Creepy . . . complete strangers are following me

By "following" I mean that they have subscribed to me on Twitter.  Twitter is a micro-blog site that allows you to share what you're doing in 140 or less characters.  There's more involved but you can read about it on the site. I follow a few "tech celebrities" on Twitter to get the latest news of what's going on in the technology biz.  I also follow the random people that somehow found me and started following me. Some people are probably completely lost at this point but that's o.k.  It's hard to explain to someone who has no knowledge of Twitter. Another great site is Twitterholic.  It's not affiliated with Twitter but displays stats on the people who have the most followers. Go to www.twitter.com/derekmartin81 and start following me.  I can't guarantee the most interesting posts or the most frequent posts but I'll do my best.

TinEye is like 'Google' for images

I do realize that Google has an image search.  I use it a lot.  The thing about their image search is that you have to type in what you're looking for. TinEye allows you to either upload an existing image or enter the url of an existing web image.  It then uses technology by a company called Idée in order to find the same or similar images that have been posted on the internet. I explained this all to my wife who proceeded to question the usefulness.  I think it can be fun to look up popular images and see some of the similar, but photoshopped images that are out there.  TinEye even has a page of example searches that you can do.  One of the most popular is "American Gothic" which has been altered many times over the years.  Below you'll find the original followed by a few different versions.

Now, of course, there are more practical ways to use this service.  Photographers can do image searches of their more popular work in order to make sure no one else has posted it, or worse yet taken credit for it. As of this posting TinEye is on an invite-only status.  This just means that when you go to their website they'll ask you for your email address.  When your invite is ready they'll let you know.  Mine only took a few weeks.

I think IBM is on the right track with Lotus Symphony

I have found that the best way to go with software is the free stuff. I've been using GIMP instead of Photoshop and iTunes is better than any "paid-for" music management program. The one problem is the Microsoft Office clones. There's openoffice.org (who set up a great open source word processor / spreadsheet / presentation maker) but it's a little too plain and slow to load up. I then heard about Star Office which is based off of the open office platform and sells for $80. When Google started giving it away for free I decided to try it out. It has some perks over openoffice.org but it still doesn't "pop" with visuals like Microsoft Office does. I recently heard on a podcast about IBM's Lotus Symphony office suite. It's free so it had to be for me. Below are some screenshots demonstrating the overall look and feel of Lotus Symphony. These are just thumbnails but you can click on them for larger images.

I like the fact that it is set up like a tabbed internet browser. You have one screen and you tab between documents, spreadsheets and presentations. When you have a file open, you see it in the main window and you also the options (formatting, etc.) off to the right side. I typically keep several spreadsheets open at once and I don't want to clutter up my Windows taskbar more than it needs to be. I just started using it a day ago but I will report back once I get more used to how it works.

Dr. Pepper loves Guns N' Roses (or at least Axl Rose)

I first read about it on Digg the other day and didn't believe it for a second. But then I noticed that the article I was reading was on CNN Money's website. Hmm, a little bit of credibility. For those who don't yet know the story, it seems that Dr. Pepper is offering a free can of the soda to everyone in America with 2 stipulations: 1. Axl Rose must finally release the long awaited "Chinese Democracy" album during the calendar year 2008 2. Your name can't be 'Slash' or 'Buckethead' (as these are the two guitarists that have left the band in the past) The reason? Supposedly the good people at Dr. Pepper are strong supporters of GnFnR. If you don't know what the "Fn" is please leave my website now. I did a search on Snopes to see if they had anything written about this but couldn't find anything at the time this post was published. Nothing was found on drpepper.com either confirming or denying this story. Gunsnroses.com does have a personal response from Axl. UPDATE:  It happened!  Chinese Democracy has been released.  Just in time, too.  I'm thirsty (for Dr. Pepper AND some G n' R!) [digg=http://digg.com/music/Dr_Pepper_Loves_Guns_N_Roses]

"Jesus" spotted on an episode of "This Old House"

I was watching "This Old House" tonight and saw something interesting.  Just as Norm Abram was talking about the next project, I saw a guy walking by behind him holding a large cross. This is strange for two reasons: 1.  They fix up houses on "This Old House".  Why would they need a cross to perform such a task 2.  The guy isn't carrying the cross like you would expect him to.  I would carry it by standing upright and holding the long part of the cross horizontally under my arm while supporting the rest with my other hand.  Did you ever carry a 2x4 around?  This should be similar.  The guy is actually carrying the cross over his shoulder like Jesus does in all of those pictures. I couldn't find a clip on YouTube and I don't have a fancy means to get video from my Tivo to the computer.  I ended up pointing the digital camera at the TV screen.  The quality sucks but you can at least see what's going on. [viddler id=a0416efe&h=370&w=437]  [digg=http://digg.com/odd_stuff/Jesus_spotted_on_an_episode_of_This_Old_House]

I'm filtering out the Bacn

Most of us have a problem with bacn in our email inbox. Spam is easy to deal with. It's always unsolicited emails that we never want. Most email systems (like Gmail) have a great spam filter so that you never have to see it. What about all of those emails that you technically signed up for but you don't always have time to sort through. If you're popular on Facebook or MySpace I'm sure that you get tons of these emails daily. If you signed up for regular newsletters (my favorite is the Snopes update ) they tend to show up at the most inconvenient times. Basically, bacn is email that you want to get around to reading . . . eventually. The term 'bacn' was first coined at PodCamp Pittsburgh 2 last August according to the Wikipedia article. I set up filters on Gmail that allows it to recognize bacn by using the "from" address on the email. I told Gmail to skip the inbox and send it right to the Bacn label. That way it's there for me to read later when I have some free time. Check out the image below to see what I'm talking about. Ah, the sweet sight of an empty inbox . . . -derekmartin81

Playing With Viddler (and Liking it)

I've seen several video blogging sites in the past year or so. The most recent one that I've been trying out is Viddler. I first heard about it on one of Leo Laporte's Twit netcasts (I forget which one). The big difference with this site is that it allows people to comment directly on the time line of the video. Sometimes it can get annoying because it's like watching Pop-Up Video on VH1. I guess it works out o.k. if the star of the video doesn't use the bottom 10th of the frame for anything important. I have included a video below of our cat Stoli. I normally don't mind being the subject of the video but I'm just real tired looking right now. Go to viddler.com, sign up, leave comments on the video. It'll be fun. [viddler id=bc7b1a9a&h=370&w=437]

I love IKEA and I don't care what pop culture says

Before this past Sunday I have never been to an IKEA. Neither has my wife. We have both seen their website at www.ikea.com. Since we are buying a house and will need lots of stuff to fix it up, we are looking for a mixture of style and low cost. This is what attracted us to IKEA. I don't know about everyone else but there are two things that I have always heard about IKEA from pop culture: 1. You have to put everything together by yourself, which means 2. It's all a bunch of laminated particle board stuff that doesn't hold up well I'm glad that I stopped believing that. We had nothing else to do on Sunday so we took a drive down there. The closest IKEA is in Baltimore (about 1.5 hours away). I have found that you don't just shop for products, you experience the products. We walked around for a few hours and didn't buy anything. We were just pricing out some stuff. We did stop for Swedish Meatballs at the well-placed restaurant in the middle of the store. What we found is that a lot of the stuff is made of laminates and veneers . . . good quality laminates and veneers. We were mainly looking at kitchen cabinets and even the cheap ones would be great if you're on a tight budget. We picked out a style that is somewhere between the cheap basic ones and the high-priced fancy ones. We will be completely gutting the kitchen of our new house and installing all new cabinets, counter tops and appliances. IKEA is definitely the way to go since we are working with a budget. Curious about our house? That's a separate blog located at fixingupourhouse.wordpress.com. -derekmartin81

The best way to spend Valentine's Day

I bet most people hate trying to plan a night out on Valentine's Day. It seems to be the one night each year when every guy in town wants to take his wife (or girlfriend) out for a nice dinner. Think about the other holidays that involve togetherness. Thanksgiving and Christmas are handled at a family member's home for most people. Birthdays don't cause crowded restaurants (with 1 hour waits) because they are throughout the whole year. Valentine's Day can be dined at home if the husband wants to cook. Most husbands, myself included, aren't good enough chefs to deal with that. Guys should never ask their wives to cook on this day. This all leads to endless streams of couples crowding the waiting areas of every restaurant in town. In our area you can't throw a rock without it ricocheting off several major chain restaurants (Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday, Olive Garden, Red Robin, etc.). The bad thing is that none of these places take reservations in advance. My wife and I tried that deal for several years in the past but came up with a better solution this year. I picked up a movie of her choice (Notting Hill) at Blockbuster and then utilized Applebee's "Carside To Go". This allowed me to arrive home at a normal dinnertime with food and a romantic comedy in hand. I highly recommend this to any couple that is just too sick of waiting in line every year for a Valentine's dinner. NOTICE TO GUYS: If it's your first Valentine's with a girl, you better make reservations to a fancy (expensive) restaurant that allows you to call a week in advance. Anything short of that will make you look like a lazy cheapskate.

A new site to watch us fix up our first house

I just started a new site this evening.  It allows people follow us while we fix up our first house.  Settlement is planned for 2 weeks from now but we figured nows the best time to get rolling on the page.  It can be found at http://fixingupourhouse.wordpress.com.