here’s a refreshing new way to search for photos:
using the idee inc. multicolr search lab, you can browse through flickr photos by specifying their colours.
the more colours you add, the more interesting it gets.

you can even search for images similar to one of yours’ with the BYO image search.

ever since mr. cheng ;) introduced the ingenuity that is piclens (a free firefox plugin), i’ve been enjoying a completely different way of looking at pictures online.

however, there is a situation when it’s acting weird, so in case you have the same problem as i did:

my main pc has a desktop which stretches over two displays, and i’m using firefox 2.0.0.16¹ with piclens 1.7.1.3900. when piclens is showing the 3D-wall on one of the displays and i click on a window on the other screen, piclens minimizes to a black rectangle just above the windows start button:

it behaves the same way when i use "alt+tab" to switch to a different window.
switching back to firefox, piclens seems to block any action there. double-clicking the black frame sometimes reopens the black screen, but doesn’t show any images.

the workaround: i reactivate the firefox window using "alt+tab" or "shift+alt+tab" (which goes backwards, and the piclens icon is at position 1 on my pc). not sure if this works for everybody, but it does for me.

oh, and you can now use piclens in my galleries when looking at any single album such as this.

this is one of my first attempts to use hugin in conjunction with autopano-SIFT:

panorama: view of innsbruck and the inn valley, as seen from patscherkofel

it seems like a good piece of (open-source) software.
i think i’m keeping it.

a tiny little modification of the standard settings for adblock plus - one of the best firefox plugins ever - has made my life a little easier:

type

about:config

in firefox’ adress bar, search for the entry

extensions.adblockplus.defaulttoolbaraction

and change the value to "3".

this activates/deactivates adblock plus by a single click on the adblock logo. (using standard settings, you’d have to open the dropdown-menu and click "activate/deactivate")
i’m using this function frequently (at least, more frequently than the "blockable elements" window that opens with standard settings), so this saves me some valuable time...

in this spirit: hooray for a good support forum.

that’s the slogan of axbo, a unique alarm clock that sebastian told me about, several months ago. several months ago (minus a few days), i went and ordered one.

(click to enlarge)

axbo is a sleep phase alarm clock - it monitors your sleep stages and determines the best time to wake you up within a 30 minute time frame. [more...]

today was the second time i received the following email within two weeks:

Die Firma Ericsson verteilt Handys. und das gratis übers Internet, um der Marke Nokia entgegen zu wirken, welche dasselbe macht. Ericsson will sich damit bekannter machen. Deshalb verteilt das Unternehmen jetzt gratis das neue WAP-Handy. Alles was zu tun ist, ist diese Mail an acht Leute zu schicken. In etwa zwei Wochen erhält man dann ein Ericsson T 18. Wenn die Nachricht an 20 oder mehr Personen verschickt wird, erhält man sogar ein Ericsson R320 WAP-Phone.

the main message of this chain email: forward the email to at least 8 of your friends and receive an ericsson t18. forward it to 20 or more, and receive a free ericsson r320.

i find it stunning that the hoax has prevailed for so long, and is still very active. especially considering that the r320 was released in 1999! also, note how it says "ericsson" instead of "sony ericsson".
both of these cellphones had monochrome displays (naturally), the t18 one only had two lines. you’d probably get some money along with it if you decided to take one. :-)
 

life would be a much better place if people did an internet search before forwarding this crap.
on the other hand, this particular one made me reminisce about the old days, when internet connections were dial-up and expensive as hell...

ich verwende firefox 2.0.0.12 und bin im studivz registriert. seit der umstellung des nachrichtendienstes anfang dieses jahres konnte ich studivz-nachrichten nicht mehr anzeigen lassen, weil der dazugehörige link scheinbar nicht funktionierte.
das problem konnte ich nach etwas herum-testen ausfindig machen: das firefox-addon "geo 0.7".
wenn geo deaktiviert ist, funktioniert bei mir auch das vz-messaging wieder.

vielleicht nützt diese erkenntnis ja dem einen oder anderen vz-user etwas...