ultimate geek girl

tweetSMS is back!

Ellie — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:07:42 +0000

I just got started with twitter a week or two ago, and so far, I have found dozens of programs, browser add-ons and website applications that are helpful to twitter users around the world.

Perhaps a much-needed one is tweetSMS, which is back for international users who want to use SMS messaging for Direct Messages from other twitter users.

The pricing of tweetSMS looks pretty reasonable, but I can imagine for many tweeters, they won’t need this service - but if you are not near a computer and want to make SURE you get Direct Messages, check out tweetSMS and get 15 free credits just for signing up!

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tweetSMS is back!

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Automatically Add Links to Related Sites

Ellie — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:20:03 +0000

Searching for related posts can be tedious and time consuming. The PingCrawl plugin seeks to take away some of the frustration of adding related posts by other bloggers to the end of your new posts.

The author of the plugin says that he gets about an 80% success rate of approved pings - so that’s not bad for a day’s work of blogging!

PingCrawl does inject its own link every 10 or so links, so visit ANTY.INFO to learn how to remove the code if you want to.

Installation was easy, since we use Plugin Central for all of our plugin installation and updating needs! If you do not use Plugin Central, don’t despair. Installation is as easy as unzipping the installation file, uploading to your plugins folder and activating in your plugins management screen.

We’re going to test out this new plugin here, to see if it does add some value for our readers or not. Visit the poll in the sidebar or leave a comment to let us know what you think about the new plugin’s functions over the next week!

WordPress Wednesdays features posts about plugins, themes and general usage of WordPress, the world’s most popular content management system!

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Automatically Add Links to Related Sites

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All About Google Knol

Ellie — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:59:27 +0000

Google Knol is Google’s attempt to break into user-created content. It has similarities to Wikipedia and About.com, but it also takes a turn into social networking and collaboration by promoting the author of a knol prominently in the sidebar.

A knol by definition is a “unit of knowledge.” So, Google Knol is a collection of articles (called knols) on a myriad of topics - but at current, many of the knols cover medical topics (boring!).

However, there are a few really neat and helpful knols available, including my favorites:

What a Cook Needs to Know about Potatoes - Life without potatoes would be dull indeed, and Craig walks us through how to really enjoy potatoes from shopping for them to cooking them!
WordPress Plugin Development - A handy and timely piece on how to develop and maintain WordPress plugins. Less technical speak than a lot of other guides and it is a bit easier to contact the author if you have questions!
An introduction to Photography Composition for those of us who need some help getting started in photography techniques from an expert in the field.

Need some help finding a knol? Use Google Knol’s Search Toolkit to find exactly what you are looking for!

Additionally, the search feature is displayed in the upper right-hand corner, but you can also press CTRL+F to find a knol topic that is on the front page. Really liked a knol author? Click on their name for a biography and list of their knols. This is really helpful when you want to find similar or related topics!

The intent of Google Knol is to have user submitted content that is authoritative - meaning that if you write about gaming for example, that you have some experience and knowledge in the area, rather than just being anyone just writing something about gaming for kicks.

As your REAL NAME is attached to your knols, along with a profile and biography, you can easily show your readers that you do in fact have knowledge of the topic(s) you write about. There is also the opportunity to add comments and write reviews on knols, which gives Google Knol a decidedly social feel.

I should take the time here to let you know that if you do decide to write for Google Knol, you will be responsible for either providing a phone number or credit card number to verify your name. The service, however, is free. Name verification only works in the United States.

Upon first visiting Knol, you can see a few knols and even search for subjects that are of interest to you. As this product is in beta and is a new kid on the block, it may take a few months or even years for the content quantity to rival that of Wikipedia and About.com. If you want the facts and nothing but the facts, Wikipedia is still your best bet, but Google Knol can be a good resource for how-tos, like About.com.

The content on Google Knol is also searchable on popular search engines - namely Google - and you have control over the copyright status of your content - whether it is Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License or All Rights Reserved.

Some bloggers and internet experts are concerned about Google allowing knols to be included in search engine results - mainly because this is user created content that can be set to be uneditable (closed collaboration) to other readers; so false information could end up at the top of the Google search results and there’s no way to remove or change the false information!

Knols are created using a WYSIWYG editor, which gives each knol a decidedly personal feeling. Some authors use colors, others use bold, others combine all types of font faces and types and photos to create their knols and draw in the reader. You cannot use javascript, objects or frames, but you are welcome to add Google AdSense by connecting your Google Knol account with your Google AdSense account.

Do you want to collaborate on knols? If so, choose your collaboration level in the Settings - any signed in users can collaborate (edit), moderated collaboration (you must approve edits) or closed collaboration (no one can edit). You can always change this setting for each individual knol if you need to.

The screenshot below shows how you can view edits in Google Knol while you are editing a knol.

Courtesy of Blogoscoped

Every knol that you create will have some features that are similar to all other knols - each knol has a title, subtitle, link to your biography, summary and a table of contents. Other features include a print button, number of comments, and ratings. The print formatting is good, and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the printed knol.

Overall, Google Knol is an interesting new product in a market that is crowded by wikis and other collaboration tools. However, it stands out because it offers the opportunity for social networking and collaboration on various topics. Stay tuned for how the Google search/knol debate turns out - and whether or not we see a dramatic increase in knols hitting the first page of Google search results, instead of websites, blogs and news sources!

Login with your Google account and check out Google Knol for yourself. Send us your link in the comments so we can check you out your knols!

This special feature, Geek Girl, appears every Monday.

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All About Google Knol

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Great Flash Programs to Try

HarriMac — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:09:33 +0000

Whether you’ve mastered the art of Flash or you’re a beginner/intermediate, finding a good program to work with is essential to making something look great.

If you have access, of course, the program that is best is still Adobe Flash CS3 (previously from Macromedia and plenty of previous versions to play with), but there are less expensive programs out there that are pretty simple to use and most have free trials (we like free trials).

SWiSH presents two programs that have features based on the user level – SWiSH Max2 and SWiSH miniMax2. They also offer SWiSH Studio2 which allows you to make programs and screensavers with Flash.

Express Animator for Windows is really made for quick cheap videos to be made but also has some features that might appeal to the higher end user.

Another list of free source Flash programs can be found at SourceForge.

No matter what, play with it and read the documentation. Try the trials and if you like – buy it! You owe it to yourself to buy something decent and many of the programs (especially compared to the price of Flash CS3) aren’t badly priced and you won’t be saving as long. If you are on a campus or have other access to them, use the programs on the campus computers or ones at your local public library to do what you need to do.

Expect to spend a few hours there though – it’s not going to go quickly!

HarriMac enjoys a well lived life with a large serving of soul. Her special feature, Welcome to Soulville, appears every Thursday.

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Great Flash Programs to Try

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6 Sites You Have to Go Back to School With

Ellie — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:20:11 +0000

School has already started for some of us - and will start soon for the rest of us students! Make life a bit easier with web applications and websites that do the stuff you don’t have time to do or save you a bit of time, so you can spend more time hanging out with your friends studying in the library?

Emurse is an online resume maker with features such as a quick resume generator, activity tracking, resume templates and multi-format download. This is great if you are starting early with your job search or looking for a job on campus.
Rondee.com is a free telephone conferencing service that is free and full-featured. Need to chat with your group members about your project? Want to get your parents and grandparents on the phone to beg for cash? This is an easy way to do it.
DailyLit allows you to conveniently read books by email or in your RSS reader, for much less than purchasing them, and without dragging yourself to the local library branch. Each book is broken down into segments of about 5 minutes reading time, so you can read a section a day and be well on your way to reading more classics and new releases than you ever thought possible!
imo.im keeps getting more and more sophisticated! This online instant messenger application allows you to instant message and video chat with friends on most of the popular clients - AIM, Y! Messenger, GTalk and more — and it’s free!
Newser keeps you on top of current news… forget going to multiple news sites to get your news, just visit Newser! This no-registration required site is full of cool features, such as mouseover popup summaries of articles and easy to navigate sections.
txt2day.com has replaced my cell phone as my favorite way to send text messages when I’m in class charging my phone. Not only is it free, but you can set your reply to address as your email address, for easy and speedy replies!

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6 Sites You Have to Go Back to School With

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Force “No To All” in Windows

Ellie — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:31:43 +0000

I was trying to copy some files to another folder on my computer this weekend, as part of my “summer cleaning” of my computer… and lo and behold, I was moving files with the same names, but I wanted to keep the original copy.

Unfortunately, there’s no way in Windows XP to say “No To All” just like you can say “Yes To All” when copying or moving files. You have to click “No” over and over and over… and if you have a dozen or hundreds of files, this can be exhausting!

Photo credit: Lifehacker.com

So, I found this handy tip:

Press SHIFT then “No” when copying files - and this will force Windows to use the “No To All” feature.

You can try this on Windows XP, but I was unable to duplicate on Windows Vista.

Source: Synapse

This special feature, Geek Girl, appears every Monday.

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Force “No To All” in Windows

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Last Call for Prize Donations - Geek Girl Greenbacks!

Ellie — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:20:00 +0000

We’ll be giving away 5 prize packages in September, and we want you to participate!

What are we looking for?

Any product or service that helps them achieve the goals of productivity, blogging, technology, better living and web applications are welcome: books, lecture CDs, consulting services, software, desk supplies, office equipment, home organizing tools, style and fashion items – and probably dozens of other things we haven’t even thought of! And if you’re a retailer, of course, gift certificates or store credit make great prizes, too.

What’s the benefit to you?

We have a growing subscriber base and hundreds of unique page views a day. Not only does ultimate geek girl provide quality content, but we are dedicated to improving the lives of our readers!

How do you sign up?

If you’d like to be a sponsor for this giveaway, contact us via the site contact form. Let us know who you are, what prize(s) you’d like to offer, and the approximate dollar value of the prize(s). Also include a short description of about 50 words that we can use in posts promoting the contest. If there are any limitations, such as not being able to ship to certain countries, please let us know that, too.

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Reorganizing Yourself After Moving In

HarriMac — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:37:13 +0000

Some of us have changed apartments over the summer, others have moved to entirely new towns and some of us are heading into Dorm Life Part X. You organized your stuff to move, it’s spectacularly labeled and everything, but now you have to figure out where it’s really going to fit in your new space.

Dorm rooms and small apartments are harder to organize because their dimensions are smaller and the space must be multifunctional!

Apartments can be tricky if you have to share it with someone else because you may only have one space for just your things but you still have a common area to relax in or study. So what do you do?

Know Your Space - Before you start moving anything anywhere or rearranging, know the space you’ll be using. What are the dimensions? Are there closets? What are those dimensions? Is it carpeted or not? What furniture has to fit in the space? What is already in the space? Are there built in shelves or rods? Where are the electrical outlets? What is the lighting? Where is any built in lighting? Where are the windows and doors?

Once you know all of these things your job becomes easier mentally, if not physically, to draw out the space and imagine in your head where you think you want things. Desks should be nearer to light sources if you don’t use lamps, and they aren’t usually something that sits in the middle of a room. You don’t want something to impede your access to the door or windows in case of an emergency.

Know Your Stuff - You know your belongings better than anyone else can. You know what can be out in the open and what can’t. You know what’s OK to store and what’s not. Once you’ve figured out a general idea of where you want everything and you’ve drawn it out, move the furniture items into place first. This might involve putting boxes in the hallway for a short while (if you’re in a dorm, move the furniture before you move your stuff in - and don’t forget - you might need a friend or two to help.

If the furniture doesn’t work exactly how you want it, be a little flexible. Leave enough room for your desk chair to be used (general rule of thumb about 3 feet back from desk give or take). If you want to loft or raise your bed, this is the time to do it.

If necessary, sort all of your belongings again. If you come across things as you are pulling them out that you really meant to leave somewhere else or you meant to throw away or you meant to give away, don’t put them up now. Make a box for Goodwill, one for trash and one for sending somewhere else. Put things in these boxes as appropriate and then do what they say.

One Thing at a Time - Once your furniture is arranged to suit you, start with the other stuff. I like to start with the closet. If you’re anything like me, your things aren’t “exactly” organized by where it should go, so we’re working on general premise right now. Hang up all the clothes that should be hung up. Put all the shoes and folded clothes where they should go. Whatever you had your clothes in has to be stored, but we’re not storing things yet, so put them back in the hallway.

Next, I like to do my desk area. Put all your desk items and computer, etc, where you want it and set it all the way up. Put the items that need to go in drawers or on shelves in their respective places. You don’t need 50 pens in that mega pack at once! Put some in the drawers. If you keep the desk uncluttered you’ll have plenty of space to actually use it as a desk. Whatever you transported these items in go in the hall, too.

Now, it’s time to do the bed area. Make your bed and then put the rest of your sheets on top of the bed (still folded). Also place your towels or similar items there (unless you have them in what you plan to store them in for the rest of the year in which case you can put that in the closet or under the bed, which ever is your preference).

Decorate the Walls - My ultimate problem besides not enough book storage is the need to hang things up. I love 3M’s poster tabs and their hooks. They also make some nifty tabs for hanging photo frames. I make my own hook for my towel and toiletries and enough hooks for my jackets and backpacks or gym bags.

Store Everything Properly - You will no doubt have bags or containers that need to be stored or that you will be storing things in. Crates and other under the bed items go under the bed. If you’ve got room in your closet, you can store things there. Small shelving units may be used in the closet for things such as bath items (especially if in a dorm).

I generally keep luggage under the bed with things like winter clothes or sheets and towels in them. It’s storage you already have, why buy more? I also keep a footlocker with other clothes or things I want to keep secure. My younger brothers keep one in their room with their food to keep roommates out of their stash. While your closet might be tempting to put food in, it’s a bad idea. If you inadvertently have open food and there are ants or other bugs they will be all in your clothes. If you have roommates, but you have a personal small fridge, under the bed is another good place to put that. It’s out of sight and still accessible.

Bookshelves and plastic twenty gallon totes two great resources for storage. I actually used twenty gallon totes in the closet for my t-shirts instead of sticking them in a drawer. At the end of a week they were an easy thing to throw my laundry in and take it down to the washers. I still use a 20 gallon tote for laundry even though I’m in an apartment - they don’t tear up as easily as bags and can hold a lot of stuff. Plus they’ve got handles, so none of that annoying hand numbness. Store cardboard boxes only if you need them on a short term basis. If you mail a lot of things in boxes, keep a few on hand but especially if you’ve got a premium on space, keep the number down. If you have the luxury of having plenty of space for them, store as many as you want, but break them down first.

Hide Unsightly Blemishes - All walls were not created equally. If it’s allowed, put up posters or tapestries or flags, etc to cover the walls and make the space feel less boring! They also work on doors, tables, etc.

Trash - Know the rules about tossing boxes and other garbage. Recycle if it’s available and don’t toss anything with identifying marks on it (like your name and address) without marking through them or taking that part off completely and shredding.

That’s it folks! Of course it is far easier said than done, but if you do things step by step and do it slowly, you will really have things as you want them in your new space!

HarriMac enjoys a well lived life with a large serving of soul. Her special feature, Welcome to Soulville, appears every Thursday.

photo credits: wag314, brixton, bdjsb7 and dotbenjamin

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Reorganizing Yourself After Moving In

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Top 5 Features in WordPress 2.7

Ellie — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:35:02 +0000

Yes, WordPress 2.6 was just released, but why can’t we look forward to a new version?

Keith Dsouza at Weblog Tools Collection compiled a list of the upcoming features in WordPress 2.7 that bloggers can look forward to, but here are the top 5 features that I think will make some plugins obsolete and/or blogging so much more easier for WordPress users:

One Click Plugin Installs – Installing a plugin will be much easier with the ability to click a button or link and the plugin installs automatically! Plugins with similar features are One Click Plugin and Plugin Central.
WordPress core updates – This is a feature many users have been waiting for, with core updates you can easily upgrade your WordPress versions. A plugin with the same functionality is the WordPress Automatic Upgrade.
Admin Panel Comment Replies - This function will allow administrators to reply to comments using the admin panel. There are several plugins which allow you to this, including WP AJax Edit Comments, Better Comments Manager (my personal favorite) and Absolute Comments.
Comment Threading – This feature will allow users to reply to other commentators in a threaded manner, where replied comments will display below the actual comment. Brian’s Threaded Comments is a does the job of allowing users to reply to comments.
Batch Editing of Posts – This feature will allow users to batch edit their posts. This can be incredibly useful if you want to add tags to specific posts or change the category without having to do it manually!

WordPress Wednesdays features posts about plugins, themes and general usage of WordPress, the world’s most popular content management system!

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Top 5 Features in WordPress 2.7

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7 Ways to Entertain Yourself for Free

Ellie — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:53:56 +0000

Gas prices are through the roof and most Americans do not live anywhere near public transit. So, people are shifting their extra money to gas, but what fun is gas? You surely can’t play with it or talk to it.

So, here are 7 Ways to Entertain Yourself for Free - both on and offline - but tied back to technology one way or another - because we wouldn’t be geeks if we didn’t figure out how to tie it back to a computer or a piece of hardware or software, right?

1. Check out some Podcasts - You already have internet access, and most of us have iTunes or MediaMonkey installed; so start looking for podcasts that are interesting to you, and listen to your heart’s content! What’s even more fun is to put your new podcasts on your iPod or laptop and go out to the park and enjoy these last few days of summer!

2. Take a walk around your neighborhood - How has your neighborhood changed since you moved there? Do you see anything interesting? Take photos! Make photo albums of your neighborhood as the seasons and development changes - it is always fun to see how time changes even the most established of neighborhoods.

3. Read a book that you’ve been meaning to read - Most geeks also have piles of books that they mean to read but never get around to it - well, read it already! Take a couple of hours and just read until your heart’s content. Once you are finished, put the book up for sale in your Amazon Store.

4. Check out some new software you’ve been meaning to try - Of course, this only works if you are using free software, or free trials, but at least you can get a few hours of entertainment by playing with a new piece of software and learning how it works. You might even find a new time saving program that will make your life 10x easier! Also check out online software or web applications.

5. Go through your bookmarks and read various websites - especially those you bookmarked to read later. Not only will you clean your bookmarks up once you delete or move the bookmarks to new folders, but you will have learned something or had a good laugh - both of which are entertaining!

6. Remove old programs and files from your computer - Do not hold on to old software that you aren’t using, instead uninstall it and watch your hard drive’s free space expand! Even better, make Vista SP1 permanent on your drive, freeing up up to 2GB of space!

7. Play a game online - There are literally hundreds of free game sites online, including my favorite, Pogo, Yahoo! Games, Free Online Games, and more. You’ll see time pass quickly as you play games such as dominoes, Sim Taxi, Mahjong and chat with players from all around the world.

This special feature, Geek Girl, appears every Monday.

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7 Ways to Entertain Yourself for Free