Coffee Klatch

For all those who forward emails about hoaxes, viruses, or free rewards “just in case.” And for their friends. Everyone say it with me…

1. I will NOT get bad luck, lose my friends, or lose my mailing lists if I don’t forward an e-mail.

2. I will NOT hear any music or see a taco dog, if I do forward an e-mail.

3. Bill Gates is NOT going to send me money and Victoria’s Secret doesn’t know anything about a gift certificate they’re supposed to send me.

4. Ford will NOT give me a 50% discount even if I forward my e-mail to more than 50 people.

5. I will NEVER receive gift certificates, coupons, or freebies from Coca Cola, Cracker Barrel, Old Navy, or anyone else if I send an e-mail to 10 people.

6. I will NEVER see a pop-up window if I forward an e-mail … NEVER — EVER!!

7. There is NO SUCH THING as an e-mail tracking program, and I am not STUPID enough to think that someone will send me $100 for forwarding an e-mail to 10 or more people!

8. There is NO kid with cancer through the Make-a-Wish program in England collecting anything! He did when he was 7 years old. He is now cancer free and 35 years old and DOESN’T WANT ANY MORE POSTCARDS, or GET-WELL CARDS.

9. The government does not have a bill in Congress called 901B (or whatever they named it this week) that, if passed, will enable them to charge us 5 cents for every e-mail we send.

10. There will be NO cool dancing, singing, waving, colorful flowers, characters, or program that I will receive immediately after I forward an e-mail. NONE, ZIP, ZERO, NADA!

11. The American Red Cross will NOT donate 50 cents to a certain individual dying of some never-heard-of disease for every e-mail address I send this to. The American Red Cross RECEIVES donations.

12. And finally, I WILL NOT let others guilt me into sending things by telling me I am not their friend or that I don’t believe in Jesus if I don’t forward their message!

Now, repeat this to yourself until you have it memorized and send it along to at least 5 of your friends before the next full moon or you will surely be constipated for the next three months and all of your hair will fall out!

(And if you’re ever unsure about whether or not to forward that email, PLEASE check http://www.snopes.com/ first!)

One of the real benefits of using Firefox is that there are so many “add-ons” or “plug-ins” that people create and share. One that I just found (and that I really like) is called DownloadHelper. It’s compatible with Firefox3 and it detects any videos on the page you’re viewing and allows you to easily download them. This could be YouTube, Google Video, or any number of other sites that share videos. That in itself is handy, but many videos are Flash-based, with a .flv extension and you need to install a special player to play those and they’re not really standard. What you really want is to convert them to .avi or .mp4 files. Fortunately, DownloadHelper has its own add-ons that include conversion tools.

Once you’ve added the DownloadHelper plug-in (and restarted Firefox, of course), you can right-click on the toolbar button and select Preferences. There’s a tab there for Conversion. You click that and check the box to turn it on. Then you can edit the rule to convert to whatever format you like. You WILL need to download an extra Converter program, but there’s a button right there to do that. Follow the instructions. When you’re done, you’ll be able to click and download, converting at the same time, so the end result is the video you want in the format you want.

Pretty cool!

You do have to be patient though. Once the download is done, then the conversion takes place. The only way to find out when it’s done (besides checking for when the file size stops changing) is to view the Converter Queue (right-click on the toolbar button for that also).

Something I thought of this morning while pumping some gas. So many other technologies have cartridge-ized things or developed ways of refilling fuel (or similar liquids or powders) in cleaner, less accident-possible ways. That seems to be the way of technological development. So why hasn’t gasoline done that?

It used to be that copy machines and printers required pouring toner into them when they ran out, but eventually the technology people developed ways of putting the toner into a cartridge, so the end user just replaces a cartridge. No more spills or messes. The same has been true in variety of other media, such as laundry detergent and even coffee. So why not gas?

Gasoline is often touted as bad for the environment. In pollution-sensitive areas, there are stickers on the gas pumps saying “Please do not top off tank” because it’s an environmentally protected area and top-offs can lead to gas spilling out onto the ground. Gas tanks underground are notoriously pollutive and if they leak, all kinds of precautions have to be taken. So for all the dangers of gas spills and for all the millions of people who pump gas and are human, why hasn’t there been a method developed for getting the gas into the vehicle tanks without humans having to actually handle the liquid? I’m not asking why we’re not battery-powered or solar-powered or anything. I’m just saying that some kind of container or even hose that latches on and delivers the gas to the tank would eliminate spills and help protect the environment.

If the foreseeable future involves gasoline-powered vehicles, somebody should develop a cleaner, simpler way of delivering the fuel to the gas tanks.

My $0.02.

Current music: Glassworks, by Philip Glass

You’ve probably heard of Tag Clouds by now. This morning I read on Michael Stephens’ blog about a site called Wordle. It’s a similar idea to that of tag clouds, but instead of collecting the tags that have been applied to something and visually displaying their popularity, Wordle looks at all the words in any text you provide and creates a cloud based on the most commonly used words in the text. It doesn’t look like there’s much of a word limit in this Java-based application. I was able to copy and paste a 15-page paper and generate the cloud from it and Michael’s example was the first two chapters of his dissertation. You can either save your resulting image to their Wordle Gallery or else save the screenshot by hitting Print-Screen and pasting it into Paint, MS Word, Adobe Photoshop or Acrobat or whatever.

One very cool thing about this program (apart from its existence) is that the “cloud” not only has the words in different sizes, but different colors, fonts, and alignments. Some words are vertical and some are horizontal, with the resulting image being a mishmash of words in different directions, sizes, and colors. You can even customize the layout and choose “mostly vertical,” “all horizontal,” or even “every which way.” Pretty cool!

The day has finally arrived. Imagine my disappointment when I got up this morning and couldn’t download the new version of Firefox. After poking around a bit (eventually finding the answers in the FAQ), I found out that “Download Day” starts at 10:00am Pacific Time today. So now I’ve got almost five more hours to wait. Sigh….

To get the latest status, visit their Twitter posts. After 1:00pm Eastern Time today, you can download the new Firefox from their Download Day Headquarters. If you download it from this site, you’ll receive a customized certificate showing your participation in their quest for the Guinness record.

Download Day for Firefox 3 is Tuesday, June 17! Put it on your calendar and be ready to download the new version of Firefox and help them break the world record!

Here’s a cool online clock. It’s called the Human Clock and it features pictures of people with numbers. You can set your own time zone and then any time you view the page, you see the time in the form of a picture that someone uploaded. Yes, you can upload your own pictures, too, and add them to the mix. So if you’ve got a favorite landmark, building, pet, person, or whatever, just take a picture of it with a time showing somewhere and submit it.

Current music: Days of Future Passed, by The Moody Blues

Firefox 3 is coming out in “early June!” I can’t wait! And I just read on Topher’s blog that they’re hoping to set a new Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in one 24-hour period.

You can get more info on the Mozilla Blog post that discusses the event and points you to the Download Day Headquarters. This is also the site where they’ll be officially announcing the release date. And they’re even taking pledges now for people who plan to download Firefox 3. Go there and sign up now and you’ll even get an email reminder from them as the date approaches.

Want to have still more fun? Find a party near you (or host your own) where the guest of honor is Firefox 3.

Go Mozilla! Go Firefox! Oh, Martha May! Oh, Christmas! (oh, wait a second…)

If you’re not familiar with Google Maps Street View, you really need to be. It fills in the gap left by maps and photos taken from satellites. Sure you can plan your route and even see what the areas look like when you zoom in, but that’s only from up above. What about the FRONT of a building? Enter the Street View, another map view setting that actually allows you to see what the buildings look like from the street. You can even zoom in and out and move up and down the streets. Now THAT’S helpful!

What Google did was had cameras mounted on vehicles which drove up and down each street taking pictures. Then they’re all assembled in Google Maps. This is quite cool and I’ve already found it very helpful in planning trips to places I’ve never been before. When you can see what the buildings actually will look like as you drive up to them, you’re more confident.

Here’s where it gets REALLY interesting. An entire subculture has grown up around these Street View pictures. It’s only logical that with so many millions of pictures you’re bound to get a few that are unusual, rather than simple pretty shots of nice buildings on sunny days. For the most part, it’s probably people with too much time on their hands, but what has developed is a community of “online sleuths” who look for and collect these bizarre pictures. Some of those mentioned the most are a car on fire, a man running down the street in a scuba outfit, and a boy falling off his bike in his driveway (one picture shows him on it, the next shows him on the ground).

The Google Street View Gallery has quite a few really interesting or entertaining shots taken by the Google cameras. News.com.au also has a gallery of some favorite images. And it’s not like you have to go someplace special to see them–THEY’RE RIGHT THERE IN GOOGLE MAPS!

If you find some of your own, go to http://streetviewgallery.corank.com/ and set up a free account. Then you can add your own finds and comment on others’.

Current music: Adventures in Early Music - Documented by DHM

I‘m on Mars!

The Phoenix Mars Lander has successfully landed on Mars at the North Pole. Its mission is to analyze ice samples found a couple of inches below the surface, examining them to see if the water samples could have supported microbial life.

Also on the Phoenix is the first library on Mars. It is a collection of literature and art related to Mars and is on a micro-DVD along with the names of over 250,000 people who support it. My name is on the list, so I’m a part of that interplanetary library! Woo-hoo!!

For more info about the journey to Mars and the landing of the Phoenix, visit Space.com.