Cut Your Browsing Time with Google Reader

Google has some pretty interesting webapps out there, but I personally believe that the best one is Google Reader. Instead of trying to piece together your virtual newspaper everyday by hopping around to twenty different sites, Reader brings it all to you via the power of RSS: real simple syndication. Granted, there are many other RSS readers out there. But Reader has one of the best interfaces I have seen. It’s also much more intuitive than other readers. I especially like how easy it is to use Reader to subscribe to podcasts. There is a built-in audio player as well as links to the original files. Also useful are Reader’s Star and Share features. Starring posts allow you to easily keep them for later reference. And clicking the “Share” button adds them to your public Google Reader page, a URL that you can give out to your friends so that they can keep track of your favorite stories. Google Reader also works easily with the Firefox address bar RSS button. Just click the button and choose Google Reader from the drop-down list. If you cannot find what you are looking for just by browsing the Web, Google also provides subscription packages, recommendations and a feed search tool.

Read more at the Official Google Reader Blog.

VCD = Video-Caused Destruction

Sometimes, free software just isn’t right for the job. Take VCDs, for example. They are supposed to be called Video Compact Discs. but I have come up with a new acronym: Video-Caused Destruction. Let me explain.

I was awake until 2:30am on Christmas morning. Never again will I attempt to compile a video project without a DVD burner. I was forced to use a VCD: the low-quality alternatives to DVDs burned onto CD-Rs or -RWs. I was creating a video compilation as a present to a family member. I ripped some (non-copy-protected) DVDs to my computer and added pictures, music, narration and interviews. I used Windows Movie Maker for the editing. When it came time to burn, I converted the existing file to an AVI file and tried to use a free program called Avi2Dvd to create a burnable disk image. After selecting the AVI, I found that I could not select an audio stream. So, the program allowed me to use the original WMV file. I encoded it and used ImgBurn (also free) to burn a BIN file. When I originally played it, it was fine at the beginning but the audio cut out after about two minutes. After careful inspection of the encoded audio stream, I discovered that it was, in fact, a problem with the encoding process. I tried encoding using different settings, but the audio stream only fluctuated in length and was never complete. Finally, I used Audacity to record the audio manually using a double-ended cable hooked to my Line-in/out jacks. I created an ISO of the encoded MPG file, but it did not burn as a VCD. It only burnt as a single file. But, alas, it played with full audio on the home DVD player after hours of work.

The moral of this story? I want a DVD burner.

Easy Bookmarking and Site-Searching in Firefox

I read a Lifehacker post a few months back that changed the way I use Firefox. If I want to go to Weather.com, I would normally type out the full web address. But now, I only need to type “w.” And say I wanted to search Lifehacker for a specific keyword. I would normally go to Lifehacker.com and use the built-in search bar. But now, I just type “lhsearch keyword” (without quotes and with ‘keyword’ being my search term) into my Firefox address bar and press Enter. These one-letter bookmarks and address-bar based searches are easy to configure, as long as the site’s search tool works something like this:

http://www.site.com/search/%s

“%s” represents the search term. That is what your address bar should look like after you’ve performed a search on the site.

The extension you need and all of the instructions to easier, faster bookmarking are available through the Lifehacker post.

No Outlook, No Blackberry, Just .txt

I’m not much of a fan of complicated things. I, for one, do not need ten copies of my information floating around in different devices. I set my limit at two or less. One local, one on a flash drive. I also do not like to open my organization program to enter a to-do and be barraged with messages and buttons that serve no purpose to me. This is why I log my to-do list using some downloadable scripts and a plain text file. This method is known as Todo.txt. I personally use the todo.sh script. You can find the download links on the page, and install it through plain text editing and Cygwin using the instructions provided. Then, you can carry your todo.txt file on your flash drive and access it from any computer, Internet access or not. For more information, read this Lifehacker post.

Play Flash Games from a USB Drive

It’s easy to save Flash web games to your USB flash drive for play without an Internet connection.

You will need:

• USB Flash Drive
• Mozilla Firefox
• Mozilla Firefox Portable (for USB Drive)

1. Visit https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/201/ and download the DownThemAll extension for your home version of Firefox.
2. Navigate to the website where your Flash game is located.
3. Press Ctrl+U to call up the page’s HTML source.
4. Press Ctrl+F to call up the “Find” dialog. Type “.swf” (the extension for Flash files) and press Enter.
5. Scan through the document until you find the Flash file for the game (it should have the game’s name in its filename)
6. Copy the full URL of the Flash file.
7. In Firefox, navigate to Tools>DownThemAll>dTa! Manager.
8. Press “Add URL,” paste the Flash URL and select the Destination Path (your Flash drive).
9. Press Start.
10. Open your Flash drive and navigate to the Flash file.
11. Right-click and select “Open With.”
12. Browse to Firefox Portable, select it, and check “Always Use This Program…”
13. Now, your Flash files will always play in Firefox without having to connect to the Internet.

One last note: If you already have Firefox running on the computer when you try to access Firefox Portable, then you will receive an error message saying that an instance of Firefox is already running. This means exiting Firefox. If you don’t want to do this every time, just set .swf files to open in Internet Explorer. Use the instructions in Step 12.

Dark Room: Focus on Writing

Dark Room is an extremely simple text editor: a black background and green text. The basic Save and Print features are present, but not much else. The point of Dark Room is that there are no distractions (it launches by default into full-screen mode). Also, the color scheme is easier on the eyes than black-on-white. Very good app if you are easily distracted.

they.misled.us » Dark Room

Whiteboard Video Archive on ZDNet.com

I’ve always been a fan of ZDNet’s Whiteboard videos. They have now made them downloadable for Video iPods (m4v), PSPs (m4v) and Windows Media devices (wmv).

Whiteboard Video Archive on ZDNet.com

Scale of Some Stars and Planets- Amazing!

Okay, I know it’s off topic. But this is awesome!