Become Happy software purports to make users happier. Here’s their explanation. Become Happy slightly changes look and feel of your desktop, of all windows opened and all the music and sound playing, affecting your endorphin-hormone (the natural body’s painkiller) release. This leads to mood elevation, better health, and, finally, to becoming more happy. This software […]

How would you like to be able to shorten anything you write often? How about an example. If your name is Frank, you probably type something along the lines of “Best, Frank” at the end of emails or memos. What if you could type far fewer characters and get the same result? With AutoHotKey, you […]

In California, kids have to be in car seats until age 6 or 60 pounds. As you might expect, no self-respecting six year old wants to be in a baby seat. Parents are tired of the whining, so what can they do? Feed the little buggers. Parents are plumping up their little polliwogs to get […]

I just got a beta invite to RedLasso, which allows you to pick and choose clips from all sorts of TV networks. It includes Comedy Central, NPR, Bloomberg, CNN and a host of others. Instead of just writing about a news event, it’s a lot nicer to be able to show your users a clip […]

We’ll be having another boy and have begun the process of choosing a baby name. As the husband, I consider it my duty to screen names to make sure they’re not going to be easily made fun of. Of course some last names make that nearly impossible to do. I knew a guy with the […]

Klipfolio is the latest player in the desktop widget arena. Other widget engines for Windows include Yahoo Widgets, Vista sidebar (if you have Vista) and Google Desktop Widgets. One of the main reasons I like Klipfolio is because it has simple, lightweight widgets to monitor the memory and CPU usage. Yahoo Widgets have CPU and […]

SporeVote has the Spore creature creations of a few dozen well known celebrities (both on and offline). It’s cool to see the creatures that billionaires (Mark Cuban and Richard Branson), online celebrities (Kevin Rose of Digg.com and Drew Curtis of Fark.com) and actors or actresses (Elijah Wood and Mandy Moore) created. I don’t often think […]

I first learned about Spore from Will Wright, creator of the Sims game in this Ted talk. The demo was so impressive from then on I wanted to try it out myself. That day has finally arrived. Youu can download the free Spore Creature Creator and create your very own, one of a kind creature. […]

Zoomi is one of those ideas that makes you wonder why no one thought of it before. All it’s doing is putting a pretty face on Amazon, but it makes the experience like walking through a bookstore and perusing the shelves. They say the site is slow in Firefox 3 (which everyone should now be […]

PMOG is a passively multiplayer online game I’ve been playing for a few months. It’s less of a game in and of itself and more of a game of using the internet. You earn 2 DP (data points) for every domain you visit. You can place mines on sites so another PMOGger’s browser shakes all […]

I’ve figured out a way in which twitter is quite useful. Summize lets you search what people are saying about things in real time. For instance, during the NBA finals Sunday night I was able to read reactions to the game minute by minute. This can be handy for anything that’s current and won’t be […]

A Polish man named Piotr Wozniak created an algorithm to help him commit things to memory. He found it to so effective that he created software and a web site to help others use his algorithm to improve their recall. He dubbed it SuperMemo. I tried out the software and the web site to give […]

I fueled up my car yesterday and entered the data into FuelFrog. I got 22.4 mpg which isn’t bad for a V6 (I drive a 1997 Maxima SE), but I wondered if other people are getting better mileage. I found the perfect site to find out. Gasaroo tracks real-world gas mileage that people are getting. […]

Image via WikipediaEd McMahon is joining the ranks of those facing foreclosure. The numbers may be a smidgen higher than most. He’s $644,000 behind on a $4.8 million mortgage for his house in Beverly Hills. What I can’t get over is he was worth over $200 million in the nineties, won a $7.2 million insurance […]

Were you ever separated from your parents at the mall? Or did your parents ever forget you somewhere? If so, you know what it’s like to be left behind. You may have another chance to experience what it’s like according to You’ve Been Left Behind, one of the strangest ideas I’ve seen in a long […]

Bomomo is a flash application that enables you to create bee-yutiful works of art from your browser. (via Webware)

As of May 2008 cars are outselling Ford F-series for the first time since 1992. Gas prices played a big part in the shift to more fuel efficient vehicles. GM CEO Rick Wagoner doesn’t think it’s a temporary spike and Sean McAlinden, chief economist with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, suggests the […]

This video is impressive on several levels. Cisco CEO John Chambers is in India live and has an on-stage conversation with a life-size representation of Cisco SVP Marthin De Beer who presented to the assembled crowd from San Jose. He was clearly visible, easy to hear and the two were able to interact. I’m curious […]

I’ve added a few new tools to my useful tools section that may be of use to some of you. Here’s a description of each of them. Escape HTML – If you want to post HTML code on a web site, you have to escape the HTML tags so they’re not interpreted. This tool automates […]

You’re a real estate investor starting out with $100K to buy and sell houses. When you can buy the $10 million mansion on the hill, you win. For such a simple game, Mansion Impossible is surprisingly fun. My best time was 14 years 10 months after taking several cracks at it. The high scores on […]

You’re on the phone with a friend of family member explaining how to use a piece of software. Frustrated, you think about how much easier it would be if they could look over your shoulder and see how to do it. Remote access solutions like NetMeeting, Remote Desktop and VNC work, but they require firewall […]