ComputersConfuseMe Blog

Three weeks ago I stumbled upon hundredpushups.com. I briefly looked over the site and thought what a great idea. A 6 week training plan that builds you up to one hundred consecutive push ups. Well actually, my initial thoughts were “Wow, one hundred consecutive push ups, that sounds like something I would never be able to do.” But after a brief look over the plan it seemed like something that might actually be obtainable and wouldn’t take much time out of each day.

I’m currently training for the Army Ten-Miler run September 5th in Washington DC and I was forced to take the whole month of July off due to a hamstring injury so I needed to get back into shape quickly. This seemed like a perfect challenge to take on the days I’m not running, plus it’s perfect for getting me started on some upper body exercises.

I just completed week 3 (Friday) and I’m ready to start week 4 Monday. So far each of the workouts have been pretty tough but I’m getting through them and I’m already noticing a big difference in the number of good form pushups I’m able to complete successfully. Week three had me completing 102 push ups in 5 sets. I have to admit, the last set was very difficult and I had to take a few seconds in the rest position after 10, and then again after 15 in order for me to finish the workout. Week 4 looks similar so hopefully I’ll be able to complete it successfully because week 5 starts changing the routine a bit and looks like it could be difficult. I love a challenge though!

3 more weeks to see if I can get to one hundred consecutive push ups.

Technorati Tags: hundredpushups.com, push-ups, fitness

Popularity: 3% [?]

The Digital Photography School Blog (DPS) has a very nice article comparing and contrasting digital point and shoot cameras with Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras. So if your in the market for a new digital camera I strongly suggest you stop over and check it out, even if you weren’t originally considering a DLSR.

“Should you buy a DSLR or Point and Shoot Digital Camera?” hits on all of the most important things to consider including megapixel size, weight, portability, features, easy of use and much more. It’s also very clear and easy to understand for people who are not technical.

Be sure to check out the readers comments at the bottom of the article, a lot of the DPS readers know their stuff and provide great follow up information like NormMonkey’s post about how using the LCD screen to frame photos with DSLRs (aka “live view”) is different than on Point and Shoot digital cameras.

Check out my Digital Camera Buying Guide for some “what to look for” tips along with a first impression of my first DSLR camera purchase here: Canon EOS 40D Digital Camera Purchase.

Technorati Tags: DSLR, point-and-shoot, digital photography

Popularity: 5% [?]

The most important part of a business card is obviously the contact information. But the second most important part of a business card is that it needs to stand out from the crowd. What good is a business card if lands in a pile with a hundred others that all look a like?

A business card with a little creativity can lead to great first impressions and remain in someones mind for a longer period of time. A simple but unique style speaks for itself with as little as a name, web address, email, and phone number.

Check out these “24 Creative Business Card Designs” for inspiration, It just might be time to give your business card a little face lift!

Technorati Tags: business-cards, self-promoting

Popularity: 4% [?]

Looking for a little fun on the web? Dig up a photo of yourself and check out MyHeritage’s Celebrity Facial Recognition software. After uploading your photo using their simple web form MyHeritage does two quick scans, one to locate the face and a second to detect facial features. The facial features are then compared to a database of  that it uses to compare to a database of celebrity photos.

The celebrity comparisons are based off of multiple photos of each celebrity to give higher quality results. The results are pretty accurate from the photos I’ve uploaded of myself and friends, you can quickly see the similarities. With each photo uploaded you’ll get multiple celebrity matches, each with a percentage showing just how close that match is.

Be forewarned, don’t submit your own photo if you can’t handle the reality of finding out you don’t look like Brad Pit or Angelina Jolie.

My top three closest matches were 74% Chad Michael Murray, 68% Adam Brody, and 68% Leslie Caran.

Technorati Tags: facial-recognition,, celebrities,, free

Popularity: 5% [?]

If you have to give a technical presentation check out Scott Hanselman’s “11 Top Tips for a Successful Technical Presentation“. He offers some excellent things to think about prior to your presentation. Some of the tips are general enough that they apply to any presentation, not jut a technical presentation.

One of the tips he seems to put the most emphasis on, and for good reason, is “font size“. I’ve seen too many presentations where the presenter choose a font that looks good on his monitor but is way to small form the back of the presentation room. If your audience can’t read anything on the screen it’s pointless! You loose their attention as they struggle to read the screen and they soon give up and fall asleep. You need to go to the presentation room ahead of time and prepare!

Another excellent tip he gives is “Care“. You must care about what you are presenting. If you care about what you are presenting you’re more likely to do the research needed and you’ll have the enthusiasm needed to pull in your audience.

Read more of his excellent tips.

Technorati Tags: tips, presentation, presentations

Popularity: 13% [?]

update: this post got lost in the drafts so it’s being published a little late.

CNN is reporting a genetic study shows humans nearly went extinct 70,000 years ago. The study says a drought had left the human population possibly as low as 2,000 people in small groups throughout Africa.

It’s pretty amazing to think the human population could get as low as 2,000 people world wide when we have over six and a half billing people living world wide today. Humans have an incredible ability to adapt to changing situations but human extinction is almost a given at some point it time. Makes you wonder what will end up causing it. Drought? Flood? Meteor? Starvation?

… Read the full story here.

Technorati Tags: extinction, genes

Popularity: 12% [?]

Searching the web through Yahoo! just became much safer thanks to a new feature called SearchScan. Every time you search the web using Yahoo you will see warning messages alongside the results alerting you to potentially dangerous websites. What a great feature! Now you have a heads up whenever a site you’re about to visit has the potential to harm your computer!

SearchScan was created through a Yahoo! partnership with the well-known antivirus provider McAfee, leveraging their SiteAdvisor technology! The three main protection features SearchScan offers are as follows:

• Browser Exploits — These are sites that can stealthily harm a user’s computer or install malware simply by visiting the site. Beginning today, any such sites or pages included in McAfee’s data will be removed from search results automatically.
• Dangerous Downloads — SearchScan will display warnings next to search results for sites that offer potentially dangerous software, such as viruses, spyware or adware. Users often may be unaware that these can be passed along with the screensavers, games and other software downloads.
• Unsolicited Email — SearchScan will alert users to scanned sites that send unsolicited emails or inappropriately share email addresses with third parties.

The best part about this feature is that any website known to take advantage of browser exploits will be removed from Yahoo! search results automatically. This means once a problem site is found and reported it will be removed from the Yahoo! index preventing it from infecting other Yahoo! visitors.

Another great idea, SearchScan is turned on automatically so everyone is protected right from the start, you don’t have to do anything. I love this and hope other search engines will jump on the bandwagon soon. A feature like SearchScan has the potential to inform and protect millions of users who don’t know how to recognize potentially harmful sites, WAY TO GO YAHOO!

Technorati Tags: Yahoo!, SearchScan, McAfee, SiteAdvisor

Popularity: 19% [?]

Everyone has sent an e-card at one point or another, you know this usually boring online greeting cards you can email to celebrate a holiday or someones birthday. E-cards are typically quite dull and boring, but they don’t have to be. The next time you look to send an e-card take a look at someecards.com.

Someecards.com has cards for just about any occasion you can think of, plus more. These aren’t your typical e-card though, they range from adult oriented to strange to just plain funny. So if you’re looking for an e-card that’s fun and different, try someecards! Here’s a sample e-card:

Technorati Tags: e-cards, someecards

Popularity: 52% [?]

Mark Hendrickson of TechCrunch.com is reporting that Microsoft has purchased the airfare prediction search engine Farecast.com (confirmed on their blog). Farecast.com, previously talked about here, is an airline flight search engine similar to Kayak.com. It searches across multiple travel sites including the airlines themselves, finding you the best bang for your buck!

Farecast’s claim to fame is their airfare prediction engine that provides and easy to read arrow display that suggest weather your should buy now or wait based on their prediction of whether the price will rise of fall. A confidence level percentage is also shown to help you decide if you would like to follow their advice or not.

Now that Microsoft owns farecast we’ll probably soon see it integrated into the MSN travel site.

Technorati Tags: microsoft, search, farecast

Popularity: 33% [?]

Adobe has launched it’s online version of Photoshop called Photoshop Express. It’s currently a public beta and open for anyone to sign up.

The online Photoshop Express is a nice little photo editor for some of your more basic editing needs but if you’re used to the advanced features of the full blown Photoshop then it’s not for you.

Photoshop Express features 17 editing tools including red-eye removal, crop & rotate, saturation and sharpening (see left). It’s not the greatest selection of edition tools but the ones they do give you are quite nice. It looks like they took a page from Microsoft Office 2007, most of the tools display a row of thumbnail images across the top of your photo, just hover over a thumbnail and you’ll see the effect applied instantly to your image. This is great if you’re not quite sure what a specific tool can do.

The undo capabilities are also great! You have your typical undo and redo arrows but you also have a nice little ribbon like feature that displays a series of thumbnail images with all of the edits you just made. Click on a thumbnail and revert back a that particular point. Unlike most photo editing tools, it’s also easy to remove any particular edit without loosing any of the changes you made after words. All you have to do is remove the little check mark next to the tool and that particular edit is removed, leaving all others in place.

Photoshop Express isn’t just an editing tool though, you also get 2GB worth of storage for an online gallery you can share with friends and family. I have to admit, it’s nice to have 2GG for free, but I’m not all that fond of the gallery, it seems to be lacking in features a bit. You can organize your photos into albums and view the albums as a slide show but there really isn’t much more than that. The search feature is only helpful if you have commented or named each photo. The addition of tagging would make it much easier to keep organized.

Over all, Photoshop Express is a pretty nice little editing tool, especially since you can import directly from other services like flickr, photobucket and picasa. But if you’re and advanced user you’re probably better of with desktop software and if you’re looking for a place to store your images and show them off, I recommend using flickr.com, zooomr.com or picasa web albums, they have many more options when it comes to sharing.

Technorati Tags: Photoshop-Express, photography, adobe

Popularity: 28% [?]