Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch has posted his contribution to the year-end post genre in which he lists the Web 2.0 companies he couldn't live without. I find posts like this provide a remarkably good way to discover tools and resources that I might not have known about previously. I recommend that you visit the article and then follow the links to learn about some of these services that he mentions.
They say «timing is everything.» And I'd have to agree.
The author of Tech Support Alert, Gizmo Richards, has produced a list of what he calls the 46 best-ever freeware utilities. This list is worth reading if for no other reason than to see the 46 catetories of utilities there are. You'll find it educational, I'm sure. I did. You may also find it worthwhile to bookmark his website as there appear to be a lot of useful links there.
PC World, in a July 2005 article, lists the top 100 products of 2005. Their product of the year is Firefox.
Christmas is upon us. Therefore you can anticipate that my blogging will be lite for a while. Since I haven't sent out Christmas cards this year, let me point you to this online Christmas greeting (in the event that you care for such things) that my friend Jane Hascall made me aware of. Clicking the symbols from right to left progressively changes the image.
It's never too early to think about one's New Year's resolutions, and as I was doing my morning surfing today, I came across the LibriVox Project, which seems like a worthwhile effort. This article on Wired News gives a good overview of the goals and objectives of the project. Not sure yet whether I'll make participating in it a part of my resolutions for the New Year, but it seems like the kind of thing I might enjoy doing.
IVR, or Interactive Voice Response systems, are those annoying «machines» you get when you call a company. Most of the time you must wait for all the options to be explained to you, trying all the while to decipher which option gets you to the service you want, before you can speak to a representative of the organization. Many of us, myself included, find them just another bane of modern life. One enterprising gentleman, Paul English, has created an IVR Cheat Sheet that gives you the codes to enter into your phone that will immediately send you to a human being. This is, in my opinion, a valuable resource worth bookmarking for future use.
Spam is a pain. That, I know, is not news. However, the pain of it can be lessened. The way I deal with it is by using a program called PopFile, which is pictured above. If you'd like to see a much larger version of the image, click here. The program is open source and free and available from Source Forge.
My friend, Tom Simpson who runs Webfeed Central and works nights at a hotel in Jamestown, captured some dramatic video of a fire that occurred last night at about 2:30 A.M. in his town. This photo from his Flickr site shows the fire in its early stages, and the video shows about 18 minutes and 30 seconds of its progress over a two-hour stretch. Judging from Tom's comments as he was taking the footage, it was very cold as you would expect in ND at this time of the year. I also noticed that his coverage of this event made the Top Posts from around WordPress.com page.
It's always good to get an early start on the day and sometimes you are rewarded with a beautiful sunrise. It's cold here in Knoxville today, but it looks like it is going to be a spectacular day, one just right for getting me in the Christmas spirit. Now to make something of the day that is before me!
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