fractalbrothers, you dig?

Google to deploy fiber optics!

2010-02-11T11:35:00.002-06:00

Google "fiber for communities" - Google's new fiber optics project - is looking for a town (presumably having between 50,000 and 500,000 residents) to deploy fiber-to-the-home connections in. The connection will be up to 1 GBPS (yes 1 gigabit per second!) - that's insanely fast compared to my measly 5 mbps download speed. The fiber connection will be open to other service providers as well so you can choose which ISP you want to go with. Great- competition is always good and healthy in a free market - it drives quality up and prices down.

This is going to be a FiOS killer to be sure.

http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi

bigfishaudio for virtual instruments, drum loops, and music loops

2010-01-10T13:39:00.003-06:00

So, what is the best place to get sweet virtual instruments, drum loops, and music loops for just about any software (addictive drums, acid, akai MPC, apple loops, drumcore, reason, gigastudio, wav, etc)?

The answer is bigfishaudio.com.

If you're a serious music producer, go check it out. Definitely worth your time. You can listen to samples of all their loops and samples in high quality and they offer sweet bundles for a variety of different genres.

Cheapest .com domain name

2009-12-17T08:14:00.002-06:00

Looking to buy a .com? The time has never been better (or maybe it has? I don't know) than now for buying a .com domain name for cheap from Godaddy. Just use the coupon code BUYCOM99 at checkout and get your .com domain name for 99 cents. Seriously, at this price, you really can't refuse. You can get your domain from godaddy.com and hosting from hostmonster.com (be sure to use coupon code fbwh to get the $3.95 unlimited bandwidth special) and get a website going for less than 100 bucks for 2 years! That's cheap folks.

If you are looking to renew your domain in the future, be sure to go to retailmenot.com to find a coupon - you can usually save 30% or so.

Logitech X-540 5.1 channel surround sound system

2009-12-08T02:02:00.002-06:00

Great deal on the Logitech X-540 5.1 channel surround sound system over at geeks.com. Use code "GG1" at checkout to get the Logitech X-540 system for $49.99 instead of $59.99.

This sytem sells for around 90 bucks normally at most retail stores and 60 bucks normally at geeks.com so grab yourself one or two, they make great gifts for Christmas. (Especially for gamers!)

Amazon Kindle vs. Netbook

2009-12-05T04:50:00.001-06:00

The Amazon Kindle is a fairly cool piece of gadgetry. It can download books over a 3g connection, it uses an electronic ink display so that it looks like paper in normal daylight, and it only weighs 10.2 ounces. Sounds pretty cool, right? Sure, if you want to pay $259 for the thing.
...No thanks!
I'd rather buy a netbook, such as an Acer aspire one for 10 bucks more, or an HP mini 110 1020NR for 40 bucks more. The netbook will not only let me read stuff, but also is a fully functional computer that can surf the web, write documents, listen to music, watch videos, etc. You could even install the free kindle for PC application and viola - you have a much nicer gadget that can do so much more - for not much more money (or even less).

your blog traffic : double it overnight

2009-11-02T00:51:00.004-06:00

Do you want to double your blog traffic practically overnight with a couple minutes of work? Well, you've come to the right place to find out how. Of course, I'm totally stupid for not doing this from the very beginning, and I knew I should all along but was too lazy to actually do it.

Ok so here it is. How to double your blog traffic overnight: switch around your title tags so that the title of the post is first, and the name of your blog is second. Every last one of my blog posts that were indexed by google were being truncated so that only my blog's name and description were visible and the rest, totally ignored. Keywords not considered. Bad.

Now, when my posts are indexed, the title shows up first for all that extra SEO goodness.

If you are wondering how to switch your title tags around, there are plenty of tutorials out there that show you just how to do it. If you are using wordpress it is significantly easier than if you are using blogger (like me) (especially the old blogger.. grumble)

Proof about the increase in organic search traffic? Here is a screenshot of my overall traffic increase (don't make fun of my crappy traffic numbers) and traffic specifically from keyword searches, respectively (in Google Analytics).

cell phones cause cancer after all?

2009-10-26T03:03:00.002-05:00

A $30 million World Health Organization report is now saying that long term use of cell phones may cause cancer. The World Health Organization has been doing the study for a decade and is now finding results that show a significantly increased risk of certain brain tumors after a period of 10 years or more of heavy cell phone use.

Suddenly I'm a little bit happier that I have my cell phone stuck to the side of my head for less than 300 minutes per month.

However, I'm skeptical of the study. The definitive answer on whether cell phones cause cancer has shifted from "yes" to "no" and back more times than the "is butter or margarine better for you?" argument.

After all, we get bombarded with radio frequencies all day long, every day. Granted, the sources of that radiation aren't stuck to the side of your head, but still.

Get Windows 7 cheap at newegg!

2009-10-22T19:33:00.004-05:00

Newegg is having a launch special for Windows 7. This is essentially a 10 dollars off discount.
You can get Windows 7 professional for $139.99 (regularly $149.99), Windows 7 Home Premium for $99.99 (regularly $109.99), and Windows 7 Ultimate for $179.99 (regularly $189.99).

I am using windows 7 now and I can tell you a couple things:

The release to market version of windows 7 is much tighter and usable than Vista (or XP for that matter) was.
Windows 7 feels snappy and responsive, and compatibility, while still not perfect is improving and is much much better than Vista when it was launched.
If you are a student, look at your university or high school and see if you can get a discount on Windows 7. It's well worth the upgrade.

Does Google punish Entrecard users? an SEO question

2009-09-28T22:21:00.003-05:00

I am aware that there have been rumors that Entrecard users are subject to getting "slapped" by Google for installing the Entrecard widget. However, it has been my experience that this is not the case (at least, yet). How do I know? Well, earlier today, I was interested in the topic, "how to roll over a 401k". I am about to do just that, so I searched for that exact term in Google. To my surprise, the top ranking site, genxfinance.com, has the Entrecard widget installed. I won't even bother telling you the pagerank because pagerank is dying anyway. It is obvious however that they get a nice amount of traffic because they have nearly 5,000 subscribers.

Right away one can tell that the reason they rank the highest for that search term is that their post is absolutely top quality. Their site is nicely laid out, and their content is top notch. On top of that, the traffic they've driven to the site generates comments which provide more keyword juice for google and further boost rankings.

If you have any other examples of websites that rank well for a particular high competition keyword or keyword phrase, please leave it in the comments. I'd love to see them.

Get more traffic to your blog by exposing your RSS feed

2009-09-24T18:57:00.004-05:00

Getting your blog read by as many people as you can to generate traffic is the name of the game. One of the most common ways to get your blog read is to have an RSS feed. Here are a few ways to make your RSS feed more visible to search engines and programs.

Have a link to your RSS feed on your website. This is common, however, some people forget to put the type="application/rss+xml" attribute in their anchor tag that links to the RSS feed.
Other programs, browsers, and spiders also may look for a link meta tag. Put this inside your blog's head tag:
Get your feed submitted to as many free (or paid if you prefer) RSS feed directories. There are plenty of them out there, just spend a little bit of time searching. The more of these directories you submit to, the more traffic your blog will start getting. Here are a few to start with: free RSS directories submission list, free RSS directories, best blog directory and RSS submission sites
Every time you post a new article, ping your blog with autopinger.com. They ping the most popular directories and this will help you get traffic, guaranteed. However, don't abuse the system, only ping when you have new content. If you ping too often you could get banned from the ping services or get punished by search engines for spamming.

Remember, the more you can expose your RSS feed, the more traffic to your blog you will get. My list is by no means comprehensive so explore every way to get more readers for your blog.

the cool kid's way to make transparent TF2 sprays

2009-09-23T01:34:00.004-05:00

Just about every tutorial you read out there to make transparent TF2 sprays (or other source engine games) involves making a .tga file with an alpha channel.. but this isn't necessary (at least in my experience!)

It is much easier to make your spray as a PNG. You don't have to mess with the alpha channel - just make your transparency by deleting areas of your image or by starting with a transparent canvas and painting/pasting/typing on top of it. Just make sure that:

Your image is 256x256 pixels, RGB, 8 bits per channel
When you import the image (your PNG) into VTFedit, uncheck the "Generate Mipmaps" checkbox. For tranparent images, make sure that the "Alpha Format" dropdown is on "DXT5". everything else can stay default.
When VTFedit loads your image, you should be able to see the transparency. If not, check if view > mask is unchecked and check it.
Save your VTF. (file > save as)
Copy your spray (the VTF) into : steam\steamapps\{username}\TF2\tf\materials\VGUI\logos
Also copy your spray into : steam\steamapps\{username}\TF2\tf\materials\VGUI\logos\UI
When you load Team Fortress 2, to to options > multiplayer tab and import your spray.
Enjoy!

Here's the spray I made using this method:

Yes keyboard cat from the shirt "three keyboard cat moon" from threadless.com! =D

Belkin Wireless G USB F5D7050 Windows 7 drivers

2009-09-21T03:47:00.003-05:00

Are you looking for the Belkin Wireless G USB F5D7050 Windows 7 drivers? If so then you will be pleasantly surprised, as I was, that the Belkin Wireless G adapter works out of the box with Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit. This came as a relief because the Netgear WG111 v2 would not work in Windows 7, even with Vista 64 bit drivers.

So, if you are looking for a wireless G usb adapter that will work in windows 7 (and you don't want to pay for a wireless N adapter) then look no further than the Belkin Wireless G USB F5D7050.

Drivers for the Belkin F5D7050

Kohjinsha makes some very cool netbooks

2009-09-19T16:19:00.003-05:00

Kohjinsha, a japanese netbook manufacturer, makes a very attractive line of netbooks. In fact, I'd have to say Kohjinsha makes some of the coolest netbooks i've seen yet, with features such as swiveling screens, GPS, touch screen, optical drives, AMD geode processor, and windows vista. Pretty cool. Netbooks are gaining popularity because there are a growing number of people who don't need a full sized laptop, yet want to check email, get on social networks (such as twitter, facebook, flickr, threadless, etc) and make video calls through skype or google talk - enough to where doing it on a smart phone could be cumbersome or impossible. Take a look at Kohjinsha's line of netbooks:

SX3KP06MS (8.9" UMPC with integrated DVD Super Multi Drive)

Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with service pack 1
Intel® AtomTM Processor Z520 (1.33GHz)
1GB DDR2 Ram
60gb hard drive
Bluetooth Ver,2.0+EDR
CD/DVD Drive
Wireless LAN： IEEE802.11 b/g
8.9" Wide TFT Color LCD (LED Back light) with Touch Screen Resolution (Standard Resolution (1280×768)
2 Camera: (Front Camera: 0.35 Mega Pixels, Rear Camera: 2 Mega Pixels)
4 Separate Media Slots: SD Memory Card (SDHC Compatible) / MMC Card compatible ; Memory Stick Duo / Memory Stick Compatible
Approx 1.25kg (with Standard Battery)

SC3KP06GS (7" UMPC with GPS)

Genuine Microsoft®Windows Vista® Home Premium with ServicePack 1
Intel® AtomTM Processor Z520 (1.33GHz)
1GB DDR2 Ram
60GB hard drive
Bluetooth Ver,2.0+EDR
PCMCIA ExpressCard
Wireless LAN： IEEE802.11 b/g
7" Wide TFT Color LCD (LED Back light) with Touch Screen Resolution (Standard Resolution (1024×600)
Camera: 1.3 Mega Pixels
3in 1 Media Card Slot: SD Memory Card (SDHC Compatible) / Memory Stick / MMC Card compatible
Approx 820g (with Standard Battery)

SR8KPO6S (First 7" UMPC with integrated DVD Super Multi Drive)

Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium
Intel® processor A110(800MHz)
1GB DDR2 Ram
60GB hard drive
Bluetooth Ver,2.0+EDR
CD/DVD Drive
Wireless LAN： IEEE802.11 b/g
7" Wide TFT Color LCD (LED Back light) with Touch Screen Resolution (standard display) WSVGA (1024×600)
Camera: 1.3 Million Pixels
3 in 1 Media Slot: SD Card (SDHC/SDIO) / Memory Stick / MMC Card compatible, CF Card Slot (Type-II) x 1
Approx 1.1kg (with Standard Battery)

SH610BS (7" wide, LED backlight with touch screen display)

Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Basic
Intel® processor A100(600MHz)
512MB DDRll Ram
Hard Disk 120GB
Bluetooth Ver,2.0+EDR
Wireless LAN： IEEE802.11 b/g
7" Wide TFT Color LCD (LED Back light) with Touch Screen Resolution (standard display) WSVGA (1024×600)
Camera: 1.3 Million Pixels
3 in 1 Media Slot: SD Card (SDHC/SDIO) / Memory Stick / MMC Card compatible, CF Card Slot (Type-II) x 1
Approx 985g (with Standard Battery)

SA1F00KS (7" with touch screen LCD)

Microsoft® Windows XP Home Edition
AMD Geode LX 800
512MB DDRl Ram
Hard Disk 40GB
Bluetooth Ver,2.0+EDR
Wireless LAN： IEEE802.11 b/g
7" Wide TFT Color LCD (LED Back light) with Touch Screen Resolution (standard display) WVGA
3 in 1 Media Slot: SD Card (SDHC/SDIO) / Memory Stick / MMC Card compatible, CF Card Slot (Type I & II) x 1
Approx 990g (with Standard Battery)

The netbooks are being sold in Japan and on some Hong Kong websites, and a few are popping up on ebay but it looks like they haven't really hit the US market yet in full force. I hope that will happen soon and drive the price down (the SA1F00KS is currently $480)

Comparing budget chipsets: Intel vs. AMD

2009-09-18T03:26:00.003-05:00

I read a great article comparing the Intel P55 chipset and the AMD 785 chipset. According to the article at computerworld, the AMD chipset handily beat the intel P55 and G41 chipsets in both performance and value. The systems were tested with similar hardware - same power supply, same hard drive (Western Digital Velociraptor), and the same operating system (windows 7 RTM) and 2GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory. Here are the specs:

Memory latency:
AMD 785: 47 nanoseconds
Intel P55: 41 nanoseconds
Intel G41: 84 nanoseconds

Throughput (with Stream):
AMD 785: 12223 Gbits/second
Intel P55: 11627 Gbits/second
Intel G41: 5499 Gbits/second

Left 4 Dead framerate test:
AMD 785: 37 fps
Intel P55: 33 fps
Intel G41: 15 fps

Keep in mind that Intel still dominates the high end processor realm with its core i7 processors. The core i7 is still faster than the AMD Phenom II 965 Black edition, however, performance per dollar is still AMD's forté.

And let me just disclose that I am an AMD fanboy because for some reason, games just seem to run smoother on AMD based systems despite getting slightly fewer frames per second. I'm not really sure why that is, but it's true, I swear to Thor.

photoshop CS4 slow fix

2009-08-31T01:06:00.003-05:00

If you are experiencing an extremely slow photoshop CS4 (especially compared to photoshop CS3), I have the solution for you (updated Aug 31, 2009).

Photoshop CS4 is slow, and I am able to update my software (new).

For Windows users, download the photoshop CS4 11.01 update.
For Mac users, download the photoshop CS4 11.01 update.

Photoshop CS4 is slow, and I don't care about the 3d features.

If you are unable to update your software, there is another way to fix the choppy photoshop performance. Simply click on edit > preferences > performance, then uncheck "Enable OpenGL Drawing". This fixed the problem for me, which was choppy layer dragging, panning, etc. Worked like a charm.

Photoshop CS4 is slow, but I want to leave 3d features on.

In this case, the only solution is to upgrade your video card and/or drivers or get the 11.01 update (see above).

firefox 3.5 is not without its share of problems.

2009-08-23T17:42:00.002-05:00

Mozilla's newest version of their browser, firefox 3.5, has its fair share of problems. I just upgraded to firefox 3.5.2 and it has not been 100% awesome and sexy for me, like the photo to the right. Let me elaborate:

When I tried to pay my discover bill, firefox wouldn't let me. The payment would not go through. Works fine in IE8. Note that previous versions of firefox worked fine.
Gmail works HORRIBLY in firefox 3.5.2. Occasionally emails won't load, delete, etc. And it sometimes has problems showing the inbox again after you read an email. The "loading" tip at the top freaks out and changes size, and I'm not too sure how that even happens.
Today as I was browsing, all of a sudden, the address bar turns gray and I can't type any URL's into the address field. Interesting. The only way to fix it was to close firefox.

Other than that, Firefox 3.5 is great, I guess. The real reason I use it all the time is because 1. It's not a Microsoft product, and 2. Firebug and all the other great web developer tools that you can use with Firefox. On that front, they are doing a great job (and with other really useful add-ons)

get the 60GB PS3 cheap

2009-08-20T01:04:00.004-05:00

Best buy lets you get the 80GB PS3 cheap! That's right, like eBay cheap.

$100 Price Drops! Sony 80GB & 160GB PS3, Now Just $299.99 and $399.99. Valid 8/19-8/25.

Pretty good deal. The 80GB PS3 is currently selling on eBay for around $320-$330, and you have to pay for shipping. I'm sure you can buy the PS3 through Best Buy at the reduced rate and do a local pickup. The 160GB PS3 is currently selling on ebay for around $350-$360, so Best Buy's $399 deal isn't as good as the 80GB model. It's still pretty good though, if you don't want to pay shipping and wait for the unit.

Happy PS3 buying, fellow gamers. (even though I'm a strict PC gamer.. hahah.. I only play playstation when I'm at a buddy's house!)

Great deal: Western Digital Caviar Black 750GB sata 3.0Gb/s Hard drive for $65 with free shipping

2009-08-10T12:50:00.003-05:00

Great deal on this hard drive from Newegg.. $65 with free shipping.
I am personally running 3 of these drives and they are FAST. The caviar black drives have dual processors, and just to give you a comparison, a single one of these drives is faster than 2 of my Seagate Barracuda 250GB (single platter.. fast) SATA 3.0Gb/s drives in RAID 0. I'm not even kidding. Grab one while they're cheap.

Western Digital Caviar Black 750GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

How to disable annoying volume beep in windows XP

2009-08-04T17:32:00.002-05:00

If you are like me and haven't migrated to Windows Vista or Windows 7 yet, you know that when you go to adjust the volume using the little volume slider (after you click on the little speaker icon in your system tray) the computer lets out a very loud and very annoying beep. Here are a few ways to fix that.

Method 1: disable beep in device manager

1. Right-click on My Computer
2. On the Hardware tab, click on "Device Manager"
3. On the "View" menu, select "Show hidden devices"
4. Under "Non-Plug and Play Drivers", right-click "Beep"
5. Click "Disable"
6. Answer "Yes" when asked if you really want to disable it
7. Answer "No" when asked if you want to reboot
8. Right click "Beep" again.
9. Click "Properties"
10. On the "Driver" tab, set the Startup type to Disabled
11. Click "Stop"
12. Click "OK"
13. Answer "No" when asked if you want to reboot

Method 2: disable beep in the registry

1. Open up regedit.exe through the run box, and then navigate down to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sound
2. Find the “Beep” key on the right-hand side and change the value to “no”.

Method 3: disable beep in sounds panel

1. Open Control Panel and find the Sounds and Audio Devices panel. Choose the Sounds tab and then find “Default Beep” in the list.
2. Change the drop down list at the bottom to "none" and hit "apply".
3. Do the same for the "critical stop" sound.

how to get paid to do nothing ($12 per hour to be exact)

2009-08-03T16:16:00.003-05:00

I know the title says "how to get paid to do nothing", but that might be slightly misleading. This post will show you how to get paid to do almost nothing. For real.
All you have to do is click links in emails. Granted, it's not going to be a LOT of money, but hey, it's pretty easy. Jonathan over at mymoneyblog calls it "bored money", which is a great description in my opinion. How much money, you ask, can you make doing almost nothing? Well, I timed myself, to click on 3 emails and close the tabs after I had skimmed over the landing page. This took me about 20 seconds. So, if I am getting paid an average of 2.24 cents per email clicked on, and giving myself a few seconds to skim over the offer to see if it's something I might actually be interested in, I am going to make myself 6.72 cents over 20 seconds which works out to $12.10 per hour. Not bad, right? Well, if you could do this for 8 hours a day, maybe not. But they only send you so many emails. Still, great bored money. Go sign up for inboxdollars and check it out. You can also check out mypoints, which also has a great payout in my experience (I've made more than $200 in gift cards there).

FTP vulnerability - has your site been broken into?

2009-07-13T12:26:00.002-05:00

FTP, to say the least, is a very insecure protocol. Usernames and passwords are sent in plain text and can be sniffed anywhere between the route from your computer to the host's server where your files are stored. Outgoing traffic from your computer can also be sniffed by malware that is installed on your computer. Since passwords are sent in plain text, malware authors don't even need to bother looking for the configuration file on your computer containing account credentials. They can simply sniff outgoing traffic.
The solution? (or at least, a better solution so as to thwart malware authors and other wrong-doers trying to sniff FTP passwords) use SFTP (secure FTP)! You can enable SFTP by enabling SSH on your hosting, which usually requires authorization. However the benefit will be well worth it if you have had a website hacked for seemingly no reason. Your FTP password being stolen is a likely candidate.
More on this at the original article on using SFTP to administer a website at slashdot.
For a SFTP client, I suggest fireFTP. They recently added SFTP capability.

WHY DID BILLY MAYS HAVE TO DIE!?!?!??

2009-06-30T22:30:00.002-05:00

Dead at age 50 on June 28, 2009, Billy Mays was arguably the best pitchman in the entire world. That's pretty much what there is to say about Billy Mays, the guy who pitched products such as OxiClean, Mighty Putty, and the quick chop, before the slap chop came around and kicked the crap out of the quick chop.
Despite Billy Mays' obnoxiously high pitched and loud voice, he will be missed because Billy Mays was really cool - almost as cool as Chuck Norris.

Michael Jackson dead at age 50 - end of an era

2009-06-25T18:10:00.002-05:00

Pop star Michael Jackson died in his Holmby Hills home at age 50. Most people don't really give a crap, but the "Thriller" album rocked, so Michael Jackson will be remembered for at least another 30 years or so when he'll be retired from discussion in pop culture and preserved in Wikipedia for all eternity.

It costs $4,715.75 to get a license plate in Shanghai, China

2009-05-11T16:27:00.003-05:00

Since traffic is so bad in Shanghai, vehicle license plates are auctioned off and are very hard to get, especially for middle and lower class individuals. The price of a license plate in many instances is higher than the cost of a small used car (!). In March 2008, the average price was 32,169 RMB (Chinese Yuan) or about $4,715.75. At one point, in December 2007, the average price of a license plate in Shanghai was 56,042 RMB or about $8,213! Insane.

Original article: ShangCar.com

Great deal on business cards, deal ends midnight May 17th

2009-05-11T11:50:00.003-05:00

30% off business cards (1000) quantity at overnightprints.com. Use coupon code 30BCSALE.

I use overnightprints.com every time I make business cards because, well, they are so darn cheap especially considering the outstanding quality. These guys don't mess around, and the cards will be the highest quality (and thick!!) If you don't believe me, just request a sample and you'll see what I mean.