Groupon Gives Your Community Buying Power
My Clippings November 13th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
Many businesses and retailers offer discounts if you’re buying in bulk or buying for a large number of people. The trouble is: how do you get those discounts when you’re just shopping for yourself or maybe a couple of other people? Groupon can help; it’s a new Web service that provides you and your community collective buying power with participating businesses offering group discounts in your area.
Each day, the service posts a number of discounts and coupons for goods and services from retailers and stores in your area that you can sign up to take advantage of. The catch is that the bargain is only good if the required number of people to activate the deal also sign up. You only get the bargain price if enough people sign up for it as well, so the service depends on members to spread the word.
Regional or national chains that don’t set their own pricing or schedule their own sales are a bit less likely to participate in a service like Groupon, but your local winery or brew pub may have a special deal on the site that’s only available if 20 people sign up for it, and you may find a local spa or gym that’s offering a discount off of a membership if they can get enough people to sign up to become members at the same time.
That’s the beauty of a service like Groupon: It has the ability to connect local businesses with communities and people who live near the business who may not even have known were around the corner from them. For example, in my area an indoor climbing gym with only three locations in my region offered their regularly #35 “Intro to Climbing Course” for $17 if they could get 15 people to sign up. The deal was successful, and 86 people signed up for the course.
One of Groupon’s strongest features is how local it is. The service calculates your location when you visit the homepage, and drops you into the Groupon section for your city or region. The service also pulls down Twitter posts from the Groupon account in your area and puts them in the sidebar, so you can read previous deals in your area or sign up to follow your local Groupon rep. If you’re curious what’s happening in a different city, you can click to see them all, or visit the Groupon forums to see what other members are talking about.
A Single Graphic Card to Control 8 Displays
My Clippings November 12th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
Most likely annoyed by the new Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity, able to manage 6 displays, and by AMD strategy to take shares of its niche markets, Matrox fired back with a new graphic card: M9188.
This card scored a new record as it is able to manage simultaneously up to 8 displays. I features 1 or 2 GB of VRAM and is installed on a PCI Express 16x slot. Matrox does not plan to compete on the market of graphic cards dedicated to games, but develop solutions allowing simultaneous management of several displays as used in airport, stock exchange places, video-controlled operation centers, etc.
40 Free High-Quality WordPress Themes
My Clippings November 12th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
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High quality free WordPress Themes have become harder and harder to find in the past year, with the influx of premium themes, more and more designers and developers are selling themes (and rightly so, they do amazing work). However, the quality of freely available themes has improved as well; in fact, some themes are very advanced and professional and can serve as a solid foundation for your next designs.
There are a lot of choices out there for someone wanting to choose a WordPress theme for their blog. But, that aside, the quality is certainly there, and we are sure you will be impressed with this WordPress theme compilation.
You may be interested in the following related posts:
Free High-Quality WordPress Themes
AppCloud Theme
A nice e-commerce WordPress theme with a clean and professional look. Built upon 960.gs, with an integrated slideshow, two layouts (horizontal and vertical) for app/gadget images. The theme also includes sections “Featured products” and “Top Selling” and a categorized products view.
Berita (via ThemeCloset)
Berita is a minimalist corporate theme created for companies to prominently display their logo, but the theme could be used for any type of website. It’s a feature-rich theme with a preview slider on the front page and a robust theme administration page.
Magazeen
Magazeen is a two-column theme released specifically for Smashing Magazine readers. The theme has some subtle enhancements that encourage looking at related and new posts, like a related posts drop-down effect for the category link.
Mainstream Theme (via Wootheme)
You have the option of choosing from five different theme colors with Mainstream. Thumbnails are automatically resided and the sidebar is widgetized.
Rusty Grunge
Rusty Grunge is a simple WordPress theme yet still gives you the “destroyed” look. This theme utilizes a fully-widgetized sidebar and has been downloaded over 28,000 times and is featured as a pre-installed theme on Dreamhost’s default installation of WordPress.
Obscure WordPress Theme
A dark magazine WordPress theme suitable for any site niche; also a good fit for a community-based site.
Paper Wall
Smashing Magazine released the illustrated theme Paper Wall last month. The inspiration behind the Paper Wall theme was a designer’s desk, as designers typically put things on paper. It’s a two-column theme with many elements of paper: paper boards, peeling paper and paper “menus”.
Tags: Build, css, Google, Information, IO, ma, man, Monkey, Photo, php, way, WordPress
PicturesToExe Deluxe 6.0 Multilanguage Portable
My Clippings November 12th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
PicturesToExe creates slide show in stand-alone EXE file. Using a clean-looking, intuitive interface, you select pictures from any combination of folders on your system. Then press the Create button. In just moments, you’ve produced an .exe file that, when run, displays the images with the options you’ve selected. Options let you specify automatic or manual sequencing, pick the timer interval, adjust font and background properties, and decide whether you want the sequence to run once and terminate or to repeat continuously. You can also add a MIDI, or MP3-based soundtrack and associate each picture with a .wav file. PicturesToExe is a nice way to share your favorite images with others in a compact, easy-to-email form. Ability to create AVI video file.
320 MB/s for a USB 3.0 key
My Clippings November 12th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
Supertalent announces a USB 3.0 key, RAIDDrive.
Like its name indicates, and following the example of the SSD, it reads and writes simultaneously on several chips so as to increase the data flow. On a USB 3.0 connector, it will be able to read the data at 200 MB/s. This speed will be able to increase to 320 MB/s by using the protocol UAS (USB Attached SCSI).
It will be offered soon in 32,64 and 128 GB at a price point still to be defined. All that remains is to find a compatible computer and UAS drivers, since these are not being provided by Supertalent.
PS: UAS is always a standard in the state of “being drafted”.
Programmer 101: Teach Yourself How to Code [Programming]
My Clippings November 12th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
You've always wanted to learn how to build software yourself—or just whip up an occasional script—but never knew where to start. Luckily, the web is full of free resources that can turn you into a programmer in no time.
Since the invention of the internet, programmers have been using it to discuss software development techniques, publish tutorials, and share code samples for others to learn from and use online. If you’re curious about how to become a programmer, you can get off to a running start using tons of great free web-based tutorials and resources.
First Things First: Don’t Get Hung Up on Choosing a Language
A common pitfall for beginners is getting stuck figuring out which programming language is best to learn first. There are a lot of opinions out there, but there's no one "best" language. Here's the thing: In the end, language doesn't matter THAT much. Understanding data and control structures and design patterns does matter very much. Every language—even a simple scripting language—will have elements that you'll use in other languages as well and will help you learn. In classes I took to get my degree in Computer Science, I programmed in Pascal, Assembly, and C—languages I never actually got paid to program in professionally. I taught myself every language I've used in my career, reusing concepts I already knew, and referring to documentation and books to learn its syntax. So, don't get hung up on what language to learn first. Pick the kind of development you want to do, and just get started using one that works.
There are several different kinds of software development you can do for various platforms, from the web to your desktop to your smartphone to a command line. In this article, we’ll outline some of our favorite starter tutorials and resources for teaching yourself how to program for each major platform. We’re going to assume you’re a savvy user, but a newb when it comes to wrangling code snippets, so we’ll keep things at the beginner level. Even just following through a beginner programming tutorial, you’ll be happy to see how far you can get.
Tags: Apple, backup, Bookmarklet, Bookmarklets, Build, cli, command line, css, email, flash, Google, Information, IO, Javascript, Linux, ma, Mac, man, Monkey, OSX, php, quick, script, video, way, wind, WordPress, XP
Hard Drive Inspector 3.32.259 Professional
My Clippings November 12th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
Monitor hard drive health without installation.
Download Portable HDInspector on RapidShare (2.6 MB)
Extract and run HDInspectorPortable.
Don’t forget to close in systray when leaving.
Settings of installed HDInspector should be preserved.
Google Go: An Open-Source Programming Language
My Clippings November 12th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
Google’s dominated search, online document collaboration, e-mail, telephony, and more, so why not programming, too? The tech giant has announced its own open-source, object-oriented programming language, called Go.
The Google Open Source Blog says that “Go combines the development speed of working in a dynamic language like Python with the performance and safety of a compiled language like C or C++.” (If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it.) “Typical builds,” the blog continues, “feel instantaneous; even large binaries compile in just a few seconds. And the compiled code runs close to the speed of C.” Go supports multiprocessing, as well as true closures and reflection.
The Go Web site (golang.org) explains
the rationale behind creating Go, mostly citing the change of the
computer landscape that’s occurred over the past decade or so that’s
seen very few (if any) major systems languages spring up: more powerful
PCs, many of which use multicore processors; increased dependency
management in software that’s not reflected in the “header files” of
C-based languages; the growing desire for dynamically typed languages
(such as Python and JavaScript) instead of type systems such as Java
and C++); and the poor support for concepts such as garbage collection
and parallel computation.
Google says that Go takes full
advantage of modern, multicore hardware; that it simplifies dependency
analysis and avoids the overhead present in C-style languages (such as
files and libraries); that Go’s type system has no hierarchy, which
saves the programmer from having to define relationships between types;
and that Go is fully garbage-collected and naturally supports
concurrent execution and communication.
If you’re interested in
getting started with Go, or you just want to learn more about its inner
workings, Golang.org is loaded with tutorials, manuals, FAQs, and other
documentation for easy assimilation. There’s
even a section devoted to C++ programmers who want to learn Go. Also
there to be found are code samples, such as the traditional beginning
to all studies, “Hello, world!”:
05 package main<br>
07 import fmt "fmt" // Package implementing formatted I/O.<br>
09 func main() { 10 fmt.Printf("Hello, world; or ???????? ?????; or ????? ??\n");<br>
11 }
Tags: blockquote, Build, Google, IO, Javascript, ma, man, php, script, way, XP
25 Slick PSD Website Templates Free for Download
My Clippings November 12th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
There are people all over the internet that are willing to give away their work for promotional purposes or because they want to spread their design talent to other people.
For this reason we are lucky enough to have a wide variety of free PSD website templates for your use and enjoyment. I have collected some of the best ones I found from around the web to bring to you, already split up into layers in Photoshop. Enjoy!
1) Design Studio PSD Template
2) Orange PSD Template
3) SanduneBiz PSD Template
4)Cambridge PSD Template
5) Crisp Presentation PSD Template
6) Citrus Square Burst PSD Template
7) Audryhipburn PSD Template
8 ) MyTwoCents Property PSD Template
9) Old Victorian PSD Template
10) Bright Colors Radio PSD Template
11) Blackboard PSD Template
12) Colorful Video PSD Template
13) Shape PSD Template
14) DelliStore PSD Template
15) Midnight Sun PSD Template
16) Environmental PSD Template
17) Smashing Multimedia PSD Template
18 ) Slideshow PSD Template
19) Fresh PSD Template
20) 5 Webdesigns PSD Template
21) 3 Free PSD Template
22) Organic Conference PSD Template
23) Summer of Love PSD Template
24) Herbal Treats PSD Template
25) Solitude PSD Template
About the Author
Tyler Denis is a part-time freelance designer from Ashland, New Hampshire. He is also the creator/writer of the design blog Denis Designs/blog, a website dedicated to bringing quality tutorials and inspiration. You can follow him on Twitter or at his personal site, Denis Designs.
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Tags: css, Google, IO, ma, Mac, Photo, php, video, way, WordPress
Twitter 'Dad' Feeds Gets TV Deal with CBS
My Clippings November 12th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
Twitter executives may have shot down the idea of a Twitter TV show, but that doesn’t mean its members aren’t ready for prime-time.
CBS has reportedly snapped up the rights to “Shit My Dad Says,” a Twitter feed that catalogs the commentary of Justin Halpern’s 73-year-old father. Halpern, 29, moved back in with his father earlier this year and started posting his amusing outbursts to the micro-blogging site in August.
The feed soon amassed 700,000 followers, and Halpern landed a book deal with Harper Collins. Now, "Will & Grace" creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick will serve as executive producers of a new family comedy based on the Tweets, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Halpern will serve as a writer on the show.
Some outtakes from Halpern’s dad after the jump.
“The baby will talk when he talks, relax. It ain’t like he knows the cure for cancer and he just ain’t spitting it out.”
“You’re being fucking dramatic. You own a TV and an air mattress. That’s not exactly what I’d call “a lot to lose.”
“You touched that god damned biscuit. Bullshit, I saw you touch it….I don’t give a shit about your evidence, this isn’t a court of law.”
“Your brother brought his baby over this morning. He told me it could stand. It couldn’t stand for shit. Just sat there. Big let down.”
