Coffee Klatch

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.

Today I found a website that has pictures somebody Photoshopped to make resemble cartoons from Gary Larson’s The Far Side. Lots of really funny stuff. I think it’s pretty cool that some people used their creativity and technological knowhow (whether PhotoShop or art programs) to put together this homage to Larson and his comic strip, which is STILL one of my all-time favorites! The site is via Worth1000.com and was a contest where people submitted entries in the style of The Far Side in return for unlimited wealth and fame. Well, at least for a moment of glee.

Check it out!

This is an oldie-but-goodie.

THE TOP TEN SIGNS YOUR CO-WORKER IS A COMPUTER HACKER

10. You ticked him off once and your next phone bill was for $20,000.

9. He’s won the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes 3 years running.

8. When asked for his phone number, he gives it in hex.

7. Seems strangely calm whenever the office computer network goes down.

6. Somehow gets HBO on his PC at work.

5. Mumbled, “Oh, puh-leeez” 95 times during the movie “The Net.”

4. Massive 401k contribution made in half-cent increments.

3. His video dating profile lists “public-key encryption” among hobbies.

2. When his computer starts up, you hear, “Good Morning, Mr. President.”

1. You hear him murmur, “Let’s see you use that Visa card now, Professor I-Don’t-Give-A’s-In-Computer-Science!”

I read a really good tip recently on Jeff Sickles’ blog. You know how Windows Updates will take care of getting you the latest patches and updates, but how it will do it on its own time and then keep pushing you to reboot your computer? I’m fine with needing to reboot my computer, but I HATE being forced to unless I click a “wait” button every ten minutes. Sometimes I want to finish what I’m working on first. How about you?

Well, Jeff shared the instructions for turning OFF that auto-restart function. You still should restart the computer at your earliest convenience, but if you don’t want to be forced to right away (or forced to keep clicking “not yet” every ten minutes), here’s what you need to do:

Instructions

1. Open a command prompt window (Start > Run )

2. Type cmd (just the three letters) into the box and click ‘OK’ or hit enter

3. In the black window type the remainder of this line: sc stop wuauserv

This command stops the service which popup the restart dialog. Now you can restart the operating system when you are done with your work. The auto update service will restart next time the computer reboots and will automatically downloads available updates.

There you go.

Facebook has a new chat function now. That must have been what they were installing when the servers were down for an hour two earlier this week.

While you’re in Facebook doing anything, you have a new little status bar at the bottom, with a box for your availability and another box that says how many of your friends are online. You can click that, pick their name, and chat with them right from within Facebook, without having to have any other program. Best of all, you can minimize the chat windows and you’ll get a tiny red box popping up with the number of unread messages you’ve received. That helps keep the chat box from getting in the way while you’re working on your next bingo in Scrabulous or whatever.

Kinda neat, seems to work well, and is a nice value-added feature.

I read an interesting story today. It was from Wired Magazine and was called The Mac Guru of Damascus in the Case of the Missing Laptops. It’s an interesting story about an American journalist who was in Damascus, Syria, and got his computers stolen from his apartment. It ends well, is interesting and worth the read.