Wordle - Rocket Science

Wow, these things are pretty fun, they look cool too.

The link above is some text I wrote here before, put into a Wordle ( which is like a doodle, with words)

Thought of the day

Deep thought of the day. "its not rocket science!"

You hear that a lot. Some one even accidently said that when they were actually discussing rocket science. That how common and blasé the statement has become.

It used to mean, "come on you idiot, its not that difficult, there are harder things you could be doing". I guess it still does, but is rocket science the hardest thing you could now be doing? Im not sure.

Take for instance, writing a blog post and saving it for automatic future posting. This could be pretty difficult, ill let you know in a few qwwks how I go.

What about getting out of bed early on a winters morning. Bare feet on a cold wooden floor, shaving in front of a steamed up mirror in a drafty bathroom.

As for rocket science, its looking easier by the day.

Thought of the day

Deep thought of the day. "life is like a box of choklits, you never know what your gonna git."

Don't quote me on that, its a silly thought but it may or may not have some truth in it.

Boxes of choklits these days have pictures and legends, you can't go wrong. No mystery, you know exactly what's in there. They do tend to give them fancy names and sometimes they taste funny. But overall its a pretty safe bet.

Maybe there needs to be a newer updated version of the saying, something more relevant. Im sure forrest wouldn't mind, hed probably agree.

How about "life is like a chocolit coated jellybean." or maybe "life is like a melted choklit turtle"

The Writer’s Technology Companion

Nice site, lots of fun interesting things to see... wish i was a writer.

While im at it, is there such a thing as a keyboard home key thing you can put on your keyboard to say when your not standard touch typing fingers are somewhere near home? Please comment...

Online Backup - IDrive - Remote Data Backup - For Windows and Mac

I seem to have missed this review. I saw this site many months ago, signed up, am doing the trial now, but cannot get the client to connect to their website.

Ill try from home.

The main thing is, i thought Id blogged this but actually hadnt.

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

Time to look into this I think.. Ive got two PC's and a media center that Id hate to have to build from scratch again...

The other thing I spoke about ages ago was online backups, well, ive got the account, need to set up the client and get backing up!

My first test from Windows Live Writer

Who would have thought it would be possible.  Everyday brings a new wonder.

The sarcasms drips from my screen as I write this.

40 Professional Icon Sets For Free Download | Graphics | Smashing Magazine

A good list, might need to get downloading these.

StartupAgents | where startups and talent meet

This was an idea I raised with a few friends recently, something that i though Perth, or Australia could use, well, try this one out, not Australian but maybe it will get some coverage here as well to make it useful.

I would even promote it here or work in parallel, i think its a necessary thing to be able to bring entrepreneurs together with eager talent looking for a break or to create something new without big company limitations.

Thoughts on transport & travel

Let me start by saying that this text is not about me having the answers to anything. This is more about me asking a lot of questions and putting some thoughts out there. These thoughts probably have a lot of good sense but may not be practical or may have been tried and failed. I don't know. I just had to write this to try to make things clear in my own head.
You may be wanting to know what it is I'm on about by now, so here goes.
The future of mankind and why are we here.
Small enough subject to start with, not too heavy, not much controversy. I'm kidding, we all think about it from time to time and its been written about and discussed by far greater minds than mine.
I started thinking about this subject with how to make a very efficient and cheap form of transport. Something maybe small for personal use and something larger for family use, no idea how to cater to trucks, planes, ships, and trains etc. They will have to wait, or maybe the mass of cars far outweigh the polluting effect of the heavy vehicles. Maybe the sheer number of small vehicles, possibly one per person(wild gestimate) make up the bulk of pollution, that and the factories that make the materials and parts for them

Kogan Technologies Australia - Best Value LCD TVs in Australia.

These are a great deal, will be following closely.

Portrait Illustration Maker : Free

Need to give this a whirl...

Online Office, Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation, CRM and more

Wow, great layout, so simple and clear, they have a lot of functionailty as well...

List of commercial games released as freeware - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On a lighter note, heres somethign to wittle your spare time down to nothing.

Useful links - CBCA

These links are good, shows the main publishers, but no sign of agents.

Children's Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2008

Need to possibly buy this, or just get an agent.

Free Google Docs & Excel Personal Budget Planner Spreadsheets! | 20Somethingfinance.com

Time to budget pt1

A Free and Simple Budget Planner ∞ Get Rich Slowly

Time to budget.. pt 2

Get Vista's Best Features in XP | Lifehacker Australia

This is a good page of links for upgrading XP to be a little more like Vista, while keeping the things we know and love about XP.

Lee-Soft - Official Home of ViStart

Im not normally a fan of adding functionailty of a new version of windows to a previous version. But Im running XP and plan to for quite some time(vistaphobe). One feature of Vista i do like is the Start Menu Search Bar, love it.
So when i saw this website and tried it out, im impressed, it basically adds the Vista search bar to Windows XP, and does it very well, it also gives you the full Visat start menu, so if your keen, give it a go.

SmarterFitter Blog » Blog Archive » Grocery List Templates For Healthy People

Excellent idea, ill be modifying this and putting on the fridge, kind of like printing the supermarket inventory in a condensed format, then as you use up each item from your pantry, you can tick the item on your list. Maybe they could be printed into a magnetic pad or something.

Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

This is pretty awesome, nice visuals

Wesabe: Get to Know Your Money

Must look at this further.... all about home accounting maybe??

Blinksale | The easiest way to send invoices online

This also looks good for invoicing, and im told that PayPal has an invoice function, very simple basic model, but it works apparently.

FreshBooks - Online Invoicing

Time to start invoicing people I think, just need to find something to invoice them for now.

Technically Speaking: No more MSTSC.exe /CONSOLE

NOOOOOO!!!!! I used to have apps running on servers, and you could RDP /console in and check on them, stop start etc.. but with the new changes etc its no longer an option. Now what? More services? back to VNC? dammit....

CafePress.com: Shop, create or sell what's on your mind with custom T-Shirts, unique gifts and more.

At last, ive found a place that lets me make T-Shirts etc.. now I have design some up and have them ordered through my site.

CCleaner - Home

I have a laptop at home i think ill give this a try on, it runs a little slow now days, maybe theres some crap in it.

Presdo | Make Time To...

You know when you can never make an appointment with someone, you can never seem to match up a time or day etc. This site will help to get you all together... yes i know there is outlook etc. but the calendering doesnt always work for people inside and outside your work.

Slimmy :: The Front Pocket Wallet Alternative. Made for people who love slim and simple.

I must have this, i have a wallet now, a polo jobby, its pretty small, but not this small, check out the pen as well.

Writer: the internet typewriter

Ever needed to write a document but kept getting distracted by all those flashing lights and pretty buttons.. This should help, looks almost like notepad in matrix.

Windows Live FolderShare beta

This look interesting, ill try it later.

Debut Video Capture Recording Software - Record Video Files for Free

I once went looking for some webcam capture software and turned up empty handed, but look what just turned up! Ill give this a whirl at home, ive been wanting to spy on the cat when im out of the house....

CodeProject. Free source code and programming help

Going Solo - First Steps in Building a Successful Company

Going Solo - First Steps in Building a Successful Company (Part II)

Going Solo – First Steps in Building a Successful Company (Part IIA) - A slight divergence

Going Solo - First Steps in Building a Successful Company (Part III)

More spare time reading...

Extreme-Savers-Share-Their-Secrets: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

With times getting tougher, maybe pages and tips like these will become pretty handy!

Travian - Browser Game - Romans, Gauls & Teutons

Ok, now im not much for games, well I am but i dont have much time to play them. I found this, it was an ad, so i clicked it, and it looks ok.

Now, to find some time to play it. All these games that say you have to first build your city etc etc sound like it takes ages, i wonder if i can waltz into a ready made one.... maybe become a squatter somewhere.

voo2do : simple, beautiful web-based to-do lists

This one looks really strange, might have a lot of features, but the logo is a bit scary! Must be from a deep south emo type...

Task Scoresheet | The Online CEO

Ill be giving this one a go, its highly recommended, includes motivation and point scoring. Just what I need.

Remember The Milk

Remember I said i would be posting more boring entries here about online task/todo lists, well, here is the first of them. This one claims to be the best task list around.

David Seah - The Printable CEO

When i saw this I immediately thought of Colin, a friend of mine, solo contractor and semi self employed self confessed part timer and pool cleaner extraordinaire.

Im currently into good todo: lists at the moment, so expecta few more boring posts here about my results.

IE7Pro - The Ultimate Add-On for Internet Explorer

Ive been using Avant for years, it had tabs before IE did, it was based on IE, it had URL shortcuts and a whole bunch of stuff. IEPro ads a few of these things to basic IE7 which I use at work, so one step closer to not using Avant, bout timie they upped the ante.

Manager Role Set

The roles in busines around testing and test management, this site laid it out nicely, even though its the rational process, it might be useful.

Web Worker Daily » Archive Why Your Boss Doesn’t Want You to Telework «

Im working a project right now that stems from this belief of working from home. It can be a lot more productive for the right people, but then it can be a nightmare even for good workers. I think the key point would be to implement on a trial basis with some clear goals or targets, with proven measurements in place to track against.

The comments in this article have some good points, its not always easy to get managers to accept change such as this.

TED: Ideas worth spreading

If i ever get time to get into these, looks like an interesting concept. Maybe i need an iPod to watch them on?

AutoHotkey - Free Mouse and Keyboard Macro Program with Hotkeys and AutoText

I used to use AutoIT to do all my tasks, mainy for installs or admin work. I came across this, the example was to automatically copy selected text & paste to notepad then return to your current window.

Its free and seems to work well.

Lightstreamer :: Live Web Content Delivery

I would use this if i ever make a live data service.

World first - BogBlog

Predictive text is that amazing yet frustrating technology that mobile phones use to make typing your sms's faster. It works by realising that theres only a few words that can be made from a string of keypad presses, then analysing the most likely choice and substituting your typed characters as you type.

Amazing.
Except two things come to mind. One, it doesn't then shorten these words to sms speak.
Eg. "Omfg it will gr8 2 c u". The other is when it doesn't recognise a word, eg. "Ill be there when I've finished Crasshog". Replacing "crapping" with "crasshog", now I don't know the word crasshog, there must be one, but the time it takes to add a word to the dictionary is normally enough to put people right off.

Please phone makers here me out and shorten predcted words to txt speak, and allow me to add crapping to the dictionary much easier!

End of thought, bugger off.

Office Supplies Fetish: Capturx Digital Pen Turns Jotted Notes to Text

I would love to give this a try, i wonder if theres one handy i could find. I love to take notes, but never type them up later, even if this product didnt do handwriting recognition it would be good anyway to have your notes digitally recorded.

Forward/Reverse DNS Lookup, Other Network Tools - Lookup Server

A handy site, does all the DNS lookups i could ever want, especially reverse MX lookups for those pesky spam filters..

Now for something completely different

Broght to you by mobile email to blogger! Technology at work again. Now I can write blog entries even when I have nothing to add. Like now.

Thought for the day:

#End

Google PageRank Checker - Check Google page rank of any web pages

Another tool for the web entrepreneur. Unfortunately it doesnt work too well, this site doesnt even show up, how can that be?

Bushfire Monitor | aus-emaps.com

Ive said it before, everything you could ever want is on the net.. ive mentioned to a few people "wouldnt it be great if there was a WheresTheFire.com website, where i can look up fires in my area!". Lo' and behold, here it is.. ive even bookmarked my area, for future reference.. amazing stuff. This will certainly be going onto eFlea.

Save Online Links to Access Bookmarks Anywhere, Share Links, and Discover New Websites

If i ever get around to creating my new site, this layout is simple, honest, functional and best of all, i can recreate. Keyword for me.. you are invited

Right Click, Save Target As - Quick Link Maker For Saving Web Files

Im constantly amazed that anytime I google something, where i need to know somethign or find a tool, it alwasy comes through.

This is a task that occurs repeatedly, you have a file on the web you want to save, ie a flash file, mp3, image, anything, quite often you need to create a dummy html page with just the a href to the thing you want to download.

Well, this tool above does just this. You paste in the link, click 'make link' and voila, its done.

Amazing, i wish i had the time and imagination to make this stuff.

LiveFaceOnWeb.com

These guys are scary!! its pretty lifelike (yes i know they are real) but kinda spooky, id consider for my site, could really get a message across.

Generating the FDFD modeling by applying the Preconditioner

This is what happens when you feel lucky on google with 'fdfd' as a search term.

"Qiuzhao Dong, Misha Kilmer and Carey Rappaport

Based on the Perfectly Matched Layer (PML) Absorbing Boundary Condition (ABC), Finite Difference Frequency Domain(FDFD) modeling is generated by applying the preconditioner which is especially important in 3-dimensional FDFD modeling (it hastens the computational rate.). The theoretical basis for constructing the preconditioner in the frequency domain is presented and the general grid geometry for FDFD modeling is discussed. The 3D FDFD modeling is testified by comparing its result for the electrical filed distribution of the simple dipole in the free space to the theoretical result and comparing its 2-dimensional effect for point source to the result from the 2D FDFD modeling . Some particular target cases are carried out. But the 3D FDFD generates a very large matrix (although it is very sparse), it need to occupy a corresponding large memory. Due to the restriction of our computational resources, the large size case can not be afforded here. "

I dont know about you, but this stuff is pretty heavy duty. I even read the pdf they refer to, lots of pretty colored pictures, jargon, and bad english.

PayPal Integration into e-Commerce Solutions, ASP.NET - Page 2

A bit more on PayPal integration, i need to work this out sometime soon.

How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong

This is one funny article, I have to quote a little bit

"One Infinite Loop, Apple's street address, is a programming in-joke — it refers to a routine that never ends. But it is also an apt description of the travails of parking at the Cupertino, California, campus. Like most things in Silicon Valley, Apple's lots are egalitarian; there are no reserved spots for managers or higher-ups. Even if you're a Porsche-driving senior executive, if you arrive after 10 am, you should be prepared to circle the lot endlessly, hunting for a space.

But there is one Mercedes that doesn't need to search for very long, and it belongs to Steve Jobs. If there's no easy-to-find spot and he's in a hurry, Jobs has been known to pull up to Apple's front entrance and park in a handicapped space. (Sometimes he takes up two spaces.) It's become a piece of Apple lore — and a running gag at the company. Employees have stuck notes under his windshield wiper: "Park Different. They have also converted the minimalist wheelchair symbol on the pavement into a Mercedes logo."

There is much more, but this just caught my eye.

ASP.NET Content Management System: Online Demo

Maybe useful software, but something about the sites layout i find interesting, maybe its the fluid look of the logo, i gotta get me some of this...

Creative Docs - Free Alternative To Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw

I must get me some of this, i was just thinking the other day, i need some graphics software, note to self: check it out.

EphPod - iPod for Windows (and Linux) :: DOWNLOAD

I finally can use an iPod now, this software actually lets me get songs on and off the ipod with out the hassles of iTunes :-)

TidBITS : Worthy Web Sites: PayPal

While im on making money from the web, heres a good story about using PayPal, which im a fan of, but not making so much from... :-(

Making money from user fees & subscriptions

If you need some cash from your website, try this, its an interesting article about the different ways to charge.

Website speed check, download speed tool

I was asked to do some website performance testing, this site also has a lot of interesting content...

CareerOne

This is pretty neat, a very useful calculator in a very nifty GUI.

MailChimp | HTML Email Template Design Tool

I Need Spam. Who thought emailing could be so much fun!

Slideshow at Slideroll - Flash Slideshow Creator, Photo Slideshows for MySpace, YouTube, and Everywhere!

Worth looking into further...

Flash Builder - Create a Flash Slideshow for free

For Penny, here we can make a flash image viewer.

Top-10 Application-Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

This is excellent, a good list of common problems, with informative and funny examples.

Making an application user friendly is never easy, but if you avoid these traps it wont be as hard.

Arts & Entertainment - How To Information | eHow.com

They are not wrong, you can find anything here.

Wildbit » Home – Social Networking and Subscriber-based Services.

I like this company, they look neat and professional, the products look useful and well done.

CSS post it notes

Finally, this is the postit note i wanted for my eFlea. Just need some time to implement it now.
http://notes.mastervb.net/

Domain Search - BustAName

Good Domain name searching tool, also http://instantdomainsearch.com/

Accepting PayPal Payments

Accepting PayPal Payments

Maybe this will help me.

DOS - output error to log file

When you send the output of a DOS command to a text file it doesnt normally put any error messages there as well. The following method does.

e.g.
copy f1 f2 > log.txt 2>&1

Exchange 2000 and the first 2003 DC in 2000 domain - Petri.co.il forums by Daniel Petri

Something im working on right now, i was googling for answers, this is kinda funny, limited english and references to girlfriends, flower on his hands etc.. response to questions is well done..

Super Secret SSO Organization: Inside the SSO: Brought to you by Intel(R)

I should watch this if i get time...

Accept Credit Card, Accept Credit Cards - PayPal

Aaah, let the money roll in.. the beauty of paypal.. Note to self: add donate now button ...

Backing up SQL from ASPX

This will be sueful for future scenarios.

Ad Expiry Notification System - ASP.NET Forums

Something to add to the site.. eFlea

International Human Capital Consulting - PSI

Nothing special, just an interesting design of the website... i like the little graphics.

Internet Marketing Toolbox

Must read this sometime...

Freeware for web page checking, link popularity checking, PageRank and traffic rank checking software - Nesox Link Checker

Annoying snow? or 'Cool' effect!

Roleystone-Courier

The Roleystone Courier, local community newpaper and home to ads for the eFlea on Roley

InfoWorld launches drive to save Windows XP | InfoWorld | News | January 14, 2008 | By InfoWorld Editors

Save XP ! i agree, the last think i want is VISTA, im finally comfortable with XP, it does everything i need. THe new 'features' of Visa are not worth the upgrade hassle.

From 10 Hours a Week, $10 Million a Year - New York Times

I thought is was writing this article? Well, my own version of this scenario will be up soon. I think it is a very good strategy, if a company can run itself without the interference of people, then it probably stands a better chance of success.

[Geeks Are Sexy] Technology News - We make technology sexy

Wow, geeks are not sexy, but they do know how to put a sexy banner pic on their websites!!! This website might even have some useful coontent, i dont know, cant get past the home page.

Fancast - Fancast: Find and watch TV Shows, Movies, Videos, Celebrity News, and Gossip

Just following up on my post about Free online streaming HD TV.

Read all about it!

http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp

Heres the great thing about the internet, you can find yourself anywhere, and if not, well, make it up!!!

Hack Attack: Six Ways to Catch Your Favorite TV Shows

http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing

Streaming TV shows, finally... but theres a catch see below for some fixes..

http://www.ghacks.net/2006/05/01/howto-watch-abc-tv-streams-outside-the-usa/

Zwinky!!

Im easily amused... it may be a popup ad, but its fun for a few minutes at least.

Araluen Botanic Park

"PERTH CHILLI FESTIVAL
Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 March 10am - 5pm both days
A celebration of everything chilli from fresh foods, pickles, chutneys, olives, cheese, chocolate, wine, beers and many more. Enjoy live entertainment, demonstrations and free tastings."

TFS Times Newsletter - Home

Wow, a whole newspaper for TFS...!!

A Developer's Life: April 2007

Answering: "When will bug 'xyz' be ready for testing?"
Have you ever been asked any of the following questions regarding work items: Is bug #123 ready for testing yet?, or When will I be able to test bug #456?, or What bugs are in the pipeline that will be ready for testing next?
If you're like me, you've probably answered the above questions at some point in the past something like: "Sure, it's been ready for testing for two days.", or "Bug #456 will be ready for testing after the next nightly build.", or "I don't know what bugs will be coming next, let me run some queries and get back to you."
Now, I'm a huge fan of Team Foundation Server but I hadn't stopped to take the time to put together a couple of relatively simple queries that would not only save myself and my fellow co-workers some time, but also make everyone's job just a little bit easier. Before I detail the two queries that eliminated the above questions, here's some details on our environments and automated builds.
Currently, we develop projects and push them through four environmental stages:
Development: this is where all developers work on a daily basis - more-or-less isolated from the rest of the world. System Test: this is the environment that our testers perform their daily testing. Integrated Test ("Staging"): this is where we test out the integration points among multiple applications. Production: of course this is the environment in which our daily business runs.Now, for each of our Team Foundation Server projects, we have three standard build types:
Continuous Integration Build: this build type is automatically executed with each check in and deploys any binaries, files, etc. into the Development environment. System Test Build: this build type is executed nightly on a scheduled basis. All binaries, files, etc. are deployed to the System Test environment where our QA/Testers can "work it over" the following day. Integrated Test Build: this build type merely stages the various binaries, files, etc. to be pushed by the Integrated Test environment via CM processes.So, back to the original goal of eliminating the original questions above. To do this, I created two queries named:
Work Items Staged for Testing - this query, when ran, returns a list of all work items (e.g. Bugs) that have a State of "Resolved" and an "Integration Integration Build" (displayed as "Resolved in build" on the Work Item's Details tab) beginning with the text "Continuous Build" (the name of our CI build type). So, basically, this returns a list of all Work Items that have been associated with a changeset that has gone through the CI process, which means it has been deployed to the development environment and will be deployed to the System Test environment after the next nightly build.
Work Items Ready for Testing - this query, when ran, returns a list of all work items that have a State of "Resolved" and an "Integration Build" that does not begin with "Continuous Integration Build" and is also not empty. I do not specifically check for a "System Test Build" in this query because I am assuming that any build type other than the CI build deploys the changes into an environment from which they can be tested.With the recent acquisition of TeamPlain by Microsoft, we have deployed the TFS portal within our project teams giving our testers a nice web-based interface into TFS. Now, when they are curious about the state of existing work items, they can run the queries detailed above and get their answers immediately.
One caveat to all of this, if you decide to implement similar queries then you must ensure that your developers associate work items with their changesets when checking in source code (or other files).
Also, your build types must have the element in your build scripts set to "true". This setting is what causes the "Integration Build" value to be updated to the latest build number associated with the work item.
Without the integration of TFS & Visual Studio, these types of queries would be a lot more difficult (if even possible) to build.

Cached Credentials - How to clear

Well, ive come across this a dozen times before, but heres the answer once and for all. It happens when you browse to a share as a different user, then you try to access that share as a different user it gives you the old error about being logged on as someone else.

Anyway, heres the fix.

SQL to Sourcesafe Scripter v2.0 (SQLScripter, Schema Scripter)

This is not bad, im not sure if it could work or not, generally you want to associate a DB change with a checkin, bug, release etc.

Just having bulk schema checkins like this could be a problem, but if it was integrated to VS2005 IDE there might be better control.

Your Freeware and Shareware Download Destination! : BlueChillies.com

Your Freeware and Shareware Download Destination! : BlueChillies.com

Dont i get around!! Something new for today, in my travels looking for ways to put SQL into source control and make a nice change release process i bumped into this site. I know there are ehaps of these around, but i like chillies(never tried blue ones), the layout was good, and they had nice categories for the software. Ill be back...

The Cranky Product Manager: Who is the Cranky Product Manager?

The Cranky Product Manager: Who is the Cranky Product Manager?

Hilarious, i must take time sometime to read this a bit more, but a little i read so far looked pretty spot on!!

PC World - The 25 Most Innovative Products of the Year

PC World - The 25 Most Innovative Products of the Year

Now heres a list worth looking at, sometimes with all the noise on the net, its good to just get a nice simple list like this. Somegreat products on here, some i never knew of, somethings about some things i did knew about, and other things about which i didnt know something about.

Now theres something!