the soupmenu

why is it soo much fun to play with google maps? map sites have been around forever. satalite sites have been around forever. there’s just something about google maps where you send someone a link of something and the next thing you know, you are trading links of satalite images of all kinds of different stuff.

this pic makes me sad…makes me miss home….isn’t the corn so cute ? doesn’t this small town look so nice and quaint ?

watseka illinois (this picture is (c) google inc.)

i always think of such great heights when i see satalite shots of the midwest, where ben gibbard speaks of ‘patchwork farms’…it’s truly the best way to describe it. i remember flying from seattle to chicago last summer and just being amazed at the view of farms in midwest..so pretty. sometime soon i think i’m going to post about all of the things that are different in illinois and florida. and maybe some stuff about what i miss about illinois and what i’ll miss about florida…..but not tonight. wow..i’m really good of thinking about blog ideas…posting them…then never writing them out. i guess it’s an area for improvement. enjoy the pic…have a great night.

here’s an interesting thing….a friend actually did not want to talk to me, because she was able to catch up with what was going on in my life via this blog. therefore we had no reason to talk on the phone. quite interesting how i’m getting neglected by having a blog. hehe.

firefox
i’m not sure if i really need to go into the full firefox rant. i believe i have told most everyone about the program and why they need it. but here it goes again.

firefox is an open-source browser that is built off of code originating from the mozilla project (which can actually be traced back to the university of illinois). while i have been using firefox for a while now, it has reached a level where anyone can feel safe, secure, and at home with firefox. the interface of firefox without a new skin is very similar to the IE interface and many parents have found it easy to use Just some of the reasons to get firefox are that firefox is faster than IE, better at popup blocking than IE, faster with security updates than IE, and totally customizeable. while you may not see the need to switch over, by people simply switching over microsoft has finally sped up the development of IE. so at the very least everyone should be downloading firefox so the development of IE actually moves forward as opposed to the current path of the software. i’m talking about ie too much…back to firefox. tabbed-browsing, keyboard shortcuts, and live bookmarks make firefox so much more efficient than other browsers. after you install firefox, you must look for the themes and extensions to make firefox the best browser for you. this is where firefox is truly amazing. the range and quality of extensions for firefox make the program so much more than a simple browser.

here is my list of essential extensions..
1)auto copy – this makes it so that whenever you highlight text it will automatically copy the text to the clipboard. i’ll admit at first i thought i would hate this. after using it it has become the most usefull plug in. this plug in makes copying text back and forth between websites and documents a million percent faster. if you ever need it not to copy, simply click the icon in the lower right and it will disable it. no commitment.

2)gmail notifier – simple plug in that sits in the corner and will alert you when you have new mail in gmail…small…simple…great. one click and you will be in your gmail inbox and reading the new msg.

3)fireftp – most recent addition to my plug-in list. this is a full-featured ftp client that opens up in a new tab. it’s wonderful to have a normal ftp interface (not IE drag and drop) right inside of your browser.

4)ieview – i won’t lie. some pages are designed for IE and will not let you in without using it. but for that one page out of 10000, this plug in makes it easy to use IE. this creates a ‘view page in IE’ command for the right-click menu. works wonderfully. you can right click…see the page..and close IE in seconds.

5)bettersearch – this plug in makes it so that whenever you search in any major search engine, that when the results page pops up you get small screenshots right next to the link of the result. this makes searching much more efficient since you can see what type of page you are going to visit before even clicking a result

6)nuke anything – this one does what it says. it makes a new right-click command where you can remove anything from a webpage. if you are sick of an ad, or do not like a certain text box or graphic…simply right click and remove it from the page. don’t worry…if you refresh the page everything will go back to normal.

7)stumbleupon – the last one…but the most fun one. stumbleupon creates a new toolbar where you can give any webpage and thumbs up or down. as you search stumbleupon creates a profile of what you like and are interested in and then compares it to other people with similar interests. at anytime you can click the stumble button and be taken to a random website. i’ve found many interesting websites this way that i never would have found…..great times.

as for theme’s i’m currently using Pinball by david james…it’s sleek and smooth…i like it a lot. my other favorite is ‘noia 2.0 extreme’, it’s really cartoony, but really attractive. Here is a screenshot of my beatiful firefox….how will you customize yours ?

some other time i will get into some of the wonderful shortcuts contained in firefox!

so my ideo project is submitted. everything came together quite well in my opinion. now we just wait and see. the whole experience of putting everything together and working with everything to get it developed and edited was great. enough about that though. i now finally have some time again. no more trips. no more presentations. the only thing i have left with school is one final that is a week away. it was really odd having my last week of class…really sad. i know i will be back for grad school, but its just the classic feeling of turning the page on a period of life that i will never fully return to again. as you probably can see since i have time i’ve gotten back to nerddom. i have updated the template on this nice little blog. i think this looks more attractive. i will try to do some more edits to it to make it different and more personalized, but i need to refine my html and css knowlege in the process. i have added a bunch of links…i tried to put a lot of the links i visit regularly or links of significance. yet again i will try to write more spring break and illinois stories…but they are coming along slowly. i need to do it before my memory fails me though.

i really enjoy the fact that i graduate on 05-05-05. easy to remember. the night will be fun being the cinco. and it adds up to 15. (sidenote: it’s really interesting how through school and just society in general we always must put things in three….every kind of list must have at least three things, essays with three reasons, oh no…i’m doing it again. it just seems engraved that that’s how you talk/write….’i like/mean/want this because of a, b, and c.’ i wonder if there’s any cultures that are build on 5…where you always have to list five things…that would be rough) i still somehow am enjoying the uncertainty of my life coming up. i am just over a week from graduation and have no clue where i will be in two months from now. big dave keeps on pitching the idea of traveling this summer. i am warming up to it more and more. if the graduation fairy puts a few quarters under my pillow i might just book a flight and go. wherethehellismatt.com would be proud. i like this post…so i will stop here.

link of the day:
hp has paper that you can print on…and then peel and stick it on your ipod. basically it’s a removable tattoo for your ipod. pretty good idea considering how crazy people are towards a) the look of their ipod, b) ipod accessories, and c) stickers

http://zmamgmwspro05-f.tay.hp.com/activitycenter/us/en/music/tattoo

i’m not sure what i’d put on mine. i would have to buy an ipod first. but maybe i’d put a picture of a cornfield…maybe a picture of some food… or maybe something that looks like the inside of my pocket(camo)

next post:
firefox and essential plug-ins: why you need firefox…and what plug ins make it one of the best software programs out there right now!