stretch your noodle

I didn't post for winning Wednesday yesterday, so consider this yesterday's post :)

Several months back, my wife told me about a riddle website that she was getting into. It involved a increasingly difficult "riddles" and you could not proceed to the next "level" until you figured out the current puzzle. I decided to try too. It was very frustrating, but at the same time very fulfilling. I turned some people at work on to it and we all had a bit of a competition going to see who could get the farthest. I ended up getting about halfway through the third set (level 45) and got stuck. I ended up forgetting about it, but came across the bookmark today. I decided I'd start over and see if I could get any farther. I challenge you to try it out for yourself, during my lunch I got back to level 28 (but remember I'd done them before, so it was a matter of remembering how to solve them). Give it a shot and try not to bleed out of your ears!

http://weffriddles.com (Don't say I didn't warn you!!!)

Its called a SIGNAL for a reason

On my commute this morning I enjoyed the normal morning rush hour (which in Fresno isn't that bad. As I was approaching the CA41/CA180 interchange I noticed a raised Bronco speeding up in the lane to my left, as it approached my position it slowed and began to "pace" my car. I glanced over and saw the driver glaring at me. I wrote it off and continued on my merry way. As I got closer to the exit, I n0ticed the guy was still there, glaring... speeding up a bit... glaring... slowing back... glaring... speeding up a bit. Just as I get to the exit, he flips me off and jerks his POS right in front of my car and crosses not only the lane I was in but the next lane as well. As his car's back left tire crosses the line he puts his turn signal on... Ohhhhh. Dude! If you'd have done that in the first place I'd have know you wanted to come into this lane. No need for the bedroom eyes and crazy mouth movements!

Be careful what you click it might just bite you in the brain (or wallet)!!!

So Google released their latest product the new Google Chrome web browser. If you read my previous post, I am a pretty big Firefox fan, and have been since version 1.0. But I am also a big Google fan and regularly use several of their applications (Gmail, Blogger, Earth, Desktop, etc...). I did a little research and found out that Chrome is in fact an open source browser (like Firefox) and is built on an engine similar to the Gecko engine (like Firefox), so I decided to give it a whirl. While doing digging into the features that Chrome offers I came across a few blog posts mentioning Chrome's EULA (End User License Agreement, basically the "by using this product you agree to this... contract). I took a look at it and found this disturbing clause:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

Perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free?!?!? I don't think I'm clever enough to come up with something that Google could make any money off of, but if some how in a spark of creativity I did, I'd expect a check heading my way if the big G were to market it!

Now Chrome is only in Beta (version 0.2.149.27 as of this posting), so it is possible that this may change by the time the final version is out. But in the meantime I think I'll stick with Firefox.

ETA: Google has now revised section 11 of its Chrome EULA to the following:

"11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."

Apparently this was a "copy and paste" error and that the previous version was supposed to removed. I'll give it another shot now, but still be careful, I found the same verbiage in the Picasa 3 beta EULA.

If you want to download Google Chrome, you can do it here.

How To: RSS Feeds

For anyone who follows any kind of blog/frequently updated website, and especially those who follow several... the internet gods have created something called RSS feeds. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It basically sends out headlines and a description of any blog post or website update of a monitored site. To tap into the power of the RSS feed you will need an RSS reader. There are many free RSS readers out there, and Google has a free and easy to use reader as well. All you need is a Google account. If you have a blog on Blogger/Blogspot or a Gmail address then you already have this functionality. If you haven't already I'd set iGoogle as your default homepage. iGoogle is basically a customized Google page with widgets that you choose, you can access it by going to http://www.google.com as usual and click on the "sign in" link at the top right corner of the screen. Simply sign in using your Google user name (before the @ in your gmail address, e.g. somebody@gmail.com) and your Gmail password (or blogger username/password). Click sign in, and then after the page reloads click on the iGoogle link. From here you can customize whatever you want to appear on your google search page (including the wallpaper). Mine currently looks like this:

As you can see one of the widgets you can add is the Google Reader widget (bottom center). To add any blog/website its extremely easy. In Firefox 3.0 just click the RSS symbol in the address bar (if it doesn't appear the site does not have the feed feature):

If you are still one of the 75% of internet users who are in the dark and use Internet Explorer (download Firefox here, you'll be glad you did), the RSS button is found on the right side of the screen in the toolbar your tabs are in (Internet Explorer 7+):

Either way you will be prompted to choose either RSS or Atom (I usually pick RSS, but both will are syndication feeds and therefore both will work). If you are using Firefox, you will be prompted to choose which reader you will use to read the feeds, choose Google. You're done now! Go to http://reader.google.com, or your custom iGoogle page to see your subscriptions.

If you are using IE and want to use the Google reader, you have to take a few extra steps. After you click the RSS button you will be taken to a new page, if you want to use IE's RSS reader you can just click the "subscribe to this feed" button (from this point I don't know what IE does with it, if you do send me a comment telling me how to access them, but if you know that you probably aren't reading this far :)). To use the Google reader click in the address bar and copy the address by either right clicking and choosing copy or Ctrl+C (this address is the Feed URL). Next navigate to http://reader.googler.com, on the left hand side there will be a button that says "add subscription" click it and a dialog box will pop up paste in the URL you copied in the previous page and click add. Now you're done (told you, download Firefox!). Note: you can also use the add subscription dialog box as a search box if you want to find a particular subject.

Typically if you want to subscribe to a blogger/blogspot blog the URL for feeds the following template:
http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
and for comments is:
http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default
where obviously blogname is the unique name of the blog (e.g. tepidcoffee)

There you go! Hey why don't you try it out now and subscribe to my blog :) !

Words cannot describe my disgust

Only three letters can do this justice... W T F ?!?!?

What is that sound???

Back when we purchased our house we realized we needed some new furniture to go along with the new digs. Since we now had a house, we figured we'd get some "big people" furniture (i.e., made of REAL wood and didn't have to be put together with an Allen wrench). So we went to the local furniture store and picked out a nice three piece sectional that we liked. In the sea of boxes that was our living room the first few weeks, we unwrapped the furniture from its various boxes and proceeded to arrange them to our liking. When we opened one of the boxes a billion silica beads exploded all over our floor (apparently a bag had opened up, and the bags were about the size of a Mac and Cheese box). I tried my best to clean it up, and then continued my furniture moving duties as my wife "supervised" the correct positioning. Every time I moved the chaise it made a kind of scraping sound on our floor. I thought there was a rouge silica bead and just ignored it. Since then our furniture had never been rearranged. Last night the wifey and I wanted to snuggle up and watch a few episodes of Heroes, but neither of us wanted to assume the "parallel to the TV" position", instead opting for the "feet toward the TV position". So we compromised and rearranged the furniture (don't worry, the whole time we were moving stuff we were commenting on how silly this was). We removed the center piece and pushed the chaise and love seat together and watched three episodes. As we were going to bed, we moved them back into their proper position and again the chaise made the scrapping sound. We both thought it was the scheming silica bead and thought we should dispose of it so the little one wouldn't eat it. I tilted the chaise and found nothing, so I flipped it on its side and... WHAT THE?!?!? I found this...

It was like a buried treasure and my curiosity just couldn't take it. I had know idea what it could be, Pandora's Box, pirate treasure, a hidden stash of the mob's money?? I unzipped the pouch with the glee of an eight year old on Christmas morning and...










oh it was the feet of the couch.
I continued to flip each of the pieces and each had an identical pouch all containing four feet, four bolts, and an Allen wrench. Not quite as cool as pirate's gold, but better than Pandora's box. All this time we thought the sectional just sat on the ground. Oops!

Great weekend!

So I took the weekend off from blogging, because we just wanted to chill and enjoy the last "unofficial" weekend of summer. All and all it went pretty darn good. Friday night we met some friends at BJ's Brewhouse for happy hour and then rented What Happens in Vegas ("...you know why!"). Saturday night a friend came in to town that we hadn't seen in a few years and we caught up, had some drinks and rocked out with Rock Band. Sunday morning we rode our bikes to Le Parisien and met friends for crepes and then went to the movies. The guys saw Tropic Thunder and the girls saw The Pants Movie 2: Dirty Denim (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2). And then Monday we chilled at home and watched the Fresno State Bulldogs whoop on Rutgers 3000 miles away. We capped the weekend by watching a few episodes of Heroes. And on top of it all the weather was wonderful. Friday it was 106, but by the weekend the high had dropped to about 92!