Yummy Wakame

After a really catastrophic and expensive experience when my old laptop recently died on me and I was stuck sans-pc in the middle of two big projects for a week and a half, I’m now deadly serious about making daily backups. A hard-drive crash, complete system fail or theft is inevitable, guaranteed, and ask anyone else who has experienced this, it WILL happen at the worst possible moment. So be prepared. Don’t be a nincompoop like I was.

I recently purchased the MAXTOR OneTouch II which quietly does scheduled daily backups for me. It can be customized to backup all the computers on your network, making either duplicate copies of all your files, or offering a comprehensive backup where you can restore your files from various restore points.

But what about hardware theft or fire? Making off-site backups is more time-consuming but probably even more important.

Mozy.com offers 2GB of free space with automatic encrypted backups to their server. For just under $5 a month you get 30GB. Mozy has received praise from bloggers all over the world, and was PC Magazines Editor’s Choice just a few months ago.

“How safe are my files?” you may ask… When you use Mozy, your files are encrypted on your PC using 448-bit Blowfish encryption and then transferred to the Mozy servers using 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption. You have the option of using a Mozy key, or your own private key to encrypt your data.

I’m signing up for my free account today.

“The contest runs until July 31st, 2006 and, while supplies last, each developer who submits an approved gadget will receive a limited edition Google Desktop Developer T-shirt and have their gadget shown to millions of Google Desktop users around the world. A panel of judges will also award three prizes based on popularity, visual appeal, use of new features and creativity. We’ll award $5,000 to the first place winner, $2,000 for second place, and $1,000 for third place.”

Today Google launched its buying service, Google Checkout (known previously by Google-watchers as GBuy).

News.com: It is going to make purchasing easier for Web users. You’ll just enter your credit card billing and address information once, and then on any commerce site you go that’s Checkout-enabled, you won’t have to enter your data again.

This is not much of a competitor to eBay’s PayPal, as some have predicted. Checkout is designed for serious merchants more than for individuals unloading old Star Trek snow globes on eBay. To be sure, the few merchants that are considering adding PayPal as a payment option (and that don’t already have it), might divert their energies to signing up for Checkout, however there’s no reason a commerce site couldn’t offer both PayPal and Checkout if it desired. more…

Today I was treated to a bus ride home by a guy who I could swear is Tony Blair if I didn’t know any better. He looked identical. He had a huge big cheesy but genuine smile the whole time and sparkly eyes. As I approached the bus door to get off I noticed a metal pail hanging over the railings near his seat, poking right in the direction of passengers as they would board. I was thinking this is a novel new way to get tips from passengers and as I was passing him on the way out I thought I might give him a tip just for looking like Tony Blair. But then I glanced inside the pail and it was filled with lollypops and assorted colourful candy! Clearly he had bought these from his own pocket just for us.

What a great bus driver!

On the bus ride today I was really enjoying the views of my Shadyside neighbourhood. So many huge gothic mansions, wide Victorian houses covered in ivy and those cute wooden bungalows with the traditional American swing chairs on their porches. These were interspersed between abandoned buildings and garbage ridden parking lots, where Im hoping someone will redevelop some time. Some of the oldest and most beautiful buildings I saw on the journey were huge majestic Anglican churches. They were all so well cared for, most had a small, pretty garden, or hanging flower baskets and well trimmed hedges. The one on our corner has the most luxurious velvety green lawn. I always wonder how they manage to make it look so ‘Photoshopped’. It never has a bad hair day.

So anyway, the other day a friend of mine commented on how she would like to join a church in the area but she doesnt agree with how they spend so much money, so visibly, on their buildings. more…

Tristan: When Star Trek 5.0 comes out, guess what it’s going to be like!
Olivia: Better than Star Trek 2.0?
Tristan: Much better than 2.0! Its gonna be better than any O!

Darth Tristan watches over Star Trek

blog.wired.com:
Although ISPs are quite excited about all the broadband upgrades that have been made in recent years, P2P file sharing continues to drag on their bottom line. Why should that matter to you? Because they’re taking measures to slow down P2P traffic, which can translate to slower download times once they figure out that you’re uploading twenty copies of Ernest Goes to Camp every day.

BitTorrent released a new version of the BitTorrent client which attempts to alleviate the bandwidth problem for both ISPs and BitTorrent users, by including a protocol that will help ISPs cache BitTorrent traffic transparently. In other words, the file you think you’re downloading from another user could start coming from your ISP’s cache of popularly-traded files instead. This teamwork is evidently legal, due to current laws on network caching which allow for temporary copy of any file to be cached by an ISP without having to pay the copyright owner for that copy.

Download BitTorrent 4.20

From the INBOX:
“Go to this link and order your free bracelet (free as in costs you absolutely nothing!). For every one that is ordered, Merck Pharmaceuticals donates $1 for cervical cancer research. It only takes a minute and is legit.

It would be great to get Merck to donate the "up to $100,000" they have agreed to!”
~ Cait

www.onalimn.com/blog/

This is one of those blogs you could easily want to visit every day. limn has grown hugely in character and in quality articles in the few months its been around. I find it hard to imagine how much better it could possibly get over the next year.

Thanks lady limn for introducing me to the phat jams of goldfish.

My two favourite articles of the week are:
Nectar – how drinking coffee may shield the liver from the worst ravages of alcohol and Why I smoke.

Eloquently weaves the science of global warming with Al Gore’s personal history and lifelong commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change. A longtime advocate for the environment, Gore presents a wide array of facts and information in a thoughtful and compelling way. The film is not a story of despair – it’s a rallying cry.

Can’t see this trailer? Click here to watch it.

This number comes from a late night scan that entertained me for quite a while. The stories change every now and then from a boy who is very dirty to a boy who can’t stop picking his nose. If you have a cell phone and you get free nights and weekends or if you have VoIP and nothing better to do join in on the fun.

+1 217-728-2002

I wont be joining any time soon. And the music is really scary!

“A bunch of photographs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea taken by Russian designer Art Lebedev. Very, very surreal.” ~ Swirlee

Jane & Richard’s Yack and Natter:
‘One ofthe non-spam emails I had waiting fo me was about a new Brighton based site Green Brighton which uses google maps to be a directory of all things green in Brighton – “vegetarian and vegan restaurants, organic veg boxes, recycling centers, permaculture gardens and meditation classes”. Looks like it could become a good resource.’

Can’t see the video? Try this link instead.

The future of the internet is uncertain and I for one think this is an ish don’t think so! In the words of the T-Chort “This is making me nervous”. What does the fight for Net Neutrality mean? It means that all those little bits and bytes traveling across the internet have equal priority to their intended destination. With out Net Neutrality Companies will be able to pay to have higher priority to get their bits and bytes over the internet. Why should we care? Well, I will let this site explain this in more detail.

Here are a few things you can do to help.

Gizmodo: “While everyone loved the very Linux-tastic Sharp Zaurus, it seemed to flop in the water for a variety of reasons. The idea of a mobile platform Linux is being reborn again officially with the help of Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, NEC, Panasonic and Motorola. They are going to form a non-profit organization to build an open source Linux-based platform to be used in the mobile industry. This new mobile operating system could be seen in phones by 2007. This could be great for the phone market to allow more flexibility and lesser costs.”

“Tickling as a fetish (also known as tickle torture) is perhaps one of the most common human behaviors known, in that studies indicate nearly 85 percent of adults in some way or another enjoy tickling others, being tickled themselves, or watching others be tickled.”
(wikipedia)

You’ll find some really odd stuff on Google Video these days…

Can’t see the video? Try this link instead.

boxter.homelinux.org is Bob’s first attempt at building a site, hand-coded from scratch in XHTML and CSS. As if that wasnt hard enough for a first time web designer he made sure every page validated as XHTML strict and he got PHP5 and WordPress up and running on his server.

Pop round and land say hi!

Can there possibly be anything cuter in our universe?

Ish don’t think so.

For too long the nation has struggled with the horribly bloated TVguide.com and has longed for their equivalent of the U.K.’s excellent Radio Times. Well grumble no more, for yesterday Nathan found something even better!

Without signing up you can see full listings of cable and terrestrial channels in your zip area just like TVguide offers, but without the annoying bulk. And if you sign up, which is for free, you get a bunch of great features like “my watchlist” which tracks your favourite shows and lets you know when movies with your favourite actors are showing on TV.

Oh we love meevee!

“Today is a good day for American taxpayers; it marks the beginning of the end of an outdated , antiquated tax that has survived a century beyond its original purpose, and by now should have been ancient history,” said Treasury Secretary John Snow in a statement.”

I was listening to Off The Hook and it turns out that there was once a “luxury” tax on long-distance services way back in 1898 to help pay for the Spanish-American War that is now refundable. As the article says “The refund will apply to the 3 percent excise tax billed to them on long-distance service since Feb. 28, 2003 and will include interest. Consumers will be able to claim it on their 2006 tax returns, which they will file in 2007.” So if you need some extra cash and you’ve paid for a long distance during those dates, by all means get some money back.

Woot!

For those of you not familiar with Threadless.com, it’s an ongoing t-shirt design contest where anyone can submit their design and then the world votes on it, and the winners get $2000 is fabulous cash and prizes. I’ve submitted my shirt, Peanut Butter & Jam Session, and if you’d like you can go and vote on it to be a winner!

For every person who votes a 5 for my shirt, I promise to hug a kitten!

See also:
Reputation Management Systems, like “Don’t Date Him Girl” Have Several Flaws to Work Out

and last but definitely not least..
MAN DATES GAL ON INTERNET FOR SIX MONTHS (dot dot dot…)