OhBuoyancy! » computing

Multimedia Monday: Be Smart

Reese — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:41:36 +0000

National Geographic takes an interactive look at how our PCs are harming our environment and our health after we “dispose” of them. If you’ve ever thrown away or even recycled a computer or plan on doing so (and who doesn’t at some point), you need to take a look.

Okay, this one’s more fun. The New York Times does a side-by-side of the old “Get Smart” television series and the new movie. I may not have been thought of yet when the series was originally on air, but I watched it every night on Nick-at-Night when I was younger.

Speaking of “Get Smart,” did anyone see the TV Land awards? Aside from aging (gracefully) Barbara Feldon has not changed at all.

Spread Firefox

Reese — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:18:54 +0000

I’ve been using Firefox 3 beta as my only browser for around a week now. I wanted to try it out before then, but my one must-have add-on, Foxmarks was not ready for it yet, so I had only tried it briefly using a portable version on my usb drive . Then, when I found out Foxmarks was ready, I went all-in. I am now using Firefox on both my desktop and laptop, and it’s great.

It has crashed once, but that’s nothing compared to the crashing problems I had with Firefox 2. The only other problem I’ve had is a very small one, and that is that sometimes when I have my bookmarks open in the sidebar it won’t close by clicking the x, instead I have to hit ctrl+b, not a big deal. Plus, this is the point of beta testing, so they can be notified of these problems and get them worked out before the official release.

Anyway, the point of this post is to “Spread Firefox.” SpreadFirefox.com is trying to set a Guinness record by making Firefox 3 the most downloaded software within the first 24 hours of it’s official release, which should be sometime in the next week or so. You can visit the site to find out more about Firefox 3 and pledge to download it on download day.

Serious Competition for Picnik?

Reese — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:44:14 +0000

The buzz on the web today is all about Photoshop Express, Adobe’s new and completely free online version of Photoshop. Don’t get too excited, it’s far from the real deal, but it does let you crop, sharpen, remove red-eye, and add basic effects to your photos, things the average, everyday digicam user wants yet can’t justify paying for Photoshop to have.

I’ve actually been using the site Picnik, for simple editing and touch-ups like this for some time. I do have Photoshop on my desktop computer, but Picnik is great for simple, quick editing when I don’t want to wait for Photoshop to load, and it can be used on any computer with the internet. While there are other sites out there as well, I don’t think any has been on the same level as Picnik as of yet. Photoshop Express might be able to beat it, but not as it is now.

Right now, Photoshop Express lacks several things that Picnik has, like the ability to add text or shapes to photos for example, and I’m very surprised that I’m not finding a “resize” function anywhere, that’s one of the main things that I use Picnik for. Photoshop Express also lacks Flickr integration, it has Picasa, Facebook, and Photobucket, but no Flickr, supposedly it’s coming. Picnik has those plus Flickr, Myspace, and Webshots, it also allows you to get a photo from your webcam directly or from a website. Photoshop Express does however, have some things Picnik does not, like photo storage and galleries. That may make the difference for some users, but not for me, that’s what I use Flickr for. Oh and Picnik not only has Flickr integrated, but is integrated into Flickr itself, check out those buttons above your photos.

I’ll still check it out, and will continue to do so, as I know it will change a lot from it’s current “beta,” but Photoshop Express is going to have to kick it up a notch before they can steal me away from Picnik.

Oh and if I see one more post about Muxtape, I’m going to scream! That’s right, no link, I will not succumb to it’s plea for the attention of the masses, you (and you, and you, and you, and you) have already done that enough for all of us. And it doesn’t even work in my browser, just so you know.

Save the Worst for Last

Reese — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 02:27:00 +0000

My last final is tomorrow, the much-dreaded history final. I’ve never done well in history and this professor’s “fit as much non-chronologically relayed information into an hour and 15 minutes as possible with no discussion” method does not help me.

After tomorrow I will be free until January 7. Here’s some of the things I’m going to be doing:

·A lot of reading
·Relaxing
·Watching movies
·Moving my site to Wordpress (real Wordpress with real hosting, w00t!)
·Making my Christmas list
·Shopping (hopefully)
·Eating!

Oh yeah, if you have this site bookmarked with any url other than http://ohbuoyancy.net change your bookmark to that now as any other address will quit working when I switch to Wordpress over the next couple days. Also if you subscribe to the rss feed it will no longer work, so check http://ohbuoyancy.net to see what the new feed is.

Vote!

Reese — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:20:00 +0000

I’m actually registering to vote for the first time ever. Sure I could have 6 years ago, but I didn’t pay any attention to politics then; this is the first time that I’ve felt strongly enough about it to actually pay attention and vote.

I used Rock The Vote to fill out my registration form. I recommend it over the standard register to vote site. With Rock The Vote they give you the form right away while on the other site they want you to read what’s practically a dissertation on who is allowed to vote (which most people already know) before you get to the form. Plus Rock The Vote lets you fill out the form online (you still have to print, sign, and mail it of course). If you click the Rock The Vote banner in my sidebar the form will pop up and you can fill it out right away.

I’m supporting Ron Paul by the way. While I have my doubts that he will make it past the primary, I’m still giving him my 1up.

In other news, I hate Blogger! I don’t even know if this will publish. Wordpress.com is looking more appealing all the time. Every time I try to post a blog or update my layout I get “your blog is taking to long to publish…” and every time I have to retry repeatedly. What turns me off about Wordpress though is that I can’t have “real” Wordpress because my host is my ISP and they don’t support MySQL and I can’t afford to pay for hosting. With hosted Wordpress.com you can’t edit your css without paying to do so, I think that would really bug me. Actually with the updates Comcast is making I may want to migrate away from their hosting anyway.

I should be studying for finals.

Improved – Procrastination on 43things

Reese — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:03:00 +0000

While I’m still not perfect on this, I’ve greatly improved and don’t procrastinate nearly as much. One thing that has helped me the most is making do to lists at least twice a week. I usually have one for the weekend and then a new one on Monday or Tuesday. When I’m overwhelmed with tasks it makes it less stressful to have all of them written down, so I can see what needs to be down instead of trying to remember it all. It’s a good feeling of accomplishment when I get things done and see the list getting smaller and smaller.

I may still finish things the night before they need to be done, but I’m no longer starting them the night before.

Trying to keep an empty inbox for my email helps too, it pushes me to answer emails at least the same day that I receive them (in most cases).

The firefox plugin “Morning Coffee” , is very helpful with productivity as well. I can push one button and every site I visit regularly opens in tabs, so I get all of my regular reading out of the way first thing.

See more progress on: stop procrastinating

The Great Internet Crisis Of 2007

Reese — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:06:00 +0000

Major internet problems today. Until about two hours ago I could not access any Google site, that means no Gmail! no Reader, no News, no Gmail!, no searching, no Gmail!, and no logging into Blogger either. Actually it appeared that, of all the sites I had visited last night I could only access one of them today, and that was IMDB.com. I couldn’t visit any of the 43things sites, iconbuffet, or Veer either (plus a few others).

I tried everything I could think of. I cleared my cache multiple times, restarted, reset my cable modem and my router. It wasn’t just on my desktop either, it was on the laptop too, so that got me thinking…it had to be something in the connection, not with the computers or browsers. Would OpenDNS block Google? I didn’t think so (I’ve since contacted them and they haven’t, and they can visit Google), but I changed my DNS servers in my router settings anyway. Low and behold, I can visit Google sites now. At first I still couldn’t visit any of the others, but they’re returning now too. It’s really weird, I’m going to switch back to the OpenDNS servers later just to check.

Edit: On a similar note, Netflix is back up. It had been down “temporarily” since last night, and they kept changing the time for it to be back up. Last night it said something like 1am Pacific, this morning 11amP, then 1, then 4. But it’s back now, and I’m getting Zodiac tomorrow.