Add YouTube Channel to Your Podcast Software

Go to http://podsync.net/ and past the channel URL.

If you're not sure of the channel URL perform the following:

1) Subscribe to the channel
2) Go to your channel listing in youtube.
3) Right click and select Copy link address
4) Paste into box on podsync.net and copy the link they provider to your podcast software, I use pocketcasts.com.

Compound Interest Calculator

Have you ever wanted to do a compound interest calculation but don't have a calculator in front of you? Here is a nifty way of doing it with Google.

A more detailed description of the below formula is provided in the Wikipedia link above however here is simple example which takes US$10,000 which is compounded at 5% annual interest 2 times per year for 20 years.

10000(1+(.05/2))^(2*20)=

Each number is as follows, the bolded number represented the item being described:
10000(1+(.05/2))^(2*20) = US$10,000.00
10000(1+(.05/2))^(2*20) = Fixed value (do not change)
10000(1+(.05/2))^(2*20) = 5% interest rate converted to decimal
10000(1+(.05/2))^(2*20) = Numbers of times the interest is compounded per year
10000(1+(.05/2))^(2*20) = Number of years the money will have to grow

Searching Craigslist Autos For Specific Years

Have you ever wondered how to search craigslist for a specific years of vehicles? It is possible using the pipe "|", here is an example search for a 1969-1979 ford truck.

ford truck (1979|1978|1977|1976|1975|1974|1973|1972|1971|1970|1969)

Go to your city and past the above search into the search bar and see what happens, you should be able to take it from here.

Firefox 3 Cookies Issue

Recently my computer did what all computers did and started to demonstrate they are emotional entities. It just got mad at me and quit saving any login information on sites I visit and have tabs open to most of the day.

This is one of those situations where I don't know what the cause was but the cure was easy enough. It had to do with deleting the cookies.sqlite as described here.

Email not working

When working with a client today on email problems I realized I had never provided a simple tutorial for helping with email problems. As a user of Thunderbird, Outlook and/or Outlook Express you might have run into a situation where you can't send and/or receive emails for a new email account that has been set up. Sometimes it can be traced to a configuration problem when setting the account up in your email client and other times it can be a problem with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or the email server you're attempting to use.

To remove your email client from the equation you can test your incoming mail server (the server you check when picking up email) and your outgoing mail server (the server that is used for delivering emails that you author).

Here is a simple tutorial for testing a POP3 incoming mail server and a SMTP outgoing mail server..

Google Easter Egg

In case you've never heard of an easter egg I'll defer to wikipedia.

A virtual Easter egg is an intentional hidden message or feature in an object such as a movie, book, CD, DVD, computer program, or video game. The term draws a parallel with the custom of the Easter egg hunt observed in many western nations.

As Google has shown in the past they have a sense of humor and don't mind doing something a little risky to entertain their users. My brother sent me this one today via, what else, Google Talk.

1. Open your Google Reader.
2. Enter the following keystrokes: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A
3. The background on the left should change and you should now see a little character there to assassinate an otherwise regular reading day.

Good day.

Air Travel and Laptop Confiscation

If you do much air travel and take a laptop with you when traveling you need to keep the following information in mind. The below quote is from some of my periodic financial reading entitled What We Now Know by Casey Research with this particular item coming from the December 26, 2006 issue.

Do you own a laptop computer? Do you routinely travel with it?

If so, you might want to consider taking a few precautions, because evidence is mounting that federal officials are legally (and, so they say, “randomly”) opening a growing number of laptops owned by passengers returning to the U.S. And perusing their contents.

The vast majority of travelers don’t realize that customs agents have the legal authority to do this. Computers may also be seized and held indefinitely, without the agents having to obtain probable cause that a crime has been committed. Victims of seizures have no right to know why they’ve been targeted.

I'm not quoting the entire article because I believe you should read it yourself in the WWNK archives.

Nikola Tesla - Obscure Genius

This is semi-related to computers (electricity) but it was such an amazing discovered that I had to post it here. For background I was doing some research on electrical stuff and stumbled across information about Mr. Tesla [deceased]. The more I read the more I realize that he is probably one of the most intelligent, if not the most, men ever to live. The history books just don't give this man enough credit. Here are a few of his inventions: alternative current (AC in your house), a telephone repeater, rotating magnetic field principle, polyphase alternating-current system, induction motor, alternating-current power transmission, Tesla coil transformer, wireless communication, radio, fluorescent lights. He also holds more than 700 other patents, the list is just amazing when you put it in the perspective of what we use today.

Mr. Tesla is responsible for so many things we take for granted today: electricity distribution, electrical power plants, power generation, on and on. His goal was to bring free electricity to everyone however we all know that bringing the electricity cost to zero is not what some would like.

Here's a website to get you started but I'd encourage you to spend a night or two learning about him, I'm humbled at the man's genius.

Freeware, Shareware, Silverware - Is It Legal?

When doing my usual daily work I realized that I've never written a post about freeware, shareware and silverware. Ok strike the silverware just making sure you're paying attention. The intent of both is to create an environment where the average computer user can actually enjoy their PC. If you've never downloaded free and/or share ware you are missing out. In some cases you're missing out on viruses and spyware and in other cases you're missing out on good, old fashioned usable software. Let's start with a simple explanation of what they are from the dictionary.

Freeware
computer software distributed without charge.

Shareware
computer software distributed without initial charge but for which the user is encouraged to pay a nominal fee to cover support for continued use.

So the question becomes what can I get for free and where can I go to get it, that is the question of the day. The biggest thing I would encourage you to do is to use a large scale site with paid staff first and foremost, especially if you're not a computer geek. The reason for this is they will get inundated with emails, calls and general hate mail if there are any problems with the content on their site. Some of the websites I'd recommend for downloading your next piece of software would probably be CNET.com and tucows. The thing to be cautious of is when you really need something and the stress and emotions are high to not just download something to immediately solve your problem. The effects of that could cost you significant time and money and maybe hijacked passwords, credit card numbers, etc. Also be sure to take your time reading the installation guides, the reputable ones will tell you that they're installing additional items like the google toolbar, yahoo toolbar and the latest wiz-bang toolbar. In many cases you can opt-out of that item and still get the software installed.

Here is just a sampling of some of the software applications I use for free:
7-zip :: review
Notepad++
OpenOffice.org
Spybot - Search and Destroy 1.4
Windows Defender