I know there haven’t been many updates lately, and that will likely continue for the next week. I’m off to Ottawa on Wednesday for a conference and then to Waterloo to spend some time with my friend Scott. I haven’t seen him since his wedding in June so it’ll be nice to have a visit. Have a great week!
Most of us have trouble deciding what to eat each day or even each meal. How would you like to be in charge of planning the menu for the first space mission to Mars which could last a minimum of 2.5 years! Wired has an interesting article about what food scientists are working on in order to be prepared for the appetites of the astronautes. Give it a read and it may just make planning your next meal seem a little easier!
The picture to the left may not look all that exciting, and to you it might not be. However, for someone like me who is trying to quiet the noise of three different computers all in my living room, this fan may be a life saver. It’s a Panaflo 80mm low-speed, low-noise fan. They are made for use in a wide range of electronics and all the reviews I’ve read about them have been very positive. The noise levles are supposed to be only 20-21 dba from these fans which is about the same as whispering to somone five feet away from you.
The first computer that needed silencing was my old AMD 333 Mhz machine that’s used as the web server. Considering there were only 2 fans in the whole box - one on the processor and the other in the power supply - and the processor one had just been changed, the only noise being generated by fans had to be coming from the power supply. I followed the directions on various websites which all cautioned about completely discharging the power supply before opening as well as voiding my warranty. Seeing as the computer was so old, I wasn’t too concerned about the warranty, but I did take the directions about how to properly open and work on the power supply very seriously. After the power supply had been unplugged for about 30 minutes, I opened it up, removed the old fan by taking out the screws and snipping the wires. I then connected the new fan by twisting the wires together and taping them up. I put everything back together and back into the tower. When I started up the server again, near silence! The only noise I hear now is a very faint whir of the hard drive spinning up and the fan is only audible if I put my ear right up to it.
Next weekend I’ll be silencing my main tower and my MythTV box! I’ll post the results!
Most people out there hate all the spam email they receive. The way spam is usually generated is from signing up for something on the internet and giving your email address. Then, that company may give your address to someone else, then someone else…. you get the idea. However, the problem is that many sites these days are requiring you to register before you can access the information you want. Some people setup a separate email account to use in these situations, however, these next two options are even better.
The first one I would recommend is called dodgeit.com. Whenever you need to give an email address on a site, just make up anyname@dodgeit.com and put that in. Then when you want to get your email, you don’t even need a password - just goto www.dodgeit.com put in the name that you just made up, and you’ll see your email messages. You can’t delete them or anything, but who cares - you’ll get the information you need from that email and you don’t have to worry about getting spam at your regular email address.
The other service is called Spam Hole. For this serive, you just goto their site, sign up for an email address and they will forward any mail that gets sent to that address to your regular email address - but only for the amount of time that you specify. So, you can sign up for 30 minutes if you wanted, get the email that you need, and then that email address expires before any spam can be sent to you. Very cool!
Next time you need to give an email address on a website, consider these two options to help fight spam!
I’m a little late on this posting, but Firefox 1.0 Preview was released at getfirefox.com. They are aiming for 1 million downloads of this browser in the first 10 days of its release. The site may be a little slow at first, but once the download starts, it’s very fast. For those of you that still don’t know what Firefox is even after all my posts, it’s an alternative web browser with built-in pop-up blocking and much more secure than Internet Explorer. Give it a try - it’s completely free! On a similar note, the stand-alone email client from Mozilla, Thunderbird has also been upgraded to version 0.8. If you use Outlook or Outlook Express, it might be the time to look at Thunderbird as your mail client as it too is much more secure.
Back in the spring, I had mentioned on my site that I was working on a new hobby project called MythTV. What this will do is function as a PVR (personal video recorder) acting like a Tivo would for American television viewers. Basically, it allows scheduling of television recordings to the harddrive of a dedicated computer for playback at a later time. People that currently use PVR’s claim that they rarely watch “Live TV” anymore since the PVR allows much more flexibility. I am pleased to say that this project is almost complete. I will be writing many articles in the coming weeks explaining what I’ve had to do to get my setup working, as well as details of the hardware and software that I’m using. My goal was to have this completed before the new seasons of my favourite television shows start this Fall and after this weekend, it should be complete. If you are interested in setting up your own PVR, check out the MythTV website and keep checking back here for more information about how I got started.
For those of you with access to G4 Tech TV, I wanted to remind you all that their best show (in my opinion) is all set for another season to begin today. They have moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles, built a new set, hired a new co-host, and are ready to get back to making a great show. Let’s hope it is. More information about the show, including articles for featured segments, can be found at www.thescreensavers.com. Enjoy!
In my Gmail inbox today I was greeted with 6 Gmail invites. If you or someone you know would like one, email me at hoyd@hoydnewsnetwork.com. I’ll start with people I know and if there are any left, it will be first come, first served.