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August 31, 2006
links for 2006-08-31
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daaamn. I'm kind of surprised it doesn't cost more. I suppose installation is many times more expensive.
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pssst! this turns your copy of iTunes into Napster. Ixnay on the ellingTay of the IAARay.
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I thought this photoset of two dudes playing on a LOST set was fake until the racist and homophobic jokes. I doubt ABC would plant that.
Posted by 1:18 AM
August 30, 2006
Unattached spam
I've been getting these gmail spams for months now, with no predictable way to filter them out, since the spammers use variable email addresses, subject lines, and text content. For Gmail to filter them completely, they'd have to scan every image for text and apply that to spam filters, which is probably too much processing required.
Today I came up with a way to kill them forever, but it is definitely overdoing it, as it basically means no more .gif attachments in email from anyone anymore. But I don't mind since I rarely get legit .gif attachments. Here's what I did.
- Hit the Create Filter button next to the search box at the top of Gmail.
- In the field "Has the Words" put in: .gif
- For the Has attachment checkbox, check it.
Run a test search (middle form button) and check your results. Chances are you'll probably see a ton of spam, but look for the legit emails. I saw some from former coworkers, a blogging service, and a company I do ad stuff with. To keep those people safe, do this:
- In the field "Doesn't have" put in text that their emails would contain somewhere. In my case, I just put in their domain names.
Run a test search again, and make sure you don't see any false positives. I just made this filter permanent and found out I had 13,000 of these in the past month.
Thanks to spammers, email is getting more and more broken everyday, but at least there are ways to make it manageable.
update:this looks even better (thanks Cory!)
yet another update: this looks like a combo of how you'd put the hawk wings idea together with the one I presented, for Gmail. I'd strongly suggest going this route until spammers wise up and change their content types.
Posted by 11:56 AM
August 29, 2006
Two good bits of eco-friendly news
Two interesting climate crisis-related items in my feed reader today:
- The First Solar Powered Biofuel Station Opened in Eugene, Oregon. They've got five blends of biodiesel and ethanol available from a solar powered station. Someday soon, all gas stations will be like this but for now it's a novelty.
- Terrapass, the company that has guilted me into buying carbon credits to offset my truck :), has partnered with Expedia to offer carbon credits when you buy airline tickets, so your trips are carbon neutral. This is a great convenience and I hope they strike a deal with Orbitz and the airline sites soon, since I don't buy from Expedia. If it is as easy as clicking a checkbox while I'm buying a ticket, I'd probably go for it.
Posted by 9:58 PM
links for 2006-08-29
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tons of new stuff on upcoming. They finally have big city metros! Now I don't have to search for events in five cities just to know what's going on in my area.
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I always hated the idea of paying for USGS maps that were already paid for with taxes.
Posted by 1:17 AM
August 27, 2006
links for 2006-08-27
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amazing
Posted by 1:18 AM
August 25, 2006
links for 2006-08-25
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huh, never heard of this before
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Roderick going acoustic is always a treat
Posted by 1:17 AM
August 23, 2006
Give yourself a raise
Here's something obvious and kind of dumb I figured out this week. When you pay off a debt, you suddenly have a lot of extra money in your pocket, especially on an annual basis. I recently finished paying off my student loans and my wife is about to finish hers, and our old car is just about done with payments. All told, we'll be saving around a thousand bucks a month that would normally been sent away, which isn't too bad at all, especially on an annual basis ($12 grand in my pocket!). Then I started looking at all my bills as annual raises.
I bet if you check your own budget and monthly bills, you can find some ways to save. When you finish paying off that $300/month student loan, you'll get a $3600 raise. If you ditch a second car you were paying $500 per month for a loan/insurance/gas, it's like giving yourself a $6,000 annual raise. If you have a $850 monthly rent and you, say, move in with someone you're dating and they pay the rent, you'll make $10,000 more this year.
Posted by 8:32 PM
Future of Web Apps
In a few weeks I'll be in SF for the Future of Web Apps conference.
Every conference I've been to has had its share of shortcomings, and often my friends talk about someday doing our own conferences so I'm happy to see developers like Ryan Carson take the initiative and do their own. I'm looking forward to and I like that it'll be a single-track speaking schedule. There's something extra you get out of being stuck in the same room with everyone that you don't get in a big sprawling multi-track conference that forces you to ask everyone "were you in the talk on X?"
It looks like it's in a huge theater so I bet there are still tickets available.
Posted by 9:59 AM
Premixed
This is pretty cool, Colin Mutchler has released an album of his songs remixed by the CCMixter community.
CCMixter is pretty amazing stuff, but I don't think I got the UI right when we launched it. Here's Colin's history on CCMixter and you can see all the remixers that picked up his samples and tracks by following the links in gray boxes off to the right.
Posted by 9:53 AM
links for 2006-08-23
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liquid-free carry-on list (powdered mouthwash?)
Posted by 1:17 AM
August 22, 2006
links for 2006-08-22
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Interesting legal fight
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Should newspapers use Myspace photos and posts to describe people in articles? How do you fact-check that sort of thing?
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hilarious nerd humor
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I hear this is the normal audience reaction to SoaP.
Posted by 1:17 AM
August 21, 2006
links for 2006-08-21
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nice, I'm totally making one of these
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No!!!!
Posted by 1:18 AM
August 17, 2006
For the love of bartering
I've been building sites for ten years now, but these days I'm lucky enough that I don't have to take on client projects to pay the bills. Back when I did, I always had a love-hate relationship with my clients and the work. I spent a lot of late nights away from my family and my own projects but it also paid fairly well but then again every once in a while a project would go way over my budgeted time and I'd take a loss on it.
Lately though I've run into family members and non-web nerd friends that need help building sites and I've dipped my toe back into doing it. But this time around, I'm having a blast helping them out because instead of money, we're doing small barters of favors or cheap goods. Here's why it's working this time around:
- When you're not billing someone $100/hr for your time, they're not edgy when you don't finish a task immediately and you're not edgy when they go out of town for a few days leaving you waiting for feedback. It's incredibly low stress compared to paid client work.
- I trade my work for something friends/family produce or get at a massive discount. It's always for something I kind of want or need and I save a few bucks by getting it free. They get a great site for a small (if any) price and we're both happy.
- I tend to be bashful with clients -- I'm not the type of guy to bust into a conference room and proclaim I'm a world-renowned web expert on coding, design, and community. Turns out it doesn't matter when they're friends and family -- if you're building a site for your uncle, you don't have to explain why XHTML/CSS web standards are important or worth the effort, you can just code it.
- It's almost always a new site, so there aren't legacy code/design/support issues and there's often low-to-no expectations from the "client". Anything you do will wow them so you're free to explore possibilities. I've yet to have an argument over mockups and I've been able to go with my first mockup so far. This also makes things stress-free and easy for you as the designer/developer.
- One example: I traded a year of free haircuts for building a site for a salon. The salon owner would probably have to pay someone local $500 or more for something similar and now I get a nice $30 haircut every month or two, saving a couple hundred this year. The cost of their time for cutting my hair is much less, so everyone's happy in the end.
I'm doing a couple more sites for family and friends in the coming months, and someday I'd love to hook up with a local silkscreen shop to trade t-shirt printing for building them a new website.
If you're a designer/developer, try asking around your local friends and close family -- chances are they could use your help and can get you something small for the low-stress work that makes everyone happy in the end.
Posted by 10:23 PM | Comments (5)
links for 2006-08-17
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huh, someday I might need this.
Posted by 1:19 AM
August 16, 2006
Give Ceres a chance
I'm right there with Mike on the planets thing. I love that there are people fighting tooth and nail over this stuff.
Posted by 3:04 PM
links for 2006-08-16
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I'm 33 now and can barely hear the 14kHz sound: too many rock shows and loud speakers in my life apparently.
Posted by 1:19 AM
August 15, 2006
links for 2006-08-15
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Me want laptop monster.
Posted by 1:19 AM
August 14, 2006
links for 2006-08-14
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Awesome place at the eastern end of the Columbia River Gorge area. Perfect for a picnic lunch and stroll.
Posted by 1:19 AM
August 10, 2006
links for 2006-08-10
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ha! awesome.
Posted by 1:19 AM
August 8, 2006
links for 2006-08-08
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Congrats, pb!
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Freaking brilliant. I'm guessing SoaP was such a campy throwaway movie they let the marketing guys do anything they wanted with it. The surprising thing is lots of is really great, like this.
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Fun looking kid luggage they can ride on during long airport walks
Posted by 1:21 AM
August 7, 2006
links for 2006-08-07
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*The* place for maps of the pacific coast ride.
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600km of rails-to-trails in BC
Posted by 1:19 AM
August 6, 2006
links for 2006-08-06
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Somewhere out there is a liquor store owner that happens to be a simpsons fan.
Posted by 1:19 AM
August 5, 2006
links for 2006-08-05
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Biscuits, muffins, and scones. The confusing conversions between the US and the UK
Posted by 1:20 AM
August 4, 2006
links for 2006-08-04
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Awesome history of Warren Moon in the NFL
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When I worked in an office, I used to think about these things all the time, and yet, I never sent emails about it
Posted by 1:21 AM
August 3, 2006
Screw you big cable and telecos
Posted by 7:51 PM
August 2, 2006
Hacks! Snakes! Tim Tams!
WorkFriendly is one of the most clever and amusing hacks for the underemployed I've seen, and the Samuel L. Jackson phone campaign is a brilliant hack that you can use to prank your friends who will turn around and prank everyone else they know resulting in everyone in the country getting 20 calls a day promoting the movie.
On top of those two brilliant web hacks found today, I find out that Tim Tams are available in the US at Cost Plus. Holy mother of god, I'm so there.
Posted by 9:04 PM
links for 2006-08-02
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the open source xspf flash player, now 15% web 2.0-er
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um, there's a typo in point 3 of the blog tips. Don't worry though, I fixed it.
Posted by 1:19 AM
August 1, 2006
links for 2006-08-01
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can't wait
Posted by 1:19 AM