Month: April 2005

  • April 25, 2005

    4/5- Picasa 2

    Ahh, yes, Google’s Picasa. It is a free photo editor/manager from Google- and it is simple wonderful. Basically what it does is search your computer for any pictures. Then it organizes them (within the program) and you can edit them. But the edits don’t take to the picture. They are saved in picasa until you physically save the picture. If you don’t, and you close Picasa, the changes are still in Picasa, just not on the actual photo. You can do a number of things to the photo itself. Make it black and white, make all but one part black and white, blur all or most of it, crop it, and get rid of red eye- amoungst other things. You can also export the photos to your blogger (www.blogger.com) or Gmail. Using Google’s Hello Photo Sharing Technology, you can post one or more pictures right to your blogger blog, adding a caption and other text you want. Other things you can do are: Create collages of pics and slideshows. A great application of this is my friends blog. For photo touch ups, and online sharing Picasa is definatly the program to get. Later!

    The 5th and final installment: Tasks-Jr.

  • April 17, 2005

    Sin City- 4.9/5

    Wow- what a great film. I heard rave reviews about it and felt the need to go see it. So last night, I did- and from the opening scene I was blown away. First of all- there was an all star cast- Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Elijah Wood, Clive Owen (King Aurther), Benicio del Toro, Brittany Murphy, and Alexis Bledel(of Gilmore Girls fame) to name a few. Ill put it out there right now- besides the all star cast, some of the acting was ehh. Just some. But the cinematography was amazing. The colorings were the same as in the comic. The movie was incredibly similar to the comic- and I think that is because Frank Miller, who wrote it, also co-directed the movie. It was comic book movie/ old 1950’s detective work. Voice overs, the music, the fact that the movie was for the most part in black and white. The movie is immursive- you really feel like you are there. The story line- there is this City- Basin City- where there is also A LOT of violence. The movie focuses on 3 different stories at 3 different times. The first and last one follow the same character and the same story line, and happened first. The other 2 are up for grabs as to when they happened- around the same time presumably. But- Basin City- Crime runs this city- but you’ve got your heroes too. And then there are the ones who will do bad things for a good cause. This is where one character- Marv – comes in. He may have been the show stealer for me. You can tell, without a back story, that the man has been through a lot. The last thing he wants to do is avenge the death of someone who showed him kindness. And he goes through hell. Hartigan- played by Wilis- is our hero. A good cop facing retirement. This man also goes through hell trying to protect someone- an innocent girl- Nancy Callahan- age 9. The 3rd character is Dwight- played by Owen. At the end, the stories don’t really tie together, but become linked by a character or 2. The movie- like I said- is really well done. i suggest you go see it. Later.

  • April 15, 2005

    3/5- GAIM

    So, I know that I haven’t posted for the software series in a while. And I know I said some registry cleaner would be next, but I used it once and well, Gaim would be a better review, and better for most people. So, without further ado, Gaim.
    Gaim is an Instant Messenger clone that isn’t just for AOL Instant Messanger. You can pretty much combine all your buddy lists from IM/ICQ, MSN, Napster and some other ones. With Gaim, you can also set up aliasing (screen name = real name), set yourself idle, make all the fonts the same color/font type, etc. It has tabbed IMing, go invisible, fix up your buddy list’s look and all that. Plus, since it is open source, you can get Plug-Ins. All in all its a nice little program, though I do have trouble transferring files from time to time. Later!

    Up next: Picasa2

  • April 8, 2005

    Mobility!

    So Im away for the weekend at the lovely Woodloch Pines Resort– A resort in northernish PA- Hawly- kinda near the Poconos. Anyway, There is a resort side- R&R if you will, and a business side- one aspect of which is the real nice 18 hole golf course they have. We- my family, friends and I are staying in the springs- a development (if you want to call it that)- built around the golf course. They are given to larger guest groups- but owned by other guests in a time share type manor. This of course lead me to believe that there was at least one wireless network I can steal from. I was right. There are actually 2- but the other one is very weak. But also, on the resort (in the main lobby and other select places) you can connect to their guest WiFi Network. I absolutly love the fact that I can pick up a connection from just about anywhere with my laptop b/c of the enviroment. My school is also getting like that. Soon, WiFi will be available anywhere. Later!

  • April 4, 2005

    Baseball Season!

    The Yankees kicked off the season yesterday by playing the Red Sox. They won 9-2. Johnson was for the most part unhittable last night, and the team as a whole did great. Tino made he debut back in pinstripes during the 7th inning- he made a phenomenal play to end the inning. The team seemed to play as a team- as oppose to sometimes last year. Also- our bullpen is looking very good this year. Johnson came out after 6, leaving it to the bullpen, who only let up one run. Boomer on the other hand (who is now on the BoSox), didn’t pitch so hot. He hit Giambi twice. It’s good to be watching baseball again- im very excited for the season. Game two of the series vs Boston- tomorrow at one. Mussina is pitching for us.

    In something unrealated- here are a couple of tees I came across that I felt i should share.

    Later!

  • April 2, 2005

    2/5- Notepad++

    So here is part 2 of my 5 part review of cool/fun software I have found on the net. This time, Notepad++. This software much like Notepad on your Windows machine- im not sure about Apple, but with more bells and whistles. First of all, it has tabs, so all the projects you are working on are organized. I find this especially useful when I am working on a website because I might refer to other pages I have developed. This way, I dont have to click on a new window or instance of notpad, but on another tab within the program. It also has syntax colorization. It colorizes the code so it is easier to read and trouble shoot. For example- comments are green and comic-sans. each reserved word, attribute, element is a different color based on the language you are writting in. It supports a vast amount of languages, including HTML, PHP, C, C++, Java, ASP, CSS, SQL, Pascal and a bunch more. While it doesn’t compile for you, its still nice to code in. Java looks so much nice in Notepad++ than it does in teh compiler I have, jGrasp. and there aren’t all of those extra frams the program uses. Another nice feature is line numbering, also making it easier to troubleshoot. The program is great to use, and doesn’t use nearly as much memory as something like Dreamweaver or Frontpage. I highly recommend it. Later!

    Coming up next: EasyCleaner.

  • April 1, 2005

    New way to comment!

    Dude to the massive amounts of spam that I just got today (over ~50 messages in a few hours), I installed teh wordpress plug-in called “bot-check”. Its a pretty simple modification that makes the commenter put in a 6 digit code (that is generated at random) and checks teh number before the comment is added. It is just like most sites that do user sign ups where u have to input a word or characters before u sign up to make sure its not a spam bot. Hopefully this will be a nice way to stop all these comments from being sent to my inbox saying “backgammon skgadldsfdsafas/as…. Later!