Saturday, December 25, 2004
Mail2Web - one of the most useful sites on the net, period!
Merry Christmas! Its time to open your cyber presents! Loads of free cool cyber tools await you at www.mail2web.com, providing an incredibly useful series of free services which allow you to access email, newsgroups, and instant messaging systems through your desktop, net connected PDA or mobile phone (and yes, I use all three :-).
Mail2Web lets you set up a personalized webpage (www.mail2web.com/yourusername) from which you can access newsgroups and POP / IMAP4 email accounts. If that weren't enough, from your “webclient.chat.mail2web.com” account you can access popular instant messaging services like AIM, AOL, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo - all at the same time!. That’s right, HTML or Java (your choice) based services lets you connect to your favorite IM services simultaneously. Pretty sweet for web access, but didn’t I promise services for mobile phones and connected PDA's - oh yeah. Recently updated services allow you the same access to email and IM services from your mobile devices. Until recently, the PDA and mobile phone links lagged behind in functionality, but upgrades have made mobile device access as useful as web based access.
If you are willing to part with a little green, you can setup Microsoft Exchange based email accessible on your pc or connected mobile devices. They even offer global roaming ISP access. Mail2Web is provided by SoftCom Technology Consulting Inc., which also offers registrar and hosting services at www.myhosting.com . I switched from one of the biggest and badests (bad bad, not good bad) url registry services years ago, and am happy with my current registrar. But the free services STC provide are so good and so useful, when my url's come up for renewal I'm probably going to give myhosting.com a try. The rates seem reasonable, and I figure if the free services are this good the ones you actually pay for are probably first rate as well. Comments from current customers of myhosting.com are most appreciated.
Run, don't walk to www.mail2web.com today and take advantage of some of the best free services available on the web. Your mobile phone will love you for it :-).
Read more!
Mail2Web lets you set up a personalized webpage (www.mail2web.com/yourusername) from which you can access newsgroups and POP / IMAP4 email accounts. If that weren't enough, from your “webclient.chat.mail2web.com” account you can access popular instant messaging services like AIM, AOL, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo - all at the same time!. That’s right, HTML or Java (your choice) based services lets you connect to your favorite IM services simultaneously. Pretty sweet for web access, but didn’t I promise services for mobile phones and connected PDA's - oh yeah. Recently updated services allow you the same access to email and IM services from your mobile devices. Until recently, the PDA and mobile phone links lagged behind in functionality, but upgrades have made mobile device access as useful as web based access.
If you are willing to part with a little green, you can setup Microsoft Exchange based email accessible on your pc or connected mobile devices. They even offer global roaming ISP access. Mail2Web is provided by SoftCom Technology Consulting Inc., which also offers registrar and hosting services at www.myhosting.com . I switched from one of the biggest and badests (bad bad, not good bad) url registry services years ago, and am happy with my current registrar. But the free services STC provide are so good and so useful, when my url's come up for renewal I'm probably going to give myhosting.com a try. The rates seem reasonable, and I figure if the free services are this good the ones you actually pay for are probably first rate as well. Comments from current customers of myhosting.com are most appreciated.
Run, don't walk to www.mail2web.com today and take advantage of some of the best free services available on the web. Your mobile phone will love you for it :-).
Read more!
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
The Venture Brothers - it's like Johnny Quest on acid.
Well, that's how I like to describe "The Venture Brothers", a recent addition to Cartoon Networks late night "Adult Swim" block. But unless you are familar with Johnny Quest (either the original one or the surprisingly good remake of a few years ago) that description means squat. So, in an attempt to convince you to check out what Inquest magazine calls "The Best show Your're Not Watching" allow me to quote their description.
"Let's just put it this way. A nerdy failure of a scientist who's getting by on his father's old inventions, his two incredibly stupid whitebread kids and his kill-'em-all-and-let-god-sort-it-out bodyguard face an amazing array of bizzare and diabolical villans, including a mad mastermind dressed as a giant butterfly who has a transexual girlfriend with the uterus of a baboon (or so its rumored)".
There, that summed it up nicely. Join the half million or so of us who (according to Cartoon Network) are watching "The Best show Your're Not Watching" and check out "The Venture Brothers". Go Team Venture!
Read more!
"Let's just put it this way. A nerdy failure of a scientist who's getting by on his father's old inventions, his two incredibly stupid whitebread kids and his kill-'em-all-and-let-god-sort-it-out bodyguard face an amazing array of bizzare and diabolical villans, including a mad mastermind dressed as a giant butterfly who has a transexual girlfriend with the uterus of a baboon (or so its rumored)".
There, that summed it up nicely. Join the half million or so of us who (according to Cartoon Network) are watching "The Best show Your're Not Watching" and check out "The Venture Brothers". Go Team Venture!
Read more!
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Incandescent vs Fluorescents Bulbs - It's time to see the light.
Incandescent Bulbs (IB's, plain old regular light bulbs) were quite the hot item (both literally and figuratively) when good ole Tom Edison invented them back in the day. What most people don't know is the real trick was finding a filament than could withstand the high temperature required to produce light (and yes, evacuating the air inside the bulb was a challenge too). That's why I said IB's were both literally and figuratively hot. IB's work in much the same way as the electric (resistive) heating element on a stove top. Shove enough current through a wire and assuming it does not melt or burn away, it will heat up and produce light as a byproduct (which is why electric heating elements glow red when your "turn up the heat". This is the reason IB's are often used as heating elements (like incubating a bird egg for example) - they ARE heating elements. IB's are great at producing heat, but not terribly efficient at producing light - and that’s the real problem with the technology. Most of the energy consumed is emitted as heat, not as light, which is why they literally "burn out" so quickly.
There are lots of ways to waste energy, but one of the best are IB's. We build refrigerated homes to live in, then light them with energy wasting IB's which generate massive amounts of heat that our cooling systems must dissipate, thereby wasting energy not once but twice! And don't forget the short operational life span (i.e. the frequent burnouts) caused when the heating element, er I mean the filament literally burns out. This means we pay at least three times for the same relatively small amount of light in relation to the costs and energy expended. Simple put, IB's are obsolete technology, and its time for them to go. Fortunately, there is a better way.
Compact Fluorescents (CF's) are IB sized fluorescent bulbs that fit in standard light sockets. CF's produce light by producing a high voltage which ionizes various gases inside a glass tube causing them to glow (there is a bit more to it but that’s the crux of the matter). There is no heating element to burn out (not like in an IB anyway). This is why CF's have the distinctive spiral or "U" shaped glass tubes. As a rule of thumb, a CF produces 95% of the light, only 25% of the heat, and consumes only 25% of the power required by an equivalent IB! If that weren't enough, they last about 10 times longer! For those in the know, please hold your flames as I state for the record these are approximate, not exact figures. There was until recently only two things which prevented me from switching to CF's, price and reliability. Early CF's in my experience only lasted about as long as an IB before "burnout", and could cost upwards of $10 each. Since hope springs eternal I've been testing them over the years and about a year ago deemed them "ready for primetime" when IMHO reliability went up and cost went down. I replaced all my inside IB’s with CF's and have yet to experience a single failure. I know some people complain about the color of light produced by the typical florescent light, but I find the current crop of CF's to produce light similar in appearance to an IB.
Be forewarned that depending on where you buy them CF's can still be damn expensive. For example, at a local major department store 100 watt equivalent CF's are $7.5 each - ouch! On the other hand, my local membership warehouse sells the same major brand brands in five packs for less then $14.00. The local mega home improvement stores sell four packs at less than $3.00 per bulb. Considering CF's inherent advantages over IB's, I consider it money well spent. Two caveats, unlike IB's, CF's don’t dim when you reduce the current like IB's, they just burn out. Don't use any type of dimmer or dawn/dusk switch with a CF unless it’s specially designed for them! Also, CF's can be larger than their equivalent IB's, so look for the "mini" spirals (usually marked that way on the package) if space for your bulb is limited. Size does matter :-). And in the interest of full disclosure, it may take a minute for a CF to “warm up” and produce its full light output (but in my experience most people don’t notice it).
Do yourself a favor and make the switch to CF's in your home. Your wallet will thank you when the electric bill arrives :-).
Read more!
There are lots of ways to waste energy, but one of the best are IB's. We build refrigerated homes to live in, then light them with energy wasting IB's which generate massive amounts of heat that our cooling systems must dissipate, thereby wasting energy not once but twice! And don't forget the short operational life span (i.e. the frequent burnouts) caused when the heating element, er I mean the filament literally burns out. This means we pay at least three times for the same relatively small amount of light in relation to the costs and energy expended. Simple put, IB's are obsolete technology, and its time for them to go. Fortunately, there is a better way.
Compact Fluorescents (CF's) are IB sized fluorescent bulbs that fit in standard light sockets. CF's produce light by producing a high voltage which ionizes various gases inside a glass tube causing them to glow (there is a bit more to it but that’s the crux of the matter). There is no heating element to burn out (not like in an IB anyway). This is why CF's have the distinctive spiral or "U" shaped glass tubes. As a rule of thumb, a CF produces 95% of the light, only 25% of the heat, and consumes only 25% of the power required by an equivalent IB! If that weren't enough, they last about 10 times longer! For those in the know, please hold your flames as I state for the record these are approximate, not exact figures. There was until recently only two things which prevented me from switching to CF's, price and reliability. Early CF's in my experience only lasted about as long as an IB before "burnout", and could cost upwards of $10 each. Since hope springs eternal I've been testing them over the years and about a year ago deemed them "ready for primetime" when IMHO reliability went up and cost went down. I replaced all my inside IB’s with CF's and have yet to experience a single failure. I know some people complain about the color of light produced by the typical florescent light, but I find the current crop of CF's to produce light similar in appearance to an IB.
Be forewarned that depending on where you buy them CF's can still be damn expensive. For example, at a local major department store 100 watt equivalent CF's are $7.5 each - ouch! On the other hand, my local membership warehouse sells the same major brand brands in five packs for less then $14.00. The local mega home improvement stores sell four packs at less than $3.00 per bulb. Considering CF's inherent advantages over IB's, I consider it money well spent. Two caveats, unlike IB's, CF's don’t dim when you reduce the current like IB's, they just burn out. Don't use any type of dimmer or dawn/dusk switch with a CF unless it’s specially designed for them! Also, CF's can be larger than their equivalent IB's, so look for the "mini" spirals (usually marked that way on the package) if space for your bulb is limited. Size does matter :-). And in the interest of full disclosure, it may take a minute for a CF to “warm up” and produce its full light output (but in my experience most people don’t notice it).
Do yourself a favor and make the switch to CF's in your home. Your wallet will thank you when the electric bill arrives :-).
Read more!
