Non-SAAS Software

 So there's a list being made of Non-SAAS Software. What is that? It's software that does not require a subscription. So, you buy it once and you're done. Do you have an old machine that still performs certain tasks well? Well, you can keep that 10 year old software on it, because it's not SaaS.

The website is No Sassy. No Software As Service, but in a Sassy way. Some links are for free software, other paid, but all of it "installable" and more or less "ownable."

No Sassy

More information on SAAS: Software as a service is a business model to keep a steady income stream. While it's great for those running the software, it can be completely detrimental for the average user simply by cost alone. Long-term costs are incredibly high for SAAS.

Wolfram Image Identification Project

I recently came across a new search engine. An image search engine. You just drag and drop an image or browse to upload an image to their server. Their software scans it and tells you what it is.

The Wolfram Language

Image Identification Project
imageidentify.com

While  you maybe familiar with Google's "Reverse" image search engine (click the camera in the search box to upload), in my opinion this is more accurate. It's better at determining what your image is, which may have great A.I. uses. Who knows, maybe one day it can do photo-manipulations and cleanup for me so I don't have to.

 

For the record, Google's is designed to give you a list of images similar to it. That's a use all on its own. They might want to get better image recognition for their "Glass." Their voice recognition is better than Apple's or Microsoft's however, but that's a different topic altogether.

You may want to poke around on the Wolfram page. They're doing a lot of exciting work in regards to programming, cloud computing and more. I'm deeply impressed.

Freemake.com Video Converter Downloader

Video Converter and Video Downloader (from web)

I've used and tested both of these on Win XP & Win 7 64bit and they worked fine.

Video Conversion and Downloader both work well, but as with many conversion software programs, there are sometimes things that are not converted properly. I've used this Free Video Conversion Software in conjunction other free converters and taken the best from each one.

Definitely Watch the multiple tricky installation of 3rd party software attempts when clicking through installation. I skimmed the click through and had to do a double take then and triple take to make sure I didn't accidentally install an add on or some weird software.

Freemake.com

Computer Glasses or... Flux?

To protect our eyes from computer eye-strain... Sometimes changing the lighting may help. That's where Flux comes in.

Flux

http://stereopsis.com/flux/

I'm using Flux right now. I like it a lot on my LED backlit monitor, because it hurts my eyes sometimes. I like the little button "turn off for one hour" (in case you need normal monitor color). If anyone's eyes hurt after using the computer a lot, this is definitely worth a shot.

Sci-Toys.com

Like science stuff? Me to and I love the experiments that go along with it as well.

I stumbled across this very well written and detailed website with fun science projects ranging from tiny to big.

Sci-Toys.com
http://sci-toys.com/

Magnetism, radio, thermodynamics projects and more!
Make stuff with your kids (or by yourself- nobody's looking!)

File Hippo

Like downloading stuff? Me too. Like downloading useful stuff more? Me too! We're so much alike- you and I. That's why I'm providing you with a nifty link to the File Hippo. We can ride on it together. Hippos are big, so we can both fit on it.

File Hippo
(Ride the hippo with me!)

Although it appears to be a website to stay updated on downloads. I think it's something more than that-and better than that. They seem to have very short and accurate reviews (time-saving!) of the downloads and many of the programs are new to me, but look stable, fun to try and most of all- useful!

While Mailwasher can be checking my email for spam in my mail client- Thunderbird, I can be listening to music with SUPER and riding the hippo with Opera- e.g. surfing the web ;)

- Scratch the below "Post Script" note - Things not going as planned for now. -

P.S. I may be switching this blog over full time to my main website, http://Chexed.com/ I just want to give you the warning so if you subscribe to my blog you wont be surprised when you land at Chexed.com. I'm twice as friendly there as I am here though and half as funny- so you have nothing to worry about. Ok, so sometimes I'm funny there maybe. I'll be redirecting my feed here to pick up at Chexed.com.

If you have any thoughts on this please let me know! Thanks! David

Over 400 Free Software Programs!

First a rather small list of programs (but much less well known) is what I'm going to link to. They're made by a guy named Prakashatma Mishra who appears to live in India. The programs range from games to useful computer monitoring software. I've downloaded and used the MusicalKEYS Piano myself in hopes that it may help me make some music.

Programs

Now for the big list of software. Many of these are well known (like FireFox), but you may find a few gems in there useful to you too!

400 Freeware Programs

Enjoy!

Nabaztag Robot Helper

Whenever you're in need of the weather report, your TV isn't working, and your too lazy to turn your computer on, you can rely on this little guy to get you the weather.

It seems s/he's a rabbit that you can ask basic questions and it gives you answers like the weather and news reports, but much more. You can make it say things apparently and perhaps even sing, maybe the music in the background of the site made me think it was singing when it really wasn't though.

http://www.nabaztag.com/en/index.html

It seems most awesome. I call it the funny bunny... I'm guessing the antennas are inside the ears and that's why they chose a bunny for the robot body... We wouldn't want any body (especially kids) falling on those pointy ears now would we? They could get away with using a monkey shell too with the ears and/or tail as the antenna housing. Pretty cool!

InventNow.org

I have lots of ideas for inventions myself. Most of which I haven't created yet, instead focusing on the few "more likely" since I have a family and must control my risk taking. I've found a good place though that seems to be geared towards kids, but adults can use it too.

InventNow.org

It looks like a great place to get some exposure for those kids at heart that never got a chance... I suppose most inventors are kids at heart right? How else do we keep seeing things with "new eyes?"

They need to clean up their Terms of Use (TOU) since paragraph one says ", we ... do not have any copyright to any original work submitted to Inspiring Invention" and paragraph two says "By submitting materials to the site, you automatically give The Ad Council and our partners nonexclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, and distribute your work." ... "We don't own your work, but we do." I feel it's a mistake on the wording of the TOU and what they probably mean is "we don't claim ownership of your inventions, but anything submitted to this website may be used to publicize it and our mission." I feel it was a mistake, because otherwise the US Patent and Trademark Office shouldn't and wouldn't be supporting them for trying to conclude work from anothers efforts, especially those who are younger which the ads are being marketed towards. Send them an email if you want to let them know their TOU contradicts itself in the beginning.

Stand Out Jobs

There's a new Monster (pun intended) in the job seekers arena and it's name is...

Stand Out Jobs
(Tell me that doesn't stand out?)

It seems like it really gives employers control over how they present themselves, which makes it for a visually pleasing experience for job hunters. That's my favorite part, but also, if you need a job, you can find some interesting and unique positions available on the web (many of them are likely telecommute-aka work at home jobs).

Qassia

The new tool for searching information on the net! It's in beta right now, so you can't search on information for it yet, but if you sign up, you can contribute some thoughts and look around at a few of the articles that have already been submitted. Get a behind the scenes peak!

Qassia

Money Money Blogging

If you've ever thought about starting a blog and making some bucks, my friend Swollen Pickles has been on this journey and documenting his progress. I even use some of his tips myself over at Chexed.com. So if you read what he's got to say, you could save a lot of time testing different programs that make you money online.

Swollen Pickles
Making you money online

He also writes some funny content, movie reviews, and game reviews. The kind of thing many of us will enjoy as a nice spice to the hustle and bustle of blogging for bucks.

Tag: money

Two Cool Sites!

The first site is an image search engine few people know about that seems to find more images somehow than Google and Yahoo image search, but there's a little catch, you need the FireFox browser for it to work. The second site is a BBC web page with free personality tests on it, and who doesn't like to learn a little bit more about themselves?

First, if you don't have FireFox, get it here free.
Once you're done installing, or if you already have it, head on over to the image search! Run a couple searches! Test it out!

http://elzr.com/imagery

Now even if you don't have FireFox, don't want to get it, or just don't like images, but would like to know yourself a little better. Check out the Human Body and Mind Surveys from the BBC news companies!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/index_surveys.shtml

I think psychologists would typically charge you an arm, a leg, and your sanity due to bills for this type of service!

Download YouTube and GoogleVideo

DownThisVideo!
http://downthisvideo.com/

It's cool, it's hip. Here's the tip, you know your favorite YouTube or Google Videos? You can now download them!

Like the The Zeitgeist Movie, that you normally have to download via Torrent files, you can actually download the whole shibang here, from a Google domain, so I assume they put that option there to help people out who want to download content. Please always check the legal stuff before doing anything though. Some people may not want you downloading their videos.

Here's the Zeitgeist movie down below by the way. It's really... enlightening. It will offer you a different point of view about religion and the 9/11 tragedy. I'm not saying it's 100% right, but if nothing else, your mind will be opened from this very interesting movie.

Microsoft (MS) FireFox Parody Hoax Site

This is not really a Microsoft website as far as I can tell. Especially considering how ridiculous much of the copy is... LOL. Very funny I think. Video parody advertisement and website hoax link included here.

The site: http://www.msfirefox.com/

The video:

This is pretty funny. Laugh out loud.

Cool Start Home Page with Google Search Engine

Although no page should be anyones main home page other than chexed.com, I found a little page that reminds me of an early Google, simple, useful, and it uses the Google search engine.

It has some of the most commonly used links used by Americans on the homepage, for ease of navigation, and free of any corporate bias. A start page with links to Yahoo! GMail, and MySpace all on the same front page constantly? Cool!

An Addicting Way To Help Out Google

Very Awesome Stuff. It's kind of like the pictionary game only online free and it's 2:32 am where I'm at and people are playing like crazy. Each game is only 2 mins and no registration required!

http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

Vivisimo.com and Clusty.com

It appears the two sites are the same now, just looking different. I like the concept of this search engine company.

Try a search for yourself, something really cool on Clusty, which is basically the same thing as something really cool on Vivisimo.

What this search engine does it is "clusters" or, groups results of your searches and queries into common categories.

It's cool, Google should buy them.

Technorati Tags: search engine submit, vivisimo, clusty, clustering search engine

Another Blogging Site (Available to Bloggers) VOX.com

So, another.

http://www.vox.com/

Actually, this blog site looks promising. They have a lot of cool templates (Page styles).

Here's an overly long video (in my opinion) from YouTube by Chris Abraham on appliedblogging.org

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y0ojdbQnS08

I'm not going to be switching from Blogger, but I do like to test the waters, so if I decide upon another blog, I'll probably give that one a shot. Especially if it works with Windows Live Writer (a blog authoring tool).

A Blog about Blogging

I don't remember how I came to the ProBlogger web site, but I'm going to admit it's very nicely done. The comment about honestly is what drew me in. I've been thinking about getting a tattoo that says "TRUTH" on my back for quite some time now. If memory serves me correctly, it came to me in a dream. Not that it's really necessary to know though. Honestly, I'm not as truthful as I'd like to be, but I'm trying to find balance, between complete honesty and avoiding hurting peoples feelings. I.e. If someone were to ask me if I thought they smelled bad, depending on their personality, I may, unfortunately, lie and say no, even if they did smell bad. Most likely though, because I have been improving throughout time, I would word it carefully as to not offend by saying something along the lines of, "well, honestly, I did notice something... but don't feel bad though, I haven't showered in weeks." It's possible that it wouldn't even be a lie, because sometimes I don't shower for weeks, because I'm a MAN and I'm like, all rugged and whatnot when I'm not being what may be considered naughty. But then again, anything could be considered naughty.

LiveJournal Tags: blog, blogging, blogging tips, blogger tips