http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_professional_competition leagues will show you how special the first in the series was with thousands of devotees following and attending StarLeague competitions. It's international popularity ranks StarCraft as the most popular real-time strategy game in history and while there's not much information available yet about its sequel, what can be found is on the "official site":http://starcraft2.com.
Category Archives: Original Duenos
Killer Apps for Mac – img2icns
This is more of a specialty program than ones we’ve profiled in the past, but it has been a great help to me lately so I thought it worth sharing. Nerd declaration: I am a personalization fiend. Everything I can change or modify on my Mac, I do. The first line of customization on the Apple is of course the dock icons, which can sometimes prove frustrating. That’s where img2icns comes in.
Img2icns was made by “Shiny Frog”:http://www.shinyfrog.net/, an Italian software design firm. The official English site for the app is “here”:http://www.shinyfrog.net/en/software/img2icns/. Normally with most icons, you can just copy and paste previously made icons (instructions and examples “here”:http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/faq.php), but sometimes I’ve wanted to make my own using photoshop or fireworks. Img2icns is a very simple application that converts any kind of picture file to Apple’s proprietary .icns file type, and therefore make that image able to be used as a dock icon.
Previously featured _Killer Apps for Mac._
* “Adium”:http://duenos.net/article/129/killer-apps-for-mac-adium – an alternative chat client
* “Sidenote”:http://duenos.net/article/111/killer-apps-for-mac-sidenote – a VERY helpful note-taking program
* “Darwiin Remote”:http://duenos.net/article/193/KillerAppsforMacDarwiinRemote – an application that allows the use of the Wii-remote as an input
* “Mac Pilot”:http://duenos.net/article/174/KillerAppsforMacMacPilot – an interface to control more options on the Mac
* “Disk Inventory X”:http://duenos.net/article/163/KillerAppsforMacDiskInventoryX – visualizes the hard disk
* “Tangerine”:http://duenos.net/article/150/KillerAppsforMacTangerine – analyzes and organizes the iTunes library by beat characteristics
* “SizzlingKeys”:http://duenos.net/article/119/killer-apps-for-mac-sizzlingkeys – allows universal control of iTunes through simple hotkeys
* “Vienna Reader”:http://duenos.net/article/204/KillerAppsforMacViennaReader – an OS X-integrated RSS reader with an internal browser
* “VLC Player”:http://duenos.net/article/228/ – the best media player in existence, it plays anything
* “App Zapper”:http://duenos.net/article/231/ – tracks down all the caches and libraries for deleted applications and deletes them
* “TV Shows”:http://duenos.net/article/232/ – automatically downloads torrent files of TV shows
* “UnRarX”:http://duenos.net/article/234/KillerAppsforMacUnRarX – very good at decompressing .rar files
Visual Thesaurus
You may have already heard of this cool web-tool but just in case you hadn’t, here’s the “Visual Thesaurus”:http://www.visualthesaurus.com/. This program/website is not really all that useful (and probably not worth the “price”:https://www.visualthesaurus.com/store/buy.do) but it is a cool alternative way to see the relationships between words. The people at ThinkMap make it easy to try the service, just not for very long. Go over to “VisualThesaurus.com”:http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ and try the free trial, maybe you’ll find it invaluable.
Steven Milloy, the evil "scientist"
There are two sides to every argument, fine. But maybe there are certain things that shouldn’t have two sides, the protection of the environment for one. That’s why people like Steve Milloy and his “JunkScience.com”:http://junkscience.com/ really doesn’t make any sense to me. Milloy has set himself up as the defender of truth AGAINST the science of global warming. His site is hard to get through for all the clever wordplay (“Help fight Global Fooling” and the like) and needless Gore-bashing, but once you do it just gets more sinister. Of course, global warming isn’t the only accepted science he argues against, here’s a list of his “top ten”:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189706,00.html junk science instances.
This move doesn’t make much sense, but for some reason Milloy was behind the very false rumor (you may have heard this one) that compact fluorescent bulbs cost up to $2,000 to clean up if they are broken. The rumor was then perpetuated by his main employers, Fox News and the gang, but he’s the source. For more about that controversy and how full of shit he was, go to “this article”:http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/the_real_dirt_o.php from “TreeHugger”:http://www.treehugger.com.
Worst web site ever: Watching Grass Grow
That’s right, this site (“Watching-Grass-Grow.com”:http://www.watching-grass-grow.com/) is a dedicated web cam watching some bloke’s yard. The goal? To watch the grass grow, that’s it. The webcam updates every 3 seconds and, well that’s it. I’ve already spent too much time writing about it.
Previously featured inane things:
* “Roomba TV”:http://duenos.net/article/138/RoombaTV, another hard-to-believe-anyone-watches web cam attached to a guys autonomous vacuum robot.
Interactive advertisements
I was walking through a not so busy area in Paris yesterday when I noticed the above plaque next to a billboard advertisement for coffee. Here’s a translation:
??You are in front of an interactive advertisement.??
??To get a free multimedia offer from the brand shown on the poster??
??1. Activate your Bluetooth connection??
??2. Accept the mobile request??
??3. Get your media??
I’ve included below the “gift” below and it was depressingly lame. Just a small digital version of the billboard ad itself. The whole experience does make me wonder about all the fun ways this technology could be used to better advertise other things. Just one idea: What if the advertisement had been for a concert or an album being released? The “multimedia offer” could have been a free mp3 track or something equivalent. Of course, that wouldn’t help for coffee, but there’s always “smell-o-vision”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smell-o-vision.
Green web hosting
http://alexherder.com, is hosted by "Dreamhost":http://www.dreamhost.com/aboutus-green.html, which, I was pleased to learn is completely carbon neutral. It turns out there there a number of "green hosting options":http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/plethora_of_opt.php out there, and Dreamhost is just part of a growing number of tech companies (see "recent post":http://duenos.net/article/266/AGreenerApple about Apple) with ecological aspirations. Check out Dreamhost's "green credentials":http://www.dreamhost.com/aboutus-green.html or look at all the "other options":http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/plethora_of_opt.php at "Treehugger.com":http://www.treehugger.com/.
Move Over Wikipedia
For those of the conservative persuasion, you no longer have to be polluted with “Wikipedian biases”:http://www.conservapedia.com/Bias_in_Wikipedia. “Conservapedia.com”:www.conservapedia.com is a site dedicated to a lower “liberal quotient”:http://www.conservapedia.com/Liberal_quotient {LQ=L/(L+C)}, which defines the percentage of “liberals”:http://www.conservapedia.com/Liberals existing amongst a population. Members proudly submit “reliable” articles “without false claims of neutrality” in order to uphold “certain principles which [they] adhere to.” The following quote details the origins of the site: ??”Conservapedia began in November 2006, as the class project for a World History class of 58 advanced homeschooled and college-bound students meeting in New Jersey.”?? With such a reliable beginning, we can be rest assured that “these top 100 articles”:http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special:Popularpages&limit=100&offset=0 effectively purge liberal thinking. For other info on the conservative movement from “duenos”:www.duenos.net, check out “conservatives with sea legs”:http://duenos.net/article/164/CreationistgroupfundraiseswithAlaskancruise.
Conservapedia has been profiled before on duenos “a long time ago”:http://duenos.net/article/69/conservative-answer-to-wikipedia, although at the time the servers were so overloaded Alex couldn’t learn much. He did produce a funny “screen capture”:http://duenos.net/article/69/conservative-answer-to-wikipedia. Thanks to “QT”:http://www.suntimes.com/news/quicktakes/index.html for the reminder.
Wookieepedia: the Star Wars wiki
Not since I first read “Shadows of the Empire”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Empire have I been this excited. Like most Star Wars nerds who discover the “expanded universe”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Expanded_Universe, I jumped at all the extra plot anywhere I could find it. Whether it was the “many novels”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Books, the “video games”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Computer_and_video_games, or the “Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_New_Essential_Guide_to_Vehicles_and_Vessels, I had everything.
In fact, I was looking for a specific piece of information today (the planetary location of Incom Corporation, makers of the X-Wing, if you must know) and stumbled upon “Wookiepedia”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page. This Star Wars wiki has absolutely everything. I’m not exaggerating, it really has everything, from “The First Battle of Kashyk”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/First_Battle_of_Kashyyyk_%28Galactic_Civil_War%29 to all the fighters in the “TIE series”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE_series, Wookieepedia is your go-to guide to everything touched by the Force.
Looking for a place to get started? Read about the founding of the “Alliance to Restore the Republic”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Alliance_to_Restore_the_Republic (aka the Rebel Alliance). It’ll drop you right into the original trilogy and carry you through to all of the greatest parts of the expanded universe of Star Wars.
A Greener Apple
This is a slightly older story, but I felt I needed to update everyone on Apple’s reaction to the perception that they are “the least green”:http://duenos.net/article/120/greenpeace-releases-latest-green-electronics-rankings computer company. A few weeks ago, Steve Jobs published a position paper laying out Apple’s environmental measures and aspirations. It turns out that, at least according to the very biased CEO Steve Jobs, Apple is not the 5th horseman of the ecological apocalypse. Jobs asserts that Apple is actually leading the way in terms of reducing heavy metals use in computer manufacturing. Apple’s recycling program is also supposedly world class, and the only one to use only US-based facilities for the job.
Is any of this true? I don’t know, but it seems like there’s a lot more research to be done to reconcile Jobs’ vision of his company with “Greenpeace’s”:http://www.greenmyapple.com/.