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Tip #95: Did you know… That Web Application Projects and Class libraries are now available in Express edition?

Carrie-Anne — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:27:39 +0000

Creating a Web Application Project was possible only in VS standard SKU and above in VS 2008. But with VS 2008 SP1 we went ahead and added support for WAP and class libraries in Visual Web Developer Express edition SP1. You can now create WAPs by going…(read more)

Become pencils after you pass away…

Carrie-Anne — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 04:00:56 +0000

Nadine Jarvis's "Carbon copies"... A little morbid, but a clever idea -

Pencils made from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind. Each pencil is foil stamped with the name of the person. Only one pencil can be removed at a time, it is then sharpened back into the box causing the sharpenings to occupy the space of the used pencils. Over time the pencil box fills with sharpenings - a new ash, transforming it into an urn. The window acts as a timeline, showing you the amount of pencils left as time goes by.

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Augmented Reality Pool / Pool Playing Robot

Carrie-Anne — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:30:50 +0000

Deep Green, the pool-playing robot from the Robotics & Computer Vision lab at Queen's University has been making the rounds on other websites recently. Its robot arm uses a huge gantry to move anywhere over the table, and then a special cue stick tool to hit the ball.

It’s hugely impressive, but the size and complexity of the hardware puts it out of reach for most Makers [please -- someone prove me wrong!]. So, that’s why I was attracted to the second half of the video: The students developed an equally impressive augmented reality mode that works without the robot. By using a projector and a camera located above the table, it recognizes the position of balls. As the player moves their pool cue, the system projects the predicted trajectory of the balls right on the table. If you can hit the ball consistently, this could be a great help in visualizing & setting up complicated shots!

Wi-Fi dowsing rod

Carrie-Anne — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Dutch maker Mike Thompson designed and built this Wi-Fi dowsing rod by joining old and new to deliver a whimsically arcane device.

Todays technology advances at such a speed that often consumers are left in awe of it all. The high tech terminology, the ultra small, ultra portable, metallic or white devices we carry around with us are, to the vast amount of consumers, simply baffling. The Wifi Dowsing Rod aims to work against this. By basing the design for a wireless internet detector on century's old technology, the user feels immediately at home with the product, whilst feeling less intimidated by the simple shape and natural materials.

[via techchee]

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ZendCasts: Using Zend_Cache to speed up Web Service calls

Carrie-Anne — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:07:16 +0000

On the ZendCasts site today there’s a new video looking at the Zend_Cache component of the Zend Framework and how it can be used to speed up the response time for things like calls to a web service.

This is part 4 in a four part series on Google Docs and Google maps. While this example shows how to cache a Class to a file, you could easily modify the code to work with other caching backends such as a memory-based caching engine or something like Zend Optimizer or APC.

If you want to get caught up on the series, here’s the links to part one, two and three.

Best Practices for Managing Small Projects

Carrie-Anne — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Small projects, though often overlooked, can make up the bulk of the portfolio and are crucial to a company’s success. They might not involve large sums of money, but the fact is that if managed improperly, these small projects can add up to some major costs in the long run. The good news is that project managers need only apply standard best practices to these smaller projects in order to manage them more effectively. Here are the top three best practices that can and should be applied to all projects, regardless of size.

14 Great Cheat Sheets & Posters to Make You a Software Wizard

Carrie-Anne — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:19:15 +0000

It is a known fact that if you want to commit something to memory, continuous revision is the key. You read something every time you are at your desk and within days it becomes second nature.

To be able to revise quickly and often, it helps if the information is terse and to the point highlighting only the important aspects. Something like an application cheat sheet or a poster that you can print and pin to a board or keep on your desk.

Here are some application cheat sheets for commonly used software that will hopefully make you more productive.

Microsoft Office

Need to get that report typed and formatted quickly? Can’t find your way around the ribbon interface? Check these out:

Explains the ribbon interface, smart shapes, which format to choose and how to do things like adding a digital signature, protecting the document and other little tips. (Download)


Excel 2007 (Download)	Word 2007 (Download)

PowerPoint 2007 (Download)	Outlook 2007 (Download)

If you are interested in other Office applications or different version of Microsoft Office, Customguide is a great resource.

Browsers

Browsers are among most commonly used software these days. You may be using Firefox or Chrome or Opera or even Internet Explorer, the bottomline is you need to get online and browsers help you in doing so. It is always nice to know your browser inside out and have some tricks up your sleeves, here are some cheat sheets that should get you started:

Google Chrome

Contains keyboard shortcuts, command line switches and the about:urls (Go there) (PDF)

Firefox

Contains keyboard shortcuts, highlights important directories related to Firefox, and presents a trick or two. It has not been updated for a long time but the information still stands good for Firefox 3.5 (Go there) ( PDF )

Linux

This is a huge 18 x 18 in poster that presents you – “The Anatomy of a Linux System”. It has a plethora of information about Linux, top Linux magazines, top Linux sites. In addition, it lists the popular software on Linux systems along with the sites and useful books (it’s from O’Reilly after all) on each of them. (More) (Download)

Lists commonly used commands, switches and what they do. Good for beginners. (Download)

Looking for something a little more advanced? Linux Administrator’s Quick Reference card has you covered with the important files and commands you need to know for system administration. (Download) Credit: Jialong He

Vi/Vim

One of my personal favorites, I actually learned Vim way back using this. It is a complete tutorial and apart from the all inclusive version, there are ones for individual chapters. You can download the SVG versions and scale them to make a wallpaper if you like! (Download)

Photoshop

Concisely lists all the common Photoshop shortcuts you should know to make your work easier and faster. (Download for CS4) (Other Photoshop Versions)

Twitter

Twitter finds its way into everything these days, how could we not have a reference sheet for Twitter?

Packed with all kinds of information about Twitter including important pages, desktop clients, widgets and apps, a definition of various Twitter buzzwords and ethics! (Download)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

It has tons of information on what to include in tags, redirects, sitemap syntax, robots.txt syntax and much more. Presents lots of useful information in a tiny little booklet. A must for anyone working with SEO. (Download)

Looking for more?

I bet you are. Didn’t find the one you were looking for? Well there were too many of them to fit in one post. If you are looking for a specific application cheat sheet fire up the request in the comments section, someone might drop you a link. There are two great resources for posters and cheat sheets here and here. If you ever created one for yourself we would love to see them too!

Plus, don’t forget that MakeUseOf have our very own cheat sheets. Click here to check them out and if you like them, download them for free!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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4 Sites Where You Can Download Old PC Games For Free

Carrie-Anne — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Squirrels and Kittens Battle for the Future of the Galaxy [Animals With Lightsabers]

Carrie-Anne — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:00:00 +0000

What happens when you mix Star Wars with Cute Overload? Animals with Lightsabers, where Sith cats, Jedi dogs, and the flying squirrel answer to General Grievous duke it out.

Also over at Animals with Lightsabers are a couple of videos of canines showing off their Force powers, and pre-made lightsaber images so you can add them to your own pets’ photos.

[Animals with Lightsabers via The Official Star Wars Blog]

Russia's New Official Holiday — Programmer's Day

Carrie-Anne — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:15:00 +0000

Glyn Moody writes “Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, has decreed a new holiday for his country: Programmer’s Day. Appropriately enough, it will be celebrated on the 256th day of the year: September 13th (September 12th for a leap year). Do programmers deserve their own holiday ahead of other professions? Should the rest of the world follow suit?”