Computer and Web Articles

Reachby.com allows people to create, manage, and share personalized contact pages on the web — for free.

Complete Reachby.com’s quick and super-simple sign-up process and you’ll instantly receive your very own publicly-accessible contact page on the web.

You can use your new contact page’s URL in conjunction with contact buttons on forums, for contact links in blog comments, and to hand out to people with whom you don’t wish to share your personal e-mail address.

Not sure if this service would suit your needs? Learn more at Reachby.com’s Frequently Asked Questions page here: http://reachby.com/faq.

After hearing an NPR story about www.419eater.com, I visited the site and found myself absolutely tickled pink at what I found. The site’s stories are so hilarious I laughed out loud and wiped tears from my eyes as I read through them. Yet despite its entertainment value, 419eater.com isn’t a comedy site.

“419″ stands for the infamous Nigerian 419 scam where scammers send out mass e-mails with the sole purpose of tricking recipients into handing over large sums of money. These scams involve everything from real estate ventures to will beneficiary ploys, paper currency conversions to letters from foreign government officials — all while conveying a sense of urgency.

419eater.com turns the tables on the con artists sending out these scam e-mails by engaging in “scambaiting.” Scambaiting entails entering into a dialogue with scammers to waste their time and resources (and therefore keeping them away from real potential victims). I myself have engaged in the most basic of scambaiting before — sending silly responses to scammers just to see how they’d reply, but the fellows here at 419eater.com take the process to an entirely new, jaw-dropping level that’s just as entertaining to follow as it is effective at frustrating the scammers.

• www.whatisblik.com/walldecals.html — Fun, oversized, self-adhesive removable wall decals.
• http://tinyurl.com/67zxt5 — A quick and easy basic refresher course on cut, copy, paste, and undo.
• http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net — Create your own custom online audio anytime, anywhere. Perfect for people who want to listen to internet audio programs — but not necessarily at the times when those programs are scheduled.
• http://tinyurl.com/5enupw — The “Amazing Webpage Emailer” Firefox add-on. Easily e-mail any webpage to anyone — even password protected or registration-required pages.
• http://kropla.com/electric2.htm — Here you’ll find a table summarizing information on the electrical systems in use across most of the countries in the world. Great for travelers.

Track the 2008 election with NPR’s interactive election map and see which states remain toss-ups, which states currently lean Democratic or Republican, and how states voted in previous years.

The map is not only clear, bright, and easy to understand, it’s updated regularly and accompanied by related articles and commentary. Bookmark the map here http://tinyurl.com/2t7×3a and follow along as we move toward election day.

Question: Dear Erin, how come most websites are not clear upfront about shipping methods? It’s frustrating to enter my PO Box blah blah only to have the screen come back with a red notation “We can’t ship to PO boxes.” I try to make it a habit of looking at the shipping information when that’s an option, but even then, a number of companies don’t have the information clearly listed. Is there a secret to figuring it out before all my info gets wiped clean and I have to type again?

Answer: While there’s no secret to avoiding the occasional frustration inherent with having online purchases shipped to Summit County (where the PO box vs. physical address dilemma lives strong), I can tell you what I do whenever purchasing products online.

Before checking out, I always attempt to learn how a particular company ships; do they ship USPS? UPS? Fed Ex? If I can find a “Store Policies” or a “Shipping” page providing that information upfront, checkout is usually quite painless because I know exactly what address to use for my mailing address.

If I’m unable to locate an online store’s shipping policies, I’ve found that entering either my PO box and physical address separated by a slash or my physical address in the “Address 1” field and my PO Box in the “Address 2” field usually works without a hitch.

• www.8tracks.com — A simple way to search for and listen to or create a music mix that’s about 30 minutes long. Your very own little mix-tape website.
• www.betterwall.com — Your online source for authentic street banners from museums around the globe. (Plus, a portion of every sale gets donated back to the museum from where the street banner was purchased.)
• www.evernote.com — Evernote’s tagline is “Remember everything.” Their product allows you to capture information in just about any environment, using just about any device you want. It then takes that information and makes it accessible and searchable anytime, anywhere. Wow.
• http://tinyurl.com/5zqsol — Learn how to build a cardboard chaise lounge for your cat. You know you’ve always wanted to.
• www.mappington.com — Create travel blogs about your experiences, share photos and videos from your trips, and make and review travel recommendations.

Hi there Photoshop users. Today I’m going to share the secret to getting out of a common predicament.

Let’s say you’re working on a file and you hit the Tab key to hide your palettes. You then hit the T key to enter text mode, you draw your text box, and you start typing away.

Then you finish typing. Uh oh. How are you supposed to get out of text editing mode?? If you hit Tab, your palettes won’t reappear because Photoshop assumes you’re trying to add a Tab space within your text box. Hitting the Esc key doesn’t do anything. Hitting the Enter key of course won’t do anything as your cursor will just bump down to the next line inside your text box. And you can’t hit the V key to turn your cursor into your black arrow because . .. . you’ll just end up typing the letter v inside your text box. Looks like you’re stuck, eh?

So what can you do? Something that took me far, far longer to figure out than I’d like to admit. You simply hold down the Ctrl key and then hit Enter. That’s it. You’re out of text editing mode and free to do whatever you’d like once again.

Online window shopping just became a bit more fun.

Amazon recently released the ultimate online shopping Wish List tool. It’s incredible. It’s easy to use. It’s free. They call their tool the “Universal Wish List Button.”

The Universal Wish List Button lets you take any item in any online store on the web and add it to your very own Amazon.com wish list. This means that whenever you’re shopping online and you see something you might like to purchase (or have someone else purchase for you) in the future, you can add it to your Amazon wish list with little more than a quick drag and drop.

Visit Amazon’s Universal Wish List Button info page (http://www.amazon.com/gp/wishlist/get-button/) and follow the instructions for getting set up. You’ll note there’s only one thing you need to do before you’re up and running; they made this really simple.

• http://tinyurl.com/27p6b4 — This blog post will teach you how to scan your paperwork directly into PDF format — in just one step.
• http://tinyurl.com/ytyzx — A potable lap desk that’ll let you sit back in your favorite chair and still work comfortably on your laptop.
• http://wrongdistance.com/?p=1986 — Four great photos showing the artwork of Damian Ortega.
• http://tinyurl.com/6kke77 — Make sure you scroll down on this page. And down. And down. And down some more. There are actually over 200 high quality nature wallpapers on this one page — from forest waterfalls to bright clownfish to waves crashing on rocky beaches.
• www.poppytalkhandmade.com — A monthly, curated online street market where people can buy and sell handmade goods from “emerging design talent from around the world.”