Paul's Time Sink

20 Sep, 2008

I was at a Starbucks last week, waiting for my appointment at the DMV.  This was the warning that Firefox 3 showed me, when I attempted to log on to the wifi network there. 

Starbucks and TMobile need to fix their ssl certificates.

11 Jun, 2008

About a year ago, I saw this post the mentioned GreenDimes.  GreenDimes is a services that stops junk mail. We donated the $15 (which is supposed to plant 15 trees), and then filled out the postcards that were in the packet they sent.  Then when ever we received a catalog, I would enter that information on the GreenDimes web site.

Within a few months, we have seen a significant reduction in the junk mail and catalogs that we receive.  I would recommend GreenDimes, as it has been working for us.

Technorati tags: greendimes, junk mail, catalogs

16 Mar, 2008

This looks like it will be a fun movie.

 

New Speed Racer Trailer
Uploaded by spykestar

 

[via Autoblog]

27 Jan, 2008

This is a pretty funny video about Google Maps.

[via Google Blogoscoped] 

Technorati tags: Google, Maps, video, street view

7 Jan, 2008

This is a pretty funny video from Bill Gate's CES keynote address

Bill Gates Last Day Of Work - Watch more free videos

Technorati tags: Bill Gates, CES

6 Dec, 2007

In September, MP3tunes announed a contest for developers to create clients to play content hosted in MP3tunes lockers.  Today some of the resulting applications were announced. Now you can listen to the music in your locker on a Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3, Windows Mobile devices, Chumbys, and in Eclipse.

 I am looking forward to try this on my new phone.

Technorati tags: MP3tunes, Wii, Nintendo, PS3, Chumby, Windows Mobile

7 Nov, 2007

It looks like Caltrain schedule now appear in Google Transit.  Google Transit is a pretty cool site that lets you plan trips, and helps you plan to use public transportaton.

Technorati tags: Google Transit, caltrain, transportation

16 Oct, 2007

This is a great iPhone ad. 

[via Apple Gazette] 

Technorati tags: iPhone, parody, ad

28 Sep, 2007

AnywhereCD is going out of buisness, and is selling CDs and 192kbs mp3s from those CDs for $7 , for a limited time.

 It is unfortunate that this business model failed, as the customer paid full price for a CD, and then got a digital copy of that music file.  (Which they will probably do as soon as they receive the CD.)

Technorati tags: AnywhereCD, mp3, CD, drm

18 Sep, 2007

We are trying to conserve electricity where ever we can.  We have switched all of our light bulbs, that aren't contolled by dimmer, to compact florescent bulbs.  We also turn off all unnecessary lights.

The lights that have been usually left on, are the one down to and in the garage.  Since we normally keep the garage door closed, I tend to not notice that the light is on, so the light gets left on.  The other problem is that when we are rushing out in the morning, the lights get left on

I wanted to find a solution that would automatically turn off these lights, but I also wanted the light switch to look like a regular light switch.  Unfortunatelly, the motion sensing light switch that we used in our previous house wouldn't work with florescent light bulbs.  Also, many of the timer light switches aren't as easy to use as regular switches.

 (More)

Technorati tags: compact florescent, INSTEON, light, Switchlinc, timer

17 Sep, 2007

Here is my Soundbadge.

[via Download Squad]

Technorati tags: Soundbadge

2 Sep, 2007

Here is a pretty cool video for Mandelbrot Set by Jonathan Coulton.

[via Jonathan Coulton]

Technorati tags: Jonathan Coulton, Mandelbrot Set, video

28 Aug, 2007

Here is a video of a talk on how to be more productive with email.

[via Daring Fireball]

Technorati tags: email, getting things done, productivity, GTD

8 Jul, 2007

I got another email from efax mentioning the upcoming rate increase.  I mentioned before that I wanted to cancel our service, but this pushed me over the edge.

I called the number on the email and they game me the customer service number.  When I called the customer service number, and selected the option to cancel my account, and was redirected to http://www.efax.com/cancel.

When you go to that page, you have to select the "Chat Now. 24x7" button.  Then you have to make your cancellation request via a web based chat session.  (Make sure you answer the question about why you want to cancel fast enough, otherwise they will disconnect the chat, without canceling the account.)

Technorati tags: efax

23 Jun, 2007

Now this is cool.  This is a 6-bit binary wooden adding machine counts using marbles.  The video is pretty amazing.  A lot of work was put into this.

[via MAKE: Blog]

Technorati tags: adding machine, marbles, wooden