Computer and Web Articles

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Really, Your Company Might As Well Have a Hole In Its Wallet

1. http://tinyurl.com/3c2f4gt - Shopping for a new phone? Have you by chance considered the new Tag Heuer Link Android smartphone? People who purchase the Tag Heuer Link get to choose whether their case has an 18k rose gold finish or a titanium finish. They also get to choose whether they’d like a calfskin, alligator, lizard or carbon leather trim. Lastly, they get a phone that actually runs on the old Android operating system. Amazing, no? The best part: the phone is an absolute steal at just $6,750.
2. www.BumpBargains.com – Are you pregnant? Are you going to be pregnant Is your wife/girlfriend/? Do you know someone who’s pregnant? If you answered yes to any of these questions, BumpBargains.com might be of interest to you. Run by local Silverthornian Leslie Mountfort, BumpBargains.com features one designer maternity clothing piece at 50% to 80% off, for one day only or until it’s sold out. Each day BumpBargains offers a new designer maternity piece at a bargain price.
3. http://tinyurl.com/6yz5qbb - Even for those of us who are not pregnant, never plan to be pregnant, and/or know no one who is or is going to be pregnant, these 26 Parenting Instruction illustrations are absolutely hilarious. Each illustration has a simple Yes example and No example that make it easy to understand what one needs to do when taking care of baby in various situations. In the “Stimulating Baby” illustration, you’ll learn that putting a mobile above baby’s crib = good. Mounting a TV to one end of the crib and angling it down for baby to see as he falls asleep at night = bad.
4. www.OecdBetterLifeIndex.org – Many of us Summit County folk have a definition for quality of life that differs from the definitions of those held by big city folk. How do you define a better life? This site allows you to “compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics.” Quite fun to play around with the settings on the homepage and watch the graphics instantly adjust accordingly.
5. www.EclipseCrossword.com – Nope, this has nothing to do with Edward or Bella. Simply feed EclipseCrossword your list of words and clues and, within seconds, the program will generate a custom crossword puzzle for you. This is a unique, fun idea for teachers, parents, webmasters, educational institutions, and companies/organizations that send out email or print newsletters.

If you don’t use Twitter much (or at all), you’ll want to skip this tip. Trust me. It will bore you.

Easy reminders via Twitter? Yes, ridiculously easy!

Simply send a DM to @timer (for example: d timer 70 call Mr. Smithington) where “70” = the number of minutes after which you’d like your reminder and “call Mr. Smithington” = the reminder you’d like to receive.

When the minutes are up, @timer sends you a DM with your reminder message. In this case, in one hour and ten minutes, @timer will send you DM that says “Call Mr. Smithington”.

Of course, before you can use this service, you’ll need to follow @timer so they can DM you.

1. http://tinyurl.com/6e3jj75 Beautiful!! It’s like watching colorful, glowing, digital fireflies. These videos show the movement of 880 iPhones in Europe during April 2011.
2. http://abstrusegoose.com/354 - One illustration. Eight words. I *love* this. Hilarious
3. http://tinyurl.com/yk2n64w - 100 ways to find ideas for your blog posts. No more excuses.
4. www.BanksyiPhoneApp.com – If you love Banksy (like, LOVE love Banksy) and you have an iPhone, you want the Banksy location app, trust me. Check the 40 second video, click the huge “OUT NOW” button to the left of the video, and read the details.
5. http://tinyurl.com/38g2p8o - 62 ways you can use Twitter for business. Not all items in this list will apply to you, but perhaps you can find a few new ideas.

It’s just how things go. Sometimes websites go down.

Your website, your bank’s website, your favorite news site. Your favorite pirating site, your favorite weather site, your kid’s school’s site. Big or small, simple or fancy, sometimes websites go down.

But we all know that when your website goes down, it doesn’t matter that “it’s just how things go sometimes.” It’s not okay. In fact, the stress you feel when your site goes down (or the stress you will feel if you’ve not experienced this yet) is not unlike the stress you’d feel if you discovered the apocalypse was arriving in half an hour.

Yes, your site going down is akin to the end of the world. I know this because I’ve received frantic, screaming, SITE-DOWN!! emails from clients. I’ve received SITE-DOWN!! phone calls during which I swore I could hear hair being ripped from the scalp. Indeed, over the years I’ve been the recipient of some quite powerful horror-shockwaves that clients have set off during their temporary SITE-DOWN!! psychoses.

But here’s the thing: Oftentimes people think their site is down when it’s actually not. A variety of explanations exist as to how someone can’t view his own site when everyone else can. Sometimes DNS isn’t flushed. Sometimes things go weird with host files. Sometimes domain name changes haven’t propagated. Sometimes individuals attempt to visit their sites by typing in an incorrect address (yes, I’ve seen this). Etc. Etc.

In other words, it’s not unlikely that you might someday believe your site is down when it’s not. Thus, the next time you fear your site may be down—before you get yourself too worked up and before you contact your webmaster—visit www.DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com.

Just type your website address into the box and click the blue, underlined “or just me” text. You’ll find out right away if your fear is justified and there indeed could be an actual problem with your site that’s preventing everyone from seeing it. On the other hand, you may discover that it really is just you, that everyone else can see your site, and that there’s no reason to panic so intensely. You still might wish to contact your webmaster at this point, but hopefully you’ll now be able to do so with a mind as calm as the ocean.

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The DIY Way to Uncover Problem Areas in Your Website

1. http://tinyurl.com/5srxnca - Learn how to diagnose and fix an overheating laptop.
2. http://tinyurl.com/3bsxpbj - And here we have your time-wasting, non-educational yet embarrassingly somewhat-entertaining link of the day. View a slideshow showing the one of a kind cars owned by VIPs and celebrities, starting off with a $200,000 baby pink Bentley. I won’t tell you who owns it. (It won’t be a big surprise when you find out.) Thanks to this slideshow, I now know what the EcoJet car is. I also now know that the Qatari royal family owns a fleet of turquoise luxury vehicles that includes a fancy $1,800,000 sports car with a name I can’t pronounce.
3. http://EclipseCrossword.com – An easy, free, and fast way to create your own online and printable crossword puzzles.
4. http://twilert.com – A web app that shoots you email notifications when your brand, product, or service (or any keyword you like, really) has been mentioned on Twitter. In other words, Twilert acts as an always-alert watchdog that keeps an eye day and night over Twitter per your instructions. Completely free, quick and easy to set up. Have a look at Twilert’s two and a half minute intro video by clicking the gray button near the upper right-hand corner of the site’s homepage.
5. http://instagrid.me – A clean, simple web gallery for all your Instagram photos.

Not a Photoshop expert? No problem. You can still have a tremendous amount of fun with your digital photos, thanks to a seemingly limitless number of simple online photo manipulation tools. Here are just a few.

• Locate a photo of yourself (or better yet, a photo of a family member or friend) looking straight at the camera and head over to www.YearbookYourself.com. Choose to turn your photo into a 50s yearbook portrait, or perhaps a 70s student life shot, or maybe an 80s “Voted Most Likely To” photo.
• Like the idea of putting your face (or someone else’s) in a funny spot, but not excited about the yearbook concept? Try www.FaceInHole.com and choose from tons of photos with places to put your face. Put your face in the place of a model’s, a pirate’s, or Boticelli’s The Birth of Venus painting. You can even drop your face in place of a girl getting kissed on the cheek by Justin Bieber. I just made your day with the Bieber option, didn’t I?
• Create professional quality photo slideshows at www.PhotoSnack.com. Choose from pre-designed templates, upload as many photos as you want, add music (if you’d like), and easily share your slideshows with others. Free and Premium versions available.
• For some retro computer fun, visit www.Photo2Text.com and turn your images into ASCII text art. (I actually found a faded, real-life ASCII text artwork piece in my closet the other day of my dad and I when I was a baby; the text in the top left corner read “Computer Art”. I wonder how much it cost to have art like that made back in the day…)

ATTENTION ALL COFFEE JUNKIES: Coffee Joulies are almost here.

Fascinating little stainless steel stones that have the power to make you very happy campers, Coffee Joulies are each roughly the size of half a chicken egg and work magic by keeping your coffee at exactly the right temperature for hours.

Joulies absorb energy from your coffee when it’s too hot, then release the heat back into your coffee to keep it at just the right temperature.  Their thin hollow shells are filled with a proprietary substance called “Phase Change Material” (PCM) that is absolutely safe and allows the Joulies to sink to the bottom of your mug to stay out of your way.

To learn more about these silverly little gems, have a look at their easy to review, informative website (including the video on their homepage). The site is www.Joulies.com.

Though Joulies will last forever once you have them in hand, you can’t order them quite yet.  Instead, enter your email address on the Coffee Joulie site’s homepage to receive an email when they’re ready to order.