Ross McKillop
Vancouver, BC - http://
Filed under: Audio, Internet, Web services
The Unofficial Pandora/eMusic Mashup
I'm not sure how I missed this when it came out, as I'm a big fan of both eMusic and Pandora. It seems that Jon Strunk, a product manager at eMusic, has created a terrific Pandora/eMusic mashup. All the details can be found on Jon's blog, but the service works as you'd expect. While Pandora plays tracks, eMusic offers them up for download (if they're available). Because I have both Pandora and eMusic accounts, when I first visited the mashup I was auto-magically signed in to both services and my default station started playing. Genius.
Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Macintosh, Freeware
Inquisitor 3.0 Beta 2
by Ross McKillop Jan 17th 2007
Inquisitor, the free OS X app that adds "search as you type" functionality to Safari, has been updated. According to the official blog the app "provides an enhanced web searching experience by learning from your use of it over time and then tailoring the experience to suit you best. Websites that you've visited before are flagged and prioritized and search keywords you've used recently show up ahead of the rest. Best of all, your usage history is stored on your computer and yours alone, so unlike services like Google Personalized Search, you don't need to worry about some corporation watching and recording your every move." Since the last time we profiled Inquisitor a number of new features have been added. Your previously visited sites are now prominently displayed as such. Adding additional search engines is a snap, and over 30 have been included by default. There are also several updates to the Preferences [screenshot][Thanks Steven!]
Filed under: Blogging, Productivity, How-Tos, Social Software
WordPress: The Complete Post-Install Checklist
One of the great things about WordPress is how easily you can have it up and running, completely customized to your liking, in such a short period of time. After setting up WordPress for several of my friends, I found that having a 'checklist' makes things go even faster - so I decided to write it all up and share with you. Please don't hesitate to use the comments to suggest additions etc, I'll update the checklist accordingly.
Depending on how you've installed WordPress (manually or by a "one-click-install" that many hosting providers offer) - one of the very last installation steps is to choose a blog name and provide an email address. That's where this checklist begins. Click on a heading below to get started!
- Create blog title, add email address
- Change your password
- Disable visual rich editor
- Add users
- Change the tagline
- Edit Membership permissions
- Set a date and time format
- Modify Reading and Writing settings
- Edit Discussion settings
- Modify Permalinks structure
- Pick a theme
- Customize your theme
- Write down CSS info
- Change title format
- Edit blogroll
- Edit the About page
- Add some categories
- Edit the example post for testing
- Install plugins
- Check blog and test plugins
- Create a favicon.ico
- Create a shortcut to the Dashboard / setup WordPress client
- Start posting
Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Time-Wasters
Throw Paper! - Today's Time Waster
by Ross McKillop Jan 11th 2007
Line Rider it ain't, but my roommates have been playing Throw Paper! for the last two hours, and there's no end in sight. I have no problem admitting that I've only been able to get 6 in a row - though it appears my step-sister is some kind of click-and-release freak because she's at 28. Note: Submitting your score doesn't seem to work right now - I've already emailed the game author to see if it's fixable.
[Thanks, Chris!]
Filed under: Internet, News, Web services
Netvibes international updates
If you want to help Netvibes to build a local version for your country, I'm sure they would be thrilled if you contact them.
Watch live streaming NHL games online (US only)
by Ross McKillop Dec 27th 2006 {11 comments}
There was certainly a lot of fanfare when Google announced that they were going to allow people around the world to watch in-season full-length games on Google Video. Well, it seems that Comcast now allows anyone in the US to stream up to 2 live games a day. When Comcast and the NHL first made this announcement, the games were only viewable to Comcast High-Speed Internet customers. This year, ...Optimized Firefox 2.0.0.1 for G5 and Intel Macs
by Ross McKillop Dec 27th 2006 {1 comments}
After you unwrap your new Mac this holiday (or maybe found a great Boxing Day deal) be sure to install the very latest version of BonEcho, the G5 and Intel optimized version of Firefox. The new builds also include:
an overhauled version of the aqua form widgets
the user agent has been changed so that the browser will identify itself as Firefox rather than BonEcho
To help Neil (the ...Share files online with DivShare
There are a lot of file sharing/hosting/storing sites out there. A lot. So one of my first predictable questions for DivShare co-founder David Altschul was of course, "Why use DivShare?" His answer: "DivShare sets itself apart from other free file hosts in a number of distinct ways, most notably in that we offer unlimited uploads and downloads, no waiting lines for files, auto image galleries, no ...ImageChef - Today's Time Waster
by Ross McKillop Dec 22nd 2006 {4 comments}
ImageChef is a family-friendly site that allows you to create custom images for your blog, forum signature or general amusement. Without having to register any kind of account, you can modify text in a variety of image templates. The resulting pictures can be easily saved or emailed to friends. ImageChef will host your pictures if you're a registered user (registration is free), and provide the ...Last.fm OS X client updated to 1.1.0
by Ross McKillop Dec 22nd 2006 {3 comments}
Social music site Last.fm has recently updated their OS X client to version 1.1.0. While the site is short on details for the new version, there are some fairly obvious UI changes that include new icons, font changes and button sizes. This beta version is only compatible with Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger). I've been using it all day today, and I'm happy to report that it hasn't crashed yet. This is good ...
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
