Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Monday, March 03, 2008

Beef Up Your Firefox Downloads with DownThemAll 1.0 [Featured Firefox Extension]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/243569233/beef-up-your-firefox-downloads-with-downthemall-10

Firefox/Thunderbird (Windows/Mac/Linux): If you download a lot of files through your browser, chances are Firefox's default download manager doesn't really impress. Luckily there's DownThemAll, the free Firefox extension and download manager that makes managing, speeding up, and supercharging your downloads a breeze—and today, DownThemAll has updated to their 1.0 release (after over a year without a major release). The new DownThemAll boasts more stability, increased performance, an updated interface, along with a few new features. DownThemAll is free, works with virtually any Mozilla application. If you're new to the download manager, check out our guide to DownThemAll.

DownThemAll [Firefox Add-ons via DownThemAll]

Definition Inspiration from Visual Thesaurus [Webapps]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/243994096/definition-inspiration-from-visual-thesaurus

View the relationships between words using webapp Visual Thesaurus which displays synonyms, antonyms, adverbs, and adjectives for any particular search word. Enter a phrase in the search box. Your search term will appear in the center of the screen and additional nodes will crop up to indicate related terms. Click on any of these nodes to dig deeper and get more word associations. Mouseover any node to get a quick definition. Visual Thesaurus is a powerful tool that quickly builds vocabulary. The only downside is that the application runs for a limited amount of queries and then you're prompted to pay the $2.95/month fee. (Tip: Reopen the Java application and you can run additional searches.) Previously mentioned VisuWords does nearly the same thing (albeit slower) and is completely free.

Visual Thesaurus

Make a Wish List from del.icio.us with del.ishli.st [Del.icio.us]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/244831353/make-a-wish-list-from-delicious-with-delishlist

Having an easily-accessible wish list means not having to be unpleasantly surprised at your friends and relatives' ... creativity when a birthday, holiday, or plain old surprise rolls around. Rather than creating separate, often hard-to-find wish lists on sites like Amazon or Newegg, del.isili.st can pull any sites you've tagged on social bookmarking site de.icio.us with the phrase "wishlist" and display them on a clean, white page of links. The main drawback is that you have to keep the del.icio.us links public, so anyone could potentially see your material goods fixations, but most wish lists are public on other sites anyway. Del.isihli.st is a free site and requires no sign-up.

del.ishli.st [via etc.]

Create Electronic Greeting Cards from Flickr with Phreetings [Ecards]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/244394673/create-electronic-greeting-cards-from-flickr-with-phreetings

Create greeting cards in a flash using Flickr photos with webapp Phreetings (which quite appropriately stands for photo + greetings). Simply enter in a search phrase and watch as hundreds of images come up. Drag the image of your choosing into a separate pane. Enter a greeting phrase and choose a color scheme. Phreetings will generate a random URL that you can then send off to your friends. The process takes all of 30 seconds and it addictive to use with the number of thumbnails that come up for your choosing.

Phreetings (Photo + Greetings) [via GeekSugar]

Record companies don't share money extorted from file-sharing fans with artists

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/243193843/record-companies-don.html

The record industry has sued over 20,000 music fans to "protect artists' copyrights." But they haven't turned over any of the money to artists (of course, they never forked over any of the money from my.mp3.com, Grokster, Napster, etc).

A contingent of prominent artist managers claims that little to none of that money has trickled down to their clients. They are now considering legal action.
"Artist managers and lawyers have been wondering for months when their artists will see money from the copyright settlements and how it will be accounted for," said lawyer John Branca, who has represented Korn, Don Henley, and The Rolling Stones, among others. "Some of them are even talking about filing lawsuits if they don't get paid soon."

Link (via /.)

TED 2008: Robert Lang, origami expert

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/243436230/ted-2008-robert-lang.html

(I'm liveblogging from TED 2008, in Monterey, CA)

Presenter: Robert Lang, origami expert

Origami has been around for 100s of years. It didn't change until 1970s when it experienced a Cambrian explosion in variety and techniques. It got richer and more interesting because people started applying math.

The secret to origami, and so many other things, is to let dead people do your work for you, like looking at the geometry of disk packing.

Four simple laws can give rise to very rich complexity in origami. They have to do with properties of crease patterns, angles around a vertex, layer orders, and valleys and ridges. If you obey these laws you can make anything. He has a program on his website that will show you the fold patterns needed to make anything. (You give it a stick figure, it shows you the folds.)

He shows how he uses these mathematical ideas to fold a square sheet of paper into anything.

Origami has applications in other areas, like a solar array that flew in a Japanese satellite telescope, umbrella telescope, solar sail, airbag, heart stent (origami may save a life).

DIY iPod video projector boosts utility

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/244844990/

Filed under: Displays, Portable Video

There's only one thing (okay, so maybe that's a stretch) that we love more than a mod that gives you all sorts of bragging rights: a mod that adds all sorts of utility. Tanntraad's most recent concoction -- a DIY iPod video projector -- most certainly ratchets up the PMP's functionality, as this homegrown device requires no external power, a ridiculously small amount of parts and no prior experience as a projectionist. Needless to say, the resulting unit blows up the video on your iPod for an entire room to see, and while we're sure the quality is nothing to write home about, you can give it a go yourself by following the instructions in the read link below.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

MSI Motherboard Fan Powered Without Electricity [Peripherals]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/243669526/msi-motherboard-fan-powered-without-electricity

Fans of green technology will undoubtedly be glad to hear that MSI has developed a working concept design that utilizes Stirling Engine Theory to power a motherboard fan. Instead of conventional electricity, the fan will harvest heat emanating from the processor to function.

Interestingly enough, during a recent visit to their HQ in Taiwan, MSI told TweakTown that they "would probably end up adding the world's first powerless air cooler to an Nvidia motherboard." Nvidia? No wonder MSI boards suck. [TweakTown via Boing Boing Gadgets]

GROW Shingles Shame Leaves and Solar Panels [Eco]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/244047121/grow-shingles-shame-leaves-and-solar-panels

While the future of solar technology seems to rest on nanotechnological innovation, these GROW panels by SMIT are fairly remarkable. Inspired by leaves, these tiny generators do one better than their biological counterparts, drawing power from the sun, but also capturing energy from the wind as they are jostled by the breeze. Developers currently showcasing the technology hope to sell modular kits through art/design resellers (as opposed to typical industrial outlets). Unfortunately, we're guessing that this more accessible purchase will have a major price trade off. [SMIT via inhabitat]