Category: techno

Filter naughty words

From Lifehacker:

Firefox with Greasemonkey: Filter out the nastiness of the net with the Profanity Filter script for Greasemonkey.
By default, the script scans every page you visit against a pre-defined list of naughty words, then replaces any matches with three little asterisks. To give it a try, I created my own vulgar little sentence, which the profanity filter turned into: “This *** is the ***. Every *** on the planet should install this ***.” Pretty harmless, huh?

Sorry for all of you still using IE. I don’t know of anything that lets you do this. If anyone has a hack, feel free to correct me.
Download Firefox
Download the Firefox add-on

Cingular is now AT&T

I have no idea why, I have a better understanding now after talking to a Cingular rep, but Cingular Wireless is now AT&T.

1st Cingular bought out AT&T Wireless in Oct 2004. AT&T Wireless was a stand alone company not owned by AT&T.
2nd AT&T bought out SBC and their mobile carrier, Cingular SBC bought out AT&T and dropped the SBC name and became AT&T, due to the world wide brand recognition and admiration
3rd The new AT&T bought out Bell South, a partial owner in Cingular
3rd4th After one owner goes away, Cingular changes its name to AT&T to clarify the connection between Cingular and AT&T

Oh brother… I hope that all made sense. I guess if you’ve got the money to spend on re-marketing, go for it.
Granted anytime you can gain market recognition and admiration you may as well do it.
A Cingular PR rep told me the new branding of Cingular could take six months or more, similar to when SBC became AT&T.
Cingular customers will see no difference in their service or how they pay their bill other than a new name.

Firefox is acting funny

Firefox seems to acting very funny like.
I type a word or two and then it will go back one space and start typing in the middle of the word I’ve already typed. Very weird.
Appears to only happen in Firefox.
Could it be a Firefox problem or a problem with the antivirus program I’m running right now?
Here’s what the above paragraph looked like without corrections.

Fireox sees o be actinvery fu liek.
I typ a wordr twoan t wilto back one space and star ting int eh midleof the word I’ve lready typed. Very weird
Appears to only apen i Firefox.Could it b a Firefox prbem r a problem with the antivirus prgram Im running igh now?
Hee’s hat the above paragraph looked like ithout corrections.waa wrtr’oeoloenphhp.a dpyt lid o eynn gtmf

Let Google find your cellphone

Next time you’ve lost your cellphone, let Google maps help you find it.
If you search for a business using Google maps, the site will offer to place the call for you. Type in your number and it will place a call to your cellphone or land line and then connect you to the business after you pick up.
If you lose your cell phone, just use the service and then simply ignore the call from Google.
It’s a lot less embarrassing than admitting you’ve lost your cell phone and need someone to call it for you. From Google:

There are two things that I really like about this. The business’s phone number is automatically stored in your caller ID so you can easily call back in the future. And by checking the box to remember your phone number, you can make future calls from Google Maps with just two mouse clicks (and picking up your phone, of course).

Via Lifehacker

CDs vs. downloads

As I’m putting together more playlist material for OrangeNoiseRadio I’m starting to regret buying some of the countless downloads I’ve purchased over the last few years.

For the most part they’ve all been WMA (Microsoft) files with a few files in Apple’s native file format.
I even made the switch from MP3 to WMA’s for ripping my own CD’s some time back.

But the software we use for ONR only plays MP3s. So now I’m stuck having to re-find and re-rip all the songs I already ripped.

And when my hard drive crashed last month I lost everything I had stored on it. No backups of all those songs.

It’s got me wondering if CDs are the better way to go, especially after reading a post from Lifehacker today.

What about the rest of you? Have digital files replaced your love affair with CDs? Have you reconsidered re-igniting your first love? If only we could go back to the simpler (illegal) way of downloading all our music for free from Napster life might be so much easier. Ahh… the good ole’ days.

Software for starving students

Lifehacker shared a great resource for starving students, broke professionals or anyone else needing good, quality software for free sometime last week.
Software for Starving Students lets you download an ISO file with numerous open source programs like Open Office, Audacity and Gimp for PC and Mac.
Since it is an ISO file, you’ll need a program that knows how to burn ISO (disk images) to CD but after that you’re free to install and use all the software for free.

Software for Starving Students is a free collection of programs organized for students (but available to anyone). We’ve gathered a list of best-in-class programs onto one CD (one disc for OS X, one for Windows), including a fully-featured office suite, a cutting-edge web browser, multi-media packages, academic tools, utilities and more.

Granted the software is available elsewhere on the web but this takes care of hunting each program down seperately.
It could also make a great birthday gift for a starving student or other friends needing to work with “industry standard file formats” without having the money to shell out for the “industry standard software.”
Some of the software I’m starting to use on a regular basis includes:

  • ClaimWin – Virus Protection
  • DeepBurner – disk burning software
  • Filezilla – FTP Client
  • Firefox – Internet Browser
  • Gaim – all in one IM client
  • GimpShop – a variation of Gimp for photo editing. I actually use the original Gimp, but this is a very similar version.
  • InkScape – an alternative to Illustrator for vector graphics.
  • PDF Creator – make PDFs from any program that prints
  • Thunderbird – email client
  • WinLame – lets me encoded and decode MP3 files

Now if I could just find a great open source program for video editing and animation. Blender looks to be super powerful when it comes to animation but I don’t have the first clue as to how to use it. I better hunt down some tutorials and get to work.
If you’re interested, check out this short movie done entirely with Blender and other Open Source software.