Attack of the Killer Dust Bunnies

You’ve been using your computer for years, and up until today, you never had to open it. You don’t know much about computers anyways, so if everything seems to be working fine, why would you bother? But this morning, after unsuccessfully trying to power it on, you decide to drag your computer from its comfy looking spot under your desk. You unscrew the side panel, and a vision of horror jumps at you.

Little did you know that furry little creatures called dust bunnies like to get into your systems at night. They usually are very insidious, so you often won’t notice them until it’s too late.


The moral of this story? Everyone should open their computer case from time to time. A little bit of compressed air in there each 2-3 months can’t really hurt now, can it?

Header picture source | Creds go to Korben.info (French) for the inspiration



Wiimote Hacker Johnny Lee Demos Foldable Interactive Displays

We’ve presented some of Johnny Lee’s Wiimote hacking projects in the past, but what you’re about to see is what impressed me the most so far. Using a Wiimote, a projector, and an infrared emitter, Johnny is able to transform almost any surface, from a standard sheet of paper to an umbrella, into an interactive display.



Rotate your blog ads with UBD Block Ad

By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

When Google revised the PageRanks recently, my blog got bumped up to a 6 and that has got me thinking about starting to sell some advertising space. But if I was being truthful with myself for a moment, I would admit that I am a really lazy person sometimes. The idea of managing the adverts, making sure everyone got equal time on the page and so on is just so boring and tedious. I would much rather be surfing the Internet and writing stories. So if I went down the blog advertising route, I would much rather automate the whole process and then not think about it.

I think I may have found the answer in the WordPress plugin UBD Block Ad.

This plugin basically automates the whole advertising process if the advert in question is a 125×125 box. First it will help you with a variety of design layouts and will format up to 10 adverts at a time.

But the killer function (in my view) is that it will automatically rotate those ads so each advertiser gets an equal amount of time on the page.

So everything is fully automated and the only thing you have to do is to enter the code for each of your ads inside the UBD setup page. That’s it! Plus it’s free!

So if you want to experiment with 125×125 ads, just download the plugin and give it a go.

Hear your Skype calls coming through with Skype Muter

By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Here’s a question for you – why does everyone call me on Skype when I am busy singing along to songs such as ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Loving”? This invariably means that I end up missing everyone’s phone calls because I am singing at the top of my voice, the neighbourhood cats are wailing and the deaf neighbour next door is banging on the walls telling me to shut up.

After missing a lot of Skype calls, someone not so subtly showed me Skype Muter and firmly suggested that I install it for when one of his calls comes through. It’s actually quite a neat little program and performs one single basic task. It simply stops your music when a Skype call arrives.

First though I had to install a version of Microsoft .NET which seemed to take forever, but when it was finished, the installation of Skype Muter took less than 30 seconds. You then have to go into it, click on the 2 or 3 settings and then authorize it in your Skype program (this last part is very important – I spent ages thinking the program was bust when all I had to do was approve the authorization request in Skype).

You can either tell Muter to make the music quieter or pause it completely. When the call is finished, it will start the music up again for you. It works with Winamp (my player of choice), Windows Media Player and iTunes.

Could Gmail Become a Corporate Solution?

By JR Raphael
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Gmail is taking new steps toward becoming a large-scale client solution. In what’s billed as one of the world’s largest Gmail rollouts ever conducted, an Australian school system is dumping its Outlook setup in lieu of a completely Gmail-based e-mail system for its 1.3 million students.

The transition — occurring at the New South Wales Department of Education and Training — is part of a three-year deal inked with Google and Australian communications company Telstra. The deal is worth $9.5 million and will move students from a 35MB mailbox limit to Gmail’s generous 6GB storage space.

Perhaps more significant, though, is the potential the move shows for Gmail to move into the Microsoft-dominated corporate environment. Another Australian school — Macquarie University — shifted its 68,000 students and graduates onto Gmail last year. Whether more universities and big businesses will eventually follow suit may be the true test of the platform’s reach.

So, cast your vote: In a theoretical corporate democracy, would you choose Gmail over your company’s current e-mail system? What do you think it’d take for your business to actually make the leap?

TokyoFlash’s Ultimate Geek Watches: Giveaway and Review

Generally, geeks notoriously avoid wearing jewelry, especially male geeks. But there is one exception to this rule: watches. This is probably because watches do not only add an element of fashion to their look, but are actually useful. And if the watch looks especially high-tech, then all the better!

I’m sure you’ve all seen some geeky-looking watches on the Net in recent months. Most technology blogs cover them from time to time, so if you’re following a bunch of them, you ought to have seen a few. Today, I’m not only going to show you 3 amazing watches from a company named TokyoFlash, but I’m also going to give away two of them (an approximate value of $150 each). Keep on reading for all the details.

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