Interesting stuff, useful stuff, funny stuff, stuffy stuff
This post is for anyone who has ever been exposed to indecipherable corporate jargon. For anyone who views a yellow, green or black belt as a status symbol. For anyone who lives in a cube, loves Dilbert and Office Space and knows how much more you get done when the email server crashes. Thanks to Bug Girl at Manger Tools for putting me on to this. Enjoy!
When I first stumbled on Think Geek I thought I had died and gone to nerd heaven. Where else can you find Super Mario wall decals, caffinated soap, a flute that lets you play the songs from Zelda, a huge selection of geek-related t-shirts and a USB rocket launcher? Nowhere- that’s where. Check it out.
Big news on the technology front. Apparently, somebody out there in cyberspace figured out that if he could hack in to the “middle-man” DNS server of an ineternet service provider he can take someone who wants to go to their online banking site (say scotiabank.com) and redirect them to an idental-looking site that he designed and when they go to log in *BAM* he has there log in and password.
Fortunately, those that police the tubular interweb have known about the flaw for about 2 months and Microsoft has already released a patch for its OSs (Vista doesn’t need it). So what can you do? Well, make sure your system is secure by doing the appropriate updates and check with your ISP to make sure they’ve done the same.
For those craving more details there’s a great article HERE.
MORE TO COME
I saw this on Lifehacker yesterday and thought I’d share it. I applied it right away but it looks a little weird with my 2-monitor set-up because I have to have the same background on both screens. Enjoy!
Layered Desktop Wallpaper Organizes Your Icons
Flickr user Gabriel Radic has an elegantly simple solution for organizing icon clutter. His “Layered Desktop” background, free to download in high resolutions, divides your computer space into four areas—an aluminum board, a ruled sheet of paper, a sticky note, and wooden background. The idea is to treat the elements like you would a real desktop, putting temporary or urgent matters on the note, things you haven’t yet organized into the outer parts of the desk, and personal or work projects divided between the board and sheet, for example. The background works best on screens up to 1440 pixels wide. Looking for other subtle organizers? Hit the via link below for four more ideas.
I was talking to RH recently and I commented on a sign above her desk that said “GET OFF YOUR DOT”. When I asked her what it meant (I figured it was just there to remind her to get back to work) she drew a handy visual aid that looked like this:
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She then went on to explain that the tiny dot in the middle represents your com fort zone and the rest of the inside of the circle represents the opportunities that are out there if you- say it with me- GET OFF YOUR DOT.
Being a proud Canadian I am both encouraged and disappointed by the current season. On the positive side they found a phenomenal group of people this year who all have unique sounds and are extremely talented. My issue with this season lies not with the performers but with the producers. Every year when they get down to the top 10 hopefuls they do these theme nights. Some of them are great and others leave me wanting to smack Ben Mulroney upside the head demanding that he give me back the last hour of my life. Anyway, so far this season they’ve done 2 theme nights- “The Music of David Bowie” (argck!) and “The Music of Dead Artists”. The latter I had less of a problem with because it was pretty broad and made for a diverse evening. What I want to know is this- What the heck happened to Canadian night?! For the first couple years they started the top 10 with music by Canadian artists and then it just kind of disappeared. I think it does a real disservice to our national identity that a show claiming to showcase the crème de la crème of budding Canadian artists pays so little attention to the vast repertoire of those that came before them.
This is a shameless plug for Joe Nixon, a talented musician from Saint John New Brunswick and all-around good guy. He’s got a couple videos on his Youtube channel my favorite of which is Boom Shaka Laka. Check it out below.
Says Joe on why he’s an all digital artist-
I wasn’t big on the idea of bouncing from bar to bar trying to have people actually listen to my music. Like a lot of people I don’t have a full time band and it’s difficult to get people in a bar to focus on a guy with an acoustic guitar. That’s when I decided to start a Facebook group and YouTube channel and it’s pretty neat what’s happening there.
You can read the full artle I took this quote from here: Digital age is like new kind of campfire
For more info on this soon-to-be global sensation you can also venture over to his Myspace page HERE or join his Facebook group (just search for Joseph Nixon – That Canadian Musician).
