Posts

Organize and share travel plans with TripIt

I just learned about TripIt last night, as I was discussing an upcoming conference with a friend. this is a website that I am excited about, even though my travel has dwindled considerably. TripIt is an easy to use trip organizer. The Internet has made it easier than ever to plan trips, make reservations, and send friends and family information about that trip. Until TripIt, though, you still had to keep every booking, every plan, and every detail in its own format scatter over the Internet, in your email box, and on printouts. With TripIt, you can enter all the data into one place, and build an itinerary that can be accessed from anywhere; an itinerary that can be shared with friends and family; and an itinerary that you can print and have all in one easy to read format. There are so many easy to use features, it's difficult to know where to start in explaining. In planning my trip, I added my hotel arrival date, departure date, and other data I received when I booked it. When I

Free AT&T Wi-Fi with your iPhone

Here are the steps to get your free AT&T Wi-Fi on your iPhone: Activate Wi-Fi from the settings icon on your iPhone Select "attwifi" from the list of available networks Enter your 10-digit mobile number and check the box to agree to the Acceptable Use Policy. Tap 'continue' You will receive a text message from AT&T with a secure link to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot. You will not be charged for the text message. The SMS link will only be valid for 24 hours at the location it was requested. Another request must be submitted when using another hotspot location. Open the text message and tap on the link for 24-hour access to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot. Enjoy! Credit for the documented steps goes to my great colleagues at work.

Happy Birthday Internet

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It was 39 years ago today that the first transmission over the new ARPANET occurred. Here's scans of the actual documents that logged the first attempt, which crashed after sending "lo". We've come a long way since those early days of developing the packet switching network we know and love as the Internet. Happy Birthday Internet!

Write, fold, mail, and other folding fun

Seems letter writing is dead -- not according to Letterfu. Letterfu.com contains several page templates that you can use to send a letter without using an envelope. The steps are easy: Find a design template you like Print it Write your letter (on the back) Fold per the printed guides Address Add a stamp Mail If Letterfu intrigued you, then you might find one of these other paper folding sites of interest. Paperfolding.com is all about origami, from the history to easy lessons to complex origami art. A Paper Folding Project contains instructions for a single design from Paul Haeberli. Folds.net has a collection of links (some broken) to folding instructions for various origami. So give Letterfu and letter writing a try. Perhaps letter writing isn't quite dead, yet.

Firefox drop zones for keyboard-less surfing

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As read on Webware , using the Drag & DropZones Firefox Add-on you can now surf the web without using the keyboard. Zones are areas in the visible browser window that are assigned various tasks. To use, select a word or phrase and drag and drop into a zone. The process of dragging applies a set of semi-transparent colored boxes with labels, illustrating where the zones exist. Drag & DropZones can be used immediately upon installation, as it will auto-assign drop zones on your browser window to your pre-defined search engines that are defined in your Search Engine Manager. Using the configuration manager, you can move the search engine zones around, delete them, and add new functionality. I think the most valuable time saving feature is for users that actually use more than one of the search engines in your search engine manager. Other functions include: Add to dictionary Back Bookmark Copy Open in a new tab Paste Reload Save View page source As you can see, except for the sear

Tab preview and switcher for Firefox

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In March I wrote about programs that can improve your alt-tab behavior in Windows. In this 300th blog post, I'm going to share with you a Firefox add-on that works similarly for tabs. With the Ctrl-Tab add-on , press the Control and Tab keys, and you get a preview window of current and other tabs. Continue to press to scroll through and select the tab of your choice. By default, Ctrl-Tab will order the previews based on last viewed. Use it with the Shift key (Ctrl-Shift-Tab) to move in reverse direction. With a small modification, you can configure it to scroll through in order of the tabs. Here's how you change the tab order: Open a new tab Enter about:config Search for browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed Change the setting from True to False (double-click on True) Restart your browser Just one more usability improvement to making web browsing a little easier.

Add / Change / Delete Systems Properties General Tab

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For most of us, we bought our XP computer from a vendor who customized the display of the Systems Properties General tab (Control Panel >> System Properties). Microsoft has made it easy to put your own custom logo and Support Information on this tab. Go to "C:\WINDOWS\system32" and search for oeminfo.ini. Open oeminfo.ini with a text editor such as notepad to make changes. If the file does not exist on your system, you can create the file. Here's the syntax: [General] Manufacturer=The Company Model=The Model supporturl=http://CHRISdotTODD.com [Support Information] Line1="Customer Care provides support" Line2="for basic Windows XP questions." Line3="Please refer to the Warranty and Support Guide" Line4="for complete support information in your country." Line5 = "" Line6 = "" Line7 = "In the United States, call 1-800-652-6672. " Line8 = "" Line9 = "Support is available 24 hours per da