tech brain farts.com: July 2006

Microsoft Live Labs: Photosynth (Awesome!)

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Ever wondered what it would be like to walk through your digital photos in 3D or see what hundreds of other people shot at the same location? See Photosynth in action and hear how Live Labs is exploring new ways to change the way you think about the web.

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The Security Risk In Web 2.0

Security has become a no-brainer for desktop software, but the same doesn't hold true for the booming world of Web applications.

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13 Great Firefox Extensions for Web Professionals

Short introduction to 13 Firefox extensions for web developers or SEO professionals.

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Microsoft make MSDN Library free to download!

Great news has arrived for anyone who programs with Microsoft tools and a Microsoft language: the MSDN is now free to download.

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WinRAR to be free this Sunday, July 30

"In order to thank everyone who voted for us and made it possible for us to win this prestigious award, we are offering the WinRAR 3.51 single user license non upgradeable version this Sunday the 30th of July 2006 from 00:00 until 24:00 CET for absolutely FREE."

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Digg Labs: A Glimpse of Real-Time Possibilites on The Web

After I received an email from Kendall of The Wharton School I looked at the new services on Digg Labs. He described them as offering a glimpse at the possibilities to deliver a real-time experience to the web. As I look at both stack and swarm I think he's right. it could be a very big 1st step in the evolution of how we interact on the web.

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A Day in the Life of a Digg

An interesting article on just what happens when an article is submitted to digg and how the number of diggs doesn't necessarily indicate the amount of traffic driven to a site.

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The World's Most Photorealistic Vector Art

If I didn't know it already, I wouldn't discern that the gallery is made up of drawings. Yes! They are NOT photographs.

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Pentagon Watching Youtube Closely

The Pentagon is keeping a close eye on what its troops post online, with special attention being paid to videos that show the aftermath of comba

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How The Piratebay Raid Changed Sweden

A lot of things happened after the Swedish police attempted to take down The Piratebay. Itâ??s time to recap and look ahead.

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iPhoto for your documents. It's Free

Document Management Tool for Mac OS X using tagging, similar to iPhoto. It is excellent document organizer, with integrated scanning, tagging and thumbnail zoom. Every computer has loads of PDF files, probably scattered all over your hard disk. Use kip to search, view and manage all these documents in one convenient place.

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Is America's $8 Billion Bottled Water Industry A Fraud?

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

"In a trendy nightclub in New York City, the bartender tells guests they can only be served bottled water, which costs $5 for each tiny half-pint container. One outraged clubber is
stopped by the restroom attendant as she tries to refill the bottle from the
tap. "You can't do that," says the attendant. "New York's tap water isn't
safe."

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The #1 most useful app for Windows users...and it's FREE!

Sunday, July 16, 2006

I never understood why Microsoft didn't include this in the original release of Windows, but you will never have to right-click->Properties to get a folder size again! Great for answering that age old questions "why is my drive so full?" and "where is all my shit hiding?".

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Dodge a bullet - Test your reaction time.

Don't try this at home! Fun dodging game - gun fires, you duck... or die.

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IT Careers in 2010: The IT Skills You'll Need

The skills required to land future technical roles in 2010 will be honed outside of IT. Some of these skills will come from artistic talents, math excellence or even a knack for public speaking -- producing a combination of skills not commonly seen in the IT realm.

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Hacking Techniques in Wireless Networks

A HUGE directory on how to hack wireless networks.

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Dual Processor vs Dual Core

It has always been a frequent question "Will I benefit from multiple processors?" With the growing popularity of dual core processors, the topic is more important than ever! Will multiple processors or a dual core processor be beneficial, and what are the differences between them? These are the questions this article will attempt to lay to rest.

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The Gun That Shoots Around Corners (video)

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Video showing an innovate Israeli weapons system in developement called the Cornershot which can aim and fire around corners.

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File Management With Vista Explorer

One of the most significant changes to Vista's interface is the new look of the Windows Explorer file management tool. Explorer has undergone much more than just cosmetic changes. It's now more intuitive and easier to use in many ways--although it may take a little getting used to for those who have become set in the ways of Windows 2000/XP.

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First high-res photos of Apple's Nike+iPod Sport Kit

Here are some pics of the new Nike+iPod wireless Sport Kit.

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Intel Launches Conroe

Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, all launching tonight! 1.86GHz for $183 to 2.93GHz for $999, availability to come on July 23rd. Intel's going to make deep price cuts on existing processors too.

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Skype protocols opening up, ready or not.

Chinese programmers write their own Skype client, able to call directly to Skype. This means they reverse engineered the Skype cloud, the Skype session protocols, encryption, and negotiated the audio codec settings.

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Microsoft releases new OS for old PCs

Extend the life of older PCs with "Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs" or you can switch to Linux.

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A design gallery just for logos

A well designed logo gallery that is described as "A Place To Fish For Ideas".

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Yahoo Drops Live Search Into Firefox 2.0

The newest beta candidate of the Firefox 2.0 web browser has been online for only a day, but Yahoo has already made one of its technologies available to it.

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Turn your Flickr into a Photoshop with Preloadr!

Preloadr is a free image tool (web based), that connects you with your flickr account and lets you design your photos before or after you upload them to your flickr account.

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Intel's New Core 2 Duo Processors Run Blazingly Fast in Tests

Tests show that PCs equipped with Intel's new Core 2 Duo processors, formerly code-named Conroe, set new high marks for desktop performance--they're the fastest we've seen by far. With this chip line, due to be formally launch on July 27 , Intel decisively reclaims the power desktop crown from competitor AMD.

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IT Salaries - what do you get?

The IT workers respond... Where do you stand?

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How To Save YouTube, MySpace, Etc. Videos As .AVI's Using Free Tools

Monday, July 10, 2006

This tutorial shows you how to download any video from sites such as YouTube, GoogleVideo, iFilm, etc. and then convert them to .AVI files using only free tools (Firefox, VideoDownloader, and MediaCoder). Although this tutorial doesn't go through how to do it, you can later burn the AVI videos onto a DVD so you can watch them with a DVD player.

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Firefox Beta 2.0 to be Released Tommorrow

Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) can be downloaded from Mozilla's FTP site, although the official Beta 1 won't be released until July 11, according to notes published by the open-source developer.

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Web 2.0 financial success: Easy as 'two weeks and $700 bucks'?

Monday, July 03, 2006

YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Digg..all are â??off the chartsâ?? Web 2.0 success stories, if traction with non-paying users is the gauge. If financial success is the yardstick, however, the leading traffic generators of the Social Web are another "whole ball of wax."

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Self-Defense For EBay Buyers

Goods that are damaged, counterfeit, don't match what was advertised or are never delivered remain a persistent problem for eBay and its customers -- even though the numbers represent a relatively small fraction of transactions on the Web site. How big a problem is unclear. EBay Inc. does not disclose specific totals.

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8 risks identified by Google (The Google risk list)

In the latest publicly available 10-Q statement, first quarter, 2006, Google identified a myriad of risks it faces, as it seeks to maintain its search dominance and its revenue growth rate. Here are eight of the risks impacting Google, according to Google:

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