Zomgee

Remember the good old days? When you got AOL 4.0 cds? When you were psyched about finally getting a 56k connection? When this exciting new technology called V.92 seemed to be cutting edge?

One of my first exposures to the Internet as we know it today was actually from a commercial- NASCAR to be exact. NASCAR and thousands of other entities, it seemed, touted entering in their respective name as an “AOL Keyword”.

AOL never had a nice browser feature. It was just a reskinned IE, but there was a bar at the top of the window where you could type in keywords and in I’m-Feeling-Lucky fashion, be transported to a whole new world, which in my case was a sad looking (yet simplistically attractive) recap of (then) last week’s race.

Don’t worry though, this isn’t a trip down memory lane using the Wayback Machine as our vehicle (there’s plenty of blog posts about that). This is merely just a look back out how epic “AOL Keyword” was hyped to be.

You see… back then, people didn’t understand what the “.com” at the end of the nascar meant. They also didn’t know that sometimes you could only get to that site by typing “www.” in front of it. Nowadays, the browsers are smarter. Want to go to GMail? Simply type “g” into Firefox’s address bar and hit enter.

Sadly (perhaps not) “AOL Keyword” is used by only the older generation… the dot commers back before the dot com era. Nobody in their right mind uses this anymore, right?

So what brought on this journey into the recent past? Well, I ended up watching both Hackers and Antitrust over the past two days. In between thoughts of “hacking the Gibson”, insecure passwords, and Synapse, old, archiac memories slowly filtered into my mind. Multiplayer paintball via dialup, spending 12 minutes at a time downloading 1mb Need for Speed 3 cars, and a myriad of other things (EZNet anyone?)

Over the past few weeks (and years), I’ve stumbled upon some software that is amazing. I’m going to try to point out a few of the ones that come to the top of my head

Web based

1. Firefox – Hands down the best browser. More secure than its counter parts, extensible, customizable, light weight. There’s really only one reason why you would need another browser- IE7 for services such as Sharepoint. Don’t miss: the extensions listed elsewhere in this article.
2. Gmail – The best email service EVER. It incorporates Google Chat and AIM, supports document conversion, integrates with Google Maps and other services, supports POP3 and SMTP relaying, the list goes on forever. The only thing missing is encryption support. Don’t miss: Better GMail 2 Firefox extension, GNotifier (if you aren’t running Google Talk), and Google Drive Shell
3. Firebug – If you dabble with CSS, are a top-notch designer/coder, or merely want to see the various AJAX calls that a certain page makes, look no further. I can’t tell you how many times this has saved me from headaches- or how many hours I otherwise would have lost. The nicest feature is the Inspect Element option that appears when you right click an object. You immediately see what styles apply to it, where in the page that code is, and the exact line number of all the styles that apply to it. Don’t miss: Right-click and click Inspect Element
4. BetterYouTube – Who wants to see the “Other videos from this user” widget when watching a YouTube video? Who cares about the comments? Want to download the video (at your own risk)? Look no further than this simple Firefox extension. It fixes the shortcomings of YouTube, but allows you to revert back to the original if you’d like. Don’t miss: That simple download link
5. WordPress – This is the best blogging platform around. It is, in fact, what you’re using right now. Its simple to use and is extensible beyond all imagination. Don’t have your own server? Don’t have your own domain name? For $40 a year, I can provide you with your own WordPress blog, a .com of your choice, server space to host the blog, and the support to get it up, running, and problem-free. Just ask ZePuKa. If you’d rather not spend money, but still want to make the jump to WordPress, they offer their own hosting for free (you can also pay for extended features and removal of ads). Don’t miss: Updating regularly

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Its hard surfing on this wondrous internets when you become appalled by all this rampaging laziness!

First, take a look at the ‘word of the day’.
Word of the Day 2/1/08
oh sure, seems normal enough; think again. Time warp, back like almost a decade? wow time flies
Word of the Day 11/8/99
The word mien has a strikingly similar mien to that of the word mien that has a certain mien on the other link. Even the mien of the mien (ie. the definition) is the same. This is horrid, I would look to see if they’ve done this before but I’m too lazy to do that or even come up with my own idea for a good(?) Zomgee post.

This next part is gratuitous: I’m too lazy to find something on-topic or even a trailer for something that isn’t already out but i heard the writers were too lazy to make a story not completely based off of star wars. Even this trailer its like… first a choppy soap opera, then they degrade into voice-over examples, then “ok lets just show the game already.” I can’t wait to get Windows Vista 64 SP1 (DX10.1 update) and my nVidia G92 dx10.1 card. then its FFXII emulation time!

We’ve been in the midst of Presidential election campaigning for nigh unto a year now, and frankly, I’m getting sick of it all. I’m tired of the double speak from journalists and writers saying that we shouldn’t vote for a president who holds religious beliefs because religion shouldn’t play into this election (isn’t that letting religion play into the election?) or who advocate electing a woman/black man almost solely for those qualities (and speak out against sexism/racism with the next breath).

For your benefit, I’ve thrown together a list of things I’m putting into practice until November 08.

• Ignore the media. It’s a good thing. I’m going to do myself a favor this year and research the candidates on my own- from unbiased and biased sources alike.
• Avoid brainwashing. I will not accept the mindless, zombie-like groups’ opinion as fact *cough college campuses cough*
• Beware of those zombie mobs. I will remember that they can be violent if opposition to Colbert or Ron Paul is heard.
• Resist the temptation to follow the crowd. I know that everyone at school seems to support one person, but not only are my beliefs and opinions my own (hence my candidate), limiting my view to only my peers limits my “big-picture view” to one demographic and doesn’t accurately show the real big picture.
• Weigh your choice against their real-world success. I will not support a candidate with no chance at all of winning. This will potentially make a viable and desirable 2nd choice candidate lose their chance as well.
• Identify with a candidate. When the field narrows and I have a clear winner in my mind, I’ll support them proudly and try to convince others as well.
• Get to know the candidates. Looking like an ignorant fool (while common in my case) is not an option when it comes to supporting a candidate.
• Don’t be a poor loser. You don’t have to make a million websites if your candidate loses- Deal with it. And for crying out loud, scrape the loser’s sticker off of your bumper

That being said, there are a few good resources out there to help you decide what candidate you really like.

• http://www.2decide.com/table.htm – A quick-reference chart of sorts matching cadidates to their stances on issues.
• http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008.html – A simple questionnaire that matches you to a candidate (don’t rely too much on this, as it only showed me a 55% match with “my” candidate even though we are identical on issues, although it portrayed my 2nd and 3rd choices accurately)
• http://apps.facebook.com/elections/ – A Facebook app to tell the world who you support
• http://apps.facebook.com/fakeelection/ – Show who you really support

A few weeks ago, I found myself yet again at Tom’s apartment tinkering with games and wondering how we could get our birds to .. well.. poop. Now before you start to question our sanity- or the healthy atmosphere of Tom’s apartment, let me explain.

We’ve tried to get a sub-game of Garry’s Mod to work countless times now. Quite simply, its a game where a bird tries to land “one” on a human character. At the same time, that human character is using a shotgun to blow that bird out of the sky. Its such a profound concept that we just had to give it a try. Unfortunately, nothing we did could coax our little bird friends to let loose.

Towards the end of the stage where we began giving up, I remembered a web site that offered a pretty cool sounding service. Answers. To anything. Via text message. You know what is even better? It’s free! (minus the cost of the text messages if you don’t have a text plan)

Here’s how it works. You sign up with Mosio, fill out a form with some of your information (including your cell number) and they send a confirmation text to your phone. You reply to that and you’re in business.

Using your cell you can text ask@mosio.com and within a short while, not only will the question be posted online, but you should receive an answer from up to 4 people.

Now I don’t know about you, but asking the question, “How do you fire bird poo in garrys mod 9 bird poo game” seems like something maybe 1 or 2 people in the entire world would know how to answer.

It seems like that 1 person is on mosio.com, because here is what I got back, both in my profile on Mosio and on my cell phone.

So the next time you find yourself away from a computer and are in dire need of some information (and have registered with Mosio), just remember that the answer is only a text away.