Tuesday, October 30, 2007
For some time now Braeden has had an astronomy tool on his wishlist. It's one of those planetarium's that shows all of the constellations on your ceiling. I haven't purchased it yet because he is so young and even though he says he wants it I'm just not sure he can appreciate it yet.Then I stumbled across a similar gadget on the Edmund Scientific site, a Laser Star Shower projector. You turn the projector on in a dark room and it instantly fills not only the ceiling but the entire area with stars and cloud formations. There's not much more interesting to children than glowing holograms, but when you add in animation and shooting stars there's no way you can go wrong. I think this could be just the thing to help him fall asleep and stay in his room without feeling scared.
Beyond the scope of being fun for children, it would also be romantic to lay on the floor or bed with Brian and watch the nebula cloud formations.
If you are interested in being geeky with me and my family you should peruse www.scientificsonline.com. I remember when there was a World of Science store in our local mall and this is even better. The gadgets available here are just so cool.
Science has never been so fun!
Labels: braeden, laser, projector rentals, stars, toys
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Holy ethernet batman! D-Link's DGL-4500 Xtreme N Gaming Router has a GameFuel Engine to keep your game running smoother. Brian would this help with our latency troubles in WoW? It has Gigabit LAN and WAN ports to power a wired network. AND Xtreme N Duo wireless technology for data transfer rates of up to 300Mbps!
Product specs say the wireless signal will be just as strong in the basement as it is in the attic. Awesome! I mean with Gigabit ports, high-performance CPU and backward capability you have got to admit this is drool worthy.
There is even a Network Activity Display to show you what's going on with your router. You can see the securities immediately and you can also see how much is sending and receiving on the display.
For any of you who ever doubted my nerdiness...you really should have no doubts now.
Labels: gaming, router, wireless, WoW
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
As much as I love Flickr I have to tell you I didn't know about this Qoop thing. But after uploading Brae's birthday pictures I decided to check it out because the teaser blip said I'd be able to make a photo book and I thought that would be pretty cool for him.Qoop (with your permission as a Flickr user) will hunt through your Flickr account and pull out the photos by upload date and/or set. Then you can drag them individually or by set to the Qoop action tray. From the tray you can then create magnets, key chains, t-shirts, postcards, books, etc. It's convenient because you have already uploaded the photos to Flickr so you don't have to hunt them down and upload them again.
The prices on the key chains and magnets seemed steep to me but the price for the book I made for Brae was very reasonable. I haven't received it in the mail yet so I don't know of the quality but I'm excited to find out.
Qoop also works with Photobucket, Facebook and Webshots if you are interested in checking it out. I had fun with it!
Monday, October 15, 2007
As the Internet continues to expand by the minute, there are a plethora of tools available for those who venture the web.Questia is the first online library that provides 24/7 access to the world's largest online collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences, plus magazine and newspaper articles. You can search by word, phrase, title, author, or subject. It's like having the Dewey Decimal System at your fingertips whenever you call on it.
There are many places to access information on the WWW, but Questia offers some extra perks for high school and college students, because there are tools to write notes in the margins and highlight passages as if you were working with actual physical books. Plus it will show you how to create properly formatted footnotes and bibliographies automatically. I know citations were always difficult for me, so I'm impressed by that feature. Questia keeps track of which resources you use and automatically records them, thus creating a bibliography.
Some components require small fees, but there are over 5,000 free books as well! These are complete books cover to cover - read or search any page or all of the book. So it's not just tiny little excerpts that won't help you with your papers.
Oh, one last thing..unlike other libraries, no book is ever "checked out" - one less frustration for you. ;o)
Sponsored post.
Labels: library, online tools, research
Thursday, October 11, 2007
You know I have to say I thought I was even geekier than 86% so this surprised me.The little blurb said, "Ever lose your car keys and wish life had ctrl+f? Have you trained your parakeet to whistle songs from the Ocarina of Time? You could be a geek: take our 2 minute quiz to determine how much geek is coursing through your veins!" And so I HAD to take the quiz, haha!
86% Geek
Then to be even stranger I decided to look up the definition of geek. I found some rather interesting ones and so I thought I'd share.
Definitions of Geek on the Web:
Geek is a common term for someone who is obsessed by their computer, and has achieved a high level of expertise in their chosen area.ROFLS!
A term similar to nerd, but slightly less pejorative in tone.
To quote from The New Hacker's Dictionary, a computer geek is "one who eats (computer) bugs for a living." One who fulfills all the dreariest negative stereotypes about hackers: an asocial, malodorous, pasty-faced monomaniac with all the personality of a cheese grater. ...
A person who knows all the terms listed here and many more. Normally wears a tanktop, thick rimmed glasses and a bow-tie. Due their vast knowledge of computer termanology, they don't have a social life. They also live at home with their mothers.
A carnival performer who does disgusting acts; eccentric: a person with an unusual or odd personality.
A geek is an individual who is fascinated by knowledge and imagination, usually electronic or virtual in nature. Geek may not always have the same meaning as the term nerd. ...
Geek! is the second EP by My Bloody Valentine, and their first to feature bass player Debbie Googe. It was released in December 1985.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
When I saw this site I knew I would immediately need to blog about it, because it's just so cool! "oSkope is a visual browser that lets you search and organize items from different web services like Amazon, Ebay, YouTube or Flickr in an intuitive way."
You choose where you would like to search and as you are typing in your keyboard images begin flying up on the screen that match what you are looking for! So if you are a visual person, like me, this is the cream of the crop! This seriously could be the most amazing site I have found ever...or at least for the year of 2007.
I mean. I'm drooling.
**wipes off keyboard**
Their about page is pretty skimpy, but this is what it says "oSkope visual search is a free online service developed by oSkope media gmbh in Zurich and Berlin. A great team of highly talented and skillful people worked on this project: Design Alain Leclerc von Bonin, Visual Context, Zurich, Software development front- and backend WELTFORMAT.DESIGN, Pepe Jurgens, Berlin and Daniel Burckhardt, Berlin, Prototype programmingPeter Chylewski, Basel, Technical WritingLinda Popova, Zurich."
Anway, here is what you do in case you are confused. In the upper left hand corner of the page choose a service. Then you need to choose a category OR just start typing in what you are searching for via a keyword, title, etc. Push enter!
Everything that falls under that search will start flying up onto the page. Then on the left side, center you'll see five small icons. Those icons are your organization choices. You can stack things, pile them, list them and even place them on a graph according to price! It's awesome!
I know. I'm a nerd.
Labels: search engine optimization, visual
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
"Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the original iconic Star Wars film, this replica of the headstrong astromech droid is a full-function, 628 x 528 pixel web camera that wirelessly transmits real-time video and audio to a computer, and has worldwide remote access capabilities, allowing you to control R2-D2's movements and access the web camera from a laptop or a PC anywhere in the world."In addition to its looks and functionality, the web cam also says 11 different phrases and astromech droid sounds from the original Star Wars soundtrack.
You can also buy an R2D2 Home Theatre System which is pretty wicked awesome if I do say so myself.
"DLP projection system with superior 1,500:1 contrast, and can project movies, TV shows, images, and video games from his radar eye at 1024 x 768 resolution onto walls up to 16 1/2' away, equivalent to an 80" screen."
SOURCE
Labels: r2d2, star wars, web cam
Monday, October 8, 2007
Boeing has announced that its autonomous robotic stealth chopper, the A160T, will be the initial carrying platform for a new US airborne surveillance system.
On September 28th, Boeing's A160T Hummingbird unmanned rotorcraft has completed an 8 hour flight, it's longest yet, carrying a 1K pound payload. Boeing says future payloads will include a combination of sensors, weapons and systems to perform a range of missions including persistent surveillance, communications relay, target acquisition, direct attack, precision resupply and personnel recovery.
On September 28th, Boeing's A160T Hummingbird unmanned rotorcraft has completed an 8 hour flight, it's longest yet, carrying a 1K pound payload. Boeing says future payloads will include a combination of sensors, weapons and systems to perform a range of missions including persistent surveillance, communications relay, target acquisition, direct attack, precision resupply and personnel recovery.
Labels: helicopter, spy
Friday, October 5, 2007
It's not about gadgets or technology, but it definitely can be labelled as geeky and so here comes the post.Did you know there is a league of people who "fight" with cardboard tubes? I could say that I am completely making this up, but even I am not THAT good.
"The CTFL was created out of a desperate need to better train and arm citizens with cardboard tubes. While many speculate that our fore fathers, when drafting the constitution, originally intended the fourth amendment to refer to fire arms, there is now a small group of non-academics who believe that they were more likely referring to elite militias of card board tube wielding ninjas."Friends...they even have a Flickr account with actual cardboard tube fighting action shots.
In case you are wondering what some of the club rules might be, I thought I'd at least share the first one with you.
Rule #1
Don't break your tube. In a duel, the last person with an unbroken tube is declared the winner.
Ahhhhh, life, sometimes it's just too funny. So how would one go about developing an East Coast Cardboard Tube Fighting League? I'll leave you to your pondering.
Labels: Cardboard Tube Fighting League
Thursday, October 4, 2007
When I saw this I immediately thought of Brian, because he always has all kinds of things plugged in and hooked up near his PC, a fan included.Even with all it's alien like display, it is awfully hard to refute the functionality of having 4 extra USB ports, 2 FireWire ports, a light and a fan all in one gadget.
The LaCie Hub will work across operating systems and comes bundled with everything you could ever need for it to work as intended.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Let me just tell you something. In July my son dropped my cell phone. It broke into two pieces but I was able to snap it back together. However now there are exposed wires and well it's just not dependable. When I called my wireless provider they were unhelpful. They told me I would have to wait until February to upgrade my phone. I don't need to upgrade it, I don't care if it is downgraded, I just need a new phone.
So began the search for a new provider since AT&T clearly doesn't want my business. Of course Verizon is an option, but you know me, Miss has to research everything.
With more and more long distance calls coming in for freelance design and writing purposes I have even though about a small business phone plan.
Packet8 Internet phone service was introduced in 2002 by publicly traded 8x8, Inc. Packet8 allows anyone with broadband (high-speed) Internet access to make unlimited calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada for as little as $24.99 per month.
It piqued my interest because I wondered how many people would really want to have to talk through their computer. But then I found out you don't have to do that at all. Yes it is true they use an ISP because it is more efficient than phone cables, but it's exactly the same phone usage as you currently have. You still get calls to your phone and you still talk on your phone. But if you are into staying glued to your PC you have that option, too. Packet8 Softalk is a PC-based application that allows subscribers to make and receive voice and video phone calls directly from their personal computers without the need for a regular analog phone.
So it's cheaper and you get a videophone! Doesn't get much cooler than that!
So began the search for a new provider since AT&T clearly doesn't want my business. Of course Verizon is an option, but you know me, Miss has to research everything.
With more and more long distance calls coming in for freelance design and writing purposes I have even though about a small business phone plan.
Packet8 Internet phone service was introduced in 2002 by publicly traded 8x8, Inc. Packet8 allows anyone with broadband (high-speed) Internet access to make unlimited calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada for as little as $24.99 per month.
It piqued my interest because I wondered how many people would really want to have to talk through their computer. But then I found out you don't have to do that at all. Yes it is true they use an ISP because it is more efficient than phone cables, but it's exactly the same phone usage as you currently have. You still get calls to your phone and you still talk on your phone. But if you are into staying glued to your PC you have that option, too. Packet8 Softalk is a PC-based application that allows subscribers to make and receive voice and video phone calls directly from their personal computers without the need for a regular analog phone.
So it's cheaper and you get a videophone! Doesn't get much cooler than that!
Labels: digital phone
I don't know if folks at Mixx heard me complaining that I hadn't been invited to the BETA testing of their new network/share site, but this morning I had an invite to register. Mixx for all intensive purposes is a lot like Digg. In fact, Mixx is probably the first real competition for Digg.
You vote for your favorite links whether a new story, photo or video and all users have a chance to comment, etc. As you continue working through the site you receive Karma points. I think the Karma points are a great feature, because it forces you to look around and comment and vote on other peoples things. So it's not just about self-promotion of your own material.
You create a profile, upload a brief bio and an icon or photo and off you go. Submitting a link is super easy. Voting is super easy. And right off the bat you can sort through stories and links easily because the front page has everything categorized. Whereas on Digg everything is thrown into one giant feed.
You add friends to follow if you find someone has a lot of content you share common interest in. Another interesting feature is the groups. You can create a group and join a group. I'm not sure what this segment is about yet, but I will be dabbling. I do know that if you create a group you decide just how private you want the settings to be. I suppose you can think of that like you would control the privacy settings in Facebook.
Aside for being better organized than most other network/bookmark sites, I feel this interface is cleaner and far more user friendly. To me it is intuitive to be able to sort through popular and most recently added links PER category all on the same front page of the site. This means less clicking and easier voting.
Mixx, I'm sticking with ya, well done!
Labels: bookmarking, MIXX
Yes, I know it is gorgeous out today. Sunshine and 75 degrees, perfect breeze and all that good stuff, but the facts are that winter will be here in a few months and as a new home owner I'm thinking about weatherizing.You can weatherize your home on your own to help save money and energy. All you've got to do is to learn how; knowledge is power.
When it comes to DIY projects I have to admit I'm not well versed. Last night Brian was taking out our old kitchen faucet and putting in a new one. He was describing certain parts to me and I just stared at him blankly. He needed me to ask my Dad for a certain tool and when I asked I ended up fumbling through the question. "Um Dad, do you have that tool that looks like a question mark? You know, the tool that you spin the thing on and it tightens or loosens something." Oh the joys of being a homeowner with no clue. Thank God for Brian, otherwise things could have been a disaster.
DoitYourself.com is an open, free community with thousands of articles and over 100 active forums on several do-it-yourself home improvement topics. In other words, it's just the place someone like me should bookmark and frequent. I admit I have used a site like this before and I printed out a DIY guide on changing a tire. It really was super helpful.
So whether it is painting, plumbing, or even weatherizing your home, you can count on DoitYourself.com for tips and guides from people who have been there and done that...er...um...tried. =o)
Sponsored post.
Labels: DIY
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