Random Utility: IE Retitler

By Brian

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 :)

Just…EndItAll!

By Brian

Posted on March 24th, 2008 in Software/Hardware Reviews, Computer software/hardware, Tech News, Downloads | No Comments »

Indeed…sometimes, I have these bouts of insaneness and I open up task manager, and start killing memory hogging processes. This usually takes some time as I scroll through XP’s 60ish processes and Vista’s obscene 100 processes. Well…I shall do that no longer!
What you do with this little app is mark up system and critical processes, etc, that you want to keep. Press the big kill button and everything else goes poof!
However, what you really want to do before you do this, is know what you’re killing first. Because, honestly, for your own sanity, don’t kill processes you dont even know :P
First, figure out what all those nasty processes are, THEN do this. ;-)
Check it out: EndItAll

Happy Bunnyday!

By Mark

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!

March 20, 1800: Volta’s Battery Shows Potential

By Mark

Posted on March 22nd, 2008 in Time Wasters, Historic Technology, Computer software/hardware | No Comments »

It was almost 207 years ago that the first battery was developed by Italian physicist Alessandro Volta.  For the first time, electricity could be gathered and stored, instead of just being handled as a static shock.  So the next time you open your laptop, listen to your mp3 player, or pick up the TV remote controll, remember that the battery started with Volta.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/03/dayintech_0320

And. here’s a list of some common things we use all the time that depend on batteries :

Bluetooth devices
Cars
Cell Phones
Cordless power tools
Digital watches
Digital cameras
Flashlights
Laptops
MP3 players
Pacemakers
PDAs
Telephones - non-cell (Early phones used batteries to keep the phone line voltage up.)
TV Remotes

Okay, so its not the best list ever, and without batteries in general, we wouldn’t have made nearly as many advances in electrical technology as we have today.
As usual, if anyone has any other good ideas/strange places that we find batteries, feel free to leave your ideas in the comments so I can add em to the list.

One-Handed Xbox controller

By Mark

Posted on March 21st, 2008 in Photos/Videoes, Labs/Experiments, Software/Hardware Reviews, Tech News | No Comments »

Ben Heck has made another one-handed Xbox conroller.   All the buttons are in easy-to-reach places, and the controller still manages to incorporate two joysticks.
Read more about it here :
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/19/ben-hecks-one-handed-xbox-360-controller-refined/

TouchPadPro

By Brian

Posted on March 18th, 2008 in Computer software/hardware, Tech News, Downloads | No Comments »

For all you people who have risked it and jailbroke your iphone, and it’s not a brick yet…heres a pretty awesome little app for your phone.
You can control your PC or Mac with your iphone/ipod touch. It’s essentially a touchpad with all the needs of a touchpad :P

Enough said, check out the link:
Touchpad Pro

Capster

By Brian

Posted on March 16th, 2008 in Software/Hardware Reviews, Computer software/hardware, Downloads | No Comments »

An interesting application for today…this little app starts applications at startup according to if your Caps Lock button is on or off.
I know, this sounds a bit weird and probably useless…but…think about this.
For example, most people, open up IE (GASP) or FF, outlook, etc, once their computer turns on. Its kinda like your default workspace. Well…what if some days, you honestly just want to check something real quick and don’t want everything popping up, while most days you want everything there?
Capster! Set it so all your daily programs run if caps lock isn’t on, and if caps lock IS on, nothing loads. That way, when you’re logging in, you can determine how much stuff you want to load when you login. It could come in nifty :P

Check it out: Capster

Telepathic Chatting?

By Brian

Posted on March 15th, 2008 in Science!, Computer software/hardware, Tech News | No Comments »

Heh….Well, you’d think this was out of a science fiction plot, but…people have developed a prototype to possible telepathic chat. Electronic of course.
There is a neckband that is worn to detect nerve signals you send to your vocal chords. However, there’s more…you can do this voicelessly, but still talk at the same time. It can differentiate between voiceless signal, and your normal talking.However, the problem at the moment, is that it can only detect about 150 words and phrases. Their working on a better version that detects phonemes, which would allow software to convert that into actual words. We’re getting there :)
Check out the entire article on NewsScientist.com

How do traffic jams form?

By Mark

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

The Earth at Night

By Mark

Posted on March 11th, 2008 in Photos/Videoes, Sleep/Naptime!, Science!, Picture of the Day, Site of the Day, Lacking a Category | No Comments »


Take a look at this very cool image of the Earth at night (thumbnail above)
http://incredimazing.com/page/Earth_at_Night-686

The different colors are different sources of light - red is wildfire, purple/yellow is city light, green is natural gas flares, and blue is fishing fleet lights.
The image cites NASA’s Visible Earth 2001 as the source of the map, and the Defense Meteorological Satelite Program as the source for the light data.