Category Archives: Around the web

Zen’s Bits

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No, not those kind of bits you filthy minded swine! Aherm…

I’m referring to my new domain name zensbits.com where you will find my tumbleblog / tumblelog / whatever you want to call it, which is hosted by Tumblr.

Tumblr is a strange thing. Essentially it’s a blog without comments. I have wondered myself what the point of that really is when I already have a blog, but I’ve become kind of addicted to the simplicity of it all. Tumblr has a great little bookmarklet through which you can automatically embed video, images and quotes. For lazy people like me, it’s ideal. So I’ve gone from wondering what the point is, to being amazed at the simplicity of it all, and then to question if I really need another place to post stuff, and finally to thinking sod it and becoming wholly addicted to hitting that little ‘share on Tumblr’ button. I’m also routing my shared items from google reader through it, so that saves having yet another feed for people to track, and it keeps my links of interest (well, of interest to me at least, I don’t know about you) all in one place.

Anyway, the point being, I decided that my little tumbleblog was here to stay, and so I got a brand spanking new domain name for it.

Update

I’ve also set up a music tumblelog at music.zensbits.com

Jesus on a dogs butt

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Steffen pointed out a humorous blog post to me today over gtalk, concerning what appears to be an image of jesus on a dogs rear end. It’s actually quite uncanny, you should go take a look.

The picture itself isn’t what prompted this post though, it’s the comments that follow it. Apparently, the mere mention of ‘jesus’ and ‘dogs butt’ in the same sentence is enough to bring out a whole coach load of what I can only describe as christian nutjobs. A few sample comments are below.

Quote 1:

That picture makes me sick! Jesus died for your sins and your saying He resembles a dogs butt! I feel like throwing up but whoever posted that I just want you to know that I’ll be praying for you and He will love you no matter what you’ve done. Thats why He died such a brutal death. For your sins. Please have that taken off the web though. I’d appreciate it sooo much. Thanks

Quote 2:

I dont know what your see there but jesus cannot and i mean cannot be on a dogs but your a sick person. ill be praying for you.

Quote 3:

i am sick to the bone about this picture. i will praye and praye for you. i hope you dont go to hell for this even though you most likely will because your an idiot. you should be so lucky to have someone in your life lovee you like Jesus does. all i can say is repent your sins. as far as i’m concerned you are both the devil and judas them selfs.

I realise that not all christians are such idiots, and there are some more reasoned comments from those with more intelligence on that post. But what is it with these fanatics? Do they really lack that much intelligence? I have absolutely nothing against faith, but blind faith and plain idiocy is something else entirely.

Also, I’m pretty sure that jesus wouldn’t really give a damn if he was able to be seen on a dogs arse or not.

iStalkr.com

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I’m not sure what’s come over me recently, but I’ve found myself using a lot more ‘social’ oriented sites. Last.fm of course has been a mainstay for me, but that’s more about the music with a pinch of social goodness thrown in (for me personally that is). Then I began to use del.icio.us, and more recently tumblr and twitter. All of this can make things a little confusing for those trying to follow my activities around the net. (Yeah, I know those people are scarce, but hey, I can pretend!).

This is where iStalkr comes in. iStalkr collects your feeds from all around the net and puts them into one handy page, which in turn has a feed that others can follow (although the feed links back to the entry on iStalkr as opposed to the original source). In addition, you can have your very own ‘Stalkrs’, and you can also ‘stalk’ other people. The huge advantage to this is that much like twitter’s friends page you can see both your own and your ‘targets’ (friends) activities all in one page.

The interface itself is very slick and has a high level of useability. Each item gathered from your feeds appears as a headline, so it’s easy to see all the content at a glance. Next to each item is a drop down button, clicking on this will reveal the full entry. This makes it very easy to go straight to the content that you’re really interested in.

iStalkr.com screenshot

I’m not sure when it launched exactly (seems like only a few months ago), but it’s pretty new and in beta stage. Consequently there will be a few bugs, perfection can’t be expected just yet. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit it but I managed to somehow bring the whole site down yesterday! Possibly something to do with removing my last.fm feed. The lead developer, Dan, seemed happy that I’d helped discover a bug, but I’m still feeling slightly shamefaced for breaking his beloved site. I must add, the site was brought back to life quickly enough though.

All in all, I’m really loving iStalkr. It has a great interface, supports openID login, and is a great way to keep up with friends and make some new ones too. The team also seem very open to user contributed feature suggestions, which is always a good thing. It’s early days, but it’s already showing a lot of promise. If you’d like to stalk me, you can do so here!

I’m a twit

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twitter logo
Yes, apparently I am now a Twit. Not in the traditional sense of being stupid (though that’s often an apt description too!), but meaning somebody who uses Twitter. You may have noticed my little Twitter widget on the sidebar over there, if you actually visit here and don’t read my blog via RSS.

I’m not really sure what came over me. I’ve spent weeks wondering what on earth all the fuss was about, thinking it was probably just the latest “web 2.0″ trend and it’ll likely disappear if I ignore it for long enough. Then I had a mad moment and thought I’d try it out. I’ve been hooked ever since.

It’s turned into something of an addiction. I now have twitters coming through my browser, my IM client, through Twitterific, and even my mobile phone. It has a strange addictive quality that’s not easily explained, one of those ‘you have to try to understand it’ kind of things. I do see now why it’s so popular. For a start, it’s a great tool to keep in touch with friends. You can keep track of what they’re up to, and join in the conversation at any point (or not). I’ve also found it good for discovering new geek toys – whenever somebody posts a link to something that sounds interesting I’ll go investigate.

All in all, I can now see me being a Twit for quite some time to come. And I don’t care who knows it either!

Should you be interested, here’s my Twitter profile.

Sharing discoveries

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I was going to leave a comment as reply to James’ recent(ish) post on the software and tools that he’s discovered, but then I realised it would likely be far too long to do as a comment. So I thought I’d do a list of some of the things I regularly use here instead. Not just software, but websites as well. Some of which James has already listed (Firefox, WordPress, Evernote, Avast! Antivirus), so I won’t go into detail about those here.

1. TiddlyWiki

tiddly.jpg

I love this little gem. Not only is it functional enough to organise oodles of information (or your life), and small enough to fit on a USB key, but because it’s a .html file that also means it’s cross platform. Due to it’s lightweight nature and cross platform goodness, this may well replace Evernote for me, possibly coupled with Google Notebook. However, I have heard reports that it doesn’t cope overly well with large amounts of data, so unless you plan on having a regular clearout of old entries, it may not be the best solution for you.

2. MediaMonkey

mediamonkey logo

I’ve tried a lot of media players over the years (Windows Media Player, WinAmp, Foobar, QCD, and others that I’ve likely forgotten about). MediaMonkey may not be the best looking media player out there, but it’s feature packed and doesn’t suck the life out of your system’s memory. I liked it so much that I paid for it (there is a free version available, but I’d recommend paying for it. It’s not expensive and it’s very much worth it). The only downside is that it’s Window’s only. Which brings me to….

3. Amarok

Amarok

If there was a Windows version of this, I would be very tempted to drop MediaMonkey entirely. This media player is simply beautiful. Sadly, it’s only available for Linux currently (though I’ve heard whispers that it may be coming to Windows also).

A new version has been released in the past few days which also adds support for Magnatune, a DRM free music store (is this the first linux music player to integrate a music store?). Though it’s hardly a rival to iTunes, being made up of lesser known independent artists, it’s a nice feature.

4. Last.fm

last.fm

This site is quite simply, a music lovers dream come true. It tracks the music you listen to, compiles your very own music charts, and makes recommendations to you based on your listening habits. It also allows you to keep up with the music your friends listen to, and has streamable radio based on tags (such as genre, similar artists) and user profiles. A recent update has also added event recommendations, a musical taste compatibility meter so that you can see how similar your tastes are to other members, and some free mp3 downloads.

I’ve been using it since last November, and was hooked from the start. Admittedly I am mad about music, and lead a fairly sad life, so the same effect on you can’t be guaranteed. :) However, it has become my most visited website, I’m a complete Last.fm addict. It’s introduced me to so many great artists that I’d never have otherwise come across, and that alone is worth using the site for (Pandora just doesn’t do it for me, though I use that occasionally too).

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