better.faster.smarter

Cheap Hosting!

kennethrdenson — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 01:41:11 +0000

This evening I went looking for inexpensive web hosting. I have used a free service before called freehostia which is great if you don’t need a loads of bells and whistles. Unfortunately, Freehostia doesn’t use a recent version of PHP, which WordPress requires.

I looked at some of the hosting services that WordPress recommended, and saw that DreamHost has one-click installation of WordPress, but requires paying for a year up front or paying a 50 dollar setup fee. Well, I’m crazy about the idea of shelling out more than a month’s worth of hosting at a time so I went looking for a deal, and ran across a fantastic site for finding deals, including $50 off any package at DreamHost. That takes care of that $50 setup fee.

Web Hosting Top

Don’t pay more than you need to.

Green Tea Gets the Coca-Cola Treatment

kennethrdenson — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 02:34:49 +0000

I’ve been fat and I’ve been thin (well relatively anyway), but lately I’ve been trying to get thin again. And part of my change in diet has drinking some green tea in place of sodas. Well maybe Coca-Cola is going to help me out with that. Check it out at Slashfood.

Greasemonkey

kennethrdenson — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 02:10:57 +0000

As soon as the news of an updated Google Reader hit the blogs a week or so ago, I gave the web app another shot at being my rss reader of choice. The functionality that I was looking for was a way to easily send posts to friends through my gmail account. Bloglines makes it a little tricky, but Google Reader nails it spot on. Now Greasemonkey developers have gone to work on the app, producing a script that allows you to search the specific feed that you are reading or all of your blogs. This is a helpful feature while we wait for Google to sort out it’s own search for Reader.

(Thanks to Download Squad)

How Many of Me?

kennethrdenson — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 01:24:48 +0000

Uneasy Silence has an interesting link to a site called How Many of Me that allows you to look for people in the U.S. Census data. It turns out that there are 75 people with my name. This site will give you some stats on your name, including the name’s popularity.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
75
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Google Maps for Palm Treo

kennethrdenson — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 00:58:54 +0000

I know it came out a few days ago, but I thought it was worth mentioning that Google Maps was released for the Palm Treo. Now all of you Treo-loving ~~nerds~~ can enjoy the same on-the-go navigation that we Blackberry users have enjoyed for a year or so now. Go download it now!

Speed Up Your XP Boot Time

kennethrdenson — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 00:07:58 +0000

College v2 reminded me today about the wonders of msconfig. This nice little feature lets you kill all of those unnecessary startup programs that launch at boot up on your pc. I had forgotten about this function and Adobe startup files were making me crazy.

To quick your start time follow this process:

Click on Start —> Run.

In the field type “msconfig”. A dialog box will pop up and one of the tabs is “Start up”. Here you can uncheck and remove programs that run automatically when windows starts.

(via College v2)

Living in the Inbox

kennethrdenson — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 23:46:17 +0000

Merlin Mann has a few nice, obvious tips for improving your life in the short term. I particularly found number four to be helpful, as I stare at my over flowing inbox next to my desk. I think I have to get that sorted through this weekend.

Get out of your inbox – Many of us are habituated to living out of our email inbox, voicemail, and the other “in baskets” of our lives. Instead, try to set aside regular, periodic times when you trawl for the new content in your life — then get back to work! Inboxes are delivery systems, not workspaces. The real work is happening in your brain and practically every other place that’s not an inbox. Stop allowing yourself to be brow-beaten by the latest, loudest, or most dramatic item that’s landed in your world.

Battle of the Mobile Homepages!

kennethrdenson — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:38:43 +0000

I ran across an article the other day (I forget where) and it was all about the new mobile version of ask.com. The article got me to thinking about mobile websites, which are the best (most useful, most pleasing, functional, etc.) I personally have set the browser on my device to open up to my bookmarks, so that no time is wasted. But I used to set the PDA version of Google as my homepage. But there are quite a few sites out there that have portable counterparts, for better or for worse.

Google Mobile

This is the site that I go to when I need a search page. (typically I use Berry411 for search, but this is useful if I already have the browser open.)

Windows Live Mobile

Windows Live Mobile is a full featured portal that has a lot of tools at hand for easy access. For my taste, it’s a little too much on a small screen, but the MSN Money on the homepage is a nice feature. Where’s the search box?

Yahoo Mobile

Yahoo Mobile belongs to the same school of thought as Windows Live. It has several links to various Yahoo properties, and imports a few headlines for conveinc. hen I am logged in, it shows the current weather here in Austin, Tx and tells me how many emails I have in my neglected Yahoo Mail! account. Where’s the search box?

AOL Mobile

I’ve never used this. But then again, I never used AOL much either.

Ask Mobile

All the popularity of Ask.com in a small package! (sarcasm?) Where’s the search box?

Google Reader Mobile

I love Google Reader Mobile! I used this mobile site more than any other. It has great integration with the full-size version, but I wish it had a “share” function and an “email” link for each post so that I could categorize them on the fly. But it helps me beat back the 250+ feeds that I read.

Bloglines Mobile

I used this before I recently converted over to the new Google Reader. Bloglines served me well for years, but lacked Gmail integration, which of course, Google Reader has.

Remember the Milk Mobile

I love this site. It’s been out for a while, but I like that it has mobile access, which to me seems critical for a web app that wants to be your task list. Give me blackberry integration and I will gladly use this app instead of Outlook Tasks.

This list is by no means exhaustive, WAP Review does a great job of reviewing mobile sites.

How to Use OneNote on Multiple Machines

kennethrdenson — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:26:32 +0000

When I was in college and using OneNote, I carried My Notebook around on a flash drive and updated it manually on my laptop and desktop. Which worked fine unless you accidentally overwrote the wrong version and lost all of your notes for the day…or week. Not that I ever did that, of course.

Anyway, Chris Pratley has a post about how to keep your Notebook on a personal site, or the “hard drive in the sky”.

Of course it’s a little late for me, as I’ve already moved over to Google Notebook, but it might be just the thing for you students or professionals out there.

(via Lifehack.org)

Weather Watcher

kennethrdenson — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:01:44 +0000

I have tried WeatherBug, but I didn’t like it’s chirping and nagging to upgrade. I tried Desktop Weather but it was gaudy and annoying. I like Forecast Fox, but I don’t always have my browser open. And then last week I tried Weather Watcher, and now I am happy.