Saturday, February 02, 2008
101 Best Web Freebies
101 Best Web Freebies - BusinessWeek's take on the best free apps and such you can find on the Web.
posted by Sal Towse at 2:13 PM|
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posted by Sal Towse at 2:13 PM|
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Sunday, January 20, 2008
Duende Travel
Duende Travel
Coming along, eh?
Pretty pictures. Content. Near to finished except for "useful information" and "links." The "booking form" is off to Peter for vetting.
Paying forward.
Personal blurb: Peter Watson and Duende Travel are like the best. The food and wine are always great. There's a lot of thought behind the itinerary.
There are gem moments: The hotel bar in Derry (North Ireland) -- just John Hume, his nibs and me. He'd sung Danny Boy to all of us during his lecture, but the others had gone back to rooms or whatever. Would you go back to your room while John Hume was hanging out? Or would you hang out too?
Drizzly picnic lunch in the ruins on Iona (Scotland).
Drying out from a soaking in the rain in a sheepherder's hut in Andalucia (Spain).
Petrarch's last home in Arquà Petrarca (Italy) and his cat's skeleton ... maybe ...
Walking in van Gogh's footsteps in Arles (France).
Hiking up the slopes of Vulcano (Sicily).
The Long Room at Trinity College, Dublin. (died and gone to Heaven)
... So many memories. So many good times.
Peter cares about where he takes you. He wants to make sure you understand the locale and the people. And the food. And the wine. And the history.
The walks are memorable. The views, the food, the wine, the settings, the memories are sublime.
'nough said? There's a reason I'm fussing over his Web site. ...
posted by Sal Towse at 10:34 PM||
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Coming along, eh?
Pretty pictures. Content. Near to finished except for "useful information" and "links." The "booking form" is off to Peter for vetting.
Paying forward.
Personal blurb: Peter Watson and Duende Travel are like the best. The food and wine are always great. There's a lot of thought behind the itinerary.
There are gem moments: The hotel bar in Derry (North Ireland) -- just John Hume, his nibs and me. He'd sung Danny Boy to all of us during his lecture, but the others had gone back to rooms or whatever. Would you go back to your room while John Hume was hanging out? Or would you hang out too?
Drizzly picnic lunch in the ruins on Iona (Scotland).
Drying out from a soaking in the rain in a sheepherder's hut in Andalucia (Spain).
Petrarch's last home in Arquà Petrarca (Italy) and his cat's skeleton ... maybe ...
Walking in van Gogh's footsteps in Arles (France).
Hiking up the slopes of Vulcano (Sicily).
The Long Room at Trinity College, Dublin. (died and gone to Heaven)
... So many memories. So many good times.
Peter cares about where he takes you. He wants to make sure you understand the locale and the people. And the food. And the wine. And the history.
The walks are memorable. The views, the food, the wine, the settings, the memories are sublime.
'nough said? There's a reason I'm fussing over his Web site. ...
Labels: design, travel, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 10:34 PM|
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Friday, January 11, 2008
The image cannot be displayed, because it contains errors
The image cannot be displayed, because it contains errors
Seems Firefox was complaining because some of the .jpgs Duende sent -- which I was trying to add to the site -- were in CMYK (print) instead of RGB (screen display). Makes sense. Duende'd sent the photos used in prior years' brochures.
Turns out 'tis simple enough to pull the .jpg into Photoshop. Go to the Image pulldown menu IMAGE->MODE and save the JPG as RGB instead of CMYK.
And Bob's your uncle.
Would that most of the world's problems were so easily handled.
posted by Sal Towse at 3:00 PM||
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Seems Firefox was complaining because some of the .jpgs Duende sent -- which I was trying to add to the site -- were in CMYK (print) instead of RGB (screen display). Makes sense. Duende'd sent the photos used in prior years' brochures.
Turns out 'tis simple enough to pull the .jpg into Photoshop. Go to the Image pulldown menu IMAGE->MODE and save the JPG as RGB instead of CMYK.
And Bob's your uncle.
Would that most of the world's problems were so easily handled.
Labels: app, design, photographs, travel, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 3:00 PM|
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Wednesday, January 09, 2008
The top 12 'Top 10' lists of 2007 / Best movies? Music? Look elsewhere. Here's the real list to help digest the year gone by
The top 12 'Top 10' lists of 2007
Brilliant set of links from Mark Morford.
posted by Sal Towse at 3:14 PM||
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Brilliant set of links from Mark Morford.
Labels: San Francisco, webstuff, writing
posted by Sal Towse at 3:14 PM|
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Monday, October 01, 2007
Google Analytics
Having fun with Google Analytics.
I set up Google Analytics for Internet Resources for Writers the other day. Picked up my little bit of code from Google and added it to every page on the site.
I only have two days' worth of stats so far, but I've found out that 18% of my traffic comes from search engines, 32.5% comes from direct hits and the other 49.5% comes from links on other sites. Turns out of the 242 visits in the last two days, ninety of them came via stumbleupon. 37%!
I have a 60% bounce rate (meaning the visitor hit one page and left), which is sucky if you're trying to sell somebody something, but if someone wants a bit of information, finds it on the first page they look at and leaves, that's cool with me.
And if someone doesn't find what they're looking for (like the person who came via a search engine search for /dental office supplies free printable photos/), well, that's cool too. (I had to do that search to see if I really show up. I do! #4 on the returned hits!)
Other fun features of Google Analytics include a pretty map showing visitors' locations.
posted by Sal Towse at 6:22 PM||
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I set up Google Analytics for Internet Resources for Writers the other day. Picked up my little bit of code from Google and added it to every page on the site.
I only have two days' worth of stats so far, but I've found out that 18% of my traffic comes from search engines, 32.5% comes from direct hits and the other 49.5% comes from links on other sites. Turns out of the 242 visits in the last two days, ninety of them came via stumbleupon. 37%!
I have a 60% bounce rate (meaning the visitor hit one page and left), which is sucky if you're trying to sell somebody something, but if someone wants a bit of information, finds it on the first page they look at and leaves, that's cool with me.
And if someone doesn't find what they're looking for (like the person who came via a search engine search for /dental office supplies free printable photos/), well, that's cool too. (I had to do that search to see if I really show up. I do! #4 on the returned hits!)
Other fun features of Google Analytics include a pretty map showing visitors' locations.
posted by Sal Towse at 6:22 PM|
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007
A plea to anyone linking to Inkspot.com
A request from DebbieRO, my former Inkspot.com boss lady, on her Inkygirl blog.
If you have a link to Inkspot.com, PLEASE DELETE IT.
Pass the word.
A plea to anyone linking to Inkspot.com
posted by Sal Towse at 10:42 PM||
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If you have a link to Inkspot.com, PLEASE DELETE IT.
Pass the word.
A plea to anyone linking to Inkspot.com
Labels: URL, webstuff, wordstuff, writing, writing-market
posted by Sal Towse at 10:42 PM|
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Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Writing: A writer's treasure chest
Lifehacker mentioned the writing links compendium over at internet-resources.com on Saturday.
(Mega thanks to Grapes2.0 for the hedz-up. I wouldn't have known what hit me. ...)
Hits have soared (from hundreds a day to thousands a day) and I've been feeling like my e-house is a bit of a mess and in no state for the Queen to come visiting.
Yesterday and today, I've been spending time click-clicking through links, dusting, mopping and putting flowers out for the visitors. I'll do so again tomorrow, being as the contractor guys are paying us visits this week and I'm padlocked inside until they're gone.
posted by Sal Towse at 6:00 PM||
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(Mega thanks to Grapes2.0 for the hedz-up. I wouldn't have known what hit me. ...)
Hits have soared (from hundreds a day to thousands a day) and I've been feeling like my e-house is a bit of a mess and in no state for the Queen to come visiting.
Yesterday and today, I've been spending time click-clicking through links, dusting, mopping and putting flowers out for the visitors. I'll do so again tomorrow, being as the contractor guys are paying us visits this week and I'm padlocked inside until they're gone.
Labels: internet resources for writers, life, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 6:00 PM|
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Thursday, July 19, 2007
Websites as graphs
Pretty, eh? That's the blog in living color. I could swear I'd done this before, a year or more back, but I can't find it, if I did indeed do it, so I've done it again.
Aharef provides the applet. You provide the Web page you want him to graph. He 'xplains it all here and also shows some mega sites and how they look with the app: cnn.com, apple.com &c.
Color code:
blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags
Flickr has a collection of pics.
Nice.
posted by Sal Towse at 5:13 PM|
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Thursday, July 12, 2007
Jimbo Wales at the Commonwealth Club. Wedn. 18 July 6 p.m. checkin
Jimbo Wales at the Commonwealth Club
Founder, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation and Wikia
[...]
"Come hear Wales talk about what's next on his agenda, his opinions on the politics of the Internet and his thoughts on the accuracy of Wikipedia posts."
6:00 p.m., Check-in | 6:30 p.m., Program
7:30 p.m., Wine and Hors d'oeuvres Reception
Club office, 595 Market St., 2nd Floor, San Francisco
$12 for Members
$20 for Non-Members
$7 for Students (with valid ID)
posted by Sal Towse at 4:46 PM||
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Founder, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation and Wikia
[...]
"Come hear Wales talk about what's next on his agenda, his opinions on the politics of the Internet and his thoughts on the accuracy of Wikipedia posts."
6:00 p.m., Check-in | 6:30 p.m., Program
7:30 p.m., Wine and Hors d'oeuvres Reception
Club office, 595 Market St., 2nd Floor, San Francisco
$12 for Members
$20 for Non-Members
$7 for Students (with valid ID)
Labels: culture, information, San Francisco, web2.0, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 4:46 PM|
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Tuesday, July 10, 2007
For my legions of IE-using fans
For my legions of IE-using fans. Well, at least for one very special one, that is.
A swell fambly member, who reads the blog, told me that she was getting a glitch (and probably always had but was too polite to say so) that was cutting off the lefthand side of the center column -- yes, the column that contains the guts of the blog.
"What browser do you use?" I asked.
"MS Internet Explorer," she replied.
I fired up IE, which I only fire up when something won't display on Firefox (a most excellent browser, btw, and one I highly recommend) or when I'm trying to make sure some Webby thing I'm working on will work for the IE user. ...
Turns out if you scrunch your screen down to a certain size, the lefthand and righthand columns scrunch down okay, but there's a big blob of space that blocks out the leftmost portion of the center column -- just the symptom the fambly member reported. I'm suspecting she uses a laptop and, hence, has a smaller screen but I can't remember.
Someone back when had mentioned the same thing, but after much tweaking at that point, I couldn't find a fix.
Times change. I created a Web site last spring that used a header, a footer and three columns to display and, after much torking around, found a way to make it work with IE, unless you squished the screen down far smaller than most people do. An older and wiser soul today, I took that experience and tweaked the blog template today so that the swell fambly member can read the blog using IE.
You'll notice more space between the columns but everything squishes down okay with IE now. (Unless -- goes without saying -- you squish the screen down far smaller than most people do, at which point the sidebars pop out from the edges and down onto the bottom.)
I had to remove the MyBlogLog stuff because it doesn't compress gracefully and caused the lefthand column to overrun and scoot down to the bottom of the page when using the smaller screen size in IE.
Barring those minor changes everything remains the same.
Un regalo por mi cuñada. Hope it works!
posted by Sal Towse at 12:18 PM||
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A swell fambly member, who reads the blog, told me that she was getting a glitch (and probably always had but was too polite to say so) that was cutting off the lefthand side of the center column -- yes, the column that contains the guts of the blog.
"What browser do you use?" I asked.
"MS Internet Explorer," she replied.
I fired up IE, which I only fire up when something won't display on Firefox (a most excellent browser, btw, and one I highly recommend) or when I'm trying to make sure some Webby thing I'm working on will work for the IE user. ...
Turns out if you scrunch your screen down to a certain size, the lefthand and righthand columns scrunch down okay, but there's a big blob of space that blocks out the leftmost portion of the center column -- just the symptom the fambly member reported. I'm suspecting she uses a laptop and, hence, has a smaller screen but I can't remember.
Someone back when had mentioned the same thing, but after much tweaking at that point, I couldn't find a fix.
Times change. I created a Web site last spring that used a header, a footer and three columns to display and, after much torking around, found a way to make it work with IE, unless you squished the screen down far smaller than most people do. An older and wiser soul today, I took that experience and tweaked the blog template today so that the swell fambly member can read the blog using IE.
You'll notice more space between the columns but everything squishes down okay with IE now. (Unless -- goes without saying -- you squish the screen down far smaller than most people do, at which point the sidebars pop out from the edges and down onto the bottom.)
I had to remove the MyBlogLog stuff because it doesn't compress gracefully and caused the lefthand column to overrun and scoot down to the bottom of the page when using the smaller screen size in IE.
Barring those minor changes everything remains the same.
Un regalo por mi cuñada. Hope it works!
posted by Sal Towse at 12:18 PM|
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Friday, June 29, 2007
LOLcat builder
For Mz UV 'cause she lurves LOLcats. Seen this?
LolCat Builder
Labels: app, photographs, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 5:10 PM|
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StumbleUpon - SalT's Web site reviews
StumbleUpon - SalT's StumbleUpon Web site reviews
Since I started with StumbleUpon umpty ump (March 17, 2004) years ago, I've rated 1777 sites and, must admit, sometimes spend months without checking in. These days I not only put links on my blog but also put links on Tumblr and links on del.icio.us and, sometimes, on StumbleUpon.
I'm not dutiful about my StumbleUpon duties.
Obviously. ...
Just came across starspirit, who has rated 124,289 sites.
Zounds. Even gmc has only rated 17962 but then he's been busy building SU into something eBay wanted to buy.
posted by Sal Towse at 10:47 AM||
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Since I started with StumbleUpon umpty ump (March 17, 2004) years ago, I've rated 1777 sites and, must admit, sometimes spend months without checking in. These days I not only put links on my blog but also put links on Tumblr and links on del.icio.us and, sometimes, on StumbleUpon.
I'm not dutiful about my StumbleUpon duties.
Obviously. ...
Just came across starspirit, who has rated 124,289 sites.
Zounds. Even gmc has only rated 17962 but then he's been busy building SU into something eBay wanted to buy.
Labels: app, life, URL, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 10:47 AM|
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Monday, June 25, 2007
[URL] Swivel
Love data and mashups and obscure weird factoids and coincidences?
Check out Swivel.
For a taste of what's on-site, check out Tasty Data Goodies
posted by Sal Towse at 10:17 AM||
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Check out Swivel.
For a taste of what's on-site, check out Tasty Data Goodies
Labels: information, resource, URL, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 10:17 AM|
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Friday, June 15, 2007
Badgers! Foxes! Rabbits!
Badgers! Foxes! Rabbits!
New tumbleblog for stashing interrrrresting stuff. Between del.icio.us (still processing thousands of bookmarked URLs) and tumblr and stumbleupon and twitter ... I'm getting all Web2.0'd out.
posted by Sal Towse at 4:13 PM||
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New tumbleblog for stashing interrrrresting stuff. Between del.icio.us (still processing thousands of bookmarked URLs) and tumblr and stumbleupon and twitter ... I'm getting all Web2.0'd out.
Labels: app, life, URL, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 4:13 PM|
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007
[URL] popurls | popular urls to the latest web buzz
popurls | popular urls to the latest web buzz
Aggregate of W2.0 feeds like digg and reddit and boingboing. Someone called it a look at the hive mind. Probably a good analogy. Similar to and with more links than THEWEBLIST.net (which was inspired by popurls). Includes flickr links and fark.com.
Looking for article ideas? This site gives you a look at what's poppin.
[Caution: Can be a HUGE time waster ...]
posted by Sal Towse at 2:38 PM||
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Aggregate of W2.0 feeds like digg and reddit and boingboing. Someone called it a look at the hive mind. Probably a good analogy. Similar to and with more links than THEWEBLIST.net (which was inspired by popurls). Includes flickr links and fark.com.
Looking for article ideas? This site gives you a look at what's poppin.
[Caution: Can be a HUGE time waster ...]
Labels: app, social networking, URL, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 2:38 PM|
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Saturday, March 24, 2007
Archival nit pickiness
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Google adds "themes" to your Google homepage
I like plain ol' vanilla Google. It works. It's simple. No fuss. But earlier today, I decided to just check out the various themes that Google has developed for its Google homepages and settled on "city."
Very nice. Mellow. The colors and accoutrements change with the time of day and weather. (You need to give them a ZIP for it to work properly.) Right now it's shades of purple and blue with stars and a crescent moon. Nice.
My one concern is that the Googlelogo is a single, set color.
What happens when it's George Orwell's bday and the Google logomeister comes up with a spiffy logo-for-the-day?
All that remains to be seen, but the cityscape is nice and I'm enjoying it.
posted by Sal Towse at 11:10 PM||
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Very nice. Mellow. The colors and accoutrements change with the time of day and weather. (You need to give them a ZIP for it to work properly.) Right now it's shades of purple and blue with stars and a crescent moon. Nice.
My one concern is that the Googlelogo is a single, set color.
What happens when it's George Orwell's bday and the Google logomeister comes up with a spiffy logo-for-the-day?
All that remains to be seen, but the cityscape is nice and I'm enjoying it.
posted by Sal Towse at 11:10 PM|
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Monday, March 05, 2007
[URL] Craigslist Curmudgeon is the Yahoo! Daily Wire site of the day.
The Curmudgeon cranks on about Craigslist ads that offer next to nothing (or worse!) as payment for wordsmithing.
Yahoo! sez: The Curmudgeon's chief complaint: would-be content providers that offer wordsmiths no pay. More specific no-nos: ads offering piddling in-kind compensation, ads with dubious payment schemes, ads offering nothing but "exposure," and ads offering no pay for ridiculous assignments.
And the ad-meisters fire back.
Entertaining all around.
[nod to Yahoo! picks]
posted by Sal Towse at 10:43 PM||
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Yahoo! sez: The Curmudgeon's chief complaint: would-be content providers that offer wordsmiths no pay. More specific no-nos: ads offering piddling in-kind compensation, ads with dubious payment schemes, ads offering nothing but "exposure," and ads offering no pay for ridiculous assignments.
And the ad-meisters fire back.
Entertaining all around.
[nod to Yahoo! picks]
Labels: URL, webstuff, writing
posted by Sal Towse at 10:43 PM|
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Thursday, February 22, 2007
News! Cocoa may improve brain blood flow
One of the sessions I missed at AAAS was a session Sunday titled, "The Neurobiology of Chocolate: A Mind-Altering Experience?"
Harold Schmitz of Mars, Inc. co-organized the symposium. Mars, Inc. happens to be sponsoring research into why chocolate is good for you and how they can make it even better. (Heard of CocoaVia?) I'd spent time in a session a few years back covering similar and/or earlier research on the subject. This session covered recent research including a presentation by Ian MacDonald (University of Nottingham Medical School) on "The Effect of Flavanol-Rich Cocoa on the fMRI Response to a Cognitive Task in Healthy Young People."
Yee haw.
Luckily, there were science writers in the audience to suck it all up for me. CNN reports: Cocoa may improve brain blood flow
Sunday, I was elsewhere -- in an all-day seminar on Virtual Worlds which included papers like "Comparing Mental Health Applications Using Individually Administered Virtual Reality and Second Life: Conceptual and Ethical Issues" from Skip Rizzo, USC, and "Virtual Publics: Youths' Lives in Emergent Social Worlds" from Danah Boyd at UCB.
John Lester (AKA Pathfinder Linden) at Linden Labs organized the seminar. Linden Labs, just down the hill from me, is the creator (are the creators?) of Second Life, which I messed around with playing with after a panel at the Commonwealth Club that we attended last December.
I finally signed up yesterday but with my computer's hiccupy-response to requests to turn and move and change the color of my coat, my experience wasn't optimal. Problems with scaling? Problems with my computer? I'll try again later today and see if I get further.
Sorry I was to miss out on the latest scoop about cocoa, but the Virtual Worlds seminars were crack.
[Thanks for the cocoa link, Sam]
posted by Sal Towse at 7:45 AM||
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Harold Schmitz of Mars, Inc. co-organized the symposium. Mars, Inc. happens to be sponsoring research into why chocolate is good for you and how they can make it even better. (Heard of CocoaVia?) I'd spent time in a session a few years back covering similar and/or earlier research on the subject. This session covered recent research including a presentation by Ian MacDonald (University of Nottingham Medical School) on "The Effect of Flavanol-Rich Cocoa on the fMRI Response to a Cognitive Task in Healthy Young People."
Yee haw.
Luckily, there were science writers in the audience to suck it all up for me. CNN reports: Cocoa may improve brain blood flow
Sunday, I was elsewhere -- in an all-day seminar on Virtual Worlds which included papers like "Comparing Mental Health Applications Using Individually Administered Virtual Reality and Second Life: Conceptual and Ethical Issues" from Skip Rizzo, USC, and "Virtual Publics: Youths' Lives in Emergent Social Worlds" from Danah Boyd at UCB.
John Lester (AKA Pathfinder Linden) at Linden Labs organized the seminar. Linden Labs, just down the hill from me, is the creator (are the creators?) of Second Life, which I messed around with playing with after a panel at the Commonwealth Club that we attended last December.
I finally signed up yesterday but with my computer's hiccupy-response to requests to turn and move and change the color of my coat, my experience wasn't optimal. Problems with scaling? Problems with my computer? I'll try again later today and see if I get further.
Sorry I was to miss out on the latest scoop about cocoa, but the Virtual Worlds seminars were crack.
[Thanks for the cocoa link, Sam]
Labels: information, life, SecondLife, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 7:45 AM|
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Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Don't ask me
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Welcome to Web 2.0
Saturday, January 13, 2007
[URL] WikiLeaks
How to leak a secret and not get caught - WikiLeaks from New Scientist Tech, 12 Jan 2007.
wikileaks.org
Good? Worthwhile?
Wikileaks opens leaked documents up to a much more exacting scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency could provide. Wikileaks will provide a forum for the entire global community to examine any document for credibility, plausibility, veracity and falsifiability. They will be able to interpret documents and explain their relevance to the public. If a document comes from the Chinese government, the entire Chinese dissident community can freely scrutinize and discuss it; if a document arrives from Iran, the entire Farsi community can analyze it and put it in context.
I give it a month before WikiLeaks is either so full of garbage as to be useless or the able meta monitors start shutting down "undesirable" wiks and creating WikiLeaks' own form of censorship.
(Cool logo, though ...)
posted by Sal Towse at 1:23 PM||
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wikileaks.org
Good? Worthwhile?
Wikileaks opens leaked documents up to a much more exacting scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency could provide. Wikileaks will provide a forum for the entire global community to examine any document for credibility, plausibility, veracity and falsifiability. They will be able to interpret documents and explain their relevance to the public. If a document comes from the Chinese government, the entire Chinese dissident community can freely scrutinize and discuss it; if a document arrives from Iran, the entire Farsi community can analyze it and put it in context.
I give it a month before WikiLeaks is either so full of garbage as to be useless or the able meta monitors start shutting down "undesirable" wiks and creating WikiLeaks' own form of censorship.
(Cool logo, though ...)
posted by Sal Towse at 1:23 PM|
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