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Showing posts from September, 2005

Search Engine Query Belt Buckle

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Funny how things come and go...cleaning up magazine clippings just now, came across a note on Metaspy , the voyeur into other people's searches from about 1997, later acquired by Excite, and later cast into utter outer-darkness. While looking into it's whereabouts, i came across the How-To Instructions for the latest in fashion-forward-fads, a belt buckle that displays other people's searches in real-time ...the Search Engine Belt Buckle !! It's feed is from Dogpile's Search Spy. As you may recall, Dogpile has gone thru several incarnations. Once, years ago, a great customizable search tool, later an annoying pay-per-click commercial pseudo metasearch....now I see that it includes a lot of ad SERPS (search engine result pages) but attempts to also compile a portion of its results from top search engines rankings. And i see that on a search for clic magnet glasses it lists me in position 8 and 14, so it can't be all bad !! (There was a time when it was nothin...

Cell Phone Applications

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411-Song, a service available through your cell phone, can identify any song, tune or melody from a fifteen-second snippet. Whether you are in your car, at church, at a bar, or dinner party, just dial the number, wait for the beep, then hold your phone up. Within moments you get a text message with the names of the song and artist. First one is free, 99 cents each after that---shows up on your phone bill. They also send a link to download the ringtone, song, & order the CD ...so they pick up more money on commissions. Pretty interesting concept...if you wanna try, call 1-866-411-song, ...sing and see if you can fool the service into thinking you are really Cher or whomever....might be worth 99 cents just to try

Do You Know What These Are???

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Ok all you mechanical types....this guy took odd jobs of cleaning out old basements and in the process made a collection and later a website that displays portions of his 200 piece collection...be sure to read the 'statement' on his site, it is interesting. But first--Click the Photo for a larger image and see if you can identify this item Give UP?? Click Here

Rita in Gulf Shores Alabama

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Little Lagoon photos first... It is mid afternoon here and the water is very rough. We've had BIG wind now for about 12 hrs. Little Lagoon has been over our bulkhead now for two days---over our new grass !!! This storm is moving slowly and keeping the water pushed up high for a long time. St Augustine grass can take a certain amount of salt, but the longer it is under salt water, the less likely it is to live thru it. We are on the east side of the storm, so that is the bad side. My pedal boat is tied up to the new extra sturdy flag pole that Harry put up after Katrina. The poor tree roots tat are exposed was one in the ground. Repeated hurricanes have erroded all the sand and soil and the tree is long since dead. We are currently having tornado warnings. I have photos but for some reason, blogger won't publish them at the moment. I've tried both FireFox and IE. Solution: I put the photos on a different server and linked to them. Public Beach in Gulf Shores at Hwy 59 About...

Sharon & Rick's in New Orleans

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Our friends who live in New Orleans sent these pix yesterday. Sharon is the head librarian at Univ. of New Orleans. Rick is a computer guy w/ the N. O. city utility co. We met them in Mempho when Sharon was over the CBC library and Rick was at Fed Ex. They taught us to dance Zydeco and became friends. Saw Rick last here in Daphne in March for the Zydeco weekend. Anyway, I hope Rick can somehow open those CD cases and salvage some of his extensive collection of CDs (right side,bottom photo). The disks should be ok. Click the photo to see details. Can you believe the amount of work involved here?????????????? I am putting a copy of his letter here too. All, Our next-door neighbor is a doctor and he got into the city on Saturday to look at his house. He said the main roads are passable, but the side streets are not. So, Sharon and I decided to sneak into New Oleans Sunday morning at 7:00 am to check on the condition of her car parked in the Macy's Shopping Center Parking garage, th...

Google Blog Search (beta) & Google TALK

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www. google .com/ talk I usually avoid all IM type programs, but on the other hand, I like to try most stuff that GG comes out with. Google Talk is a free service for both typed text messaging and audio blabing from computer to computer. One reason I like to try new free stuff from respected sources, is that if it is good, sometimes, it does not remain free BUT the early adopters get grandfathered in for free status....while everyone else pays......it has happened to me before. My guess is that this, at least the actual talking part, is gonna work best for those of us using broadband. Google Talk also keeps an eye on your Gmail acc't, alerting you to new emails if you want. You have plenty of control over the various settings. Free quick, instant install download--CLICK HERE I will pick up a microphone today while I am out so by tomorrow, all my chatty friends can play Dixie Cups and String Telephone with me !! GG is might busy out there in Calif. New Google Blog Search may rep...

New Cool Tiny Travel Tool

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On my July trip I had so many incidences where I really needed a pair of needle nose pliers, as well as couple of times I could have used a screwdriver and DEFINATELY a bottle opener as Europe has not realized that twist off bottle caps have been invented. Taking more tools with me would have been handy, but weight was a huge factor. So once I got back I began searching for a tiny, folding, multi-tool that had really pointy pliers. Lots of the Leatherman and Bear Jaw tools I have seen have rather blunt nose pliers, not to mention that they are usually big and expensive and really heavy. The closest thing to what I wanted for sale in The States seemed to be the Leatherman Squirt which is about 25 bucks and looking at the photo, the pliers might not be as sharp as I'd like. I found this neat little keychain multi tool by chance, I was actually searching eBay for minature gas torch welding/soldering tools and because the British call flashlights 'torches' --this came up on the...

New Google Start Page

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Google has beat MSN (www.start.com -still in beta) introducing their new personal start page--same concept as original Yahoo, or My Yahoo, or Excite Homepage, but Google has many of it's own cool offerings to intergrate into it---like your Gmail. You can set up custom components for your Google start page to ck the weather in the zip you specify, ck your mail, do searches....."quote of the day", " word of the day" several people I know, know that I could use some vocabulary work !!! maybe this will help !! Look in upper left corner for ADD CONTENT button, it is way simple to pick and choose what you want to include. Add bookmarks to all your frequently visited web spots. You can also add totally custom RSS feeds from any source you want. If you click my screenshot at my first attempt at playing with the start page set-up you'll see that weather was not working this morning for some reason. Be sure to ck out the daily 'How to' offerings....this look...

War on Crime

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In my war on crime , today I took the advice of Russ Conn and made a cardboard shotgun from the box that my new scanner came it. I glued two thicknesses of cardboard together, found a shotgun image on the web for reference, drew it, cut it out, spray painted it black and proped it up in a window facing the street. Two photos show inside , one is from outside. Remember the 'Minute Men'---hope the CRIMINALS DO TOO... had to buy a new scanner 'cause all this hurricane evacuation over and over was just too hard on my old flatbed. It didn't like bouncing around in my Trooper for a week. It used to start accktin rite after it warmed up and did a few scans with weird lines in them, but this time it couldn't recover.

Anniversary of IVAN !

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Today is the one year anniversary of Hurricane Ivan. Nancy Kenworthy McMahon sent me some great weather photos. I did some searching and they are being passed around as phoney Katrina photos, but seems they may be Alberta Canada or Japan, or who-knows-where photos, but still awesome shots. At least one of the pics appears to have been taken near S. Sioux City, NE, on May 9, 2004: http://www.extremeinstability.com/04-5-9.htm Worth clicking on them to see the biggie version.

FredFlair

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I happened upon the FredFlair site and saw all this way cool stuff---then wouldn't you know it, I also ran across a 25% off the whole site discount coupon--after I had placed an order--colorful fun stuff--wide range of catagories. Cary is getting some of this cool paisley packaging tape for her birthday !!! Shhhh !! Don't tell.....This is typical of the fun stuff they offer. So use this discount code during check out if you order anything during Sept : dailycandy.0905 Go to the FredFlair Site

The Perfect Gift !!

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St. Clair IceCream can ship ice cream molded into the absolute most adorable shapes that you ever saw in your life....and I mean it. Sea Shells, Fruit, Flowers, stuff like that...all beautiful colors and fruit flavors. Oh My Gosh !! I am Soooooooooo impressed. What to send your rich friend for her birthday who has everything.

Google Suggests--A Different Way to Search

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Google just can't stop thinking up new ways to approach search. Google Suggest is in beta, but you can try it and see what you think. Here is how it works: As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. This is similar to Google's "Did you mean?" feature that offers alternative spellings for your query after you search, except that it works in real time. For example, if you type "bass," Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing" or "bass guitar." Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like "progr," Google Suggest might offer you refinements like "programming," "programming languages," "progesterone," or "progressive." You can choose one by scrolling up or down the list with the arrow keys or mouse. I typed in my name, letter by letter (is there any other way)--when I get to Lund...

Sum Sonofabitch stole our timbers !!

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Right out of the driveway, up close to the house... Hurricanes bring in the absolute dreggggggs of society. We never had things like this happen before. Even with a car parked in the driveway, someone drove up, in broad daylight and loaded and stole these two very valuable 27 ft long 10 in X 10 in timbers. Musta done it on Wed. while I was in Fairhope at the psychologist office !!! It's no wonder we all need mental help down here !! I have now ordered 3 video cameras w/ flashing LED lights to mount on the exterior of the house. I ordered 10 of them a couple years ago for Silver Beach Condos and it made a big difference. I'll also get some small signs made that say everyone who enters the driveway will be photographed....like it is Brad Pitt's house or something. I'll have to mount a mailbox for FedEX,UPS deliveries on the posts at the end of the driveway and stop and put the chain up every time i come and go now for fear they'll steal my peddleboat or something. (Bi...

He's Baaaaaaaaaaack !!

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Received a belated B'Day gift today--from my mother-in-law. She thought it was 'just the thing' for someone in Katrina's path cause one of his two songs was "I Will Survive". She is in her mid 80's. She musta missed him in his first incarnation since I was told that she thought that he was hysterical and just the greatest ! Now the funny thing is actually that the version of "I Will Survive" that he sings goes something like this: "But now I'm back, I'm back up on the plaque, Don't look surprised that I'm still singing 'cause you know I've got the knack..." Guess the guy who marketed him in , what was it, 1995, still had a bunch on hand so he reprogrammed them with the new song and shipped them back out to Walgreens in 2005. Maybe. The last place I saw one of these was at the flea market in Rome, of all places.... but hey...she watches A LOT of Animal Planet TV, ....maybe that explains it ??????????????? Guess I...

News Portal-Virtual Newspaper Rack

Media Marvel , 30,000 sources and 400 links, has been buying print ads in techie mags--checking them out and at first it seemed to maybe lean towards the antiwar and antiBush side of reporting, but after following a few links, I saw leanings in all directions.....might be a good bookmark since it includes links to the CNNish biggies, the oddball news reporting guys as well as a bunch of foreign news reporting sources (upcoming travel anyone?) www.MediaMarvel.com

Up to the second news--NOW !

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Try it Here.... Want to know the very-very latest..... Technorati is the authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs. Technorati is a real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere. Currently tracking 2 million tags. Because Technorati automatically receives notification from weblogs as soon as they are updated, it can track the thousands of updates per hour that occur in the blogosphere, and monitor the communities (who's linking to whom) underlying these conversations. You see the 'last updated' time stamp on the home page. They offer type in search by keyword and also TAG search... Think of a tag as a simple category name. People can categorize their posts, photos, and links with any tag that makes sense. Technorati shows the most popular 250 tags in alphabetical order. The bigger the text, the more active it is. Try it....

Arrested Developments

Holy Guest Star Batman ! Oscar winner Charlize Theron is going to be on Fox TV's zany Arrested Development 's third season when it starts next month. Read the story here.

Google Earth--an ahawsume 3-D app

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Click Here !! HOLY GUA-C O O O O O -MOLE-EE !!! Free for personal use...for now at least...requires a download... you better get it !! if you have broadband, a good monitor, and the stuff on this list, more or less: * Operating system: Windows 2000, Windows XP * CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® PIII 500 MHz * System memory (RAM): 128MB * 200MB hard-disk space * 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 16MB VRAM * 1024x768, 32-bit true color screen * Network speed: 128 kbps oh yea, one more thing.... some time to play with it.....got to ck this out. Now, I didn't see my graphics card on their list of supported models, so when I installed it and went to run it first time, good ole GG ck'd for me and told me that it would need to run in DirectX mode and would I please shut it down and start it again, this time choosing DirectX version, no prob , went to start/programs/GG Earth/Run in DirectX...then I was an instant astronaut . Be sure to enable Keyhole BB, then you can have a loo...

Bluesman R. L. Burnside--dead at 78

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According to Fat Possum Records, legendary bluesman R.L. Burnside died in his hospital room in Memphis, Tenn., this morning. He was 78 years old.

Our Yard is Cleared !

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Harry has worked really hard to get our yard cleared of the debris so that hopefully we won't lose any more grass than what we will lose from salt. He got it all up to the street and even sorted the piles like the community pick-up guys really like it. He saved some brand new gigantic timbers that floated across the lagoon. People obviously had recently bought them for Ivan related repairs. Got a phone call about water problems in the condo at The Village, so got to go see about that now. Also seem to have soem water problems at Island Winds West--people from Louisiana want long term rentals over in Gulf Shores and since everyone already not only missed a whole yr of rentals, but had huge owner assesments to boot, we need to get these places livable asap.