Owner: Recommended URL:http://positronict.com/photoblog/Recommended/ Join Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 12:27:43 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: Recommended is about the many things I discover online every day. Other blogs, websites, tools, software, funny, cool and serious stuff. The occasional rant and personal opinion included. Site statistics:Click here
How to… Pimp Your PC 2006-10-21 09:05:40 The following article is a guest post I recently wrote for Jestertunes.
Humans in general are visual individuals. Besides recognizing smells and sounds, they judge things by the way they look. The look of your apartment or workplace for example is your everyday first impression of the day that lies ahead of you. Want to kick off your day in a good mood? Make sure your home isn’t messy, clean your dirty dishes every night, let some fresh air in to chase bad odors out and have a good smelling coffee, tea or hot chocolate in the morning. There are all these little things you can do that don’t cost much but have massive effects.
Do you work a lot on your computer? What does it look like? Default Wallpaper, default settings, desktop littered with icons and shortcuts and you can’t find stuff anymore? Do you have the freedom to change some of that? Well, if you answered yes I guess it is time to Pimp Your PC! That is if you can spare some graphics and main memory.
Let’
Morning Coffee 2006-10-20 09:05:39 Morning Coffee
is a Firefox extension that lets you associate bookmarks with days of the week.
For example if you’re following a blog that updates every Friday night, just add it to your Saturday Morning Coffee
. If there is a set of sites you visit every day, every weekday or every weekend, add them to the respective category.
The whole setup and idea is very simple. Tools like Session Manager can remember previous browser sessions and you can also create sessions for specific purposes. The thing these tools can not do is “remember” patterns of page use. Morning Coffee can manage recurring and complex routines. But it is only as smart as you make it.
Morning Coffee installs as a button and supposedly can be changed to a toolbar (!?). Clicking “Load My Morning Coffee” will load up all websites sorted into that day. With “Add to My Morning Coffee” a drop-down menu will appear from which you can choose where to add the current site. “Configu Read more:Morning
Create A Graph 2006-10-19 09:05:06 Create A Graph
is a versatile online tool to transform your data into beautiful figures.
If you happen to work in a business where you often have to present rather dry and boring bits of data you know how important it is to make this data look interesting.
Sometimes, complicated information is difficult to understand and needs an illustration. Graphs or charts can help impress people by getting your point across quickly and visually.
On Create A Graph you will find five different types of graphs and charts. Choose the kind of look you fancy, define the colors, add your data, do some fine-tuning, preview and finally print, download or eMail your graph.
You will see how easy to use this tool is. To get started look at the Examples and see how they are set up. If you still get stuck you can trustfully turn to the Help which accompanies you in every single customization step you are able to perform.
Graphs not viewed or changed after 30 days are deleted.
Change Me 2006-10-18 09:05:49
Join the worldwide discussion. Visit Change
Me.
fo.rtuito.us 2006-10-17 09:05:57 What would happen if we no longer used things like looks, age, sex, and nationality to decide if we would try to become friends with a person?
That is the key question posed at fo.rtuito.us, a website dedicated to helping you find and make friends you really care about, beyond all the superficial facts that supposedly define who they are or rather who they are not.
How does it work?
You sign up and are given a friend chosen randomly. Next, you have 4 days to get to know this person before you are asked to make a decision whether to keep them as your friend. Once you have made that choice, you are given another friend, chosen at random and the process starts all over.
What’s different about us?
What sets us apart is we don’t think a picture of a persons face, or a simple profile can tell the story of them. We do things a little backwards, you get to know a person and then decide if you want to be their friend.
We feel that people usually choose their friends based on how th
Bold Contemplations 2006-10-16 22:20:32 Recently I have constantly been amazed at how many interesting blogs are still out there to be discovered. My previous two renters were blogs I had never seen around or recognized before. And I’m very glad they left a rent bid with me because I will be a regular reader of their blogs from now on. Bold Contemplations, my guest for the next couple of days, promises to be no exception.
The blog’s header image nicely summerizes what this site is about. Angela, the author, regularly posts “primers” for discussion. A point of view, her personal opinion, based on a short story or a quote, analyzing the facts, simply short texts to introduce a specific topic and its issue.
The header image gives a peek at something else: the template. The design of Bold Contemplations definitely is professional and very special. It’s pure eye candy. The content area and sidebar could be a bit wider if you ask me, but other than that I think the template is perfect and beautiful.
Find in Forums 2006-10-16 20:12:30
Looking for the answer to a specific question and can’t seem to find it?
Chances are someone has had the same or a similar problem before and already had their question answered in an online forum.
So why would you care?
Well, obviously you just need to find the answer. That’s why you might want to try Find in Forums
, a new search engine specialized in querying forums.
Blog Juice Calculator 2006-10-15 16:08:01
How juicy is your blog? Enter your blog URL and category at the Blog JuiceCalculator
and find out. How do you compare to other blogs in your category? Check it out! The table below shows the top three juicy technology sites.
neave 2006-10-14 23:06:13 neave is the homepage of Paul Neave who describes himself as “serial Flash fettler and interactive designer”. On his site you can experience some stunning experiments.
Grow a flash flower, fly over the earth, let the strobe hypnotize you, show your imagination, visit the planetarium, visualize your music, play some games or watch the neave.tv.
Beautifully designed, skilfully animated and RAM greedy flash wonders. A perfect “time killer” page for boring, rainy days.
Google Browser Sync 2006-10-13 09:05:28 Yet another fabulous idea realized by Google
: the Firefox Browser Sync extension.
First of all I’m glad to see that a major player like Google supports Firefox. And typically Google, this extension is one of the best I’ve seen around in a long time. It’s simple, it’s powerful and it’s ingenious. True, there wasn’t a long way from a program like MozBackup to this extension, but it took a giant like Google to back it up.
What it does should be quite obvious. You can synchronize your browser settings and load them into Firefox on a different computer through your GMail account, given the extension is also installed there. The extension can back up Cookies, Saved Passwords, Bookmarks, History and Tabs & Windows. So per default it comes with something like a Session Saver or Crash Recovery. The Cookies and Passwords are always encrypted, but you can also have your Bookmakrs and History backed up with encryption.
Once you have set up the extension it
passwords - safe and easy to remember 2006-10-23 23:45:32 Passwords are a pain. Either you don’t feel safe with them because you use only a single password for too many services, your passwords
are too easy to crack/guess, you noted them down unencrypted or you simply keep forgetting them. There are physical devices that can store your passwords with a master password. But what if someone gets hold of this valuable device? Is it safe? Probably not safe enough. Software solutions are even worse. So what to do?
Today I came across a blog entry that offers a very good method to safely manage all of your passwords with only having to remember one simple thing: a pattern on a grid.
Draw yourself a grid, e.g. 10 x 10 boxes. Decide on a pattern, e.g. an X. Give the boxes that make up the pattern X numbers. These numbers define the position of the numbers, letters or symbols that make up your password.
Below is a visualization of the idea. The password in this example is k,-#@Pb0? which is a very safe password. Characteristically all safe passw
20Q - the site that reads your mind 2006-10-24 17:16:31 20Q calls itsself the neural net on the net. It’s a game. And it’s addictive. The idea? Can you think of something that the computer can not guess with the help of 20 questions that you have to answer truthfully? Try it, it’s fun.
Baking Betties 2006-10-24 20:00:33 Halloween is approaching rapidly and visiting the Baking
Betties leaves no doubt about it. The site is my guest this week.
The recipes found on the Baking Betties
blog are wonderful and most of them are beautifully simple on top of that. My favorite are the Frosted Jack-O-Lanterns: oranges dressed up as pumpkins and filled with ice cream. Ingenious!
Right now desserts make up the greatest part of the recently posted recipes. But you can find all sorts of food in this blog. The recipes are logically grouped into different categories and subcategories, the main ones being Beverages, Snacks, Breakfast, Appetizers, Side Dishes, Main Dishes and of course Desserts.
Want to share your favorite recipes with the rest of the world? No problem! Simply contact Bozette and you might soon have your dish published at the Baking Betties.
AKBANK 2006-10-25 09:05:21 The following advertisement is one I have seen while I was in Istanbul this past June.
Isn’t it awesome?
bits and pieces 2006-10-28 09:05:47 There is a ton of links I need to get rid of. Nothing worth writing a big post about but too good not to mention. So here it goes randomly.
Need buttons for your website? Try Buttons at GTMCKNIGHT’s site.
Get your custom Google or Custom Yahoo startsite. Click here.
Feel creative? Check out Mr. PicassoHead and paint your own portrait.
Buzztracker: World News Mapped. The map shows the top news locations of the day.
What type of person is your boss?
Grupthink - what do you know about a specific topic? And what do others have to say? Add your knowledge to the discussions in Grupthink and broaden your own horizon.
How to… make a coin ring
Your age on other worlds? It would be quite different. Calculate.
The Fictionary of Witty Words
foodieview - the recipe search engine
Table of Condiments That Periodically Go Bad Read more:pieces
Trailfire 2006-10-27 09:05:14 Trailfire is a hosted service that enables anyone to comment on any web page. Place a ‘trail mark’ on a page with your comments or notes. A trail mark can contain text, images, videos and other media types. When you give several marks the same ‘trail name’ you are forming your own navigation path on the web. We call this a ‘Trail’.
Anyone with a compatible browser (presently IE version 6 or up and Firefox version 1.5 or up) can follow a trail. To make a trail, you will need a plugin to your browser.
Making trails is easy. Trails can be used for hundreds of reasons, ranging from serious research to serious fun. Use trails to organize and annotate web pages or to communicate your point of view. Share your trails by sending them via email, posting them on your blog or by publishing them on Trailfire.com.
IrfanView 2006-10-26 23:50:34 IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative image viewer and it’s free!
It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals. IrfanView was the first Windows graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple (animated) GIF support. One of the first graphic viewers WORLDWIDE with Multipage TIF support. The first graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple ICO support.
IrfanView has been my favorite image viewer for several years. For me it replaced ACDSee, which was my favorite image tool before. IrfanView has many, many advantages over ACDSee. One is size and another is speed, just to name the best ones.
The program is tiny. Just a window with a toolbar and the picture. Yet it is powerful! You can mass-rename image files, mass-create thumbnails with exact definitions, browse through image folders using thumbnails, edit images (size, color, extracts, add text and other effects).
There are various plugins available for people who need more than the default functions.
10 tips for successfull eBay auctions 2006-10-30 21:25:57 Some people claim that you can sell anything on eBay. That’s probably true. But you can’t sell anything without the right marketing. There are many factors that trigger a successfull auction. Below you will find some of the most important points that can make your auctions
more successfull.
titel
Focus. Don’t try to make as many people as possible visit your auction. Focus on those that may buy your item. People will most likely find your article using search terms. The search only questions the auction titles.
description
Be precise. Avoid possible missunderstandings or lack of information. Give a detailed description of what you are selling.
category
Choose wisely. Potential buyers could miss your auction because they don’t include your category in their search.
photos
A photo can say more than a thousand words. No matter what you are trying to sell, include a picture. It should provide bidders with a good impression of your item - color, shape, quality or wh
quieneh? 2006-10-31 08:05:10 quieneh? is a website with a new idea.
“quieneh” is basically a slang way of saying “quien es” which is Spanish for “Who is”.
Want to know who is behind an eMail address? Need more than a plain text email address? quieneh.com is the right place for you! Simply provide an eMail address to check if the owner has uploaded a picture or upload a picture for your own eMail address, so that others can see who you are!
You could also exchange photos anonymously using a temporary eMail address.
up for rent 2006-10-31 16:45:25 My blog is up for rent.Please place your bid and be sure to receive a fair deal!
1. I play fairThe rent my blog icon is prominently displayed in the upper part of my sidebar. You will receive your very own, unique welcome & intro post within two days of me accepting your bid. Also there is a link to my weekly tenant below every single post.
2. I guarantee minimum contentI post almost every day. This is important to keep readers attracted. And my readers are your readers when they click the rent icon. That’s why I guarantee to post on at least five days during your rent period.
3. I guarantee minimum trafficCurrently I can guarantee 300 unique hits per rent period. The best rent periods had 800+ unique hits.4. I guarantee minimum unique clicksYou will average a minimum of one unique click per two credits paid. All of my recent renters roughly received two unique clicks per credit paid.
5. Refund guaranteedIf I fail in any of the four points listed above, I will refund your cr
Bushisms 2006-11-01 08:05:42 Bushisms: The (US) president’s accidental wit and wisdom.
Here are my favorites from 2006 (so far):
“One has a stronger hand when there’s more people playing your same cards.” —Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 2006
“You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” —Interview with CBS News, Washington D.C., Sept. 6, 2006
“One thing is clear, is relations between America and Russia are good, and they’re important that they be good.” —Strelna, Russia, July 15, 2006
“I tell people, let’s don’t fear the future, let’s shape it.” —Omaha, Neb., June 7, 2006
“I was not pleased that Hamas has refused to announce its desire to destroy Israel.” —Washington, D.C., May 4, 2006
“I aim to be a competitive nation.” —San Jose, Calif., April 21, 2006
“You took an oath to defend our flag and our freedom, and you kept that oath underseas and under fi
random wallpaper 2006-11-02 08:05:26 Are you bored with your “rusty old” desktop wallpaper
? Would love to see something new? Maybe on a regular basis? Just too lazy to manually change it all the time? Yes? Read on!
I love to have a beautiful desktop and I get tired of my wallpaper quickly. Thus I change it every couple of days. I regularly look out for new pictures to use as desktop background and sometimes I discover so many good ones that I can hardly decide on one of them.
A solution to this problem could be to have a folder from which a random wallpaper is picked whenever the computer is rebooted. But how can this be accomplished? David Cumps found a way using scheduled tasks. But it’s quite complicated and I didn’t have the nerve to actually try it. There is software out there, but many require bitmap images. Now most wallpapers I find are jpgs. Fortunately I read the comments to David’s post and someone recommended a free wallpaperchanger software that accepts JPEG, PNG, GIF and BMP. Sw
A Templar Knight - The Quest Begins 2006-11-02 22:45:45 And a quest it was until the knight came along. Shortly before my offer had run out, a worthy bidder had been found.
My guest this week is a Brithish Templar Knight
. If you wish to learn more about the Knights Templar, the order which my guest is a member of, please visit their homepage or the (as always) highly informative Wikipedia entry.
This knight resides in Wales and holds the nobel position of a teacher. Unfortunately he doesn’t share what he is teaching, however he is a published writer, fluent in welsh and webmaster of the above mentioned Knights Templar homepage. All of these bits of information might give a hint to what he is doing in his everyday job. But does it really matter?
No, of course not. What matters to me and what should matter to you is the content of the blog I am introducing you to. I browsed through the most recent entries, skipped all the Halloween posts and found several gems. My favorite by far is the short story of the day when he invited a homeless Read more:Quest
Loki 2006-11-03 08:05:05 Loki is the first application in history that automatically uses your exact physical location to harness the power of the Internet. By combining its unique ability to determine location with an easy way to navigate the Web, Loki makes Internet search, directions and everything else on the Internet all about you, where you are, when you need it.
Map It
You’re smart. You travel for business. But just because ayou know you’re in Cleveland doesn’t mean you know the street, neighborhood, zip…with Loki you’ll always know exactly where you are. Just hit the Find Me button on your Loki toolbar and you’ll instantly see yourself plotted on a map. It’s a great way to find out where you are when you, well, don’t know.
Find it
New to Cleveland and on the hunt for great Ethiopian food? With Loki it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. Type anything in the Search locally for… box and let your favorite search engine find the ‘a
the best links that didn't make a post 2006-11-04 20:46:54 I still have too many unshared links
in my bookmarks. So here they are, all the gems that won’t make a great post but are definitely worth a visit.
Found this one the other day and only just watched it: A time laps video of a drive from L.A. to New York. It’s awesome! But beware, it’s set on autoplay.
In the article called Our Office 2.0 Experiment Ryan Carson from Carson Systems describes how his team managed the transition from traditional, expensive software to a connected, cheap and collaborative work environment applying the use of free open-source alternatives.
50 tools to increase your writing skills - I definitely need to find the time to read through this article because I find it very hard to write.
Ever heard of Pet Beans? This Pet Beans site claims that “mom and dad or any adult” will know what Mexican Jumping Beans are. Well, I AM an adult, but I have no clue! Looks funny, though.
Zamzar offers free online file conversion. Sitting at one o
guest post: Myths, Legends and the Truth 2006-11-05 12:14:17
When people find out that I am a Templar Knight they usually have one of two reactions. They both smile politely and make an excuse to leave in the same way one might if somebody had just told you they had a nasty social disease or they are fascinated and ask lots of questions.
There are many different questions that people ask, however, the most popular are; how true is the DaVinci Code? What is the Holy Grail? Was Mary Magdalene really Jesus’ wife? And finally, do you guys really have those weird sex rituals to celebrate the sacred feminine?
To answer these questions we must first look at the difference between a myth and a legend and how they relate to the truth. In its simplest form a myth is a traditional story that tries to explain a naturally occurring event or phenomenon. A myth is not based on fact in any way but is the creation of an imaginative mind attempting to make sense of something that is beyond his reasoning at the time. Many consider the story of Adam and Eve Read more:Myths
, Legends
, Truth
Sunday Special - October Best Of 2006-11-05 19:08:21 The best recommendations and posts from the month of October
2006.
Firefoxed
Morning Coffee - each day its own set of links
> the article
> Morning Coffee homepage
> install Morning Coffee
Trailfire - leave your trail on websites you visit
> the article
> Trailfire homepage
> install Trailfire
Google Browser Sync - browser synchronization through Google
> the article
> Browser Sync homepage
Guides
18 Tricks To Teach Your Body - control your biology
> the article
> the homepage
Windows Quick Tips - how to create a Windows toolbar
> the article
How to… Pimp Your PC
> the article
10 tips… for successfull eBay auctions
> the article
passwords - safe and easy to remember
> the article
Rounded corner boxes powered by:
Vertex Werks. A CSS / XHTML tutorial.
Software
Irfan View - small and powerful graphics tool
> the article
> Irfan View homepage
Launchy - launch files and programs within seconds
> the article
> Launchy homepage
Taskbar Shuffle - rearra Read more:Sunday
, Special
Refresh 2006-11-06 08:05:28 Today’s tip comes from Erin of WORLDSTART.COM.
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We all use our desktops quite often when we’re working on our computers, don’t we? I mean, that’s where all of our icons are placed, that’s where we can change our desktop themes, our wallpaper designs and our screen saver choices. And that’s just the beginning of what we use the desktop for. There’s so much to be done on the desktop, we just can’t take the chance of it not working right.
What am I talking about? Well, every once in awhile, desktops do freeze up. You could be working in a right click menu and when you’re done w Read more:Refresh
Welcome C&C Monday Participants 2006-11-06 22:56:48 I don’t mean to ruin your day, but if you don’t have anything to say, please don’t comment at all. Thank you.
Just in case you didn’t know, Click & Comment Monday
wasn’t created to have people post “Happy C&C Monday” to as many blogs as possible. It was created in the spirit of generating quality traffic with quality readers who will eventually post quality comments. You are NOT required to comment every single blog you visit.
So again, if you do not care for the posts I have up here, if you do not enjoy reading my blog and if you have nothing to say regarding this blog, its posts or anything else I might be interested in, then PLEASE move on and don’t waste your and my time.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
PS: If you do enjoy reading good blogs, please visit the Templar Knight, my weekly tenant.
Read more:Welcome
, Participants
Joe's Logbook 2006-11-07 22:46:16
Joe’s Logbook
is an online calendar, organizer, timer, record keeper or diary. In short it’s an online tracking tool. Keep track of everything: birthdays, telephone numbers, goals, workouts, meetings, gift ideas, anything.
Organize your life using the power of your own words. Track your activities by adding daily notes explaining your experiences, victories, and failures. Use the simple, single-page interface to setup and track the specifics of any area of your life. Use it to record your thoughts, track your work travel and spending, watch your health, and track your dreams and inspirations.
Best of all, you can try the demo. Live, without having to sign up, right on their start site. And next you know it you’ll be creating several logbooks for yourself. Free.
Recommend Site To A Friend
