There is no single word in the English language to describe this.
The short answer is...yes. I stumbled upon a site today, promising their laptop can power up...INSTANTLY. I of course believe this to be superficial but it's a very promising idea. The "L Store" @ http://www.go-l.com has introduced a new spectrum to computing as we know it. I haven't read this site through yet but once I saw the Hollywood Pro 8x Multi-Core 17" Widescreen Notebook... I was convinced that there was a new bully on the playground. A notebook with Dual Quad-Core Intel® Xeon 53xx Series Processors is prepared to throw down with the big dogs. I'll leave you with a link to their product news, a good way to learn what's going on with the cutting edge of technology.
Hey, found a new little internet browser app that is very small (like 200k) and can be run without installing and registering. Browzar is a very nice web browser that deletes all cookies, history, etc...you can even put it on a flashdrive for convenience.
Well, yeah. This morning @ WWDC, Steve Jobs announced Apple's web browser, Safari, is now out for Windows. He noted that Safari was 2.8x faster than IE7 as well as 1.6x faster than FireFox 2. You can download the Safari 3 Beta here. So far my impression is that Apple knows how to properly use the term "Beta" with it failing to load some pages and crashing, in some instances, many times an hour.
The ultimate Virtual Desktops program: VirtuaWin
Now you can take a look from the street via Google Maps.
Apple has released iTunes 7.2 with iTunes Plus for DRM free download capability. Read about it on MacRumors or download it.
Just copy the following XHTML to your site and you'll end up with a search box that will query the well known torrent site Mininova.com.
You know you're in college when...
1. High school started before 8am, but now anything before noon is considered “early”.
2. You have more beer than food in your fridge.
3. Weekends start on Thursday.
4. 6 AM is when you go to sleep, not when you wake up.
5. You know many different ways to cook ramen noodles or macaroni and cheese.
6. The health center gives out free condoms, and people take them… just in case.
7. Instead of falling asleep in class, you stay in bed.
8. You know how late McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Qdoba, etc. are open.
9. You think it’s the weekend on a Wednesday and you don’t know what month it is.
10. You can’t remember the last time you washed your car.
11. Your underwear/sock supply dictates your laundry schedule.
12. You check Facebook/MySpace more than once a day.
13. You get drunk dialed on any night of the week.
14. You wash dishes in the bathroom sink.
15. You’ve fallen off a loft bed.
16. You talk about beer pong like it’s a sport.
17. Finding random people in your house is perfectly normal, and you even sympathize with them… sometimes when you wake up you have no idea where you are.
18. Your primary news sources are the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.
19. You open a beer at 10 am and your roommate asks you if there’s more.
20. The standard of meals per day falls to two, sometimes just one.
21. Your trash is overflowing and your bank account isn’t.
22. You go to Target or Wal-Mart more than 3 times a week.
23. You wear the same jeans for 13 days without washing them.
24. Your breakfast consists of a coke or cereal bar on the way to class… anything with caffeine will do.
25. Quarters are like gold.
26. Your idea of feeding the poor is buying yourself some ramen noodles.
27. You live in a house with three couches, none of which match.
28. You try to study but seem to procrastinate by eating, going to study breaks, talking to people, etc…
29. You talk to your roommate on instant messenger when you’re both home.
30. You ask people what YOU did last night.
31. Certain things are now deemed “Facebook worthy.”-When friends take pictures of you, you wonder how long it will take them to post them.
32. You’ve seen a hit and run involving a bicyclist/pedestrian.
33. You see people you know you’ve met but can never remember their names or how you've known them.
34. You sleep more in class than in your room
35. Your idea of a square meal is a box of Pop-Tarts.
36. You’ve traveled with bags of dirty clothes.
37. You go home to do your laundry because you’re too poor to pay the $2… or too lazy to go to a change machine.
38. You pay $100 for a book you don’t read once, return it four months later, and get $7.
39. More than 20% of your household furnishings are made from milk crates.
40. You recognize the meat in the dorm soup as yesterday’s meatloaf, and thus decide to eat a nice bowl of cereal - a safe bet for any meal.
41. You use words like “thus” (see #40).
42. You throw out bowls and plates because you don’t feel like washing them.
43. Your beer pong table is nicer than all your other tables.
44. It takes preparation… and 3 people… to take out your garbage.
45. Going to the library is a social event.
46. You wear flip flops in the shower your freshman year… you know why.
47. You start joining clubs because of the free food.
48. Visits home depend on how much money you have for gas.
49. You skip one class to write a paper for another.
50. You have no idea where your tuition money is going… technology fees? I think not.
51. Bicycles don’t seem as lame as they did in high school.
52. You stay up late to finish homework then sleep through the class in which it was due.
53. Girls: You’ve balanced your foot on a shampoo bottle to shave.
54. Your backpack is giving you scoliosis.
55. You’ve written a check for 45 cents or stopped to get $2.00 of gas.
56. Your bill in the bookstore will be comparable to tuition.
57. Going to the mailbox becomes an ego booster/breaker.
58. Most of your T.A.’s are foreign…what’s the deal?
59. You never realized so many people are smarter than you.
60. You never realized so many people are dumber than you.
61. Western Europe could be wiped out by a terrible plague and you’d never know, but you can recite the last episode of your favorite show verbatim.
62. Care packages rank right up there with birthdays.
63. You craft ways to make any game into a drinking/stripping game.
64. You meet the type of people you thought only existed in movies.
65. Printers break down only when you desperately need them.
66. Anything can be cooked in a microwave.
67. Two words: bike cops.
68. You have Safe Ride programmed into your phone.
69. Old school Nintendo… and guitar hero… are pretty much the best things ever.
70. Going to the grocery at midnight is completely normal.
71. You call restaurants that deliver more than you call your own family.
72. You’ve paid bills over $5… in coins.
73. You can’t imagine life without your computer/cell phone/ i-pod.
74. Hoodies and sweatpants become the norm - jeans are considered “dressy” at certain occasions… like school.
75. A canceled class is almost as exciting as Christmas.
76. Taking a nap in the library is perfectly acceptable.
77. Your professors speak English… as a second language.
78. Your teachers swear in class and no one cares.
79. Candles in your dorm room are considered contraband, but cigarettes are ok.
80. You take condiment packets and napkins from fast food restaurants - hey, they’re free.
81. Betta fish are like your family.
82. You bring back socks from the laundry room that may or may not be yours.
83. You know what people carrying suspiciously heavy backpacks after dark are doing…
84. The elevators take forever but you’ll wait 10 minutes just so you don’t have to climb stairs.
85. Your roommate asks you to check the weather on your computer when they’re standing 5 feet away from the door.
86. Showers become more of an issue.
87. You press the automatic door opener instead of simply grabbing the handle when you approach a door.
88. Christmas lights seem to be acceptable all year round.
89. Class size doubles on exam days.
90. You donate plasma even though you know it’s pretty sketchy.
91. You are no longer thankful that fire alarms are here to protect you.
92. You’ve bought Christmas presents from the book store and charged it to your student account so your parents pay for the gifts because you’re too broke.
93. You begin to include ketchup on your list of acceptable vegetables.
94. You stay on campus for hours in between classes when it’s too cold to walk home.
95. People have to help you kick the vending machine just so you can get your 50 cent bag of chips.
96. There’s always a “question kid” in at least one of your classes, and you really wish someone would just tell him/her to shut the hell up.
97. You steal dishes from the cafeteria so you don’t have to wash your own.
98. Laundry is an all-day event.
99. You no longer find it uncool to take naps. In fact, you quite enjoy them.
100. It’s illegal to drink in the dorms yet they sell an assortment of shot glasses, beer mugs, tankards, etc. in the bookstore.
101. You find your list of acceptable napping places expanding daily to increasingly uncomfortable locations.
102. You fill out credit card applications for the free food.
103. You’ve eaten cereal out of a cup… with a fork.
104. Dressing up for Halloween becomes cool again.
105. You know at least one person who has dropped his/her cell phone into a toilet.
106. You hang multiple shirts on the same hanger to save space/money.
107. You become increasingly annoyed with the “old” people in class - props to them for going back to college but they generally ask really, really annoying questions.
108. You admire people’s alcohol bottle shrines.
109. You set your clock 5-10 minutes ahead so you can potentially make it to class on time.
110. You check ratemyprofessor.com (or something of the like) before choosing your class schedule.
111. You text faster than you type.
112. You only find out a class is cancelled after you get there and sit for about ten minutes.
113. You actually start using coupons, especially those school coupon books.
114. You open canned food and eat it… out of the can.
115. You run out of black ink and, instead of buying a new ink cartridge, decide blue is a nice substitute… adds a little flair.
116. You have numbers in your phone with labels like “Sketchy Steve” and “Alcohol Guy.”
117. The food in your fridge may or may not be older than your little brother.
118. You finish reading this and wonder how you can procrastinate next.”
119. You end up roaming through the aisles of Walmart late at night because you’re high and looking for munchies and then end up falling asleep on one of the bottom shelves.
Yes Gmail users...it's true. Google recently announced they have doubled the size limits for attachments from 10mb to 20mb. You can check it and other new stuff to Gmail here
Well...no I never failed high school math (yet) but I do get brain farts like everyone else. WebCalc.net and their new site CalcEinstien.com have almost any conversion or formula known to man, and they put it in handy HTML form. Check them out!
Ever watned to geek out and buy the top-of-the-line A/V cables for your home theater? Well, you may want to re-think that. On this episode of Systm, Dan Huard, Kevin Rose with guest David Randolph will show you how to make your own cables that are better than the very expensive Monster Cables. All you need is some electronical know-how and you're set (they'll walk you through it all in the 40min episode.)
Introducing Gmail Paper...your email + attachments printed, and shipped to your door.
In late January of this year, about a week before Vista came out, I ordered my new Dell E520. 1.86ghz core 2 duo, 1gb RAM, ATI Radeon X1300 pro 256mb video card, 22" Dell widescreen running 1680x1050 res, and Vista Home Premium. I am coming from a Dell Diminsion 8400 running XP and Ubuntu Linux occasionally. I have taken quite a shine to Vista as it is very visually appealing. My system got a 4.2 out of 5 rating from Microsoft, and it has virtually no problems with software incompatability. 90% of the programs on there are from my old XP. There were a lot of games pre-installed, possibly a Dell fiasco. The regular games are on there (solitaire, spades, minesweeper, freecell...) but there are quite a bit more games on there that require a membership and so many 'tokens' to play, much like an arcade. With this I was heavily disappointed. I love that I can use a user account now as they have integrated a verification box when you run an executable file/installer. I also like the idea of a search box in the start menu. Rather than having to click 'search' to look for something, Vista has a little search bar right above the start button (not really a start button but a Windows logo) and it will start searching as soon as you start typing. You can even type the name of a program and hit enter to launch it. The 'all programs' that used to pop up in XP is gone and instead the programs come up in the start menu after you click 'applications' and appear in a scroll area compared to the window. This is especially helpful if you have alot of programs. I got a 250gb hard drive with my computer. Vista has a backup utility that had partitioned my hard drive to use as a restore drive. This is a capital idea, the only thing is that the partition was 9.99gb. How am I supposed to back up nearly 120gb of data (so far) on 10gb? Well...aparantly Vista doesn't know either and reminds me every time I boot up.Other than that, Vista seems great. I have not contracted any ETDs (electronically transmitted diseases) and am not running ANY anti-virus software of any kind. I know I should at least have it but not run it but i'm feeling brave in the interest of performance. My only major complaint now is that softare developers need to get on the ball with updating their products (ie: IOGear USB bluetooth adapter. when i run the Vista driver, it tells me I need to be running Windows Vista, no joke.)
Windows wont' boot correctly? Here's a site called BIOS Central that has BIOS errors for most computers out there. Just lookup your computer type and model and you can find what the error number means.
1. Do not open email attachments- No matter how hard it is to resist, that person may be trying to infect you through a script that loads when you load a picture. Especially do not open .exe files from an email, these are programs and if written to do so, will ruin your life. That person may also be infected and not know, thus sending you an infected email that if you open will infect you as it did them.
2. Make sure Windows Firewall is enabled- This is common sense, the firewall will provide you with vital protection to stuff on the web.
3. Do not use mainstream anti-virus software- Norton/Symantec/McAfee/Zone Alarm or any anti-virus that you can buy at Wal-Mart. Chances are it is one of the major ones like the ones listed above. This means that since a lot of people use it, hackers have already cracked it and have found a way around it and into your computer. Leo Laporte recommends NOD32, a lightweight anti-virus that will not slow your computer down and is a lot less likely to be cracked.
4. Never run as system administrator all the time- With Windows Vista it is easier than ever to run as a user and effectively use Windows. The problem with logging in as administrator is that if you get spyware/adware, viruses or anything onto your computer; they will not be able to install. This is good and could save you a lot of time later on.
5. It is always a good idea to get behind a router- Yes, this may mean that it's time to upgrade you internet but judging by where the internet is going these days, it's a good idea to have DSL. With DSL, the router takes a phone line input, processes the signal, and serves data to computers you have connected to it. Routers also enable you to share documents and files with other computers within' your network. All routers are firewalls, even if they don't say so.
Enjoy!
One of the greatest VoIP programs of all time is Skype. Skype allows you to make FREE calls to any other computer running Skype. PLUS, for just pocket change a year, you can make calls from your computer to a land line and vice versa. Go to Skype and try it for yourself!!!
More and more I am hearing people obtaining ETD's (electronically transmitted diseases) and the more I hear, the more I learn that 90% of it is due to the user's browsing precautions. Just another reason to watch what you do online.
Today we hear about all of these viruses, worms, and stuff like that. Truth is, if you're on the internet, you're gonna get pop-ups and spam and you're also vulnerable to getting infected. My solution is to go to Mozilla's web site and get a copy of Firefox for free. This is another web browser, like Internet Explorer (IE), but is not as vulnerable as IE. Think it can't be that easy? Well, you're right. 95% of infections over the internet are directly related to that person's activity.
If you ever decide to start customizing your computer for max potential, it is a good idea to create a system restore point. That way, it you change something that messes up your computer or causes you to lose valuable documents or programs, you can just open your restore point and everything will be back to normal (the way it was when you created you restore point.)
If you decide that your computer takes too long to boot up, you can help it out. Turn on the computer and you will see a loading screen (Dell/hp/gateway/IBM/etc.), but don't wait for Windows to load. Instead you can hit F2 (or what it tells you) to enter the boot menu. You will come upon a list that has your hard drive(s), CD/DVD drives, floppy drives, USB ports and things of the sort. You will also notice that your CD/DVD drive is first in this list. That is so that your computer checks the CD/DVD drive for a disk to boot from before it loads off of your hard drive. What this is for is if Windows gets sick and won't boot, you can put a Windows repair CD in and boot windows from that. What you do is change the order, put your hard drive first in the list so it doesn't have to check other drives first. Be aware that doing so will not allow you to boot from a CD/floppy. All you have to do is go back in and change the order when you want to boot from another meduim (cd/dvd/floppy, USB device). This should shave a few seconds off of your boot time.
Well...this blog is for the podcast/book which I will be starting sometime this summer. I simply want to get things straightened out before I am forced to deal with them later.
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