Twitter started off like a confusing but fun way to keep up with what your friends or favorite bloggers were doing. Slowly more and more people started using Twitter and with that, many applications were built to accompany it. I call them courtiers. Here’s some that I like:
More noteworthy Twitter courtiers:
source: [ link ]
This is one of the most useful sites for any internet junkie who prefers to remain anonymous. cheers and congrats to the author!
It generates:
- First and last name
- Valid city, state, and zip code
- Telephone number with area code/prefix that match the generated city
- Mother’s maiden name
- Birthday
Working on adding in valid full addresses, but that is a lot tougher. There aren’t really any random address generators out there. Well, there are, but they don’t give you a random VALID address, which is important if the website you are using it at validates it using the USPS system.
Check it out: http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
Some possible uses:
- Signing up for paid offers (like affiliate programs that pay for leads) or those annoying free iPod pyramid schemes. If it doesn’t require you to actually get something shipped to you, then a real looking fake name/address from another state can be real useful.
- Pseudonym to use as your online identity to avoid companies from seeing your colorful past. If you use an “unused” name, then it will be very easy to search for everything related to yourself using Google.
- Load it (or a couple) into a form filler to quickly fill out junk mail forms. Very useful if they want you to refer 5 friends or whatever.
- Fake websites to promote your own website. Work at least the city/state into it somewhere and it looks like people from all over the country are raving about your *insert something cool here*. Of course, thats a lot more work than I’d be willing to do. Maybe if I generate an XML API like someone suggested, it could be done automatically… Hmmm…
- Sweepstakes site that is used to gather names/emails to sell. Use the fake names/addresses as the people who “win” your sweepstakes.
- Umm. Thats it really. Not sure what else you’d use it for. Guess there are a lot of illegitimate uses… Oh well…
The worst part is, is that this could totally happen in the next couple years. Creepy.
The WristPC Keyboard: This keyboard is designed for “portable and wearable” computer applications, whatever that means.
The Comfort Keyboard: This ergonomic keyboard can be split into three separate sections, supposedly for added comfort. It also features key reprogramming and a programmable “rest period indicator.”
Orbitouch keyless keyboard: This one is a little hard to explain. It was designed for people with “repetitive stress injuries” like carpal tunnel. As you can see, there are no keys.
The Roll-Up Keyboard
The Optimus Maximus keyboard: Little OLED displays on each key let you customize the layout. Probably the most talked about keyboard ever.
DataHand Professional II: Another Keyboard focused on ergonomics. Is the normal keyboard really that uncomfortable?
The Apple Adjustable Keyboard: A pretty creative keyboard considering the 1992 release date. It was designed to minimize carpal tunnel syndrome.
Saitek Eclipse Keyboard
The Frogpad: A keyboard meant to be used with one hand. Supposedly you could reach 40 words per minute with a days practice.
The Twiddler 2: This is a one handed, hand held, keyboard. It wins the prize for most uncomfortable keyboard to use.
The Tablecloth Keyboard: Designed by German designer Tonia Welter. Ideal for those who take every meal in front of the computer.
The Combimouse Keyboard: This Australian company decided to do the impossible: Combine the keyboard and the mouse!
The Apple Keyboard: Quite possibly the most beautiful keyboard ever crafted. Comes in wired and wireless varieties.
The Virtual Laser Keyboard
The Washable Waterproof Keyboard: Do you ever get the sudden urge to type underwater? If so, this keyboard is for you!
The Kinesis Freestyle Solo Keyboard: Basically, the fine people at Kinesis decided to split a keyboard in half and sell if for twice as much. Well Done!
The SafeType Keyboard: This one is supposedly more comfortable to use than a regular keyboard. However, it’ll probably take a long time getting used to.
Maltron’s Ergonomic Keyboard: This keyboard fits the shape of the hands to reduce tension. This may take some getting used to.
The Maltron Executive Keyboard: Are you rediculously rich and want a heavy stainless steel keyboard? Well then this is the keyboard for you!
Logitech diNovo Edge
Fingerworks Keyboard: Strange Keyboard that originally retailed at $340. The keys are in fact a flat surface, making them awkward to type on.
The Stealth Computer Keyboard: Made of strong component, this keyboard will function in even the most hazardous areas, or so they say.
Happy Hacking Keyboard: This one is also a little hard to explain. It is supposedly coated using a special brush made from the hair of virgins and sprinkled with gold dust. And it’ll cost you 525,000 yen.
ElekTex Fabric Keyboard
The EZ Reach Keyboard: Another variation of the keyboard. Why do people feel they must repeatedly reinvent the wheel?
Update: A lot of our readers suggested the following keyboards and we responded. Enjoy.
Das Keyboard: This keyboard features highly responsive tactile feedback, and the keys are completely blank.
The AlphaGrip: A controller style hand held USB ‘keyboard’ and trackball. Supposedly the “worlds most comfortable computing experience”
source: [ speedingcomputer ]
YouTube is notorious for its low-quality videos, even then it is the world’s most popular video streaming and video sharing website. Probably the reason is that First the uploaded videos are converted to flash and then their FLV files are streamed through players which produces the resulting low quality video effect.
Somewhere i did heard that Google might be secretly working on improving the quality of some YouTube videos.
The trick is to append &fmt=18 at the end of URL of the YouTube video you are watching. This will make YouTube download a high-quality video version of that particular video. The high quality video version will of course be bigger in size and therefore will take more time to load. It shall be encoded at 480×360 with an MP4 format. This trick will not work on all videos but for some it works like a charm.
Example:
Lets say you have a YouTube video with the following URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGMKgLRU-3c
you turn it into this! and it works!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGMKgLRU-3c&fmt=18
State Representative Tim Couch wants to make anonymous internet posting illegal. The bill would require anyone "contributing" to a website to register their real name, address and email address with that site -- the website would be fined $500 for each anonymous post. Couch wants to cut down on "online bullying." Um... right. The ACLU will love that. Hey Timmy, in addition to trampling the first amendment, we should just repeal all the others-- except the 2nd, of course.
1. Twitter’s Public Timeline - Brilliant, I mean who doesn’t want to see what some chinese person you’ve never met did 5 seconds ago? For those not content with the inane ramblings of your ‘friends’, you can stay up-to-date with a steady stream of bullcrap from complete strangers who insist on telling you about their sick cat in a foreign language. What’s more, your updates never stay on the page for longer than a nanosecond because the geniuses at twitter think the last 20 posts is an adequate representation of about 40 squillion users. 2. Digg’s “Friends Activity” menu - This stroke of genius comes from the delusional idea that (a) ‘Friends’ on Digg are anything more than isolated vote-sharing syndicates and (b) anyone gives a flying crap about what other people are doing. That aside, the menu itself is made completely redundant by the lack of any information other than a list of stats, and if anyone actually uses this retarded waste of pixels I’ll eat my own kidney. 3. Google Video’s Front Page - For what is arguably the biggest internet company on the planet, they sure don’t know how to engage their users. Google video is actually a pretty decent video site, offering large uploads and better streaming than YouTube. The problem lies in their frankly pathetic front page, which offers no real incentive or ability to explore videos, short of a brief list of stuff I saw 2 years ago. 4. YouTube’s “Streams” feature - You might not have heard of this one as it’s still in beta, but the fact that nobody seems to be using it is a testament to the idiocy of whoever created it. This feature basically allows you to enter a ‘room’ where you can talk to other YouTube users in real-time while watching videos. First of all, the average YouTube user spends his time calling everyone else gay, spouting horrific grammar and arguing in leetspeak like any of it even matters. Talk to these people live? No thanks. 5. StumbleUpon’s Video feature - Great for a few weeks, the service lets you discover random clips that actually fit your interests. It all goes a bit pear-shaped when you’re kindly informed that you need to pick more interests before you can continue using it, which means eventually you get stuck watching all the stuff you didn’t want, like cat videos and crappy anime. Complaints to the usual address, I’d also like to apologise in advance for any offense caused to the following:- Youtube users, Digg users, Cat lovers, Anime freaks and the entire population of China. [ source ]
