Category: Geeks, Gadgets, and Gizmos

A lot of people ask me "why do people send spam"?. Let me tell you a secret about email spam: If spamming didn't work, spammers wouldn't send it. Yeah, no kidding. Internet security experts estimate that there are only around 200 spammers IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Why do they do it? Simple: they make money. If they didn't make money, they'd do something else. I received this email today. Look at it carefully and ask whether YOU would fall for it: ------------------------ Dear Email Account User...
Read More

An interesting video. I don't usually put a lot of stock in 'man on the street' interviews, but this one comes with statistics from the questioner. Fewer than 8% of those asked knew what a browser is. What makes this interesting for me (besides the obvious, being a web designer) is the fact that virtually everybody who was asked 'what is a browser?' didn't know...despite using a browser on a regular basis. Computers used to be the sort of thing that only technically-inclined people could use, a...
Read More

Wow. I knew that this technology had some promise after reading a Popular Mechanics article about 20 years ago, but had completely forgotten it. Here it is: a car that runs on air.No combustion means zero emissions. Imagine a car that runs on compressed air, that has no emissions, that can be refueled in three minutes. Imagine going (at the moment) 200 miles on a tank of air, and traveling at up to 60 miles per hour. The only by-product appears to be air. At around $15,000, this is one car that ...
Read More

I really appreciate the straight-forward simplicity of the folks at CommonCraft. They create videos that explain things like podcasting in terms that anybody can understand. Enjoy! ...
Read More

I'm looking forward to seeing the new Iron Man movie this summer. I thought I'd get a head start, and wondered whether you'd enjoy one too. Here's a story of a real "iron man"...Troy Hurtubise. This is one interesting hombre! He's invented some cool stuff, like Firepaste and Angel Light. The coolest, by consensus, seems to be Project Grizzly.Calling it the "Trojan", Hurtubise describes it as the "first ballistic, full exoskeleton body suit of armour." Weighing in at 40 lbs, he claims that the su...
Read More

I'm a geek. Like most geeks, I'm the guy that everybody calls with computer questions. When I started my web design company, things were a bit slow. To make some extra cash, I hired myself out to local folks for almost no money, cleaning up their computers.I quickly realized that most folks have no idea how to download new programs, let alone which programs are good. I thought I'd highlight a few of the better free programs that I can't live without.IrfanviewThis Windows-only program is one of t...
Read More

A lot of people are really amazed by those t-shirts that change colors in the sun. Ditto beer bottles that turn blue when they're cold. I wonder what most people would think of this kind of tech?The image on the shirt changes as you get closer to, or farther from, a WIFI source. In other words, it's a wireless internet detecting t-shirt. How long before this sort of stuff gets used in other places? Here are a few ideas:An alcohol-sniffing shirt that shows how close you are to a wedding reception...
Read More

This video should frighten most people. It explains that virtually anyone can open virtually any common lock in virtually seconds, for almost no money. The show Nova makes it painfully obvious that you or I could probably burlarize our neighbors' homes any time we want. The converse is true, of course: your neighbors could probably break into your home any time they want. You can buy a bump key for a couple of bucks. You can buy a set of bump keys for less than dinner and a movie. New locks - an...
Read More

I'm a web designer by trade. Because I'm self-employed, I have to purposely set aside time to keep up to date on my industry...I don't have an employer who pays for my continuing education. One of the blogs I read is Smashing Magazine. The posts are (sometimes incredibly) long, but they're usually topical: one post might be nothing but different ways to design/code the same thing. That's very helpful for designers, who often look for inspiration in a sea of 'just like the other one' websites.For...
Read More

I don't know about you, but I read a lot of online articles. To save time, I do as much as possible in my feed reader of choice, Newsgator. I probably have close to 150 feeds that I keep up with.Sometimes, I find a web page that I'd like to keep up with that doesn't have a feed. What to do then? I'm certainly not going to bother bookmarking it, since it would be like three years before I see that bookmark again. No, there's a better way:Page2RSS.This service will create a feed for you from any U...
Read More

Lots of Christians like to wear t-shirts with Christian messages on them. I don't...not because I hesitate to speak my mind (obviously) but because most Christian t-shirts totally suck.I don't want to point fingers, but most Christian marketers tend to ...um, well, I'll just say it: steal other people's good ideas and mess them up. Who thought that changing the Subway logo to say "His Way" was a creative way to spread the gospel? From a distance, the "Be Wiser" shirt looks just like a Budweiser ...
Read More