Jake of the Web Time Wasters And Then Some

Free and effective Anti-Virus software

Joyce emailed me to ask about options she had for anti-virus and anti-spyware software since the ones that came with her computer had expired. Fortunately, some of the best ones are also free:

AVG Anti-Virus

http://free.grisoft.com/

Ad-Aware

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/single/trialpay.php

and Spybot

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

(Disclaimer: I have used these free applications for years without issue. However, if you somehow jack up your computer, it's your own damn fault: don't come crying to me.)

Cats that look like Hitler?

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/cgi-bin/seigmiaow.pl

Recommended by Atropos for Kerry

Hitler Cats!

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/cgi-bin/seigboardbest.pl?8:1

The number one 'Kitler', as they call them, is amazing! He even has the same haircut as Hitler.

(Disclaimer: We don't like Hitler – he was a total ass-hat. A good way to show our disdain is by comparing him to animals.)

Pictures of trucks spilling their contents onto the road

http://www.truckspills.com/

The name is pretty self-explanatory. I figured we should mention this site in honor of our trax/truck collision yesterday.

Favorite truck spills: Beer, Idaho potatoes (extra points for using a snowplow to get them off the road), any number of spoiled foods (hot dogs, Sunny D, various animal parts) and probably the best of all: cocaine! Utah gets honorable mention for the Spanish Fork canyon explosion from '05.
The one about the goats was pretty sad, though.

Block ads from websites

AdBlock plus kicks!
I disabled AdBlock plus for a screenshot I needed, and was astounded at web sites that never had ads were suddenly ugly, overwrought sites.
This is only one of many reasons why FireFox is superior to all comers - AdBlock plus makes the web a prettier place.

Turn one year of investments into $1 million!

I stumbled across this article and was really astounded. The specifics are probably not that realistic for most people:

Bottom line: at the age of 26, if you max out your contributions to your 401k & IRA accounts and walk away, you will have $1 Million by retirement age. The caveat? Maxing out your contributions would cost you just over $20,000. That is not realistic for most people, and it assumes a 10% return - the average annual stock market return.

So the specifics are not all that do-able for most people, but the facts of compound interest are undeniable. they can work for you or against you.

The greatest mp3 search tool ever!

Skreemr.com can find just about any song you are looking for: quickly, reliably, and for free. You can play the track before downloading it, or just play songs without downloading at all.

There are also additonal links that will automatically search for related lyrics, Wikipedia articles, YouTube videos, concert dates or pictures on Flickr:

At times when I am wanting to hear something in particular, I will do a Skreemr search (as opposed to Pandora, which is a great way to find new music).

Drag and drop buttons on your taskbar with Taskbar Shuffle

We're creatures of habit. Everybody has a certain order they like their application buttons to be in on their taskbar. But what happens if an application crashes or times out? I've known more that one person (yours truly included) who is willing to close out 10 apps only to reopen them again in the preferred order - all so the taskbar buttons are where you want them to be.

Taskbar Shuffle allows you to drag and drop any taskbar button within the taskbar area:

With Taskbar Shuffle, I was finally able to get the monkey off my back. I can re-order individual windows or groups of similar windows as I choose:

You can also rearrange system tray items if you so desire, although that functionality has yet to find its way in to my daily routine.

Taskbar Shuffle is free, small (only 630k), and brilliantly simple. Best of all, it quickly proves itself indispensable.