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Gmail’s Permanent Failure: Only Humans Can Build Software For Humans

2010-09-03T11:19:00.001-07:00

Editor’s note: Guest author Adam Rifkin
is a Silicon Valley veteran who organizes a networking group for entrepreneurial engineers called 106 Miles.
In this post he argues that Gmail is perhaps not the best vessel for Google’s social ambitions.

Last week was marred for me by a temporary but super-painful Gmail failure, and the software’s behavior points to why a “more social” Gmail would be a PERMANENT FAILURE
. It pains me to write this because I actually believe the Gmail team has been the best web application team long-term in the entire company, and they come way closer than anyone else inside Google to understanding how normal people work and think.

So it’s telling that even within the Gmail team, there is a basic, fundamental, deep-seeded inability to put things together in a contextually graceful way that makes sense to actual (non-Googler) users—in other words, to deliver a great user experience.

Let me explain with a personal experience. I have been a devoted Gmail user for six years, receiving up to 600 emails a day, so Google makes me pay for extra storage. When I failed to understand the procedure for the annual renewal, Google shut off my extra storage and summarily bounced all incoming mail with a “PERMANENT FAILURE” header (contrary to spec
, because “full inbox” is a transient fail
) until I paid a paltry $5 in extra storage fees.

The worst part is that once I realized that Gmail was failing, I quickly paid, but Gmail took a full 21 hours to restore my service, bouncing me off scores of social networks and mailing lists, and denying my inbox’s existence to all of my friends and professional connections on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and email itself.

The awesome thing about this incident is that it showcases all of Google’s weakest points
as a creator of user-facing applications.

1) Google policy was designed to treat their best users the worst. This Gmail punishment reminds me of the way Google’s cold mechanical cops treated me and my friends during the “Orkut jail
” months of 2004 (when users were randomly banned), stripping us of our humanity by labeling us prisoners for no good reason… I understand why heavy users are an inconvenience to Gmail’s scalability—how many people get so much email they exceed the quota?—but for any normal business, the biggest users are the best customers
.

2) Google screwed me over five bucks! Google takes in more than $2.3 billion in revenue each month, or $75 million every single day, so my five dollars and 21 hours of pain represent less than one millisecond of revenue. In other words, selling extra storage is not a significant money stream for Google, and it’s an inconvenience for the biggest users. Which is a self-fulfilling tragedy: because it’s not a real revenue center, what incentive does Google have to fix the user experience?

3) No user understands the relationship between Google services, and they aren’t explained in a way that makes sense to an actual human being. Why does my Gmail fail depend on a different product called “Google Paid Storage”
? Yahoo! Mail, for which I have also paid for premium services, sends me clear, concise, annual big splashy HTML emails like this:

Your annual subscription to Yahoo! Email is due in a month and your credit card has expired. CLICK HERE NOW [big red button] and pay us $19.95, or you will lose your email storage!

By contrast, Google’s idea of ample warning was this masterpiece of mumbling minutiae:

You’re nearing the end of your year subscription of Google Paid Storage, which gives you extra quota in Google services like Picasa Web Albums and Gmail. Since you’ve chosen to disable auto-renewal for your account, you’ll need to renew your account by visiting the account management page if you want to continue using Google Paid Storage at the current level. If you do not act, your current plan will expire on Aug 24, 2010 and you will be downgraded to the Basic Plan at that time.

Really?! Come on! I did what any normal, busy person with a full email inbox would do in this situation: I ignored the message, because it utterly failed to convey to me that I had a relationship with the sender (Google Paid Storage, whodat?) which led to an immediately actionable item (account management page, ker-wha?) for which the consequences would be extremely dire (downgraded to blah blah what’s for lunch?) . . . Okay, so I wasn’t as vigilant as I should have been, but I submit that no human could easily understand from the message above that all email was going to bounce for 24 hours.

4) There was no customer support whatsoever during the incident, just a message on the receipt for my payment telling me to expect a 24 hour turnaround time. And seriously, what is “turnaround time” about? Is Google telling me that the best technical company on the web can turn off my storage automatically, but cannot restore it automatically? Are human sysadmins provisioning Google Paid Storage by hand??? Does not compute! Yes, I’m ranting now, but stay with me. I have a point.

5) They could have just quietly saved my incoming mail during the outage. Every hard bounce
on a social network labeled PERMANENT FAILURE removed me from that social network—goodbye Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the others. Every hard bounce on a mailing list labeled PERMANENT FAILURE instantly unsubscribed me from said list. Every hard bounce to a human labeled PERMANENT FAILURE resulted in multiple voice mails and text messages from said human asking me, “What the dilly?” I lost several days of productivity due to my inability to communicate cascading failures because, well, my email was down and Google’s servers instructed the senders not to re-send, so I had to re-establish all those connections and apologize to people manually.

Much of this inconvenience to me could have been averted with vacation messages . . . or soft bounces
. . . or better yet, by silently saving all of my email messages for me while we waited for the new storage to be provisioned. Is it really so hard to understand why a human would want a humane solution to a coldly mechanical problem?

Instead Google deliberately chose the technical path (hard bounces) that would be most convenient for them in the short term, while causing me the maximum embarrassment, trouble, anger, frustration, and distress. These emotions of rage and humiliation are likely unfamiliar to the machine that builds Google’s applications.

Essentially my conclusion from this incident is that Google is simply incapable of creating user-facing applications, for the simple reason that only humans can build software for humans. Like Soylent Green
, the best social software is made of people. Consider how ex-Googler Bret Taylor found “great user experience” religion when he embraced Facebook:

Taylor noted that he had been “brainwashed by Silicon Valley” before he saw and understood the power of Facebook Photos (he was likely working at Google at the time). He had been thinking like an engineer about the best way to organize photos on the web. But he quickly realized that “the best possible organization of photos is around people,” Taylor said.

“There are ten other industries waiting to have this type of disruption,” Taylor said noting the travel industry, e-commerce, and music as a few of them. Earlier, Zuckerberg agreed. Because of the social element, “every single vertical will be transformed.“

Software is not just a matter of technical capabilities. A tremendous amount of hard work, skill, and taste goes into making software products efficient and comfortable to use:

Understanding how users want to navigate around the application, which tasks to show as buttons versus which to hide in menus, which features should be left out completely, and so on . . . those seemingly minor decisions are often the difference between good software and great software, and the reason great product managers and interaction designers are always in demand.

Even the tone of a product’s error messages—compare “Flickr is having a massage”
or the Twitter fail whale, with an eye-glazing Java stack-trace
or cryptic Android error message—can change a person’s feeling about the software she or he is using. Feeling is what user experience is all about, and why it is so hard to get right.

What truly scares me is the feeling that Gmail.com is evolving into an increasingly comfortable, warm chamber with a never-ending feeding tube that encourages we, its human inhabitants, to consume and click without surcease. Gmail could very well be the computer-generated dream world that sucks the life out of us
, millisecond by millisecond.

What started off as simple, fast, threaded, practical web-based email now resembles a kitchen sink with a hundred settings, dozens of lab extensions, labels and filters and stars (oh my!), calendars, maps, task manager, contact manager, document manager, RSS reader, in-email video player, web clips, instant messaging, video chat, and “Buzz”, all bundled. This past week alone saw Gmail smoosh in more new features, from Skype-like inbox Voice (success or disaster?) to a myriad of magical pixies that learn Inbox Priorities from consumption and clicking behavior.

Friends of mine who follow Google closely believe their next attempt at social software will involve adding far more complexity
and functionality to Gmail, making the job of delivering a great user experience that much more difficult. Recent history has demonstrated that Google cannot resist the urge to cram new features into Gmail with alarming velocity. Where does it go from here?

I have nightmares about round-the-clock Googlers on lockdown like at Facebook
, busily grafting feature after feature into the mix . . .

Why not add Wall, Profile Info, Photos, and Home, and really make Gmail ever more like Facebook?

Why not add Games? (Ok, seriously, no. Can I get a “hell no
“?

Why not add things not even Facebook has, from Skype-like Voice, to Inbox Priorities?

Why not add Slide’s Top Friends
and ability to Throw Sheep
, Aardvark’s Ask-Any-Questions
, and Angstro’s news alerts
? Heck, let’s dream big: Google says they’re continuing to look at “ways to continue and extend Wave technology in other Google products“, and where better to reincarnate Pulp Fiction
than in our Gmail. Anyone? Bueller
?

Why stop with copies and acquisitions? Embrace and extend, too! Xanadu’s pleasure dome will have us consuming our Facebook and Twitter statuses, comments, likes, links, photos, and videos through that Gmail Inbox intravenous drip…

Here’s the question I dread asking out loud: does Google think Gmail is The One Ring To Bind Them All? Are we supposed to trust Google with all of these deeply personal communications when we can’t even count on Gmail not to hard bounce a human who hits his storage quota? Maybe PERMANENT FAILURE was a declaration, not an error.

Meanwhile, if Facebook lets Gmail inventor Paul Buchheit
turnFacebook Inbox into a product as fast, simple, and useful as the original Gmail, I could see myself migrating to Facebook as my primary email. But as of Labor Day 2010 approaches, that’s just a fantasy, and my fate is still tied to Gmail’s destiny.

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CrunchBase Information
Gmail

Company: Google

Website: gmail.com

Launch Date: April 1, 2004

Gmail, also known as Google Mail, is a free email service with innovative features like “conversation view” email threads, search-oriented interface and plenty of free storage (almost 7.7GB). Gmail opened… Learn More

Adam Rifkin

Companies: Renkoo, Worldly Developments, Angstro, AppDiscover, Angstro, KnowNow, Speak With Me

Adam Rifkin is an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley who oversees a monthly gathering of startup engineers called 106 miles.

Adam is presently retired or funemployed (depending on your perspective). As a result, he gets roped into giving free advice… Learn More

Information provided by CrunchBase

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Use Google Storage as a One-Time Cost, Lifetime Backup Solution

2010-09-03T11:09:00.001-07:00

Use Google Storage as a One-Time Cost, Lifetime Backup Solution

You can get extra Gmail storage pretty cheaply from Google, but eagle-eyed reader gthing lets us know that you have read access to that storage even after you cancel your subscription.

You have read and write access to your storage for an entire year after paying, but if you choose not to renew, you still have access to your data for as long as you want—you just can't add more stuff. From Google's policy:

No matter when you cancel your storage subscription, your extra storage will be available for the entire year you've purchased. After your plan expires, your storage will be limited to each individual product's free storage quota. Under our current policy, any content over the free storage quota will still be accessible, however you will not be able to add new content until your storage balance falls below the free storage limit.

It won't work as a continuous backup solution, but it works great as a one-time data dump. So, while you wouldn't want to necessarily store important data there (since most important data gets outdated quickly), I could see it being useful for, say, TV seasons that you bought on iTunes but already watched, or other similar space hogs—essentially, things that you don't want to delete but don't have the hard drive space to let them sit around and collect dust.

[via #tips]

Send an email to Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com.

http://artists.gawker.com/5076934/billi-kid" target="_blank" />
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glave 01:24 AM

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This doesn't seem worth the effort. I can buy a 2TB hard drive from newegg for $110 right now. That's more space per dollar, and I don't have to spend eternity syncing it to a server. Reply

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gthing 09/02/10

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Sweet, do I get a star for this? Reply

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wjglenn 09/02/10

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I would not trust this tip, since they can change their policy at any time and potentially wipe out your archives. Also note Mxx's comment above about how not being able to add new content includes getting new e-mail.
That said, I'm very tempted to just pay for a bunch of space every year because it's pretty cheap storage.
Anyone know if there are tools that can actually let you use it for automated backup? Or is there something that will let you create a virtual drive out of the space?
Essentially, I'm looking to turn it into gDrive. Reply

thinkerer 09/02/10

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I didn't read the fine print - is this like everything else Google where they'll paw through it and add ads etc. based on content? Reply

rcocchiararo 09/02/10

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if i read it correctly, unless you do this on a secondary account, once the subscription ends, the account remains locked until your data gous below the allowed quota for free accounts ? (locked, in the sense that ALL the account is read only) Reply

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Mxx 09/02/10

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That's a bad tip/suggestion.
Read what happens when you don't pay up for your additional storage [techcrunch.com] Reply

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foolish-rain 09/02/10

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Seems like an incredible crap shot for anything truly important. I assume there's language buried in there somewhere which allows them to change the policy at any time, even if it does evil... Reply

srothroc 09/02/10

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It's worth noting that the quote says "under our CURRENT policy," emphasis mine. If people start abusing it, I don't think it's strange to think that they would change it to curb said abuse. Reply

wjglenn promoted this comment

AtomFury 09/02/10

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That's pretty sweet. I got the extra 20GB storage for $5/year but didn't realize that. Reply

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In Defense of Links, part three: In links we trust — Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard

2010-09-03T10:57:00.001-07:00

This is the third post in a three-part series. The first part was Nick Carr, hypertext and delinkification. The second part was Money changes everything.

Nick Carr, like the rest of the “Web rots our brains” contingent, views links as primarily subtractive and destructive. Links direct us away from where we are to somewhere else on the Web. They impede our concentration, degrade our comprehension, and erode our attention spans.

It’s important, first, to understand that every single one of these criticisms of links has been raised against every single new media form for the past 2500 years. (Rather than rehash this hoary tale, I’ll point you to Vaughan Bell’s excellent summary in Slate. For a full and fascinating account of the earliest episode in this saga — Socrates’ denunciation of the written word — I recommend the elaboration of it in Maryanne Wolf’s Proust and the Squid.)

Throughout history, the info-panic critique has been one size fits all. The media being criticized may change, but the indictments are remarkably similar. That tells us we’re in the presence of some ancestral predilection or prejudice. We involuntarily defend the media forms we grew up with as bastions of civilization, and denounce newcomers as barbaric threats to our children and our way of life.

That’s a lot to hang on the humble link, which — in today’s Flash-addled, widget-laden, real-time-streaming environment — seems more like an anchor of stability than a force for subversion. But even if we grant Carr his premise that links slow reading and hamper understanding (which I don’t believe his evidence proves at all), I’ll still take the linked version of an article over the unlinked.

I do so because I see links as primarily additive and creative. Even if it took me a little longer to read the text-with-links, even if I had to work a bit harder to get through it, I’d come out the other side with more meat and more juice.

Links, you see, do so much more than just whisk us from one Web page to another. They are not just textual tunnel-hops or narrative chutes-and-ladders. Links, properly used, don’t just pile one “And now this!” upon another. They tell us, “This relates to this, which relates to that.”

Links announce our presence. They show a writer’s work. They are badges of honesty, inviting readers to check that work. They demonstrate fairness. They can be simple gestures of communication; they can be complex signifiers of meaning. They make connections between things. They add coherence. They build context.

If I can get all that in return, why would I begrudge the link-wielding writer a few more seconds of my time, a little more of my mental effort?

Let’s take these positive aspects of linking in ascending order of importance.

Links say “hello.”

A link to another site can serve as a way of telling that site, “I just said something about you.” This invites spammy abuse, of course. But it remains an elegantly simple device. Many bloggers still check their referrers today as they did a decade ago in the early days of weblogging. High-traffic sites can’t and won’t bother paying much attention to this, but out in the middle and nether reaches of the Web-traffic curve, this kind of link remains a valid and valuable social gesture.

Links show a writer’s work.

Any post or page with hand-selected links provides a record of the writer’s research, reading and sourcing. Some people are happier with this stuff collected at the end, as we did for centuries in print. But linking in situ gives the reader the information right where it’s needed. (If reading a link adds to “cognitive load,” surely the effort of scanning down to a footnote or, even worse, flipping back to an endnote piles on even heftier brain-freight.)

Links keep us honest and fair.

If you’re quoting someone and you link to the original, you’re saying to the reader, “Check my work — see if I’ve presented the other person’s point of view accurately and fairly.” This provides a powerful check on bullying and misrepresentation. It’s the rant without links, the disconnected diatribe, that’s suspect.

In a media environment where a dwindling number of participants believes that objectivity is either possible or desirable, the best yardstick for fairness we have is this: does a writer present the perspectives of those he disagrees with in a way that they feel is fair? Linking to those perspectives is a way for a writer to say: Go ahead — see if I got you right.

Links enhance trust.

Let me quote Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen, from 1999 (in a text I reread thanks to a link I followed from a discussion of my earlier post at Crooked Timber):

Not being afraid to link to other sites is a sign of confidence, and third-party sites are much more credible than anything you can say yourself. Isolated sites feel like they have something to hide.

Links knit context into the Web.

Most Web critiques includes ritual denunciation of the medium’s disconnected, fragmentary nature. And certainly there are plenty of fragments out there in HTTP-land. But the disconnected ones, by definition, don’t get read much. We read the posts and pages that get widely linked to.

A fragment that gets connected is no longer a fragment. It becomes a working part, a piece of a mosaic, a strand in a web. (There’s a reason these words are embedded in Internet history.)

It always amazes me to hear the complaint that the Web doesn’t provide readers with enough context. Then I realize that this criticism is usually made by print journalists. They are accustomed to having their words acquire a bountiful context on paper. Then, typically, their work is spat onto the Web by an automated content-management system — and served up without a link in sight.

Theirs is an experience of loss of context. But for the rest of us, writing for the Web offers more frequent and potent opportunities to give our words context than we’ve ever had before.

What pages shall we connect our words to? We have the entire rest of the Web to choose from! And the choices we make say worlds about our writing.

The context that links provide comes in two flavors: explicit and implicit. Explicit context is the actual information you need to understand what you’re reading. Here’s what I mean, if I can go all recursive on you for a moment: Let’s say you landed on this article out of nowhere. Someone sent you a link. (Now, right there Carr and the link-skeptics might say, “”There’s the problem! If you were reading a magazine or a book, that would never happen.” To which I can only say, if the opportunity to receive pointers to interesting reading from a network of friends is a problem, it’s one I am very happy to have.)

So you land on my page and you might well have no idea what I’m talking about, since this is part three of a series. Links make it easy for me to show you where to catch up. If you don’t have time for that, links let me orient you more quickly in my first paragraph with reference to Carr’s post. I can do all this without having to slow down those readers who’ve been following from the start with summaries and synopses. Again, even if the links that achieve this do demand a small fee from your working brain (which remains an unproven hypothesis), I’d say that’s a fair price.

By implicit context, I mean something a little more elusive: The links you put into a piece of writing tell a story (or, if you will, a meta-story) about you and what you’ve written. They say things like: What sort of company does this writer keep? Who does she read? What kind of stuff do her links point to — New Yorker articles? Personal blogs? Scholarly papers? Are the choices diverse or narrow? Are they obvious or surprising? Are they illuminating or puzzling? Generous or self-promotional?

Links, in other words, transmit meaning, but they also communicate mindset and style. By this, I don’t mean “stylish linking.” There have been fads in linking — the first and best-known was probably the playfully ironic, self-deprecating style pioneered by Suck.com in 1995 (I wrote about it in Salon a long time ago). They come and go, just as catch-phrases and tics in casual writing do. As with other link mannerisms, remnants of the Suck style survive in a few places; but mostly, Web users have rejected the practice of links that obscure or misdirect or joke. We prefer links that clarify.

The history of Web linking has been a long chronicle of controversies we didn’t need to have: irrelevant debates over issues like so-called deep linking (if you really don’t want to be linked to, why are you on the public Web?) or the notion of a power-law-driven A-list in blogging (if you want to become a celebrity, other media are far more efficient). To this list, we can now add the “delinkification” dustup.

It’s hard to imagine the benefit for ourselves, or for the Web, of a general retreat from linking. Writing on the Web without linking is like making a movie without cutting. Sure, it can be done; there might even be a few situations where it makes sense. But most of the time, it’s just head-scratchingly self-limiting. To choose not to link is to abandon the medium’s most powerful tool — the thing that makes the Web a web.

A long time ago, I wrote a column titled Fear of Links about the then-burgeoning movement of webloggers. I urged professional writers to stop looking down their noses at links and those who make them: “A journalist who today disdains the very notion of providing links to readers may tomorrow find himself without a job.”

That was 1999. Today, we live in that piece’s “tomorrow.”

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Check out me, Chris, on Stickam. SO addictive...

2010-06-12T14:47:00.001-07:00

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Christopher Paul Rutili 04/11/1985 - cprlogic

2010-06-10T07:21:00.001-07:00

Christopher Paul Rutili 04/11/1985

LUCKY NUMBERS: 11,11,2,67,14,35

BIRTH DAY 11: You are very energetic and charismatic. You are a natural in music or the performing arts. You are very adaptable and fit in however you are needed. You are just as comfortable leading a group as you are at being a team player.

LIFEPATH 11: You are a deep thinker and with many ideas. You are interested in many things and will usually grasp things well beyond the comprehension of others. You can be too much of a dreamer and lack common sense. Every now and then, get your head out of the clouds and make sure you have your feet firmly planted on the ground.

DESTINY 6: You are a loving, caring, and dependable person. Always ready to lend a helping hand. Learn not to interfere and know when to help and when to let people help themselves.

SOUL DESIRE 9: You are an extremely giving person. You are generous, like to share, and are very compassionate. Learn not to be overly sensitive and try not to let your emotions get the best of you.

PERSONALITY 8: You are goal oriented and determined to succeed. You are a natural boss.

Sent from my iPad

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Check out my Scribd.com docs!

2010-05-16T22:10:00.001-07:00

is where my documents live!

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My Qik.com Live Channel

2010-05-08T17:57:00.001-07:00

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How A Cell Phone Call Works

2010-05-04T09:39:00.001-07:00

We use our cell phones all day, every day, but did you ever wonder what is really going on when you make or receive a call? Of course there are towers that we see dotting the landscape and it’s obvious that they make this all possible, but exactly how? Here is a detailed look at how cell phone calls actually work.

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How to Back Up and Play Your Wii Games from an External Hard Drive

2010-04-16T09:36:00.001-07:00

Connecting an external hard drive to your Wii to backup and play your games is a simple way to keep expensive discs out of harms way, decrease game load times, and organize your collection with swanky cover art. Here's how it works.

Last year we shared two guides with you that other people had written—the original and a revision—on how to back up and play your Wii games from an external hard drive. Unfortunately, like many things on the internet, the guides faded into the digital night (read: they were taken down). Setting up your Wii with an external hard drive is a wildly popular topic, however, and since the old guides went offline, we've received daily emails on the topic. In response to the demand, here's our own complete guide to setting up your Wii to play games from a USB hard drive.

When laid out screen-by-screen this guide is quite lengthy, but the process itself only takes about 10 minutes start to finish—if you're not stopping to take lots of screenshots and write a tutorial along the way! This guide will show you how to activate an exploit on your Wii to allow more advanced Homebrew software to run, how to setup and format an external USB hard drive to play nice with your Wii, and how to manage the process of backing up your games and displaying them in cover-flow inspired style. When you're done your games will be load fast, be immune from scratches and mishandling, and be displayed in a way that will make your friends envious.

Before you delve into the project why don't we take a peek at this video demonstration of the interface to help you decide if it's worth it—it's so worth it, but who's going to say no to a video tour?

Ready to call in sick and spend the day setting up your Wii? No? Watch the video again.

Precautions and the Necessary Hardware:

Before we get started, let's review some necessary cautions and the tools we'll need. Anytime you mess around with a piece of closed hardware like a Wii and start monkeying with the guts you risk bricking your toy. Have we ever bricked a Wii? No, despite modding Wiis and all sorts of consumer electronics, we've never bricked anything. Is it possible to brick your Wii? Yes, the risk is always there and you should proceed with appropriate caution and respect for the process. Every step and every tool used in this entire guide can easily be looked up on Google if you want to read more about it.

Precautions provided, let's take a look at the tools you'll need:

An SD card (this is a perfect job for an old 512MB or 1GB SD card)
An external USB hard drive (Wii games take up around 2GB on average, so select a drive according to your collection)
A Wii with the Homebrew channel installed (We're not going to recap how to install the Homebrew channel in this tutorial, so check out our step-by-step guide to installing Homebrew on the Wii without Twilight Princess if you need to Homebrew your Wii.)

Getting Started by Softening up Your Wii's Defenses:

If you have an older Wii with an out-of-date menu system (3.2 or lower), you can skip this section about the Trucha Bug since your system still has it. (If you're not sure what version you have, click on the Options button in the lower left corner of your Wii's main menu and then on the Wii Settings icon on the right hand side of the screen; the version number is displayed in the top-right corner of this screen.) If you have a newer menu system, you'll need to read this section.

The Trucha Bug is just a code vulnerability that existed on early versions of the Wii operating system (referred to in Wii-hacking documentation as IOS). As of the 4.0 Wii menu update, the Trucha Bug was eradicated; luckily for our hacking purposes, you can easily reintroduce it in order to exploit it.

Download DOP-Mii v12 and extract the zip file onto your SD card keeping the folder structure intact. Pop the SD card back in your Wii and launch the Homebrew channel.

Run DOP-Mii and select Install I0S36 (v3351) w/FakeSign from the menu:

The next series of screens look similar to the above screenshot. On those screens you will apply—press A to say yes to—the ES_Identity patch, the NAND Permissions patch, and then you will download the patches through your Wii's internet connection like so:

After the screen above, DOP-Mii will ask you if you want to restore IOS15 to v523. Again, click A to confirm that you would. DOP-Mii will complete the modification and kick you back to the Homebrew channel. Note: In some instances this tweak can invert the Homebrew screen, a strange quirk. You can fix it easily by reloading the Homebrew installer.

The next step is to introduce a new IOS to your system. Download the cIOS installer here. Extract the zip file, again keeping the folder structure intact, to the /Apps/ folder on your Wii SD card. Pop the SD card back in the Wii and launch the Homebrew Channel:

Launch the cIOS installer. On the initial screen use the right and left Wiimote directional pad to switch the ISO number to ISO36. Press A to confirm:

On the next screen, use the keypad to select Network Installation. Press A to confirm. The cIOS Installer will churn away for a minute or so and then confirm a successful installation. Press any button to reboot the Wii.

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How to Automatically Sync Any Song You Download to iTunes

2010-03-25T13:14:00.001-07:00

iTunes has never been great at automatically syncing new songs or folders of music, but with a little finesse and the latest version of iTunes, you can automatically sync any new music you download to iTunes, with relative ease.

Love it or hate it, tons of people still use iTunes to manage their music library. Maybe it's because of your love for the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, or whatever--we're not here to judge, we're just here to help you make iTunes work better.

When you're done with this guide, you're iTunes library will automatically sync up with any music you download, whether it's via BitTorrent, the web, or even Dropbox. The guide will walk through how to set up automatic music-to-iTunes syncing on both Windows and Mac.

What You'll Need

iTunes
Belvedere (Windows) or Hazel (Mac)

How It Works

The basic set up is actually pretty simple. Apple quietly added an Automatically Add to iTunes folder in a recent release of iTunes 9, which means that, while iTunes still doesn't support watching and syncing custom folders, it does give us a pretty slick avenue for hacking together our own solution. Here's how it works:

Belvedere (Windows) and Hazel (Mac) are automated file management tools that keep track of folders of your choosing and perform actions on files in those folders based on rules you set up. Basically, we're going to set up Belvedere (or Hazel) to monitor all the folders to which you download new music, and automatically add those files to iTunes' Automatically Add to iTunes folder. (Note: By default, Belvedere only scans folders once every five minutes; if you want it to scan more frequently, just open the app, go to your Preferences tab, and change the sleep time. It's a lightweight app, and I've never had problems running the scans every minute or less.)

You'll likely want the behavior to vary depending on what kind of downloading you're doing, so I'll lay out a few different setups below.

Sync Music from Your Web Downloads Folder

Let's start simple: You occasionally browse the web's vast offering of searchable MP3s to snag a one-off single. When you download an MP3 from the web, it ends up in your browser's default Downloads folder. What we're going to do is set up your automated file manager to watch that folder for new MP3s and move them to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder. In Belvedere, such a rule would look like you see in the screenshot below:

(Note: If you're a Firefox user, you could also try an extension like Automatic Save Folder to detect and automatically download specific file types to specific folders. In this case, you could tell the extension to save all MP3s to iTunes' Automatically Add to iTunes folder.)

As you can see, Belvedere monitors myC:\Users\User_Name\Documents\Downloadsfolder for new MP3s, and when it finds them, moves them toC:\Users\User_Name\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Automatically Add to iTunes\ . iTunes regularly scans that folder for new music, and when it finds it, adds automatically adds it to my library and organizes it in my iTunes Musicfolder. If you'd like Belvedere to ask you before attempting to move newly downloaded files to iTunes, click the Confirm Action checkbox.

That was simple enough, right? Things get a slightly more tricky when you're dealing with BitTorrent.

Sync Music from Your BitTorrent Downloads

When you're downloading music via BitTorrent, you don't want Belvedere to attempt to move any tracks before they've completed downloading, and since BitTorrent downloads can sometimes take a while, you could potentially run into a situation where Belvedere might try moving a song before it's completed downloading. So to handle your BitTorrent music downloads, here's what I'd suggest:

(I'm using uTorrent as my example because it's the most popular BitTorrent client , but most have similar features.)

Set uTorrent to move completed downloads to a specific folder on your computer--for my example, I'll call it Completed Music Downloads--like so:

Next set Belvedere to monitor that folder for new MP3s (or other audio file types you normally download) just like you did in the example above. When it matches, move the files to the iTunes watch folder. Make sure to tick the Recursive box to ensure Belvedere checks inside folders instead of just scanning the root, since most BitTorrent downloads will hold the MP3s inside a folder.

(Ideally we could copy files in this instance rather than move them so your BitTorrent client could continue seeding the download until you decide you don't want to seed it anymore [at which point you can manually remove it]. Unfortunately Belvedere doesn't yet remember files it's performed actions on [it's a feature we may add at some point in the future], so we'll have to settle for moving at this point.)

Use Dropbox to Add Music Remotely

As coincidence would have it, this guide found its way into my newsreader last night while I was working on this very feature; the MakeUseOf author suggests remotely adding songs to your iTunes library with Dropbox using a very similar method. Basically you'd create a folder inside Dropbox (he uses iTunes Temp ), monitor that folder for new music, and automatically move any new tunes to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder. Using Dropbox, you could add songs to your home iTunes library from any computer--even from work.

The methods I use in the examples above will still work with Dropbox, but the author's setup uses an Automator action that Mac users may want to consider trying. (Similarly, a MUO reader suggests using a previously highlighted method for syncing files and folders outside of Dropbox --creating a symlink between youriTunes Temp Dropbox folder and the monitored iTunes folder--to streamline the process even more. The upshot: A lot of roads lead to Syncville.)

Catch Whatever Falls Through the Cracks

If for some reason iTunes has a tough time adding something you've put in theAutomatically Add to iTunes folder, you'll see a new folder inside that folder named Not Added . It contains date-stamped folders of the stuff that didn't make it through the import. In my experience, however, the only stuff that doesn't make the cut is album art and other items that weren't meant to go in that folder anyway, and I haven't had any problems with the items I've added using my automated method.

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

Awesome new track by M.I.A.

2010-03-23T12:11:00.001-07:00

Bucky Done Sun - (Gorillajetpackattack Mash ) by M. I. A
Download now or listen on posterous

M.I.A___Bucky_Done_Sun____GorillaJetpackAttack_MASH_____The_Hype_Machine_e91e331f00ec7d172c41f619a840fb61_2.mp3 (5710 KB)

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

An interview with the inventor of the mobile cell phone, Martin Cooper, bout the current state of the wireless industry. Very interesting.

2010-03-11T16:27:00.001-08:00

Posted via web from Chris's Posterous

B-Flow's Facebook Stream

2010-03-09T10:08:00.001-08:00

B-Flow's Master Tracks on Facebook

Posted via web from Bobby Fratto is B-Flow

Shutter Island TELESYNC XviD-MENTiON

2010-02-22T16:10:00.001-08:00

Shutter Island TELESYNC XviD-MENTiON

Posted on 22.02.2010 at 18:37 in Movies, Telesync by Frado

Here’s Mention with the first TS for Shutter Island. Since it’s from Mention, we can probably expect a nuke soon.. Check out the sample here for audio improvements!

PLOT: It’s 1954, and up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Boston’s Shutter Island Ashecliffe Hospital. He’s been pushing for an assignment on the island for personal reasons, but before long he wonders whether he hasn’t been brought there as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical to illegal to downright sinister. Teddy’s shrewd investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records he suspects would break the case wide open. As a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, more dangerous criminals “escape” in the confusion, and the puzzling, improbable clues multiply, Teddy begins to doubt everything – his memory, his partner, even his own sanity.

Shutter Island

Genre: Drama | Mystery | Thriller
IMDB rating: 8.5/10
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley

Release Name: Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON
Size: 2 CD
Audio Quality: MP3 128 kbps
Video Quality: XviD, 640×272

Links: HOMEPAGE – IMDB
Video Sample: Here
Screenshot: #1 – #2 – #3
NFO: Here
NewTorrents Search: Here
Download: HOTFiLE Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Comments(136)

Previous post: M-Zone (2010.02.22)
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Comments (136)

Feel free to post your Shutter Island TELESYNC XviD-MENTiON torrent, subtitles, samples, free download, quality, NFO, rapidshare, megashares, sendspace, megaupload, filefactory, netload, crack, serial, keygen, requirements or whatever-related comments here. Don't be rude (permban), use only English, don't go offtopic and read FAQ before asking a question. Owners of this website aren't responsible for content of comments.

Pages: [1] 2 » Show All

V-State

February 22nd, 2010 | 18:38

V-State (State of Scene and More…)

http://v-state.net/shutter-island-ts/

Sample: http://uploading.com/files/ba7e6cc1/m-shutter-sample.avi/

HOTFiLE.com: http://hotfile.com/list/330492/f32a5fa

NETLOAD.in: http://netfolder.in/FqmkvGp/Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON
inkubus

February 22nd, 2010 | 18:40

much better version than CAM, very watchable nice flick it seems to be martin & leo together again what a combo

Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON

SUPER HIGH DOWNLOAD SPEED SINGLE .avi FILE

http://good.ly/hbb44
Links

February 22nd, 2010 | 18:40

Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON

http://rapidshare.com/files/354306384/m-shutter.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354306293/m-shutter.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354306325/m-shutter.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354306740/m-shutter.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354306860/m-shutter.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354307061/m-shutter.part6.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354307074/m-shutter.part7.rar
24444335

February 22nd, 2010 | 18:41

dling now will come back wit quality report

VID SAMPLE
http://hotfile.com/dl/29665487/28cec21/m-shutter-sample.avi.html

//Digital Crack 17
Shutter Island TELESYNC XviD-MENTiON

February 22nd, 2010 | 18:42

Shutter Island TELESYNC XviD-MENTiON

SUPER FAST DIRECT LINK
http://zljo.com/-Shutter-Island-TELESYNC-XviD-MENTiON.html
Jefferson Rodrigues

February 22nd, 2010 | 18:42

Release Name: Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON
Size: 1 CD
DOWNLOAD
==========================================================
http://hotfile.com/list/330508/1c3d56d

==========================================================
No Password
Oryad

February 22nd, 2010 | 18:43

http://rapidshare.com/files/354312641/Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354312640/Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354312659/Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354312642/Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354312632/Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354312646/Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON.part6.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/354312635/Shutter.Island.TELESYNC.XviD-MENTiON.part7.rar

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

: The Smarter You Are, The Less You Click

2010-02-13T09:19:00.001-08:00

From ReadWriteWeb:

The Smarter You Are, The Less You Click

If the latest numbers from online ad network Chitika are anything to go by, then we may well be on our way to the world of Idiocracy. According to the study, which compared click through rates to college education, the less educated your audience, the more likely they are to click through on an advertisement...

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

Microsoft's Project Pink Phones Show Up On FCC

2010-02-13T09:15:00.001-08:00

Microsoft's Project Pink Phones Show Up On FCC [ProjectPink]

By Kyle VanHemert, on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 08:30:10

With MWC right around the corner, all eyes are on Microsoft for the launch of Windows Phone 7. And though we heard Project Pink was in trouble, this FCC filing suggests the Sharp-made Turtle may still be on its way.

The diagram for the model PB10ZU shows a short, stout device that bears an unmistakable resemblance to the Project Pink Turtle images we saw last Fall. The filing reveals that the PB10ZU packs dual-band CDMA, EVDO, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. Sharp being the manufacturer for the Turtle is in line with what we have heard from the beginning and makes sense, as they made the original Sidekick for Danger, who was acquired by Microsoft in 2008.

A second device with the model number PB20ZU is mentioned, though considerably less detail is offered. One could surmise that this might well be the Pure, the second, more traditionally-shaped slider that we saw in our original leak .

As Engadget points out, the FCC filing's details are being withheld until March 29, just after the CTIA conference in Vegas. That conference has been rumored as a potential venue for the debut of the Zune phone. Exactly what place the Turtle will have in the Windows Phone 7 line-up remains unclear, though it has been suggested that it is not the star of the collection but rather an "evolution of the Sidekick."

Presumably some of this will come into focus in the coming days at MWC, but until then you can bet the speculation will be at an all time high. [ FCC via Engadget ]

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

ReadWriteWeb: How I Loved, And Lost, an Aardvark

2010-02-12T14:54:00.001-08:00

How I Loved, And Lost, an Aardvark

One day in December I was visiting family and picked up my niece from daycare before her balloon got turned into an animal. It was disappointing. So when we got back to her house, I pulled out my iPhone and showed her an app called Aardvark. We asked Aardvark how we could turn one long...

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

Become a Gmail Master Redux - Gmail

2010-02-05T11:20:00.001-08:00

Reload Original Page Print Page Email Page

Gmail is easily the most popular email application among power users, and with good reason: It's an excellent app. But if you haven't gotten to know its best shortcuts, tricks, Labs features, and add-ons, it's time you made Gmail sing.

Photo remixed from Google's own Become a Gmail ninja page.

Way back in 2006, I showed you my favorite tips, tricks, and tools for making the most of Gmail. A lot has changed in the Gmail world since then, so much so that it seemed like a good time to revisit our favorite tips, tricks, and tools for getting the most from Gmail. Most, if not all, of these tips and features will also apply to the Google Apps accounts set up by businesses and organizations, but your administrator may not have enabled everything you see here.

No one really needs to be sold on Gmail anymore. Either you like the threaded conversations, powerful search, built-in filters, and awesome Gmail Labs functionality or you don't. I love these things, and below I've attempted to put together my comprehensive guide for turning Gmail into the ultimate communication and productivity hub. (I'm focusing on covering territory that I didn't cover in my previous guide, so if you're looking for a more beginner guide, read that first. Much of it remains true.)

I've broken things down into sections, starting with keyboard shortcuts, then moving down into the best Labs add-ons, third-party add-ons, search techniques, etc. Ready to power up your Gmail? Let's get started with how to set up and use Gmail's robust keyboard shortcuts—my favorite Gmail productivity booster.

Beat Your Inbox into Submission from Your Keyboard

If there's one thing we love around Lifehacker, it's the productivity boost we get from keeping our hands glued to the home row. (Seriously, our love of keyboard shortcuts is almost pathological.) Anything that allows us to perform tasks from the comfort of our keyboards—without requiring us to drop everything we're doing, move over to the mouse, hunt for a link or button, and click—ranks high on our list of productivity boosters. If you share even a tenth of our enthusiasm for keyboard shortcuts, I've got good news: You can do absolutely everything in Gmail from the keyboard. Here's how:

First, go to your Gmail settings and make sure you've got Keyboard Shortcuts turned on. (That link should work if you're logged into Gmail—it won't work with a Google Apps mail account.) Be sure to save your changes after you've changed the setting.

Next, click over to Gmail Labs. Labs is full of experimental features capable of adding functionality to Gmail (which we'll get to in more detail below), but for now we're going to focus on just one, called Go to label. Find it, enable it, and save your changes.

Now you can do nearly anything you could possibly want in Gmail without once pulling your hands away from your keyboard. You can see a full list of shortcuts here, or view the shortcut help in Gmail at any time by typing '?' (a question mark), which will give you this shortcut pop-up:

(Click the image above for a closer look.)

That's all well and good, but it's also a little overwhelming, so let's break it down a bit.

Navigating Messages:
j and k go up and down: When you turn on Gmail shortcuts, you'll notice a small black triangle appears to the left of your messages. You can move this cursor up and down by hitting the 'j' or 'k' keys. Want to move down a message? Hit 'j'. Want to move back up? Hit 'k'. Simple, right?

o and Enter open messages: Now let's say you want to read the message next to the cursor. You've got two choices: either hit 'o' or Enter. (I prefer 'o' because it's less of a stretch.) Not bad, huh? When you're viewing an email, pressing 'j' or 'k' will move you to the next or previous email without going back to the list.

n and p move to next and previous messages: Once you're viewing an email thread, you'll notice the black triangle is still there, only now it's next to messages within a thread. You can navigate between different messages in an open thread with the 'n' and 'p' keys (think next and previous). Again, to expand collapsed messages, you just press 'o' or Enter.

Labeling and Moving Messages:
You use Gmail to do more than just read emails, right? Hopefully you're already taking advantage of Gmail labels (if not, this post describes Gmail labels in detail), and now it's time to learn to label to your heart's content from the keyboard. And—surprise—it's very easy.

l + label name adds a label: If you've already opened a thread, you can label it by pressing 'l' (for label) and then typing the name of the label you want to add. You don't have to type the whole label name—just enough so that one of your current labels is highlighted. Once it is, hit Enter to apply the label to the message. If you're looking at an inbox pane rather than an open message, you can apply labels to one or multiple threads at a time. To do so, you need to first mark the threads you want to label by ticking the checkbox next to those messages. Again, this is normally mouse territory, but you're a keyboard junkie now.

x ticks a message checkbox: Instead of moving to the mouse, again, press 'j' or 'k' to move between messages, then press 'x' to tick or untick the checkbox next to a message. You can mark as many as you want, and when you're ready to label, it's the same drill as above: 'l' + the name of the label.

You can also create an entirely new label using this shortcut. Just hit 'l' and type the name of the new label you want to create.

To remove a label that's already been applied to a message, you've got two options. You can use the same method as above, except rather than typing the name of the label you want to apply, you type the name of the label you want to remove; doing so when a label has already been applied will remove it.

y removes a label: Alternately, if you want to remove the label you're currently looking at (for example, if you searched for label:followup or clicked on your followup label in the sidebar), pressing 'y' will do the trick. From the inbox, 'y' will archive the message. ('e' will archive from any view.) From other labels, pressing 'y' will remove that label.

v moves messages: Last, if you prefer to think of your labels more like folders, you can move messages using the 'v' keyboard shortcut—which works the same way as the 'l' shortcut, except in addition to applying a new label, it removes the label you're currently viewing.

star, spam, and trash: When you're either viewing a message or have messages selected, you can press '!' to mark a message as spam, '#' to send it to the Trash, or 's' to star it.

Composing, Replying, and Forwarding:
You've got reading, labeling, and moving your messages down pat, but you do occasionally write email, too. These shortcuts are a breeze to remember. You can compose a new message at any time by pressing 'c', reply to an open email by pressing 'r' (or reply all with 'a'), and forward an email by pressing 'f'. Easy enough, right?

Update: Oh yeah, this always seems like a forgone conclusion for some reason, but to quickly send an email from your keyboard when you're finished writing, just hit Tab then Enter.

Search and Navigate Your Inbox:
The only major thing left to do is navigate your inbox and labels, which is part of why we installed the Go to labels feature above. Navigating anywhere in Gmail starts with pressing 'g', for Go. From there, it's a matter of knowing where you want to go.

g then i goes to your inbox
g then s goes to starred messages
g then t goes to sent messages
g then d goes to drafts
g then a goes to all mail
g then c goes to contacts
g then k goes to tasks
g then l then label name goes to that label. This also works to navigate to any of the other 'g' shortcuts that have quicker shortcuts; for example, you could press 'g' then 'l' then 'inbox' to navigate to your inbox rather than 'g' then 'i'.

This may have all sounded overly complicated at times, but trust me, all it takes a is a little bit of effort before it's all ingrained in your muscle memory—a task for which you'll thank yourself!

Note: Surprisingly, I wasn't exhaustive above, but I did highlight the shortcuts I use the most. For a more exhaustive rundown (minus the Go to label shortcut), see Gmail's shortcut help page.

Add More Functionality with Gmail Labs

You were briefly introduced to the the shortcuts feature above, but that's only the tip of the Gmail Labs iceberg. Gmail releases experimental features regularly in Gmail Labs, and some of them are must-haves for the true Gmail junkie. We rounded up ten of our favorites last year, so I won't go in depth beyond pointing out a few of my current favorites. (Remember, to install any of these Labs features, just point your browser to Gmail Labs and enable any you like.)

Multiple Inboxes: Turn your inbox into a dashboard capable of displaying up to five different searches (like, for example, your trusted trio of email labels)—in addition to your regular old inbox—by enabling Multiple Inboxes.

YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Docs, and Voice Previews: How many times in a week do you get an email pointing to a YouTube video or Flickr set? How about a new message notification from Google Voice or a shared Google Doc? Enable these features to view (or preview) the video, pictures, document, or listen to your Voice message directly inside your email without popping up a new window.

Forgotten Attachment Detector: Avoid sending yet another email missing an attachment with the Forgotten Attachment Detector, which will poke you with an alert message before you can send an email that appears to be promising an attachment.

Undo send: We've all accidentally hit Tab+Enter to send off an email the moment we also noticed a huge typo or other embarrassing problem. Undo send gives you five seconds after you hit the send button to retrieve your email.

Above I listed a few of my favorite Labs features, but if you take a few minutes looking over what Gmail Labs has to offer, you'll probably find others you like, too.

Beef Up Gmail with Extensions

If the functionality you're looking for still isn't available even after you've enabled your favorite Labs features, then browser extensions might be more your speed. You've got plenty of Gmail extensions to choose from, but I'm particularly partial to Better Gmail 2, a compilation of Gmail features put together by our very own Gina Trapani. Features include:

Add Row Highlights: Highlights the letter rows in the new Gmail when you hover over them with the mouse cursor.
Attachment Icons: See what kind of attachment an email has in list view.
Attachment Icons (Native): Same as attachment icons, but uses icon images native to your system.
Bottom Post in Reply (Plain Text only): Inserts cursor after the quoted message in plain text replies automatically.
Folders4Gmail: Lists labels in a folder-like hierarchy.
Hide Chat: Hides Gmail's Chat box in the sidebar.
Hide Invites Box: Hides the Gmail invites box on the sidebar.
Hide Labels in Message Row: Hides the labels that appear in a message row unless the user hovers over the message.
Hide Spam Count: Hides Gmail's Spam message count.
Inbox Count First: See unread message count first on Gmail tab title.
Show Unread Message Count on Favicon: Shows the number of unread Gmail messages in the favicon in your Firefox tab.

If you're partial to David Allen's Getting Things Done productivity methods, then you might be especially interested in GTDInbox for Gmail, a seriously cool Firefox extension that helps you turn your email into GTD-friendly action items.

Last, the rest of the crew at Lifehacker would have my head if I didn't mention Remember the Milk for Gmail—available as either a Firefox/Chrome extension or gadget—that connects the popular to-do webapp Remember the Milk with your Gmail account.

Dissect Your Inbox with Laser-Precise Searches and Filters

Gmail's philosophy from the get-go was "Search, don't sort," which is why they replaced traditional folders with labels despite the occasional complaint from new users. It should come as no surprise, then, that Gmail's search is excellent, and in combination with Gmail's filters (which allow you to execute actions on incoming messages that match a specific search criteria), the sky's the limit for how you can slice and dice your inbox.

I won't go in depth on Gmail's search operators or how to put together filters here because I've done so in pretty good detail here, and not much has changed since then. For the full rundown of Gmail's advanced search operators, hit up Gmail Help's search page.

Manage All Your Email Accounts from Gmail

Last, the great part about Gmail is that—apart from being a killer service—it's also a great email client, and whether or not you want to use your @gmail.com address, you can still use Gmail to manage all of your other email with aplomb.

Gmail can fetch email from other accounts, filter that email into separate labels by the account they arrived from or just leave them all in one inbox, and send email from any one of them from inside Gmail. In fact, despite all of the great dedicated desktop email clients out there, Gmail is still the favorite Gmail client among Lifehacker readers. Rather than detail everything here, I'll just point you to Gina's previous guide on how to consolidate all your email using Gmail.

A person could write a book on all the ins and outs involved in getting more from Gmail (this post somehow turned into a novella), so rather than do that I've tried to focus on some of the best and newest stuff above. If you've got your own favorite features or functionality that I didn't mention, or you just want to drop a "hell yeah" about a feature I mentioned, sound off in the comments.

Adam Pash is the editor of Lifehacker. His special feature Hack Attack appears regularly on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader, or follow @adampash on Twitter.

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

How to sync an iPhone with two (or more) Computers :: Shiny Things

2010-02-02T16:52:00.001-08:00

How to sync an iPhone with two (or more) Computers
2008/03/30 :: 14:48 :: iPhone, iTunes

(Or, How to sync an iPhone with one computer and manually manage music and videos on another).

Note: This tutorial allows you to add music/videos/podcasts from multiple machines. If you just want to sync PIM (Contacts/Calenders etc) on one machine and media on another there’s a simpler way. On the computer you want to sync contacts/calendar with select only these items and perform a sync. Now, on the second machine enable Music/Photos/Etc and perform a second sync. You will be warned the media library will be deleted, but as there’s no media this is fine

Because I do most of my music listening at work and my Calendar/Address book are kept in Outlook I have my iPhone setup to sync with my office PC. When I’m at home however I find I also want to put music/podcasts/videos on my iPhone for the weekend or trips.

Normally it’s only possible to sync media on an iPhone with one computer. If you try to use a second computer you get the warning below that "the iPhone XXX is synced with another iTunes library. Do you want to erase this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library"?

However, I’ve found an easy fix for this. In the instructions below I’ll show how to modify any iTunes Library so it can also be synced with your iPhone. You can then either manually manage your iPhone on a second computer, or sync different data on different machines (E.g. Music at home, Contacts/Calendar at work).

The instructions below use the example of modifying the iTunes library on my home Mac to work with my existing iPhone/PC setup. If your existing library is on a Mac, or both machines are of the same type, then the steps are identical.

Notes

On the PC you can find your iTunes folder in your "My Music" (XP) or "Music" (Vista) directory. On the Mac it is in your Music directory.

For the editing part, I recommend UltraEdit on the PC and a combination of TextExit / HexEdit on the Mac. Any hex editor will do, and you only need to edit files on the second machine.

After completing these steps you will be able to sync your iPhone with both computers, either by normal syncing or choosing one machine to manually manage your music and videos. Unless you also keep your music libraries in sync, I recommend you do not attempt to normal sync the same types of data on both machines.

Backup Your Library

On the machine you want to sync with, backup "iTunes Music Library.xml" and "iTunes Music Library" (Tunes Music Library.itl on PC) to a safe location. These are the files you will be modifying.

1) Find your iTunes Library ID

On the machine your iPhone currently syncs with, open "iTunes Music Library.xml" with a text editor and find the entry between the tags, after "Library Persistent ID". In the example below this is 8B6C633F7DACB74B. Copy this entry exactly to a piece of paper, email, temporary file etc. You can then close this file.

2) Change your Library ID

iTunes stores your library information in two places. An XML file and a binary file. You now need to change the ID in both so they match your other library.

Make sure iTunes is not running.

On the machine you want to sync with open "iTunes Music Library.xml" in a text editor. Again, find the entry between the tags after "Library Persistent ID" and copy this entry exactly. This time you can use the clipboard if you wish.

When you have a copy, replace this entry with the one you copied in part 1. Make sure you do not change anything else, and the length of the entry is 16 characters/digits. Save this file and close it.

In the Hex Editor, open "iTunes Music Library" (Tunes Music Library.itl on PC).

Select "Find and Replace" from the Edit menu. Make sure "Hex" matching is selected (not ASCII). In "Find" enter the ID you took a note of in Part 1. In Replace, enter the ID you copied at the start of Part 2. Choose Replace All, there should be one match.

Save this file and close it.

Success!

Start iTunes on the machine you wish to sync with and plug in your iPhone. When you select "Manually manage music and videos" you will no longer be prompted to erase your data, nor will the files on your iPhone be grayed out.

Additional Notes

Previously I’ve found that intentionally corrupting the binary "iTunes Library" file (e.g. replacing it with a text file) would cause iTunes to regenerate it using the XML data. This no longer appears to work for me in iTunes 7.6.1 and the "repaired" file only contains a few songs. This may be because I keep my music on an external drive but I cannot say for sure. Either way, patching the binary file does not take long and removes any chance of later problems.

via andrewgrant.org

useful hack

Posted via web from Chris's Posterous

Thin Film Turns Any Surface Into a Touchscreen - Minority Report is coming...

2010-02-02T13:17:00.001-08:00

Turning your monitor into a touchscreen could some day be as simple as peel … and stick.

Displax, a Portugal-based company, promises to turn any surface — flat or curved — into a touch-sensitive display. The company has created a thinner-than-paper polymer film that can be stuck on glass, plastic or wood to turn it into an interactive input device.

“It is extremely powerful, precise and versatile,” says Miguel Fonseca, chief business officer at Displax. “You can use our film with on top of anything including E Ink, OLED and LCD displays.”

Human-computer interaction that goes beyond keyboards and mouse has become a hot new area of emerging technology. Since Apple popularized the swipe and pinch gestures with the iPhone, touch has become a new frontier in the way we interact with our devices.

In the past, students have shown a touchscreen where pop-up buttons and keypads can dynamically appear and disappear. That allows the user to experience the physical feel of buttons on a touchscreen. In 2008, Microsoft offered Surface, a multitouch product that allows users to manipulate information using gesture recognition.

Displax’s films range from 3 inches to 120 inches diagonally.

“If Displax can do this for larger displays, it will really be one of the first companies to do what we call massive multitouch,” says Daniel Wigdor, a user experience architect for Microsoft who focuses on multitouch and gestural computing. “If you look at existing commercial technology for large touch displays, they use infrared camera that can sense only two to four points of contact. Displax takes us to the next step.”

Displax’ latest technology works on both opaque and transparent surfaces. The films have a 98 percent transparency — a measure of the amount of light that is reflected through the surface. “That’s a pretty decent transmission rate,” says Wigdor.

A grid of nanowires are embedded in the thin polymer film that is just about 100 microns thick. A microcontroller processes the multiple input signals it receives from the grid. A finger or two placed on the screen causes an electrical disturbance. The microcontroller analyzes this to decode the location of each input on that grid. The film comes with its own firmware, driver — which connect via a USB connection — and a control panel for user calibration and settings.

Currently, it can detect up to 16 fingers on a 50-inch screen. And the projective capacitance technology that Displax uses is similar to that seen on the iPhone, so the responsiveness of the touch surface is great, says Fonseca.

And if feeling around the screen isn’t enough, Displax allows users to interact with the screen by blowing on it. Displax says the technology can also be applied to standard LCD screens.

Displax’s versatility could make it valuable for a new generation of displays that are powering devices such as e-readers. For instance, at the Consumer Electronics Show last month, Pixel Qi showed low-power displays that can switch between an active color LCD mode and an e-reader-like, low-power black-and-white mode. Pixel Qi’s displays, along with other emerging display technologies from the likes of Qualcomm’s Mirasol and E Ink’s color screen are keenly awaited in new products because they promise to offer a good e-reader and a netbook in a single device.

But touch is a feature that is missing in these emerging displays. Displax could help solve that problem.

It is also more versatile than Microsoft Surface, says Fonseca. “Our film is about 100 microns thick, while Surface is about 23 inches deep,” he says. “So we can slip into any hardware. Surface cannot be used with LCD screens so that can be a big limiting factor.”

The comparisons to Surface may not be entirely fair, says Wigdor. “Surface is not just another hardware solution,” he says. “It includes integrated software applications and vision technology so it can respond to just the shape of the object.”

Still he says, Displax’s thin film offers a big breakthrough for display manufacturers because it they don’t have to make changes to their manufacturing process to use it. Displax says the first screens featuring its multitouch technology will start shipping in July.

Photo: Displax

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

Defrag Your Mind in Five Steps

2010-01-31T14:27:00.001-08:00

We recently highlighted personal development blogger Dragos Roua's suggestion to treat yourself as a computer to become the best version of yourself. One of his suggestions: Defrag your mind. Here's a closer look at what he meant.

Roua extended his brain-as-computer metaphor a bit further, offering five steps to defragging your mind. It may sound a little silly, but a lot of it is actually pretty solid advice. For example, in step three Roua explains how to establish priorities:

If you ever witnessed a defragmentation, you saw that the most frequently accessed information is usually moved in the first sectors of your hard-disk. That would make it easier and faster to be accessed. And you're going to do exactly that: make things easier to manage.

Identifying priorities is obviously closely related to the dominant setup. If you're going to work more than usual, then one of your priorities would probably be to have your laptop charged as often as possible. If your main setup would be traveling related, maybe the tool which should be constantly charged is your mobile phone.

The easiest way to assess the priority is to use a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being the higher point of the scale. Take the previously gathered information and run it through this filter. Just start practicing and in time you'll get better at it.

There you have it. Roua offers similarly good advice for each step in his mind-defrag process, so hit up the full post for his rundown.

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

2 Excellent Media Syncing Applications For Your Android

2010-01-30T12:24:00.001-08:00

When I got my Android device last Christmas, I received it with the knowledge that it would be replacing several other devices. Truth be told, most Android phones being released now have the capability to adequately replace not only the old phone, but also things like dedicated GPS devices, cameras, and MP3 players.

This article will focus mainly on Android media syncing software that allows you to use your Android device as a media player for content you already own without changing your lifestyle.

Given the fact that iPods and iPhones control the majority of the PMP (Personal Media Player) market, it’s likely that a fair amount of new Android users are moving straight from an Apple device. This means that when you plug in your Android device, iTunes will outright ignore it. This wasn’t an issue when you owned an iPod, but now that you’ve migrated to Android you’re going to have to say goodbye to iTunes.

Please note that while there are some hacks and mods to connect non-Apple devices to iTunes, most if not all of them cease to function correctly by the next iTunes update. While it’s probably possible to make this option work if you try enough options, it still won’t be very reliable or seamless. That said, try that stuff at your own risk, and I’ll offer a few iTunes alternatives here if you need them.

DoubleTwist

Whereas Salling Media Sync pretends to be a lightweight plugin for iTunes, DoubleTwist strives to replace iTunes altogether–and in my opinion it does a pretty good job. In their ‘about’ page, DoubleTwist is slated as having the following mission:

We feel that just like you don’t use a different browser for every web site you visit (Firefox to read the NY Times, IE to stream Hulu, Chrome to browse YouTube, etc) you shouldn’t have to use iTunes for Apple products, Nokia software for Nokia phones, Sony software for Sony products, etc. The typical household today has many such devices and there is a need for a simple and powerful software that connects them.

When I read that statement, I see a piece of software that will never stop improving. Although DoubleTwist is still evolving, support for numerous devices has already been added to the software. The layout very much resembles iTunes except for the fact that it connects to the Amazon music store and not the iTunes store. Luckily, DoubleTwist can still import your iTunes music, so don’t worry about losing your collection.

Luckily, DoubleTwist is relatively platform independent, supporting both Windows and Mac (with some device exceptions). You will however need to check the list of compatible devices and click on the link for your device to attain the necessary plugin to support your Android Device, making it a perfect Android media syncing app. Below you see a screenshot of DoubleTwist sifting through the music on my Motorola Droid in a very familiar itunes-like fashion.

Aside from just Android devices, DoubleTwist strives to support almost anything that can play music and connect to a computer. If you have a PSP, Blackberry, Kindle, Windows Mobile phone, digital camera, or other media device, you may very well be supported. This makes DoubleTwist an invaluable resource to anyone with a supported devices because it connects content between all of your media devices and consolidates that content in one familiar-looking, simple, effective music management and synchronization program. It’s even got its own detachable media player, much like iTunes!

Salling Media Sync (Mac Version)

The beauty of Salling Media Sync is that it works on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. This means that no matter what operating system you prefer, you’ve still got an excellent Android media syncing solution. To use Salling Media Sync correctly, you do need to have iTunes installed (which is fine, since it works on all of the operating systems mentioned as well). Once required software is installed, Salling Media is relatively straightforward and easy to use.

It’s important to note that when you connect your Android device, you need to click “mount” (on the device) to connect it as a mass storage device –otherwise Salling Media Sync will not recognize it. From there, open up the software, check off your favorite iTunes playlists you would like to transfer and hit “Sync”. I would recommend that you register for a Salling Media Sync account because as mentioned on the website, once registered the software will intelligently update your phone (which saves a lot of time and effort).

Note that video is not officially supported for Salling Media Sync, so rely on it for music, pictures, and podcasts for now. The real beauty of this software is that it’s easy to use, very lightweight, cross-platform, and of course — free! Give Salling Media Sync a try if you’re just looking to get your iTunes music onto your Android device.

In addition to Android phone support, Salling Media Sync supports a wide variety of phones running many different operating systems for both Windows and Mac, so it’s more than likely that the usefulness of this software will expand to your other media devices as well. Here’s a short video detailing how the program works on the Mac OS.

If you went and checked out the Salling website, you may have noticed that a paid version of Media Sync is available as well, touting faster transfer speeds. As a reference point, I used the free version to sync about 8GB of music to my Motorola Droid, and the entire process took less than 15 minutes. To me, that’s completely acceptable–but as the consumer it’s always up to you.

Although the Android operating system is just beginning to latch on to a considerable portion of the market, it seems that media content synchronization is still not supported extremely well from an official standpoint.

What software do you use to sync media to your Android device? Do you prefer an iTunes replacement, or simply software that communicates with iTunes for your device? Let me know in the comments section–I’d appreciate it because I still haven’t decided between the two!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

Related posts

(0)Synchronize MP3s To Non-Apple Devices with doubleTwist [Mac]

(14)Sync All of Your Media Files in One Place with doubleTwist

(67)Top 5 Free Media Players For Windows

(62)The BIG Book of iTunes [Free PDF Download]

(12)Sync iTunes Library to iPod and your Music Folder (Windows)

Sent with Reeder

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

The Best Free File Hosts To Store Your Files Online

2010-01-19T07:54:00.001-08:00

Recently, the need for space has become immense. Files have become increasingly larger, there are more things to download and so on. Personally, I run out of space on multiple drives all the time. Maybe you are trying to get a file sent to someone, but it’s too large for an attachment on your email. Possibly you want to backup some files to download later or multiple times. That is why there are free file hosts that let you store your files online.

I have found numerous different file hosting companies, many of them that supply users with an extremely small amount of space or limited features. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Filedropper – Filedropper is amazing. All you need to do to upload a file is click “Upload” and select a file.

Many free file hosting sites give users the option to upload file of up to 100-150MB, yet Filedropper allows users to upload an amazing 5GB!

When you finish uploading a file, Filedropper gives you the link and the source code to add to a website, if you like.

2. Fileqube – Fileqube is another free file hosting site. It has an awesome site design that definitely shows it’s intentions. It is also extremely fast. When you upload a file, a link is provided to download the file, a link to remove the file, and HTML code to add to a website, etc. Unfortunately, Fileqube only allows for uploads of up to only 150MB, yet most certainly one of the best.

3. MyFreeFileHosting- MyFreeFileHosting has an interface similar to MediaFire’s. It includes the option to send an notification email to someone to tell them of the upload, tags to categorize the file, etc. Of course, after one uploads the file, links are given to allow for download and distribution. The maximum file size allowed is 100MB.

4. Fileden – Fileden is one of the most useful file hosting services. Users are allowed to upload files, without an account, of files up to 100MB, yet you are allowed to register an account for free as well and receive unlimited diskspace, unlimited bandwith, the option to create projects, the ability to replace files, file statistics, project statistics, etc.

5. Easyshare – Easyshare adds even more features to file hosting. Registering and uploading files occur quickly, with accounts allowing for downloading files multiple times. Unlike other free file hosts though, Easyshare pays users for their uploads. If your upload gets downloaded 10,000 times, you’ll apparently receive $20. If you have a personalized toolbar on your website, you can receive money from their uploads through that toolbar and if you refer another person to Easyshare you’ll receive 10% of their earnings.

Another neat thing about this site is the upload options. You can upload on the site from your computer, upload using an FTP server, upload using their free software, or use a remote upload from another server. The maximum file size for a free account is 100MB.

6. FileFactory – Filefactory is similar to all of the previous file hosts, except it supports the option to send a notification email to a person of an uploaded file. Unfortunately, Filefactory contains a large amount of ads if you do not receive the premium service. Yet, unlike the other file hosts, the maximum file size is 300MB which is a large amount per file in comparison. Similar to Easyshare, users are paid for each download they receive from a certain file.

7. Badongo – Badongo is an exceptionally neat file host, and I would most certainly rate it as one of the best. As a unregistered user, you are allowed to upload up to 4.8GB a day and as a free, registered user,12GB a day. To make it similar to Filedropper, Badongo allows users to upload files of a maximum size of 1GB. When you register with Badongo you even receive an account that stores all of your files of course, but also allows users to create picture albums out of the pictures they store. This brings even more wonderful features to this awesome site.

More features include the option to create an MP3 player on your website by pasting code from your account, the ability to create slideshows from pictures with multiple effects, a file widget tool to place on websites, a desktop application for uploading files quickly, etc.

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

Know What Your Email Address Says About You - Email - Lifehacker

2010-01-13T11:11:00.001-08:00

Know What Your Email Address Says About You

Earlier this week we asked you what your email prejudices were. We dug through the comments, and now we're back to highlight how you feel about certain email addresses and what they say about the people who use them.

Opinions were passionate in comments on the article, and as of the writing of this followup are approaching nearly 500 strong. From among all the comments several clear opinions emerged on the state of email and selecting an email provider and username.

The username you select is vastly more important than the provider you use. Firstname.lastname@aol.com is preferred to and more respectable than sexkitten2010@aol.com—cutesy, offensive, or unprofessional nicknames are big mistakes.

Domains are important, especially in technology-related fields. An AOL address might be just as serviceable as any other address when it comes to sending and receiving mail but to most people in tech fields it says "Hi. I'm from 1996. What is this internet you speak of?"

As an IT exec, I definitely made judgments against prospective hires based on email addresses (as well as a wide array of other factors). It wasn't uncommon for me to have 100-500 resumes for a single open position, and I didn't care to rely on HR to sort through them, so I did it myself, and I needed some way to get down to a short-list of around 10 people. As such, it was pretty easy to toss a resume because somebody had a goofy email address. And I would certainly raise an eyebrow at a supposed IT tech who had an AOL.com address. - Mike De Lucia

As an IT manager in the tech field, I have to say that I'm a little prejudice when it comes to using a Hotmail or AOL address for business or on a resume. AOL is a more dated personal email address. Hotmail is known as an email for kids, for people who don't care if their mail is thrown out if they don't log in for awhile, and for a spam throwaway address. - Gankaku

More concerning than people using inappropriate emails handles on their resumes? Businesses that don't have their own domain and personalized email. SomeCompany@sbcglobal.net or SomeDude2049@yahoo.com were huge turn offs to readers and many expressed that they would question the professionalism of a company with such an unpolished image and do business elsewhere.

I'm a photographer and also wonder when I see other photographers without a domain name email.
It seems as though they aren't serious about their career if they haven't taken the time to create a website and therefore have a domain name email. - veronykah

The flood of comments wasn't without dissenting opinion by any measure, many commenters weighed in pointing out that it was superficial and judgmental to make snap decisions based on an email address.

I don't understand the prejudice against hotmail. I've had my hotmail address for like 15+ years. Though I've had it so long I was able to choose @msn.com for my address. Fortunately I took it over hotmail.com so maybe people don't look down on me quite so much. When I see a hotmail.com address, I think, 'wow, that person's been using email for a long time.' Read the rest of mrknowitall's comment here..

One astute observation made by several readers was that it's a huge hassle to switch email providers so most people never bother. One reader even noted that the hassle-factor could be a big reason why people get defensive:

This issue comes up every now and then, and it always gets people so riled up. People get defensive because so many e-mail services entrench their users - they can't switch to a new one without a lot of hassle. Read the rest of veblen's comment here.

As we noted in the original post, email addresses have become ubiquitous and because we had them out so liberally in professional and social situations it is worth taking the time to assess what your email address says about you. Your cute username might have been novel back in high school or college but entering the professional world it'd definitely time to retire SexyStud99 in favor of John.R.Smith.

Like your clothing, your hair style, and your manner of speaking, your email address is part of your personal image. Certainly it's a type of prejudice that a hiring manager might look over you because you have an "antiquated" email address or a "stupid" username, but that's not entirely different than a hiring manager being unimpressed that you showed up to a job interview sans a neck tie. Sure it might be unimportant or silly to you and you might say "I wouldn't want to work at a company that uptight anyhow," but it's worth taking into consideration because whether or not a prejudice—big or small!—is fair or reasonable, it is still out there.

Have an email-related story? An awkward moment revolving around an email address? Some insight as someone who handles applications or other hiring processes? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Send an email to Jason Fitzpatrick, the author of this post, at wnfba@yvsrunpxre.pbz jason@lifehacker.com
moc.rekcahefil@nosaj.

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Unionhawk
10:56 AM

Yeah, I was thinking about making my own, using-my-real-name gmail address... right now, I use one that uses my internet handle (but no, it's not unionhawk@gmail.com. I had that one, but I discontinued the account due to spam).
I think I really should, considering I'll be applying for college in the pretty near future...
Reply

Unionhawk was starred Unionhawk was unstarred

Unionhawk
11:01 AM

@Unionhawk: then again, I do have a school e-mail address... I should probably use that one. duh...
Reply

Unionhawk was starred Unionhawk was unstarred

Platypus Man
10:49 AM

OK, so I want your opinions. For the past few years, I've been using my .EDU address for all professional-level email stuff, but I'm graduating in May and I need to get a secondary Gmail account to replace this. Right now, my .EDU address is of the format first initial+middle initial+first 6 letters of your last name (my last name is 8 letters long). So, if your name was Aaron A. Aaronson, it would be aaaarons (which looks pretty awesome, actually). However, I would have no such restriction on Gmail, so should I:
A) Keep the format I'm used to from the .EDU address
B) First initial+middle initial+full last name
C) First initial+last name
D) Last name only
E) Any of these choices, but with underscores, periods, or some other punctuation mark between the names
F) Any other suggestions?
Thanks!
Reply

Platypus Man was starred Platypus Man was unstarred

AmphetamineCrown
10:54 AM

@Platypus Man: Right now I'm thinking sexkitten2010@gmail.com.
Reply

AmphetamineCrown was starred

Spaceboy
10:42 AM

My email is in the FirstMLast@gmail.com format
.I wish I had gone with the First.Last@gmail but I think that was taken.
Reply

Jason Fitzpatrick promoted this comment Edited by Spaceboy at 01/13/10 10:44 AM Spaceboy was starred Spaceboy was unstarred

Jason Fitzpatrick
11:01 AM

@Spaceboy: You can still go with that pattern.
first.m.last@gmail.com is the same as firstmlast@gmail.com as far as Gmail is concerned. The system doesn't recognize periods inside of email addresses. If you don't believe me, send an email to yourself with the periods inside your username, it'll appear in your inbox within seconds.
Reply

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how are email files us...

Posted via web from Chris's Posterous

The Schedule

2010-01-13T09:35:00.001-08:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chris <crutili@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 8:12 AM
Subject: 2010 Class Schedule DePaul Spring
To: crutili@gmail.com

Time Monday
Jan 4 Tuesday
Jan 5 Wednesday
Jan 6 Thursday
Jan 7 Friday
Jan 8 Saturday
Jan 9 Sunday
Jan 10
8:00AM
9:00AM
10:00AM
11:00AM IT 223 - 501
Lecture
11:50AM - 1:20PM
CDM Center 202 PHY 200 - 201
Lecture
11:20AM - 12:50PM
Byrne Hall 204 IT 223 - 501
Lecture
11:50AM - 1:20PM
CDM Center 202 PHY 200 - 201
Lecture
11:20AM - 12:50PM
Byrne Hall 204
12:00PM
1:00PM REL 213 - 201
Lecture
1:00PM - 2:30PM
SAC 270 REL 213 - 201
Lecture
1:00PM - 2:30PM
SAC 270
2:00PM REL 213 - 201
Lecture
1:00PM - 2:30PM
SAC 270
PHY 200 - 201L
Laboratory
2:40PM - 4:40PM
Byrne Hall 209
3:00PM PHY 200 - 201L
Laboratory
2:40PM - 4:40PM
Byrne Hall 209 4:00PM 5:00PM CSC 212 - 801
Lecture
5:45PM - 9:00PM
Lewis Center 1007 6:00PM tdtdtdtd

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

The Schedule - Depaul Spring Quarter 2010

2010-01-13T09:33:00.001-08:00

Posted via web from Chris's Posterous

Boxee Beta Officially Available for All Platforms

2010-01-07T12:13:00.001-08:00

Windows/Mac/Linux/Apple TV: Boxee--the XBMC media center spin-off that took web video by storm--has just released its first public beta into the wild. The new release comes with a new look, improved features, and a few new tricks up its sleeve.
For example, Boxee's just pushed out a very cool Boxee bookmarklet that lets you add any web video to your Boxee queue for easy access next time you're at your media center (for those times you want to watch that video on the big screen).
Stick around for a full screenshot tour of the latest and greatest Boxee release (it'll be up soon); in the meantime, Boxee enthusiasts can run over to the new and improved Boxee web site to get their download on. Boxee is a free download, works with Windows, Mac, Linux, and the Apple TV.
Boxee [via Boxee Blog]

Send an email to Adam Pash, the author of this post, at.

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

Apple Reveals New Touch Screen Technology for iPhone & MacBook Tablet

2010-01-07T08:31:00.001-08:00

On January 7, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals one of the next chapters for Apple's multi-touch screen technology.Apple's patent generally relates to displays having pixels that include capacitive elements, and more particularly to displays in which capacitive elements of the pixels that form part of the display system that generates an image on the display also form part of a touch sensing system that senses touch events on or near the display. Additionally, the patent focuses on displays including pixels with dual-function capacitive elements that translate into fewer moving parts and/or processor steps that could deliver thinner, brighter displays. While Apple's patent, in general, could only be truly appreciated by someone with a Ph. D in this particular discipline, we mere mortals are able to see that Apple will use this next generation touch screen technology on their iPhone, iPod touch and yes, a touch screen MacBook orfuture MacBook-Tablet. Apple's new displays will in part, utilize LTPS screen technology which is said to be lightning fast.

Dual-Function Capacitive Elements

Apple's patent FIG. 6A illustrates a partial view of an example touch screen having regions of pixels with dual-function capacitive elements that operate as LCD elements and as touch sensors according to embodiments of the invention.

Touch Screen with Metal Traces for Key Devices

Apple's patent FIG. 6B shown below illustrates a partial view of example touch screen including metal traces running in the border areas of the touch screen according to embodiments of the invention. The new touch screen technology that includes pixels with dual-function capacitive elements is earmarked for Apple's iPhone, other media players, Apple's MacBook trackpad and display as shown in FIGS. 62A, B and C.

In-Plane Switching LCD using Low Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon

Apple's patent FIG. 33 shown below illustrates a side view of a pixel in the example (IPS) in-plane switching LCD display using (LTPS) low temperature polycrystalline silicon according to embodiments of the invention.

According to Wikipedia, in-plane switching was developed by Hitachi Ltd. in 1996 to improve on the poor viewing angle and the poor colour reproduction of TN panels at that time. The magic comes into play when you add LTPS. According to LG, LTPS provides more than a 100 times faster TFT mobility than the amorphous silicon (a-Si) technology.

Apple credits Steve Hotelling, Shih Chang, Lili Huang and John Zhong as the inventors of patent application

20100001973, originally filed in Q3 2008.

Notice:
Patently Apple
presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application and/or grant is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application and/or grant should be read in its entirety for further details. For additional information on any patent reviewed here today, simply feed the individual patent number noted above into this search engine.

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

The Google Phone Has Arrived : Technical Specs Inside

2010-01-05T13:21:00.001-08:00

Nexus One Phone - Feature overview & Technical specifications

Power and battery
Removable 1400 mAH battery
Charges at 480mA from USB, at 980mA from supplied charger
Talk time
Up to 10 hours on 2G
Up to 7 hours on 3G
Standby time
Up to 290 hours on 2G Up to 250 hours on 3G
Internet use
Up to 5 hours on 3G
Up to 6.5 hours on Wi-Fi
Video playback
Up to 7 hours
Audio playback
Up to 20 hours
Processor
Qualcomm QSD 8250 1 GHz
Operating system
Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 (Eclair)
Capacity
512MB Flash
512MB RAM
4GB Micro SD Card
(Expandable to 32 GB)

Location
Assisted global positioning system (AGPS) receiver
Cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning
Digital compass
Accelerometer
Size and weight
Height
119mm
Width
59.8mm
Depth
11.5mm
Weight
130 grams w/battery
100g w/o battery
Display
3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen WVGA AMOLED touchscreen
800 x 480 pixels
100,000:1 typical contrast ratio
1ms typical response rate
Camera & Flash

5 megapixels
Autofocus from 6cm to infinity
2X digital zoom
LED flash
User can include location of photos from phone’s AGPS receiver
Video captured at 720x480 pixels at 20 frames per second or higher, depending on lighting conditions

Cellular & Wireless
UMTS Band 1/4/8 (2100/AWS/900)
HSDPA 7.2Mbps
HSUPA 2Mbps
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n)
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
A2DP stereo Bluetooth
Buttons, connectors and controls
Front / Top
[1] Power
[2] 3.5mm stereo headphone jack
[3] Charging and notification indicator
[4] Illuminated capacitive soft keys:
Back, Home, Menu, and Search
[5] Tri-color clickable trackball
Back / Bottom
[6] Camera
[7] Camera flash
[8] Speaker
[9] Dock pin connectors
[10] Micro USB port
[11] Microphone
Left side
[12] Volume Control
Additional features
Haptic feedback
Teflon™ coated back
Second microphone for active noise cancellation
SIM card slot
Micro SD slot
Proximity sensor
Light sensor

Graphics, video and audio

Audio decoders
AAC LC/LTP, HE-AACv1 (AAC+), HE-AACv2 (enhanced AAC+) Mono/Stereo standard bit rates up to 160 kbps and sampling rates from 8 to 48kHz,
AMR-NB 4.75 to 12.2 kbps sampled @ 8kHz, AMR-WB 9 rates from 6.60 kbit/s to 23.85 kbit/s sampled @ 16kHz., MP3 Mono/Stereo 8-320Kbps constant (CBR) or variable bit-rate (VBR), MIDI SMF (Type 0 and 1), DLS Version 1 and 2, XMF/Mobile XMF, RTTTL/RTX, OTA, iMelody, Ogg Vorbis, WAVE (8-bit and 16-bit PCM)
Image
JPEG (encode and decode), GIF, PNG, BMP

Video
H.263 (encode and decode) MPEG-4 SP (encode and decode) H.264 AVC (decode)

Audio encoders
AMR-NB 4.75 to 12.2 kbps sampled @ 8kHz

Language support
Display
English (U.S), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Korean, Japanese, Russian,

Keyboard
English (U.S), French (France), German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil),

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Apple Now Selling 350 Apps Per Second

2010-01-05T11:51:00.001-08:00

Heyzeusrollerbladingchrist. Apple has sold one billion apps since the two billion September 28 mark , reaching three billion in 98 days. That's 30,612,244 apps per day, 1,275,510 per hour, 121,043 per minute, 350 every second. Freakingnuts.
Apple's App Store Downloads Top Three Billion
CUPERTINO, Calif., Jan. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple® today announced that more than three billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store by iPhone® and iPod touch® users worldwide.
"Three billion applications downloaded in less than 18 months -- this is like nothing we've ever seen before," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "The revolutionary App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users an experience unlike anything else available on other mobile devices, and we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon."
How much is that in fart apps? And how many apps per minute would Apple sell if you counted time in dog years? What about fox years?

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Apple Dabbles With a 3D Multitouch UI

2010-01-05T11:47:00.001-08:00

A recently released patent by Apple shows that they are one of several companies dabbling with the idea of a 3D mulitouch interface. In this case, a "touch screen device, method and graphical user interface for manipulating three-dimensional virtual objects."
Will we see this sort of technology on upcoming Apple products like the tablet? Probably not, but it is interesting to point out that Apple went to some lengths to "disguise" the patent under the names of three obscure French employees. That might be business as usual for Apple, but it could also mean that they are serious about moving beyond standard pinching and zooming.
[ Baltimore Sun ]

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Avatar Makes $1 Billion in 17 Days

2010-01-04T11:31:00.001-08:00

Apparently, the $300-$500 million budgetpaid off. Right now, with over $1 billion in worldwide sales, Avatar is the third highest grossing movie of all time. It could even take down Titanic 's $1.8 billion record. [Inquirer via Techie via boingboing ]

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Fox News “Confirms” Rumored Jan 26 Apple Event, Focusing on “Mobility”

2010-01-04T07:17:00.001-08:00

Fox News’ Clayton Morris is upping the ante on the rumored January 26 Apple Media Event, not only saying it’s the real deal, but that it will focus on “mobility”:

I’ve spoken to a source inside Apple who confirmed a “big” event for January. While nothing official has been handed down from the notoriously tight-lipped company, my source took the Financial Times report one step further by saying this event will focus on the mobility space, meaning we’ll see something related to the iPhone/iPod touch product line.

An earlier than usual iPhone 4.0 preview to give developers time to go resolution-independent for an iPhone HD? A camera-toting iPod touch to p!$$ off everyone who got the camera-less version for Xmas? An announcement that Apple is taking itself fully to the cloud? Or just some iTablet/iSlate the entire interwebs have been gossiping about for years?

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UltraNewb: How to move your iTunes library to an external drive

2010-01-01T02:50:00.001-08:00

Now that you've been going to town adding music andmovies to your iTunes library, your hard drive's pretty crowded - and all those space-hogging media files might have a better home on that empty external hard drive you've got set up.

iTunes has a (deservedly) bad reputation for taking total control of your music and videos, including where they live on your computer. It wasn't always easy to move your library in past versions of the software, but happily iTunes 7 makes relocating an existing media library pretty painless - that is, with a little know-how. Here's how to get it done.

WARNING! Before you do this, back up your iTunes library files. This method isn't the official one published by Apple - theirs still keeps iTunes' internal database files in the default location - so make sure you've got a full backup before you begin in order to avert possible iTunes disaster. Thank you.

Change your settings. First, in iTunes' Preferences panel, in the Advanced section, make sure "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" is checked, as well as "Keep iTunes Music folder organized." Then, in the "iTunes Music folder location" area, click on the Change... button, and enter the folder on your external drive you want to move your library to.

Hint: Store your music in a subdirectory of the destination. Like, if your new spot is D:\iTunes\Gina\, set your music folder to D:\iTunes\Gina\Library\.
Move your music. Now that you've set the music location to the destination folder, it's time to relocate the actual media files. iTunes can do it for you. From the Advanced menu in iTunes, choose "Consolidate Library." You'll get a prompt that looks like this:

That is exactly what you want, so hit the Consolidate button. Depending on how large your library is, this process may take some time to complete.
Move the internal iTunes files. Now that your music is moved to the new location, you're almost there. While the actual media files themselves are now in the destination, a few other internal iTunes database files and album artwork images have been left behind. This move you must make manually. So, quit iTunes, and browse to your original library location. Select the "Album Artwork" folder, as well as the iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Library.xml files and copy them to the clipboard. Browse to your new library location and drop 'em in.

Hint: here's where that music sub-directory you created comes in handy. If your music lives in D:\iTunes\Gina\Library\, drop these files and folder into D:\iTunes\Gina\.

Point iTunes to the new library database file. Now you've got two copies of your library, one in the source (internal drive) and one in the destination (external drive). To point iTunes to the new location, hold down the Shift key (Option on the Mac) when you launch iTunes. When it asks what library to use, click the "Choose Library..." button and browse to the iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive.

From there, iTunes will use the new library location and you can delete your old library folder and free up all that space on your hard drive it hogged up.
Bonus: It's portable! Using this method, you can plug in your external hard drive to another computer (PC if you've got iTunes on Windows, or another Mac if on the Mac) and as long as it gets assigned the same drive letter, you can access your full library, with play counts, playlists and other metadata intact from anywhere. Booyah!
— Gina Trapani

via lifehacker.com

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Start Programs Automatically With USB Agent

2009-12-11T20:55:00.001-08:00

It sometimes can be quite handy to start programs automatically when a new USB storage device is connected to the computer system. This can be an USB flash key or external hard drive. Applications that come to mind are automatic virus scans of the data on the drives or the start of True Crypt or another data encryption program if data on the USB storage device is encrypted.

USB Agent is a portable software program that provides this functionality. It requires some manual preparation before it will execute the programs. This should not take longer than a few minutes the most though. The most important step in the process is the creation of a new file on the USB device that has to be named usbagent.inf. The following information need to be added to the file after its creation (with a text editor):

[usbagent]
ON=start-app.exe
OFF=stop-app.exe

where start-app.exe and stop-app.exe need to be replaced with executables or batch files that the user wants to execute if the USB device is connected and disconnected. The executables and batch files can be stored on the USB device by using the format

ON=%basepath%\start-app.exe

where %basepath%\ is pointing to the root folder of the USB device.

USB Agent comes with an option to mount True Crypt containers that are stored on USB devices. This can be a handy option to automate the mounting of the encrypted container. The portable software is available at the developer’s German website. A link to Google Translate is listed at the top of the page to translate the page into a different language. The program itself is available in English and German and compatible with Windows 2000 and newer Microsoft operating system including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.

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Your Friend is sharing the "Apple maintains "Think Different" trademark" link with you.

2009-12-09T23:59:00.001-08:00

"Apple maintains "Think Different" trademark" - TUAW.com
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/12/09/apple-maintains-think-different-trademark/?icid=px-iphone

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, the public's perception of the company was grim. To make a long story short, Steve's plans for resurrection included changing that, and the "Think Different" campaign was among the first steps. There were television ads, print ads and slogans printed on Apple packaging.
The phrase was replaced with the "Switch" and "Get A Mac" campaigns, but didn't disappear for good. A portion of the poem from the TV ad can be found on the high-res version of the TextEdit icon in Leopard and Snow Leopard. Earlier this year, "Think Different" began appearing on 21.5" and 27" iMac boxes.
This week, Patently Apple reports that the US Patent
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Mashable!: HOW TO: Use Social Media to Retain Customers

2009-12-08T11:35:00.001-08:00
http://c.notify.me/ch1CAA
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Untitled

2009-12-03T09:17:00.001-08:00

Sent from my iPhone

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Untitled

2009-11-27T21:26:00.001-08:00
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BitTorrent Tracker Mininova Goes Legal-Onl

2009-11-27T21:18:00.001-08:00

Mininova, one of the web's go-to aggregators for BitTorrent trackers, hasdeleted nearly every torrent on its site in response to a court order. Only torrents uploaded by approved partners in its legal distribution network survived the cull and will continue to be allowed. There are, of course, plenty of alternatives for torrent fans, and technologies for a steadier BitTorrent future, but excuse us if we feel a tad bit nostalgic over the quieting of a brand name in torrent distribution. [TorrentFreak and BBC News]

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Amazon Offers Three FREE MP3s of Your Choosing

2009-11-25T15:32:00.001-08:00

Amazon is running a brief promotion (ends November 30th) offering $3 worth of MP3s from Amazon MP3 for free. Just head to this page , follow the directions, and enjoy your free credit. Jason mentioned this in today's deals of the day , but we all know how important music can be to getting work done , so take advantage. [Amazon via UneasySilence ]

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BitTorrent's Future: DHT, PEX, and Magnet Links Explained

2009-11-25T15:30:00.001-08:00

Last week The Pirate Bay confirmed it would shut down its tracker permanently, instead encouraging the use of DHT, PEX, and magnet links. This move confounded many BitTorrent enthusiasts, who were confronted with confusing new terminology and technology. Time for some explaining.
The Pirate Bay's recent confirmation that they had closed down their tracker since DHT and Peer Exchange have matured enough to take over, was coupled with the news that they had added Magnet links to the site. This news has achieved its aim of stimulating discussion, but has also revealed that there is much confusion over how these technologies work.
The key thing to understand is that nobody is being forced to use Magnet links or trackerless torrents. While these long-standing technologies may prove to be the future, they will co-exist with tracker-enabled torrenting for quite some time. For now, nobody will be forced to immediately change their existing downloading habits, although it may be wise to switch to a BitTorrent client that is compatible with these technologies.
In an attempt to clear some of the mystique surrounding DHT, PEX and Magnet links we will walk through all three briefly, hoping to assure those who've become confused earlier this week.
DHT and PEX in action
DHT
Using DHT instead of trackers is one of the things The Pirate Bay is now trying to encourage, and torrent downloads that rely solely on this technology are often referred to as "trackerless torrents. " DHT is used to find the IP addresses of peers, mostly in addition to a tracker. It is enabled by default in clients such as uTorrent and Vuze and millions of people are already using it without knowing.
DHT's function is to find peers who are downloading the same files, but without communicating with a central BitTorrent tracker such as that previously operated by The Pirate Bay.
DHT is by no means a new technology. A version debuted in the BitTorrent client Azureus in May 2005 and an alternative but incompatible version was added to Mainline BitTorrent a month later. There is, however, a plugin available for Azureus Vuze which allows it access to the Mainline DHT network used by uTorrent and other clients.
Peer Exchange ("PEX")
Peer Exchange is yet another means of finding IP addresses. Rather than acting like a tracker, it leverages the knowledge of peers you are connected to, by asking them in turn for the addresses of peers they are connected to. Although it requires a "kick start", PEX will often uncover more genuine peers than DHT or a tracker.
Magnet links
Traditionally, .torrent files are downloaded from torrent sites. A torrent client then calculates a torrent hash (a kind of fingerprint) based on the files it relates to, and seeks the addresses of peers from a tracker (or the DHT network) before connecting to those peers and downloading the desired content.
Sites can save on bandwidth by calculating torrent hashes themselves and allowing them to be downloaded instead of .torrent files. Given the torrent hash -- passed as a parameter within a Magnet link -- clients immediately seek the addresses of peers and connect to them to download first the torrent file, and then the desired content.
It is worth noting that BitTorrent can not ditch the .torrent format entirely and rely solely on Magnet links. The .torrent files hold crucial information that is needed to start the downloading process, and this information has to be available in the swarm.
Pirate Bay links cf. Mininova links: When the Magnet link specification first came out, in January last year it called for a particular format ("base32 encoded"). The links that EZTV, Mininova and ShareReactor have displayed for some time all conform to that original specification. In May of last year the specification was changed, in favor of "hex encoding", and that is the format of the links being displayed by The Pirate Bay. Torrent clients should accept either format.
Compatible Clients
All the main torrent clients: uTorrent 1.8.5, Vuze 4.3.0.2, BitTorrent 6.3, BitComet 1.16, and Transmission 1.76 (and others) support Peer Exchange and DHT (via a plugin in the case of Vuze). Neither BitComet nor Transmission yet support Magnet links but Transmission is planning to include Magnet link support in the upcoming 1.8 release. Bearing in mind that no site, including The Pirate Bay, has yet abandoned support for traditional torrent files, there is plenty of time for support to be added.
We hope that this article has cleared some of the smoke that was generated by The Pirate Bay's announcements earlier this week. There is no need to panic, cry or be angry, and it's not a problem if you're still confused after reading this article. Torrents will still be available and aside from some extra downloading options thanks to sites that add Magnet links, nothing drastic will change in the near future.
BitTorrent's Future? DHT, PEX and Magnet Links Explained [TorrentFreak]

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Try Google New Search Interface

2009-11-25T15:28:00.001-08:00

Google has, according to some Gizmodo readers, begun offering up a bolder but more condensed view of its home and search results pages to certain users. Take a full-size look, and try it out for yourself with some JavaScript magic.
Our own tips box isn't lit up with readers seeing this new, more Google-Wave-like interface, but Gizmodo reader Matt Karolian sent over these pics that look a little bit too polished and thought out to be a reader joke (we'd hope/think). Most notable is the permanent sidebar being shown, which breaks searches down into "News," "Maps," "Everything," and the more familiar drop-down "More" options.
Update: Google Blogoscoped already has a JavaScript tweak that gets anyone into Google's new look test. Head to Blogoscoped, copy the code, paste it into your address bar, and refresh Google's page. You may, like Phillip (and I), have to sign out and back in to get it to work, but it did eventually show up for me.
What do you think of Google's maybe-new look? Could the search giant use a new coat of paint after all these years?
Google Search's New Interface Being Tested Now [Gizmodo]

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Lifehacker's Guide to Making the Most of Black Friday

2009-11-25T15:20:00.001-08:00

Black Friday: It's a day when you can either score killer deals on gear or pay way too much for too little. The amount of planning and strategy you use is the biggest factor in whether or not you'll get burned.
Photo by mecredis .
Black Friday marks the traditional point in the year when retailers stop operating at a loss (in the red) and start turning a profit (in the black), and they manage to accelerate that shift by separating lots of people from their money with Thanksgiving sales. If you plan well, this separation can result in a fantastic deal for you. If you plan poorly, it'll result in not only a lack of a good deal but a day wasted out in the cold.
The following tips, tricks, and resources can help you avoid wasting a perfectly good day off and ensure you get what you're looking for at the price you want.
Is It Worth Your Time?
Before you even begin to contemplate running the Black Friday gauntlet, you need to ask yourself how much your time is worth. If you're throwing a wrench into plans to spend time with friends and family to save a couple hundred bucks on a laptop that isn't all that great to begin with--and the store only has 5 in stock--it's likely worth more just to enjoy your time with family and keep an eye on our Dealhacker posts here at Lifehacker . We pore over hundreds of deals a week and can say with authority that Black Friday-like deals happen all year long thanks to the magic of the internet.
The best way to decide if it is indeed worth your time is to take the next tip to heart.
Check Product Reviews and PricesBeforehand
Don't fall into the trap of buying something just because it's such a great deal. A $250 laptop that doesn't do half the stuff you really want it to do is not a bargain compared to a $500 laptop that does. Research relentlessly, take the stack of advertisements and your list of Black Friday sites, and get information about the purchases you want to make. Reading reviews by fellow consumers and consumer-friendly publications is invaluable. You want to buy a super awesome and cheap GPS-EleventyBillion+1 unit? Hit some of these sites to make sure it's not crap and that the price is right:
Amazon
Newegg
Epinions
Consumer Reports
Buzzillions
Wize
If you find reviews on both Amazon and Newegg from hundreds of customers talking about how bad the signal reception is on the GPS-EleventyBillion+1, you'll know it's not worth waiting in line for--even if it is dirt cheap. If you have a cellphone you can browse the web on, now would be a great time to bookmark the mobile versions--when available--of the sites above. When you're in the Black Friday trenches, you can pull out your cellphone and check the ratings and prices right in the store.
Check Online Availability

More and more retailers are trying to grab a slice of the online market while more and more consumers are opting not to brave Black Friday for deals. This works strongly in your favor. Check out sites focused on deal hunting likeFatWallet , SlickDeals , and Black Friday-focused sites like BlackFriday.info ,BlackFriday Ads , and TgiBlackFriday . Not only will you get info about regular in-store Black Friday deals, but you'll find out about online deals. We don't know about you, but staying up until midnight on Thursday night to score a few good deals online and then going to bed is way better than sitting on a sidewalk outside of Best Buy only to find out that you weren't early enough for the good stuff. Photo by mborowick .
Read The Fine Print

Not reading the fine print is a sure fire way to get burned on Black Friday. Whether you're looking at the fine print on the bottom of a newspaper circular or a web site, you need to check it closely on Black Friday deals. What time does the store open on Black Friday? Are some or all of the deals time sensitive? Often stores will run deals like 15% off all electronics until 10AM or some such variation. How many of the deep-sale and door-buster items will they have in stock? How do they handle door buster items? You don't want to go to a store where people have to stampede to get to the good items; you do want to go to a store that hands out door tickets to the early shoppers so nobody gets hurt trying to scramble for the good items.
Get There Early
How early? Real early. You think you're a serious Black Friday shopper, but you're not. Not by a long shot. Some people have been planning for Black Friday all year. They read deal sites like you read the news, make spreadsheets to compare prices over the year to Black Friday and argue with other deal hounds about the ethics of bribing your relatives to help get extra loot or just how evil it is to hide merchandise in washing machine at Sears.
You're not going to just stroll into the line at 7AM to get that $2,000 HDTV marked down to $999--you'll be standing behind deal hunters who have been camped out since the day before. You'll need to scope out your local stores on Thanksgiving day to see just how crazy the line build up is. Again, referring to the first tip in our list: How much is it worth to you? A grand off a high-end television might, for some, be worth spending the night huddled outside a Sears. Wear layers, bring something warm to drink, and be courteous to the people in line with you. Aside from just being an upstanding person, being courteous can pay off when someone holds your spot when you have to use the bathroom or offers to buy an additional item for you when there is a one-per-customer limit.

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Pi (1998) : Eureka!!

2009-11-24T22:08:00.001-08:00

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Pi (1998) : Eureka!!

2009-11-24T21:56:00.001-08:00

Posted via web from crpost

Pi (1998)

2009-11-24T21:55:00.001-08:00

Posted via email from Chris's Posterous

Time	Monday Jan 4	Tuesday Jan 5	Wednesday Jan 6	Thursday Jan 7
8:00AM
9:00AM
10:00AM
11:00AM	IT 223 - 501 Lecture 11:50AM - 1:20PM CDM Center 202	PHY 200 - 201 Lecture 11:20AM - 12:50PM Byrne Hall 204	IT 223 - 501 Lecture 11:50AM - 1:20PM CDM Center 202	PHY 200 - 201 Lecture 11:20AM - 12:50PM Byrne Hall 204
12:00PM		PHY 200 - 201 Lecture 11:20AM - 12:50PM Byrne Hall 204		PHY 200 - 201 Lecture 11:20AM - 12:50PM Byrne Hall 204
1:00PM		REL 213 - 201 Lecture 1:00PM - 2:30PM SAC 270		REL 213 - 201 Lecture 1:00PM - 2:30PM SAC 270
2:00PM		REL 213 - 201 Lecture 1:00PM - 2:30PM SAC 270		REL 213 - 201 Lecture 1:00PM - 2:30PM SAC 270 PHY 200 - 201L Laboratory 2:40PM - 4:40PM Byrne Hall 209