Miscellaneous Ramblings....

Entries from July 2006

Thursday, July 27. 2006

Promising New Sci-Fi TV Show?

I came across a promising new TV show on the Sci-Fi channel this week called Eureka. The show is set in a small town, where the government has the brightest scientists living. There have been comparisons on the internet to previous TV shows Twin Peaks as well as American Gothic due to the strong character development and sometimes quirky plot lines. I have watched a couple of episodes now and I think this show will be going on my Tivo list. ;-)
(of course, the show has it's own wiki page.)

Update (5/26/07): According to TVShowsOnDVD, the tentative release date for Eureka: Season 1 is July 03, 2007.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Entertainment, TV Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Wednesday, July 26. 2006

Firefox 1.5.0.5 Released

Firefox 1.5.0.5 has been released. The main purpose of this release is to fix several security vulnerabilities.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers, Firefox Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

(Mobile) Google Maps: Traffic Flow Info Addition

Mobile Google Maps has now added traffic flow info to it's maps as well as the well as the ability to save routes (for the PC based version of Google Maps, the traffic flow info will available at some time in the future).
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers, Google Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Tuesday, July 25. 2006

Firefox: 25 Must-Have Extensions

A nice article on the 25 "must-have" Firefox extensions (the article also includes some nice GreaseMonkey scripts as well towards the bottom). Also, there is a link to a good MozillaZine article that lists various problems associated with some of the Firefox extensions, as well as any possible workarounds for the named issues.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers, Firefox Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Friday, July 21. 2006

Windows XP Recovery Hints

Series of InformationWeek articles giving some details of to efficiently recover from Windows XP mishaps:
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Thursday, July 20. 2006

Google Guide: Advanced Search Operators

This capability has been around for awhile, but you can use Google as a phone book as well.
Also, for the power Google search users, here is a handy guide for some advanced Google search operators.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers, Google Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Wednesday, July 19. 2006

Adobe Labs Lightroom: Now available for Windows

According to DPReview, Adobe Labs Lightroom software is now available for Windows (in beta form) - previously, this was only available for the Mac. For a limited amount of time, Adobe Labs is offering free downloads of the beta product for Windows (according to the website, version beta3 is set to expire January 30, 2007), however, you do need to have an account (which is free) in order to download the software.
I will be installing this tonight and "kicking the tires". Since I seem to be the primary photographer in the family, my (digital) picture collection is starting to become difficult to manage, so this software might do the trick.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Photography Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Tuesday, July 18. 2006

Carnivale (HBO Series) - 2nd Season on DVD

Finally!! The second season of the very good HBO Carnivale series is out on DVD (rumor has it that there was a lawsuit that held up the release of the second season).
(btw, yes, I am still bummed that the show was cancelled for the third season. :-( ). HBO is still running the first two seasons, so if you like well-written plot lines, check it out.
(and yes, I do have my DVD copy already :-) ).

Note: From the Wikipedia Carnivale page, there are rumors that HBO may be considering a mini-series to wrap up the loose threads that were left dangling from the premature cancellation of the series. The tentative air date would be sometime in early 2007.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Entertainment, TV Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Google Maps: HousingMaps.Com

From MNSpeak.com: A cool mashup between Google Maps and Craigslist results in Housingmaps.com.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers, Google, Misc Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Sunday, July 16. 2006

Google Spreadsheets

It seems that Google is dipping it's feet into the Office Applications end of the pool with the Google Spreadsheets application (this latest Google application has been available in one form or another since early June of this year).
However, it seems that there still is no support for advanced (Excel) features like charts, macros and pivot tables (although rumor has it that the ability to create charts could show up in the near future).
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers, Google Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Saturday, July 15. 2006

Firefox: Disable PDFs (inside Firefox)

If you are like me and get annoyed with your Firefox browser freezing up in an attempt to open PDF documents using the Adobe Acrobat plugin, here are some easy steps to correct this (on Windows) and make the PDF's open in an external application (thanks to XForms Everywhere for the article):
1. Go to the “Tools -> Options” menu
2. Select the “Downloads” tab
3. Open “View and Edit Actions…”
4. Enter “pdf” in the “Search” box
5. Select “Change Action…”
6. Change the selection from “Use this Plugin” to
“Open them with the default application”, which
should point to Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Acrobat Reader,
or your favorite PDF viewer.

More detailed information can be found here.


Update (1/16/07): Thanks to my co-worker, I realized that my instructions (above) were no longer correct for Firefox 2.0 and higher versions, so the correct instructions for the latest versions of Firefox follow below:
1. Go to the “Tools -> Options” menu
2. Select the “Content” tab
3. Under the "File Types" section, Click on the “Manage....” button
4. Enter “pdf” in the “Search” box
5. Select “Change Action…”
6. Change the selection from “Use this Plugin” to
“Open them with the default application”, which
should point to Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Acrobat Reader,
or your favorite PDF viewer.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers, Firefox Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Friday, July 14. 2006

iPod: How the click-wheel works

Came across an interesting article on how iPods work (specifically the click-wheel).
Also, here are links to two other {earlier} articles: here and here.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers, iPod/iTunes Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Tuesday, July 11. 2006

Google Maps Latest Tweak

The lastest tweak with Google Maps now allows you to zoom in and zoom out of a map area by using the mouse wheel.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers, Google Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Monday, July 10. 2006

2006 World Cup Comes To An End :-(

After months of waiting and anticipation, combined with a solid month of frenzied game watching, the world's biggest sporting event has come to an end. :-( Needless to say, there were plenty of highlights (combined with some low points ;-) ) that make the Fifa World Cup the sporting event that it is.
One of the nice additions was the discovery of the World Cup Blog website. Every soccer match had a live blogger constantly giving a (often times very humorous) minute by minute commentary on the game. In addition, fans following the game from around the world could leave comments as the game was in progress. Kind of like being in a pub attended by people from around the globe (for better or worse ;-) ). Since I didn't have the funds to be in the FanZone in Berlin, this was a much cheaper alternative - definitely added some different perspectives to watching the game.
Some of the high points:
  1. Germany's (new) offensive style of play
  2. Watching Lionel Messi's (Arg) awesome dribbling skills
  3. Seeing the resurgence of Zinedine Zidane (magical!)
  4. Entertaining 3rd place and Championship games
  5. US vs Italy match (at last the US showing some mettle)


Some of the low points:
  1. Too many cards (anyone remember the Portugal vs Netherlands game?)
  2. Too much diving and playacting
  3. Seeing Zinedine Zidane get red-carded in the final game (you can bet the French papers will be talking about that for awhile)
  4. Brazil getting knocked out in Quarterfinals (didn't see that coming)
  5. US vs Czech Republic match (prayed that wasn't coming)
(Can't weigh in with the best games of the tournament yet, as I still have a couple of games left to get through on my {very hard-working} DVR).
Posted by Colleen Velo in Soccer Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)

Saturday, July 8. 2006

Firefox: Addon Search Engines

If you use the Search Engine box of Firefox with any regularity, you will be happy to know that there are many more search engines that can be added (outside of the default six engines that come with the standard Firefox installation). You can get a nice list at Mozilla Addons page or at Mycroft. My personal favorites are the AllMusic Guide Name search as well as the Google Images search.
Posted by Colleen Velo in Computers, Firefox, Google Comments: (0) Trackbacks: (0)
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