Links

Things worth sharing, with a little context.

f.lux

stereopsis.com

f.lux makes your computer screen look like the room you’re in, all the time. When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.

Tell f.lux what kind of lighting you have, and where you live. Then forget about it. F.lux will do the rest, automatically.

MobileNotifier beta3

peterhajas.com

MobileNotifier provides a new way of handling notification for iOS in a non-obtrusive way. This approach requires you to jailbreak your device, but if you are willing, this could be very interesting to try!

William Shatner explains what microprocessors are in this AT&T Tech Channel video from 1976

techchannel.att.com

Back in 1976, microprocessors had a maximum of 8.5K transistors for 64bits of memory. The Queen of England sent her first email, and Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I.

And a post-Star Trek but pre-TJ Hooker William Shatner made this film for AT&T about the future of microprocessors.

The chips were tiny at that time, to be sure, but paltry in terms of memory by today’s standards. Yet Moore’s Law had already been in effect for 11 years by this point, enough time to see that the future was going to be full of miniscule, powerful machines, even they weren’t the predicted picturephones. Today’s “microworld” is still getting smaller all the time.

Cut Out the Fake Work and Focus on Projects that Really Matter

lifehacker.com

Working harder is often confused with working effectively, especially in countries like the United States that have a harder, faster, longer mentality when it comes to work. So how can you get a bead on your own work and determine if you’re working on the stuff that matters or just on the stuff that your boss packs into your day?

Music & Work

themoah.posterous.com

It took me months to find a great background music for coding. So i went to searching & asking other people on their preferences.

An interesting article on which music is most listened to when focus is key, such as software development.

XBMC 10.0 Released

xbmc.org

[…] we strive to play all of the current media formats available, including the new WebM/VP8 codec that is the latest buzz. Hardware acceleration has been added in windows (Vista or 7) via DXVA2, CrystalHD has been added for all platforms (best supported in OSX and Linux), VDPAU support has been improved in Linux, and VAAPI support has been added for the hardware that supports it in Linux. There are far too many improvements to list here, so check out the changelog for a full list.

How to Take Great Portrait Photos

lifehacker.com

Lifehacker has posted a really useful introduction to portrait photography covering the following points.

  • Use shallow depth of field to keep your subject in focus and your background out of focus. If you have a DSLR, certain lenses (like a 50mm or 85mm prime lens) will be more effective.
  • Compose your photo well, drawing the eye to the right places and using an interesting setting for a more interesting portrait.
  • Consider color regardless of whether or not the final photo will be in color.
  • Make sure you have good lighting, whether you’re relying on available light or using an artificial setup.
  • Keep your subjects having fun, engaged, and smiling as much as possible (unless a smile isn’t your goal.)

The Top 50 Gawker Media Passwords

blogs.wsj.com

On Sunday night, hackers posted online a trove of data from Gawker Media’s servers, including the usernames, email addresses and passwords of more than one million registered users.

It was quite interesting to see the most commonly used passwords. It could be argued that a blog site does not require a strong password, but I think it is time to improve the built-in password managers in web browsers to generate new passwords for every site when needed, like 1Password currently can do.

And why are the passwords encrypted to begin with? Had they been salted and hashed, the passwords would have never come out in the first place, even if someone managed to steal the database.

Mac Must Have: Haze

brooksreview.net

Hazel basically allows you to preform preset actions based on a set of rules that you create.

There are some really interesting ways to use Hazel, and the first things I will try is the automatic deletion of application support files.

Reeder for Mac, public beta out

madeatgloria.com

Reeder, an excellent Google Reader reader, originally built for the small touch interface of iPhone and has later been adapted to the bigger screen of the iPad to great success. There is now a beta out for the upcoming Mac version, and it will be interesting to see whether it will have the same success as it had in the touch devices. One thing is at least true, the interface is beautiful and clean.

Microsoft Internet Explorer CSS “clip” Attribute Memory Corruption / Exploit

vupen.com

A vulnerability has been identified in Microsoft Internet Explorer, which could be exploited by remote attackers to take complete control of a vulnerable system. This issue is caused due to an invalid flag reference within the “mshtml.dll” module when processing a Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) “clip” attribute with a specific position, which could allow remote attackers to crash an affected browser or arbitrary code via a specially crafted web page.

The vulnerability is being exploited in the wild.

VUPEN has confirmed this vulnerability with Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, 7, and 6 on Windows XP SP3.

It’s All Work

gtdtimes.com

It’s All Work is an article written by Erik Hanberg for the GTD Times which discusses the concept of work. vs. life in terms of personal time and having fun.

As I was implementing GTD for the first time, I understood the concept as a way to make sure that I didn’t lose track of the fun things in life. If my lists concerned only work-related areas, it would always feel like a chore to check them. But I added projects like “Experience great art,” and “See the world.” That means that every week I think about those two projects and make sure I am scheduling them, whether it’s “Watch next disc of Mad Men” or “Reserve train tickets in Italy.”

The Walking Dead on AMC first episode

arstechnica.com

The Walking Dead is a new zombie apocalypse series which premiered this weekend. Ars Technica has written a thorough review for the first episode.

For a first episode, this is stunning. It looks much more like a film than a TV show, and it doesn’t rush to get where its going; each character is given time to breathe and comes to life before the show moves them down their respective paths.