One of my favorite bloggers is Fake Steve, who poses as Steve Jobs and offers a hilarious approach to things in the Apple and Tech world. Recently there has been many people who have been trying to uncover who he is, through probably completely legal but unethical means. Some people have gone so far to make a special website just for Fake Steve, with a link only he received, that was used to discover where is from (Boston). While Valleywag has taken some heat, from Fake Steve himself as well, they offer some points that say why Andy Ihnatko isn’t Fake Steve in this post, citing reasons that while Andy is funny, Fake Steve is funnier, Andy Inahtko uses Verizon while Fake Steve does not, and more.

Gizmodo also has some points at that Fake Steve won’t be able to stay Fake for long, if the hunt carries on. They are one of the many groups of people who want Fake Steve to remain fake, including TUAW, Buzz Out Loud, and many individuals on Twitter as well.

I am in the group that wants Fake Steve to remain fake. I admit I was curious, but once Fake Steve wrote the post about the invasions of privacy, I figured that it went too far, and that it would be better for everyone if it stopped. I doubt the people who have done the things to discover who he is will stop, but maybe if enough people show their disapproval they will. It’s a big maybe though.

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.

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.

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.

Yesterday, the Shiira Project released a new version of their browser called Shiira. This new version is 2.0, and is a large improvement over the old version, and the 2.0 betas. It is a nice browser, and although a bit unstable, is still really handy and really nicely designed. To show what I like about Shiira 2.0, I decided to make a list of things I like about it, and the things I don’t.

What I Like
Full-screen Mode: My favorite part of Shiira is the ability to have the browser take up the whole window with a handy navigation panel at the bottom. It is an improvement on such abilities on Windows, and looks really nice. I used it to present a website for school once, and it worked great. Click here for a screenshot.

Heads-Up-Display: Another thing I love is how the history and bookmarks are in a Heads-Up-Display, which makes it really easy to view. It also separates it from the real browser, which makes viewing history a lot easier then in Safari (I hate how you have to hope you don’t move your mouse out of the menu when looking in your history in Safari, it’s challenging). Click here for a screenshot.

PageDock: The PageDock, which is located at the bottom of the screen, is basically the tab bar in Safari souped up. It shows a preview of the page, the name, allows you to close a tab and add a new one really easily. Click here for a screenshot.

Tab Exposé: As I was writing up this review, I saw a little button that I never clicked before. When I did, I was pretty amazed. Like Exposé, which shows all the windows on your desktop smaller, next to eachother, and dims the background to make it easier to focus on the foreground, Tab Exposé shows all the pages in the browser in the same way that Expose does. Click here for a screenshot.

What I Don’t Like
Importing Bookmarks: I tried to import my bookmarks from Safari, by using the bookmarks bar from Safari, and dragging them to Shiira’s bookmarks bar. But, as you probably imagine, that didn’t work. I don’t see a way to do it, and it doesn’t include a menu option to import bookmarks.
Edit: Okay, I figured it out. If you enable Safari bookmarks in the prefences, go to the shelf, and drag them into the folder Bookmarks Bar (with the icon). Then, move one of those around, or do something within the folder Bookmarks Bar, and it should refresh itself. If it does that, it works.
Edit 2: Nevermind, when I quit and restarted, it cleared the bookmarks bar. It seems to not be writing the preferences.

Can’t Change Download Folder: This will probably get fixed in the next release, but while there is an option to change the download folder, but it isn’t enabled. This means that it always downloads to the Desktop, which bugs me, because I use this tip from Deskpopp (I did it already, but they already wrote about it, so I’ll just link to them). I hope they change this soon.

Overall Bugginess: This is always in this browser, and if it wasn’t buggy, much more people would use it. This occurred in the betas, and although people would think it would be fixed by the final release of 2.0, it wasn’t. It crashes a lot, some things don’t work. I may submit bug reports eventually, and I encourage you to submit bug reports too.

Beauty
Besides all that, isn’t it just beautiful?

Even though it’s a great browser, and has been making progress, I’m sticking with Safari. I’m used to it, and I just like how it works. I can’t judge for you though, so download it yourself, and sound off in the comments on what you think. Anyway, I hoped you like this (my first!) review.

PS: If anyone was wondering why the GUI looks different, I’m using this theme, with Shapeshifter.

Yesterday, while looking in the staff section of MacApper, I found the blog of Joseph, and was pretty happy that I came upon it. It’s a cool blog, with a nice theme, and it linked me to something really cool. The thing that I found was Random Shapes.

Before I explain what it is, I’ll give a little back story: I was also looking at blogs of some teens with large numbers of readers, such as Glenn Wolsey and Paul Stamatiou, and found that they were in a blogging network called 9rules. I was interested in it, but I figured that my blog wasn’t up there to join it, even though it would help me get readers. So, I stopped looking, and went to MacApper to check out what their new post was. I look in the staff section, and that’s where I found Joseph’s blog.

Back to Random Shapes. Random Shapes is another blogging network, like 9rules, but has one major difference. That difference is the blogging network is for teens. Joseph, like myself, is a young teen blogger, but he has a bit more following, because he has more links to his blog (like MacApper, where I found it). I figured that it would be a good thing to try and make it in, because it wouldn’t be as hard as 9rules, but may still be hard.

But, if any Random Shapes people are reading this, I would love to say that I really want to join, and that a blogging network for teens is both a great idea and a great thing.

If I make it in, I’ll be sure to edit this post.

I wrote something about MacApper yesterday, on a tone that wasn’t too nice. But, today, MacApper is doing something a lot better. They are having a Switcher’s Giveaway, and you can win a ton of new apps. The apps are listed in the post, and some are amazing. I have some already, because I bought the Macheist Bundle, but they’re really nice. The catch is you have to email them telling your switching story. I’m going to be preparing mine, and it’ll only get better if more people send in their tales. Send in your emails by 11:59PM EDT on Monday, April 30th.

Check it out!