This week’s tech tip came from a suggestion emailed to me by a somewhat anonymous viewer, who referred to themselves as “exploitationnation.” If you’re looking for a way to quickly edit a photo, without downloading or installing any programs, he has a solution for you. Pixlr.com offers two image editors for your free use: one, Pixlr express, that is fairly simple yet effective, and another, Pixlr editor, which is more in-detail and almost like an online version of Adobe Photoshop. I tried both out, and they’re actually really cool, and produce great results. I believe these two will even open Photoshop files (.psd). Again, Pixlr.com is where it’s at!
Alas, it is the end of a school year, once again, and we’re going to part ways for a while. Tis sad, I agree, but HEY, keeping in contact is easy nowadays! We have the Internet, computers, technology! I’m not sure if anyone still uses instant messengers like AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc, but if you do, this week’s tech tip is for you. Pidgin (click on it to download) is a multi-network instant messaging (not massaging) client, that will do Yahoo, AIM, MSN, Google Talk, Jabber, IRC, and any other chat protocol known to MAN. Even better, you can get a portable copy of it from PortableApps.com, put it on your thumbdrive, and plug into any computer to have access to all of your accounts. CRAZY GOOD. Happy summer!
We all love our math, riiiiight??? Say, “Yes Maaaaaxx…” Good! Now, you can use that fancy math stuff to make ringtones and music, using Wolfram Tones. Made by the same people as Wolfram Alpha (go figure), Wolfram Tones uses these crazy mathematical formulas and stuff to generate music, and visually represent it using these colorful bars! Sorta like tetris, right? Well, actually, no. Anyhow, you click on what sort of theme you would like your ringtone to be based upon (such as hip hop, dance, blues, guitar, or hit random for a surprise!) and it will randomly generate a ringtone, using some crazy mathematical formula known only by some kid and his pet rat. Just kidding. Anyhow, give it a try, play around with it, change the parameters, see what you get out of it! Tones.wolfram.com will get you there… enjoy!
So, suppose you’ve met someone, and while getting to know them, you discover that they’re kind of annoying, and you don’t really want to be their friend. But then, they ASK FOR YOUR NUMBER! What to do?!?!? It’s ok, just give them the number for the Rejection Hotline, 212-660-2245! A friendly voice will explain to them the possibilities for you rejecting them! Know somebody who needs to brush their teeth more often? The Bad Breath Notification Number is there for you, at 631-960-7187! Too busy to keep up with a friend? It’s ok, you can outsource your friendship to India, just by calling 267-436-5128! HumorHotlines.com has tons of, well, humorous hotlines to help make your day just a bit more funny! Will this help you with your computer problems? Likely not at all, but I figured that it would be a nice, humorous departure for my normal program!
Thanks to Mrs. Heveron-Smith for taking this wonderful picture of Marissa and I on prom night… It turned out really nicely! As Marissa said, “how Gatsby of us!” and I agree wholeheartedly. 
As most of us know, the social-networking site Facebook has become very popular in the last few years, and as it’s grown, its privacy policies have changed. What does this mean for you? Well, today, the privacy settings page of Facebook is massively extensive, confusing, and it may result in some of YOUR personal information being available to people you don’t want seeing it. Luckily, the Facebook Privacy Scanner at www.reclaimprivacy.org exists! Follow the instructions on the website, and it will evaluate your security settings to show you if any issues exist that put your privacy at risk.
So you broke something. What’s new, right? Time to call tech support in some overseas, foreign island nation that you’ve never heard of, only to be put on hold for about a bazillion lightyears. Wonderful, right? I think NOT! LucyPhone is a website that sits on hold, listening to the poor-quality canned jazz music for you, and calls you back when you reach an actual person! Lucyphone.com is the website… try it out!
This week’s tech tip came from a suggestion emailed to me by a somewhat anonymous viewer, who referred to themselves as “exploitationnation.” If you’re looking for a way to quickly edit a photo, without downloading or installing any programs, he has a solution for you. Pixlr.com offers two image editors for your free use: one, Pixlr express, that is fairly simple yet effective, and another, Pixlr editor, which is more in-detail and almost like an online version of Adobe Photoshop. I tried both out, and they’re actually really cool, and produce great results. I believe these two will even open Photoshop files (.psd). Again, Pixlr.com is where it’s at!
With all the downloadable music and such out there, it’s a wonder that some of us haven’t run out of space on our computers! If you’re getting close to full, however, check and see where you’re wasting space. The easiest way to do this is using Disk Space Fan, a program which shows you, graphically, how much space you’re using up on your computer, and in what folders. Then, using what you see in the program, you can better judge what needs to be deleted. For Mac, Disc Inventory X will also accomplish a similar feat. You can download Disk Space Fan at, simply, diskspacefan.com, and Disc Inventory X at derlien.com.
Ahhhhh, sweet Motorola goodness arrived in the form of a USPS Priority Mail box at my front door last Friday. I purchased, off eBay, a Motorola MT2000 commercial UHF portable for a very decent price! Came with speakermic and charger, etc. This is to replace my Kenwood TK-380 which, sadly, didn’t do the 440 ham band. I found, though, that the MT2000, while being older, has slightly more features, which is good! It’ll do 160 different modes (like channels) out of the box, and in basically unlimited zones, I believe, or groups of channels. I’ve heard, however, there’s a setting that will allow you to increase that number of modes up to 255, which I have yet to do.
Regardless, I got it all programmed up as I like it, and I’m very pleased! 4w on UHF gets places, when I’m used to having only about 1.5w on the old Icom IC-24AT. I’ve got all the area repeaters on UHF that I know programmed in (29 in total), and I’m working on adding commercial stuff for scanning, as well as FRS/GMRS. Overall, I’m very pleased. In order to program this beastie, I’ve got to use the Motorola RSS, which works ONLY in MS-DOS mode on a spare Windows 98 computer I have sitting down. Originally, I thought, “Bah, I’m going to ignore all those people who say, ‘You must use DOS to program these…’ But, anything else just plain DOESN’T WORK, not even an MS-DOS prompt window on Windows 98.
Trust me, I tried it, didn’t get anywhere.
Sooooo, if anybody has any questions about the radio or programming it, I’d be happy to help Just leave a comment here, or send me an email.
