I have an automated (and lazy) way of finding interesting sites. This is what I do every day. I get the del.icio.us tags of every URL I blog about. (It’s available at http://del.icio.us/rss/url/ followed by the MD5 hex version of the URL). I pick the most popular tags (at least 50 links must have this tag), and use them as my “preferred tags” I scan the most popular sites on del.icio.us, and get each site’s tags If a site has my preferred tags, I give it points (the number of points is equal to the number of times I’ve blogged that tag) I pick the top 5 sites based on my points, and read them. There are two problems I have now. Firstly, I will find sites similar to those I have blogged about – not discover anything new. That’s fine to start with – I can search for those manually. The bigger problem is, this is restricted to del.icio.us. There are two ways I can extend this (lazily). ...

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes will be released. (I’ve transcribed the quotes.) Comments Anonymous 20 Sep 2005 6:08 pm: btw its available at a website, all strips ever published Anonymous 20 Sep 2005 6:09 pm: and its searchable thru google, let me know if you want the link S Anand 21 Sep 2005 4:58 pm: YES PLEASE! Can you mail me at root dot node at gmail dot com?

Google Blogsearch. Comments Ok 28 Sep 2005 7:29 am: Nice!

A 40-minute video preview of Office 12. I don’t normally watch videos this long. But it was worth it. Office 12 has a REALLY different user interface (critique). It’s also supposed to have a lot of new features. What struck me the most in the video is how Powerpoint creates diagrams. You type text, and Powerpoint can automatically convert that into value chains, org charts, etc. Julie mentions that a blind user was able to create graphics using this feature, and that this was the first time she has been able to create graphics in all her life!

YubNub is a web command line. A starting point for a Web OS, as Jon Aquino suggests. via eHub

A hilarious chat on IRC about passwords. More at QDB. via Dhar <Cthon98> hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars <Cthon98> ***** see! <AzureDiamond> hunter2 <AzureDiamond> doesnt look like stars to me <Cthon98> <AzureDiamond> ***** <Cthon98> thats what I see <AzureDiamond> oh, really? <Cthon98> Absolutely <AzureDiamond> you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2 <AzureDiamond> haha, does that look funny to you? <Cthon98> lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as ***** <AzureDiamond> thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that <Cthon98> yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as ***** <AzureDiamond> awesome! <AzureDiamond> wait, how do you know my pw? <Cthon98> er, I just copy pasted YOUR ****'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw <AzureDiamond> oh, ok.

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Tough learning. Excellent article (speech, actually) by a physicist on how to learn. Very readable, and has a quote I won’t forget: “A change of perception is worth 80 IQ points.” Comments Ramesh 10 Sep 2005 9:50 pm: That was really a good article would highly recomment others to read the same Arun 11 Sep 2005 3:20 pm: Illuminating. Needed that right now.Thanks.

BBC seems to be doing good work for developers at BBC Backstage. Tom Coates and Matt Biddulph are among those involved.

How to turn text lists into structured maps using the Web.

I just realised. Google Desktop Search is a HTTP server that works on port 4664. 4664 is what you need to type on a phone to spell “GOOG”. Incidentally, Google SMS requires you to send messages to GOOGL (46645). Comments Scott Caplan 4 Sep 2005 6:07 pm: That’s pretty darn awesome!

Kiko Calendar looks like a promising online calendar, offering “A powerful and flexible servlet API that allows third party developers to produce tools which enhance the value of your Kiko Calendar.”

Google Purge. Google Announces Plan To Destroy All Information It Can’t Index. Comments ritzkini 31 Aug 2005 10:28 am: hey the picture slidehsow is affecting the contact and faq section and recently updated blogs section ! S Anand 31 Aug 2005 10:57 am: Oh, what browser and version do you have? ritzkini 2 Sep 2005 12:48 pm: IE 6.0 S Anand 2 Sep 2005 3:18 pm: That’s strange… I have the same version. Having no problems. Could you mail me a screenshot?

WinAmp 5.1 leaked. Actually, the features were. The good part is, we will have 8X CD ripping in the free version, and ability to create WMA files. Wonder how the Predixis Smart Playlist Generator works. (It says “Mix your tracks based on what they sound like!”) Comments Dhar 31 Aug 2005 12:56 pm: Jet Audio too does some mixing based on what they sound like. Let me see if I can dig up that data. On the other hand, why use WinAmp for ripping? DB-Power-Amp is the way to go. Allows you to rip in various formats and no restrictions on the ripping speed.

Creating Groups on Gmail. Comments Arun 31 Aug 2005 6:38 pm: lol! The things people do. :-)

As Jeremy put it, GMail is really damn fast. Faster than desktop email. I prefer it to Outlook, and hence to my work e-mail ID.

Notes from Danny O’Brien’s NotCon Recap of Life Hacks. Summary: People use shells. People use todo.txt. We’ll have private blogs. We’ll have private RSS feeds. Geeks use secret scripts.

Dodgeball lets you broadcast your location to friends via a mobile. The interesting thing is, Google has bought Dodgeball.

Why good programmers are lazy and dumb. Comments Prasenjeet 26 Aug 2005 3:01 pm: Like the chap who created some-language-or-the-other