Archive for the ‘Learning’ Category
StumbleUpon Alternatives for Your Firefox Bookmarks Toolbar
Saturday, December 13th, 2008If your a StumbleUpon addict like myself, chances are, you have gotten “You have seen all your topic here pages. Explore others…” as a result of pecking at the “Stumble!” button like a demented, tic-tac-toe playing chicken.
While reviewing more sites can add a little spark back into your stumbles, it’s a bit of a “cart and horse” problem if the main way you find interesting sites is through StumbleUpon. It seems some alternatives are in order. If you are using Firefox, drag any of the following links to your Bookmarks Toolbar:
- Random Wikipedia – Wikipedia provides a special link that will pick an interesting article for you to read – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
- Random Del.icio.us – Del.icio.us provides a link redirecting you to one of it’s more recently added links.
- Random Google – If you have Google Web History turned on, this link, http://www.google.com/searchhistory/items?op=rec_rd&cd=ifb&hl=en, will take you to a random link related to your previous surfing history. Google provides the same functionality through recent version of their Google Toolbar.
There are also StumbleUpon-like services out there, like SpinSnap and Youlicit, but I like keeping the above links around for a quick, random-link fix.
Dugg up – When old blog posts come back from the Dead
Sunday, October 26th, 2008I am on the tail end of the effects of appearing on the front page of Digg. I hadn’t posted in a while (major new job, new church building, new home group, etc., etc.) so I was a bit off guard when I got an email from my shared hosting company, saying they had disabled my front page due to excessive CPU usage (load average of 70, mostly my fault).
Like a good programmer, my first thought was “What has changed?” quickly followed by the recollection that Wordpress 2.6.3 had released a few days ago and I updated it last night.
I would now like to take a moment to ask for forgiveness from the anonymous Wordpress developers who’s names I took in vain and accused of being far less talented than they actually are. I am deeply sorry and it won’t happen again. I hope…
It wasn’t until I got WP-Super-Cache installed and the site back up, that I took time to look at the stats. Over 8000 hit in a few hours and rising quickly!
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6 Tools for Keeping Kids Safe with Open Source
Thursday, January 31st, 2008My family uses open source software almost exclusively. Everyone from the toddlers to the teen to the Mrs. have what they need to play games, chat with friends, manager emails, surf the web, keep busy schedules straight, do homeschooling, and pretty much anything they may want to do. (more…)
What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years
Friday, January 25th, 2008I started using Linux as my primary desktop and operating system in 1998. After brief flirtations with FVWM 95 and Enlightenment, I settle on Gnome (with it’s various WMs over the years ) and Redhat/Fedora (until switching to Ubuntu last fall ). (more…)
Uhhh… the sea monkeys have my money…
Saturday, January 19th, 2008The last vestiges of my childhood sense of wonder have just died. The have become road-kill on the information superhighway under the wheels of Wikipedia. Let me explain…
My daughter just received a box of Sea-Monkeys for her birthday. The world became a bit wavy as I flashed back to my childhood. Memories of waiting anxiously for 24 hrs. while the “Water Purifier” packet prepared my soon-to-be new best friends’ home. Then peering intently into the Sea-Monkeys kingdom as they instantly sprank to life from the contents of the “Instant Life Eggs” packet. (more…)