I finished the theme. It’s a mod of October Special by Derek Punsulan (link in the footer), and I really like it. I changed around some things, and I hope you like it.

If you find any bugs (I’ve found some, but I have no idea what to do), email me. Or, you can email me a way to fix them.

Anyway, there will hopefully be regular content, even though I posted most of the things I wrote for the whole week yesterday, because I was too excited to wait.

If you have a laptop, chances are that you don’t like to shut it down and restart it every time you want to use it. I’m the same way, but I may do it a little less often than the rest. I generally leave my laptop on for as long as I can, without doing any updates or restarts, unless something doesn’t work and needs a restart badly. I’ve racked up times around 15-20 days, and once or twice even a month. I don’t know whether or not this is good for my Macbook, but it works better for me.

Even though I probably won’t change my ways, does anyone know whether or not this is bad/good for a laptop? And, if you do the same, leave a comment.

Many of you probably own Apple hardware, which means that some of you may have bought it at an Apple Store. You know those bags that Apple gives you? I am here to remind you to reuse and enjoy them.

There are a couple reasons for this conclusion: First of all, they look nice, so you won’t be embarrassed like you might be when carrying around a plastic bag from your local supermarket. Another reason is that they close easily; the smaller ones close on one end, and are easy to carry, and the others have shoulder straps. And the third and possibly most important reason, it shows that you like Apple stuff. Which, is something you should be proud of.

If you have ever reused Apple bags, or have another suggestion for them, leave a comment.

In the free time I encountered, I finally had the chance to make some DIY tripods that I’ve been wanting to make for a while. They are handy, easy to make, and the materials needed are both cheap and easy to find at your hardware store.

The first one is a DIY version of the bottle cap tripod that is a bit more sturdy. The instructions can be found here, but I didn’t have them with me, so I just brought my camera and measured which screw I needed. All you really need is your camera to figure out the screw (or look in the instructions), a bolt (something I find handy), and a plastic bottle and its cap. The finished product is something small, yet useful that allows you to have a steady shot where ever you go (if there is a ledge or table).

The next tripod is one that relies more on science, and a science that involves tension to keep the camera steady. You can find the instructions here on Instructables (which has many DIY things that you may find handy), and also has the materials. Again, I didn’t have the materials with me, so I just bought the same size screw with a loop on the bottom, a nut, and a ball of thick string. Basically, you tie the two ends of the string to the loop, and step on the bottom, so you can have the camera eye level and still have a steady shot. It’s not as steady as a real tripod, but it’s also easy to make (even easier), and you can hold it in your pocket until you need.

I hope these help with whatever photography ventures you might find yourself in, as they have helped me. If you have used one of these tripods or have done something like it, sound off in the comments.

A few days ago, I found myself in an isolated state, but it has come with its benefits. For the weekend, to help me study for finals and hang out with my parents, I took the nine-hour drive up to my vacation/summer home. “Vacation” home is a bit of a lie, as every time I have come up here, I’ve worked on the house. Surprisingly, this wasn’t that bad, as I always had Internet.

But, unfortunately, I didn’t this time. During some renovations on the outside of the house, the DSL line either got cut or broke, we don’t know which yet. So, this leaves me with a Macbook that can’t connect to the Internet. But, I have found some things to do to occupy my time. I have had the chance to take a lot of pictures, which I haven’t had the time to do recently, along with study, get organized (I’m finally using my Moleskine!), and think of and write some posts for this blog.

Some hints of what is coming up: A post on Moleskine organization, tips, and the way I do it. Another post on my routine involving blue sticky notes, Dashboard sticky notes, and a large Moleskine. And, some other vague ideas I’m not sure of.

(PS: As some of you may know, I’ve been working on a design for a while, a mod of Derek Punsulan’s October Special WordPress theme. There’s some good and bad news. The Good: I’m almost done! The Bad: I can’t work on it here, as the page I was testing it I can’t connect to, even though I expected I could finish it. This means that it may take a while longer, and has to wait until after Wednesday.)

Note: By the time I found a way to post this, I was home. But, it still offers what I was doing, why I was gone, and what is going on with the site.

After I wrote the post about NewsFire organization, I had the idea of having bloggers somewhat “tag” eachother, or just spread and give away their RSS feeds. This in part comes with inspiration from a post by Glenn Wolsey, where he was asking people to email him their OPML files from NewsFire.

But, for this, it doesn’t matter what RSS reader you use, as long as it can export feeds. I know many RSS readers have this function, along with the ability to import these files. While you may not want to import them all, as some might not interest you as much as others, you could still discover new feeds and websites.

Here are my feeds, I hope you enjoy them.

If you have any suggestions for new feeds, or want to share your own, leave a comment or write a blog post sharing your feeds too.

Many of you who read the blog probably use RSS Feeds to subscribe to the content. For those of you who have Macs, I recommend NewsFire for all your RSS feed needs. I’m not going to go into detail why, but it’s easy to use, small, lightweight, and just works well. If you don’t like NewsFire though, there are more options, such as NetNewsWire, Vienna, NewsLife, or even Safari’s built in one. But, as I use NewsFire, I have some things about it that I want to share.

Folders
If you have a lot of feeds like I do (If I like the blog, I bookmark it and add it to NewsFire), and while some people may get rid of feeds that aren’t updated anymore, I don’t. For a couple reasons: With folders, I don’t see the feeds, and for blogs which often go on un-scedualed hiatuses (such as my own), I give the benefit of the doubt to the blogger. But, not only does it keep my from having to keep me from deleting feeds all the time, it cleans up NewsFire and allows lots of feeds to be in there no problem.

Smart Folders
Along with folders, smart folders are another handy ability in NewsFire. Some people use more, such as the ones seen here like “Submit to Digg”, but I just use a flagged one. I often come upon digg stories that I imagine would be long, or posts on blogs that are interesting but I don’t have the time to read at that point. I flag them (command-L), then read them later.

Clusters
Whether you choose to cluster groups or smart feeds, clustering comes in handy. As I like the look of clustered groups better (instead of the bubble, the background is blue), I cluster my groups together and have my smart feeds at the bottom.

Those are some of the tips I find most useful in NewsFire, and I hope you like them. If you have any more suggestions, leave a comment.

If you haven’t yet heard of MyMint, then I’ll explain it a bit for you: MyMint is “Free, Simple Personal Finance Software” that is still in closed beta stages but seems like it is going to be really cool. It has a lot of capabilities, like non-Internet based finance software, but does it a bit nicer. I haven’t seen it, but from what I have heard, it seems like it will be really cool.

While you can’t try MyMint out yet, there is a nice blog that has cool personal finance interviews, moneyhacks, and train wreck stories that readers submit anonymously that tell about something bad that happened to them with money. I liked the blog, so I read some of it, then had a question for the team there. I was wondering how I can start saving money young, because I just want to have money in the future and be prepared. They answered my question really detailed and nicely, and asked me permission if they could post it on the blog so they can help more than one person at a time.. I obviously said yes, so now you can find it here. It was very helpful, like the rest of the blog, and I encourage you to check it out. If you’re a young teen, I recommend you read it and follow the tips.

Many of you will have heard this by now, but there is a very large scandal regarding a number that can be used to crack the encryption on HD-DVD disks. It started on a forum a few days ago, where one member managed to crack it, apparently accidently. It was posted to Digg, but it was promptly deleted and the poster banned. From here, it gets complicated. I hope this post can help both me and you understand. I’ll also provide links to what hasn’t been deleted, if I can find them.

How It Went

Although this post may stop it from becoming a thing of the past (which many Digg users hope it won’t become), I think that this post is a good recap of all the parts of the scandal.

What do you think of this? As usual, sound off in the comments.

Edit: Wow, the story Kevin Rose submitted and blog post he wrote currently 27,570 diggs. Even more than the iPhone story, which used to have the most diggs.