"Do you like the annoying message that keeps asking you to restart your computer after installing windows updates every 10 minutes?

If you choose 'Restart Later', this question will appear again every 10 minutes."

Here is a way to eliminate this behaviour...

Read more: http://www.techdo.com/?p=86

I had to do some simple form validation the other day and thought to myself that, in our current Web 2.0 world, I should do it with AJAX since it is really everywhere and it didn't even cross my mind todo it the old fashioned way with plain Javascript, which might do the job just a good. 

So, I stumbled upon Live Validation which offers a lightweight, open source javascript library to do just that: realtime form validation with some very useful features. They have some excellent examples here and the code is decently commented. Definitively a must have in my toolbox!

Read more: http://www.livevalidation.com/

I know a few people very close and very dear to me who suffer from depression and it is so difficult to communicate and understand what exactly it is that they are going through.

From time to time, I can feel a little down myself, without a specific reason to explain my careless mood. However, for people who are depressed more than ocassionaly and often require medication, it has simply become part of their lifes...so much that it seems that mood simply takes control. I don't undertand how someone can not be in control of themself...and I have learned not to try to understand either...I don't think I would be able to understand anyways, even it were to happen to me.

Here is a very brief article that attempts to explain in a few paragraphs how people feel when they are depressed, why it happens and how you should react.

Read more:  http://psychcentral.com/

Update: site seems to be down...here is Google's cache version. 

"Survival of the fittest is a phrase which is a shorthand for a concept relating to competition for survival or predominance. Originally applied by Herbert Spencer in his Principles of Biology of 1864, Spencer drew parallels to his ideas of economics with Charles Darwin's theories of evolution by what Darwin termed natural selection. [wikipedia]"

Now, we know this well established concept is applied to everyday living organisms. But what about the not so obvious ones...? What about M & M's?

Read more: http://www.laughbreak.com/stories/

Resizing an image is nothing new, and if you maintain the aspect ratio, it will look exactly the same but smaller or larger: smaller, you'll see less of it and larger, you'll distort the image.

But what if you could in some way, intelligently resize an image without distorting the content of it...? What if that intelligent technology could identify the less important background pixels in an image and delete those to shrink the image without touching the main object in the middle?

That sounds crazy, but that is exactly what this technology will offer. (Imagine this technology built into your browser...)

A cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee, like anywhere else, right? I will have to disagree with that statement... I don't know whether  it is just the differences in culture, but the coffee selection in Europe is just not that extensive as it is here in the US.  I live in Seattle, where there is literally a Starbucks on every corner and one can simply not avoid the sometimes ridiculuous combinations that people come up with when ordering a cup of coffee.

If you were ever wondering what all these italian names for different types of coffee really mean when put tugether in a cup, here is a handy illustration that simplifies the mixtures and their exotic european names.

Read more: http://www.lokeshdhakar.com/... 

With less than $5 and it is incredibly simple. I had known about the technology, but thought it involved a more sensitive and expensive equipment. It turns out you can make yourself a simple Laser Microsphone with a $2 laser and the light sensor from a nightlight...

The technology involves around the fact that sounds [of your voice] are simply waves that cause vibrations in the air. The windows in any room will vibrate accordingly when impacted with these vibrations. If you point a laser light at the window and capture the reflected light on a sensor, any vibration on the window will be reflected and captured in your sensor. It is just a matter of translating the vibrations back to sound with software and any laptop with Windows will do that for you.

Read more: [via LifeHacker] http://lifehacker.com/...

Rebooting a Windows computer is a pain in the neck and depending on the OS, hardware or software installed, it can take quite a while for the machine to boot up and be fully responsive. Averages run around one and a half minute. first the BIOS loads, and then eventually Windows.

So, what if you could just restart Windows, without restarting the BIOS?

"Sometimes, you need to reboot Windows (e.g. when installing new software), but there is no need to restart BIOS, too. However, the default is to reboot both. (That’s called doing a “cold boot,” rather than a “warm boot.”) There’s a trick that works on both XP and Vista to get it to do a warm boot instead, thus saving you 30 seconds per cycle"

Read more:  http://www.codejacked.com/

Update: Apparently this trick only worked in older Windows 95/98 machines. Details here.

I read this brief post and was brought back in time when I actually would have thought certain things about the relevance of the class material in front of me with real life. How can this possibly be useful for any career or for life in general? This is just another hypothesis or algorithm exercise that has absolutely no purpose other than that it is needed to pass this course.

I wish I had received the following answer and hopefully I would have paid more attention to all the following "useless" exercises....

Read more: http://www.marcandangel.com/

So, you have  a few minutes left to just surf the web... maybe check reddit.com and you know you'll get stuck there for way longer than that.

Why not take the time and learn something the easy way by just watching a 5 minute video on the subject?

"5min is a place to find short video solutions for practical questions and a place for people to share their knowledge.

The idea behind 5min is very simple: any solution can be visually explained in no more than 5 minutes." 

Read more: http://www.5min.com/

"Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS) is the first payments service designed from the ground up specifically for developers.

The set of web services APIs allows the movement of money between any two entities, humans or computers. It is built on top of Amazon's reliable and scalable payment infrastructure."

It seems very flexible (hence the name, I guess...) and the pricing is surpisingly decent as well.

There are several companies out there doing this this, PayPal being one of them, but I think this will offer some serious competition.

Read more:  http://www.amazon.com/...

Having lived in Amsterdam and Rotterdam for over a decade, this list of 82 pictures brought many memories back. Unlike in the USA, where everyone drives their SUV to the shops less than 1 km away, in Holland, they do it differently. The preferred method of transportation is the bicycle or "fiets". Of course, for longer trips there is excellent public transportation and yes, people do own cars as well, albeit smaller ones.

Soon after I learned to walk, the bike was the next logical method of going places...everywhere: to school, the grocery store, library, football games, etc and this in the almost constant rain or freezing, windy, bitter winters of Holland.

"[in Holland] there are many cyclepaths and other segregated cycle facilities. The network stretches to all provinces, and the bordering nations Belgium and Germany. The country values its cycleways as much as any other method of transportation - like a network of roads, these cycleways can take you from any city to a destination of your choice - even on long distances such as from Maastricht to Amsterdam. These cycleways come in many forms, with their own set of rules and systems - including traffic signals (or traffic lights), tunnels and lanes. " (via wikipedia).

Read more:  http://www.ski-epic.com/...

The new Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 is ready to be downloaded.  You can get it here: 

Visual Studio 2008 (formerly called "Orcas") is Microsoft's new flagship software development product for computer programmers. With features like multi-targeting support, Javascript Intellisense, AJAX support and LINQ, it sure promises to be a fully featured and exciting release. You can find the complete feature list in this white paper.

Read more: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/...

Whether you acquire this valuable skill or it is natural in you, it is one that one simply must have to be able to interact, socialize and simply succeed in your relationships with anyone you know or encounter in the future.

Everyone is unique and so are their thaughts. The true art lies in being able to listen properly, communicate accordingly and whether you get your point across or not, whether you convince the other person or not, maintain the relationship intact or stronger than it was, even if no mutaul agreement was reached.

Here is an excellent article that highlights some of these points that one should keep in mind in any discussion.

Read more: http://johnplaceonline.com/...

Visual Studio is a very complex and complete piece of software and I use it everyday. I have very few add-ins for it simply because it really comes with everything I need. However, there is one thing, one key feature that I find is missing. I had written about it before and that is the lack of FTP support for web applications.

Sometimes, you just need to be able to make changes to a file, run it locally to verify that it works and being able to upload it directly to the webserver from within VS. I know there is some support for it, but frankly I think it was placed in there at the last minute...it is unusable. So, I think I have finally found a product that does the job decently exactly as I expect it to. It is an add-in to VS2005 and it is called Dispatch .

"Dispatch is VS plugin that helps you keep track of the files that need to be uploaded - all from within the comfort of the Visual Studio 2005 IDE."

Read more: http://dispatchasp.net/

Of course everyone has some advice on how to remove a stain from the carpet or how to avoid smelly shoes, but some of these 62 little known uses of vinegar just seem incredible.

Most are certainly worth trying and probably very efficient. However, until I try them out myself or see some solid proof I think I am going to remain somewhat skeptical about some of these solutions offered, especially ones like #54...

I just have the impression that the room won't smell as fresh as it says it will...

Read more: http://odyb.net/...

I don't exercise every day but I do wish I was more consistent about exercising regularly. It seems that every morning I decide that, this time, for real, I am going to start exercising every day.  I find myself waking up early and exercising for a few days and then suddenly, one morning I decide to skip a session and it goes downhill from there....until next Monday; then we start all over again.

So, what can we do about it? Here  is a  good article on how to make your exercise session an actual habit, like showering or brushing your teeth. We don't stop and think about either those activities, we just do them....if we could only do that with an exercise routine...

Read more: http://ririanproject.com/...

I read a post somewhere (truly can't remember where...) about the tools one uses to develop software and thought to myself: do the software tools or programs we use identify us?

I think it would it be safe to say that you can tell a lot from a person from what he is wearing or which software products he/she uses. Would you think doifferent of someone who told you they used x application...? maybe because you preferred another one?

Interesting questions, but I'd thought I'd post some of my own tools I use on a daily basis...

Here they are:

1. Visual Studio 2005 (IDE)
   
2. SQL 2005 Management Studio (Database)
   
3. Virtual PC / VMWare (PC Virtualization)
   
4. Winmerge (File/Folder differencing)
5. Fireworks / Paint.NET (Image editor)
6. Dispatch (VS FTP add-in)
7. SyncBack (FTP Syncronization)
8. Fiddler (HTTP debugger)
9. Axosoft Ontime (VS bug track add-in)

"Staying motivated is a struggle; our drive is constantly assaulted by negative thoughts and anxiety about the future. Everyone faces doubt and depression.

What separates the highly successful is the ability to keep moving forward."

There are 3 primary reasons we lose motivation.

1. Lack of confidence - If you don’t believe you can succeed, what’s the point in trying?
2. Lack of focus - If you don’t know what you want, do you really want anything?
3. Lack of direction - If you don’t know what to do, how can you be motivated to do it?

Read more:  http://www.pickthebrain.com/...

You just created your online access account for your brokerage account, just like many other online services you have created accounts for...

Which password did you pick? The same as usual...the same you use for all your other accounts? A different one? You have a different password for each site? Then, how do you remember all of them? Maybe you have some software application that remembers them for you.

Whichever our case, more likely than not, we don't spend much time thinking about the strength of our passwords, even though we are constantly reminded about the threats of not doing so...

Well, here is an article by John P. who shares how he would hack your password. Read it and it may make you want to change your passwords to something stronger...

Read more: http://onemansblog.com/...