Archive for March, 2008
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
Staying on the Facebook theme for a bit, I want to give you two more tips for better Facebooking. As you know, implemented in your Firefox browser is a list of search engines that you the user can utilise instead of opening the page itself.
In addition to the default list, Mozilla also provides extra search engines that you can add to your browser. If you are technologically inclined you can also make your own, or if you’re like me you can rely on smarter folks at the Mycroft Project to come up with search engines instead.
On the Mycroft page just enter any address (for example Cnet.com) and chances are that someone has already come up with a search engine for that site. To make life easier, I’ve added my usual haunts such as NewEgg.com and IMDb.com. You could most likely find an engine for any site that has a search feature.
Facebook Search Engine
If you’re like me, you sit at your desk working and all of a sudden a name you haven’t heard, let alone spoken, in over 10 years will pop into your head and you will wonder, “Hmmm, I wonder if Such and Such is on Facebook.” Instead of pulling up the entire Facebook page, just choose the Facebook search engine, enter Such and Such’s name and voila! The Mycroft Project has a Facebook.com search engine that can be found here. Choose the first one on the list.
Facebook Autopoke 2.1
One last piece of Facebook ware is another script for Greasemonkey. The last time I spoke about Greasemonkey, I recommended Facebook Remove App Requests, and No Facebook Applications. Since then I see that Facebook has installed a button called “Ignore all Requests”. At last!. The other two are still valid, I guess. I also want to recommend a script called Facebook Autopoke 2.1 which does exactly what it says. If someone pokes you, it will poke them back and fulfill your poking obligation. Nice eh? Besides, poking is stupid and you probably don’t want to waste your time doing it. Of course, as with the others, if you want to use this, you need to get Greasemonkey first. Get it here.
Gimp
The last tip is some software a lot of you probably already know about. If you can’t afford Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator and/or feel guilty about stealing it, Gimp will ease your consciences.
Gimp, as described on its website, is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. If I knew more about photo retouching, image composition and image authoring, I would talk more about it, but I don’t, so I won’t. But I can tell you that all of my headers for this site (excluding the current) I’ve done using Gimp – not that that’s such a great recommendation considering the fact that I have no artistic skills. In any case, Gimp is free, very versatile (from what I understand) and version 2.4.4 is available here (Windows 2000 and above only). If you are installing Gimp, you need to install GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment FIRST in order for it to work. Get GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment here.
Posted in Tech Tip | 9 Comments »
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
I‘m not sure how many of you got a chance to catch the Stanford 20/20 final on Sunday night, but the game was great. I just wish the West Indies could play like that sometimes. Hats off to all the Jamaicans for reaching the final, but something went woefully wrong with their game. I can’t remember the last time I saw any cricket team collapse like that.
Congratulations to the guys and all, but I just wanted to say that I find it incredibly interesting that they left Tobago off the cheque. How in the world could they let that happen? No wonder Tobago feels left out.
I have to apologise for the quality of the picture, but I had to snap a photo of the TV since the early demise of my TV card many months ago.
Posted in Cricket, Sports | 4 Comments »
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
At about minutes to three on Sunday afternoon while farmer Ronald John was tending to his animals, he was witness to a gang of rabid Pompecks from the neighbouring farm who had raided his farm, gang raped and subsequently slaughtered three of his goats.
Farmer John recalls standing a ways off cleaning up the residue of a Petrotrin oil spill that killed 4 of is ducks including his lucky four-legged duck nicknamed ‘All Fours’. Not even an extra pair of legs could save All Four’s jack from being hanged.
Farmer John said that while washing down the oil spill with 2 gallons of leaded gasoline and a yard broom, the gang of rabid Pompecks tore down his brand new barbed wire fence and squared off with the goats grazing in the open. The goats put up a good fight but one by one they were eventually subdued and taken advantage off. The goats were able to run a short distance before collapsing into the oil spill.
Police who were called to the scene didn’t show up. It wasn’t their fault this time, though as they were on their way but were given a “bad drive”, which caused them to swerve into the westbound lane and veer into the path of an oncoming Ministry of National Security vehicle. Two of officers survived, but the third who was rushed to the Dr. Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, later succumbed to the irony of being hit by a National Security vehicle.
However, had the officers shown up, they would have reported that the goats had a criminal history dating back many years and had several matters before the courts. They would also have said that the goats were suspects in a series of robberies up and down the East/West Corridor. They would also have suspected that the attack was a revenge killing for last week’s murder of a Poodle/Doberman mix nicknamed “Chinee”.
National Security minister Martin Joseph has said that while there has been a decrease in the increase of goat rape there is still work to be done to halt the scourge. He also added that the Ministry of National Security is working assiduously to ensure that something like this does happen again so that the population will become numb to it and will quit grumbling about the crime rate already.
Closed Circuit cameras lining the streets to the farm were checked for any recordings, but it was discovered that although they were paid, they’ve never really worked. Luckily, however, the blimp was hovering overhead and recorded some video of the incident which is officially available via Bluetooth from all participating high school students.
Posted in Crime | 9 Comments »
