Here are some interesting things I found in my RSS feeds:

• Dealzmodo: Two Sub-$200 Blu-ray Players, No Catches or Rebates [Dealzmodo]

November 17, 2008

• Hydraulic Excavator Used to Climb Column Leaves Us Completely Baffled [What?]

November 13, 2008

• Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley

November 12, 2008

• Found Your Company with MyCorporation, Free Today Only [Entrepreneurship]

November 11, 2008

• New Way to Smuggle Data: Inside a Hollow Nickel

November 11, 2008

Absolutely the simplest photo sharing web sites I’ve ever seen, PiccDrop lets you upload ANY kind of image file - jpeg,jpg,png,tiff,bmp,gif,ico,icn,svg,pdf,icns,hdi,psd… you name it!  File sizes up to 6MB are hosted forever, and you can upload as much as you want!  

Nice thing is, once you upload your picture, it takes you right to it!  No crappy sign up, or free trial, or low res image - just the picture, just the way you want it

http://www.piccdrop.com/

On Tuesday, November 18th, you can grab yourself a free copy of ZoneAlarm Pro!  ZoneAlarm Pro is an antispyware, identity protection, and firewall for your PC - normally costing $40.00. 

At 6 AM PDT, Tuesday morning this page: http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/free/sum/index.html will become live and provide instructions for downloading your free copy.  In addition, they will be offering a 50% discount on their airport friendly laptop bag.

We’ve all been there… you go to bed, leaving some programs open - maybe some of them unsaved documents.  The next morning you scream in agony because your computer was restarted from your friendly neighborhood automatic update service!

Now, you can safeguard your PC against this with Shutdown Guard!  Just a little tray application that prevents your computer from restarting, shutting down, or even logging off!  Nice huh?  Written for Windows XP, the author has not tested on Vista, it did not work for me on Vista Business.

When a shutdown, log off, or restart is detected, Shutdown Guard will prompt if you want to continue.  Only when confirmed will it continue the shutdown sequence.

Shutdown Guard

Have you ever wondered what is taking up the most space on your hard drive(s)?  It’s a pain to right click on each folder, getting the properties of each, just to see the size it’s taking up!  Like it’s big bother, TreeSize Free gives you a tree view of your hard drive, showing you exactly what is taking up space.  Can’t get any easier than that!

TreeSize Free comes in two versions:  a “portable” .exe, and a full installer.  If you install the full version, it also adds a right click context menu entry - allowing you to view the tree size of a certain folder, and it’s content.

For anyone, this is a great way to reclaim space on your drives!

Download TreeSize Free

I’m a bit of a photo fanatic - I really enjoy amateur photography.  I’m OK with Photoshop, but there is an easier way of creating some really cool effects - Dumpr.net.  There are many different effects to choose from - just upload your photo, choose a photo from Flickr, and that’s it! 

Above is just a sample of the effects you can do at Dumpr.  Go, upload, then brag about your ’shop skills!

  Link to Dumpr

ThinkGeek.com is one of my favorite online stores.  I could go broke very easily, buying all the cool stuff they have!  Here’s a few of my favorites:

• Levitation Wand
• Night Vision Goggles
• Star Wars Force FX Lightsabers
• Wi-Fi Detector Shirt
• “There’s No place like 127.0.0.1″ T-Shirt
• Binary Dad T-Shirt
• i read your e-mail T-Shirt

I could list a TON of t-shirts, but I’ll let you go out and see them for yourselves!

ThinkGeek.com

Ubuntu Linux version 8.10 is now released!  Ubuntu 8.10, or Intrepid Ibex, comes bundled with everything you need for web, music, productivity and watching video!  Ubuntu is one of the easiest flavors of Linux for new beginners to dip their toes into the open source world of computing.  As soon as my download finishes, you know what I’ll be doing this afternoon!

• Download: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
• 8.10 Features: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/810features/ 

It’s been a long time since MTV was actually associated with music videos… but it’s now returned to it’s roots - online anyway!  From first looks, MTV Music looks like a tremendous website - clean interface, flash video streaming, and a huge selection of music!  Now if only CMT would do the same thing…

Tuesday, Oct 28, 2008 Codeweaver is giving away Crossover Mac Pro, Games Mac, Linux Pro and Games Linux for FREE!!!!  Their servers are getting hammered, so they have put up a signup page for today’s promo:

** NOTE:  you must enter your email address to receive the serial number for the below products.

http://down.codeweavers.com/ (Server is back online after swarm)

http://lameduck.codeweavers.com/

For Tuesday, October 28, 2008 only, they put up fully unlocked builds. Download them below:

• Download CrossOver Mac Pro
• Download CrossOver Games Mac
• Download CrossOver Linux Pro
• Download CrossOver Games Linux

If you are a Linux / Mac user, and want to run Windows applications or games, this is THE way to do it.  Go grab it while you can folks!!!

Hope you got yours!

Once you have your serial number, you must register it by November 30, 2008.

This is a lot of fun!  Not really productive, but Says-It.com lets you make all sorts of badges, symbols, fake tapes, records, seals, and loads of other stuff!  Go on, make a funny sign, and have fun!!!

Says-It.com

I told you in August about MyGazines - an online magazine viewer… well… they’re closed.

Dear valued members, visitors and publishers,
Due to monetary reasons and the state of the global economy, we unfortunately must close mygazines.com. We simply ran out of funds to support the daily operations.
We thank you for your patronage.
If you are a publisher interested in understanding more about our model and vision for the future of the publishing industry going forward, or to discuss our Business to Business model opportunities, please email us at mygazines@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
The Mygazines Team

Well, that stinks!

Vista’s UAC can be annoying, and although I’ve shared with you how to make it less annoying, Norton (Symantec) has come up with a replacement UAC that is makes it much better!

With one BIG feature - “Don’t ask me again”  I think I’m in love!  There are several programs I run during the course of the day that the UAC prompts me.  I run them every day I don’t need to be prompted to open the command prompt, or and administrative mmc window!  Also, it’s fast!  Much faster than the default Windows UAC.

Thanks to Norton UAC Replacement, I’m running UAC-less on the daily apps that I use, but still have the protection from of UAC for everything else!  Although it is in Beta, Norton UAC Replacement is solid, and I have had no issues so far - I’ve been running it for about two weeks now.

Link: http://www.nortonlabs.com/inthelab/uac.php

Outside of it’s normal monthly patching cycle, Microsoft is releasing a critical patch to address a remote code execution exploit  This patch is critical for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003, and Server 2008. 

Download the patch here:

 http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-067.mspx

As a responsible nerd, I cannot stress enough how important backups are!  Hard drives do fail, CD’s/DVD’s do scratch, and tapes do go bad.  My choice of backup is some sort of off-site backup.  What about security you might ask?  All my data in a third party’s hands?  Can I trust them with it?  Well, what if the company you are using doesn’t even have access to the decryption key? 

I started using Spider Oak a while back, switching from Mozy.  One of my biggest reasons was security.  SpiderOak does not have the ability to decrypt your data that you have backed up.  I had a chance to speak to the Alan Fairless, co-founder and CTO of Spider Oak, and he explained it like this:  If any backup service provider has the ability to reset your username’s password, they have access to your data.  SpiderOak cannot reset your password, for this reason.

More than just a backup solution, SpiderOak also syncs your files, and allows you to share files with anyone!  SpiderOak also supports Windows, Mac, and Linux, and supports command line backups for each OS (very nice for scripting backups).  Unlike Mozy, SpiderOak allows an unlimited number of computers per account, and allows access to all your files from any computer.  Because of the smart synchronization, there are no duplicate files either!

SpiderOak isn’t just for home users, it is perfect for business use as well!  I am implemented it for a non-profit organization that I work with, and it is working perfectly!

My only complaint with SpiderOak, is that it runs in the system tray in Windows, but in my conversation with Alan Fairless, this is a feature that is coming soon, so hang tight!

Again, I cannot stress enough how important having a backup of your computer can be!  Your digital pictures, videos, email - you name it - if it’s important to you, back it up!!!  SpiderOak offers a free service of 2GB free, or a paid plan of $10.00/month for 100GB. 

SpiderOak has allowed a special offer to the readers of EverydayNerd.com!  15% off each purchased plan, but only through October 25th, so HURRY!  Folks, this is an AWESOME deal, and you don’t want to be caught without a backup!

Link: http://spideroak.com

The promo code is : everydaynerd (no capitals, no spaces)

I was planning a trip recently, and with gas prices, I was really concerned with how much it would cost me in gas.  Cost to Drive is a very easy to use web application on top of Google Maps, and can estimate the cost of gas for your trip.

Unfortunately, the website didn’t work in Firefox, so I had to use Internet Explorer… Not happy about that, and almost didn’t continue, but it made up for it with it’s results.

*Note:  This is not my trip, nor do I drive a Lotus Elise…

It not only calculates the distance, but asks for your car’s year, make and model, to get a more accurate calculation.  One thing I noticed, is that at the last fill up stop, Cost To Drive only gave me 3.5 gallons of fuel, because that is all I needed to reach my destination.  Of course, I would fill up there, so keep that in mind when doing your planning.  Other than that, and the fact it didn’t work with Firefox, it is a handy website!

Link to Cost To Drive

Are you a fan of the Google Chrome browser?  Do you use Gmail as a chrome application?  Wouldn’t it be nice to have your mailto links open with Gmail in Chrome?  ChromeMailer does exactly that! 

Pretty simple program, allows you to set Chrome/Gmail as default, or restore to defaults.  Happy Chrome’ing!

Download ChromeMailer

If you have ever had to reinstall Windows, you know what a pain it can sometimes be to find drivers.  There always seems to be a driver that is hard to find.  Double Driver, is a nice little utility that creates a backup of all you drivers (something you do BEFORE you re-install Windows).

This may be a program that you only use a couple of times, but it can save you hours of a headache!

 Download Double Driver

Do you work on more that one computer?  Do you transfer files between the two often?  Wish there was an easy way for your files to be on both computers?  Guess what?  FolderShare is the answer!

Windows Live! FolderShare (beta) provides either a one-way or two-way automatic file synchronization between 2 or more computers.  With desktop clients for PC and Mac (Sorry no Linux), syncing files is as simple as “Set it and forget it.”

One GREAT feature of FolderShare, is the ability to access your files remotely, even if you didn’t set them up for synchronization.  You securely browse your remote hard drive(s) and access any file on you remote computer.

In addition, you can create Shared Libraries, and automatically share files with anyone you wish, while keeping your Personal libraries completely secure.

Although FolderShare boasts the Live! name, it is not integrated with Passport, or Live sign-on.  FolderShare used to be it’s own company, but was purchased by Microsoft about two years ago.  Since then Microsoft has made some enhancements, as well as making the product available for free!  I’m certain that the same technology that is used for FolderShare is also being incorporated into Windows Live! Mesh service.  I have used Mesh, and must say, I like FolderShare better - mostly because of the ability to browse my remote hard drive.

Anyway, if you are a multi-computer user, this is a great product for you.

>> FolderShare