I like these multi-blade scissors because they don’t take up a lot of space. Usually, only a small part of a document needs to be shredded and these would make that easy. Unfortunately, it seems that they are only available in Japan.
Cool Hunting has lots of other interesting stuff, but it’s on the pricey side.
In 1955, Henri-Georges Clouzot filmed Picasso as he painted – the result is a time-lapse photography of the fantastic way Picasso created his artworks.
Well worth the time it takes to watch this painting be transformed to something completely different than what it starts as.
The prices of plane tickets go up and down more often than a commuter shuttle. But now there’s Farecast.com, which predicts whether the price of your flight is likely to rise or fall before your travel date and tells you to buy or wait. The site achieves its 70 to 75 percent accuracy rate–high for a market so volatile–by using data mining to analyze past flights and determining which factors most affect ticket prices. The service is available on more than 2,000 popular routes. Free;
You probably know a lot of them, and some are for Windows programs you probably don’t use, but it’s still a good list. Skim the comments, because they have a few more shortcuts that aren’t in the list.
The Best of What’s New 2006 has loads of interesting stuff. This isn’t just for geeks: one of their items is a better nail for hurricanes and earthquakes. Another is a cap that stiffens on impact to act like a helmet, but doesn’t feel like one the rest of the time.
The full title is really “Disgruntled Dell customer finds crafty path to lawsuit settlement”. It’s a fun article about how some guy sued Dell for his unresolved computer issues by serving the papers to a Dell shopping mall kiosk.
I wonder if HP has any kiosks? I finished reinstalling my programs and was having the same problems again, infrequently at first, then more and more. HP’s response was, “It must be one of the programs you installed causing the problems. We don’t know which one, and can’t help you.” Essentially, if you do anything other than use the computer in the factory provided state, you’re on your own from a support standpoint when you get an HP.
Making the previous entry on www.AnswersThatWork.com reminded me to mention why I wanted to post it here. It has been very useful in the continuing fight with my new, partially-functional HP desktop computer. It’s been about two months now; they won’t take it back and they won’t fix it.
I’m not working on this all the time, of course. At this point, I’ve done a complete reformat of the drive and re-installation of most of my programs. This time running Windows Update didn’t break it. I have rebooted after each program was installed, as requested by HP’s support person. I learned on my own not to use MSFT’s video driver “update” because it is older than the update on the video manufacturer’s website, and it determined that it was what broke my graphics program the last time. The new driver is also not on the HP site, but the video program (Paint Shop Pro) help area is where I learned that it was needed to get things working. I’m still getting occasional crashes (no blue screens) and the HP printer has trouble talking to the HP PC. They sent me PC recovery disks from free, but the disks were unreadable until I discovered a driver update for the DVD player on the HP website. It doesn’t sound like they will ever get my older programs to work at all, in spite of them working on my older XP system. I won’t be able to make music CDs without living with HP’s idea of the minimal requirements of what CD burning software should do (such as you must always have a 2 second break between songs).
There was a time when companies tried to make sure that new products were compatible with old, and made an effort to fix the problem if it didn’t. Now I guess we have to just buy new software with the new hardware and hope it works, if a new version is available at all.
If you’re a properly inculcated PC user, you probably always run virus software and, at least occasionally, also ad-ware or spy-ware checkers such as Ad-Aware. Or maybe the PC seems to be running slow, so you check out what tasks are running. The problem is that sometimes something shows up that you don’t recognize, like msimn.exe. It may not be a problem, but it’s a research project to figure out if it’s a program that should be there or not. Many Google links just go to places that have a one line description of the task or program, and the rest of the page is trying to get you to buy their software if you want to know more.
This one has a bit more info, and I like the name of the place: www.AnswersThatWork.com
They’re still selling, but their free answers are more complete than other sites I’ve been to. I include it here because it is usually buried deep in all the less-useful Google listing.
In addition to picking up the Winternals Software team in July, Microsoft has apparently acquired an interesting piece of intellectual property — the Sysinternals “Blue Screen of Death” screensaver.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2055211,00.asp
I bought a new HP Pavilion computer just over six weeks ago. I have spent many hours online searching for fixes to problems, and over six hours on the phone with tech support. Today I got to the top level of support, and basically got a “read the fine print” reminder from them. They obvious don’t put this stuff in their marketing literature.
Unfortunately, the program that won’t run is one of the Windows recovery programs, SFC (system file check). SFC was my last hope for getting this POS PC to work right. The severe problems started after running Windows Update; it blue screened and required starting in Safe Mode and doing a System Restore. I got it mostly working, but when problems started again later, System Restore would no longer work. Because SFC won’t work without a CD, I can’t use Windows’ built in repair utility. What are we left with? Support has to give the one answer we all know and fear (and apparently, the only answer they know): “Format the disc and reinstall the OS.”
Remember that what broke the system beyond repair was doing a standard Windows Update. This makes it is very likely that if I follow their instructions, I will once again have a broken PC.
Okay, what’s the big deal about doing a reinstall? And why did it take six weeks to get to this point? That’s how long I’ve been moving programs from my old system, reconfiguring, updating, etc. Now I get to lose all that work because tech support can only say, (everyone this time): “Format the disc and reinstall the OS.” Of course, before I do it I’ll have to move everything back to the old PC with the hope that most of the data doesn’t get lost.
This isn’t really just an HP computer warning. It really applies to any PC where you don’t get the Widows disc, which unfortunately is most. Just a reminder that even though you think your PC should work with standard programs, your computer’s manufacturer may not feel the same way.
Days of hell moving things over, settings scattered everywhere. New versions to download. Upgrades to perform after installing. Incompatibilites. And I haven’t even started moving the hardware.
And I get to learn all about licenses for downloaded music and why it won’t play on the new machine. I love DRM.
All these years, and nobody ever told me that I was just making a slip knot. You can learn how to tie your shoes, too, at Ian’s Shoelace Site.
Do your shoelaces always come undone? Do your shoelace bows sit vertically instead of across the shoe? If so, you’re probably tying a “Slip Knot”, and one simple change to your technique will result in a balanced knot that sits straight and stays secure.
Shoelace knots are usually tied in two stages: A Starting Knot followed by a Finishing Bow. Each of these stages “twists” the shoelaces slightly, so it’s important that the two stages be tied in opposite directions in order to cancel out each other’s twists.
This balances the knot both visually (the bow sits straight) and functionally (the knot stays tied) and is the right way to tie shoelaces.
Wrong way results in a “Slip Knot” If both stages are tied in the same direction, those twists compound each other, resulting in an un-balanced knot that sits crooked and comes undone more easily. This is the wrong way to tie shoelaces, and is commonly known as a “Slip Knot”.
There are pictures to help, including 17 ways to tie your laces.
A survey found that only 48% of Americans know the Earth revolves around the Sun. Wow. Links are few, but a couple are Herald-Leader and Boston Globe.
What Carlin said:
“Think about how stupid the average person is, then remember half of them are stupider than that!” — George Carlin
Scary.
Many people already do much of what is listed in this article but sometimes a reminder is helpful. Some is more applicable for business use, but Use a Great Title should be used by all.
The only one I don’t agree with is use plain text. There are too many times a picture might be included and it’s easier to separate sections (like a signature) with the aid of color.
Yeah, I know, strong words — but I plan on making them stick, at least for a while. So what’s the deal this time? Sony went way over the edge with their latest DRM (copy protected) CDs. Short story: they install hidden software on your PC that is susceptible to hackers, and hacks have already been done. Sony has “temporarily” stopped shipping the CDs, but haven’t taken them off the shelf. You have to email Sony to get a removal tool, but there are warnings that using it will damage your PC as well.
It’s not just me. Here’s the last paragraph from one of the many articles on this subject:
Don’t Buy Sony
Accidents happen, but this was clearly a considered action. My view is that any company that actively attacks or exposes its customers to attack should not be in business. This is the holiday buying season, and I agree with my friend Dan Gillmor: There is no better way to showcase your dissatisfaction with this behavior than by simply not buying Sony. Given that a large number of media companies appear to be considering similar behavior, this would remind these companies that messing with consumers in this way is something they should avoid like the plague.
As one article stated, this is the type of thing that will make companies create rules that will not allow their employees to play CDs at work. So if you want to listen to at work, use an mp3. But that’s what Sony is trying to stop.
There are a lot of articles out there about this, and I waited to let things settle a little. But reading the history can be interesting, too. A new addition: Microsoft decided this is spyware and will remove it with their next release of their monthly malicious software removal tool. And even the government told them to stop it. Consumers in California filed a class action lawsuit on Nov. 1 to stop Sony from distributing the CDs. It goes on…
Devaluing the Product Part II – Sony Music CDs Threaten PCs
Microsoft deals with Sony DRM ‘Rootkit’
Trojan Exploits Sony’s DRM Flaw
Sony Will Suspend Use Of Controversial CD Software
Bush Administration to Sony: It’s your intellectual property — it’s not your computer.
Sony Suspends ‘Rootkit’ DRM Technology
Sony’s DRM: It Just Keeps Getting Worse:
Someone in the Netherlands did a decompile on the XCP rootkit that has gotten most of the attention lately. It seems that parts of the rootkit use the LAME mp3 encoder, which is licensed under the Lesser GPL. That means by delivering only an executable (the rootkit) without source or crediting, XCP violates the GPL Violating the GPL puts Sony at massive legal risk for—wait for it—copyright infringement.
As an extra twist, removing the software yourself is also illegal because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act bans the “circumvention” of anticopying technology. I suppose that also makes it illegal for Microsoft to do it. What a mess.
Quick fun that shows you can’t believe what you see: www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html
Haven’t had the time or inclination to post anything here for a while, but these two sites deserve a look because of the great artwork:
Nikon’s Small World Gallery has has the 2005 winners of it annual photomicrograph contest.
The Worth1000 contest Monster ModRen 3 (Frankenstein meets DaVinci) asks a simple question: If the renaissance took place in more recent times, and the models were famous movie monsters/aliens, what would the artwork have looked like?
If the girl gets stuck, just move her with your mouse! Link
Today I learned that google can be searched with a fill in the blank mode. The example they gave was: the parachute was invented by *
So I clicked it and learned that the parachute was invented by: da Vinci in 1515, Garnerin, French balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard in 1785, André Jacques Garnerin (1769-1823), and/or Coldplay.
Always trust internet facts.
