Hello!
You have reached the old homepage of Ramblings. Older posts can, as such, be viewed here (or at the new homepage, for that matter). For posts since December 26, 2009, please go to the new homepage, http://ramblingsrobert.wordpress.com. Also, please update any bookmarks or links you might have to reflect this change.
Thanks!
Here’s a bunch of cool links I’ve been saving up:
The Case Of The 500-Mile Email
The statistics department at a certain college seems to be unable to send email more than “500 miles, or a bit more” away. There actually is a valid reason.
MakerBot
This open-source machine can, when given a diagram and a load of raw plastic, ‘print’ three-dimensional objects, from eyeglass frames and wall brackets to action figures and 3D renderings of Walt Disney’s head.
Better Late Than Never
A Japanese man completes a marathon after 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes, and 20.3 seconds.
Road Lights
These towers use the wind of passing cars on a highway to generate electricity to power streetlights. I bet that electricity could be used for other uses, too.
B-Headphones
These wireless earbuds, when clipped into their case, can fit into any AA battery charger to recharge.
DIVINA
This wireless hotspot finder is shaped like a dowsing rod and points toward the strongest spot. It can also act as a repeater, to strengthen the signal.
Cube Jigger
This jigger is shaped like a cube and can measure liquids in six common measures. Each side has gradients, also, so using the ‘Cup’ side you can measure out 1 cup, 1/2 cup, 1/4 cup, 1/3 cup, and so on.
SWITCH Screwdriver
The handle on this screwdriver can swivel to form a ‘T’ shape, offering better grip for stubborn screws.
Proof That Girls Are Evil
While in fact most of them aren’t, it’s a good (and funny!)mathematical proof.
How To Get Your Camera Back
One man made a series of pictures on his camera to convince someone to give it back to him (and how to get in contact) in the event of loss. He also compiled them together in .gif format just for the web.
Star Wars Status Updates
Hilarious. Facebook status updates by Star Wars characters. Nothing more needs be said.
Metal Pen
This pen has no ink. It works because the nib is a special allow that slowly comes off onto the paper; when used on printer-paper-style paper, it looks similar to a pencil’s mark but does not smudge and cannot easily be rubbed of the paper. For a full-length alternative, see the Beta Pen.
This is, in essence, an update to my previous post, How To Change The Color Of Office 2007.
If you’re running the beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 (available free (as in beer!) from the Microsoft website), you can change the color scheme from blue (default) to black or silver, just like in Office 2007. If you’ve already changed the color, I found that Office 2010 preserved that change upon install. If you haven’t yet, or if you want to switch the color, or if it didn’t preserve that color change, here’s how to do it:
For pictures with each step, see this Instructable.
0. Steps 1 – 3 detail how to download the Office 2010 Beta. If you already have it, skip to step 4.
1. Go to this site and click through the various Download Now buttons until you can actually download the installer. You’ll need a Windows Live ID (if you don’t have one, click the link anyways; the site’ll tell you how to make one) and you’ll have to sign up (email, name, country) to use the beta.
2. Save the installer to your Desktop or wherever you put installer downloads, DON’T CHANGE THE FILE NAME.
3. Once the download completes, run the uninstaller. Follow the instruction in the subsequent window.
4. Open any Office 2010 window (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc)
5. Click on ‘File.’ In different programs, this button will be different colors: Red in PowerPoint, Blue in Word, Green in Excel, and so on.
6. Click Options, the second-to-last button.
7. Make sure the subsequent window is set to the ‘General’ tab.
8. Under the dropdown list titled Color Scheme currently set to blue, choose either Black or Silver. I personally prefer the black scheme.
9. Click OK.
10. You’re done! Doing this affects the following Office 2010 windows: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, OneNote, and Publisher. I do not have any other Office programs.
Screenshots!
Black
Silver
I recently went on a vacation to Japan (which I will be writing posts about at some point) where I, among other things, got a little Rubik’s Cube. I can finally solve one!
Also: Some shameless self promotion: If you like my blog, or even if you don’t really think much about it, I’d greatly appreciate you passing the like to it around to people you know (http://ramblingsrobert.wordpress.com). Thank y’all kindly.
Whilst wandering about the net today, I discovered this post at Thunder and Lightning about an idea about eBook futures.
In short: Save eBooks online, and access them wirelessly from your e-reader, thus eliminating the ‘my e-reader just broke and now I lost all my books’ problem. Have a list of people who can read-only view the books in your online library, thus eliminating the ‘but I like borrowing and lending books’ problem.
Hit up the link for a more detailed explanation: [Thunder and Lightning]
Also: Windows Live Writer seems to think ‘ebook’ is spelled with a capital B. Interesting. Does anyone know why, or if eBook is more proper than ebook?
Brought to you by the same people who made Defraggler, CCleaner, and Recuva, Speccy tells you everything you wanted to know about you hardware and quite a bit you didn’t really need to know.
Pros:
Tells you –in great detail – about your OS, CPU, RAM, Motherboard, Graphics, Hard Drives, Optical Drives, and Audio. For instance, it turns out my hard drive’s model is WD1600BEVT-00ZCTO
Cons:
Tells you more than you needed?
Rating: 
Get this great program here, and have fun.
The window 
About the ratings:
I copied Wired Magazine’s rating system because I like and I think it works well. Here’s the key:
1 = A complete failure in every way
2 = Barely functional – don’t get it
3 = Serious flaws, proceed with caution
4 = Downsides outweigh upsides
5 = Recommended with reservations
6 = A solid product with some issues
7 = Very good, but not great
8 = Excellent, with room to kvetch
9 = Nearly flawless – get it now
10 = Metaphysical product perfection
A “Personal Start Menu,” you can customize what shows up in it and assign your programs into groups and folders for easy access. Ideal for managing any portable apps you may have. All in all, pretty cool.
Pros:
Works just as advertised. Has a ‘scan for executables’ option: point it to a folder and it shows you all your .exe files, which can then be moved into groups or folders to you like. Can also, I think, show files.
Cons:
Bland look. To keep groups from nesting you have to add separators. Sometimes required wiggling to move items from one group to another.
Rating: 
Grab this program here. Enjoy!
About the ratings:
I copied Wired Magazine’s rating system because I like and I think it works well. Here’s the key:
1 = A complete failure in every way
2 = Barely functional – don’t get it
3 = Serious flaws, proceed with caution
4 = Downsides outweigh upsides
5 = Recommended with reservations
6 = A solid product with some issues
7 = Very good, but not great
8 = Excellent, with room to kvetch
9 = Nearly flawless – get it now
10 = Metaphysical product perfection
I’m tentatively moving my blog to WordPress ‘cause I’ve heard lots of great things about it and it seems pretty cool. If I like it, you’ll no longer be able to get to my blog at http://ramblings-robert.blogspot.com as of Jan 1, 2010. If I don’t like it, the URL won’t change. I’ll let you know either way.
Wish me luck!
Oh, yes. The new URL is http://ramblingsrobert.wordpress.com. Note the lack of a hyphen between ‘ramblings’ and ‘robert'.
Please comment and tell me what you think of it.
I’ve got a whole ton of cool links that’ve been building up for quite a while. Here you go:
Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale
At this year’s World Science Festival, Bobby McFerrin does an interesting demonstration of how audiences can always hit the pentatonic scale right on. [Vimeo]
5 New Technologies That Will Change Everything
USB 3.0, Video streaming over Wi-Fi, 3D TV, Augmented Reality in mobile devices, and HTML5. All very very cool. [PCWorld]
SeatGuru
A very cool site: plug in the type of airplane you’ll be flying on and it shows you the seating chart for that plane, with the benefits (or lack thereof) to each seat. E.g. “This seat may have extra traffic in the aisle due to its proximity to the lavatory” “The large TV screen is not visible from this seat” [SeatGuru]
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
A webcomic about a doctor. Who is also a ninja. In a family of ninjas who came from Ireland (or perhaps Scotland). ‘Nuff said. [Dr. McNinja]
Metal Chess Pieces
A very cool metal chess set, made out of screws and flanges and such. Also, a diagram of the heart and lungs. You can ignore that one. [Flickr]
Repair a Broken Ethernet Plug
Everybody hates broken connectors on an ethernet plug. Now you can fix them. Enjoy. [Instructables]
T-Shirt: Ninjas Can’t Catch You
I would totally buy this t-shirt, except holidays are coming soon so I think I’ll just add it to my wish list. [TopatoCo]
Tron Legos
I will make this, once I get around to finding the parts. [Flickr]
Cardboard Kayak
I will build this, once I convince mom to drive me around to look for cardboard. I sense a theme here. [Instructables]
Silent Conversation
A very cool game where you are the cursor and you have to touch words in a story – words moved into patterns so you have to jump and swerve. Also there are words that can kill you if their ‘spirit’ hits you. [Armor Games]
Anatomy of a Black Hole
Self-Explanatory. Very easy to understand, very well presented. [ThinkTechnologies]
Screws and Nails
Detailed description of different kinds of screws and nails and their uses. [Web-pros]
A Story About ‘Magic’
Cool, chuckle-inducing story. [Catb]
Fraction-Of-An-Inch Adding Machine
A very cool, very useful machine (made out of paper) to add fractions. [EvilMadScientist]
EZ-12 Parabolic Reflector
Stick this over the antenna on your router and view the speed boost. I went from 48 to 54 Mbps, as defined by the popup thing in my System Tray. [FreeAntennas]
Ta-Da! Also, hopefully the Favicon issue is resolved. What happened was that the site it was hosted on had a crash and lost a whole bunch of images. I reuploaded, reset, and it seems to work now.
| If your window looks like this | You have this version of Word. Remember this. You will need it. |
|
| Microsoft Word 2007 |
| | Microsoft Word 97-03 |
==============================
SETUP
For Microsoft Word 2007
For Microsoft Word 97-03
1. Click File 
2. Choose Page Setup 
3. On the Margins tab, set Top, Bottom, Left, and Right to 0.5 
4. On the Paper Size tab, change Letter to Half Letter (6th from the bottom) 
5. Press OK 
==============================
PRINTING
For Microsoft Word 2007
1. Look at the table below to find how many blank pages you’ll need to put on the end of your booklet
2. Click on the Office logo in the top left hand corner of the window 
3. Hover over Print, then choose Print again in the resulting list 
4. Set Pages Per Sheet to 2 (Under the Zoom heading) 
5. Use the table below to find out how to finish the print job
For Microsoft Word 97-03
1. Look at the table below to find how many blank pages you’ll need to put on the end of your booklet
2. Click File 
3. Choose Print 
4. Set Pages Per Sheet to 2 
5. Use the table below to find out how to finish the print job
==============================
| If you have written this many half-size pages (including the title page) | Add this many blank pages to the end | Put this in the Pages box (under Page Range). Then follow the paragraph below the table. | Then put this in the Pages box after following the below paragraph |
| 10 | 2 | 2, 11, 4, 9, 6, 7 | 12, 1, 10, 3, 8, 5 |
| 11 | 1 | 2, 11, 4, 9, 6, 7 | 12, 1, 10, 3, 8, 5 |
| 12 | 0 | 2, 11, 4, 9, 6, 7 | 12, 1, 10, 3, 8, 5 |
| 13 | 3 | 2, 15, 4, 13, 6, 11, 8, 9 | 16, 1, 14, 3, 12, 5, 10, 7 |
| 14 | 2 | 2, 15, 4, 13, 6, 11, 8, 9 | 16, 1, 14, 3, 12, 5, 10, 7 |
| 15 | 1 | 2, 15, 4, 13, 6, 11, 8, 9 | 16, 1, 14, 3, 12, 5, 10, 7 |
| 16 | 0 | 2, 15, 4, 13, 6, 11, 8, 9 | 16, 1, 14, 3, 12, 5, 10, 7 |
| 17 | 3 | 2, 19, 4, 17, 6, 15, 8, 13, 10, 11 | 20, 1, 18, 3, 16, 5, 14, 7, 12, 9 |
| 18 | 2 | 2, 19, 4, 17, 6, 15, 8, 13, 10, 11 | 20, 1, 18, 3, 16, 5, 14, 7, 12, 9 |
| 19 | 1 | 2, 19, 4, 17, 6, 15, 8, 13, 10, 11 | 20, 1, 18, 3, 16, 5, 14, 7, 12, 9 |
| 20 | 0 | 2, 19, 4, 17, 6, 15, 8, 13, 10, 11 | 20, 1, 18, 3, 16, 5, 14, 7, 12, 9 |
| 21 | 3 | 2, 23, 4, 21, 6, 19, 8, 17, 10, 15, 12, 13 | 24, 1, 22, 3, 20, 5, 18, 7, 16, 9, 14, 11 |
| 22 | 2 | 2, 23, 4, 21, 6, 19, 8, 17, 10, 15, 12, 13 | 24, 1, 22, 3, 20, 5, 18, 7, 16, 9, 14, 11 |
| 23 | 1 | 2, 23, 4, 21, 6, 19, 8, 17, 10, 15, 12, 13 | 24, 1, 22, 3, 20, 5, 18, 7, 16, 9, 14, 11 |
| 24 | 0 | 2, 23, 4, 21, 6, 19, 8, 17, 10, 15, 12, 13 | 24, 1, 22, 3, 20, 5, 18, 7, 16, 9, 14, 11 |
| 25 | 3 | 2, 27, 4, 25, 6, 23, 8, 21, 10, 19, 12, 17, 14, 15 | 28, 1, 26, 3, 24, 5, 22, 7, 20, 9, 18, 11, 16, 13 |
Print the pages according to the third column, then put them in order so that that the largest numbered page on the left side is on top (e.g. first the whole-size page with half-size pages 10 and 11, then the whole-size page with half-size 8 and 13, then the whole-size page with half-size pages 6 and 15, etc). It might already be this way. Turn them around so the blank side is facing you, then do all of the past steps again but with the numbers from the fourth column in the Pages box
Peanut Butter and Jelly on a Sourdough Bread Roll
Pretty self explanatory by the title, but here’s how to make it if you care. If you don’t care, then I’m still going to write how to make it but you don’t have to look at it.
What You Need
- Peanut butter
- Jelly, preferably either grape or strawberry
- One sourdough bread roll (The small ones, about two inches tall and about four inches in diameter)
What You Do
Hold the sourdough roll so that the flat bottom is on the bottom. Cut at the horizontal halfway point all the way through. Put jelly on one half and peanut butter on the other half, like so:
=========================================
==========Top of sourdough bread roll===========
=============================================
###################Jelly######################
@@@@@@@@@@@@Peanut Butter@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
=============================================
=========Bottom of sourdough bread roll============
=============================================
Then eat it.
This is an IM client along the lines of Meebo or (presumably, I’ve never used it) Digsby. Kind of obscure, but a really great program.
Pros:
Slick user interface. Connects to: AIM, ICQ, Bonjour, Facebook IM, IRC, MySpaceIM, Skype, Windows Live Messenger, XMPP (all Jabber, XMPP, and Google Talk networks), and Yahoo! Messenger. It also has support for any POP3 or IMAP enabled email account and Twitter. Lots of great color themes. The main window doesn’t take up any space in your taskbar, just a small icon in your system tray. You can switch it from one tabbed chat windows to multiple single-conversation windows. When connected to certain clients (at least Windows Live Messenger) certain words, when mouseover-ed, pop up a Wikipedia article about that word. Tested and certain words: bacon, yay, and The Sixth Sense. Windows snap to other windows and the edges of the screen.
Cons:
You must manually reconnect to Facebook every time you log on (basically, when you restart your computer). Won’t pick up responses from one (only one!) of my friends on Facebook, but I suspect that’s an issue with Facebook. As far as I can tell, disconnects you when your computer screensavers.
Rating: 
Get it here.
About the ratings:
I copied Wired Magazine’s rating system because I like it and I think it works well. Here’s the key:
1 = A complete failure in every way
2 = Barely functional – don’t get it
3 = Serious flaws, proceed with caution
4 = Downsides outweigh upsides
5 = Recommended with reservations
6 = A solid product with some issues
7 = Very good, but not great
8 = Excellent, with room to kvetch
9 = Nearly flawless – get it now
10 = Metaphysical product perfection
On the left is the main window, on the right is an open chat window
No ma’am, no names here, nothing to worry yourself about.
This is a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago, saved it as a draft on Windows Live Writer until I could get links, and promptly forgot about it:
I’ve got a couple portable apps (only one from the actual PortableApps website) that I like. Here they are:
Highly Recommended
Other good ones
Ones I don’t use too much, but are good to have.
This is meant to be a browser where instead of tabs, it pulls up multiple windows and you can arrange them around a ‘sphere’. Good idea, not so great program.
Pros:
Good idea for a program. Easy to resize and move your windows around.
Cons:
Hard to see the tiny windows on my MSI Wind’s screen. Issues with lag. Leaves behind marks when you move or close a window.
Rating: 
You can download it here, if you like.
About the ratings:
I copied Wired Magazine’s rating system because I like and I think it works well. Here’s the key:
1 = A complete failure in every way
2 = Barely functional – don’t get it
3 = Serious flaws, proceed with caution
4 = Downsides outweigh upsides
5 = Recommended with reservations
6 = A solid product with some issues
7 = Very good, but not great
8 = Excellent, with room to kvetch
9 = Nearly flawless – get it now
10 = Metaphysical product perfection
I downloaded a whole bunch of new programs today and updated a whole bunch of others. I’ll use them for a little while, then review them all. At the end, I’ll give you the list of Programs That Lived.
Expect the first review sometime between now and the day after tomorrow.
