Archive for June, 2007
Money Advice to myself
Posted by Joe on June 18, 2007 · Comments Off
Here are some of the expense cutting measures I’ve come up with to try and save my family some money. It’s an ongoing process, but I’m making headway. I made a few assumptions about myself when I created this list that may surprise some people. For example, I consider broadband to be essential, and the same goes for mobile phone service and some level of cable TV service. I think we’ve all got things we won’t compromise on, and that makes each person’s cost-cutting journey unique and interesting.
Cut Entertainment Expenses
If you don’t rent [...]
Filed in: SL
Bloatware Exposed
Posted by Joe on June 17, 2007 · Comments Off
The folks at PCPitStop.com bought a bunch of new computers with similar configurations and prices, and analyzed the amount of useless software (bloatware) each came with. The result is a brief but entertaining video report.
I’ve always looked at bloatware as a minor inconvenience, usually heading to the Add/Remove Programs utility early on and getting rid of stuff. However, on my Compaq laptop’s C: drive there was a big folder full of setup programs for all the applications I had just uninstalled (this was in addition to the 12gb recovery partition where all that crap is presumably [...]
Filed in: SL
Download Free Games
Posted by Joe on June 17, 2007 · Comments Off
100 Free Full Games to Download Online, from the PC Gaming Blog. What a great list. Here are the first five (the list is alphabetical):
Allegiance
http://www.freeallegiance.org/
America’s Army
http://www.americasarmy.com/downloads/
Anarchy Online
http://www.anarchy-online.com/free/ad_campaigns/freecampaign
Armada Online
http://www.armada-online.com/
Assault Cube
http://assault.cubers.net/
Filed in: SL
Ten Great Writers for Century 21
Posted by Joe on June 16, 2007 · Comments Off
Marc Andreessen (co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation and co-author of the Mosaic browser) has a blog post listing the “top 10 science fiction novelists of the ’00s — so far.” I have to say it’s a good very good list. Charles Stross, Richard Morgan and John Scalzi are awesome writers, and their novels are not to be missed. Based on those recommendations alone, I think I’ll be spending some money on Amazon to check out his other picks.
Filed in: SL
Skype Is Still Cool
Posted by Joe on June 15, 2007 · Comments Off
Reason number 1,276 why I was born 25 years too early: Skype
We were giving my son official parental grief about spending so much time on the phone with his buddy while they play World of Warcraft (reason number 674) on his personal computer (reason number 78). He said his friend was a Skype user, so I hooked up a cheap headset to his pc and after a quick download he was back in business. Man, just imagine how cool the world will be when he’s my age.
Filed in: SL
Donk Battletank Has Room For The Whole Family
Posted by Joe on June 14, 2007 · Comments Off
This is cool, as far as battle tanks go. And under $20,000!
The Donk can transport cargo or a crew of five internally or on the roof, and can be piloted from within the armored shell or from an exposed standing position through the hatch, thanks to special one-way steel mesh armor windows and a control stick that pivots up and down to allow piloting from the standing or seated positions. The interior is fully carpeted and cozy, with accent lighting and room for up to five people.
Definitely more wow-factor than that Taurus wagon you’ve been looking at.
Filed in: SL
Comic Book Economy
Posted by Joe on June 13, 2007 · Comments Off
Guy buys old comics. Scans Ads. Uploads.
I recently bought a pile of old comics at a garage sale. The ads seem so familiar but seem so eager and absurd now. Work selling Grit to earn money to buy giant glow in the dark monsters. It seemed perhaps the irrational exuberance of the “new economy” might just have sprung form a generation weaned on the breathless offers in Comic Books. I mean if a company can make money selling Polaris subs for $6.98 why couldn’t pets.com or Boo.com have worked out?
Check out the scans on Flickr
I always wanted to get rich selling Grit when i was [...]
Filed in: SL
Feed 4 For $45 A Week
Posted by Joe on June 13, 2007 · Comments Off
Hillbilly Housewife has a detailed sample menu, complete with grocery list, a day-by-day guide and recipes. The food is relatively healthy and nutritious, if a bit heavy on the beans (I get it — meat is expensive). We are trying to cut back on our food budget, so I’m glad I found this old post [via today's One year ago on Lifehacker].
In a similar vein, I also recommend the book Cheap. Fast. Good! by Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross. I was given this book, and it’s great. While taking a slightly less extreme approach, it’s still filled with quick and inexpensive recipes.
Filed in: SL
Expensr Answers “Where’s The Money?”
Posted by Joe on June 13, 2007 · Comments Off
Expensr is a free online expense tracking and personal finance application. Currently in Beta, Expensr seems very stable and usable, and it does a nice job of mimicking a desktop app.
Filed in: SL
Chime.tv Does YouTube One Better
Posted by Joe on June 13, 2007 · Comments Off
Chime.tv offers a great new way to watch YouTube. The slick interface has many predefined channels (News, Network TV, Toons, etc.), and also allows you to define your own channels. It’s one of the coolest mashups I’ve seen, adding a lot of usability to YouTube.
Filed in: SL
Rome Wasn’t Digitized In a Day
Posted by Joe on June 13, 2007 · Comments Off
Ancient Rome circa AD320 has been digitized, and may be coming to Second Life:
An international team of architects, archaeologists and experts spent 10 years working on a real-time 3D model of the city called Rome Reborn.
Some 7,000 buildings were scanned and reproduced using a model of the city kept at a Rome museum.
Users enter the city at the time of Constantine and see inside buildings.
The simulation takes place in AD320, which is said to be the city’s peak, when it had grown to a million inhabitants.
/snip/
Talks are said to have begun with Linden Labs to make the entire simulation [...]
Filed in: SL
Baen Adds Books To Free Library
Posted by Joe on June 13, 2007 · Comments Off
Baen Books’ free online library is continuing to grow, with 14 new books added this year alone. The library offers free (and unencrypted) downloads of Baen novels in a variety of formats for use on many different devices.
2007 additions to the library so far:
David Drake, The Far Side of the Stars
Harry Turtledove, Wisdom of the Fox
Keith Laumer, Future Imperfect
Eric Flint, Ring of Fire
Jerry Pournelle, West of Honor
David Weber, Excalibur Alternative
Lackey & Gellis, This Sceptered Isle
Keith Laumer, A Plague of Demons
John Ringo, There Will Be Dragons
David Drake and Eric Flint, [...]
Filed in: SL
Extreme Makeover: Windows XP Edition
Posted by Joe on June 12, 2007 · Comments Off
Brico Packs from CrystalXP.net let you radically change the look of Windows XP. Shadow and animated icon effects are even included, but can be easily disabled to save system resources. I’m currently running the Vista pack, and it does indeed look like Windows Vista. There are currently four Brico Packs available. They are free and seem to be very stable. The Crystal XP pack is especially awesome-looking:
Filed in: SL
The Truth About Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Posted by Joe on June 12, 2007 · Comments Off
Popular Mechanics sheds some light (sorry!) on compact fluorescent light bulbs. Excerpt:
What is the proper way to handle a broken CFL?
Open the windows and let the room air out for 15 to 30 minutes, then remove as much material as possible without a vacuum cleaner. Using disposable gloves, scoop the glass onto a piece of cardboard and wipe the area with a wet paper towel. For smaller pieces of glass and powder, use duct tape to pull up the fragments and wash your hands after cleaning up the debris.
/snip/
How much mercury is contained in a CFL?
Each bulb contains an average of 5 milligrams of [...]
Filed in: SL
Wii Plays Nice With iTunes
Posted by Joe on June 11, 2007 · Comments Off
A new tutorial shows you how to stream your iTunes library to your Nintendo Wii. This sounds like a really cool way to extend the functionallity of your Wii.
Filed in: SL
Safari For Windows
Posted by Joe on June 11, 2007 · Comments Off
Apple released a beta version of the Safari web browser for Windows today. You can download Safari for Windows here. It should be fun to play with, although I don’t know what it offers that Firefox doesn’t. If nothing else, it’s always nice to have options.
UPDATE: Safari for Windows is fast. And the browser seems to pick up and/or come with all the usual plugins. One downer so far: there is a problem using Safari with a WordPress blog. The quicktag buttons in the post editor do not work (or even show up). I’m told the buttons have been intentionally disabled by the [...]
Filed in: SL
Change Can Be Good
Posted by Joe on June 11, 2007 · Comments Off
Here is some helpful advice (with lots of links) for potential career changers from Randall S. Hansen, founder of the Quintessential Careers job search site:
The 10-Step Plan to Career Change
Career Change Do’s and Don’ts
Excerpt:
Leverage some of your current skills and experiences to your new career. There are many skills (such as communications, leadership, planning, and others) that are transferable and applicable to what you want to do in your new career. You may be surprised to see that you already have a solid amount of experience for your new career.
Filed in: SL
Esurance Cartoon Babe Beats Annoying Cavemen
Posted by Joe on June 10, 2007 · Comments Off
Ok, if the Geico cavemen get their own tv show, I’m going to have to insist that Erin Esurance gets equal time. She’s much hotter than the cavemen, and can foil bad guys and escape from exploding buildings while making witty banter. Meanwhile, the cavemen seem to just sit around and whine about their feelings, like Hugh Grant if he were better looking. I’m just sayin’.
Filed in: SL
Chores and Allowance Tracking With PAYjr
Posted by Joe on June 10, 2007 · Comments Off
PAYjr helps teach kids about money and responsibility by offering an allowance and chore system that lets parents assign monetary value to chores. When chores are completed, parents pay up. It’s a cool idea, although a dry erase board in the kitchen does nicely as well.
[via TechCrunch]
Filed in: SL
Temporary Email
Posted by Joe on June 10, 2007 · Comments Off
There are plenty of times when having a disposable, temporary email address is handy. Sizlopedia has a list of the top 20 disposable email address providers. Here are their top three:
Mailinator is one of the best and top rated disposable email services that gives you a temporary mailbox on the following address format e.g. something@mailinator.com
MyTrashMail is another good temporary mail service that gives you a mailbox in the address format e.g. something@trashymail.com and also gives you secure temporary mailbox if you signup
MailExpire stands out in the crowd by giving you the option [...]
Filed in: SL
Jericho Saved By A Bunch Of Nuts
Posted by Joe on June 9, 2007 · Comments Off
The campaign to save Jericho I wrote about here has been successful. Of course, CBS is still not taking ownership of their own role in the show’s ratings drop, instead blaming the fans for watching episodes online instead of on CBS prime time:
Because CBS finances its shows based on measures of viewership of regularly scheduled broadcasts, “it’s of primary importance,†Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment, said in an interview.
“We want them to watch on Wednesday at 8 o’clock,†or whenever CBS schedules the return of the series later this [...]
Filed in: SL
Aveo In The House
Posted by Joe on June 9, 2007 · Comments Off
Finally tired of feeding our Dodge minivan, which gets 19 mpg on a good day, I got a pre-owned 2006 Chevrolet Aveo LT today. It’s an awesome little car with plenty of power and a nice interior. I wanted good gas mileage without the cost of a hybrid, and the Aveo delivers 34 mpg highway. And by buying a low-mileage slightly used car, I saved a bunch on depreciation and kept the payment low. We’ll keep the minivan around for hauling stuff.
Even if we keep our Aveo for eight years, the total cost of ownership (car and gasoline) will only be an estimated $22,000 – $24,000. Suddenly [...]
Filed in: SL
Totino’s Closes — Long Live Totino’s
Posted by Joe on June 8, 2007 · Comments Off
While the Totino’s Party Pizza may be one of the more ironically named food items, it’s still adored by young kids and impoverished college students. A pizza for a buck — what’s not to love. In fact, my daughter ate one of these last night before her softball game. What we didn’t know is that there’s an actual pizzeria behind the little pizza — and it’s closing! I hope this won’t effect the quality of the Party Pizza.
Filed in: SL
Cellular Future
Posted by Joe on June 8, 2007 · Comments Off
CNET looks at 10 things your phone will do in 10 years.
I’m especially intrigued by TV on the go:
Mobile TV in all its forms is expected to explode in the next few years. IMS Research forecasts that by 2011 there will be more than 30 million mobile TV subscribers in the United States. The firm also predicts that almost 70 million handsets capable of receiving mobile TV will be shipped in the U.S. in 2011.
Consumers will have access to a wide range of TV possibilities on their phones, from original and professionally produced content to repurposed clips to live broadcasts and user-generated [...]
Filed in: SL
Improved Googling
Posted by Joe on June 7, 2007 · Comments Off
Improve your Google searches with this advice from Dumb Little Man. A taste:
Either/or. Google normally searches for pages that contain all the words you type in the search box, but if you want pages that have one term or another (or both), use the OR operator — or use the “|” symbol (pipe symbol) to save you a keystroke. [dumb | little | man]
Quotes. If you want to search for an exact phrase, use quotes. ["dumb little man"] will only find that exact phrase. [dumb "little man"] will find pages that contain the word dumb and the exact phrase “little man”.
Not. [...]
Filed in: SL
© 2011 Surflizard. All rights reserved.
Proudly designed by Free WordPress Themes.