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December 21, 2004
Various Tech Tricks and Tips
I received a lot of positive feedback about my info-packed bullshit-busting piece on diamonds, and I thought I'd share some of my recent tech discoveries. DONT BE INTIMIDATED AND STOP READING RIGHT THERE, KELLY/MALENA etc. This first one especially is practical tech that really has improved my life! Give it a try... develop a self-cultivated thirst for knowledge.
Rebecca calls me a "binge researcher". Old roommate Brett mercilessly gives me crap for spending a beautiful Sunday afternoon on google learning about feral children. It's best to share this.
- By far the most beneficial thing I've done lately is gotten into the habit of daily reading aggregating RSS feeds. It feels like I'm always up on the lastest of whatever I'm interested in. I don't want to take the time to fully explain it, but trust me, it will change your life (for the better). I got a 1GB USB Jumpdrive for $40 shipped from aggregating slickdeals.net. I have feeds for Kelly, Dave, Alex - if you have a blog I don't know about, let me know, thanks!
So far I like Sharpreader the best, but RSS bookmarks in Firefox seem to be popular too. The last version of Aggie I was using sucked.
I know I'm an early adopter, and not all of you guys that read this are - but Blogging and aggregating is simply such a great thing for keeping in touch with friends and still being effecient with your time. I was a naysayer at first (eating my words, Fashionfly). If you don't want to set up you own blog, use livejournal or xanga or something else free. And update it with snippets of useful stuff you find!!
- I installed my own blogging software, Moveable Type (thanks Alex). Coincidentally, Ventureblog just invested in the company that makes it, Six Apart.
- Google Desktop Search, Google Toolbar. I think google is incredible. They have so many other cool tools that so many people don't know about. I'd love to work at their labs.
- I've had problems with DNS behind my dad's Microtik router. If you need servers outside your ISPs, try these public dns servers. Don't forget about the "ipconfig /flushdns" command in XP.
- Cool, free utilities for system and network troubleshooting: FileMon, RegMon, TDIMon. Logs background changes to the filesys, registry, and tcp/udp packets, respectively. See what process is responsible. Lightweight. From www.sysinternals.com, and they have a ton of other tools too.
Future Projects
- I want to set up a wiki to coordinate the activities of my web developers for the school, but there are too many options. I might try twiki.
- I am going to try to learn about podcasting. Does anyone know any good electronica/house/techno blogs? Any that are MP3 blogs?
Posted by Jeff at December 21, 2004 11:48 PM