chrispirillo: Some Windows Vista to Windows 7 upgrade installation attempts are failing. http://bit.ly/1yJMWr [Happening to you? This should help.] — 9:30pm
Thanks to HP and BuzzCorps, Ponzi and I gave away a $5000 Dragon notebook last night! We had a lot of fun, and I’m sure our winner Ralajer is one happy camper in sunny California!
Unfortunately, the video of the drawing itself didn’t turn out so well. I was called away to go home to Iowa. My parents were in a bad car accident last week. They’re doing ok now, though. I don’t have a very strong Internet connection, so the video didn’t work too well. This is the reason we’re telling you about it after the fact in this video!
Sutty5 writes: “Many discussions recently have focussed on having more than one eBay account. Ebay has no problems with this, as long as each account is kept in good standing. Following are five reasons for opening multiple accounts.”
Join FireFox in their mission to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours! World Download Day is fast approaching. Will you pledge to help Mozilla reach its goal?
Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours – it’s that easy. They’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome. You’ll get a customized certificate by downloading from Headquarters!
With more than 14,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than before. Firefox 3 sets the innovation bar very high with exciting new features, including one-click bookmarking, the smart location bar and lightning fast performance. Firefox 3 includes phishing and malware protection, plus new instant site ID info. With features like built-in spell checking, session restore and full zoom, Firefox 3 makes it possible to work faster and more efficiently on the Web. Your taste and needs set you apart from the rest. With Firefox 3 you can choose from over 5,000 add-ons that help you customize your browsing experience.
Given that there’s no established Guinness World Record for software downloads, Mozilla is destined for the record book no matter what happens. A Mozilla spokesperson said the company is working with the Guinness Book Of World Records to verify the record attempt and will be furnishing 10% of the company’s download logs for an extrapolated final download count.
So get your pledge on! Let’s help Mozilla hit the Guinness Book in a big way!
What did you want to grow up to be when you were little? I wanted to be a few different things. I even had the opportunity once to ask Bill Gates this very question. Did you know that as a kid, Mr. Gates wanted to be a Mathematician?
The first thing I can remember as a young child that I was determined to become was a farmer. I loved animals, and had family members who were in Agriculture. My Dad wanted me to grow up to be a Neurosurgeon, because they make a lot of money. So of course, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. Then, since I grew up Catholic, I thought I had a calling to be a Priest. That turned out to be a wrong number, as well.
Of course, you all know I went to college to become an English teacher, and we all see how that worked out. I ended up doing something completely different, because I gained a passion for Technology.
What did you want to be when you were little? Did you grow up to do it? Are you still in that field? Or… did you end up doing something completely different? I’d love to hear from you all. Keep in mind, this question is really mostly for the adults in my Community. I’m curious to see how many of you ended up living out your childhood career dreams.
Someone recently asked me what exactly embedding means? To embed something simply means that you are enclosing or adding something. For instance, you can embed a video into a blog post, or onto YouTube.
We record and upload videos to YouTube. You’re also able to watch those videos on my blog. YouTube allows me to embed the video into my blog. I don’t move the video, or upload it directly to my site. I basically point you to the video, which is hosted on YouTube. Why would I want to do that? Well for one, YouTube bears the burden of the bandwidth. If the videos aren’t hosted on my site, they aren’t eating up my bandwidth. There are also tons of people watching these videos, so having them be on YouTube allows the traffic to be routed through them.
Embedding is a good thing. The only caveat really is where you embed. You need to be careful where you host and upload things, in case the site could someday close its doors. I don’t think YouTube is going anywhere. I don’t think Flickr is going anywhere.
So basically, you take some HTML code, paste it into your blog or website, and presto! The video or picture has been embedded.
Last week, we shared tips with you on things you can do with your old computers. One of those things was to turn it into a firewall. Of course, in order to do this you’ll also need software.
So what is a firewall? It’s a service that acts as a bodyguard of sorts, keeping bad traffic out and allowing good traffic in. Firewalls can be tricky to deal with. There are software firewalls, or hardware firewalls. There is open source software you can use, called IPCop. IPCop Linux is a complete Linux Distribution whose sole purpose is to protect the networks it is installed on. By implementing existing technology, outstanding new technology and secure programming practices IPCop is the Linux Distribution for those wanting to keep their computers/networks safe.
IPCop has many features, probably way more than you’ll take advantage of. It’s also very powerful. I highly recommend this if you have an old computer that you’d like to throw this onto, or just want to get yourself an excellent firewall.
My parents were released from the hospital in Kansas City on Wednesday. Adam drove ‘em back to Des Moines, and Ponzi and I decided that it would be best for me to travel back to Iowa for a week to help them back onto their feet (so to speak). I’ve been driving them around town for the past couple of days, and I can say with a great amount of assurance that they’re well on the road to recovery.
Any book that Ponzi has ever given me on the subject of relationships makes me shudder. I’m a dude. Dudes don’t read those books! However, when she handed me this one, I couldn’t help but reading it after I saw the title: “How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It“.
As far as online video is concerned… if it’s not on YouTube, then it’s not a video. I publish all my videos to YouTube, along with a few other places. I’ve been publishing videos for several years, but never found a place that offers me more than YouTube does. I definitely have to give a shoutout to Kat, who does all my video encoding and uploading for me. She makes my job a heck of a lot easier, definitely.
What happens when a video is yanked off of YouTube, due to alleged copyright infringement? Does it disappear forever? Being that it’s digital media, it will just crop up elsewhere. If you kill one, three others will pop up in its place. This is what sparked the YouTomb project.
Every single day in the chat room, someone asks me where I get my wallpaper from. Sometimes I make them myself, using Oxidizer. Sometimes I download them from somewhere. But my friend Andy Stanberry reminded me about using DestopTopia.
Desktoptopia is a FREE desktop background manager that automatically loads and displays designer desktops on your monitor, as often as you wish. Loving the current desktop? Can’t stop staring at it? Just click Pause in the menubar, and stare all you want. You can also go back, or to the next desktop right from the menubar. Setting how often your desktop changes is just as simple. You can rate desktops anytime from the menubar. You can also subscribe to categories like Photography, Illustration, Typography, Architecture, Graphic Design, 3D, and Abstract. Or you can mix it up with a little from all the categories.
Got two monitors? We’re so jealous. But, Desktoptopia has got you covered. You can decide how you want Desktoptopia to work with your multiple-monitor set up. You can have twice the love and duplicate the desktop on both monitors, only show desktops on one (whichever one you want), or show different desktops on each monitor. Quick, what’s your monitor resolution? Yeah, we don’t know ours either. Desktoptopia will automatically detect your resolution and deliver you the appropriately sized desktop, so your desktops always look their best.
Desktoptopia delivers the most beautiful and inspiring desktops around from our ever-growing collection. But that’s only half the story. They keep our desktops usable, so you can actually find stuff on your desktop.
Last week NASA released this map of 100 explosions on the Moon, observed in the last two and half years. (read original article at NASA)
“They’re explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the Moon,” says Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (press release). “A typical blast is about as powerful as a few hundred pounds of TNT and can be photographed easily using a backyard telescope.”
NASA started monitoring Moon explosions toward the end of 2005. As they were planning to send astronauts back there “it seemed like a good idea to measure how often the Moon was getting hit”, says Rob Suggs, also at the Marshall Center.
Meteoroids hit the Moon so fast, normally at least 13,000 m/s, that they heat up the surface enough that it glows. Hence you get an ‘explosion’ despite a lack of oxygen.
I think the most fascinating part of this story is the claim that you can easily photograph these explosions using a “backyard telescope”. Has anybody out there tried doing this yet? For those of you without a telescope here’s a NASA video of a Meteoroid hitting the moon.
Stephen of Ohio (that’s what he calls himself) sent me this message earlier today, no doubt in relation to my recent posts on the high cost of gas here in the United States:
How high do gas prices have to get before you change your own driving habits, if you haven’t already? I thought, for certain, that there would be less vehicles on the road after gas hit $4 a gallon here in the United States (at least, in the Seattle area). Seems to me that even when we see $6 a gallon, people aren’t going to travel less than they already do today. No matter where you are on the planet, gas isn’t very cheap. There’s little you can do to avoid wallet pain at the pump, though.
I get invited to several events throughout the year. I was supposed to attend an event the other day at Microsoft. Unfortunately, I’ve been having issues with my own Web servers, and couldn’t go. Microsoft has been making waves with their announcement about bringing advertising to things like the Zune.
Last week NASA released this map of 100 explosions on the Moon, observed in the last two and half years. (
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