Friday, July 31, 2009

Scientific Calculators

Calculator Close UpImage by D-Kav via Flickr

I'm an engineer and sometimes mathematical calculation show up on my blog. In order to make it easier to do the math and for my blog readers to check the calculations themselves I looked for calculator gadget solutions. I have found two options that I like.

Maths-Whizz Scientific Calculator
This one is great for a blog or website and completely free. It has all the functions and features I crave. Had I had it college, I would have needed no other calculator. As for some of the pre-built features that other calculators have like converting units of measure, I don't need those. I'd rather convert them myself.





eCalc
This one I liked too, but it seems to be best for a desktop uses. The other things is that it's not free - $15. Good freeware, however.



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Thursday, July 30, 2009

True Twit for Twitter


Get tired of spam tweets? How do you know if the person you are considering to follow isn't a script "bot" but a real person? I just found out about a service called True Twit that is a third party verifier. It a twitter user can respond to the service the person is added to your followed list otherwise the tweeter is ignored.
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Friday, July 24, 2009

Zemanta - Blog publishing Tool

Image representing Zemanta as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase

I just found out about a free browser add-one that works a little like Apture but offers different things. It's called Zemanta. One of the features I like most is that it can add a "re-blog" button to your post. Readers can select a portion of the post they like and easily re-post it on their own blog. It also helps in choosing tags, collecting images and videos, and collecting relevant links. You can download it and find out more information at the following link.



Zemanta TypePad from zemanta on Vimeo.





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It's different from Apture in that the tool is part of the browser and not part of your blog.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Twit This


I just saw a tool I liked for twittering blog posts called Twit This. It is used to easily tweet a post with the press of the a button. What's different is that you can select a word or phrase that answers the Twitter question "What are you doing?" with your link in your post to the Twitter stream. It's pretty cool. If you want to use it follow the following link: http://twitthis.com/tools and Cranial Soup.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Recent Posts Widget for Blogger with Thumbnails and much more..


I just found ot about a great little gadget that lists the latest posts of your blog. apparently, you can put it anywhere that accepts HTNL. It's pretty Cool. Get it here and see it in action in the left side bar.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Automating Excel from VB.Net - Link to Excel Lost


I've been maintaining some software of years that i wrote that compares inventory data with GIS data. It uses some of Excel's spreadsheet function to pull this off. I use Excel's object library to get the effect. It's worked great until recently and ironically the problem shows up most consistently on the fastest computer I've ever used at work up until now. In the middle of processing, I've been getting an error message that says that the "link to the spreadsheet has been lost" and then the program crashes. For days I could not find the problem. But then when I stepped through through the VB.Net code stey-by-step the program worked then I realized it was because I allowing the steps in Excel to finish before the rest tof the program continued. It turns out that because my program and Excel are being processed in different threads, the Excel thread could be lagging behind my code. I have had to put code into a function in VB that tells the processor to pause for a certain number of milliseconds. 1000 milliseconds is 1 second. Therefore

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10000)


makes the program pause for 10 seconds which would give the excel thread 10 more seconds to complete what it is doing. It's my theory.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Tweeting Music via Blip.fm


I was watching Attack of the Show and they spotlighted a tool that allows you send tweets with embedded music links. The service is called Blip.fm and you can also take advantage of several other great social networking tools and services.



Homepage

Friday, July 17, 2009

Get Paid For Clicking Ads

If you want to get paid by viewing ads and not having to pay anything I think I have found the perfect opportunity. I got a link from Twitter and it does not require doing anymore than referring it to other people and looking at advertisement while you are surfing the internet. I've looked into it and its easy. Download a toolbar and use it to search the internet. Click on the "Ads" button and a list of ads based on the page you are on pops up in a side bar. Click on any that interest you, and you can see the amount of money you earn increase. The downside is that you are going to have to see many, many ads before you make anything substantial. At least it is free. As Kevin from Attack of the Show signs off his minute-long segments on free games: "What do you want for nothin?'"


If you are interested, follow the following link, register, and get clicking.
Get the Bar


Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Publishing Links


If you have used Twitter or Facebook then you know that sometimes you want to post a link to website but many urls are long and hard to use and in twitter it can really eat up your 140 characters. I mean you could use TweetDeck or some other third party tool to shorten your URL to something more manageable. I found this online tool called bit.ly and it will shorten any URL you put into it and also allows you to tweet the link in twitter, and even tracks the number of times someone clicks on the link.

bit.ly

Twitter Tools: File Social.com


As one spends more and more time on Twitter, there will come a time to send files to one another. We have several options. One of those is FileSocial. You can upload files and then Tweet a link to others for download. IT's an option but by far not the only one.


FileSocial.com

Monday, July 6, 2009

Tecmo Koei Boss Implores Sony For "Welcomed" PS3 Price Cut

I just read the following from G4TV and I agree I want a PS3 price-cut because I sure would buy one!

Sony Focusing on PS3 Profits and Not Market ShareUndoubtedly, there are quite a few gamers out there who would love to see Sony drop the price of the PlayStation 3, if only to prove that analysts can still make solid predictions every now and then. Well, it seems gamers aren't the only ones hoping Sony's heart (as well as its install base) grows three sizes sometime soon.

In a recent interview with CVG, publisher Tecmo Koei's CEO Kenji Matsubara reveals that he's been consistently pressing Sony for a "welcomed" PS3 price drop for some time now.

However, Matsubara explains that while a price cut would obviously expand the PS3 market, "It's Sony's strategy, and I don't know their cost structure. Sony introduced cutting-edge technology in the PS3, that's why people in the industry accept that the PS3 cost is so high, but we'd welcome a price cut."

Matsubara's is an unsurprising position, but it's also one that reflects the feelings of most gamers who have yet to make the PS3 plunge strictly because of its price point. A price drop is coming sooner rather than later, so now it's really just a waiting game to see when exactly Sony wants its hardware sales to skyrocket.

Source



Sunday, July 5, 2009

Home - Twitter Scheduler - Twitter Client - Twitter Calendar - Twitter Business Tools - twAitter.com

Home - Twitter Scheduler - Twitter Client - Twitter Calendar - Twitter Business Tools - twAitter.com

Shared via AddThis

Online Debate Hosts!

There is a social networking site that hosts written debates. If you was to write out essays discussing opinions on matters, you go into the site, login, and then set the parameters of the debate. You can set the number of rounds and even invite other people to read the exchanges. I have the feeling that I'm going to need this tool at Debate.org

Voice Twittering


Blogger: Favorite Gadgets - Create Post
I just learned from Dr James White's Blog that there is a product, called vlingo. It allows you to send text messages and e-mail by talking to your phone! He plans to use it to twitter his thoughts that he doesn't have time to blog.This is an amazing idea that seems to work well for him so far. Vlingo works for Blackberry, IPhone, Nokia, and Windows Mobile! I'd like to try this method myself sometime soon. The Blackberry Demo is directly below.


IPhone Demo

Friday, July 3, 2009

Distributing Blog As PDF


I came across an interesting widget: PDF24. It allows you to give visitors the option to take a blog post they like, fill out their e-mail address and have the blog post e-mailed to themselves. I tried it on a blog I was reading yesterday and it worked. And it worked well. The only thing is that it took several hours to get the e-mail. I made the request yesterday morning and the e-mail came last night...several hours. The only other thing I did not like about it is that the plugin is optimized for Wordpress not Blogger/Blogspot which is what I use. Hopefully Blogspot will be supported soon.
So instead I found another hack for blogger that's not as elegant and I could not get it to work on my blog.


There are several tools offered by PDF24.

Top 10 Ad Programs for Web Publishers | TutorialFeed

Here is a post for free Ad programs for blogs/websites.

Top 10 Ad Programs for Web Publishers | TutorialFeed

Megan Fox Trashes Transformers Committs Career Suicide!


I don't know if this report is true or not. I hope it's not. Apparently, Megan Fox has poo pooed Michael Bay's films as being special effects driven and not character driven. I mean that's career suicide! I don't know why she would say that. But Michael Bay has made a statement.

Michael Bay let his feelings be known in an interview with the WallStreet Journal;

Well, that’s Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, “Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it.” But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in “Armageddon.”

Shia LaBeouf wasn’t a big movie star before he did “Transformers”—and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from “Bad Boys.” Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in “Transformers.” I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films.




Talk about biting the hand that is biting you! I sure hope she isn't kissing her career goodbye.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Microsoft Has A...Blog?


I was doing some research for my job today and I found out several things I didn't know. I was searching for information on Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. VS 2008 is an Integrated Developer Environment (IDE) which just means that it's software to help write other software. I have used previous versions of it practically daily since 1999. So Now we are looking to upgrade to a newer version. I've got to admit that I started with version 6 (released in 1998) and the product has only improved over the past 10 years (dang...am I that old?). I cam to find out (shock) that Microsoft is looking to release version 2010 next year and a Beta version is already available for download and (awe!) there is maintaining a blog on Google's blogspot for development notes and news on programming with Microsoft Products!

After comparing 2008 specs with 2010 specs it is my opinion that i should just upgrade to 2010 when it comes out and skip 2008 altogether. We want to be able to access the .Net coding languages, Python, Silverlight, parallel processing on multiple CPUs, and multi-threading. Visual Studio 2010 will give us all of this including easier automation of Microsoft Office products. Here is another site for more info on VS 2010 features.

The other thing is I found out about a coding library that can be run on Visual Studio 2005 or newer for making Facebook applications on top of ASP.Net application. It's called Facebook.Net and I've got to download it and check it out.

Here are the links I found on it.
Facebook.Net
VS.NET starter kit for Nikhil Kothari's Facebook.NET
Nikkil's blog post

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Twitter Tools: Twitter Counter


I found a neat little gadget on the Black Snob blog. I've added it to my own blogs. What it is a site, called TwitterCounter, that works with your twitter account to count tweets, show a list of the latest visitors from twitter and buttons that display the number of followers you have on Twitter. It seems really cool!





Check it out!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Generating HTML

We have many different ways to write HTML for websites an HTML. These days we don't necessarily have to learn HTML or hire someone to write HTML code for you. There are a whole lot of tools that allow you you to assemble a web page and then upload it without having to write a single HTML tag. The issue is that you cannot always get what you want this way. Another option is using Microsoft Word to write the document the way you want and then use Word to translate the file to HTML afterward. You can make it work. However the HTML generated is not pretty or elegant. The issue is that it does not make valid official HTML code however most web browsers does work. But I have found another option if the following is true:

1. You cannot write your own HTML.
2. You have to use Microsoft Word.

You can use a program to clean up the HTML after Word Generates it. I found a great program called Detagger and it is easy to use. It can be used to fix the HTML file and make it work.

Friday, June 19, 2009

IPhone 3Gs

I have come across some very interesting information on the latest IPhone. For example we finally have video loaded on YouTube taken using the new IPhone and it looks great.





Secondly, G4TV has announced that Apple has released the latest operating system for the IPhone and IPod Touch. It's supposed to be universal for all Apple mobile devices and make updates simple. I want one.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Must-Have Web-Site/Blog tools


I've been adding a lot of tools to my blogs of late. I believe that all make the experience of reading them and using them much more fun and interactive. I've put together this post in an attempt to show all the features I recommend belong on a blog/website.

1. Answer Tips - if a user double-clicks on a word in your blog, a window pops up with the word's definition.
2. Google Translate - allows your visitor to read your page in other languages: Simplified Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish
3. Google custom Search - register with Google and you can set up your own personal search engines specific for your own needs. mine searches all my blogs for the key word entered into the field.
4. Subscription - allows visitors to subscribe and get alerts when you post something or someone comments on one of your posts. It's one of the built-in gadgets for blogger.
5. Visitor Counter - counts the number of people who visit/view your blog each day.
6. Back Links Display - lists the websites that have linked to you.
7. FEEDJIT Live Traffic Map - displays map showing the location of all the visitors to your site!
8. Followers - from Google; allows people to "follow" your site so that everytime new content is being added, they get the information via RSS Feed in Google Reader.
9. Facebook Badge - displays your Facebook profile and the last message you sent on Facebook
10 Twitter - There are sever different versions; mine show the last 10 tweets I wrote and provides a link so that reader can subscribe to my twitter stream.
11. Labels - Lists all the tags for all the posts in the Blog and how many times they have been used; provided by Blogger.
12. Archive - Lists all the titles by month and year; provided by Blogger.
13 About Me - Profile; provided by Blogger.
14. Apture - Allow you add almost any video, document, or image to your post based on the content of the post.
15. LinkedWithin - puts linksfor related posts at the bottom of each post.
16. Add This - puts a button at the bottom of each post that allows user to share the contents of each post easily to all major social networking sites.
17. Standard Post footers - an icon for e-mailing a post, a poll of reactions (check boxes), labels for the post; provided by Blogger.
18. Register your site/blog with Technorati so that you can use it promote your site.
19. Register with Google Analytics so that you can get good statistical information about traffic on your site for free.
20. Radar URL - Tells you how many people are on your site in real time.

If you like any of the widgets/gadgets I covered or see some on my blogs that I did not cover here, and want help using them. Please let me know by leaving a comment.

Apture


I just found a tool perfect for linking a myraid of multimedia content to any website/blog: Aperture. It's fun to use and I found a great demo of it.





Tuesday, June 16, 2009

DC Universe Online Widget




DC Universe Online

Monday, June 15, 2009

Sharing Your Content on Popular Soclal Sites


Have you seen the drop down button on some websites where you put the mouse over them and you get a list of sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace for sharing the content tied to the button? I've been wanting to add that to my blogs. The service is called Ad This and it si free. It's really easy to add. I've added it to all my sites. Go ahead and try it on this blog...even this post!




Friday, June 12, 2009

BackLinks For Your Site


For your blog or website, Backlinks is very important. A Backlink is when someone links to your blog or website. The more backlinks you have the more priority your blog and website when it's listed in search engines. I have been looking for tools, widgets, and gadgets for listing the websites/blogs that are linked to yours. Here are my top choices:

1. MakeCloud Backlinks Widget - generate a cloud of links representing all websites that are linked the site. It's easy to install.
2. BackLinkWidget - generates a widget that lists all the websites/blogs linked to yours. All you have to do input the url for your site/blog and then click the button and the code to put on your site is generated and all you have to is copy and post. It's easy to install.
3. Technorati Link Count Widget - is a widget that counts the links for each individual post. I had to go and look around for more information to try to find out how to install it but because of my blogs' templates it's not quite that simple to install. I really wanted this one to work. Fortunately, I found a great post on BloggerBuster explaining how to install it!

I'm going to install the Technorati Link Counter to all of my blogs. And I will add the Backlink Widget to my Favorite Media blog. What Had Happened Was... and Favorite Fiction will get the MakeCloud BackLink Widgit.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

PSP Go


I already own a PSP but I think it may be worth it to pick up the next version of the hardware this fall. It apparently will feature:

* Touch Screen
* Slide out additional controls
• The Go's 16 gigs of flash memory and bluetooth support ("You can also tether it to your cell phone,") are touted.
• In discussing the PSP Go's video-playing capability, it sounds like the rental service through PSN will extend to the PSP Go.
• PSP Go will not replace the PSP-3000; the 3000 will still be kept on the market.
• The PSP Go will arrive this fall.
• It's 43 percent lighter than the PSP-3000
• It has a 3.8-inch screen
* Games will be downloaded into the devices from the Internet
* UMD will be optional

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Japanese, Hebrew, and Greek Fonts

Because i want to learn and do more with Greek and Hebrew, I decided to take the plunge and install Hebrew and Greek fonts on my computer. I downloaded from BibleWorks website.


I also downloaded Japanese fonts while I was at it.


Here is how you install fonts on Windows XP
  1. Click Start | Settings | Control Panel and then double click the "Fonts" icon.
  2. In the Fonts applet click File | Install New Font.
  3. In the Add Fonts Dialog, navigate to the folder where the extracted fonts are located.
  4. Select the fonts and then click OK. The fonts are now installed.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Announcement: Format No Change


Frequent readers of this blog may have noticed that I I usually pit all things of interest to me in terms of fiction on this blog. I've come to realize that I need to focus more on smaller topics to be of the most benefit to the readers and supporters. Therefore from now on this blog will not be changed in terms of content. It will continue to be for reviews, demos, announcements, and interviews but now only dealing with the Mugen community. I will now be maintaining 4 blogs.

1. Favorite Fiction will house all my Mugen related activities.
2. What Had Happened Was... will be for all the things I like to study: Theology, Science, Politics, News, Technology, and History.
3. Favorite Media will cover movies, television, YouTube, comic books, and music.
4 Favorite Gadgets will be used for field testing new web technology and widgets.

Please feel free to visit any of these blogs at any time and leave comments on any of them blogs or e-mail me. Thanks for your support