OK, so that's debatable. But many people believe that today, 40 years ago, the internet was officially born.

What? You thought the internet was only 20 years old or so? Well, that means you don't know the difference between the internet and the World Wide Web, which is about 20 years old.

We won't go into the details in this post but maybe on one of my other blogs (see my Yovia blog or my Examiner.com page).

The internet was born 40 years ago today, when the first computer to computer message was sent from a computer in a lab at UCLA to Stanford. The message was supposed to say "Login" but the sending computer crashed after "o" so the first message ever sent between computers was "Lo." How profound.

Below is a picture of the internet from CAIDA (The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis):

The internet is WAY COOL, dude! and that is what this board is about...cool stuff.

I don't usually blog about pay services but The Visual Thesaurus is one that can be very valuable to writers...whether you write fiction or non-fiction, even technical writers can benefit from this site.

The site takes the word you enter and shows you a visual representation of all the synonyms, antonyms and related words it has in its database. You can click on any word to put it at the center. In this way, you can find words that not only mean the same thing, but mean "kinda" the same thing. This is especially useful when you can't think of any good words for what you are trying to say. Definitions of words are included as well.

The service free to try but after a search or two you will have to close the browser and start over. But it's very inexpensive and well worth it if you write for a living (or hope to some day).

It's a cool way to find that word that conveys the exact thoughts or feelings you are trying to get across to your readers. It is easier and more thorough than using a standard thesaurus, whether on your desk or your computer desktop.

As writers we are always told "Show, don't tell." This site takes this advice to heart and shows you, it doesn't tell you. Give it a test run and I bet you'll say "kewl."

Did you ever try to remember something you saw online but can't find it anymore? Maybe it's a company that you know has long since gone bust, but there was something on their website that you need to find. Or maybe there is a picture or other information that was once on your company's website that you need to retreive.

 

 

Since 1996, the Internet Archive has been collecting pages from hundreds of thousands, no, make that millions, of websites, taking frequent "snapshots" of the World Wide Web. They are doing this to preserve our cultural history, but the practical benefits are obvious as well.Check out the Wayback Machine and see what you can find. It might bring back some memories.

 

The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organization started to grow to include more well-rounded collections. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in our collections, and is working to provide specialized services relating to training, education, or adaptive reading or information access needs of blind or other persons with disabilities.

--From the About page of The Internet Archive

Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon

by Mark Di Vincenzo

Here is a really cool book that purports to tell you the best time of day, year, etc. to do most anything you can think of like when to buy ketchup, when to defrost your freezer, and when is the best time to take a ride on an airplane. Check it out at amazon.com.

Click the link below:

Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon: A Guide to the Best Time to Buy This, Do That and Go There

You have to watch this video. Almost makes me want an iPhone.

Almost.

I still think I will stick with my Blackberry. But when I have a hankerin' for some BeBot I will go to YouTube.

It's almost Halloween so it's time to get out the knives, scoops, markers and paint and create your masterpiece pumpkin design!

There are tons of resources on the web to help with this but here is one that I found that blows the rest away. Note that there is a small subscription fee to access the entire site, but lots of free patterns are available that will give you lots of great choices.

Check out these cool designs for your pumpkin carving event.

Years ago, there existed a website called Grand Central. Grand Central promised to change the way people use their phones. You can see an archive of Grand Central in the Wayback Machine here.

They came up with lots of cool ideas to indeed change the way people use phones. So along comes Google. Then the Grand Central webpage looked like this. I'll save you the trouble of clicking...Googe bought the fledgling company.

Google changed the name of the site to Google Voice and closed it to new users. Now, a year later, Google has purchased 2 million new phone numbers and opened the site back up (by invitation only, of course).

So what is so great about Google Voice? Here are just a few of the many cool features:

Have a new phone number that rings ALL of your phones at the same time--so you can decide which phone to take the call on.

Once you are on a call, transfer that call to a different phone without interrupting it...the person on the other end won't even know you have changed phones.

Screen calls.

Send a call to voicemail, but listen in as they leave a message and pick up the call if you want.

Have a different voice mail greeting for everyone on your contact list if you want.

Record calls.

Get a transcript of all your voice mails by email. Also get transcripts of all your text messages that you can save.

Call widgets.

There is a lot more. Check out Google Voice for the details and sign up to be on the waiting list for an invitation. Phones can be cool again!

 I have been watching the tweets from Children's Medical Center in Dallas all morning. The doctors at U.T. Southwestern removed a kidney from the abdomen of Chris Gilbreath, father of three-year-old John who will receive the kidney. As I write this, here are the most recent couple of tweets from @ChildrensTheOne:

John is excited to get the chance to go swimming this summer, which is something he couldn't do before the kidney transplant. 2 minutes ago from web.

Dr. Desai and Dr. Mitchell are getting ready to sew in the kidney. 6 minutes ago from web

 

What could be cooler than a father saving the life of his young son? And the whole world being able to see a blow-by-blow account of the whole thing direct from both ORs? It's almost over now, but go back and read the whole series of tweets here.

Just got done moving the site to a new web host. You shouldn't notice ANYTHING, but I was a wee bit concerned about it. The site is growing daily and I didn't want any serious downtime. We were outgrowing the storage and the bandwidth of the old site. And they wanted an arm and a leg to get up to snuff. It was a relatively painless move so we'll get back to posting regularly. Thanks for your patience.

Please tell your friends about the Cool Stuff on thisBlog at thisDomain.com!

Math really can be fun! 

I first learned about the special properties of the number "9" when I was a small boy. I remember thinking how incredibly COOL it was that I could check whether ANY number was divisible by 9 simply by adding up the digits until I ended up with a one or two digit number...and seeing if that result was divisible by 9.

For example, is the number 8,847 divisible by 9? Well let's see. First add up the digits in the number to get what is called the "unitate." The digits are 8, 8, 4 and 7. So 8 + 8 + 4 + 7 = 27. Go ahead and add up the digits of the answer and you get 2 + 7 =9. Since 9 is certainly divisible by 9, so is the original number, 8,847. To see if this trick really works, let's get a calculator.

OK, I got my calculator. Punching in the numbers and dividing by 9 I get the answer 983, with no remainder. So I guess it worked!

How about other tricks like ways to easily multiply any number by 11? or ANY two numbers up to 20 x 20?

There are dozens of these kinds of math tricks out there, and although few people will want to take the time to learn (and practice) them all, I'll just bet you will find a few that you will want to take to heart. And if you have kids, you might want to introduce a few of these tricks to them as well...it just might change the way they feel about math. Math really can be fun!

Here are a few links to some good sites I found...if you search on "mental math" or "cool math tricks" you will find tons more:

http://www.angelfire.com/me/marmalade/mathtips.html

http://wildaboutmath.com/2007/11/11/impress-your-friends-with-mental-math-tricks/

http://ezinearticles.com/?Math-Shortcuts-To-Amaze-Your-Friends&id=423451

A really great book that is chock-full of secrets that will help you and your kids be able to get the right answer faster is Secrets of Mental Math, by Arthur Benjamin. Written by teachers, this book shows you great ways to impress people with your mental mathemagical acuity, but more importantly, it makes math fun. It's a great book to give to your kids to try and get them more interested in math.