Somebody Please Make This Happen

I've got a couple hundred websites of various online shops bookmarked in Firefox. I've got them divided up by category. (Clothes, gadgets, etc...) But I want to see an online visualization, it doesn't have to be TOO complicated, that allows me to browse each shop (even if it's just the name of the store and the category) when I want to peruse some commerce.

Make it happen internets, GO.

WhatTheFont Takes the Guesswork Out of Font Replication [Information That Could Have Been Brought to My Attention Yesterday]

Among the useless pieces of paper hanging on my wall are a cinematic poster for the greatest movie of all time, something to keep me motivated, and a degree in graphic design. The latter taught me less than the other two put together, but during my tenure as a CGD student, I was frequently asked to emulate other companies ads and logos to placate different "instructors" who couldn't think of any other assignments to keep us busy while they browsed the internet. Most of the time, this meant a good portion of my time was spent identifying which font they were even using. One of our favorite sites, Download Squad just posted about a web based font indentification tool which could have saved me lots of time and money spent on ulcer medication.

WhatTheFont allows you to upload or link to an image with the font you want to identify and does the legwork for you. To try and give it a bit more of a challenge, I used an image that had been wordarted to see if it would still be able to ascertain the source. I was not disappointed.

Once you upload the image, you're brought to a character selection screen used to clarify that the letters it thinks it sees are the letters it's supposed to see. This seems to work fairly well, I had to manually enter or change a few of them before clicking the search button.

Assuming everything goes to plan the next screen shows a list of font possibilities (hopefully) sorted by accuracy. My font was clearly the first choice and, though the other possibilities weren't necessary, I definitely appreciate knowing that they're going to provide several options if the first one doesn't cut it.






It works so I'm happy. Now if i could just get a site to pay back the 30 thousand in school loans the degree cost me, I could move on. Oh well , "Hang in There Baby."

Source - Download Squad

Making the Switch: Trillian to Meebo (Part 1)

Not so long ago, before apps started moving in the Cloud, consolidation was the name of the game. Dorks like me got excited about any single application which did the job of multiple other apps. This was never more pronounced than the coalescence of chat clients. I used to simultaneously run AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and ICQ just to keep in touch with various friends across all the clients. Then came GAIM and Trillian, apps which allowed all the clients I used to be accessed through one (mostly) intuitive interface. I never cared much for GAIM or Pidgin (though I know people who swear by it), but in Trillian, I believed to have found the only multi-chat client I'd ever need. Unfortunately Fortunately for me, I write for a blog about cloud computing and that compels me to assume the role of guinea pig and try web alternatives to traditionally installed apps.

I first heard about Meebo quite some time ago, but never really though much more about it, I used it barely long enough to create a master account and have a few conversations when other chat options weren't available. Now though, I've decided to give it a real go. I'll use Meebo exclusively for a week and write about it again. If the benefits outweigh the problems, I'll stick with it, uninstall Trillian and move that much closer to life in the cloud.

Amazon's Wish List Goes Intergalactic

I'm ridiculously a little obsessive about bookmarks. I save practically everything I come across that I think I might ever want to remember. Most of it gets meticulously filed away in a truly impressive folder tree never to be seen again. Sometimes though, I add something to my "To Buy" folder, another tick in the ever-growing list of crap I'll probably never get around to buying.
I've been reading the last couple of days about the "universalization" of the Amazon Wish List and decided this morning to give it a go.

Having never utilized the Wish List before, step one was creating the appropriate lists to file all my items into. I made 8 different lists labeled appropriately (Wardrobe, Gadgets, Etc..) and I was ready to go.

Adding the shortcut was as simple as dragging a link from the Amazon page to my Firefox toolbar. Then, just pull up a product page you want to add to the Wish List and click the button. You're met with a dialog box with a few options including which list, a description and picture of the product and the cost of the item.

Once you add the item, you're asked whether you want to view the list now or continue shopping. Pick one and you're done.

So far today, I've moved everything from my "To Buy" folders into my wish lists and I'm sifting through all the other products I've saved over the years to figure out which of those I'd like to keep. The biggest advantage I've seen so far has to be the thumbnail image associated with each entry. Hopefully, this will help me start buying some of this crap so I can get bored of it and give it away.