KSFO's Web Wanderer

The Links for March 5, 2005

The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time - Dudley

Dudley found this a nostalgia trip. The top 100 gadgets of all time.

I couldn't stop going through this site. The top 100 gadgets are listed, in order. You get the name, a brief description, and best of all a photo which serves as a memory jogger.

It's filled with stuff like:

the Pez dispenser
Mattel Intellivision
the Schick electric razor
Mattel Magic 8-Ball
the car alarm key fob

You'll know most of these. Most you probably take for granted.

It's a fun site - check it out.

Thanks, Dudley!

WatchThatPage - Dan in Vancouver, Washington

Dan in Vancouver, Washington says: ""WatchThatPage is a service that enables you to automatically collect new information from your favorite pages on the Internet.""

From the site: "WatchThatPage is a service that enables you to automatically collect new information from your favorite pages on the Internet. You select which pages to monitor, and WatchThatPage will find which pages have changed, and collect all the new content for you. The new information is presented to you in an email and/or a personal web page. You can specify when the changes will be collected, so they are fresh when you want to read them. The service is free!"

"With WatchThatPage you can make your own newsletter customized with the information important to you, from the sources of your choice. Competitors, partners, online news and magazines, reports, events. Any page on the Internet can be watched. There is nothing to download to use WatchThatPage. All the heavy work is done on our server. All you have to do is to register your profile, and add the pages you want to watch. From now on, just lean back and let the updates come to you."

"WatchThatPage gives you several options for how you want to monitor the Internet. You can get all the new content collected in one email, or separated into several emails, i.e. to sort the information on different topics or importance. You can receive all changes, or just changes that match keywords you specify. You can get daily updates, or customize the updates to the weekdays of your choice. If you want, we can keep the emails short and only tell you which pages did change, and leave it up to you to visit the pages yourself and find the changes. We can inform you about pages that are unreachable."

"With WatchThatPage you can specify when to check for changes, so you are sure to get fresh changes i.e. when you get to work in the morning. You can also get several updates every day. We update on your demand."

Looks like a great service. Thanks, Dan!

New Mars Pictures - Taxi Mike

Taxi Mike loves the photos from space. These are among the best he's found. They're absolutely stunning photos of Mars.

Don't miss them.

They make a great background image for your computer.

Thanks, Taxi Mike!

Building and Maintaining a Computer MIDI/Multimedia Teaching Lab - Stephen

Stephen submitted his own site for review.

Stephen says: "This article outlines many years of our experience here at the Roper Piano Studio in progressing from DOS, to Windows XP, and several generations of MIDI sequencers, keyboards, and music software. I cover some of the pitfalls of Windows OS desktop use from 3.1 forward; how to install and optimize MIDI and sound peripherals; upgrading both OS and systems; and how to secure your careful PC setup from drive failure or Internet attack. The level of advice ranges from beginner to advanced user; and I have just added a menu at the top of the article to move easily into main sections of the long article. I hope my occasional light touches and attempts at humor will help to keep the reader's attention in what otherwise might be a rather dry recital of issues."

This page is ideal for people running old software (DOS, Win 3.1) on machines and trying to hook up to more modern technology. There's a lot of old machines still running, and this site is almost a how-to to get past obstacles.

If you're into MIDI in particular, don't miss this page.

Cool site, Stephen. Thanks!

Dr Pepper Clones - Solinas

This reminds me of what the early days of the net looked like, before all of the commercialization, slick graphics, etc. Back when webmasters wrote their own content, about their own passions. It has that "hand coded" look to it.

The tagline is "Not Quite What the Doctor Ordered." It's a page by a Dr. Pepper fanatic - looking at all of the clones out there in the market by small bottlers. Each soda is carefully photographed, reviewed, and scored.

There's dozens of sodas here. Maybe over a hundred.

He provides multiple photos per soda, if the can artwork gets changed.

This was a fun site to browse - check it out.

Free For All!

"Free For All" picks are hot, FREE items or services. It can be software, online services, you name it - but it's got to be free, with no strings attached.

EssentialPIM - Santa Rosa Steve

Santa Rosa Steve says: "H A P P Y ~ N E W ~ Y E A R ! ! ! In recent years my chronic unkept New Year's resolution has been to find a new PIM (Personal Information Manager). Finally, this year I can keep my resolution thanks to EPim Ltd.'s EssentialPIM (description below). The data that you store is very portable, and the application itself is portable—it's available in a stand-alone version suitable for USB drives."

Publisher's Description: "EssentialPIM includes Schedules, Notes, and Contacts modules. Each module has been designed to meet the highest industry standards. Colorful and easy to read day, week, month, and year schedules will help you to keep your plans in easy and convenient way – like you always wanted. Hierarchical multilevel structure of notes should help you to organize your notes and search through them with a click of a mouse. Adjustable views for comfortable representation of contacts allow you to see only that information, which you want to see. It is also capable of importing/exporting information to/from MS Outlook and MS Outlook Express, printing of schedules, notes, and contacts, and saving information into various popular formats like HTML, RTF, TXT, etc."

  MAIN FEATURES
    ·Colorful, easy to read day/week/month schedules
    ·Integrated import from MS Outlook/Outlook Express
    ·Easy printout of all modules and export into various formats
    ·EPIM is free. Completely, no tricks, no adware/spyware,
     - just pure quality software
  
  PRINT, IMPORT, AND EXPORT FEATURES
    Get information wherever you need to. Print out or Save
    to HTML, RTF, CSV or TXT. Real information on the Go.

  Requires
    ·32MB of RAM or more
    ·10 MB of free hard drive space

More key features:

Easy switch, smooth quick start.
Automatically import existing data from Outlook, Windows Address Book and CSV, anytime.
All-in-one solution
Tasks- good looking scheduler. Versatile and easy to use day, week and month schedules.
Notes- quick, simple and yet powerful outliner with tree-like information representation.
Contacts- all one would ever need about contacts management. Search, sort, add customs fields, print.
Print, Import, and Export features
Get information wherever you need to. Print out or Save to HTML, RTF, CSV or TXT. Real information on the Go.

Thanks, Steve!

Star Office 8 Beta - Dyno Don

Dyno Don

From The site: "This latest release of StarOffice software further increases usability and Microsoft Office compatibility. Wizards and tools are added to increase productivity, and filters for Lotus and WordPerfect are included. StarOffice 8 also introduces a new database engine and front-end, easier multi-language installation, and two new scripting language options for developers.

Don - thanks for the update!