Month: May 2006

Welcome to the Blogosphere

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Random Shme

We went out to dinner on Thursday night with a friend of ours, Dave. We got on the subject of blogging, and Dave mentioned that he’s been considering starting a blog. I am a big proponent of blogging, so I told him to go for it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know exactly what you want to blog about, just go for it. I pointed him to WordPress.com, as a way to get started for free.

Well, little did I know, he took my advise to heart and went home and started a blog that night. You go Dave!

If you’re interested in sports, politics, or “random shme”, have a quick visit to Dave’s blog. He obviously doesn’t have too much up yet, as it’s only been a few days, but he’s on his way to finding his voice. Welcome to the blogosphere, Dave!

Oh, and if you have been considering starting a blog… what are you waiting for? Just do it already. Don’t get hung up on details. When I started this blog 2 years ago, I had no idea what I would write about, and here I am 2 years later… still trying to figure it out, but I’ve been having fun along the way.

Remote Destruction of Data

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Q: If your Mac gets stolen, can you erase your drive from a remote location, preventing the thief from getting your sensitive information?

A: Yes, but it’s not for the beginner.

Mac Geekery has put together a guide for setting up a script that looks out to the internet and checks for a file called ‘youve_been_stolen’, on a given web server. If it finds the file, it will proceed to erase your hard drive.

The idea is that if your laptop were to be stolen, you would upload this file to your server, and the next time your laptop connects to the internet, everything on it will be erased.

So, this is a bit over my head, but it sounds like a great idea. The author of the article assumes you know what you are doing, so this isn’t for a beginner. I HIGHLY recommend NOT trying this if you are not comfortable with what he is describing. Oh, and don’t ask them for a step-by-step (check the comments on the site). This really is not meant for beginners.

I personally am not experienced enough with scripting to try this. Does anyone know of a more user friendly solution?

Leo Burnett

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Leo Burnett

The image above may not look like much, but it represents the very cool Flash site of the big time design firm of Leo Burnett. I’m normally not a fan of Flash sites, but occasionally I see one that is actually done well. This is one of those sites. Spend a little time going through it to really get the full effect. They’ve got some great work to see too. Of course, I can’t send you straight to the projects I like, because it’s a stupid Flash site.

Found via Creative Guy

Hidden Images in Lost

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Lost Shark Tattoo

If you read this blog, you probably know I’m a big fan of the TV show Lost. There have been 2 episodes that have almost hidden images in them, at least that I’ve noticed. There’s probably more. They aren’t exactly hidden, but they happen so fast (sometimes just one frame), that they would be almost impossible to see when watching them on TV. I have the downloaded movies from iTunes, so I can go back and watch them frame-by-frame whenever I see something weird. I thought I would share a couple of those with you.

If you haven’t started watching season 2, you may want to stop reading now. If you are past episode #10, in season 2, then you have already seen these, so you’re OK.

In season 2, episode 2 (“Adrift”), Michael and Sawyer are floating out in the ocean on their destroyed raft. A shark is swimming below them. In one quick scene we see the shark from below as it swims by. The underside of the shark has a tattoo near it’s tail fin. It’s very similar to the “Dharma Initiative” symbol. It’s similar, but with some distinct differences. What does it mean? I have no idea.

In Season 2, episode 10 (“The 23rd Psalm”), Mr Echo is confronted by “The Creature”. As he stands face to face with it, we pan around him, going through the smoke… several images appear in the smoke (10 by my count). Each one is only on for one frame, so they are impossible to see without watching them frame-by-frame. Even then, some of them are unrecognizable. I have links below for all 10 images. Hint: with the images open, you can push ‘p’ or ‘n’ on your keyboard to go to the previous or next image.

If you’ve seen more, let me know… but NOT if they are later than episode 10 of season 2. That’s as far as we’ve gone… so don’t ruin it for me.

Links: Lost on iTunes | Smoke Scene Ref 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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Save YouTube videos with KeepVid

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KeepVid

YouTube has become an awesome repository of videos from around the globe. But what if you find something you like so much you want to keep it. You can, with KeepVid.

It’s really easy… just bring up the YouTube page that has the video you want to keep, and copy the URL of the page. Next, go to keepvid.com, and paste the url into the text field at the top of the page. KeepVid will give you a link to download the Flash video file.

Now, here’s where you need another piece of software. The .flv file that you’ll download from KeepVid isn’t much good, because most players won’t play it. You need to convert it into another format. Being on a Mac, I use the free utility, iSquint. It converts the .flv file into an iPod-ready Mpeg. If you’re on a PC… well, I don’t know what you should use, sorry. I don’t keep track of PC software. Maybe you should buy a Mac.

Two side-notes… KeepVid works with a lot of sites, not just YouTube. And, if you end up liking iSquint, you should donate, to keep it’s development alive.

Links: YouTube | KeepVid | iSquint

Send Steve Jobs an email

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Steve Jobs email

Have you ever wanted to send Steve Jobs an email, telling him about a great new product you just thought up that you would like Apple to produce? Well, you can. Steve Jobs does have a public email address, and it’s exactly what you would expect it to be… steve@apple.com.

All email coming to that address is monitored by his assistants. They pass any ‘real’ email on to him. The chances of Steve actually reading your email are pretty slim, but what the hell, it’s worth a shot.

Found via Writers Block Live

1 penny costs 1.23 cents to make?

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coins

It seems like only here in the U.S. would we spend more on making the money, than the money itself is actually worth. Apparently, the rising costs of some metals, has resulted in a penny costing 1.23 cents to make, and a nickel costing 5.73 cents. That just seems weird to me. Maybe I should be melting down my pennies and selling the metal back to the treasury at a profit?

Found via Timmy’s Blog: Esc

The Daily Nut

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the

Lately I’ve been watching The Daily Nut. It’s a daily video podcast put on by G4TV. Part of the reason I like it, is it’s short. An average episode is only about three and a half minutes long, so you can get through them pretty quickly.

Basically, the show spotlights found video from around the web. The videos are generally of the weird, stupid, silly variety… so don’t go looking for anything too deep. It’s just for fun.

iWoz

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iWoz: Steve Wozniak's Book

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, has a new book and it’s available for pre-order at Amazon. At one point Steve Jobs was supposed to write the forward for the book, but rumor has it he read something he didn’t like, and backed out.

Found via Cult of Mac