Posts filed under 'Geeky Stuff'
One thing about being a geek is that you think that everyone knows the tips/tricks about software that you do. One of my favorite tips is to use the ‘keyword search’ feature in Firefox. It allows me to type in queries like: ‘yt shergill’ in the address bar and then search youtube for the word ’shergill’. I got another one for dictionary.com set to be ‘dict some word’. That way I can quickly get the definition of a word without actually going to dictionary.com first. Do you want to know how to set this up? Its pretty easy. Just go to the site that has a search feature. Lets go to google.com. Right-click in the search box and there should be an entry called ‘Add a Keyword for this search’. Go ahead and chose this. This will know pop up a dialog box. Type in Name: Google, Keyword: g and then click ‘ok’. Now you can type in ‘g apple’ in your address bar to search for ‘apple’ on google. Pretty sweet huh? 
October 10th, 2006
Wow.. YouTube just came out with an upgrade to their video player. The new one looks very colorful and eye appealing. I personally like it. The one one tended to be a little bit dull. Whats even cooler is the fact that every single video on my site gets upgraded. Without me having to do a single thing.. The only issue I have with it is that I can’t figure out how to change the volume. That feature works fine on the YouTube site; but it doesn’t seem to be available on any embedded players.
September 11th, 2006
Tivo is pretty much synonymous with DVR. Many people just assume that a DVR is a Tivo. I frankly do not realize what the difference is between a regular DVR and a Tivo. I guess, by same token, I do not understand why someone would pay a monthly subscription fee to Tivo. Having said that; more details are surfacing about the new DVR from Tivo. The one detail that should jump is the MSRP. It is believed to be $799. Thats right; the new HD Tivo will cost more than some HD TVs. I don’t know what Tivo is thinking!!
August 28th, 2006
I believe I kick ass when it comes to SEO. For those of you who do not know; SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It referst to the practice of optimizing your website so that it ranks highly on search engines. Some companies pay big money to have this kind of service done for them. I believe they should just hire me. Why am I so confident of my elite SEO skills? Take this example. Go to google (or MSN) and type in ‘feedburner readers’. As of 8/17/2006; my site was the 2nd result.
August 17th, 2006
Looks like Sony might finally have that iPod competitor they have been wanting for years.
It is handheld wifi device that has built in skype support, google talk, Yahoo messenger, audio/video/photo playback, Opera web browser, built in mic/speakers.
Wow.. i’m excited! Welcome back Sony!
August 11th, 2006
I am going to admit something right now. I just do not get the point of these online photo storage sites (such as flickr, zooomr). I have a 2.5g pro account at zooomr (which I got for being a blogger); but I have only uploaded less than 10 pictures to it. I just do not understand why I would want to take hundreds of my photos and upload them online. Let me see if I can list some points.
- Backup - I guess one reason would be for backup; but I already have these pictures backed up on 3 computers (mine, my sister’s laptop and my parent’s computer). So that idea does not appeal to me. Plus I can’t imagine how easy it would be to upload all the pictures and then retrieve them later on. In the case of Zooomr; I have to upload one at a time; and I would assume the download would also be one image at a time.
- Share with family This one does not make much sense to me. There are so many other ways to share pictures with friends. One would be to install a gallery on your webserver (like mine). Plus these photo sites do not really have a nice ‘gallery’ feel to it. Another excellent product for sharing photos is the Picasa web. Picasa makes it so easy to upload your pictures that even a novice can have it done in minutes. So again, flickr or zooomr do not really add anything; for me. I would much rather send a link to my Picasa album to my parents; than a flickr link.
- RSS feeds Both flickr and Zooomr offer RSS feeds. This allows you to get any photos that a user uploads via a RSS feed. This one sounds pretty good in theory; but most of the pictures that I take are my family pictures. Why would anyone want to subscribe to an RSS feed of that. And if I wanted anyone to see those pictures; I will just send them a link to the album.
Don’t get me wrong; I am not saying that these photo sharing sites suck or anything. I am just saying that I do not see the point (or the hype) that is associated with them. Maybe it just does not fit in with my usage model. I mean look how much Yahoo paid for flickr.. was it worth it? What do you guys think? Do you use any of these sites?
If you agree, then Digg it
August 8th, 2006
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