Archive for September, 2007
Hack a Lantern Battery
From Lifehacker.com
Just like you can get 6 AAA batteries from the inside of a regular 9V battery and 8 watch batteries from one of those expensive 12V garage door opener type batteries, looks like you can also tear apart one of those huge lantern batteries and get 32 AA batteries from the inner guts! I wonder if this is more cost effective?
No commentsTruthout.org being blocked by AOL and Hotmail?
My thoughts on the matter posted to Dave Farber’s IP list…
While I don’t work at AOL anymore, I did run the anti-spam team for many
years and worked on the email platform for almost a decade. I can tell
you that from time to time we had a group complain that we were blocking
their mail without proper cause. In most cases we would provide the data
to show the organization why they were having issues. Most of the time
it was a combination of complaints about their mail (REPORT SPAM from
members) along with an abnormally high rate of bounced mail
(non-deliverable addresses). And in most cases the organization would
fix the issue once we got them signed up for a feedback loop which would
allow them to see their complaints and address the cause.
In all of my years at AOL, I can tell you that AOL never intentionally
blocked an organization for their political views. I would not have
allowed it. But we did block some of these political groups along the way… Read more
How to Make a $50 Router into a $500 Workhorse: DD-WRT
First let me say that I am not a network engineer. I understand a lot about networks and how to string stuff together. But my experience is mostly on the end user side of things without knowledge of Cisco routers, IP Tables, Firewalls, etc. So if I get something technically wrong, you have my disclaimer :-)
That said, I have been experimenting with those small routers you buy at Circuit City for $50 or so made by Linksys, Buffalo Technologies, etc. What you do is buy one of these gizmos (make sure you get one that is compatible) and then “upgrade” the firmware in the router to an open source firmware called DD-WRT. To be fair, DD-WRT is not the only game in town. Open WRT, Tomato, and others do exist and may even be better in some ways. But I have found that DD-WRT has very good documentation and wide-spread use and support. I like to use what other people are using as they help me by figuring stuff out and publishing the “how to’s”.
He went where no man will ever go again.
Yep, my brother and his friend made it! About two weeks ago they completed their moped oddessy and reached Skagway, AK. Amazing.
Now that he’s been to Alaska, we will have to go back together and really see the place. :-)
Some pictures from his adventure are now in!
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I’m Going to be on Court TV
Margot Koschier and I did some interviews a couple of years back for the Spam Documentary which I blogged about a while back. The film was taped by the Canadian PBS equivalent. And as they promised, it is now going to air on a US station, CourtTV. The show is even featured on CourtTV’s home page right now.
So tune in at 11pm on Tuesday 9/18 and see your’s truly get his 15 minutes ;-)
3 commentsThomas Kranzel Cinematography - Stop Motion
I have been playing around with some stop motion stuff as my Nikon D200 has a built in intervelometer and its fun to see the results.
But check out this guy’s work! Click on the image below and then click the TIME LAPSE button near the top left of his home page. Wow!
Fly to outer space on a few bucks
These guys attached a digital camera to a large “weather balloon” and took pictures from way up there….about half way to space. Very cool pictures and neat write-up on how they did it. Click on the image for the story.
What kind of Glue Should I use to Glue This to That?
Ever wonder what the best glue might be for a specific repair or project? This site seems fairly good. Although it still does not always help with all the different types of plastics out there. But at least they give you some options to try. http://www.thistothat.com/
No commentsWhat time is it in….?
I do computer tech support for my photography and graphic arts clients and one thing that always comes up is “what time is it in…” some location. Perhaps it is a city in Europe where one of my clients are traveling and we want to know when we can call them. Or maybe its a question about the best time to Skype with someone taking ballet instruction in Russia. Or maybe it is just a question about how many hours GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is different from my location on the East Coast of the US as the email server shows its logs in GMT…and I can never remember whether its 4 or 5 hours different from the East Coast (DST?)
Well, Google has the answer. Just go to Google and type in “What time is it in London” or “What time is it GMT” and you will get the answer back.
Photoshop in a Web Broswer?
I saw this on Gizmodo originally.
Adobe has been developing a way to allow people to upload and edit photographs using standard web browsers. There are some sites that already do this, but seeing Adobe do this with the Photoshop brand is earth shattering in my opinion. My guess is that they are fairly scared about the possibility of losing ground in the retail/consumer space which could eventually trickle into their primary, $600 product, Photoshop.
We have seen this type of thing a lot lately where a company takes a traditionally “desktop” application and does a really nice job of creating an entirely “web based” application…and many times for free (ad supported). Email is one of these areas with Google Mail, AOL Mail, Yahoo Mail and now Live Office and Zimbra too. These online email applications are so “desktop like” that many people are ditching desktop email and using the web instead.
Of course Google and Microsoft are likely competing the fiercest on this front as Google roles out Calendar, Word Processing and Spreadsheet apps that in some cases (calendar) are better than the desktop versions. Microsoft is not sitting around waiting for Google to take over their Office productivity suite as they are working on a counter set of apps in MSFT Live.
And office suites are not the only thing that can be better on the web. We all know that Google Maps and Earth are way better than any desktop software put out by Delorme or Garmin. That is as long as you have a connection to the web which is becoming almost ubiquitous these days with the advent of 3G cellular based broadband for $40-$60 a month.
Not sure I am going to give up the speed and flexibility of my desktop image editting tools anytime soon, but for the consumer who shoots 20 pictures of their family vacation and just wants to edit them a little and then publish them to a website or order a few prints, this new Photoshop on the web may be a killer app. Watch out iPhoto!
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