Archive for the ‘Dumb Things That Happen’ Category

Random Utility: IE Retitler

Posted on March 25th, 2008 in Time Wasters, Dumb Things That Happen, Software/Hardware Reviews, Computer software/hardware, Tech News, Downloads | No Comments »

This is a REALLY useless utility. This isn’t even like there’s a possible use for it, this program honestly, was made because it COULD be made.
IE Retitler does exactly what it says. It lets you retitle the screens of IE to whatever you want.
Funny…there aren’t any preferences, plugins, or help files. Really…all you can do with it is leave cute messages to yourself when you glance down at your taskbar or the IE bar. Have fun with it :P
Check it out: Brenton Fletcher’s Portfolio

To be frank though, there are some pretty nice little apps in this portfolio. Have fun flipping through it and downloading a few :)

Happy Bunnyday!

Posted on March 23rd, 2008 in Labs/Experiments, The Never Ending Story/Other FLB Events, Photos/Videoes, Things we should do more of, Dumb Things That Happen, Picture of the Day, Site of the Day, How To's, Time Wasters, Lacking a Category | No Comments »

Just a humorous Happy Holidays from FLB!

How do traffic jams form?

Posted on March 12th, 2008 in Labs/Experiments, Photos/Videoes, Dumb Things That Happen, Time Wasters, Site of the Day, Lacking a Category | No Comments »

Watch this short video to find out.
It’s quite amazing how with only 20 cars driving around a circle, all supposed to be doing 30kph, a wave of backup slowly flows around the ring of cars.  Quite quickly the spacing between cars starts to change.  As some cars speed up, they create gaps.  Is the cars behind them speed up, other drivers speed up too.  Soon, a bunch of faster-moving cars catch up to slower moving cars.  Only when all the cars before the driver ahead of the slow pack move up does the driver leading the slow pack speed up.  Still confused?  Just watch the video.  Its only 30 seconds long, and shows what happens really clearly.
Still not an excuse for being late to work though. . . . .

http://www.maniacworld.com/shockwave-traffic-jam-test.html

Tool makes mincemeat of Windows passwords

Posted on March 9th, 2008 in Viruses spyware and other nasty things, Dumb Things That Happen, Computer software/hardware, Tech News | No Comments »

“A security researcher has released an easy-to-use tool that accesses
locked Windows computers in seconds without entering a password.

The tool, which was released Tuesday by Adam Boileau, works by
connecting a Linux machine to the Firewire port of the target PC and
modifying the password protection that’s stored in local memory.


The attack exploits a well-known weakness in Firewire that makes it
easy for connected devices to read and write to the memory of the host
machine. Similar hacks work on machines running OS X and Linux (
see here).

Of course, the attack depends on having physical access to the targeted machine, and as most El Reg
readers know, anyone who has physical control of the PC owns it. Then
again, password protections have been a useful way to briefly secure a
machine while a user runs to the bathroom. Until now. As Boileau’s tool
makes clear, such protections can be bypassed in a matter of seconds.”

Read the rest of the article here :

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/04/windows_password_bypass_tool/

File Destructor

Posted on February 28th, 2008 in Dumb Things That Happen, Time Wasters, Computer software/hardware, Tech News | No Comments »

Now, Flashladybug does not condone this service, we are only reporting this ;) We will be held irresponsible for any problems that may occur from the use of this service.
File destructor 2.0 lets you create documents of a certain size that, upon opening in the right program, will give a “file corrupt” error.
What use is this? Well, as the site shows, you can *cough* hand this in instead of your actual document *cough* and get a few extra hours until whoever you gave the file to realizes its corrupt.
This is…interesting.
Check it out: File Destructor 2.0

RIAA: Now lives in an even *further* universe than before

Posted on February 16th, 2008 in Dumb Things That Happen, Time Wasters, Computer software/hardware, Tech News | No Comments »

The RIAA announced at the State of the Net conference that its considering filters that reside on computers that detect copyright infringement. First question that pops up…why on earth would you install this? Their answer: bundle it with anti-virus software. The next logical question would be…how much would the RIAA pay anti-virus companies for all their lost business? I mean seriously, everyone would just use a free antivirus solution.
This concludes the report that the RIAA has just moved even further away from our universe. Right now…its like a speck. :P Thanks publicknowledge for this wonderful tidbit of insanity.

007-Inspired Submersible Car

Posted on February 16th, 2008 in Photos/Videoes, Dumb Things That Happen, Time Wasters | No Comments »

“A Swiss company claims to have developed the world’s first submersible car,
directly inspired by James Bond’s Lotus in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Named the sQuba, the vehicle promises to be able to drive on land, float on
the surface of the water and also dive to a depth of 10m (33ft).”

See a photo of the design, and read more about the car here :
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/news/article3368448.ece

And if this idea seems all washed up, take a look @ this full-scale replica of a Formula One car done in 956,000 matchsticks.
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/pictures-artist-builds-
full-sized-f1-car-using-956-000-matchsticks

Short, Shark Tank interruption

Posted on February 7th, 2008 in Dumb Things That Happen, Time Wasters | 2 Comments »

Today, I give you a rather funny Shark Tank reading. I know…its like a week old, but I’m cycling through my firefox tabs. ;)

This is titled…1% genius, 99% patience.
And, in the off chance this thing goes down, I have it copied here. *Note: This is quoted and copied word for word*

User calls help desk pilot fish with a pretty routine problem: “I
have an e-mail from corporate communications that says I need to click
on a link to update my security settings,” user says. “But every time I
do, nothing happens. I don’t know if my security settings are updated
or not.”

Fish: OK, are you looking at this e-mail right now?

User: “Yes.”

Fish: Can you see the link that you’re supposed to click on to update your security settings?

User: “Yes.”

Fish: Great, let’s go ahead and move your mouse pointer over the link and then left-click once.

User: “What?”

Fish: Just move the mouse over the link in the e-mail and left-click
once. It should launch a security update screen, or it may just
indicate that the security settings are being updated.

User: “Well, I’m left-clicking the mouse, but I’m not sure if anything is happening.”

Fish: Does a new screen appear over the e-mail after you click on it?

User: “No, nothing’s on the screen.”

Fish: You’re looking at the e-mail, right?

User: “Yes.”

Fish: How can there be nothing on the screen if you’re looking at the e-mail?

User: “There’s nothing on the screen.”

Fish: But you just said you’re looking at your e-mail. How can there be nothing on the screen?

User: “I don’t know, but there’s nothing on the screen.”

Fish: Is your e-mail software open?

User: “No.”

Fish: It’s not?

User: “Correct, it’s not open.”

Fish: OK. Can you please describe what you see on your screen?

User: “Well, there’s a ‘My computer’ icon, recycle bin, ‘My documents’ icon…”

Fish: This sounds like your computer’s desktop. Where is the e-mail with the link you said that you were looking at?

User: “I deleted it yesterday.”

Fish: You deleted it yesterday?

User: “Yes.”

Fish: How are you looking at it if you deleted it yesterday?

User: “I printed out a copy of the e-mail yesterday before deleting it.
I put the printed e-mail down on my desk so I could read it, put the
mouse over the link and left-clicked the mouse…”

Fish: Can you open your e-mails and go to your deleted items?

User: “Sure.”

Fish: Is the e-mail with the link to update your security settings there?

User: “Yes.”

Fish: Please open the e-mail.

User: “OK.”

Fish: Click on the link to update the security settings.

User: “OK. Hey, something is happening. Wow! You are a genius! Thank you so much!”

Thank you Computerworld for your wonderful shark tanks :)

BANG! (random utility of the day)

Posted on February 6th, 2008 in Dumb Things That Happen, Time Wasters, Computer software/hardware, Downloads | 1 Comment »

Here….is one of those programs that really makes you think…why did someone write this?
BANG! forces your computer to crash….on demand. You run the .exe, and it shows a dialog box. This box…sad to say, contains a big red button that says “Crash Now!”. Theres also a small button that says “Never Mind” Now seriously, who in their right mind, with that dialog box infront of them click the little box and not click on the big red button? :P
Sadly, this is made by osronline, and they require registration to get this totally useless app. If you really want it…check it out: OSRonline.com

Microsoft Proposes to Yahoo. I wanna buy you…for 44 B

Posted on February 2nd, 2008 in Dumb Things That Happen, Tech News | No Comments »

Yep..you heard right. Microsoft has proposed to buy Yahoo for 44.6 Billion USD. Microsoft held a press conference, and Yahoo has yet to respond to this.
This new move by Microsoft (not new strategy….ofc ;) ) would result in an interesting mix to the search engine world. Microsoft is primiarily after the advertising that Yahoo has been doing, but of course…theres the search side. If this is to go through, Microsoft will absorb quite a large chunk of search engine traffic, though still smaller than Google.
Yahoo at the moment is ahem…”Evaluating this proposal carefully and promptly”
We’ll see how this goes…