Monthly Archive for October, 2007

Ballmer: We Can Compete with Google

From NewsFactor:

To hear Ballmer tell it, Microsoft is the little engine that will eventually surpass the behemoth that is Google. Comfortable with sports metaphors, he referred to Microsoft’s search and advertising teams as young athletes who will eventually rule the basketball court. “You’re growing up quickly. You’re getting better every day,” he said. “You’re three years old and you’re playing basketball with 12-year-olds. You’re going to dunk on the other guys some day.”

Attensa Feed Reader

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Internet Explorer and Firefox both come with integrated RSS feed readers. These are both pretty basic, but give you quick access to your feeds. I think I’ve mentioned in the past that I use BlogBridge. This allows you to have a profile of feeds that can be loaded on any computer that has BlogBridge installed. I sync up my feeds at work, on my home computer, and on my laptop.

Recently Chris has been using Attensa Feed Reader. This can either be a standalone application, or an Outlook add-in. If you live in Outlook, then it can be a pain to have to go to other software to read your feeds. Attensa brings your feeds into Outlook and gives them the same look and feel as your email. It looks quite impressive. If they added in a sync feature like BlogBridge, I’d probably switch.

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The 16 Greatest Moments in Web History

From MSN:

Depending on how you calculate it, the Web has been around for between 15 and 17 years–which makes it old enough to ask for the car keys, but still an awkward teenager growing toward maturity. Yet it already has a long and storied history (and some prehistory). We’ve decided to chronicle its 16 greatest moments here.

When possible, we pinpointed a specific day, hour, and even minute–the “aha” moment when the people involved got the original idea, launched the site, sold the first product, or posted the first entry. Instead of listing the events chronologically, we’ve ranked them in ascending order of importance.

Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web

From the New York Times:

Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections.

The research libraries, including a large consortium in the Boston area, are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort aimed at making their materials broadly available.

Hershey’s TrickorTreats.com

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With Halloween coming along soon, you may be looking for some “scary” web sites. A fun one to check it is Hershey’s TrickorTreats.com. There are all sorts of activities, crafts, pumpkin stencils, and more that you can download.

Basic Digital Retouching Seminar - Digital Photography Tip of the Week

As mentioned in the past, I am President of the Niagara Falls Camera Club. As part of our move this year to digital competitions using projected images, I recently put on a program at the club covering some basic digital editing using Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.

In my program I covered topics including red eye removal, cropping, straightening, using level for setting white balance and minor exposure adjustment, using layers for non-destructive editing and finally creating a step mount on a digital image.

I have made an archive of my speakers notes and sample images for you to follow through.

The zip archive may be downloaded here: Digital Retouching Seminar Files

xplorer² lite

Back in the day, Windows came with a file manager that seemed to have more features than the current Windows Explorer. You can view 2 different drives or folders at a time, making it very easy to copy files between locations. There are many 3rd party file managers out there, and one I heard of recently is xplorer² lite.

All the shell goodies from windows explorer — none of the hassle! Plus all the features you would expect from a powerful tabbed dual-pane file manager, including Omni-Finder, a find files module that simply outclasses all known search tools. Don’t take our word for it, seeing is believing!

I haven’t tried the software, but if you are interested in this sort of thing, then you should check it out.

Girls Gone Wired!

From the CBS Early Show:

A recent study says that the average woman owns five electronic gadgets. So, ladies, what’s your tech style?

That’s the question asked by AOL’s Consumer Advisor, Regina Lewis, who thinks there are three distinct tech personalities she sees among women. She visited the Saturday Early Show to explain the differences between them.

Phantom vibrations shake ‘crackberry’ addicts

From CNN:

If your hipbone is connected to your BlackBerry or your thighbone is connected to your cell phone, those vibrations you’re feeling in the car, in your pajamas, in the shower, may be coming from your headbone.

Many mobile phone addicts and BlackBerry junkies report feeling vibrations when there are none, or feeling as if they’re wearing a cell phone when they’re not.

Professors asking students not to bring laptops to class

From the Houston Chronicle:

A silent college classroom is rare.

The lecturer pauses for a sip of water. Students aren’t talking. And no one’s cell phone is vibrating, trilling or playing the latest Billboard-chart favorite.

Yet, the faint clatter of typing rises from at least one set of fingers — an ever-present sign that today’s students would rather come to class with laptops than with a pen and paper. After all, it’s awfully hard to check your e-mail, surf the Web or chat with friends using a spiral notebook.

But a growing number of professors, including some at Seattle’s three universities, are asking students to leave the laptops in their bags or at home.