Ok Go

These guys sure have been attracting attention at youtube.com for their very creative use of treadmills for their music. Worth seeing :)

Strange Owl

Couldn't help it. I want one of these Strange Owls!

Eat Your heart out Vista - Debian Linux with Beryl

New Math

From 1965 comes an honest evaluation of last century's modern math system from Tom Lehrer. I found it to be quite enlightening and I hope you will too.

Tom Lehrer - New Math.mp3

9/11 suspect says he beheaded Daniel Pearl

Yuck. I wonder why he is so openly admitting this now, after over 3-years of interrogation...

Read the article from Reuters.

Good Vibes - Netvibes wins a new user

In my recent discovery of AJAX powered home pages, I've been trying out every offering I could get my hands on. Eventually, I settled for Webwag which met most of my needs in a home page. To its credit, I haven't seen anyone else pull off their "widget on-demand" functionality as well as they did... but I found the RSS reader(s) and layout functions lacking. While it proved to bet a significant benefit to my work flow, it still fell short in some key areas.

NetVibes, on the other hand, fills those needs quite well! Some of the major advantages that netvibes has are as follows:

Your content is divided into 3 columns, like webwag. But unlike webwag, you can change this value, easily, to 1-4. Using just one column allows you to embed an entire website into your homepage, which I have found to be very useful so far. Here are a couple examples:

Google Calendar fully embedded in one of my "tabs".


Google Docs, a specific document I use frequently.

I also have Google Reader embedded for RSS. So, from my home page, I can edit my calendar, read and edit common documents, and read and manage my RSS reader. Not only are these things pre-loaded (faster than using bookmarks), but it uses less system resources because you use only one browser window.

I have also been struggling to find an online solution for my RSS feeds. NetVibes finally got me online. You actually have two options here, I'm trying both.

The built in reader frequently checks your feeds for updates and gives you a preview of the contents when you mouse-over. So far, nothing new.

This is where the competitors usually drop the ball. Click the article you want to read and you are instantly using a full built-in reader. It's not the fanciest reader around, but all the basic functions are there. With a click you can visit the original article, switch to another on the side bar, or revert back to the main view. Very nice.

Although I don't have the screen shot to prove it (guilty of laziness), I also have an embedded Google Reader... not some plugin or something, the full Reader. And I see no reason you couldn't do this with any other online reader if you are attached to one in particular. Of course, you can import your feeds from any other source as you would expect, which worked nicely for me.

Lastly, there are hundreds of user-made "modules" that expand the functionality of your home page. The "Embed URL" for instance, is the module I used to access the Google apps. All the smaller apps you would expect to see are present as well (to-do list, notepad, weather, calendar, stock tickers, etc). There are even some chat clients (gtalk, yahoo!, AIM, MSN) if you really want to go mobile.

NetVibes enjoys, perhaps, the most active user-base in their niche.

Ok, so nothing is perfect. I don't find it quite as attractive as its competitors and it's not quite as easy either (the price you pay for power, I guess). It also was not able to load Gmail, using the embedded URL although there is a decent Gmail module ready from the get go. While I'm sure I will find more to complain about as time goes on, for the time being I'm happy to make NetVibes my new homepage and my new RSS reader(s).

At the speed development appears to be occurring though, I wouldn't doubt if my few gripes were overcome very soon.

NetVibes

China’s Trade Surplus Nearly Ties Record - New York Times

China’s Trade Surplus Nearly Ties Record - New York Times

I shudder to consider the growth. China's exporting is vaulting again!

Windows PCs 5x More Expensive to own than a Mac

Windows PCs 5x More Expensive to Own than a Mac

I've been saying this myself for a long time, but I didn't utilize any hard evidence to back my theory.

... well here it is.

Daylight Savings Time Failure

Preparing for this year's early Daylight Savings Time - Mar. 5, 2007

"And remember to be on the lookout for scam artists. During the next two weeks consumers may receive a number of e-mail offers that promise to fix the Daylight Savings Time problem, pretending to be your bank or your credit card issuer.

Remember, never give away any information about you or your financial affairs. If you have questions about your software or other gadgets, you should go directly to the source, by call the company directly or visiting their Web site."

You may be accustomed to your electronic devices changing themselves for the Annual Daylight Savings change, but this year that is all going to change. Unless you're on Windows Vista (or XP with the all the latest updates) or on an Apple computer, you're doin' it yourself this year!

Some older devices may not even provide a way to fix this. My cell-phone didn't work with the patch I got online (I think the problem is with my phone though) so I'm going to just turn off DST and handle the time manually.

Picnik - edit photos the easy way, online in your browser

Picnik - edit photos the easy way, online in your browser

With Picnik you can quickly edit all your online photos from one place. It's the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.

It's fast, easy, and fun.

• One-click photo fixing or in-depth tweaking
• Crop, rotate, and resize in real-time
• Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun
• Amazingly fast

• Works directly with many photo sharing sites
• No download required, nothing to install!
• Works on Mac, Windows, even Linux
• Free version, premium version (soon)

Well, I knew these types of apps would come to maturity one day. A fresh 2007 company, Picnik makes editing picture a... sack lunch with a friend.

If you do not have Photoshop, then I suggest you use Picasa to edit your pics. If for some reason you do not like Picasa or can not access it, use Picnik. It's just as capable as Picasa at editing photos, maybe even more so, and it runs right in your browser. The only pitfall is that you must wait for your photo to upload so you can edit it (it's pretty fast though).

At least you know, if you are at another computer and need to do a quick edit, picnik is here to help. Great little app.