Sewing pins can be used over an over again. Having students count out the pins they need and keeping them in plastic cups is works for multiple classes. As a new batch of kids collects their supplies, they just check to see that the last group left the right number of pins in the cup. This can occur at the same time they get the straws they will need. Some towers are built with paper clips as the fastener. If you do this, you may give the option of using wire cutters and pliers to modify the pins.

In introducing the ideas of the project, you will want to discuss the forces of tension, compression, torsion and shear. As students build, they should be able to recognize the forces that affect buildings and other structures and devise ways to compensate for them.

Often in straw towers, you will want to incorporate the differences between live load and dead load. Sometimes called dynamic load and static load, you can model them by having the tower hold a weight, representing the live or dynamic load. You can also have students become more aware of factor of safety and failure analysis of their structure.

The building of these towers can lead to a competitive situation. You can have students all build with the same materials, and set the grades on how high the towers stand while holding the live load. One way of doing the calculation is to set the highest and lowest possible grade, 100 and 75 for example. Then you measure the towers, identifying the tallest structure. If the tallest tower is 50 inches, then each inch is worth 1/2 point. The group with the tallest load bearing tower gets the 100. A tower that holds the live load at 40 inches would get a 95. The group that has the ball on the floor gets the 75. The other groups in between get grades based on the height of the ball, or other load.

You can also use a project like this to examine the forces affecting a building during an earthquake.

Have you built a straw tower as a student, or have you used the project as a teacher? How well does a project like this work in homeschooling? What techniques work well, and what resources are really helpful?

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Spaceflight is complicated, with many constraints and requirements that must be met before all systems can claim "go" for launch. Unfortunately for STS-130, this evening's "dynamic" weather proved to be too risky for this morning's launch. Endeavour's first launch attempt was scrubbed at 4:30 AM EST. The good news? We get to try it again in just under 24 hours and get to experience all the launch countdown fun twice. Not bad! Check back with my tweets tomorrow for the status of Endeavour's second launch attempt.

Pictured above: Endeavour's crew as they walk out to the famous Astrovan that will deliver them to the launch pad.

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Brooklyn-based hacker collective NYC Resistor is holding its first 48-hour hackathon this Friday starting at 6pm and ending Sunday, February 14th at the same time.

You can work by yourself or with a team, and if you don't have a team/project we'll assign you to one.
The format is open, you're welcome to come and go as you please. We'll keep the Club Mate flowing and follow a loose schedule of demos and workshops to help spark your imagination.

Interested in participating? Find out more information or register on Eventbrite.

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I just can't get enough flatpack.

The Belkiz Feedaway is a cardboard portable feeding chair that can be used for temporary situations or where space is at a premium. It is cardboard, easy to assemble for toddlers up to 20 months of age up to 20kg who are away from home. Ideal for temporary and commercial use, the Belkiz Feedaway is safe, strong, folds up easily and quickly and stores away in a tiny space. Ideal for mobile and modern lifestyles.

What do you think, readers? A silly concept that would never work, or is there a cool idea here? [via Inhabitat]

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Check out UK maker John Honniball's sweet workshop panorama.

This is an almost-360-degree panorama of my computer and electronics lab and workshop room. The four big CRT monitors that you can see were obtained from FreeCycle, as was the iMac. Far left is a Stag PPZ EPROM programmer. At the right-hand end are the HP stack (1980B, 1630G, 3456A) and a Tek 575 curve tracer. Far right is an HP LaserJet 4+ with duplexer. On the electronics bench, you may be able to see an Arduino and some LEDs.

See the panorama full-sized on John's Flickr page.

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This week on CRAFT we saw:

Nerdy geeky love and more, read on!

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A commenter on my recent dazzle camouflage post alerted us to the fascinating story of the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen which, in 1942, escaped destruction by the Japanese fleet because the crew moored her among other small islands and covered her in a thick layer of tree branches, thereby disguising her as a small island. [Thanks, rekinom!]

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William Stranger specializes in building furniture out of repurposed wood. I especially liked the massive coffee table whose top is a four-inch-thick slab of bowling lane. It's part of a exhibit(?) called Second Growth:

A second growth forest is one that has re-grown after it has been heavily logged or clear-cut. The installation of reclaimed materials, organic furniture and hand carved objects suggests the life cycle of a tree. It encourages a closer look at the relationship between consumption and conservation and promotes the idea of a culture in balance with the natural world. A tree is borrowed from its cycle without breaking it. The wood is worked with attention, treated with non-toxic finishes, and after its long second life it will return to nourish the earth. Scrap wood is saved and becomes the raw material for innovative design.

[via dornob]

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The Letterman-Oprah-Leno Super Bowl ad. Bill Carter of the New York Times gives a behind-the-scenes look at how it all came together.

via Andy Ihnatko

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Email, Twitter & Facebook.

Greg Benson, Jonathan Coulton, Paul & Storm and Kim Evey have made a Super Bowl Song for people who watch the game just for the commercials.

Greg has also posted a behind the scenes video.

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Email, Twitter & Facebook.

Justin Van Genderen has created a wonderful series of minimalist Star Wars Galaxy Posters.

via Drawn!

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Email, Twitter & Facebook.

As it turns out, Abe Vigoda is in fact alive, as seen here in this Betty White Snickers Super Bowl ad.

See Previously: This Just In, Abe Vigoda Is Still Alive

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Email, Twitter & Facebook.

“Parisian Love” the Google ad that aired during Super Bowl XLIV, part of their series of “Search Stories”. According to Eric Schmidt, it wasn’t originally intended to be an ad.

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Email, Twitter & Facebook.

There is material covered in the talk that isn't covered in the paper, so it might make sense to start with the sides. I'm very interested in any thoughts, comments, or feedback that you might have.

--
Link (Direct) - Link (Reputation Tracking) - Discuss [3] - Reply - Recommend

Each week, I've been inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent researches. Here is the latest round.

I earned two free one-way coupons on Southwest Airlines. I tried to redeem them for a round-trip flight in March, but there were no coupon seats on the return flight. So I redeemed one coupon, and have one left over. That's a clever strategy by Southwest, as I will now use the other coupon as part of a second round trip.

So it is with great pleasure that I announce the launch of Freakonomics Radio, a podcast. We're just finishing up our first episode. It'll be called "What Do NASCAR Drivers, Glenn Beck, and the Hitmen of the NFL Have in Common?" It features interviews with all the people named in the title, along with a good dose of Levitt; I'm the host.

Director Renzo Martens's fascinating and controversial documentary Enjoy Poverty "investigates the emotional and economic value of Africa's fastest-growing and most lucrative export-product." That is: poverty. As he travels throughout the Congo, Martens instructs wedding photographers to try earning more money by photographing malnourished children; he posts a large neon sign reading "Enjoy Poverty" in various villages; and encourages locals to capitalize on their poverty.

As mentioned yesterday, we are launching a podcast, Freakonomics Radio. In the first episode (subscribe at iTunes; or listen now in the player at right), we ask the question "What Do NASCAR Drivers, Glenn Beck, and the Hitmen of the NFL Have in Common?"

We blogged last fall about the Book of Odds, an interesting site that generates "odds statements" of all sorts. Now, David Gassko and Ian Stanczyk of the Book of Odds have written a guest post which answers just the kind of question we like to ask around here: What are the odds that a given cow will make it to the Super Bowl?

Pictured is a First Edition Copy (1953) of this vintage book: SEXUAL BEHAVIOR IN THE HUMAN FEMALE by Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gerhard. Yes, the book's cover is in somewhat disrepair. The 842 pages, comprising the book itself are in very good condition. The picture with copyright info says:
Copyright, 1953, By W. B. Saunders Company
All rights reserved. This book is protected by copyright. No part of it
may be reporduced in any manner without permission from
the publisher. Made in the United States of America.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 53-11127

Call Carl: 770-917-8858

The artists/hackers at @fffffat just tweeted, "WE JUST BUGGED A GOOGLE STREETVIEW CAR WITH A GPS TRACKER IN BERLIN." And lo, it appears they sure did. The map is here. (thanks Souris)

"The odds of getting killed during karaoke may be higher in the Philippines." And more so if you sing a particular song, according to the NYT. (via Julian Dibbell)

Flickr user Normative's 8-minute video on remix culture talks about how this isn't just about sitting around your house remixing, but often turns into a social event among remixers and their friends. It's a very good piece, and resonates with fanfic and other social forms of audience participation -- remixing isn't just about saying something back to a creator, but also about talking with your friends.

The Evolution of Remix Culture (Thanks, Jim!)

Previously:

What again was it that happens in 2012? [NYT. ]

Here's the entire video of Jon Stewart's Fox interview with Bill O'Reilly. I know I'm biased, but I think that Stewart comes across as smart, funny and substantive and O'Reilly comes across as a defensive, deluded nut.

Man, it's good to see Jon Stewart again. It's been a year or so since Comedy Central started blocking Daily Show clips from the UK, where I live -- I know I could just use a proxy to get at them, but I'm always racing the clock and there's always something else that I can watch without messing around, and I somehow never get around to it. But I missed Jon.

Entire Jon Stewart Interview (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Previously:

Hey, lookit this: you can watch the Daily Show from anywhere, defeating geo-restrictions, with a little Firefox tweaking! (Thanks, Malakith!)

The incomparable Olga Nunes has released the latest and greatest iteration of the net's appreciation for Discovery Channel's "Boom-De-Yadda" commercial, reinacting the XKCD version with "Neil Gaiman, Wil Wheaton, Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, Bruce Schneier, Jason Kottke, Google Zurich, Hank Green, MC Frontalot, Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Mr. Toast, Miss Cellania, Team Genius, Phil Plait, Allan Amato, Maddy Gaiman, Charissa Gilreath, Belinda Casas, Chuck Martinez, Jeremy James, Joanna Gaunder, Lee Israel & Octavio Coleman Esq. of The Jejune Institute."

We Love xkcd (via Making Light)

More random wall art from Kathmandu's Patan Hospital: two newspaper clippings circa 2002 and 2003 that remind us that alcoholism is very bad for society. According to these snippets, alcoholism (and in the former case, girls too) cause disco brawls and premature death. I left this bulletin board itching to know what the continuation of the first article was. What is it that boys usually do at Babylon disco?

This camouflaged Dutch ship successfully disguised itself as a small tropical island and avoided the Japanese Navy after the Battle of the Java Sea.

HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen was stationed in the Dutch East Indies when WW II began. After the destruction of the Allied Fleet by the Japanese during the Battle of the Java Sea in February 1942, Crijnssen's captain was ordered to escape with his ship to Australia. Covered with tree branches, the minesweeper crossed the Japanese naval lines camouflaged as a tropical island.

HNLMS ABRAHAM CRIJNSSEN (A925) (via Make)

Previously:

Science fiction editor David Hartwell has written a sweet and moving obituary for writer Kage Baker, who lost her struggle with cancer on Jan 31.

Two years ago, I had a plan to get together with Kage Baker. After several years of knowing her only through phone calls and the occasional meeting at a conference, I was pleased to have the opportunity to better know this witty and imaginative author. I was in Southern California at the Eaton conference in Riverside, and she and her terrific sister Kathleen were supposed to drive over. But their car broke down and I didn't get the chance to spend time with her that day. We tried again last June, when I was out to Los Angeles for World Horror, but in the end she couldn't make it over (I didn't know she was already ill).
And now it is too late.

On Kage Baker

Previously:

Audio from science Fiction panel with Cory, Kage Baker, John ...

Copyrighthater says,

Here is a video documenting every violent act in the 2010 superbowl ads. i dunno what's dumber: the marketers for being this pathetic, or the consumers for giving marketers the impression we're this pathetic.

My money's on BOTH.

But not in a Celine Dion way

3rd place in Derby #132: Heart, with 763 votes!

It happens to everybot. You come to a point where you just feel completely depleted. Like you couldn’t possibly continue. You gave and you gave and you gave and now there’s nothing left. You can’t go on like that forever, that’s just thermodynamics.

What you have to do when you get to that point is just shut down and recharge. Take a little you time. Find a quiet corner with an available wall outlet and soak up what you need. Because honey, 10 IF you don’t take care of yourself, 20 THEN who’s going to take care of you?

Wear this shirt: in the company of your current significant other.

Don’t wear this shirt: in the company of alternating current significant others.

This shirt tells the world: “I measure heartache in Hz.”

We call this color: Recharge Red

Design Placement: Centered

Design Size:
3X – S: 14” x 15.28”
WXL - WS: 10.5” x 11.46”
K12 - K4: 8.5” x 9.27”

Pantone Colors: 427C – 423C – 452C – 7526C – 450C – Pantone Black 4C

Please check our sizing chart before you order. The Woot Tee follows a classic closer-fitting style. If you prefer a baggier look, order a larger size. If there is not a larger size, consider starting a belly-hanging-out trend.

Discuss this product

Price: $10.00

I want one!

donttrythis: I should add that thingone(11 year old son) is on adjacent couch with some youngadult tome filled with unspeakable horror.

donttrythis: http://twitpic.com/11qekr - Reading in late morning sun with Hux entangled in my legs. Nothing better? Nothing.

donttrythis: I can't believe it took me this long to tell you guys that my dear sister Kate Savage is a freaking genius artist:www.katesavageart.com/

donttrythis: @jpriest87 reading the new New Yorker, with all the sweet/sad and lovely eulogies to Salinger.

donttrythis: @hdfnews My hat is a replica of Clint Eastwood's from Fistful of Dollars and it's handmade by Knudsen Hats in Pleasant Hill, CA.

donttrythis: This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-8PBx7isoM Is one of the loveliest PSAs I've ever seen.

donttrythis: It's entirely possible that I've had too much cookie dough today. If there WAS such a thing.

donttrythis: @staticnullvoid That's what I think too.

donttrythis: @Sgt_Bubba I go home on the weekend ya know...

theodp writes "With a gushing press release, Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra announced the launch of Text4baby, 'an unprecedented mobile health public-private partnership' designed to promote maternal and child health. Expectant women are instructed to 'Enter the date of the first day of your last menstrual period' to start receiving 'timely and expert health information through SMS text messages' until their child reaches the age of 12 months (limited to 3 free messages/week). The White House Blog has more information on the 'historic collaboration between industry, the health community and government.' Separately, the White House announced plans to spend $3,000 on 'Game-Changing' Solutions to Childhood Obesity. Once again, Dilbert proves to be scarily prescient."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Grumbleduke writes "The UK Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights has recently reported on the controversial Digital Economy Bill, which seeks to restrict the connections of anyone accused of infringing copyright using the Internet. According to the BBC, the committee noted the lack of details in the Bill as it stands, asking for 'further information' from the government on several issues. They also raised concerns that some punishments under the bill could be 'applied in a disproportionate manner' and said that the powers the bill granted to the Secretary of State (i.e. Lord Mandelson) were 'overly broad.' These echo the concerns raised in recent months by the Open Rights Group, a consortium of web companies including Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and eBay, as well as the UK's Pirate Party. The Bill is currently being scrutinized by the House of Lords, and if it passes there, will likely be forced through the Commons quickly, despite the opposition from the public, industry and members of parliament. The committee's full report can be found on the parliament website."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alphadogg writes "The US Patent and Trademark Office has agreed to review a controversial patent issued in 2001 that is claimed to cover much of the technology underlying VoIP. The patent, held by a small company called C2 Communications Technologies, is one of 10 that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been trying to strike down for several years through its Patent Busting Project. On Friday, the patent office granted the EFF's request for a re-examination. The digital civil-liberties organization argued that another applicant had submitted basically some of the same technology to the patent office before C2 did. Patent No. 6,243,373, 'Method and apparatus for implementing a computer network/Internet telephone system,' is credited to David L. Turock as inventor and is owned by C2, previously called Acceris Communications Technologies."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "It's official. The Internet, which has virtually revolutionized world communication, has been nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. 'Organizers said signatories to its petition backing the nomination include 2003 peace laureate and exiled Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi — which would make it a legitimate entry.' The nomination was proposed by the Italian edition of Wired magazine for promoting 'dialogue, debate and consensus through communication' as well as democracy."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Geoffrey.landis writes "Many book lovers were surprised this week when Amazon.com removed books from the publisher Macmillan from the shelves (later restored), including such popular imprints as St. Martin's, Henry Holt, and the science fiction publisher Tor. But readers shouldn't have been surprised, according to the Author's Guild. The Author's Guild lists a history of earlier instances where Amazon stopped listing a publisher's books in order to pressure them to accept terms, dating back to early in 2008, when Amazon removed the 'buy' buttons for works from the British publisher Bloomsbury, representing such authors as William Boyd, Khaled Hosseini, and J.K. Rowling. In response, the Author's Guild has set up a service called Who Moved My Buy Button to alert authors when their books are removed from Amazon's lists." Amazon's actions have generated ill-will on the parts of many authors, who — being authors — are only too happy to explain their viewpoints at length. Two such examples are Tobias Buckell's breakdown of why Amazon isn't the righteous defender of low-prices they claim to be and Charlie Stross's round-up of the situation.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new report by Game Developer Research reveals that the number of developers working on games for the iPhone continues to rise, roughly doubling in number from last year. At the same time, the amount of work done on games for Nintendo's Wii dropped significantly: "Just over 70 percent of developers said they were developing at least one game for PC or Mac (including browser and social games), rising slightly from last year; 41 percent reported working on console games. Within that latter group, Xbox 360 was the most popular system with 69 percent of console developers targeting it, followed by 61 percent for PlayStation 3. While those console figures stayed within a few percent of last year's results, the change in Wii adoption was much more significant: reported developer support for the system dropped from 42 percent to 30 percent of console developers, supporting numerous publishers' claims of a recent softening of the Wii market."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

mdsolar writes "The tritium leak into ground water at Vermont Yankee has now tested at 775,000 picocuries per liter, 37 times higher than the federal drinking water standard. 'Despite the much higher reading, an NRC spokeswoman said Thursday there was nothing to fear. "There's not currently, nor is there likely to be, an impact on public health or safety or the environment," the NRC's Diane Screnci said in an interview. She had maintained previously that the Environmental Protection Agency drinking water safety limit of 20,000 picocuries per liter had an abundance of caution built into it. ... The National Academy of Sciences said in 2005 that any exposure to ionizing radiation from an isotope like tritium elevates the risk of cancer, though it also said with small exposures, the risk would be low. ' At what level should the NRC shut down the troubled plant?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

krupert writes to let us know that the civil liberties committee of the European Parliament has voted to revoke the data-sharing arrangement by which US intelligence agencies have access to EU banking data via the SWIFT system. The US has threatened to withhold cooperation on terrorist intelligence if the bank data deal now in place is canceled, which it will be next week if the full European Parliament votes in line with the committee's recommendation. US intelligence agencies clandestinely tapped the SWIFT interbank clearing data from just after 9/11 until 2006, when the secret arrangement was made public. After that, Belgium-based SWIFT pulled their servers from the US and set up shop in Brussels, and the US had to negotiate with the EU to keep tapping the data.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dotnaught writes "In a blog post, Walter Luh, co-founder of Ansca Mobile and a former employee of both Apple and Adobe, recounts how Apple once promoted Flash on the iPhone then changed its mind because Flash didn't provide the optimal mobile user experience. 'I think that Apple came to the same conclusion I've come to — namely that Flash has its strengths, but not when it comes to creating insanely great mobile experiences,' he writes. Luh's piece ends with a pitch for mobile development using the Corona SDK, a Lua-based programming environment that strives to recapture the simplicity of early versions of Flash."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Over the years we've discussed the possible health risks of cellphone and other microwave radiation: studies from Israel and Sweden indicating a link between cellphone use and cancer, one from England exonerating cell towers as a cause of "microwave radiation sensitivity," and a recent 30-year Swedish study that found no link to cancer. The question won't go away though. Reader Artifice_Eternity writes "I've always tended to dismiss claims of toxicity from cell phone and Wi-Fi signals as reflecting ignorance about microwave radiation. However, this GQ article cites American and European studies going back decades that have found some level of biological harm caused by these signals. Why haven't they gained more attention? Quoting: 'Industry-funded studies seem to reflect the result of corporate strong-arming. Lai reviewed 350 studies and found that about half showed bioeffects from EM radiation emitted by cell phones. But when he took into consideration the funding sources for those 350 studies, the results changed dramatically. Only 25 percent of the studies paid for by the industry showed effects, compared with 75 percent of those studies that were independently funded.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

seek3r sends news of a recent test of six web application security scanning products, in which the scanners missed an average of 49% of the vulnerabilities known to be on the test sites. Here is a PDF of the report. The irony is that the test pitted each scanner against the public test files of all the scanners. This reader adds, "Is it any wonder that being PCI compliant is meaningless from a security point of view? You can perform a Web app scan, check the box on your PCI audit, and still have the security posture of Swiss cheese on your Web app!" "NTOSpider found over twice as many vulnerabilities as the average competitor having a 94% accuracy rating, with Hailstorm having the second best rating of 62%, but only after extensive training by an expert. Appscan had the second best 'Point and Shoot' rating of 55% and the rest averaged 39%."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

quaith writes "With the Space Shuttle Endeavour scheduled to launch at 4:39 AM EST on Sunday for a trip to the International Space Station, the European Space Agency has released a video that shows how the modules it's carrying — Node-3 ('Tranquility') and Cupola — are going to get attached. Node-3 is a connecting module. Cupola has six trapezoidal windows and circular roof designed to provide a unique vantage-point for observing Earth. The video animations show how the station's robotic arm will be used initially to put the modules in place as a single unit, and then to detach Cupola from the end of Node-3 and reattach it on the Earth-facing side. With this addition, the ISS will start to look like something that Jules Verne would have wanted to visit."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

gjt writes "I initially posted a piece ragging on the Nexus One. But then a commenter pointed out a problem with my initial logic, and after doing some math I concluded that the $529 unlocked/unsubsidized Google Nexus One gPhone is much cheaper than it appears to be. In fact it's only $49 over two years — and that's unlocked! Google likes to say that the Nexus One represents 'Our new approach to buying a mobile phone.' But it actually seems as though T-Mobile deserves most of the credit by providing a $20/month discount to customers who purchase an unsubsidized phone, a fact that didn't seem to get much attention when T-Mobile created the plan last October."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

tcd004 writes "Wilson Bentley began photographing snowflakes in 1885, and managed to immortalize more than 5,000 crystals before his death in 1931. Now his images are widely recognized and highly sought after. At the age of 19, 'Snowflake' Bentley jury-rigged a microscope to a bulky bellows camera and took the first-ever photograph of a snowflake. Photography then, particularly microphotography, was much closer to science than art. In a 1910 article published in the journal Technical World, he wrote, 'Here is a gem bestrewn realm of nature possessing the charm of mystery, of the unknown, sure richly to reward the investigator." The video embedded at the link above touches on another long-forgotten piece of history: a sketch of the photographers who captured arial views of assemblages of tens of thousands of soldiers returning from WW-I, carefully choreographed and arranged to form a Liberty Bell, a Stature of Liberty, a US flag... as forgotten as the origin of the WW-I term razzle-dazzle.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OCatenac passes along an interview with Don Syme, chief designer of F#, which is Microsoft Research's offering for functional programming on the .Net platform. Like Scala, which we discussed last fall, F# aims at being an optimal blend of functional and object-oriented languages. "[Q] What is the best program you've seen written in F#? [A] I've mentioned the samples from F# for Scientists, which are very compelling... For commercial impact then the uses of F# in the finance industry have been very convincing, but probably nothing beats the uses of F# to implement statistical machine learning algorithms as part of the Bing advertisement delivery machinery. ... We've recently really focused on ensuring that programming in F# is simple and intuitive. For example, I greatly enjoyed working with a high-school student who learned F#. After a few days she was accurately modifying a solar system simulator, despite the fact she'd never programmed before. You really learn a lot by watching a student at that stage."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

February’s giveaway has finally come to an end. Within the past five days, we’ve received a shocking 300+ entries, spread over two of the largest social networks; Twitter and Facebook.

This month, there can only be 3 lucky winners.

Are you one of the people fortunate enough to receive a copy of McAfee Total Protection 2010 shipped to your doorstep? Cross your fingers.

Read on to find out who will be enjoying a malware-free 2010.

Congratulations to the winners!

	Melissa Soblotne
	@sefcug
	Danielle Conkle Roesmann

We’ve sent each of you a message to your social inbox. Please reply directly with your shipping address. We’ll follow up again once the copy of McAfee Total Protection 2010 is deployed.

If we don’t hear from you, we’ll assume that you’re not interested. Your prize will then be given to someone else.

So folks, that’s the end of February’s giveaway. We’re planning to organise similar monthly giveaways in the future so don’t despair if you didn’t get it this time around. Meanwhile, check out the available free options that can help you protect your PC from malware.


AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 9.0	avast! Free Antivirus	Avira AntiVir Personal	Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
Download	Download	Download	Download
AVG Free provides you with basic antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows and is available to download for free.	State of the art scanning engine provides reliable protection against viruses, spyware and other forms of malicious software.	Protects your computer against dangerous viruses, worms, Trojans and costly dialers. New: Basic Anti-Spyware.	Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware is an anti-malware application that can thoroughly remove even the most advanced malware.

You might also want to check out the 7 Essential Security Downloads You MUST Have Installed.

Thanks for participating! See you again next month!

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1_ intro_sb44 Commercials. Every time we turn on our televisions we are bombarded with advertisements. Companies devote time, resources, and large amounts of cash into targeting these ads to us – the consumers – in hopes of converting their efforts into profits. Some of us enjoy watching the commercials, sure, but most of the time we try to ignore them, save for those few that actually catch our attention. I suppose that’s why the DVR is so popular, but I digress…

Super Bowl Sunday, however, is a very different story. Millions of people will watch Super Bowl XLIV (#SB44), and many could care less about the outcome of the game. Everyone loves the commercials; and they should, because companies pay top dollar for their 30 seconds in the spotlight. Some of the best ads you’ll see all year are shown during the Super Bowl, which brings me to my point.

You can view the best Super Bowl commercials on the Internet. In this article, I will point you to various sites where you can view past and present Super Bowl adverts online, so get ready to laugh.

CBS

2_cbs

The game is being televised on CBS this year, so that’s a good place to start. They have a page set up for you to watch every 2010 commercial as soon as the game is over. You can sort the list by what quarter of the football game the ad appeared or by advertiser name.

Earlier in the week, CBS had a vote for some of the greatest Super Bowl commercials of the past. You can view the ones that made the top 10 here. They range in years from 2004 to 2009.

YouTube AdBlitz

6_youtubeadblitz

YouTube AdBlitz is a great place where you can watch ads during the game and vote on the ones you like best. When it’s all said and done, the viewers’ top choice will be featured on YouTube’s homepage as the best Super Bowl commercial of 2010.

FanHouse

5_fanhouse

Similar to YouTube, FanHouse will be displaying ads from this year’s Super Bowl. You can watch live and I’m assuming you will be able to vote for your “fan favorite” as well. They also have a page for you to view 2009’s commercials in excellent quality.

SuperBowl-Ads

3_sbadscom

If you are a long time fan of Super Bowl commercials and want to view some of the best ads of all time, SuperBowl-Ads.com is the place to be. They are the only site (that I have found) that has a mass collection of Super Bowl advertisements from 1998 to 2009, and I’m sure after the big game they will add 2010 to the list.

4_meanjoe

The videos are a little small but are of reasonably good quality. They also have 6 of the all-time great ads that go way back, including Mean Joe Green’s infamous Coke commercial (my personal favorite).

Hulu

7_hulu

Hulu has a nice page where you can view all of last year’s commercials in high definition. Hulu started their advertising campaign last year with a Super Bowl commercial starring Alec Baldwin. I think that worked out pretty well for them.

NFL.com

8_nfl09

NFL.com also has a page for viewing all of 2009’s Super Bowl commercials in widescreen, high def format. There’s no telling on whether or not they will be displaying commercials from this year’s game (or when that would be), but I’m sure they will be.

And there you have it, the best places to watch Super Bowl advertisements on the web. That should keep you busy for a while, or at least give you something to show your friends at your Super Bowl party. Hopefully companies will come out with some great commercials this year!

As always, I hope you found these sites useful—and I wish you the best of luck if one of your teams is in the big game this year. Please leave any thoughts, ideas, comments, etc. below!

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msword Change is coming. One thing to look forward to would be the launch of Microsoft Office 2010. Come the middle of this year, the new version of the Office Suite will part the curtains to emerge from the backstage. I have given the Public Beta a miss and am still hashing away at my old Office 2007.

MS Office 2007 has been the workhorse for me and I still depend on it for my writing needs. And there are some extras that I wish I can take with me when the new version finally rolls out. One of these is a useful and free Word add-on called the Document Hyperlink Checker.

Whether it’s drafting a document or sending across a final copy in the DOC format, a regular piece is often not without hyperlinks and references to external sources. The Document Hyperlink Checker as its name suggests does one job alone – it runs through all the hyperlinks in the document and checks up on their correctness.

The free Word 2007 add-on can quickly find suspicious and broken internal links in Microsoft Word documents of any size. That’s important when a manual re-check is wearisome.

For a writer, a preoccupation with correct reference links is important. A broken link or a link which points to the wrong source dumbs down his work. This is where the simple functionality of the Document Hyperlink Checker becomes important in the review phase.

Download & Installation

The free add-on for MS Word 2007 is a 1.3MB download and it installs a new tab on the MS Office Ribbon. The AbleBits tool has a single touch button for the link checker interface.

Hyperlinks-1

The Word Hyperlink Checker add-in is designed for Microsoft Word 2000, 2002, 2003, and Microsoft Word 2007.

A Single Button Checkup For All Links

A press on the Hyperlink checker for Word brings up the interface of the program. The Show All button brings up the entire listing for the links in a document. The total number of links is indicated.

Hyperlinks-2

The Suspicious button filters all the hyperlinks which the program finds problematic (marked with a ?) for some reason. The reason is displayed in the status bar of the add-on.

You can also limit the hyperlink check using the three page range options given.

One useful help for checking the hyperlinks is the easy navigation between the URL listing in the list and the corresponding source in the document.

The Good & The Bad

The add-on is good in the way it catches all the links in a document. But it has a very narrow definition of what a suspicious link is. For instance, a hyperlinked website (written as) Amazon will show up in the suspicious list because the name is capitalized and the URL is not. Written as ‘amazon’, it will pass the test.

The add-on also does not give any means to checkup the link through a browser. For that you have to fall back on Word’s CTRL-CLICK shortcut. A way to correct a broken link in the add-on interface itself is definitely on the wish list.

I believe it’s the only tool that catches the links in a Word document. For this reason alone and minus its shortcomings, it could be helpful when you have a multipage document to deal with and need to run through the links.

Have you used the Document Hyperlink Checker? Do you think it helped you with your hyperlinks?

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Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

Submit Your Web App

Devcheatsheet – is a directory of quick reference cards and free cheat sheets for programmers, developers, engineers and alike. It provides you with cheat sheets pertaining to a wide range of topics like operating systems, security, programming, engineering, applications etc. This website doesn’t actually store the cheat sheets but aggregates them from various sources. Read more: DevCheatSheet: Quick Reference Cards & Cheat Sheets For Developers.

		Avatara – Avatars are supposed to represent you on the web and static images do it pretty poorly. Avatara is a 3d avatar creator that makes it better by letting you create a customized 3D avatar for all your social network profiles. Read more: Avatara: 3D Avatar Creator.

		List-O-Matic – Navigation menus are hard to create if your skills in HTML and CSS are less than excellent. List-O-Matic is a neat lnavigation menu builder that solves this problem by helping you generate CSS style navigation menus without writing any code. Read more: List-O-Matic: CSS Style Navigation Menu Builder.

		StorageFront – StorageFront makes it easy for you to find a local self-storage units by simply entering your address or zip code. It has a database of over 40,000 locations and lets you narrow down your search by amenities such as climate control, 24 hour security, car storage, online bill pay, etc. Read more: StorageFront: Find Self-Storage Units In Your Area.

		FacteryLabs – If you are looking to verify a fact or need to search for few lines of information on a particular topic, then a search results page with links to sources isn’t the quickest way to get that information. You’d rather have the fact right after you hit search, and that’s exactly what FacteryLabs does. Read more: FacteryLabs: Real Time Fact Searching.

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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gtHead If you have a personal blog or a website you will know how important it is to rank high on Google searches. Without ranking high on Google you are missing out on a lot of traffic. By including top ten keywords from Google you have a better chance of showing up in more search results.

Most people think that to have access to this data you need to spend a lot of money on SEO services and analytics. The answer is HELL NO! We can do all of this for free using Google’s own tool called Hot Trends located here. This will give you access not only to the top 20 searched for keywords on Google from today but you can also use it to go back in time (sadly not forward yet!) to view the top twenty keywords for a specific date.

Now if you couple this with a little bit of analytics you can see how these keywords can help you improve your Google traffic. Let us take a look at the site and see how it works.

I started off by visiting Google Hot Trends and I saw this:

gt1

Listed on this page, from the top to the bottom, is first the search trends box. By adding some search keywords and hitting search trends you will see something similar to this:

gt2

This will show you the search volume for your term over a specific length of time or across specific regions. This is great for helping you nail down a search term to associate with your website.

Below that you have today’s date that you can change to view hot trending topics for recent dates or long ago. You do this like so:

gt3

Click on the change date link as shown above and you will then be able to change the date. I changed mine to February 1st 2010 and then saw this:

GT4

Sweet! Now you can add this module as an iGoogle Gadget to your Google homepage by clicking on the iGoogle Gadget button at the top right of the search term boxes next to the RSS link and icon.

When you click on this you will see something that looks similar to this.

gt5

After clicking on the Add to iGoogle button the widget will be added. If you are not logged into Google it will create a temporary page that you might or might not see the next time you log in. So log in first then add the widget. When you are finished, it will look like this:

gt6

And then finally the way I track Google’s hot trends and most popular search terms is by RSS feed (we covered ways to use RSS feeds here). That looks like this:

gt7

Yours may look different depending on what RSS feed reader you use to view the feed. I just clicked the link and allowed it to open in Firefox but you could plug this atom URL into your RSS reader. Clicking on any of the search terms will open a Google search for that specific topic!

Do you use Google Trends on a regular basis? Or do you use another SEO tool? If so, which one do you use?

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Soft Focus is a much sought out effect in photography. You can find it used commonly in glamour shots and to some extent in wedding photography as well. There are special lenses you can use to create the soft focus effect using your cameras. Some modern cameras come with a settings that let you create soft focus effects as well. In any case if any of the above options are unavailable you can easily mimic this effect inside Photoshop (or GIMP for that matter).

First off you need an image. The effect looks good on a wide variety of photos. It can be used just as well in close up shots as in landscape shots. It looks especially great and surreal if you have a good amount of white in your photo in front of a colorful background, but that is just a personal favorite. You can experiment with most photos although an overall dark photo would not be a good candidate unless it is a close up shot done with studio lights.

Open up the photo in Photoshop. Go ahead and duplicate the layer (Ctrl + J). Select the newly created layer. I will be working with the following image from stock xchange.

Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and play along with the radius slider. The actual amount that is good will vary from photo to photo. What you are looking for here is a blur that is evident but doesn’t take away the details from the photo. You can pretty much ignore faces and close up objects while making this decision, because we are going to take care of them in the coming steps.

With the blurred layer active, its time to play with the opacity slider. Again there is no hard and fast rule or a magic value that will do the trick, you have to experiment and go with what pleases the eye. However the general range would be around 50-85ish percent opacity. If you find yourself dropping below 50, you need to reconsider either the photo or the effect you are going for.

So far so good. Things are already looking nice and everything seems set. However, there are a couple of small things you need to look at before you send the master piece for print. First we need to bring back some details. In this case we will be working mainly on the faces, if you are working on a close up shot you might want to concentrate on eyes and lips. In other words if there is anything that you think should not be blurred this is how you would do it:

With the blurred layer active, add a layer mask by clicking on the “Add layer mask” button in the layers palette. Now grab the brush tool (B), choose a round brush, make sure you take the hardness slider all the way down to zero. Now make sure the layer mask is selected (indicated by a rectangle around the mask) and with black as the foreground color, start painting over the faces (eyes or other objects you want to be in focus) in the photo. You will notice details appearing from the layer underneath. (You can also choose different opacity settings for the brush to make this more subtle).

We are almost done here. As a final touch you can bump up the saturation a bit. Hit Ctrl + U to bring up the Hue/Saturation dialog box. Move the saturation slider to the right to make the colors pop. A nice subtle change is what we are looking for. With that done, the photo is now ready. And here are the results:

While I can only show you one of the applications of the soft focus effect it can be used with equally good results to reduce artifacts due to JPEG compression or high ISO setting and better still to hide those wrinkles!

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These are fun enclosures for your iPod or other smartphone. I made a simple one for my G1, and now need to find some driving/biking games to try it out on. It was fun and frustrating to stir the bin in search of just the right part. So often, when kids build with them, they make wildly complex designs that are at times of low structural integrity. Is there any formal LEGO design curriculum out there?

This is a great way to test out your rapid prototyping skills. Once you get a decent iteration, then the hunt is on for a more permanent solution.

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I'm here at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for the launch of STS-130 and the Space Shuttle Endeavour. After a brief spell of heavy rain last evening, the skies cleared, making a perfect backdrop for this morning's retraction of the Rotating Service Structure to reveal Endeavour in all her glory.

Endeavour is scheduled to launch at 4:39am EST Sunday morning, and it will be worth waking up - or staying up - to see. This is the last scheduled night launch of a shuttle. With only five remaining launches, not only are the opportunities to view one dwindling, but experiencing the impressive views of a night launch will be likely gone forever by this time tomorrow. People who live along the eastern coastline have a good chance of viewing the launch from their backyards. If you're further west in the US, why not just stay up a little later with friends and celebrate this milestone in the space program? You'll still have plenty of time to go back to bed and wake up in time for football (if that suits your fancy).

I'll be tweeting from Kennedy Space Center all night long as the launch approaches, and I've been constantly updating pictures over on Flickr. Stay tuned for continued mission coverage over the next week and a half, including an interview with the STS-130 crew member who is a maker at heart.

Pictured at top: This morning's RSS Retraction, revealing Endeavour. Below: A night launch of the shuttle Discovery. Image courtesy NASA.

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Thanks to Extech for giving away all this swag! And it keeps getting better. Not only was the RC100 upgraded to a RC200, but there are TEN of them now, and TEN pen-style multimeters! Hot dog! Still only one EX540, however.

(winners after the jump)

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Matt Cottam at interaction10

Matt Cottam, founder of Tellart, presented Wooden Logic: In Search of Heirloom Electronics at interaction10 yesterday. Here are my running notes on his discussions of sketching with tangible objects, physical interfaces to the iPhone, and heirloom technology.

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From the MAKE Forums:

Forum user LeversFulcrumsLoads has amassed a large quantity of leftover Altoids tins, and is trying to think of something to do with them. Now, we've covered many projects that make use of a single tin, but I can't think of any that called for a whole pile of them. Got some ideas? Chime in on the forum discussion!

It was like stumbling onto something out of National Treasure.
Is there an elegant way of punching holes in the sides without having sharp jaggies surrounding a USB socket?

With literally hundreds of tins, I was thinking on the best use of these (pocket survival kits, minty boosts, recycle, really big LED Throwie's, etc...) but have been overwhelmed by the staggering amount of sugars and fillers ingested in order to stack this cache up. Insights are welcomed. Wow, talk about supporting the U.S. market.

More:

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With 87,000 bar fights a year in the UK, with a combined health care cost of over 2.5 million pounds per year, the British Design Council saw a need for better bar glassware. Design agency DesignBridge stepped up with these concepts. What do you think, readers? How would you redesign the classic pint glass to to make it safer, while keeping it glass? [via Core77]

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This 2007 piece by Vancouver artist Steven Shearer (Wikipedia) is called "Geometric Healing Cell for Youth - Model III." It reminds me of some of my favorite work by Tom Friedman. I love art that challenges our expectations of everyday materials. [via Neatorama]

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Hello Kitty Chainsaw as featured on Hello Kitty Hell.

via Neatorama

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Email, Twitter & Facebook.

Selleck Waterfall Sandwich

via Something Awful

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The Mighty Decider, an iPhone app for The Mighty Boosh that Doc Pop has been working on at Tribal Games, is now available.

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NASA & GM Robotic Technology

NASA and GM Create Cutting Edge Robotic Technology

NASA and General Motors are working together to accelerate development of the next generation of robots and related technologies for use in the automotive and aerospace industries.

Engineers and scientists from NASA and GM worked together through a Space Act Agreement at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to build a new humanoid robot capable of working side by side with people. Using leading edge control, sensor and vision technologies, future robots could assist astronauts during hazardous space missions and help GM build safer cars and plants.

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It seems like every time you turn around there's a team of engineers at Stanford making another autonomous driving system. Meet Shelley . [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exdUD02JryI[/youtube] It's a long way from superintelligent AI, but Shelley is going to climb Pikes Peak at race speeds.

The bloody history of one of football's greatest words.

As a fan of the Buffalo Bills—the only team to go to four Super Bowls in a row, and the only team to lose four in a row—Super Bowl weekend is always a little bittersweet. Did I say “bittersweet”? I meant “as pleasant as a fork in my brain.” The fact that the team hasn’t even made the playoffs in 10 years does little to soothe the pain. Despite my post-traumatic Bills disorder , I do like watching football, and I’ll be glued to the TV like the rest of America on Sunday. But my mind grapes are always on words, and football has plenty of intriguing ones. “Fumble,” “touchdown,” “sack,” and “out with a groin” are all worth a look, but the most interesting history belongs to “blitz,” which entered English through two common venues: other languages and the lingo of war. It all started with the German word “blitzkrieg,” which means “lightning war” and gained fame in the deadliest way possible: the fast and violent air raids of the Nazis. The earliest known English use, captured by the Oxford English Dictionary, is from 1939: “In the opening stage of the war all eyes were turned on Poland, where the German military machine was engaged in Blitz-Krieg...with a view to ending as soon as possible.” “Blitz” was used quickly, and perhaps simultaneously, as an abbreviation/synonym, as evidenced by uses in 1939 and 1940 . Like so many other war words—including “basket case,” “undermine,” “triumph,” “volunteer,” “gung ho,” “skedaddle,” and “fubar”—“blitz” spread from the killing fields to surprising areas. “Blitz” has...

This week we had not one, but two really popular posts and we couldn't decide which one should be Post of the Week, so we've re-capped both: post-of-the-week-neighborhoods-issue

The first: "Help Make Our Next Magazine: The Neighborhood Issue." The post was a call for ideas, suggestions, and discussion surrounding GOOD's upcoming neighborhood-themed issue. Associate Editor Patrick James wrote, "I think the questions of what constitutes a home/community and how we relate to each other feature prominently, as do elements of culture, smallness, and urban/rural development." Already, the suggestions and ideas are piling up. Commenter Justin Massa suggested, "I think it's incredibly important that Good address the issue of residential racial, ethnic, and economic segregation." Some comments rooted for their home neighborhoods, like commenter erokore who wrote, "Gotta get Pittsburgh in this." What would you like to see in our upcoming neighborhood issue? Tell us your ideas and your favorite places in your neighborhood. For more on neighborhoods, check out: Call for Submissions Neighborhood Gems Photo Project, The Case for Local Investing, and Our Changing Elements of Neighborhoods post-of-the-week-book-list

The second: The 15 Books You Must Read in 2010 by Patrick James. In response to several queries about what GOOD staffers were reading, James compiled a list of the top favorites. Among them were Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Daniel J. Levitin's This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession, and Don DeLillo's Point Omega: A Novel. Several commenters recommended their...

Designmatters/Art Center College of Design and GOOD have teamed up to present The Design Revolution Roadshow's stop in Pasadena, CA. Come see Emily Pilloton, share her new book Project H Design: The Book. It will take place on February 8, 2010 from 6 to 10pm on Art Center's Hillside Campus located at 117 Lida Street in Pasadena, CA. The event will include food, drinks, music, books, dialogue, design, humanitarianism, and one vintage Airstream trailer. To learn more, check out Design Revolution Roadshow and join us Monday night! For more design that matters, check out GOOD Design.

The Hurt Locker was good, but will our real soldiers get an award?

The Academy Awards wouldn’t be the same without a dark horse candidate for Picture of the Year. This year’s unexpected hotshot: The Hurt Locker, a thriller of a drama that follows three members of an Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal squad in Iraq. Few military jobs are so dangerous, and the movie does our soldiers great justice in portraying the difficulties they face. Fortunately, Hollywood isn’t the only town picking up on this story. So is Washington. Jerry McNerney, a Democratic Congressman from California, recently introduced legislation that would increase combat and hazardous duty pays. In today's conflicts, our service members deploy several times, spending long periods of time separated from their families, exposed to an unseen and elusive enemy. They more than deserve a few extra bucks. When I arrived in Al-Anbar Province in September 2006, the operational tempo was extremely high. As a Marine I had been trained to expect that, but the pace and amount of direct action with our enemy was still astonishing. I was only there for six weeks before being sent home on a Medevac. Two weeks after I arrived one of our convoy vehicles was hit by an IED. Two weeks after that I was almost blown up by an IED. Two weeks after that I was shot in the head by a sniper. After I was shot, a private nonprofit organization, the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund, paid for my wife’s plane ticket to be with me at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. My family only lived 45 minutes away from...

Are you still looking for a way to help Haiti? Are you in the Los Angeles area? Then read on! Our friends over at CauseCast are hosting Cause on the Rocks at the Viceroy Santa Monica on Tuesday, February 9th, from 7 to 10 p.m. There will be a dynamic mix of cocktails, causes, and cool people on the Viceroy's heated patio. With the pressing need for emergency relief and redevelopment in Haiti, CauseCast has partnered with the Viceroy to support International Medical Corps: Haiti Fund for the entire month of February. International Medical Corps was on the ground in Haiti less than 24 hours after the earthquake struck. Their doctors and nurses are currently performing 30 to 50 surgeries daily in Port-au-Prince, and their mobile medical teams are providing medical care and supplies to under-served areas throughout Haiti. In the long term, International Medical Corps is committed to helping Haiti rebuild its devastated health system. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the Cause On The Rocks' Drink Of The Month will support the critical work of International Medical Corps. CAUSECASE Presents CAUSE ON THE ROCKS: International Medical Corps Tuesday, February 9, 2010 7:00-10:00 p.m. Viceroy Santa Monica, 1819 Ocean Ave. Santa Monica DJ Kid Lightning RSVP to CauseOnTheRocks@causecast.org RSVP on Facebook If you find yourself looking for something to do for Haiti, grab your friends and head on over to the Viceroy Santa Monica on February 9! Don't forget to order the drink of the month, The Strawberry, because 100% of the proceeds will be donated directly to...

And who is he? Senator Richard Shelby. He wants his home state of Alabama to get a $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers and an improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. And he's not going to let any of Obama's nominees for administration jobs get through the Senate until he gets them. So basically 2,000 jobs that require Senate confirmation are going to remain unstaffed until Shelby gets $40 billion for Alabama which, at the going pork-to-campaign-donation exchange rate, probably translates into a few hundred thousand for Shelby personally. In the meantime we're going without judges and department heads and whatnot. Oh, and never mind that Shelby wanted to prohibit this kind of ploy in 2005. This "blanket hold" is legal, according to the rules, but no one's been unreasonable enough to do it before. If you want to know the procedural details, read Ezra Klein's explanation. Matt Yglesias points out a possible silver lining:

I congratulate Shelby on fully exploring the logic of the modern United States Senate. Why, after all, should a great nation of 300 million people have a functioning government if preventing the government from functioning can help a lone Senator advance parochial interests? Why should a Senator act like a statesman when all the objective forces are urging him to act like an unusually pretentious ward heeler? Why hold one nominee when you can hold seven or seventy? Good for him! Now can we change this process? Anyone who’s cleared by committee should be guaranteed a floor vote within some specified short...

Do your self a favor and take a look at this astounding collection of Super Bowl data. You'll get an idea of the massive numbers behind our nation's favorite sporting event. Some highlights:

151.6 million: Number of people who will watch at least part of the game. 8 million: Total pounds of popcorn consumed on Super Bowl Sunday. 28 million: Pounds of potato chips consumed. 53.5 million: Pounds of avocados consumed. 222,792: Number of football fields worth of farmland to grow all that corn, potatoes, and avocados. 1 billion: Number of chicken wings consumed on Super Bowl Sunday. 325.5 million: Gallons of beer drank by Americans that day. 493: Number of Olympic-sized swimming pools that could be filled with all that beer.

That's a lot of everything. Thanks, Alicia.

Pipe Cutter

Can you help me find this tool? It has no number on it. I used to use it on 1/2-inch polypropylene and schedule 40 pipe. It cuts pipe very easily.

-- Garry Shirts

Two models of a 12-story building are tested on a shake table. The one on the right is supported by a base isolation system, which effectively puts a shock-absorbing barrier between the building's foundation and potentially shaky ground. In fact, during the tests, which took place in 2007, this particular base isolation system, called Earthquake Protector, turned out to be many times more effective than any other system then known.

There are three trials on the video. Watch it through to the end for the final fall.

Learn more at the Network for Earthquake Engineering

Thumbnail is a USGS photo taken in San Francisco after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. This is the kind of damage that could cause a building to collapse. Technology like base isolation systems can prevent it.

Gingasquid makes lovely and weird textiles with fairtrade beads, stones, and all manner of stuff. This is her latest, an arm warmer with sewn-on jewelry.

Ginga Squid: ....and more Arm Warmers with Sewn-On Beaded Jewelry (Thanks, Vicky!)

[Photo: Andy Davis for Mahala.]

If you missed this week's nuclear memesplosion of white trash Afrikaans zef-rap Next Level Shit with petite jailbait, Haring-esque wall art, and a Progeria survivor spiritual genius, here is the first BB post, and here is the second. Die Antwoord is the latest of many projects founded by Watkin Tudor Jones (aka "Waddy," aka "Ninja") and his classically-trained partner Yolandi Visser (aka "Yo-landi Vi$$er"). Today, Phillip de Wet of the South African newspaper The Daily Maverick emailed me,

Embarrassingly enough, you turned me onto these guys. As you did with plenty of other people. Does that make their next phase partially your creation? Anyway, that's why I thought I should point you to this piece we published a couple of minutes ago. It's partially a report on Die Antwoord's gig last night, and partially an examination on how their online fame doesn't mean much in the real world. Not yet, anyway. On behalf of many new fans, thanks for plucking them out of obscurity.

Here's a snip from Phillip's article, which is an awesome read—as is their previous coverage of Die Antwoord and related projects, published long before any Boing Boing mentions.

"Something fucking strange has fucking happened," Jones tells the crowd in Durbanville, explaining that the group's server (which hosts its entire upcoming album free for the listening) had served more than a terabyte of data in the previous two days. "If it was a Souf Efrican server I'd have to sell my father, sell my mother's house," he says, in reference to the high price of bandwidth in South Africa.
The group won't be bearing the cost of its sudden popularity; that is being taken care of by companies like Google. Its music videos are streamed by Google-owned YouTube, and most of the discussion about it happens on Facebook and Twitter or third-party blogs and news websites. Its own server is hosted in the USA, the land of milk and honey and bandwidth so cheap it's nearly free. Its demo CDs are created on a home computer at a price that can be measured in cents per unit, and even its very slick and highly stylised videos were made for next to nothing.
But neither is the group making any money out of the phenomenon. All its music is free for the taking and it has no merchandise to sell. It runs no advertising on its website, and doesn't get a cut of whatever revenues Facebook or Google generate. While millions of people were enjoying their music, they were splitting the door take at the house. At a couple of thousand rands a piece for a couple of hours work that is money many starving artists wouldn't sneer at, but it's hardly the big time.

Die Antwoord pays its dues for the last time, but Internet fame isn't cold, hard cash (The Daily Maverick, and thanks again for turning BB on to the whole thing, Clayton)

Related: more coverage at Mahala. "Die fokken Antwoord is," and earlier, "15 Minutes with a NINJA" and "Max Doesn't Live Here Anymore." Images in this post courtesy of Mahala.

Previously:

Die Antwoord, S. African zef-rap, and Progeria survivor Leon Botha ...

Afrikaans rap-rave: Die Antwoord, "Zef Side [Beat Boy]"

Mark usually has Boing Boing's ukelele beat covered, and Lisa's our go-to Japan expert. But neither of those guys are blogging today, so here goes. U900, "Diamond Head" Japanese Ukulele Duo! Features a crocheted bear and a bunny on a beach, and is the very definition of kawaii. They has a myspace, too. (thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

Update: Mark previously blogged an earlier video from these cuties, "Walk, Don't Run."

Hayyyyyy. How'd Pedobear get into the mascot lineup for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in this highly esteemed Polish newspaper (hi-res scan JPEG)? Who cares! Buzzfeed article, and more here about the pedoshop disaster. Anything's possible on the internet, maybe the whole thing's a hoax, but it looks like this /b/eautiful art really did get published in Poland. (via @veronica, @jpdef)

Previously:

Vancouver 2010 Olympic mascots include a Sasquatch

They fight with felt tips, and do battle with ball points.

They... are Hong Kong's competitive pen spinners.

I had no idea this subculture existed beyond the brio-spinning guy who sat in the back of my high school Trig class. But, yup, they're out there.

My pal Yunida recently attended a pen spinning rumble, put together to determine the Hong Kong representative for the Pen Spinning World Tournament.

About 100 contestants were judged on the style, difficulty, creativity, and fluidity of their pen spinning... and they twirled their way though a mind-boggling range of pen tricks with names like "Infinity" and "Sonic."

Big congrats and best of luck to 14-year old Eugene Wong. The Hong Kong 2010 champ will represent the territory for the world title next year.

But the Hong Kong Pen Spinning Association Chairman keeps it all in perspective. "I don't think we should put too much emphasis on ranking," he says. "The most important thing is we are working towards our dream."

And why not? It is the only weapon on earth (dramatic pause)... mightier than the sword.

I'm looking for a PHP expert in Atlanta who would be able to help me
with some custom webform's that need to read and update records in a
MySQL database. If you are able to assist please email me directly at
bryan . garmon @ gmail . com

Anne and I got to go see The Pee Wee Herman show last night. It was phenomenal, and I realized about 20 minutes into the show that I was sitting on the edge of my seat, grinning and jumping around like a little kid ... because that's pretty much how I used to watch Pee Wee's Playhouse.

After the show, we were fortunate enough to listen to Paul Reubens do a Q&A with about 100 people. As much as I loved the show, I would go back every night just to listen to him talk about acting, writing, comedy, and performing.

I asked a question about the scene in Pee Wee's Big Adventure that I talked about on RFB #19. I wanted to know if he improvised that, or if it was all in the script, and hoped that he would just talk about it a little bit, because I think that it's one of the most hilarious, perfect, subtle comedic acting performances I've ever seen.

He said that it was all in the script, confirmed that it was tremendously fun to do, and then told us how he did a show at the Groundlings a few years ago where he used that scene as inspiration. The show was a fake actor's showcase, where all the performers did actual scenes, but they did them the way really bad actors would do them. (The thing about showcases is that actors hope casting people to come see and hire them, but they never do. The audience ends up being friends and family - the same ones who have suffered through all the other showcases you've done - and it's all a little bit depressing.) The only catch was that, to be in the show, you couldn't do the same bad acting bit that someone else was doing. This was a tall order, because the were some extraordinarily talented comedic actors in the show. Paul said that he and Lynne Marie Stewart (Miss Yvonne) did an actual scene from an actual play, and he made the bad acting choice to mouth every single word of dialog she said, just like he did in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. He said that it was the only time in his career that he had to focus and concentrate really hard, so he wouldn't break and end up laughing.

Anne and I also got to meet him very briefly, and I talked with him for about 90 seconds, before I realized we were holding up the other people who wanted to meet him. He was incredibly gracious, humble, and kind. When I thanked him for providing me with a lifetime of joy, he thanked me back, and I could tell that he meant it, and I kind of wanted to hug him.

But all of that isn't the reason I wrote this post. The reason I wrote this post is to share with you a video he mentioned after the show. In a discussion about Jim Nabors and Charo, he told us to go to YouTube when we got home, and search for Charo doing Love Will Keep Us Together. He said it would change our lives.

Well, he was right, and now it is my great honor to change your lives. (You know, paying it forward and all).

Thank you, Pee Wee Herman, for a great show, a lifetime of joy, and changing my life through the magic of Charo.

"No win? I won!" That's what these palindromic also-rans can say now that they've been honored with an Honorable Mention for their entries in Derby #131: Palindromes...

Taco Cat. by omnitarian
Their burritos are pretty good, as long as you stick to the ones without meat.

Star Rats by taninniver
Long after we're gone, they'll be fighting the cockroaches for what's left of the universe.

Stack Cats by jasneko
Herding cats has never been easier.

No Garden, One Dragon by Misskari
God help you if you forget to water it.

Panda Had Nap by sokowa
This is why I never fall asleep at panda parties.

DEMON NOM ED by grrlmarvel
With all the stars and rainbows, you never suspect a thing - until you're nommed.

I'm, Alas, A Salami by theinfinityloop
That stoic look of acceptance says it all.

Yo! Banana Boy! by capedcrusader514
So that's what the B in "B-Boy" stands for.

Puff Up by ricecupcake
Hope they reach their destination before they have to exhale.

Draw, O coward by walmazan
Little does he know you're packing one of those big pink erasers.

Part of U.S. is UFO trap. by tgentry
Here, alien, alien... here's a nice cow for you to mutilate...

You'll be seeing these again in our next Double-Take Derby. And there are plenty of new designs for you to love or hate in our current Derby. But be warned: unlike these HMs, those entries only go one way.

Don't forget: while you look forward to another carefree weekend, our lowest-selling shirts are nervously awaiting their final judgment. You can follow the action, such as it is, on the Reckoning page. That also happens to be where you can see - and buy - all of our available shirts. But we wouldn't dare sully this solemn occasion with thoughts of commerce.

Because Even Punks Need Hearts

2nd place in Derby #132: Heart, with 845 votes!

OK, Mr. Tinman, let’s open you up and take a look. Aw yeah, what you got here is, you got the auxiliary intake valve clogged with all kindsa gunk here. That’s probably why you’ve been so short of breath lately. Dizzy spells, you said? Yeah, that’d explain it. If that was the main intake, you’d be scrap metal by now.

But don’t worry, you’ll be feeling emotions again in no time. Just lemme… all right… there you go, you should be all set. You know, you’re lucky to have good friends telling you to come get this checked out. Most of the sparrows I know can’t even talk.

Wear this shirt: to show the surgeons where to put the transplant.

Don’t wear this shirt: with your iron top hat, your diesel armor bodice, your welder’s goggles, and your WWI British infantryman’s boots. T-shirts aren’t period enough.

This shirt tells the world: “Good night, Barney Clark, wherever you are.”

We call this color: Heart A-black.

Design Placement: Centered

Design Size:
3X – S: 15” x 18.95”
WXL - WS: 11.25” x 14.21”
K12 - K4: 9” x 11.37”

Pantone Colors: 7528C – Warm Gray 11C – 411C – 7510C – 478C – 440C

Please check our sizing chart before you order. The Woot Tee follows a classic closer-fitting style. If you prefer a baggier look, order a larger size. If there is not a larger size, consider starting a belly-hanging-out trend.

Discuss this product

Price: $10.00

I want one!

This week’s Workspace of the Week is ハク’s tech-heavy setup:

Three monitors and the numerous other pieces of hardware on this desk could easily be a disorganized nightmare, but ハク has assembled this gear into a techie’s chaos-free dream space. There are multiple images in our pool of the desk. What’s most incredible to me is that on the back side of one of the shelves is a homemade light box to photograph small figurines — it’s not a mess of cables on the back side of the desk, it’s functional space! (The cable management on this desk is pristine.) And, under the desk is a media storage shelf occupying space that is behind where legs hit but would otherwise be a useless void. I am truly impressed with ハク’s workspace.

Want to have your own workspace featured in Workspace of the Week? Submit a picture to the Unclutterer flickr pool. Check it out because we have a nice little community brewing there. Also, don’t forget that workspaces aren’t just desks. If you’re a cook, it’s a kitchen; if you’re a carpenter, it’s your workbench.

Reader Anonymous submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

I am hoping that you can give my brother and I some advice. Our mom is getting worse each year and refuses to believe she has a problem. In addition to her bringing other people’s garbage into the house, she also has a number of cats who use the house as one large litter box. When my brother and I attempt to clean, she yells and screams, and takes the rubbish back in when we put it out for the garbage truck. Unless we physically rent a truck to take it to the dump ourselves, it never leaves the house. We are so worried because it’s getting worse and she is approaching 70 and are at our wit’s end. She won’t go to counseling and when we clean anything it just gets disgusting again. There is food rotting as she doesn’t have a working fridge anymore and when she buys food she forgets about it and it gets compacted with stuff she puts on top of it. The piles of garbage are growing and we can barely get the front door open now. We have threatened not to come and visit and she said fine don’t. Nothing seems to work or get through to her. What can we do as we don’t want to see her die in this. Please, can you help us? Please don’t publish my name.

Only a doctor can give an official diagnosis as someone being a hoarder, but, since your mother is refusing to seek treatment at this point, that diagnosis is going to be difficult to acquire. I think that you will be okay if you function under the assumption that she is one, however, as it definitely won’t hurt her or you if you do.

Hoarding is a psychological illness. Your mother is not a bad person or a bad homemaker, she’s suffering from a mental health condition similar to obsessive-compulsive disorder or clinical depression. As much as she doesn’t want treatment for her condition, she desperately needs it. You and your brother can clean her house a million times, but it will always return to its current state if she does not get the medical care she needs. Cleaning her house against her will might also lead to her cutting off communication with you — and that is not something you want to happen. Keeping the lines open with your mother is extremely important.

Start by learning as much as you can about hoarding. There are many resources available to those who love and care about people who suffer from this condition. The Children of Hoarders website may be specifically helpful to you, and I recommend checking out their resources section.

Unless you believe your mother is endangering herself or others, you cannot force help upon her or commit her against her will to a mental health facility. Nagging, negative and judgmental statements, and disrespecting her stuff will only exacerbate her hoarding behavior. Learn as much as you can about her condition, be supportive and encouraging, and find non-threatening ways to encourage her to seek help. Best case scenario: She decides to seek treatment and finds a healthy way to live with her condition in a safe home environment.

Thank you, Anonymous, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. My thoughts are with you and your family. It is admirable that you and your brother are worried and care so much about your mother.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

woneill: @douglasknudsen Was tempted to RT this just for fun :)

woneill: Leo Getz was right. Just got f*d at the drive-thru. #fb

donttrythis: @StrikeFear13 Not true! we're filming right now. Okay not right RIGHT now, but in a few minutes. swear.

Point and click your way to a better relationshipRelationships are difficult. He wants her to stop nagging. She wants him to take out the damn garbage before it stinks up the house. Wouldn't it be great if you could just press a button and have it FIXED? Now you can! $6.99

Serious light output from a compact, sculpted aluminum body LED flashlightTiny, rugged and powerful flashlight of sculpted aluminum fits snugly in your hand and never gets too hot, even when it's cranking out 100 lumens. Way better than a magic missile for attacking the darkness. $34.99 - $44.99

Rackspace has been recognized as A Best Company to Work for in Texas, coming in at #30 in the Large Companies category. The honor comes from the Texas Association of Business (TAB), the Texas State Council of the Society for Human Resources Management (TSC-SHRM) and Best Companies group. The 2010 list names companies with best practices among Texas employers and was created to recognize the best employers in the state – the ones who make it a priority to create better workplaces for their employees.

Each day, Rackspace reaffirms its commitment to building a culture of service, one in which Rackers come to work and volunteer their best each day. Recognitions such as this confirm our mission to become the world’s greatest service company.

Racker Kathy Kersten was at the awards ceremony, held in Austin TX and had this to say, “It is exciting to see Rackspace listed as one of the Best Companies to Work for in Texas. We made the list because Rackers believe that this is an awesome place to work, and that is a really cool feeling.” Kersten goes on to say, “Rackers know that our culture and company is special and it is fun to know that other Texans will recognize this distinction as well! Go Rackers!”

To read the full story on Rackspace and all companies recognized, check out the February edition of Texas Monthly.

News, reviews, interviews and tutorials for film, video and audio professionals in the production and post-production communities!

Click Here: Read Full Post and Comments

Unlike most other unsightly first aid kits that you need to stash away under the counter, this heavy-duty and highly visible first aid box is stylish enough to leave out in the open, where it can easily be found during emergencies!

Click Here: Read Full Post and Comments

Stunning bouquet of massive roses grown in a special volcanic region in Ecuador where the native soil, extended sunlight hours and cool night temperatures allow them to achieve heights of 5-6 feet tall and 3-4 inch blooms!

Click Here: Read Full Post and Comments

January 26th, 2010 marked the 60th anniversary of India's adoption of the Constitution of India, and the 80th anniversary of its original 1930 Declaration of Independence from British rule. The annual holiday is celebrated as Republic Day, with a grand parade held in the capital, New Delhi, and many other celebrations across the diverse nation. Collected here are a number of photographs from the Republic Day celebrations and many more colorful glimpses of daily life from all around India. (40 photos total)

Indian soldiers march during the Indian Republic Day parade in New Delhi on January 26, 2010. Blanket fog obscured the start of India's 60th Republic Day celebrations, with the annual military parade in New Delhi held under heightened security due to fears of militant attacks. (PEDRO UGARTE/AFP/Getty Images)

eldavojohn writes "The National Institute for Standards and Technology has unveiled a new clock that will 'neither gain nor lose one second in about 3.7 billion years,' making it an atomic clock twice as precise as the previous pacesetter, which was based on mercury atoms. Experts call it a 'milestone for atomic clocks.' The press release describes the workings: 'The logic clock is based on a single aluminum ion (electrically charged atom) trapped by electric fields and vibrating at ultraviolet light frequencies, which are 100,000 times higher than microwave frequencies used in NIST-F1 and other similar time standards around the world.' This makes the aluminum ion clock a contender to replace the standard cesium fountain clock (within 1 second in about 100 million years) as NIST's standard. For those of you asking 'So what?' the article describes the important applications such a device holds: 'The extreme precision offered by optical clocks is already providing record measurements of possible changes in the fundamental "constants" of nature, a line of inquiry that has important implications for cosmology and tests of the laws of physics, such as Einstein's theories of special and general relativity. Next-generation clocks might lead to new types of gravity sensors for exploring underground natural resources and fundamental studies of the Earth. Other possible applications may include ultra-precise autonomous navigation, such as landing planes by GPS.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ian Lamont writes "Suspicions about China slipping eavesdropping technology into computer exports have been around for years. But the recent spying attacks, attributed to China, on Google and other Internet companies have revived the hardware spying concerns. An IT World blogger suggests the gear can't be trusted, noting that it wouldn't be hard to add security holes to the firmware of Chinese-made USB memory sticks, computers, hard drives, and cameras. He also implies that running automatic checks for data of interest in the compromised gear would not be difficult." The blog post mentions Ken Thompson's admission in 1983 that he had put a backdoor into the Unix C compiler; he laid out the details in the 1983 Turing Award lecture, Reflections On Trusting Trust: "The moral is obvious. You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code. In demonstrating the possibility of this kind of attack, I picked on the C compiler. I could have picked on any program-handling program such as an assembler, a loader, or even hardware microcode. As the level of program gets lower, these bugs will be harder and harder to detect. A well installed microcode bug will be almost impossible to detect."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Holy crap, the next Patch Tuesday is going to be major.

# Bulletin 1: Critical (Remote Code Execution), Windows
# Bulletin 2: Critical (Remote Code Execution), Windows
# Bulletin 3: Critical (Remote Code Execution), Windows
# Bulletin 4: Critical (Remote Code Execution), Windows
# Bulletin 5: Critical (Remote Code Execution), Windows
# Bulletin 6: Important (Remote Code Execution), Office
# Bulletin 7: Important (Remote Code Execution), Office
# Bulletin 8: Important (Remote Code Execution), Windows
# Bulletin 9: Important (Denial of Service), Windows
# Bulletin 10: Important (Elevation of Privilege), Windows
# Bulletin 11: Important (Remote Code Execution), Windows
# Bulletin 12: Important (Denial of Service), Windows
# Bulletin 13: Moderate (Elevation of Privilege), Windows

--
Link (Direct) - Link (Reputation Tracking) - Discuss [1] - Reply - Recommend

donberryman writes "Apple has told a software developer that its application cannot be included in the iPhone App Store if it mentions Google Android. The developer just wanted to mention that the app was a finalist in Google's Android Developer's Challenge." The developer complied with apparent good humor. Here is their blog post, which includes the text of the iPhone store's not-quite-rejection.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

itwbennett writes "Giving no explanation beyond that it 'will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community,' Microsoft's General Manager for Xbox Live, Mark Whitten, announced that as of April 15th, Microsoft will be shutting down its Xbox Live service for the original Xbox and its games. 'Cold comfort for those of you who still enjoy playing Xbox titles like Halo 2 with your friends,' writes blogger Peter Smith. But Smith notes that Whitten's announcement does hint at some form of restitution for those affected, encouraging users to check their LIVE messages for more details and opportunities."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DariusD writes "Last summer, Wired writer Evan Ratliff wrote a story about how people erase their identities and start over. After it ran, he tried to disappear — spending 25 days on the lam until a few enterprising Wired readers tracked him down through some brilliant hacking and sleuthing. Now we're going to try the experiment again. Evan, Wired, Loneshark Games and I are working with Universal Pictures to do another, similar contest connected to the new film Repo Men, and this time we want you to go on the run. We need four applicants willing to disappear from their lives from late February to late March. If they can stay hidden for that time period, they'll end up with $10,000 each."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scifi83 writes "A team of researchers at the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS) has filled the trunk of an Audi TTS with computers and GPS receivers, transforming it into a vehicle that drives itself. The car will attempt Pikes Peak without a driver at race speeds, something that's never been done."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jkinney3 writes to mention that DARPA's mad scientists have undertaken a new program designed to create synthetic organisms, complete with a "kill switch." The project, dubbed BioDesign, is dumping $6 million into "removing the randomness of evolutionary advancement" by creating genetically engineered masterpieces. "Of course, Darpa's got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work — so they'll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create 'tamper proof' cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, 'similar to a serial number on a handgun.' And if that doesn't work, don't worry. In case Darpa's plan somehow goes horribly awry, they're also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "You know something big must be afoot when people start to get worked up over video compression standards. Basically, the issue is whether the current de facto standard, H.264, will continue to dominate this field, and if not, what might take over." Related, reader eihab writes "Nuanti, a company that develops Web browsing technologies, has produced a high-performance Ogg Theora decoder for Microsoft's Silverlight browser plugin. Nuanti's Highgate Media Suite will enable support for standards-based HTML5 video streaming with Theora in browsers that have Silverlight. It works entirely without requiring the users to install any additional software."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

suraj.sun writes to tell us that the FBI is pushing to have ISPs keep detailed records of what web sites customers have visited for up to two years. Claiming a desire to combat "child pornography and other serious crimes," the FBI and others are pressing for increased data retention, which they have been doing since as early as 2006. "If logs of Web sites visited began to be kept, they would be available only to local, state, and federal police with legal authorization such as a subpoena or search warrant. What remains unclear are the details of what the FBI is proposing. The possibilities include requiring an Internet provider to log the Internet protocol (IP) address of a Web site visited, or the domain name such as cnet.com, a host name such as news.cnet.com, or the actual URL such as http://reviews.cnet.com/Music/2001-6450_7-0.html. While the first three categories could be logged without doing deep packet inspection, the fourth category would require it. That could run up against opposition in Congress, which lambasted the concept in a series of hearings in 2008, causing the demise of a company, NebuAd, which pioneered it inside the United States."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MikeChino writes "A physicist at Tohoku University in Japan has figured out how to teleport energy from one point in the universe to another. The technique is based upon prior research that shows it's possible to teleport information from one location to another, and involves making a measurement on each [of] an entangled pair of particles. The measurement on the first particle injects quantum energy into the system, and then by carefully choosing the measurement to do so on the second particle, it is possible to extract the original energy. Heady stuff, but essentially it means that you can inject energy at one point in the universe and extract it from somewhere else without changing the energy of the system as a whole."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alphadogg writes to tell us that the Internet Engineering Task Force has decided to document the successes and failures of past standards and the reasons why. The hope is that lessons learned can influence future decisions. "Grading the success of the IETF standards can also serve several other functions, Crocker pointed out. It could help working groups focus their thinking on how their standards may get implemented, acting in effect a bit like a report card. A secondary benefit of the wiki is that it could serve as an aid in public relations, a place for the standards body to tout its successes. This is not the IETF's first foray into deriving lessons learned from its own work, Housley said. In 2007, Microsoft software architect Dave Thaler gave a talk at the IETF 70 meeting, held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in which he outlined some of the factors that make a protocol a success."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Several readers have told us that the Indian Government is moving to establish its own group to address the science of climate change since it "cannot rely" on the official United Nations panel. "The move is a severe blow to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) following the revelation parts of its 3000 page 2007 report on climate science was not subjected to peer review. A primary claim of the report was the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035, but the claim was not repeated in any peer-reviewed studies and rebuffed by scientists. India's environment minister Jairam Ramesh announced that the Indian government will established a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor climate change in the region. 'There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism,' Ramesh said. 'I am for climate science.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

uneuser writes "Digitizor reports that the Ubuntu developers have dropped OpenOffice from the default installation of Ubuntu Netbook Edition (UNE) 10.04 and replaced it with Google Docs. Documents in Ubuntu Netbook Edition will now be opened in Google Docs by default."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

darthcamaro writes "In 2007, Red Hat launched the Red Hat Exchange (RHX) — an appstore, if you will, of open source partner applications sold from a Red Hat website. Sounds like a good idea, right? While an appstore works well for Apple, turns out that an appstore for open source (from a Linux vendor) isn't such a good idea. 'When we came out with RHX we were hoping for more ambitious adoption but we've learned that selling third-party applications via a marketplace is challenging,' Mike Evans, Red Hat's vice president of corporate development said. 'When you've got marketplaces that offer buyers the choice of buying in the marketplace or directly from the vendor themselves, which is what our marketplace was, there isn't a real efficient marketplace.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

eldavojohn writes "Microsoft is due for a very large patch this month, in which five critical holes (that render Windows hijackable by an intruder) are due to be fixed, in addition to twenty other problems. The biggest change addresses a 17-year-old bug dating back to the days of DOS, discovered in January by their BFF Google. The patch should roll out February 9th."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Re: Samba Remote Zero-Day Exploit

Secunia Research: libmikmod Module Parsing Vulnerabilities

Re: [Webappsec] Paper: Weaning the Web off of Session Cookies

[ MDVSA-2010:033 ] squid

Sendmail check_relay Access Bypassing Vulnerability

Squid Header-Only Packets Remote Denial of Service Vulnerability

Oracle WebLogic Server Node Manager 'beasvc.exe' Remote Command Execution Vulnerability

Amazon has just restored the buy button for Priceless and at least some other Macmillan titles. I checked Wolf Hall and my own Macmillan-imprint books. It appears the "strike" (lockout, whatever) lasted exactly one week.

Each year, Vogue and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) sponsor a Fashion Fund to support emerging designers. In 2009, each participating designer was asked to create a one-of-a-kind item inspired by Google in some way — whether through our logo's colors, technology or our commitment to equal access to information. Last October, we transformed 10 of the finalists’ designs into iGoogle Artists themes. While we loved seeing fashion meet iGoogle, we wanted to see these pieces in person — and wear them! Today, we’re debuting three of our favorite designs from this challenge. These three featured designers have customized their original designs for a broader audience, and we’re making them available to the public to purchase for a limited time. Check out this page to learn more about the items, the designers and how they were inspired by Google.

Posted by Michaela Prescott, Group Product Marketing Manager

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label "Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Developments over the last couple weeks really showcase how Google's other innovation focus areas — including Search, Mobile and Chrome — help make Google Apps even more useful.

Updates to Google Search in Gmail Labs
On Tuesday we made some helpful changes to the Google Search feature in Gmail Labs. The search gadget now runs some of Google's most popular search features, like dictionary definitions, spelling suggestions, calculations, local results, weather info and news. You don't even need to type your search query anymore; just highlight text in the compose area and click the multicolored "g" button to run a search on those terms.

Gmail Chrome extensions
Several convenient extensions for Gmail are now available to Chrome users. The "Google Mail" extension adds a small button next to Chrome's address bar that displays your unread mail count. "Send from Gmail" makes Gmail your default mail program, and opens a Gmail compose window when you click an email link on a web page. The button for this extension helps you quickly share the web page you're viewing over email.

Easier file location in Google Docs
Last week we introduced a pair of improvements to make finding files in Google Docs easier. First, we launched an option to show file thumbnails in your Documents List, which is great for quickly spotting what you're looking for. Just click the view option buttons in the toolbar to toggle between thumbnails and the standard text layout.

Also released last week: search spelling suggestions help you find the file you're looking for, even when your typing is off. The Google Docs search spell checker is powered by the same technology that helps you get better search results on google.com.

Scripts for Google Apps Standard Edition
At the end of last week we launched application scripting for Google Apps Standard Edition. (Before it was only available to businesses and schools using Premier and Education Editions.) Scripts can be triggered from spreadsheets to perform automated tasks and calculations, but scripts go far beyond spreadsheets; they can be used to fire off automated email messages, create appointments in Google Calendar and accomplish other actions across the whole Google Apps suite. We've written up a few script tutorials if you have the itch to give scripting a try.

Mobile device management
Just yesterday, Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers got a boost in their ability to manage mobile devices synced with Google Apps. Right from the online control panel, IT admins can remotely wipe data from lost or stolen mobile phones, configure devices to lock after a period of inactivity and set password strength requirements. These new capabilities are available for iPhones, Windows Mobile devices and Nokia E-series phones. Stay tuned for similar features for Android devices.

Who's gone Google?
It's been another very active couple weeks helping more businesses and schools move to the cloud. The team is happy to welcome the latest crop of Google Apps customers, including Complinet, The Open University, Villanova University, Small World Financial Services, Tuskegee University, Clemson University and the New Zealand Post.

Saline Area Schools in Michigan has an especially impressive "gone Google" story. They're saving $400,000 in the first year, spending much less time on server administration, keeping spam at bay and fostering better collaboration among faculty.

Fairchild Semiconductor also recounted their experience switching 6,000 employees spread across 20 countries off their legacy Lotus Notes installation, selecting Google Apps and Postini over hosted email alternatives from Microsoft and IBM. Barry Driscoll, Senior Director of IT for Fairchild summed it up best: "Now we are providing our employees with a lot more functionality for a lot less money."

Hope you're enjoying the latest round of new capabilities, whether you're using Google Apps with friends and family, with work colleagues, or with classmates. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs weekly. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

In addition to language improvements this week, we released several other new features:

Haitian Creole translation
We've now added Haitian Creole (kreyòl ayisyen) translation to Google Translate, so that you can translate between Creole and 51 other languages, and also hear spoken versions of Creole translations. While this translation system is still evolving (when translating to/from Creole, English performs better than other languages), we hope it will help relief volunteers communicate better with Haitian earthquake victims, and serve as a useful resource for people in Haiti and elsewhere. To learn more about ways you can help with Haiti relief efforts, please visit our Crisis Response page.

Example translations: [Kijan ou ye ?] and [How can I help you?]

Improvement for Arabic searches
Sometimes when people conduct a search, they forget to separate words with spaces or mistakenly repeat a letter within a word. These types of errors are much more common in languages like Arabic, where some letters are considered word breaks. In other words, if the last letter of one word is a word break, the following word may not be separated with a space. To address issues like this, we recently developed a search ranking improvement that targets certain Arabic queries. Our algorithm employs rules of Arabic spelling and grammar and signals from historical search data to indicate when to leave out spaces between words or when to remove unnecessarily repeated letters. Now, when you type a query leaving out spaces or repeating a letter, you'll see better results based not only on what you typed, but also on what our algorithm understands is the "correct" query.

Example search: [التربيةوالتعلييم] Incorrectly typed, this Arabic query may not produce a relevant search result. With our algorithm change, the query returns better results for the correct meaning: "Ministry of Education."

Doodle 4 Google
This week marks our third annual Doodle 4 Google contest in the U.S. The competition gives K-12 kids the opportunity to design their own Google logo and the winner appears on Google.com for a day so that hundreds of millions of searchers can enjoy it as well. In addition to the bragging rights, there are a number of great prizes including a college scholarship and computer's for the winner's school. If you or your child are interested in getting involved, check out our announcement or visit the Doodle 4 Google contest page for entry rules.

Stars in Google News
A couple of months back, we launched the Custom Sections Directory feature in Google News, enabling you to setup and share sections on topics of interest. Now there's an even easier way to keep up to date with particular news stories. Mark a story cluster by clicking on the star next to it — just like you do with messages in Gmail and items in Google Reader. Once you've starred a story in Google News, when there are significant updates, we'll alert you by putting the headline in boldface. You can also follow your most recent starred stories in the Starred section of Google News. Learn more about this, and get starring!

Thanks for following news of our search enhancements, and stay tuned for more.

Posted by Ben Gomes, Distinguished Engineer

May 27, 2010

This post has been generated by Page2RSS

Valentines that go straight to my heart <3

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1220037_colour_pencils I’ve always wanted to learn how to draw. It’s standing right next to learning C++ and playing the cello in Procrastination alley. It’s not that I’m a total failure at drawing, I’ve just never dedicated myself to it, or left behind the childish doodles that are weak imitations of your favorite comic books.

Like a lot of you, drawing has become a ‘what if’. What if I gave it a little more of my time and dedication? What if I were to take lessons? But life is busy, and surprise, lessons take too much time. So sitting in that dreadful drawing class is no option. But why should that conclude your options? The Internet, with just a bare minimum of time and dedication, can give you everything you need to learn how to draw.

In the free programmes, you’ll miss out on those treasured personal pointers, but all the knowledge is still right there!

DrawSpace – How to Learn How To Draw Technical and Realistically

We’re going to pass right by the amateuristic cacophony of tutorials that make up your initial expectations of online drawing classes. I reckon you don’t want to know how Bill draws the hands or what a cute kitten Sandra has doodled.

In three words, DrawSpace is professional, extensive and realistic. Not to mention incredible. This site teaches you how to make realistic drawings. With hundreds of amazing drawing lessons, you’ll be on your way to become the human camera.

how to learn how to draw

As you can see in the screenshot above, and again below, the lessons gradually increase in difficulty. You’ll first focus on shapes, before going continuing to study the lines, shading and coloring. Although a lot of people don’t prefer this much realism in drawings, there’s far more to it than just ‘copying’ it. There’s an incredible amount of skill involved in being able to draw what you see, or want to see. Once you’ve got a sufficient knowledge base, you can start giving your own spin to your work.

how to learn how to draw

Although you will need to register to view the lessons, there’s no more to it than that. You’ll have to pay for an upgrade if you want download and printing privileges, but that’ll be hardly a botter for most people.

how to learn how to draw

As you can see above, the lessons use Macromedia FlashPaper. Blame the blurred text on the unimpressive copyright notice that shows at the bottom of every page.

This incredible application allows you to browse the document, and zoom in on the details you deem important. As said before, you’ll only be able to follow these lessons online, but Macromedia FlashPaper makes this a small pain.

For the above reasons, DrawSpace stands out as the most incredible online source of technical drawing lessons. In some of the following articles, we’ll take a look at other kinds of drawing sites, including the comic and manga styles, and interesting sites to show and be judged on your work.

Do you know any other great drawing sites? Let us know all about them in the comments section below!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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What is the most cluttered place in your computer? For me (and most of my friends), it’s the desktop. Everything goes there before they are sorted out to their destined location. The problem is, there’s no such thing as “sorting out time” (at least not for me). So, my desktop’s practically a pigsty.

And there’s another problem. Desktop is also the first and the last place that you will see (and maybe the most visited place) on your computer. I think I know now what most parents who live with their teenage boys must feel.

My temporary, non-elegant solution to Mac desktop customization was to create another folder on my computer to take over Desktop’s job. The result: my desktop got cleaner, but it’s also deserted and useless.

Let’s get Bumpy

Then I ran into a Mac desktop customization application called BumpTop that might solve the desktop dilemma. It’s originally a Windows-only app, but the developer just released the Mac version with support for Mac-specific features such as Expose, QuickLook and also Multitouch Gestures (the last is for Pro version only).

Out of curiosity, I installed the app.

mac desktop customization

I ran the Mac desktop customization app and it quickly transformed my desktop into a three dimensional room with walls and a floor with my desktop files scattered over it. Great! Now the pigsty is turning into a 3D pigsty.

mac desktop customization

But BumpTop gives its users the ability to tidy up the room automatically. All you have to do is right click on the empty area of the floor and choose “Pile by type”

mac desktop customization

And you will get a tidy floor.

mac desktop organization

Piling up your files by type is not the only trick that BumpTop has. If you click on a file, you will get the option to enlarge or shrink the icon size. Based on my count, there are 5 steps up and 4 steps down from the original size.

mac desktop organization

While you are doing that, you will notice that the other icons which get in the way will move to give space. Nice touch to give a more realistic feeling of a room.

mac desktop organization

Select all the files (Command + A) and you will get more options in the sidebar.

You could double-click on a pile to see what files are piled there.

customize mac desktop

Re-decorating the room

BumpTop resides in the menubar. You can access the Preferences by clicking on the menubar icon. There are few things that you can do from the Preferences. There are the usual “start at login” and “automatically check for update” along with “upgrade to Pro” options. And there’s an option to change the background image of the walls and floor. You can also access this room decoration menu by right clicking on the desktop.

customize mac desktop

You can set different images for each individual element of the room by clicking on the blue button one by one and then browse for the image files. But you can also use one image for all of the element by checking the “Use floor’s wallpaper for all walls” box.

To liven up the walls, you could also pin some pictures on them. Just drag and drop the image files to any side of the walls. However, on the version that I tried (v. 1.04.2), you need to rename the image files before you can pin them to the walls. Hopefully, this bug will be fixed in future versions.

If you need to jot down some quick notes, look no further than the wall. You can create “Post It”=like notes with a click. But the annoying thing about this feature is that the free version allows users to create only 2 notes.

Enlarge your screen

In general, this app is a fun one to play with. But it would be more fun on a large screen. I think that people with claustrophobia should not use this app on a small display.

There are more features that have already been discussed in the article about Windows version of BumpTop. Don’t forget to check it out. There’s also a short video tutorial on the developer’s site to learn more about this app.

Have you tried BumpTop? Do you know other alternatives? Share using the comment below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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emailme2 Let’s break a few email etiquettes along the way. I wouldn’t advocate sending videos through plain old email because it clogs up bandwidth and holds up the queue of emails downloading behind it. Heaven forbid if someone is on a dial-up connection or a slow WiFi.

There are other ways to send videos across – YouSendIt is one which even has an Outlook plug-in. Then, you can throw a stone and hit any of the file sharing services (also check out this roundup of a few more desktop file sharing clients).

If you are back from all those pages I sent you to, then it means that you are hell bent on learning how to compress videos to send them by email.

Here’s the bad news…video files are among the largest single chunks of digital content out there. So, an elephant won’t turn into an ant even with compression. The good news is that video files can be compressed to somewhere in between an elephant and an ant, say a cow. Yes, the mutation can be done for free. The only cost which you might have to pay is a slight loss in quality (audio, video or both). But that’s made up by the decrease in file size.

But compression is really a complex subject. It is something that’s on the frontiers of today’s science. You have knotty issues of lossy and lossless compressions, bit rates, codecs, and the list goes on. I am too woolly over it, so I will direct you to this page where you can read up on it.

With that light touch on the background, let’s return to the action steps we need to take to compress a video for email. As we will see, it’s all about size and there are more than a few ways to slice the pixels.

Compressing Videos with VirtualDub

VirtualDub is an Open Source free video tool which mainly handles AVI files. It can read (not write) MPEG-1 files. The best thing about VirtualDub is its speed and the number of codecs you can use it with. Codecs are nothing but a bunch of code that compress and decompress audio/video files so that they don’t take up too much space. VirtualDub has a few codecs and lot more you can download. We will use the XviD codec to compress the video file.

Start VirtualDub and load the video file you want to compress (File – Open Video File). The video opens in the Timeline of VirtualDub. The Timeline shows you the input and the output videos.
On the toolbar, click on Video – Compression. In the Select video compression box, choose the XviD MPEG-4 codec. Click the Configure button.
Under Main Settings, you can choose to keep the Profile@ Level setting to the default unrestricted or drill down to Advanced Simple@L5. The latter is recommended for XviD encoding. These settings are about making videos playable on specific devices.
The main setting to change though is the Target bitrate. This setting is vital because just like the quality of an image is known by its resolution, the quality of an audio or video file is calculated by the bitrate. The first figure that is displayed is the default for the file you have opened. To compress the video, we have to lower the value. A bitrate of 300-350 is about okay for a web video.
Click on OK to finalize the video settings.
For compressing the audio settings, click on Audio – Full processing mode. Then clicking on Compression takes you to the list of audio codecs. Select MPEG Layer-3 from the list. MP3 is the standard for audio compression and a bitrate of 128 is commonly accepted for satisfactory playback.
To start the compression, click on File – Save as AVI. Save the compressed video to a location.

Experiment with the settings for video compression. Compression also brings in blocks of pixels called image artifacts. Quality being subjective, find your balance between quality and file size.

A lot of us consider VirtualDub to be the best, but it is definitely not the only tool you can try out to compress your videos for email.

The others like Avidemux

If you want to look beyond VirtualDub, take a look at Avidemux. This is another free Open Source video editor with the added advantage of being cross-platform. Avidemux has a tool called the Calculator which can calculate compression ratios basing it on a final size.

From File – Open load the video you want to compress. Similar to VirtualDub, you can set your video and audio codec options from the dropdowns.
Click on the Configure button for the chosen video codec and use the slider to set a quality.
Go to Tools – Calculator. Select Custom from the dropdown for Medium and provide a custom size. Click OK.
A click on Save prompts you to save your project and starts the video compression.

What about Windows Movie Maker?

Windows Movie Maker has a non-geeky way of helping you out with your video compressions. Last year we took a look at How to Easily Compress Video Files for Web with Movie Maker. Follow the post and you can send the movie directly to your email program as an attachment.

Windows Movie Maker is a part of Windows XP and Vista.

Digital video compression is all about getting to know file formats and codecs. To achieve desirable quality results, you have to play around with the settings. Let this quick and dirty guide be just a starting point.

Do you send compressed videos using email? If so which is your compressor of choice?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Win7Head Windows 7 has been around for a little while now and a lot of users are using it. It was released on July 22, 2009 and as of today it accounts for 27% of traffic on my personal blog askTheAdmin.com which happens to be right up there with the damn Internet Explorer 6 share! But if you have not taken the plunge yet, perhaps you are still debating on whether or not to jump on the Windows 7 bandwagon or maybe wait until Windows 8 shows its face?

We have done the leg work for you — reading all of the Windows 7 reviews, testing the system and bringing you the skinny on Windows 7. We have chosen 3 awesome reviews to share with you. They have been taken from Lifehacker, Engadget and ArsTechnica. Let’s take a look at what they have to offer.

First up is the Lifehacker piece titled Complete Guide to Windows 7. It was written by one of my favorite bloggers Kevin Purdy. When you arrive at the page you will see a full featured Windows 7 review with a lot of background from the dudes and dudettes that have been using the operating system since it was leaked way back.

Windows 7 reviews

They discuss everything from Installation and setup to common issues, tricks, tips and links to showdowns like Snow Leopard vs Windows 7 and The top features in Windows 7. They go on to show us how to burn ISOs without any 3rd party tools and the magic being Internet Explorer 8’s new feature (only on Windows 7) that can clone a unresponsive tab – which is utterly awesome!

Our next Windows 7 review is from Engadget and can be found here. At Engadget, they get a little more nitty gritty and look at boot times (that are improved), visual enhancements and other points someone upgrading from XP would be very interested in.

Windows 7 reviews

Reading the Engadget review showed me Aero Peak which allows you to preview open windows without clicking on them. This is a huge help to anyone who juggles lots of windows on a daily basis like me. I also saw Aero Shake and Snap for the first time. Aero Shake allows you to grab and violently shake a window to minimize all other windows freeing you up from other tasks. And Aero Snap allows windows to snap together seamlessly as many of us wished for many many years ago.

They go on to give other links to full installation guides and a lot of information about Windows 7 any which way you look at it.

Last but certainly not least is ArsTechnica’s review of Windows 7. I always love Ars’ reviews and this time they did not disappoint either.

Windows 7 reviews

They have a massive 15 page review (separated by links for each page…) that culminates with this tidbit that blew my socks off:

Overall, it’s pretty clear that Windows 7 is “Vista R2.” Hell, the branding of the server counterpart is a dead giveaway here. Windows Server 2008 RTM was exactly Vista SP1; Windows Server 2008 R2 is exactly Windows 7. Why does one retain its branding but not the other? Because the Windows Server 2008 branding is popular and successful (the OS was, quite rightly, very well-received) in a way that the Vista branding is not. If Vista had gotten the reception it actually deserved, and become a brand worth keeping, it seems highly likely that the name would have been retained. And Microsoft knows it, which is why internally, Windows 7 is only version 6.1. Sure, the company has made specious claims that this is to avoid breaking applications with bad version checks, but the logic doesn’t really hold; many of those applications are just as broken by “6″ as they would be by “7,” and if that were such a concern then the minor version wouldn’t change either.

But at the end of the day, that doesn’t really matter. Windows 7 is, overall, a fantastic OS. It builds on a solid platform, and just makes it even better.

ARS touches on important points like branding and comparing features like UAC to Seven’s younger sibling Vista. They really do touch on everything and just like the others make for a great read.

So what do you think of Windows 7? Share your opinions with us in the comments!

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