Weekly Tech Links » Brand new

Link Dump 49

Lapper — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 05:00:21 +0000

I am currently between projects and, unfortunately, cannot continue Weekly Tech Links at this time. Hopefully, in the near future, I will begin posting again. Thank you for your patience. Leave your email if you wish to be contacted regarding the reinstatement of the blog.

Wordcamp in San Francisco: Lectures, demonstrations, and… barbeque? It’s the Wordpress convention being held later this month. Everyone’s invited, except for, you know, those with no means to get to San Francisco.
Twenty iPhone shortcomings: We were all looking forward to the iPhone, but unfortunately, like the first-generation iPod, it’s not as perfect as we would have hoped. The one everyone’s talking about is its mindnumbingly slow internet, rather than the wifi-speed we were anticipating.
Warp: Like the classic Windows 98 screensaver, Warp lets you fly through a starfield when you leave your computer for long enough. Not to say Windows 98 was good, but the screensavers will always be in our hearts and minds.
Kongregate Badges: After months in the making, Kongregate has finally released “achievments”; tasks in games that get you both points and miniature badges that appear in your profile. Some of these just bring back nightmares, though. Like Particles.
Howard Forums Wiki: What can I say? It’s a wiki documenting mobile phones. It’s not very complete, but I’m sure you could find something of interest if you cared to look. The forum is far more interesting.
Will it Blend?: This guy’s supposedly part of an advertising campaign completely unique from other PR tactics. Watch as he uses this high powered blender, conveniently available from the online store, to blend… well, everything. From Transformers, to credit cards, and even iPhones. They’re all reduced to dust.
Microsoft Surface parody: Microsoft Surface is supposed to be the future of computing as we know it, complete with the Tangible User Interface that is, itself the next level. However, with consumers seeing business-targeted commercials, these guys have made up a frustrated voiceover.

Link Dump 48

Lapper — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 05:00:41 +0000

20 WordPress Themes: I’ve never seen any of these, so I’m very surprised by how impressive they are. The first few are by far the most classy looking. They’re not on either of the top ten lists in the WordPress themes sidebar, so there’s a good chance you haven’t had the chance to check these out either.
StepMania Online: I linked to the wiki in the previous post, which actually is rather mediocre and incomplete. The idea of online StepMania play is really something, and I’m sorry that it has such limited functionality that it won’t even work for me. I can’t wait until the final release of 4.0.
Dockables!: The dock of Mac OS X has always been a portal to applications and folders, but not until now has it been able to perform system tasks at the click of an icon. Dockables has quite a few dock icon ultilities to make everything a little bit easier.
Become an M&M: This really doesn’t make any sense above making an M&M that kind of looks like you. It’s hard to do with only three body shapes, them all being rather… M&M-shaped. But you can have fun with this. Go for it.
Digg Arc API: This is a relatively new addition to the Digg API set. Stories split the circle into sections, with sub-levels of topics and large blue arcs linking related stories around the outside. It’s a bit less easy to find new stories than the other ones, such as Stack, but it’s still fun.
WikiMedia Board Elections 2007: It’s another year and time for another wide-scale election for the future members of the WikiMedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees. You need 400 edits before June 1st, including one edit before March 1st to place your vote.
Incredible Ikaruga gamer: Have you ever tried playing with two controllers in the same game? It’s nearly impossible, but this guy seems to complete the final level of Ikaruga just fine in this fashion. I really need to get that for Gamecube…

Link Dump 47

Lapper — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 05:00:25 +0000

Wordpress 2.2.1: Yes, I’m sure we were all hoping for a slightly more exciting WP development, but not all the versions can be fun. This one’s a bigfix, and should be downloaded posthaste, I say.
Sandbox Design Competition: I was going to enter this with a friend of mine and try a shot at that $600 first prize. The task is to design a customization entirely out of CSS for the Wordpress theme Sandbox, and the due date is July 29th. It’s very Zen Garden-esque, even though the template’s not exactly raw HTML.
Pimp My Safari: I never thought I needed plugins for Safari, but apparently there’s more than plenty around here. You can even help yourself to their orange logo.
Ratmaze 2: A long-awaited update by PixelJam has finally arrived. Ratmaze is the lesser known of PixelJam’s two games and was rather basic in the hunt-and-collect style. Ratmaze 2 actually has miniature tasks to collect the large cheese letters that spell “Ratmaze”, as well as sporting a timer that counts down. Pressure.
BayIMG: The owners of the infamous The Pirate Bay site are certainly spreading their interests lately. BayIMG is an uncensored image uploading site, as well as the cause for a bit of controversy. They also recently agreed to host a pedophilia-friendly site.
StepMania Online wiki: What you really need here is the setup. StepMania Online is an interesting development that allows versus online play. The downsides of this are that I didn’t know about it sooner and that I can’t seem to get the SVU to stop crashing.
Lebron James Etch-A-Sketch: What can you do with an Etch-A-Sketch? This guy can easily say “a lot”, and you’ll agree after viewing this three-dimensional, well-shaded depiction of NBA player Lebron James.

Link Dump 46

Lapper — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 05:00:35 +0000

If You Stop Smoking: I really enjoyed the original post of this; it was interesting to know that eventually the effects of smoking do wear off if you take the initiative to quit. This high-resolution poster shows a timeline of what happens to your body if you stop smoking right now.
Graphic Calculator story: Never before has the struggle of a software developer been so great and told so gracefully. I’ll bet dollars to donuts you had no idea that Apple actually canceled the famous Graphic Calculator and that it wasn’t to be shipped with the new Power PC Macs. It took a little luck and a lot of help.
Safari 3.0 beta: Initial reaction for this breakthrough edition is poor, even hostile. But that’s mostly regarding the Windows version, which apparently is very buggy and is unfit to be used. The new webkit that is installed for Macintosh, however, is screwing with Colloquy, which is making me pretty down.
Vector TD: Finally, a Tower Defense worthy of mentioning since Desktop TD. Vector TD is from the creator of Flash Element and Circle TDs and is complete with eleven towers, each capable of being upgraded no less than ten times. Multiple maps, ranging from a novice level to one near impossible are now available for your playing pleasure.
Meteor Busters: This game incites the nostalgia of Game Boy and Game Boy pocket, what with its simple functionality and grayscale graphics. Play as any one of five ships and work your way through heaps of meteors, upgrading yourself along the way. The big downside is that a single hit is a death, and a single death is a downgrade. My favorite by far is the sticky bullet ship.
ZuluPad: Consolidate all your notes into a localhost wiki with this “notepad on crack”. It’s cross-platform, free, and great for both the student and the worker.
Big Ed’s Swan Song: I’m sure one must have noticed by now the Net Neutrality chicklet in my footer; it’s been there for a good eight months now. The issue now is that AT&T is pushing for the abolishment of Net Neutrality more than ever; this video explains it all in a Jib-Jab-esque way.

Link Dump 45

Lapper — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 05:01:17 +0000

Health Bolt: This health blog is different from all the rest. The articles are interesting and don’t preach nutrition or exercise. He’s just telling you facts a la Damn Interesting, if you will.
Colorstrology: This site makes minimal sense. Check your birthday for your “true color” and a horoscope-like description of yourself.
CSS dock menu: This is one of the most clever uses of Javascript and CSS I’ve seen in quite some time. It emulates the Mac OS X dock we all know and love, while holding the functionality of a menu.
TripleJack: Watch out for this site; it’s completely addictive. Choose a cute avatar and get playing in this very fun no-stakes multi-player poker game. Increase your points by winning hands, and increase your cash by banking it instead of flashing it.
Web 2.0 logo: We all know that Web 2.0 is just a big buzzword, overwhemingly defined by visuals. This logo is the essence of that, complete with an optional mirror finish and Beta sticker.
WikiHow: How do I do this? How do I do that? Wikipedia doesn’t always have the answer if you’re looking to do a step-by-step, but WikiHow does.
Beat box: I find it fairly amazing how accurately and precisely this guy can keep a beat going. Can you do that? No, you can’t.

Link Dump 44

Lapper — Sun, 27 May 2007 05:00:33 +0000

TalkAboutComics blog: The blog for the acclaimed TalkAboutComics site, most notably the forum. The latest post I thought was interesting; it was regarding BC and Johnny Hart, who died a month ago. Did I hear about that or didn’t I?
Ingredient X: Never before has one man so accurately portrayed the oddities of day-to-day life in such spectacular sketch videos and comic strips. Lev tells tales of strange women, procrastination, Saturdays, and many more things you’ll simply have to see to praise.
Polar Clock update: We can be expecting a second update to the Polar Clock screensaver from PixelBreaker, complete with localization and a universal coloring system. I just wish it wouldn’t make my fan spin up.
Particles: This game involves fully elastic collisions and transfering of energy between the several red balls that float about the screen. Your single blue ball needs to stay out of their paths as long as possible; if you get collided into once, it’s game over. How do people beat 240 seconds, anyway?
Panic ripoff: The Transmit truck icon has been so abundantly stolen that it constitutes about 60% of the design thefts on this hilarious page. Panic isn’t mad, but you have to wonder who these people think they’re fooling when they reverse the image and use it twelve times.
The OLPC Wiki: Ah, the One Laptop Per Child project; bringing Linux to children around the world with $100 hand-crank laptops. This is one of their two wikis, the other one being for software development. I don’t even know where you can buy these things.
Metal storm: The machine gun fires one million shots per minute. The handgun fires three times before it recoils. The bullets have no shells and are fired by electronic charge. Metal Storm is the most revolutionary gun to date; check it out.

Link Dump 43

Lapper — Sun, 20 May 2007 05:00:07 +0000

Recent Changes Camp Montreal: The purpose of the conference itself is rather vague, but it’s sure to be a large gathering of designers and bloggers alike… in Montreal… from an IRC channel that never has people in it.
Xkcd lecture: The other week, it was made public the the writer of xkcd, the most popular webcomic at MIT, would be holding a lecture. Slashdot describes the incident; here are some photos.
Skype 2.6: When word got around that there was a Skype update for Mac, I was hoping this was going to be the big 3.0. Unfortunately, only minor adjustments have been made in this 2.x update, including an echo fix. We’ll have to wait for Skypecasts.
Kongregate: An interesting gaming community; it’s kind of like a small-scale Newgrounds, but with chat rooms. And challenges. And with no blamming necessary. And no porn.
Wordpress 2.2: Good news; Wordpress now has widgets built in, atom support, and finally, as WYSIWYG hook for a future version of Safari.
WikiMania 2007: Boy, has this been publicized. The biggest, wikiest, most manic wiki conference ever is being held completely out of everyone’s way in scenic Taipei. Registrations are now starting for the three-day early-August event, which is receiving enormous sponsoring.
Atari commercial: Atari is rarely in the limelight anymore, but we tend to forget how profound it was how they spearheaded gaming as we know it… with commercials we laugh at.

Link Dump 42

Lapper — Sun, 13 May 2007 05:00:00 +0000

Epic Struggle for Survival: The story of a young man expelled from school under the haziest of circumstances all because he threw a couple of eggs. You’ll have to read it to believe it.
Quizilla: Let’s face it; everyone likes being told who they are, what they like, who they are most like… by quizzes. Quizilla is packed with thousands of quizzes so you can be told what to do to your heart’s content… as content as it may be.
Share This: I’ve recently implemented this on here… Share This allows instant access to posting to your favorite viral link sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and more.
Halo clock: The Master Chiefs keep popping up… until they all get slain in unison and start over again. Such is the operation of this Halo clock, an aesthetic tribute to one of the most popular video games of the ’00s.
Songs to Wear Pants to: Andrew Pants plays guitar for a living. But he’s not your average rock star; he lives entirely on random commissions to create songs from the vaguest to the most specifc instructions. You can also get a song free that’s 1:11 or shorter, but watch out if he finds a hole in your request.
WikiFriends: A genuinely accurate depiction of the latent desire to avoid conflict found on many wikis.
The Dictionary: This supposedly up-and-coming teenager has remarkable covering abilites and, by popular request, is singing the dictionary to the tune of “Fergalicious”. How interesting.

Link Dump 41

Lapper — Sun, 06 May 2007 05:00:50 +0000

Polar Clock Screensaver: You can now view the date and time in classy circular-style with this polar clock screensaver. The seconds tick by at sixty degrees a piece, then retracting as the minute circle inches forward. The aesthetic properties of this flash are just brilliant.
Yahoo! Answers forum: Suggestions, ratings, questions… and here I thought Yahoo! Answers was already a forum. A forum on drugs. So here’s the forum for the forum, if you will.
ToasterClone: At first I thought this was my beloved underwater screensaver for Mac OS 6. But no, this is a recompilation of flying toasters, which apparently used to be a common theme across Macintosh in the nineties.
Test Twist: This game is crazy. Find as many words as you possibly can out of a six letters, but you only need a six-letter word to go on to the next round; you control how many points you get beyond that.
ThinkGeek: These guys have got the greatest tech gear on the planet. Everything from high-power laser pointers to binary pillows to quick-heating soddering guns is sold at ridiculously resonable prices. Their descriptions make you want to buy everything there.
Wiki revolution: Mac|Life posted a full explanation of how to install MediaWiki in this issue. Honestly, I think they’ve been overstepping their bounds a bit lately; showing things you thought fewer people knew how to do.
Mac Beautiful: HappySlip, one of the more down-to-earth vloggers of YouTube, composed and sings a parody of James Blunt’s falsetto-laced You’re Beauitful to honor her Macintosh, her favorite hardware and operating system ever. Cough cough.

Link Dump 40

Lapper — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 05:00:45 +0000

xkcd at MIT: If I could go, I would. The creator of MIT’s favorite webcomic is to hold a lecture in mid-May regarding his comics, among other topics. It really does sound fun.
Flow in games: A forum dedicated to the flOw project, linked below. Everything from discussions on bigfixes to galleries of flOw creatures can be found and mused through here.
FireBug: Edit your site’s CSS and get instantaneous updating in this very helpful Firefox plugin. It also does validation, highlighting, and line-numbering.
flOw: A very tranquil flash game. In flOw, you control a fish-like character as you consume enemies to increase your length, and therefore power. If you can consume the final boss, a special surprise awaits you: level two.
Gprime: This site has been around forever. Flash cartoons, games, images, and all the rest; Gprime is a more solemn site than Ebaum’s World or Newgrounds.
Wikiality: The Colbert Report on Comedy Central commands a very large fanbase, which was demonstrated this past year when several hundred users edited Elephant a la Colbert in the episode airing that night. The wiki itself is similar to Uncyclopedia in the way it handles itself, so it can be pretty good for a laugh.
How to be emo: A splendid mockumentary styled after a ’50s instructional tape, “How to be emo” follows a young boy as he explores this esoteric and questionably fashionable clique.

Link Dump 39

Lapper — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 05:00:22 +0000

Life Imitates xkcd: A fan of xkcd apparently bought Richard Stallman a katana in homage to one of the strips, where he defends himself against “Microsoft Lackeys”. Did they send Linus Torvalds nunchucks?
SlaveHack Forum: This is the simple forum accompanying SlaveHack, the hacking simulator. The noob-to-human ratio is astoundingly high, so be wary. You can get all kinds of help here, however, from riddles to trade-offs to giveaways.
iStat Pro 4: iStat Pro got a complete makeover for version 4, now with rearrangable slides and a nice blue frame. I simply enjoy this widget in general, for all its diagnostic functions. Not to mention… new color themes.
Bubble Tanks: Join the small world of bubble weaponry. This game has one of the steepest learning curves possible. But if you stick to it, you can finally get to the… end. Or however you want to call wandering around forever.
Peekaboom: In a style similar to The ESP Game, Peekaboom is an image-guessing game with points based almost entirely on cooperation with your anonymous partner. It gets pretty frustrating when they give up without guessing, though.
Redwall wiki: I used to really enjoy this series back in the day. The wiki apprently gets little representation on Wikipedia, but it’s a abbey of information.
FunTwo: This savant teenage guitarist hit viral status in early 2006 with this astounding rendition of Pachabel’s Canon. Also viewable are both Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.

Link Dump 38

Lapper — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 05:00:31 +0000

Etch-A-Sketchist: This guy’s an Etch-A-Sketch maniac. He draws various pop culture icons and logos with two knobs and magnetic fibers nearly every day.
Last Place Comics forum: The comic’s hilarious, and the forum’s a breeding ground for humorous nerds and the like. Definitely a great hangout place.
MediaFork: Legally, if it’s your DVD, you can make an archive of it. But what if you want that archive on your iPod? Hand Brake/MediaFork allows you to resize and style nearly any DVD to optimize viewing right on that small screen.
Slave Hack: Helping break the temptation around the world, Slave Hack is a very eleborate hacking simulation where you compete against hundreds of other hackers to obtain the best programs and earn the most money possible.
The ESP Game: Another fine webapp by Carnegie-Mellon University, The ESP Game pairs you with another player as you both race to find a term you can both agree on to label the image in front of you. The more images you solve and the faster you solve them both contribute to your point level, which accumulates over time.
House Wiki: House, currently in the middle of its third season, is most likely one of the most spunky medical dramas on television. The disagreeable Hugh Laurie is always good for a laugh, too. Now, there’s a way to show your fandom like never before.
Derrick Comedy: If you are not on the floor laughing after you watch these sketches, you can sue me for everything I have. Derrick Comedy is a team of post-graduate actors with the sense of humor you wish was on SNL. Watch and be amazed.

Link Dump 37

Lapper — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 05:00:27 +0000

Wordpress 2.1.3 and 2.0.10: Honestly, I miss when the Wordpress updates used to include features. 2.1.3 is yet another security update that they hope wasn’t compromised as was 2.1.1.
VIRB: This appears to be a modern, less communistically perverse version of the widely beloved Facebook. I don’t get what’s with these places; they’re just buffed-up forums.
CallWave SMS: This is an inter-widget that allows you to send SMS text-messages to any provider without trying to tap it out on your own phone’s number pad. It’s really useful for contacting friends on the go, but you can’t hide your computer in your hand during class.
Zwok: In a time when there is no war… people throw snowballs. That pretty much being the storyline of this strange game, you’ll still have a blast launching snow at the other team and racking up points as quickly as possible.
The Perry Bible Fellowship: This is the kind of webcomic that just makes you sit back and think about how you can exploit life to the fullest, or interpret it in the strangest and most surreal way possible. It doesn’t update too often, but it’s some worthwhile reading.
Citizendium: In belief that Wikipedia no longer fits the essence of being a true encyclopedia, the co-founder of Wikipedia has created a new encyclopedia. Citizendium is designed to be far stricter version of Wikipedia, where all articles must be cited and checked by experts in-the-field for them to become approved.
Craziest: As the video link replaces the IRC link, we bring you the story of a Scrabble extremist. Believing that the tiles themselves depict the future, she goes on an evangelical escapade to make everyone else aware of the truth. All the while biding her time for the legendary 311-point “triple-triple” word: craziest.

Link Dump 36

Lapper — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 05:00:20 +0000

The Pirate Bay and Kim Jong-Il: After years of problems with the Switzerland government, The Pirate Bay has thrown up their hands and allied with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. Somehow The Pirate Bay is even more illegal than it was previously.
College Humor has expired: This “expired” GoDaddy page is the first thing hundreds of people saw upon visiting the funny-video site College Humor. Unfortunately, instead of the domain being up for grabs, a click transported them back to the normal homepage, where they received a resounding “Psych!”
Blue Screen of Death screensaver: The less the prankee happens to know about computers, the better, with this amazingly realistic BSoD screensaver for Macintosh. Note that this works even better when you then disable the keyboard and mouse.
iStepMania: Now this is what I’m talking about. StepMania has dropped all Windows support to focus on the Mac; the fruits of their labor already include iPod support and integration with FrontRow. They duly note, however, that StepMania may not run so well on the screenless iPod Shuffle.
Google TiSP: Now don’t tell me you didn’t ever want a broadband toilet. Google, ever so generous, has created a system in which you flush the cable of a router down your home toilet and become instantly connected throughout your home. Also note the convenient Gmail Paper.
4.1.2007 hoaxes at Wikipedia: Although you may have made a point to parade around your favorite sites today, making sure you see all the pranks being played, you probably missed a few hilarious ones. Wikipedia has a constantly-updated list you can check out.
The WiiHelm by ThinkGeek: Sure, the Wiimote is fun, but what’s the point if you can’t eat and drink at the same time? WiiHelm seeks to fix this with their revolutionary WiiHelm, a helmet that allows you to use the Wiimote with only a few nods of the head.

Link Dump 35

Lapper — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 05:00:53 +0000

Jay is Games: Personally, I’m very impressed with the robustness of this blog. Its two owners post lengthy reviews of various games across the internet nearly every day. And since it’s been running for a couple of years now, that amounts to at least a couple hundred games. I’d get started.
QuadBoard: Honestly, you don’t get the feeling that too many people play Quadradius en masse. You only see about 5 people in the lobby at any given time. But these boards can give insight, strategy, and sometimes just cool names for even cooler maneuvers. Except for Beneficiary + Teach Row… ugh.
AP Grapher: When you’re in your own house it’s most likely that the only wi-fi you care about is the one coming from your own router. But out in the big city, you’ve got signals coming from left and right. AP Grapher can simultaneously graph the speed of multiple signals to help you determine which one is the best.
Tonypa flash games: The menu on this is a tad baffling, but you’ll quickly find an array of simple games that get you playing for hours. My recomondation? Shooot. You can also check out this guy’s great flash tutorials for tile games.
PDPC Design Contest: Apparently a site for Freenode’s Peer-Directed Projects Center has been in need of design for some time now, so a contest for this purpose has been constructed. I’d give it a try, but their specifications seem kind of vague…
The Wilhelm Scream Compilation: Ever remember hearing a sound in a movie then used in another movie not two years later? The “Wilhelm Scream” was originally a sound effect from the 1951 B-movie “Distant Drums” and has been used hundreds of times since. Check to see what movies you recognize on this clip video.
Everything2: Wikipedia may be the wiki equivalent of an encyclopedia, but Everything2 is the wiki equivalent of Slashdot. It’s like Uncyclopedia, in a way.

Link Dump 34

Lapper — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 05:00:54 +0000

Google Summer of Code: Wordpress is now an official GSoC open-source project, so any university student can apply to make over $4,000 tinkering with it for the summer. Sounds simply grand.
European Gold Finch: After seeing the large yellow banner displayed across the top of Michael Scofield’s PDA, I’m sure at least some people went to check this place out. After a few minutes of scanning it becomes clear that it’s a very elaborate, but fake, forum. Reading anything but the bottom-most post will surely result in excruciating boredom.
Monolingual: Although your iTunes music collection most likely breaks the tens of gigabytes, you can still save a nice pinch of hard drive space by removing all but your native tounge from the localization files embedded in every application. I personally saved a cool 2.2GB.
Dwarf Complete: Everyone’s been waiting for a while for the next Eyezmaze game, and it turns out On’s been working on a project for a different company. Don’t worry about compromised quality, however, as this cartoony labyrinth game will leave you scratching your head for 4+ hours the first time through.
#summer-discuss: I’m not entirely sure where the GSoC channel was located last time; it might have been on Freenode. In anycase, your Q&A can get done here.
Plugin directory: One word: finally. Wordpress.org has finally created a repository for plugins that can actually be indexed and linked-to. I mean, sure, wp-plugins.net was there, but it was pretty bad.
RandomJunk: This is from a guy over at #freenode-social. Apparently it caters to various philosophies, but you’ll just have to read into it.

Link Dump 31

Lapper — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 06:00:16 +0000

Wordpress 2.1.1: A “low-to-medium priority” update containing around 30 bug fixes and numerous tweaks. Only about 20 files are being replaced, so you probably shouldn’t worry about it too much.
One-liners: This all-too dramatic Canadian webcomic stars Shishio, the rather shiftily perverse protagonist, as well as two very different Ashtons, a grossly abused Shannon, and more. I don’t think I should talk to you anymore.
Gravatar 2.0: After months of beta testing and builds, Gravatar has its 2.0 launch… with overwhelming failure. The Gravatars simply do not appear for nearly everyone who subscribed after the first day. As the comments stack higher and higher, everyone’s wondering where creator Tom Werner has run off to and what he could do to make up for this.
Viidelectrix: No, I’m not sponsored by Nintendo. But Videlectrix, the game development pseudonym of Homestarrunner.com has converted a handful of their games to work solely with the mouse… meaning it can also work with the Wii remote. Have fun keeping a tire in the air.
Staffblog: The newly implemented Freenode staff blog was publicly announced on Tuesday with a note in the topic. Bask in the brainchild of your superiors and its teachings. Bask!
Math for the Masses: Wordpress.com recently integrated LATEX, the dynamic PNG math-scripting tool used on such software as MediaWiki. Wonderful. Now you can blog all about math, all the time.
This Might Be a Wiki: A very strong They Might Be Giants database containing lyrics to every song, analysis, sheet music, and more. I don’t know what makes your face implode, but that’s the way the movie ends.

Link Dump 29

Lapper — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:23:51 +0000

Dead Trees & G-Strings: You’ll have to pardon the title; this post is actually about an upcoming Damn Interesting book, filled with the brightest and best of all the articles on the blog. A 35 USD donation to the site ensures that you get one shipped to you as soon as the day it’s published.
Club Penguin: The ever-growing Club Penguin is a humorous scene for kids and teens alike to release their inner… penguin. Play games, buy pets, and just hang out.
CrossLoop: Let’s face it. Troubleshooting with your computer-savvy relative is worthless unless they can see what you’re doing. CrossLoop offers free screensharing and remote control, simply by typing in an access code. That’s a problem solved.
Lugaru: One wouldn’t normally think of murderous ninja rabbits as a topic for a video game, but that’s exactly what Lugaru is. Control the gray hare Turner as he avenges the deaths of his family and friends while unravelling a wolf conspiracy. Tracheotomy!
#adium-devl: The new channel for discussing Adium development. As you may know, version 1.0 came out not a month ago and everyone’s rushing to fix new tickets.
All About SP: By far the most heavily maintained and complete South Park episodes site out there. You’ll find 95% of all the episodes plus the South Park movie: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.
Lugaru wiki: An uncannily helpful strategy guide to the curious game of Lugaru, this wiki comes complete with pictures of every attack, reverse, and stealth in existence.

Link Dump 27

Lapper — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:38:54 +0000

Wordpress 2.1: In just 60 minutes, there have been over 1,200 downloads. What is it? It’s finally here everyone, WP 2.1 "Ella" has been released and it’s absolutely loaded with new features. Autosave, tab editing, sub-blogrolls, live spell checking and much more. As a side note, look for version 2.2 coming this April.
Homestar Runner Network: After 10 months in production, HR.net is out of beta and running the slick Drupal 5.0. It will eventually be a database for various HR fansites, but we’re currently still discussing the basics of its future.
DarwiinRemote: Utilizing the Bluetooth connection of a Macintosh, DarwiinRemote lets you use your Wii Remote and Nunchuck attachment to control your computer from the palm of your hand.
South Park Create-A-Character: You probably aren’t suprised that South Park characters would be pretty easy to generate and randomize. With this Create-A-Character, you can design your own member of the sickly, morally-twisted crew. "Damn you, Kyle!"
#sonicfolle: Stop by if you happen to enjoy Sonic; we’re always looking for more people to participate in mature discussions… Okay, not really; we all have fun.
Trust Rank: Instantly check any site’s reputation by means of search engine backlinks, page rank, and “trust rank”, to keep away from spam. You may have to wait a while for screenshots, though.
Super Mario Wiki: A fair-sized wiki dedicated to Mario, Luigi, Peach, DK, Yoshi, Bowser… oh, you get the idea. There’s over 4000 pages on all the Nintendo gang, complete with a… newspaper?

Link Dump 26

Lapper — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 03:49:48 +0000

Wordpress 2.0.7: Okay, seriously you guys, this is the last one. 2.0.7 is a minor update fixing a newly-found security vulnerability and would probably be better suited as "2.0.6.1".
Kiki the Nanobot: This game is a huge brain-buster. Control your nanobot around several 3D stragety-infused levels where up/down orientation is out the window. Various forums around the internet procure novelties such as python loopholes and and new levels.
iStat Pro: This little widget can do everything from monitoring your disk space to your RAM usage. And now in the newly-released version 3.3, iStat can monitor your Intel-based Mac’s internal temperature and fan speed. Not to mention how classy it looks.
rRootage: rRootage is quite easily the best, not to mention most addicting, bullet hell shooter out there. Not to mention that yes, it’s both cross-platform and free. rRootage sports four game modes with forty levels a piece, each mode modeled after a different video game like Ikaruga or Giga Wing.
#southpark-epsiodes: The distribution network irc.TVEps.net makes a point of delivering you all your favorite shows, including 24, Scrubs, American Dad, Futurama, Heroes, and obviously, South Park. Sure, it can be confusing, but that’s why you can join #operhelp.
List of paradoxes: Wikipedia presents a near-complete list of logical paradoxes that simply boggle the mind. Remember to stay alive when thinking about them, though.
Wookiepedia: One of the most popular wikis on Wikia, this Star Wars knowledge base has extensive information on their favorite science fiction series. The lengthy articles in great numbers rival those of the early Wikipedia.

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Lapper — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 15:39:14 +0000

Ideas and Kvetch: New features at wordpress.org include a whole form specifically for complaining. Get your words across with Ideas and Kvetch.
Penny Arcade: A hilarious webcomic that’s been standing since 1998, with cracks at gaming, technology, and everyday abnormalities ever since.
Boot Camp: The quick and free way to partition and install a full-speed and feature Windows XP. After trying it myself, my only complaint is that your Mac partition’s firewall doesn’t extend to the Windows partition. You can take care of that with HouseCall, though.
Hyper Frame: A challenging roundabout game of strategy, where you connect the streams of color through the three faces of the cube. The catch is… you must connect every stream, and none of them can overlap. Wait until you hit five-by-five mode for some real fun.
Skypecasts: Skypecasts are medium to large-scale conferences on just about anything that you can create, and everyone can join. Hosts give and revoke speaking privileges to keep a fun and interactive environment.
TrendMicro HouseCall: If you have no cash or time to spend on a virus-scan program for your Windows PC (or partition), this runs a quick web-based scan and then deletes everything that’s not supposed to be there.
BMEZine Wiki: A very informative wiki regarding piercing and body modification, but I’ve got to say, it’s not for the squeamish. The wiki contains both graphic images and graphic imagery.

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Lapper — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 01:12:52 +0000

Wordpress 2.0.6: Presumably the final 2.0.x update before 2.1, this latest version sports a most enticing feature; quicktag comptatibility in Safari.
Snap Preview Anywhere: A tool that jumps out at me, literally. Bloggers and webmasters can install this tool to show viewers a peek at any scrolled-over link. In fact, I just might start using it here.
TinkerTool: Your Mac has a few tricks up its sleeve that you may not have known about. TinkerTool allows you to access such functions as the “dock on top” and system-wide chmod.
GLtron: A high-quality version of the classic Tron available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. GLtron sports multiple skins and has great gameplay, but the music selection is “limited” at best.
ICQ Chat: Quite a few chat rooms, each with a very specific, moderately vague subject. Don’t be surprised if you step into one and everyone’s speaking German, though; most rooms are international.
Old Computers: All the information you need on computers pre-dating the 1990s, all the way back to the 1971 Kenbak-1. It’s like a museum in there.
SnickWiki: An incomplete, strange, and crudely-run wiki that’s purpose is as enigmatic—a word which here means “mysterious”—as the book series itself.

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Lapper — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 17:52:09 +0000

Filzo.de: A very german rant blog, although you can pick out the occasional hilarity. “Spamqueries In IRC”, if I may.
YTMND: Short for “You’re The Man Now, Dog”, a line from Finding Forrester, YTMND boasts thousands of “sites” composed of five-second clippings of imagery and sound. The rating system, forum, and wiki make this site a notable culture.
Skype 3.0: Skype takes another leaping bound, this time on its Windows foot with Skype 3, boasting features such as public chats. Also newly available is Skype 2.5b for Macintosh, now with SMS compatibility.
Heli Attack 3: The one, the only, the Heli Attack 3. If you haven’t played it, you’re seriously missing out. Stock up on all new weapons, including laser rifles, atom bomb launchers, and more. Blast your way through five worlds and into the final endless level. If you can handle it.
Cha Cha: A completely innovative concept. Cha Cha is not only a search engine, but a live-chat engine as well. Talk with a “guide” as he or she checks around the net for your request.
Lemony Snicket: The truth behind the man behind the hedges. A cryptic site for an even more cryptic book series. Perhaps a look around will shine some insight on the curious man.
YTMND Wiki: The wiki for the above mentioned YTMND conglomerate, containing quite a bit of background for the various sites that became famous.

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Lapper — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 04:20:31 +0000

Blogger Beta: Blogger, the pickup blogging service powered by Google, is moving to a 2.0 of sorts. Some advancements include templates, Google account sign-in, and instant publishing.
IMDb Boards: A huge discussion board for an even larger database. There’s probably a forum thread for every movie ever made. You have to register to even look at it, though.
Lunar Magic: Anyone who’s played Super Mario World can appreciate the work that was put into this one-of-a-kind level editor for the game. Note the ROM requirements on the downloads page.
Yes : I’m Working: You want to be gaming, but you don’t want to be distracted. Office Max brings a charmingly simple breakout game disguised as a Microsoft Office spreadsheet.
IRC At Work: For when your PJIRC java socket gets blocked, IRC At Work is there for you. The interface takes a few minutes to sort out; mostly because the control buttons are ghosted but turn out to function anyway.
Subversive Cross Stitch: The cross stichings on your grandmother’s wall bearing some warm-hearted message have crashed and burned. These blunt, insulting messages sell en massé, causing massive hilarity.
Inheritance Trilogy Wikia: This wiki’s been getting a lot of buzz as of late, what with the Eragon movie being released. It’s an ideal place for the dragon fan.

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Lapper — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 04:59:48 +0000

Is your plugin Naughty or Nice?: With Wordpress 2.1 on the way, developers had better look sharp… and make their plugins look sharper. Although the first plugins for the upcoming Wordpress version are sure to be buggy, I believe there’s a lot in store.
MacRumors: All the latest news-to-be about Macintosh and Apple, Inc. The scary part is how right they are, regardless of it being days later, or years in the future.
VersionTracker: This site keeps you up to date with all the versions of the programs you love; freeware included. Believe me; it’s fun to be up to date.
Winterbells: It’s been 13 months since Orisinal’s last release, and all the fans are abuzz about the new holiday game, Winterbells. At 6,800-point bells, my high-score is over 300 trillion.
Flip4Mac: This software company’s all about convenience. A WMV codec for your QuickTime player? An organization app for importing your DVDs? These guys know what you need, even if you do have to pay for it.
#: I know what you’re thinking; why just a blank channel name? The channel that exists here was created for fun and gets traffic from people incorrectly entering their channel name through Viper007Bond’s portal. It’s a great discussion forum, in any case.
Wikia’s New Features: New through Wikia, embedding of YouTube videos, among other new hard-coded novelties. Some say it’s un-wiki-like, but I say that this is pretty cool.