Life Without Toast - Sibling Rivalry

If you're a regular around these parts, you'll know that myself and Adrian have had several arguments debates about the merits of online vs offline applications (ie NetNewsWire vs Google Reader).

Well, lookie what I found in my Google Reader today*. A little button proclaiming something new:

But I'm looking forward to doing that installing. And saving some of my Google Apps data locally, where I can always get at it. At the moment, they seem so have only rolled out the Google Reader functionality**, but as Google Gears is open-source, I'm reckonin' it won't be long before it works for like, y'know, everything.

*_{Sorry Gordon, just saw your comment on the previous post. You found it first, I'll admit. :-)}
**_{With a "Please note, however, that Google Gears is not yet intended for general use" -type warning.}

Posted by Matt at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

As a wee follow-up to my recent post on how to use Google to convert units of measurement, here's a few more Google tricks I've found on my relentless trawling of the intertubes.

On top of the previously -mentioned conversion tool, Google is also a fully-functioned calculator. Just tupe in the sum/problem, and Google will do the work for you. It even does complex problems and percentages, as well as power-of problems. Have a look at 20% of 4^5 as an example.

Did you know you can use Google to find out how good a movie is? Not just to search for a review, mind. Go to www.google.com/movies and type in your movie title. Here's an example for Shrek the Third (looks pretty good, might have to go see that).

Being a new-found Mac junkie as I am, I was delighted to discover that the big G has a portal dedicated to all things Mac, and it can be found at www.google.com/mac. You can find Mac versions of programs like Google Earth and Sketchup, Gmail Notifier, and (spit) Google Toolbar for Mac.

Finally, if you're looking for a weather forecast, why bother with any other website when all you needs to do is type (for example) "weather Dublin Ireland" (without the quotes) into the G and they'll give you a lovely 5-day 4-day forecast to look at.

See also: Google Labs, Google Moms, Google Dilbert, Google Translate, and many, many more.

Aren't Google great?*

*_{Apart from when they're evil, of course...}

_{Interesting side-note: If you're a Gmail user, go to your "Deleted Items" folder. Instead of saying "Empty Trash" as it used to, it now says "Empty Wastebasket". Interesting huh? No? Just me on that one? Well at least it doesn't say "Recycle Bin", blah blah mutter mutter...}

Posted by Matt at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Matt at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry It's been a little bit quiet round here. On top of the fact that Babs can't access the internet where she works at the moment, and has therefore not been able to fire off any of those brilliant middle-of-the-day random stream of consciousness posts that she's so brilliant at, I've been like, busy.

Thanks to everyone again for all those birthday wishes. Thanks for the cards, presents, texts and mails. Thanks to everyone who came to the party. Thanks to everyone who ensured I didn't actually reach into my pocket once that night, and for ensuring that I got thoroughly plastered, and was the recipient of the most ferocious hangover since the last one I had at Christmas, after the staff party in work with the free bar until 7am. It's weird just turning 30, in that it's exactly the same as being nearly 30.

Then, still suffering from the same hangover (I'm 30 now you know, they last longer at my age), for the past two days, I've been working. And going to the last couple of days of my college course. On Monday I was in work at 8am, and in college at half 9. And in work from 4pm until 11.30. And then, roughly the same again today. And then a normal "rest of the week".

I am BOLLIXED. And I have so much to do.

Posted by Matt at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

Photoblogging...

30th birthday cake.

Posted by Matt at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

And this proves once and for all that I am cooler than Gordon McLean.

Posted by Matt at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

Photoblogging...

Dun Laoghaire harbour. Lovely evening, eh?

Posted by Matt at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Babs at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A few weeks ago, Claire Wilson of Gingerpixel fame asked if anyone would be interested in modelling for her so she could build up her portfolio a bit. Naturally, I said I'd be interested, and she said she'd be doing the shooting on Killiney Beach, which is only five minutes from my house, which clinched the deal (even though she wanted me to be there on a Saturday at 9.30am).

So last Saturday, I met her on the beach, had a bit of a chat and she started shooting. We moved around to several different locations on the beach, and she was very pleased to shoot someone who was interested in photography (I had a few ideas) and apparently I was "a natural". It was quite hard to find somewhere with good light that morning, as the Sun was glaring off the sea and sand, so I was a bit squinty some of the time. I think Claire did a fantastic job though, and these are some of the best photos of me, ever.

So, after the jump there's a couple of my favourite ones of me, and here's a link to all the shots of me on Claire's site, and the set of all portraits she shot on the beach on Saturday.

Posted by Matt at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

I got an invite to Web TV service Joost several weeks ago. I also got three invites, which I advertised on Twitter and Lifehacker, and which were snapped up within seconds.

Well, now that Joost is semi-sorta out of Beta, I now have oodles of invites. I put a comment on the Joost Invite Lifehacker post, inviting people who want invites to mail me, and got a bajillion mails almost immediately.

So, if anyone else wants an invite, mail me at the address at the bottom of the sidebar (Life Without Toast At G Mail Dot Com, without the capitals or spaces), or leave a comment.

I haven't had much opportunity to do much serious checking-out of the Joost service, but from what I've seen, it's pretty good, and just needs a bit more content for it to be brilliant. All you need to do is ask for an invite to check it out for yourself. Joost is a free download for Mac and PC, and there's a Linux version in the works.

Posted by Matt at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (32) | TrackBacks (0)