Category Archives: General

General items that fit either no category or more than one category.

History of Religion in 90 Seconds

This is a great generalization of current religions. Although it seems to skip over a lot, what do expect for a 90 second video. It covers Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  It seems surprising how Christianity just explodes near the end and takes over the majority of the empty space. How has the geography of Religion evolved over the centuries? See 5,000 years of history in 90 seconds…

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Google Updates AdSense Rules: Images are not allowed beside AdSense

The practice of placing images above or next to AdSense banners has been around for a while — the idea is to trick visitors into thinking that the Google Ads are click-able image captions. Now, Google has officially announced that the practice is NO LONGER allowed. This is a good move on Google’s part as it shows to their advertisers that they care about them even if it might cost them in the short run. I have run across quite a few sites that were intermixing images and ads to try to get people to accidentally click on the ads. There is nothing worse than being tricked into clicking on an advertisement when you were expecting something completely different. With the new rule changes it should, hopefully, decrease the number of illegitimate clicks while increasing the revenue on legitimate clicks. Thank you Google!

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Wii – Forecast channel released

Here is a video of the newly released Wii Forecast Channel.
The Wii Forecast Channel has been released (well, the official release is December 20 and today is the 19th but you can still access it)!
You will need to perform a system update on your Wii before you can use the Forecast Channel. Now all I need is a Wii and I can get my weather. I wonder why Microsoft doesn’t do something like this on Xbox Live? I know if they did it now everyone would say they are copying but I think this could be an interesting feature.

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Digg Unveils New Features

New Digg Features O’ Plenty
by Kevin Rose at 6am, Dec 18th, 2006 in Digg Website
Big update today. Tons of new features to share with you – many inspired by feedback you’ve given us over the last few months (thanks!). Check out this video … (( http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/18/digg-break ))

The new digg update dramatically changes the site around. Bye bye ugly left hand side bar, hello top navigation. That isn’t the only change though, as this is a major update to Digg. It will be a while before I’m used to the new design, but so far I am really enjoying the new look. The site continues to try to draw on the users, and bring them the stories they want to see. This allows for customizing the page how you want it to appear. Watch the video and see the goodness.

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Yusuf (Cat Stevens) Makes Rare Performance

Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens before he converted to Islam, is going to make a very rare performance on SIRIUS Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) Wednesday December 20, at 12pm ET.  He will be in studio to discuss his first studio album in 28 years, and to give an exclusive performance.  If you are able to check it out, you can find it on The Spectrum, channel 18 only on Sirius.

It has been a while since most of the people in North America have heard Yusuf’s music.  He left the music world in 1978, having converted to Islam, and has devoted himself to charitable work.  He continued to make music but it was dramatically different; such as traditional Islamic songs.  Now he has returned to his roots with a new album, “An Other Cup”, in the folk-pop style that he is most famous for.

Updated Google Finance

For the past week I have been getting used to Google Finance’s new front page. They launched the new front page on Monday. The new design is cleaner, and provides more information that is relevant to the user. It remembers the stocks you recently have been looking at and includes them in a list so you can see them all updated on the recent quotes section. As well with the recent quotes, it provides recent news stories on them as well. One addition with the redesign I like is the Sector Summary, and the Top Movers tabs. Both features provide more information which is never a bad thing. Other features include the market summary which has some currency exchanges as well.

One comment that I would like to make about the whole design is that, the user should be allowed to make some customizations to the site. Such as the http://www.google.com/ig/ site, I want to be able to add and remove pieces that I feel are more important to me. As well, with things like the currency exchanges, I would like to be able to choose which currency exchanges are being updated. Overall though, I’m happy with the redesign and I hope that google is able to steal some market-share away from Yahoo! Finance.

A dog ate some guy’s XBox 360!

I have been in a situation like this before; “Some guy sold his 360 on eBay only to have it shipped back to him a month later after being pretty much devoured by a dog.” I remember when my dog was still a puppy, it would chew everything. I used to get so mad whenever it chewed on anything of mine. What I don’t understand in the case of the story is, why they buyer sent the item back to the seller. It seems strange since the seller still has the money. Maybe the buyer is collecting some sort of insurance for the item. Regardless, check out the pictures in the article; it looks like he got off lucky since it’s salvageable.

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Two Years of Digging!

“Hard to believe, but two years ago today, Kevin decided my code was bug- free enough to take down the beta sign and unleash Digg upon the world. It’s been a crazy and exciting time since then, and we owe it all to you – the loyal and passionate members of the Digg community.” Thanks everyone and Happy Birthday to all! : ) –kevinrose

I remember finding out about digg very early. I know I wasn’t hardcore enough to actually know about the site on the first day but I would have to say I was among the first group. I had gone to the site a few times in December 2004, and then it was also mentioned on one of the first episodes of TWIT (this week in tech, previously known as Return of the Screen Savers). I registered my username in April, since I’m such a big lurker who doesn’t see the need to contribute. It has been a pleasant past couple of years for Digg, with visitor numbers constantly increasing and the site expanding into areas beyond tech. I can’t wait to see what else is going to be in store for the next birthday.

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Mac Vs. PC Commercials

I really dislike all those Mac Vs. PC commercials.  I use a PC all the time and don’t consider it to be solely a “business” platform like they keep trying to say in the commercials.  They continually say I am unable to do fun things, which is a lie.  Also, looking at games, how often does that Apple guy get to play new fun games.. never, since Mac doesn’t have games (don’t try to say WoW and Warcraft 3).  Well enough of Mac vs PC, I ran across another spoof commerical.  This video is kind of old but its the PS3 vs. Nintendo.  Although I will disagree a little bit with it, I generally think its pretty funny though.  I just wonder what an Xbox 360 girl would look like in that style commercial?

IMDB Gets a Face Lift

International Movie Database finally gets a face lift. The new website seems to perform much better and also has a much cleaner look. Backed up by a Table-less design with power of CSS, IMDB has finally taken the web 2.0 plunge. Take a look for yourself! This is one of my most visited sites. If I want to find out any information regarding a movie, or actor this is the site I go to. I am glad they didn’t change the site too much and I like how they kept the overall feel the same. It also looks like the new design is setup to allow more advertising! :)

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