Andrew Houser has released the new version of this Flickr Leech tool recently. If you like photography and enjoy browsing others’ work, you could easily get lost in this site for hours. It’s a good place to find inspiration for any creative projects you may be working on. The site has many features, but my two favorites are:
Explore thumbnails of the photos with the highest interestingness rating for a given date.
Use the “Search photos” to see up to 200 thumbnail search results when searching tags assigned to pictures.
There is even an advanced search where you can filter by a photo’s license in case you are looking for a photo to use elsewhere. (Okay - that’s three but I’m a giver)
Flickr is the best photo sharing site on the internet, and flickrleech is the best way to surf through large sets of the best works using the fewest clicks.
Jott.com was supposed to remind me at 6:15 this morning about my dentist appointment today. I have to set tripwires and implement hacks to break my routine. The reminder did not arrive on time so my morning routine unfolded like it was on auto pilot. About one block from the office my phone squaked to remind me of the appointment. <– insert u-turn here –> I realised then that it was about 7:15 and time to make the trip to the doctor’s office. It seems suscipious that my reminder was an hour off. Why must we monkey with the time? And why on earth would Jott be an hour late? This is officially my first ever Jott gripe. Normally they are amazing.
To make up for the wasted drive time this morning I treated myself to some Chick-fil-A mini things for breakfast after my appointment. Oh yeah, these things are delicious! Four out of five dental patients recommend them. The fifth guy is a vegan.
I recently became aware that the company I work for is auditing and monitoring the usage of USB ports on the computers we use. I have no reason to fear this, since I’m on the up and up. There truly is nothing to hide. It was unnerving to learn however that they looked at my PC and were able to list each and every device I have ever connected to that machine in its two year history. I saw Wi-Fi network names I really had to strain to recall using. I saw each thumb drive and iPod that had ever touched my USB port. Even if it was just once to borrow some power. It made me feel dirty. Violated. Pissed, even.
What’s a tech guy to do? I wrote a script to dig through the registry and remove tracks left behind by such indiscretions. Should I really be questioned about my use of USB power to charge an iPod? Give me a break.
If I leave the house through the back door instead of my usual front door routine, I sometimes forget my coffee. My wife installed hook thingy where we now hang our keys so they don’t get misplaced. The first morning I walked right out the door and locked myself out of the house without my keys. Brilliant. I forget stuff all the time. Without lists and stupid human tricks like a launch pad, I don’t know what I’d do. I am such a creature of habit that one slight change in my routine and I’m totally thrown off course.
I depend heavily on lists and reminders to help me navigate life’s details. I often remember my to-do items while driving. It’s hard to write while driving, and I may not recall a detail once I’ve reached my destination. My solution lately is Jott. You call Jott, speak a message, addressed to whomever you’ve setup in your account, and it will email or text your cell phone. It can also setup a reminder message. Best of all, it’s free.
In the past 24 hours, Jott has successfully triggered me to drop off a rent check for a friend while he’s out of town and it reminded me to alter a song’s stop time on my iPod playlist so I don’t broadcast a crappy part of a song during the Christmas parade. These are both important items, yet I’m certain without a reminder system, I would have screwed them up. Jott is a trusted system that can help clear your head of these tedious details so you can have mind like water.
Have you ever been to a website that forces you to register your email address to proceed? If it’s not a site you are sure you will ever come back to or care about again, you risk receiving endless junk mail from them if you hand over your real address. I don’t appreciate junk mail. I doubt most people do. Let me share one of my secrets with you. Mailinator.com
Make up a fake mailinator address and register it with the not-so-sure site that you are visiting, then you can proceed at that site. If you need the mail that site sends you, go get it from mailinator. It’s not secure or anything so only use it for stuff you don’t care if the world sees. It’s a brilliantly simple tool, written by a sharp guy. His blog is interesting too, if you’re in to that kind of thing (and you obviously are).
