I mean seriously, NOWHERE? For starters, there are like a thousand species of dinosaur.
Because, as we all know, I would totally ride a dinosaur, if I saw one.
Homer: He might have all the money in the world, but there’s one thing he can’t buy.
Marge: What’s that?
Homer: …..A dinosaur.
(comic via xkcd)
When i was in college, I probably had 20 or 30 nifty little programs that I used for various things on the computer. Eventually over time, most of those programs were eclipsed by, or absorbed into, the standard set of software, in some cases by Windows itself. Also, I don’t use a computer the same way I used one back in college, so some of the apps probably became less useful to me personally.
So it’s not often these days that I come across a neat little program for the computer, but a co-worker referred me to one the other day, called Fences, which is used to clean up your desktop icons. Interestingly, the makers of the software are a company named Stardock, who make another program I used to use, a Windows skinning software called Window Blinds.
Basically, you make little areas called Fences, into which you drag and drop your icons. These areas can then be named with some logical name for the grouping, such as “Games”, “Photo Editing”, or “Random Junk”. Then the areas can be moved as a group, keeping icons logically together. You can also resize the fence to be smaller, which will give it scroll bars. For example, lets say your desktop is cluttered with a bunch of text files that represent notes to yourself. You can make a group called “Notes” and drop them all in there, and then make that group small enough to see only one or two icons. Then, if you want to see the rest of your notes, you can just scroll within that group.
Another nice side effect is that you can double click on the background to hide or show your icons. So, for example, if you have a really cute picture of your daughter on the desktop that you just need to show off, you can hide all the junk. You can also decide what to hide or show, meaning you can have sort of a normal mode with some icons and an advanced mode that reveals the rest of your icons.
I found it useful, both at home and at work, and I thought you might too.
Not really my type of music but, for what’s it worth, I seem to remember that my friend 85 liked Voltaire. I think they have a violinist. Anyway, the music seems appropriate to a zombie pirate party. I can buy the people in the picture as zombies, but they don’t look particularly pirate-y.
Okay, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few days, you’ve probably seen these. But they are worth mentioning nonetheless, just in case.
The first was that boy in Fort Collins that was (n’t) up in the balloon. It’s not nearly as interesting now that the whole thing is all over, especially since we know now that the boy wasn’t actually up in the balloon. But I was following it real time, and it was fascinating. Basically, this family has like some kind of crazy homemade aircraft / balloon at their house. At the time, it looked like a kid had climbed inside and the balloon became un-tethered from the house somehow. At one point I remember that the news helicopter was racing after the thing. It had risen to just under 10,000 feet and was in danger of entering some major flight zones or something. It was like a movie. Of course, it turns out that the kid was hiding in the attic, but it was a wild ride while it lasted.
Okay, the second one comes complete with some gut wrenching video. This lady was standing on a train platform in Australia on a windy day. She stops to do her hair or something, and in the worst-luck-god-really-hates-me-timing, a gust of wind blows the baby’s stroller forward and off the platform onto the tracks, just as the train is pulling up. The video is so heart wrenching, the way she slips when she starts after it, the way she is left holding her arm out for the baby after the train comes through. The good news is the baby was fine, just a scratch on its head. If you watch the video, you won’t even be able to believe it.
Which leads to the obvious question, what the heck kind of stroller was it, and how can I get one? That thing must be built like a tank.
This whole post is more or less a commercial, so feel free to skip it.
I became aware of Mint awhile ago from a friend on twitter, and I thought it looked pretty cool. I promptly filed it and forgot it. However, it came up again recently when I discovered that the site was co-created by a co-worker of mine’s son. So I took another look at it, and I have to admit that it’s pretty nifty.
Basically, it is a free online application that allows you to track your finances, similar to Quicken or some other financial software package. You hook it up to your accounts, like your bank accounts and your credit cards, and then it pulls in information from them. From there you can see all your balances and make nice graphs and charts, as well as categorize expenses and set up budgets. You can also get text or email reminders about things, like when your credit card is almost full, or if you’ve spent over your budget in a category.
Then, Mint takes this a step further. It can analyze your spending habits and not only give you tips about it, but it can actually search out deals for you. For example, it can suggest credit cards with lower interest rates, or savings accounts with higher interest rates. This is obviously how they make their money, by getting referral fees, but do you care? It’s good for everybody.
So anyway, I just thought it was a neat little site that some people might be interested in.
That is all.
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Shane Halbach 