Wubi for Ubuntu

http://wubi-installer.org/

I'd love to hear if anyone has ever given this a try.  I very often run a dual boot system, which is great for me.  Often if I am doing serious work, I need to use Windows, but for general browsing and such, Linux is just fine too.  The problem arises when I need to reinstall Windows, as I usually wipe out that partition completely.  When I reinstall, Windows overwrites the boot sector as well, and then I can't boot Linux anymore until I tinker with manually reinstalling a bootleader.

Sherlock Holmes

Lately, I've passed up reading some other classic novels to reread ALL of the original Sherlock Holmes stories.  However, I am trying to read them in the order they were first published, which as you can imagine, is a pain to track down:

 A Study in Scarlet (1887)

 The Sign of the Four (1890)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1891 - 1892)
{
A Scandal in Bohemia (1891)
The Adventure of the Red-Headed League (1891)
A Case of Identity (1891)
The Boscombe Valley Mystery (1891)
The Five Orange Pips (1891)
The Man with the Twisted Lip (1891)
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle (1892)
The Adventure of the Speckled Band (1892)
The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb (1892)
The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor (1892)
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet (1892)
The Adventure of the Copper Beaches (1892)
}


The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1892 - 1893)
{
Silver Blaze (1892)
The Adventures of the Cardboard Box (1892)
The Adventure of the Yellow Face (1893)
The Stockbroker's Clerk (1893)
The Gloria Scott (1893)
The Musgrave Ritual (1893)
The Adventure of the Reigate Squire (1893)
The Adventure of the Crooked Man (1893)
The Resident Patient (1893)
The Greek Interpreter (1893)
The Naval Treaty (1893)
The Final Problem (1893)
}


The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)


The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1903 - 1904)
{
The Adventure of the Empty House (1903)
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder (1903)
The Adventure of the Dancing Men (1903)
The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist (1903)
The Adventure of the Priory School (1903)
The Adventure of Black Peter (1904)
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton (1904)
The Adventure of the Six Napoleans (1904)
The Adventure of the Three Students (1904)
The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez (1904)
The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter (1904)
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange (1904)
The Adventure of the Second Stain (1904)
}


His Last Bow (1908 - 1913)
{
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge (1908)
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box (U.S. 1909)
The Adventure of the Red Circle (1911)
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans (1912)
The Adventure of the Dying Detective (1913)
The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax (1911)
The Adventure of the Devil's Foot (1910)
}


The Valley of Fear (1915)


His Last Bow (1917)

Have fun in Traffic Jams!

http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/amateur/traffic/trafexp.html

A friend of mine turned me on to this gem.  Its all about how to have fun with traffic jams, and try to plan a strategy to disperse the traffic jam as quickly as possible.  A little basic traffic psychology for you!

Completely Honest First Date

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vawa2t1m5kI

Totally Hilarious!  Soo true too, how many guys wouldn't love to have the balls to say that to a woman on a first date?

Amplify

http://amplify.com/

I see a lot of people using this, and sometimes it seems interesting.  I'm going to give it a try tomorrow, but my only concern is of the content.  Most of what I see people posting to twitter from amplify or something similar, is all the same stories rehashed by a ton of people.  That isn't really social networking, the first time someone posted it yes, but after that it slowly becomes nothing more than spam.

Android based tablet

http://www.unwiredview.com/2010/08/20/samsung-to-name-its-android-tablet-galaxy-pad-7-and-10-inch-versions-in-the-making/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UnwiredView+%28Unwired+View%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

I forgot completely who posted this link, but it looks awesome!  I dont really need the extras like a camera and 3G, but if they can beat Apple on the price point, they certainly will have some leverage!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRsRLZiyH20

Pretty hilarious clip about Facebook, too good not to share.  I like the overwhelming friend recommendations.  My friend sent me the link because he gets a ton of weird recommendations due to my network.  Some days everyone feels like this =)

Free eBooks

As my workplace is keen on cutting out our internet access during the daytime now, I've been on a mission to start reading some of the books I've always wanted to.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

This site has been a big help, as it offers a ton of eBooks that are no longer copyrighted in the U.S.  It has pretty darn accurate copies of books, and a huge selection of almost all the classics.

Online Backups

For the longest time, I have avoided online backups.  For a while, I tried backing up ALL my stuff to an external harddrive.  That lasted about 2 months, before I got sick of trying all kinds of stupid software for backups.  No matter what time I set for the backup to occur, sooner or later I am using my pc at that time, or I have it turned off for the day.  I really should *also* be doing an onsite backup for speed, but lately http://mozy.com/ has been impressing me.  I've been trying their free 2gig plan, and though limited on space, it really is unobtrusive.  Though I am not looking forward to selecting all the other files and directories I need to have backed up, next week I will be giving the paid plan a try.

Supercharge your Gmail inbox

http://lifehacker.com/5614073/boomerang-schedules-your-gmail-messages-and-weve-got-beta-invites

A great way to send out emails at the appropriate time, but getting the task out of the way NOW.  I used to just mark them in my inbox and save the draft to be sent out, but my inbox just fills up too fast for that lately.

http://lifehacker.com/5321180/turn-gmail-into-your-ultimate-gtd-inbox

And here's where the real gem fits in.  You can now use multiple inboxs in Gmail, and I never realized that it could be used to keep your main inbox completely empty, so you can be on top of all new emails, while not completely forgetting about the older ones that you delayed.

Pandora Tips

http://lifehacker.com/201072/technophilia-15-ways-to-get-more-out-of-pandora

Some really great tips on how to shape Pandora to how you want it.  Mostly centered on getting your stations to play music that's more accurately what you are looking for.  Much better than a rehash of the same old tips that Pandora gives you, also has tips on digging up some new music you may like, other than what Pandora might find on its own.

http://bloggerbeats.com/

I thought it was going to be something very very different.  It seemed like a nice and interesting idea, help people stay focused while blogging, or working on their online business.  I don't know, do you think you could work for a significant length of time listening to that?

Interesting Link for today

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/110275/but-will-it-make-you-happy

In today's society, does money still equal happiness? Do more material possessions make you happier?  At what point does excess wealth and possessions take over, dooming you to worry about the 'haves' rather than the 'have-nots'?

Complaint of the Day

So, my complaint of the day is Gamefly.com.  Sure, they do ok getting me the video games as quickly as they can, but my complaint is that they don't have enough of the recent major games that I want to play.  If you don't have enough games in your queue, they will hold off on sending you anything at all until one of your requested games becomes available, so you need to place even less desirable games in your queue.  The problem comes when you have mostly games that are less available in your queue.  At that point, you are almost guaranteed to get a game you could care less about, simply because they figure someone else needs the good games more than you do!

http://nathanhangen.com/blog/

Several really interesting ideas presented on this blog, such as the strength of your 'brand' after giving away lots and lots of free content.  The one that interested me the most was actually the one about a day job being more risky than an entrepreneur.  "We sell our souls when we choose to work at a place where we don’t have a say in what happens" is certainly a quote that all of us connect with at some point or another.

Twitter tips and tools

http://mashable.com/2009/01/06/twitter-follow-fail/

First up, a nice top 10 list of the reasons you do not get followed in return.  I've been playing attention to this lately, after unfollowing nearly 100 twitter accounts that did not follow back, nor offer engaging content.

http://www.tweetybot.com/
And now, a tool for Twitter that allows you some tools to manage the people you follow.  I'm hoping it will be useful for dragging and dropping users into lists as well.

Skype for iPhone

Now that it has been announced that Skype will no longer be free for iPhone users, do you think another halfway decent app will come along to take its place?  Will hard limits on the amount of data previously 'unlimited data' plans can use curb the use of such apps?  Will any of the big 4 (or 3) carriers take a stand and still offer unlimited data?

Not so humorous

The Internet is done Allll wrong! Before you send a drunk message, you *Should* be asked 'are you sure you want to send this message to an ex? You *have* been drinking after all....'
Answer No, and you can continue browse the net
Answer Yes, A giant hand comes out to bitch slap some sense into you

The most usable Web OS?

http://desizntech.info/2009/08/top-5-web-operating-systems/

Maybe 3 years ago, I was looking around at some of the Web OS's on the market, but they were really still in their infancy.  Sure, they could do a couple things, and do them really well, but each one had its strong points, and many weak points.  Flash forward to today, and I see only a couple of those former prominent companies still put out a web OS product.  So tomorrow (or sometime soon) I am going to give a handful a try once again, and see if any can really stand on its own now.

Bypass those Interwebs filters

http://lifehacker.com/5516305/top-10-ways-to-access-blocked-stuff-on-the-web
Suprisingly, this article was not all fulled with fluff, like I thought it would be.  Being able to reach Gmail even when its down it actually really helpful, even though I've only seen it down once.  Stuff like creating your own proxy server, or opening a port on your router to access your home pc from work are not geared towards your novice computer user either, but the article isn't difficult for the average Joe to understand either.

Android 2.2 .... Oooo Shiny!

http://lifehacker.com/5545923/android-22-screenshots-our-favorite-features-in-froyo?skyline=true&s=i

Gives a very good reveal of the decent new features that Android 2.2 has over 2.1, not to mention some of what I would consider 'bug fixes'.  Would be helpful also for a developer to easily see some of the changes made to the interface, for writing help files and what-not.

Public Domain Books online

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/dorgray/preface.htm

I started reading this book online, trying to get started on a long list of books I've wanted to read for some time.  I also started one of those 'virtual bookshelf' things on my facebook, not sure how well I like the features, but go ahead and add me on facebook and check it out: http://www.facebook.com/MShadax

Did you unfollow me?

http://who.unfollowed.me/

I'm definitely going to check this out tomorrow.  I probably would unfollow them in return, unless it was someone I talk to often.  In any case, I'd be curious to see how many unfollow me when I tweet a lot.  I do tend to tweet a lot about Empire Avenue, so some people might get fed up with it and unfollow me.

Clean up your Social Media Identity

http://mashable.com/2010/07/06/clean-social-media-identity/

I really like this article as it has a couple really great ideas, like using google alerts to keep track of sites that connect to your identity.  I've never tried out Google Alerts, actually, and certainly never like that.  Tips on building a brand, and keeping a consistent name are painfully obvious to most of us though.

Daily Rant

I hate it when someone starts 'steal' my online handle on a bunch of networks - even if it is an old one.  Grrr, just so annoying when I go to youtube and ASSUME that if someone registered that screenname, it MUST have been me, no?  The first time it started happening to me was when I was new to the 'net, so no big deal, I had like accounts at only 3 or 4 sites.  The second time it was bullshit, cause someone stole it on purpose.  I still use it, but have started a new one lately.  I can't image what I would do if I needed to start yet again.

Interesting Find of the Day - Free Online Diagramming

http://www.lovelycharts.com/

I gave this free online diagramming software a quick try, and it produced something that looks pretty nice.  I'll have to give it a try on a more complex real-world flowchart sometime.

Curious to try this, and dont know why

http://www.ustream.tv/mobile/broadcaster

I've seen a bunch of semi-celebrities going a video thing with uStream, and I'm curious to give it a try.  I don't actually have any interesting content or anything, but if it were super easy and capable of enough interaction, I might be able to scrape something together.

Probe Software for software developers

http://www.quest.com/landing/?ID=5103

I've never actually tried any probing software like this, but I'd be very interested to give the free trial a go =)  It might be useful IF I ever get around to beginning to develop apps in Java for the Android platform.  I'd imagine it would be super useful in VB, as it is a lot easier to start wasting a mess of CPU cycles without even realizing it.  Actually, I'm curious how I never tried one when working with VB.  If you've tried something similar before, drop me a line!