Trying out Netvouz... why?

When I was first shown del.icio.us I was amazed... but one gaping hole has been more and more evident and that is fast bookmarking and importing from explorer favorites...



Why is this important?

Well there is a little known capability of explorer that allows you to drag a page icon from the url address toolbar to the "favorites" icon which automatically adds the page to your favorites listing.... it does it instantly without going to another page and therefore allows you capture pages quickly without fuss...



Then all you need to do every now and then is do an export of the favorites using fil/export in explorer and import into Netvouz and you have all your favorite links captured for use anywhere...



Another trick I use a lot is placing a link to the favorites directory on my PC. This enables me to go to the directory and group delete, sort or move links (the favorite frame does not allow shift clicking to select multiple pages.

Wired News: Surfing Through the Power Grid

This article from Wired magazine resurrects a logical idea that fell during the dot bomb years... Broadband over power lines.... it looks like its finally seeing light of day again... this is a good simple approach to data delivery.


Wired News: Surfing Through the Power Grid: "Customers plug a BPL modem into any electrical wall socket, and send data over the city's electrical wires to substations. The substations are connected to the net by city-owned fiber-optic cables. Because the data travels at higher frequencies than electrical current, the two do not interfere with each other. "

Simple monitor hack.. 3 monitors on their side!

Below is the latest incarnation of my desktop monitor setup... a few things that Ive not seen anyone using that really are working out successfully.

1. My vertical viewing area goes from 1024 to 1280 pixels which is the same as paying for an expensive XUVGA monitor and video card.
2. The three monitors side by side equal the same desktop space as two XUVGA monitors at 1/10th the cost.


3. Three 1024 wide by 1280 monitors actually give better veiwing of web pages and word docs than two WUVGA monitors! See full web pages without having to scroll and complete word docs in print layout.... it makes a BIG difference.

Look closely you will see that there are three Costco princeton monitors on their side! One is set at 90 degrees and the left most two are set at 270 degrees.

Not a real good shot but it shows a flickr page viewed in profile... since most web pages are limited to 800 or 1000 pixels wide you rarely have problems of web pages bleeding over the side of the desktop area, but get the benefit of nearly another half screen of depth to each page viewed. I am doing half the scrolling I did before using this config.

...
...


How to do it?

1. I've turned my three Princeton monitors on their side.


2. Removed the stock monitor stands from the Princetons and replaced them with swiveled NeoFlex stands by Ergotron for $49 from CompUSA.


3. One monitor is set at 90 degrees and the left most 2 are set at 270 degrees.


4. This is acheived using 3 nvidia PCI video cards nViews "rotation" settings.

How did I come up with the idea?

When setting up the nvidia nView software I saw the rotation settings during the setup and it occured to me that I had not seen anyone use the mode before... so I tried it for a stir! Then I moved a web page to the sideways screen and got it in one second... seeing a whole web page on one screen... the first one I openned was a CNN news page and their layout is basically 1600 pixels maximum height so all but a bit of the page could be seen in every news story I looked at. Its a simple idea but made a big big difference to my computing experience.

Interesting side notes:

• I found that placing the taskbar in the middle screen at the top is the best fastest and most logical location for navigation.
• My usage is optimized for left and middle screen for webpage and document vewing and cutting pasting/ editing and the right screen for communications, music player etc allthough I sometimes use all three screens for editing.
• FYI the pixel dimensions are 3 x 1024wide x 1280 deep or in one sweep 3072 x1280!

Inventist | Aquaskipper

Inventist Aquaskipper looks a bit decieving but this is a personal self propelled hydroplane. If you visit the site make sure you look at the video... it really explains how it works... a wonderful invention.

Outsourcing... girl Firday services

This article http://www.smartmoney.com/esquire/index.cfm?Story=20050909-outsource&pgnum=1 is a real gem… showing how the writing is on the wall for developed nations when 3rd world workers are so eager. It tells of a writer who uses a girl Friday service in India to simplify his professional and personal life… from India the service ordered Amazon books, interfaced with business associates and handled family matters for the boss…. Really intriguing.

Sad to see

This article is sad to see…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301957.html
tells of a 78 year old FRIEND who is a Katrina refugee who gets assigned to a FRIENDS place and then is left in the lurch having to rely on the Red Cross to get accommodation…
You can never tell what the full story is but still it’s a bit disappointing to hear.

Personal Storyboarding... interesting idea

From an article called A Jolly, Socratic Science…
This guy named Avi Solomon uses home made storyboards as an interesting way to make a personal narrative of his life. Interesting idea and worth ruminating on
From the site:“Storyboards are routinely used in the movie making business to 'preview' a movie before a single shot is taken. Not only does a storyboard allow for a dress rehearsal of the final product but by the very fact of being posted on the wall,it elicits early feedback and encourages quick, painless editing, leading to significant savings in time and resources.”And more:
“Disney was a storyboarding freak! A storyboard is an apt metaphor for how we make sense of our own life history. Storyboarding can be used to sense emergent patterns in our own life story and to envision the life experiences that we wish to welcome into our future.”

Definitely worth a peek.

Bird-like dinosaur forces rethink of evolutionary path

Bird-like dinosaur forces rethink: "Bird-like dinosaur forces rethink. The 90 million-year-old dinosaur was excavated from a site in central Argentina. "A rooster-sized dinosaur with a long, slender snout and wing-like limbs is forcing a rethink on bird evolution." Ooops…    

Cloudless satellite pictures of the whole earth from 2004

To see something really spectacular visit this nasa page to see something really special... highlights for me included...

1. Just how dry looking the US is... and
2. What a desert Aus is!
3. And whats that dead spot in the middle of the Amazon?
4. And New Guinea... what a wonderful lush place it looks... and so much bigger than I imagined it...
    

Byron Photos... beautiful

Another pic of Byron at the pass I just picked this up on a flickr RSS feed...

Coastal Watch

This is a graphic from a surf site that lets you see the surf in Byron Bays main sand point break called the Pass in REALTIME. Have a look. It’ll make you wish you were home. Beautiful B&W photo from Flickr.    

Understanding blogs

The last 30 or so entries in my blog show how you can get lost between what a blog is and bookmarking... since the last entry here and now I have discovered del.icio.us and now grab all the interesting pages I run into and collect them there.... but there still is a place for this blog... to fill in friends family and fellow enthusiasts with anything that seems worthy of commenting on, explaining and sharing... so here goes the new flavor of Richo blog....