The Big Think

Bill Gates has left the building. Say what you want about him, the man could laugh at himself.

Evernote looks pretty cool.

A masterful Chernobyl Themed PC casemod.

wherein Sean comes up with a brilliant and potentially world-altering idea.

I’m truthfully humbled.

Microsoft multimillionaire Nathan Myhrvold funded a complete build of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine. Wired has a short article and some amazing pictures.

HP has my printer, the HP2600N, on sale for $199 after rebate w/free shipping. I bought mine two years ago for $250 and love it. This is a screaming deal since this particular printer comes with full ink cartridges, not the lame-sauce half-full carts that require you to buy more soon after getting the printer. This is a very good thing since 4 new carts (CMYK) are $88/each. Yes, you read that right: buying refilled ink cartridges costs more than buying the printer new with full carts. When my cartridges go dry I’m just going to buy a new printer. Wasteful, I know, but I’ll save $152.

Give away the shaver and sell the blades, indeed.

Curse them! Curse them all! Spammers have really hosed my good email name. I’m to the point of getting about a hundred false emails per day now as a result of somebody usurping my email identity and using it to send spam. If it gets worse (and there’s no indication that it’ll get better), I’ll have to give up my great email address and get a new one. Drat! 

Speedcabling!

Stupid spammers got my email and they’re using it to spam other people. In the last two days I’ve gotten 48 emails that basically say “stop spamming me!”. So far it’s all bots doing it, but the scumbags that are putting my email in the FROM field are benefiting from my email and hurting me in the process. Idiots.

Here’s an invention I’ve wanted to see for a long time. Just enter your ingredients and Supercook will tell you what you can make. Perfect for the end of the month when there’s a random assortment of stuff in the pantry and no money in the account.

This morning I woke up to a bunch of inbox messages about undeliverable email. Unfortunately, I never sent the messages in the first place. It seems like someone out there who has my email address (could be anyone who owns a computer that’s “seen” my email on a CC’ed email) has gotten a virus. This virus has started spitting out spam in my name with my email address as the return address. Now I’m getting a bunch of “undeliverable” and STOP THAT messages.

This stinks. Not only is the interweb more clogged this morning from the original spam, but it’s also having to deal with the dozens of bounced emails from addresses that don’t exist. It’s clogging my inbox, and making me look like a spammer. Grr! Another one just came in. I wonder if it’ll ever end or of I’ll have to change my email eventually? Stink!

By the way, it could be your computer! If you have a PC that you suspect of being infected (first step: does it run Windows?) then check here for a possible solution.

Hey Windows users: keep your dang systems patched and don’t open attachments!

Sean gets his OLPC in and gives it a quick review. He likes it.

Amazing what you can do with flash.

To be honest there is only one conclusion to be made; Microsoft has really outdone themselves in delivering a brand new operating system that really excels in all the areas where Vista was sub-optimal. From my testing, discussions with friends and colleagues, and a review of the material out there on the web there seems to be no doubt whatsoever that that upgrade to XP is well worth the money. Microsoft can really pat themselves on the back for a job well done, delivering an operating system which is much faster and far more reliable than its predecessor. Anyone who thinks there are problems in the Microsoft Windows team need only point to this fantastic release and scoff loudly.

Ouch.

Funny Windows errors.

Some of my favorites:

Fatal Error: No Error.

Catastrophic failure.

Keyboard failure. Strike the F1 key to continue.

Norton CrashGuard has crashed.

Error. No error occurred.

Error. The operation completed successfully.

Dialog box: the command cannot be performed because a dialog box is open.

Frickin’ awesome. I just figured out how to customize my monstrously over-buttoned übermouse (the Kensington Expert Mouse Pro) for Sketchup. Now I have a ton of tools and navigation commands literally at my fingertips.

I’ve had clients go woozy just looking at the plethora of buttons and wheels on the trackball. The best thing is when I tell them that the four click buttons not only work individually, but you can also chord with them (by hitting two at a time), to give yourself even more ways of doing things. One of these days I’m going to inadvertently start WWIII while playing my copy of Global Thermonuclear War.

So go ahead and return the Sketchup book to the bookstore or Amazon. I know all my friends and family members went out and got it after my post the other day. I came across it at Barnes and Noble tonight on 30% discount, which is only $1.50 more than I could get it through Amazon. So I went ahead and bought it. Looks like it’s a lot of good review followed by several chapters that go over concepts that still flummox me. I’m really looking forward to working my way through it, particularly with the online YouTube additions.

I got home from Pigskin a few days ago and found almost 1000 articles to read in my RSS reader. Luckily I was able to sift the wheat from the chaff, but it was a challenge. Wonder if I should remove some feeds?

Life imitates Art.

I’m obviously messing around with a few templates. (U2) I still haven’t found what I’m looking for (/U2), though. I have to pester Sean to install a couple more templates and then things will stabilize. Sorry about the eye-burningly loud page.