“Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.” David Letterman

My grandparents used to travel around for hours just looking for a bird species they had not seen before. I always remember seeing a birding book in their car at any time. Now there have always been internet resources for birders but this one seems to have some very cool features. What a Bird has a unique way of identifying the species seen. You go through a series of prompts identifying basics like where and when down to whether or not the bird was hawk-like or not. It seems to work pretty well. Also there are games like the bird sleuth. There is a tutorial on identifying bird songs and bunch of other resources like forums for discussing every aspect. If you are a bird enthusiasts then it is time to give this one a try.

"It's Not Easy Being Green" Kermit the Frog

Not too long ago I had a yard sale where I sold a bunch of no longer wanted electronics I had kicking around. Most of it went but it got me thinking of what to do with it if it didn’t. The standard is to bring the stuff to a Salvation Army or a resale store and donate it. But I have seen the dumpsters in the back of these places and they are filled with broken electronics. Almost all of the electronics contain hazardous materials that eventually end up in our drinking water. This in the long run will do more harm to the environment than I am helping a drop off center. So a good start instead is to head to Mygreenelectronics. They have a searchable map that shows you all the recycle centers near you and what they take. Also they have a list of greener electronics to buy in the future. Understand that most of the places will take things like a monitor but usually for a fee. The site works really well and you can feel good about the stuff when you get rid of it. Also Consumer Reports had some very good tips about recycling your electronics. Also the earth911 had some very good points about recycling e-waste and other possible options. So the next sale I will recycle electronics and drop of the clothes. Consider giving one of these a try.

“You cannot tailor-make the situations in life, but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations”

If you were using the net when it was younger your main wants from a search engine would be faster searches and more results. The idea of more relevance and rated results was to come eventually. Today people do not just want results but they want results tailor made for who they are. So to help with this search engines with a specific audience in mind have started sprouting up. The two that I want to mention today are Yahoo’s search engine Shine and Rushmore Drive. Shine is aimed at women and Rushmore Drive is aimed at a black audience. Both seek to provide news and stories that appeal to their specifics. I find both sites do their job well however in typical Yahoo style there is an overabundance of information. A little too much for my taste where Rushmore is setup more like Google, that is to say sparse with choices waiting to be chosen. My opinion on these sites should be taken with a grain of salt because I am not the target audience for either site. I personally only look for geek oriented sites no matter the sex or race but that is just me. So if you want a website that feels made for you then give one of these a try.

"Work smarter not harder." Scrooge McDuck

I have posted many times of the wonders of RSS feeds but I cannot explain with the written word as well as CommonCraft can with a short video. As per usual they do a great job of getting the viewer to understand the why and how of their subject. To put it simply if you want to save time and effort but still want to keep informed then watch this video.

" So long, Earth. Catch you on the flip side.” Jack Swigert

Do you remember flip books? Flip books were the little books that you held with two hands and used your thumb to allow it to flip giving the illusion of animation. I remember seeing all sorts of these growing up from the current cartoon to mimicking the silent movies on the old Nickelodeons. Finally a company has taken it to the next step. FlipClips is a service where you upload a video under 30 seconds in length and they transform it into little flip books. You get to choose cover and any wording on it. The price is reasonable for a cool little product that could be a neat gift to anyone. The video part might be intimidating to some because it seems like you have to buy all sorts of expensive equipment. This may not be the case. In fact you may already have the tech necessary. My cell phone which is a beat up one from three years ago can take video, grainy video but still video. Also most digital cameras now also take in digital video. Finally if you do want something a little better I have recommended to many the Flip. It is an inexpensive route into digital video world. A small camera that is a about the same size as an iPod. It usually can take up to 60 minutes worth and will cost around $100. These are cheap when compared to the next level up of digital video cameras. Also some students have told me they had good luck finding cheaper ones secondary market for less than half price on places like eBay because the company upgraded from 30 minutes worth of video to 60. Many of these made it to the. So if you want to share some captured moments but not on a computer give a flip book a try.

“We all get heavier as we get older because there's a lot more information in our heads” Vlade Divac

I have written here before of the Internet Movie Database. The ender of all movie related arguments, OK most of them anyway. Well two similar sites have emerged and both do equally a good job in the information they have compiled. The first one is the IBDB or the Internet Broadway Database. Just like IMDB they have compiled a searchable database for everything Broadway. Essentially you can choose an actor and see everything they have ever done. Also you can see any awards or nominations they have received throughout their career. They also have histories and information on every show. The other is the IADB or the Internet Automotive Database. This is a searchable database of all the cars that were in movies or TV shows. This struck me as so strange but I remember my step father making sounds of pain every time, in his opinion, a beautiful car got crunched. This allows you to choose a make and model and not only see a list of movies or shows it was in but in many cases to see a still image of the car in the movie. Also for all the motorheads out there is a page of unidentifiables. Image after image of cars in the backgrounds of movies that you can help identify. This looked kind of fun if I knew a thing about vehicles. To end I should say I recommend both of these sites but I really do not use them not being a Broadway or automotive guy. However I can appreciate a good source of information no matter what it contains. Give it a try.

"What, me worry?" Alfred E. Neuman

OK the year was 1984 and a young would be computer teacher was introduced to his first Mad Magazine by his father. It was the summer 84 super extra violence issue and I was absolutely delighted. My mother was happy I was reading anything. One of the best and most enigmatic parts of the magazine was the back inside cover. Al Jaffee's fold-ins for Mad Magazine are little artistic puzzle pieces. For those not in the know there would be an unusual page of art with some strange riddle. Then you have the pleasure of folding the page so that two sets of arrows would meet. The picture would suddenly stand changed and the little dialogue at the bottom would spell out what you were looking at. Sometimes they were political and sometimes just cuttingly funny. Ok you must be wondering what the tech angle is. Well a while back the NY Times did a retrospective of these back covers. They show the original and then with a click of the mouse button it will fold it for you. Also they give you some history and context. I was fascinated to find out that every single one was hand painted and no computer was ever used to help the process. Seriously this is awesomely wonderful. I always had the hardest time getting those things to line up. I am bad at origami too. So if you want to walk back in time from the 1960s to the present give this one a try.

“The first rule, indeed by itself virtually a sufficient condition for good style, is to have something to say” Arthur Schopenhauer

Every time I do a PowerPoint presentation I use the same old background templates. I decided it was high time I found something a bit more creative. Templateswise is a website devoted to templates for your presentations. Everyone is tagged for easy finding. They also have basic categories like business, nature, or travel. Once you find one just download it. It does need to be unzipped using a zip utility. Most of those are free. Once you extract your files you should have four files, three images and one that when clicked throws you right into PowerPoint. Now the unfortunate part is that it does not seem to add these new styles to your list of backgrounds but they are still easy to use. When the PowerPoint opens you will have three slides. All you have to do is copy and paste the slides as you go along. So if you want to make your presentation stand out give this one a try.