Archive for October, 2005

picasa 2 + flickr = AWESOME

Let me just get one thing out of the way; I love Picasa.  I love how easy it makes it for me to view all of my photos and then edit any one I want.  The editing tools are quite elementary, but there are enought there that will allow you to make the most common edits.  Also, it allows easy emailing, and creation of CDs.  One of the coolest features I think, is the export to printing feature. This will allow you to export any picture to one of the many printing services, such as shutterfly, snapfish, and many others.  My main problem is that I use Flickr.  I use Flickr for everything.  Now that Flickr has printing, I would really love it if Picasa came out with the ability to upload to Flickr.  Or, Picasa could have plug-ins, and someone created a plug-in to do that.  I doubt this will ever happen because that would be supporting Yahoo.  Why can’t I upload to Flickr!

 Just some quick thoughts, of something that has been bugging me.

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Clocks

Don’t forget to tunr back your clocks.  If you are on a computer, I am pretty sure it will do it automaticlly, as for every other clock in your house, you probably have to do it manually.

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Backup4All

I just posted a review of Backup4All at rootsmart.com. Please go check it out!

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20 inch screens

There is a great article on cnet, about the introduction of 20 inch laptops. I find it interesting that laptop manufactures are finally releasing these larger laptops. These days, there are plenty of large laptops.  These are generally referred to as “Desktop Replacement” laptops.  These are generally for the person, like me, who does about 5-10 trips a year, and needs their files with them.  When they are at home though, they want a fully useable laptop.  These types of people don’t really care if they have to lug around a 15 pound laptop.  Also, laptops are getting much more powerful, so playing DVDs and games on them is not unheard of. 

So, I think that a 20 inch laptop is genious.  I love my big, heavy 15″ laptop that I am currently writing this on, and I don’t mind having to lug it around that 8 trips that I take a year.  I am able to take my laptop, and then work on it, as if I was at home becuase I have all of my files and the screen is large enough to actually read something on.  Last, these days a 17″ or 19″ monitor is not too expensive.  So, people want larger screens, and larger resolutions. 

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Blummy

These days all of the rage is with bookmarlets. Bookmarklets, are those little things that you put in your toolbar so that you can do things like add bookmarks to del.icio.us, or email something with gmail. The problem is that there are plenty of different bookmarlets, and not all of them will fit on your toolbar. So Blummy came out. This will use a little bit of AJAX to have all all of your favorite bookmarklets into one easy bookmarklet. Also, it makes it so easy to find new ones that you had never even heard about.

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Blinkx

I just found blinkx.  It is a audio/video search service, much like podscope.  I have just done some quick playing around with it.  The front page is way too cluttered, but the funtionality seems all there.  Leave comments to what you think!

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Google Base

I don’t know if you guys have heard of this yet, but it seems that google released a database like web app, and then took it back. It seems odd that Google did this by “accident”. I think this was probably a way of viral advertising. By, placing this out for a couple of hours they got everyone (including me) to talk about it, and wonder what exactly it is. This is free advertising, that you can’t even pay to get. Before the site went down, somebody was able to get a screenshot, and posted it on flickr, here is what the writing says:

Post your items on Google.

Google Base is Google’s database into which you can add all types of content. We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free.

Examples of items you can find in Google Base:

• Description of your party planning service
• Articles on current events from your website
• Listing of your used car for sale
• Database of protein structures

You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.

So, this seems to be a sort of MySQL frontend. They seem to be wanting to get into the access market these days. I find that I have no need for databases, but I know many people who swear by them when it comes to contact management. If they integrate it with gmail, so that you can do mailing headers, that would be wonderful. Google, really is cataloging everything and it will be interesting when someone hacks into their servers.

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Logitech Z-2300

Well, I just got a new set of speakers. Before these I had a very bad pair of speakers, that were $10 about 10 years ago. So, as you can see they were very bad 10 years ago, and probably are extremly bad now. I am slightly a audiophile, and I love music. Also, I play plenty of games, and I wanted some sort of bass. My last requirement was that it couldn’t be a 5.1 system. I don’t have close to enough desk space to have a 5.1 system. So, I found the Logitech Z-2300, and I am very impressed.

The first thing you notice when you first get the speaker is the massive subwoofer. The thing is huge, and if you don’t have a good amount of space under your desk, you will not be able to fit it there. Other than that, things are pretty normal. I set up the two speakers and the manual had a easy to follow diagram. It was just a bunch of plugging in and it was all set up. The coolest part of the entire system is the control module. it allows you to have the volume control, and the bass control in one easy thing. Also, it has the headphone jack built in

My main gripe with this system is the bass. These days bass seems to be everything. If you are a big rap person, then you will love this sub, but I am not. Yes, it is also wonderful for explosions and games, but when listening to anything but rap, it is a tad to much bass. I turn the bass down all the way and I can still feel it, that is bad. So, there needs to be a way to turn the bass down more.

-Joe

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