blog posts in tech and gadgets
04/10/2009 • comments ()
my transition from apple mail to the gmail cloud, part 2
Posted by Steve Woolf

I decided to write a series of blog posts about moving the tens of thousands of emails from years of life online in my local email into Google's cloud. This is Part 2. Read Part 1.

In the last blog post, I was just getting started and formulating a strategy to migrate tens of thousands of old email messages from Apple Mail into Gmail. I'm far from finished, but I did get off to a good start so I wanted to post an update.

» This article continues

04/08/2009 • comments ()
my transition from apple mail to the gmail cloud, part 1
Posted by Steve Woolf

I decided to write a series of blog posts about moving the tens of thousands of emails from years of life online in my local email into Google's cloud. This is Part 1. Read Part 2.

Quick Background

I've been working on the web since 1994. In that time, I've used just about every major email client available for the Mac at one point or another, as well as a few for Windows when needed. I can't posit an accurate guess as to how many emails I've received and sent over the years, but it is certainly in the tens of thousands. For a long time I tried to keep an organized archive of all of it, but time simply doesn't allow that kind of indulgence anymore.

For the past few weeks I've been considering making the break from a local application and moving everything to Gmail's cloud. We're paying customers of Google Apps, so I have plenty of room, and the Gmail web application is very mature at this point and it has a great mobile version that was just updated yesterday.

» This article continues

04/06/2009 • comments ()
keep a healthy tempo without paying to see dr. beat
Posted by Paul Dateh

If you play music, you know the importance of practicing with a metronome. You might have even paid close to $200 for one of those extra-fancy Boss "Dr. Beat" metronomes. But, if you have an iPhone or iPod touch, you can now practice all those quirky time signatures and subdivisions to your heart's content without having to break the bank.


» This article continues

01/13/2009 • comments ()
giles walker does the robot
Posted by Zadi Diaz


Some may consider Giles Walker is a man ahead of his time. He's been working with robots for the past twenty years... well, not exactly with them, more like on them. As a sculptor, he's experimented with the convergence of movement, recycled materials and music.

» This article continues

12/23/2008 • comments ()
say hi to hektor
Posted by Zadi Diaz


Hektor, this week's Artist of the Week, is a spray painting device created by Jurg Lehni and Uli Franke. They were looking to create a contrast between the low-tech wobbles and drips of a real object and the high-tech engineering instructing the device.

» This article continues

11/19/2008 • comments ()
college students ask: do you know what twitter is?
Posted by Zadi Diaz


Kelly Sutton and Chris Lesinski over at Hack College went around their campus and asked students if they knew what Twitter was. The responses may surprise you.

» This article continues

11/07/2008 • comments ()
amazing visualization of barack obama wikipedia page edits
Posted by Steve Woolf

embed

Bravo to our friend and colleague Jamie Wilkinson, who created this video visualization of the edits made to the Barack Obama Wikipedia page using the open source code_swarm and his own wikiswarm script that ties into the Wikipedia API.

[ Via: via: jamiew on Vimeo ]

09/22/2008 • comments ()
startup to develop anti-robot technologies
Posted by Rick Rey
war

Some say it's a hoax or part of a Terminator ARG, but others say it's legit. UK-based dot com millionaire Ben Way has purportedly launched a new startup called Weapons Against Robots (WAR), "the world's first defense company solely dedicated to weaponry against robotic entities."

» This article continues

[ Via: (via io9) ]

07/07/2008 • comments ()
water-powered car? not so fast.
Posted by Steve Woolf

On the show this week we talk about a bunch of responses we got to the Tesla episode where we talked to Elon Musk. A couple of weeks ago a company called Genepax introduced an eco-friendly car that ran on nothing but water.

Wait, what?

Yes, you heard right. A car that runs on water. Not only that, they claimed that you could put just about any water-based liquid in the tank and it would work. They claimed it was run by an energy generator that extracted the hydrogen from the water placed into the tank.

Too good to be true? Lots of people far more knowledgeable than me seem to think so.

» This article continues

05/21/2008 • comments ()
facebook gangsta
Posted by Rick Rey

I'm equally amused and repelled by this Facebook parody, which demonstrates why all social networks need to develop new and innovative ways to keep out the creepy old guys. The backup vocals guy reminds me of a douchebag version of Michael McDonald.

05/05/2008 • comments ()
ideas worth their weight: toothpaste squeezer
Posted by Steve Woolf
tubesqueezer-01

I <3 industrial designers. :)

[ Via: [via core77 blog] ]

tags: design
05/01/2008 • comments ()
how to download songs from muxtape & seeqpod
Posted by Rick Rey

It's easy to download MP3's from music-streaming services Muxtape and Seeqpod (and perhaps others) using a simple Firefox add-on.

Tools needed

How it works

Muxtape and Seeqpod offer a non-Flash, non-streaming version of their websites for iPhone users. So if we trick them into thinking our Firefox browser is an iPhone, we can access the downloadable MP3's they serve to iPhone users.

» This article continues

04/22/2008 • comments ()
flock offers eco-friendly browser
Posted by Rick Rey
Flock browser: Eco-edition

Firefox spinoff Flock calls itself the "social web browser" because of its tight-knit integration with social websites like Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter. The new Eco-Edition comes pre-loaded with a lovely green theme and self-updating content from environmentally-focused blogs and media sources from all over the web.

Flock Eco-Edition is a free download, and Flock has pledged to donate 10% of search proceeds to an environmental charity chosen by the Flock community.

(via Drew Olanoff)

04/15/2008 • comments ()
john mayer is customer service kryptonite
Posted by Rick Rey
John Mayer here
It's pretty much certain that John Mayer will not rest until he's the center of a huge internet meme. I think he may have inadvertently stumbled onto something with his recent Apple crash report.


In case you missed the crash heard round the world -- John was having a problem with his iTunes crashing, so he filed a wordy crash report prefaced with the phrase "John Mayer here." He then took screenshots of said report and posted it on his blog.

Apple quickly responded to the report (I've never heard of a major software company personally responding to what is typically an anonymous bug report) and the world cried out in jealousy. "Why should he get special service just because he's famous?"

The complaints didn't last long, however, once people realized they could simply pretend to be John Mayer when in need and similarly receive 5-star service.

tags: tech
04/10/2008 • comments ()
flickr community divided about video
Posted by Rick Rey

photo by sa_steve

Video on Flickr has only been active for a day, and already a subset of the Flickr community has banded together against it. The We Say NO to Videos on Flickr group has 20,000 members and has submitted over 1,200 photos to the group's photo pool -- most of which carry an anti-video sentiment like the one above.

The introduction of 90-second video clips has many members worried that their beloved photo site will turn into a YouTube clone.

Personally, I like the idea of videos on Flickr -- especially considering the ultra-short nature of the clips. But I wonder if they should have a better way of distinguishing between the 2 types of media (e.g. video clips still have the word "photos" in their URL's).

What do you guys think? Will Flickr be forever changed?

04/02/2008 • comments ()
is twitter your social lubricant?
Posted by Zadi Diaz


A lot of us are on Twitter these days -- making new online friends and connections, but what exactly is the distraction/production ratio? How much time do you spend on Twitter each day? Does Twitter keep you from doing other things, or does it help? How many Twitter friends have translated to other areas of your life/work? How many people do you follow and how do you personally choose who to follow? How do you use Twitter?

[image via dieselsweeties.com]

03/28/2008 • comments ()
cool firefox addon: shareaholic
Posted by Rick Rey
Shareaholic

I recently started using the Firefox add-on Shareaholic, and it's truly quite awesome in a mega-useful way. It lets you quickly submit the page you're browsing to a bunch of different bookmark/sharing websites, including del.icio.us, Digg, Tumblr, Twitter, and a lot more. It's a must-have for all you hot and sweaty social web lovers.

03/26/2008 • comments ()
personal aggregators vs. blasters
Posted by Rick Rey
hellotxt
hellotxt is an example of a "blaster"

This week Zadi talked about a few of the personal aggregators out there that let you pull your feeds from services like Twitter and Pownce so all your updates show up in one centralized location. If you use an aggregator like FriendFeed, Socialthing, or iminta it doesn't matter which networks you use and which ones I use -- we can keep up with each other on the same website.

An alternative approach sort of accomplishes the same thing by doing the exact opposite -- instead of pulling from multiple places, it lets you send to multiple places, and it's causing a bit of controversy in the social space. I'm talking about "status blasting" services like HelloTxt, which let you to ping multiple services with the same message simultaneously.

» This article continues

03/18/2008 • comments ()
church of scientology releases 'anonymous exposed'
Posted by Rick Rey

It was only a matter of time until the CoS launched their own offensive against Anonymous. Since January, the nameless group of hackers and activists have protested the church... sometimes using classic hacker techniques e.g. DNS server attacks, black faxing, and leaking confidential documents. The Anonymous Exposed website itself is really just a container for the video, which is honestly much tamer than I anticipated. This comes just days after the most recent CoS protest. I wonder how Anonymous will respond to the video?

What do you guys think about the church's claims in the video? Since the video is directed at unknowing Anonymous members, do you think it will resonate or have any effect on would-be members?

02/29/2008 • comments ()
kid runs iphone stopwatch for 1,000 hours
Posted by Rick Rey

What will happen? It's like Y2K all over again. The horror!!

02/16/2008 • comments ()
trs-80 cracked open
Posted by Steve Woolf

The first computer I ever had was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 2. Along with a crummy little joystick and a cassette tape drive, this little machine introduced me to computers. I would sit and code BASIC programs for hours, and then I would try not to shut off the computer because I had no way to save them! I think the most complex thing I ever coded was a graphics piece that made a blocky train move across blocky tracks.

Anyway, for a lot of people the TRS-80 was their first machine, so I thought this was a cool picture set. It has about 10 images of the machine cracked wide open. It looks so simple compared to today's home computers! More after the jump, and all of them are here.

» This article continues

[ Via: [Via News.com] ]

tags: tech
02/14/2008 • comments ()
diy spy sunglasses
Posted by Zadi Diaz

How To: Spy Sunglasses!


Who doesn't want a pair of spy sunglasses?!? I know I always have! See, I grew up with a private investigator for a dad, who had an arsenal of spy gear handy. Never fun when you're a teenager. But now, with this DIY instructional, I can create my own spy sunglasses for under $40. Watch out, I may be watching you! heh. ;)

tags: diy
02/07/2008 • comments ()
flickr users: DO NOT WANT
Posted by Rick Rey

Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo hasn't come without backlash (duh). Fearing the inevitable Microsoft conversion of Yahoo-owned Flickr, almost 3,000 Flickr users have joined the Microsoft keep your evil grubby hands off of our Flickr Flickr group. The above image is 1 of 100's submitted to the group's photo pool.

I'm not thrilled at the idea of Microsoft owning Flickr, but I'm not ready to stop using one of my favorite social networks just yet. How about you guys?

01/28/2008 • comments ()
beware google maps!
Posted by Rick Rey

Maybe you've heard the controversy surrounding Google's Street View feature in Google Maps. Check out this funny yet poignant video by The Vacationeers that gives us a glimpse into what our Google overlords might be planning next.

01/26/2008 • comments ()
web trend 2008 map
Posted by Zadi Diaz


Check out the web trends map for 2008 by Information Architects. They've taken about 300 of the most influential web sites and mashed them up with the Tokyo train map. Check out the clickable online version. You can get a large poster size PDF for your home or office and they're coming out with the desktop wallpaper soon.

[Via informationarchitects.jp]

01/21/2008 • comments ()
harmless fu: invert colors, watch friend go mad (mac)
Posted by Rick Rey
harmlessfu_01


Let me give you a piece of advice. Never mess with a man's computer. Unless it's a harmless prank like this one for inverting the colors on any Mac OS X machine. Use this keystroke combination:

Control+Option+Command+8

Go ahead and try it. Use the same keystroke to go back to normal. Like every other prank, the set up is most important. So before you start control-opt-command-eighting all of your friends, you might want to tell them about the new Mac virus that's corrupting LCD displays. Have fun!

01/18/2008 • comments ()
the internet party
Posted by Zadi Diaz


What Happens When Google's Parents Leave Town for the Weekend?

01/16/2008 • comments ()
the joys of private bittorrent trackers
Posted by Rick Rey
SANY0016.JPG
On this week's EPIC-FU Zadi talked about the new BitTorrent search engine YouTorrent.com -- which is an awesome site for the average person looking for files available on public trackers. But if you want to get your hands dirty and really explore the torrent scene, you should consider joining a private tracker. Why go private?


It's faster.
Leechers are the scourge of the peer-to-peer community. They disable uploads during their download sessions and slow down the network for everyone else. Leechers run rampant on public trackers where there's no accountability.

Because private trackers enforce ratios, leechers are spotted quickly and their accounts are disabled. Ratios work like this -- if you upload as much data as you download, you have a 1:1 ratio. Better trackers have higher ratio requirements, but generally speaking 1:1 is considered good.

» This article continues

01/15/2008 • comments ()
macbook air: form before function?
Posted by Zadi Diaz

I was pretty excited. Now I'm not. My Macbook Pro might look a little clunkier than its new thin, sleek and sexy compatriot, but it has more memory, more usb ports, a replaceable battery, a firewire drive and really cool stickers I've placed on it to look more "personalized." Also, I'm not afraid it might fly away during a wind storm.

Don't get me wrong, the new Macbook Air looks gorgeous (except for the large bevel/gutter area around the screen), but starting at $1,799, it doesn't exactly make me jump for happy-happy, joy-joy. I think I'll wait it out. I hear that good things come to those who wait... or at least better things.

Also, will it blend?

tags: apple
01/10/2008 • comments ()
gOS 2.0 released
Posted by Rick Rey
gos.png

gOS, the free operating system that just so happened to earn our FU of the Week award this week, also just released a new version of their OS. According to Mashable, the update "brings several important tweaks and improvements; namely support for Google Gears, virtual desktops, online storage drive, Adobe Flash 9 for Linux, and an updated Wi-Fi manager." Grab the free download at thinkgos.com and tell us what you think!

12/26/2007 • comments ()
laser nail calendar
Posted by Zadi Diaz

photo by bre pettis

We have some amazingly interesting friends. Take our friend Bre Pettis for instance... who else of all the people we know would laser the 2008 calendar right onto their thumbnail? No one we can think of - except for his friend Martin apparently.

I could see this being useful for a personal countdown... difficult to forget something when it's etched on your fingernails... And if not that, well, it's definitely a conversation starter. :)

tags: art, tech
12/17/2007 • comments ()
zen moment: steve jobs
Posted by Zadi Diaz

photo by diana walker

STEVE JOBS AT HOME IN 1982 -- "This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that's what I had."

[Via: shey.net]

tags: zen
12/16/2007 • comments ()
tweetgifting!
Posted by Zadi Diaz

tweetgift.png


Now you can give your twitter friends free virtual gifts with tweetgift! Just an extra little way to brighten up someone's day. :)