Category Archives: General

Stuff that doesn’t fit into existing categories

Snippets of geekitude

Gmail geekitude — In GMail with US English set, when you delete mail it goes to the “Trash” folder. Set it to UK English, and it’s “Deleted Items”.

TV geekitude — See how the ABC News titles look with no stories and no voiceover.

Google Video geekitude — Lots of snippets of info here, including the fact that Google’s video format is pretty much just a renamed DivX AVI.

Webmail geekitude — My web mail (Horde) puts a little flag against the country of the domain name of the sender. Of course it’s a little misleading when a message from someone using fastmail arrives, as it reckons it’s the Federated States of Micronesia…

Web design geekitude — The best freebie DHTML menus I’ve found so far are here. (Which I’ve implemented here and here. I reckon without too much trouble, WordPress’s categories could drive it automatically. Maybe something to put on the list for Geekrant 2.0.

Bored with Rubik’s cube?

So is the standard Rubik’s cube so easy that you’re bored with it? Can you solve it in 12.1 seconds?

Well, try your hand at a 4D Rubik’s cube.

Then, if your head hasn’t exploded, check out the 5D Rubik’s cube! From the site: “In the spirit of taking things too far, here is a fully functional 5-dimensional analog of Rubik’s cube.”

Sadly, 5 people have already solved the 5D cube. You can’t be first.

Various stuff

Jeremy Zawodny theorises that NoFollow was a waste of time, making no difference to comment spam, and discouraging legitimate commenters.

Coding Horror has some more details on the Microsoft anti-piracy (Ahoy!) nag screens that we mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

Google Australia has jobs available in Sydney.

I’ve been thinking… I wonder if someone would write a Greasemonkey script to correct Charles Wrights’ personal pronouns? we -> I; us -> me; our -> my; ours -> mine.

Tim O’Reilly responds on the fuss over O’Reilly partners CMP sending a cease and desist letter over the use of the term “Web 2.0” for a conference.

The 25 worst tech products of all time

According to PC World, here’s the 25 worst tech products of all time.

My quick rants about some of the top 25:

The all time number 1 is AOL… the ISP whose damn software still shows up in unlikely places. Such as the free copy of Broderbund’s 3D Home Architect that one of my kids convinced me to try out the other day (came with the latest issue of Australian Personal Computer). Hint: I’m in Australia… I don’t need, want, nor can use, an America Online trial. I’ve certainly had a few AOL coasters in my time, too. (By the way, the short-lived AOL Australia got bought by Primus. I like the way the info page for their dialup offering is broken.)

#2 — RealPlayer. Oh yeah, I hate RealPlayer, but some of my favourite content providers (such as ABC and BBC) still use it. Fortunately there is now a reasonable alternative (a codec for Windows MediaPlayer).

#10 — dBase IV. I had a theory years ago that version 4 of anything wasn’t very good. It happened with DOS 4.0, VB4, dBase… and others, I’m sure.

Anyway, have a read of the entire article.

Many things

A FAA Radar track sequence of a bank of FedEx aircraft getting into Memphis as thunderstorms pass over the airport. You too could work with air t how to text my ex gf back raffic control software.

Check out how things look to colourblind people. Freaks. Someone should round them all up, and cleanse the gene pool.

Turn any internet terminal into a secure connection. Based on Firefox and various proxy servers around The Internet. I’m not sure how hard it is on your USB key, because it doesn’t write anything to the local hard disk.

David Brin says that Intelligent Design is only one of many “alternatives” to Darwinian evolution. As such, for balance, these other theories should be taught. And no, he doesn’t think the Flying Spaghetti Monster falls into this sphere. BTW, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is out, anybody read it?

how to text my ex gf back

Where are the aliens?

Coffee drinkers are easier to persuade.

Fermi’s Paradox is explained by aliens getting adicited to computer gaming.

Strom reckons he knows how to make money with a website: ads! Plus a little other stuff.

An Irishman has a rather good summery of how to negotiate an intial salary.

Cross-platform rounded corners without images, extra markup nor CSS. The holy grail of web-design dweebs.

Search Upgrade

I’ve been a huge fan of Microsoft’s Desktop Search since it was released, it has changed the way I use my PC and is amongst the first things I install on new PCs. I dream of the day they integrate it with their recently purchase, Foldershare (A magnificent free product that allows you to sync your files seamlessly over the net using P2P technology. It also allows you to search and download from any of your computers from any net connected PC as long as your PCs are turned on. Try it now if you have more than one PC and you want to keep files in sync across them.).

To get an improved version of Desktop Search download the beta of the Windows Live Toolbar. The toolbar doesn’t work in Firefox but it does allow you to update Desktop Search and gain a couple of great features. It installs a new toolbar in Outlook that allows you to save Desktop searches as virtual folders within Outlook – so now Outlook can display search results that include files as well as emails/tasks/appointments. It also changes the Windows default search function (found on the Start menu) to use Desktop Search which means the end of searches that won’t ever find what you’re looking for.

Australian SMS Spam

It seems SMS spammers have chosen a public holiday to launch another SMS spam attack.

The content of the message, from premium SMS number 19996111, goes something like “Free MSG. You have a secret admirer! Reply CHAT To Be Connected! For help call 1300885902. Average msg cost $2.70”. From what I have read you won’t be charged to receive this message but replying will see your bank balance reduced at a rapid rate. To follow what happens with this particular spam and for links on how to report it follow this thread in Whirlpool.

If you recently received a ‘system message’ spam entitled ‘Funny Clip’ you can find information on it at this Whirlpool thread.

Sunday Quickies

Inventor of the cube-farm “sorry”.

Check out this massive Lego sports stadium. It think it might be at a Legoland. Not to be confused with the Wembly Stadium at Legoland Windsor.

For the Google junkies out there, there’s a list of the highest paying adsense phases – around USD$50 a pop. Brought to you by the Google adsense keyword tool.

In the same way that moving electrons create magnetism, moving mass has been shown to create gravity.

FolderShare

Microsoft actually impressed me with a recent purchase – the job they did turning Lookout in to MSN Desktop Search was fantastic, I really couldn’t imagine my computing life without Desktop Search now. It seems they are on to a winner with their latest acquisition – Foldershare.

I hadn’t heard of Foldershare until I read that Microsoft had bought them out over the weekend (and made the product free) but it is apparently a well established product. It allows you to synch your files over multiple devices, share selected files privately with other users or securely access your files via an internet connection. I’ve given it a run between two PCs and it seems to do exactly what it promises.

They have temporarily pulled the Mac version but say it will be back soon.

UDPATE

Oh, wow. This is cool. Using the search box on the Foldershare site I can search, using MSN Desktop Search, across any of the devices I have synced. I’m hoping this functionality will move to the actual MSN Desktop tool but for now, wow.