Daily Twaddle

Ever wonder if your payment went through okay? I’m a little nervous that something might go wrong when all I see on the screen after I click “BUY” is:

Thank you for your order

Well, I just received the coolest online confirmation of payment! It looks just like a real receipt! This picture is a bit smaller than the original (for my blog-loading-speed purposes). I purchased Overflow for my Mac 0S X.5 (Leopard) because stacks takes too much time to customize.

It’s nerve-racking to give up my credit card information online (which is why I prefer PayPal). But this cute little receipt made me happy! I’m impressed with this website’s creativity - thoughtful all the way until the end!

I’m a bit of a simpleton.

I started to change the default icon of all my folders on my computer’s hard drive. I want to be able to quickly find a folder. It takes longer to scan through words than it does to scan through images.

So, I found an awesome website with free icon downloads for your computer. They’re not freeware, shareware or demo. They’re for use on one, personal computer (so don’t print these icons, don’t email them, and for god-sakes… don’t use them on your website!)

My favorite is Chocolate Folders by Saho. I was really surprised by the quality of all the icons on this website (Macs and PCs). They’re quite sophisticated. Shoot! I just downloaded some more. I’m addicted. So beware of Interfacelift if you like to customize your computer!

You know, I’m looking for a specific icon. I want a folder with money hanging out of it. Or a dollar sign - something moneyish. I want to change my finances folder to look like a folder about finances. I came across an XP icon for MS Money. But I don’t know how to make my Mac use a .ico file as a Mac icon. I’ll have to research it a little bit.

Picasa is a free software download from Google that organizes pictures on your computer. It’s like iTunes for photographs.

* Locate and organize all the photos on your computer.
* Edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks.
* Share your photos with others through email, prints, and on the web.

One of my clients installed Picasa and “starred” his favorite photos and added captions. Then I signed him up with a google account so he can get free online web albums. He selects the photos he wants, pushes one button - and bang! Those images are online in his web album. A little green arrow is displayed on the picture which means the picture was uploaded. Now he doesn’t wonder which photos are on his website - the green arrow tells him!

He used to email me the pictures. What a pain in the arse! Now, I just click my bookmark (to his album) and download the pictures for his website - including captions! Or, I can get a “feed” to my google reader which notifies me when new pictures are added.

Mommy - you should download this program also. This is probably the easiest way for me to get images on your website. You don’t even have to organize them in some special folder. Just select the image and click the web album button! It takes one to two minutes to upload each photo on dial up.

Find out more about Picasa »

Note: For Windows 2000/XP/Vista only.

This is in reference to my last post “Should I give up on Satellite TV?”

I did some research about episode downloads and my mom is right. All my favorite shows (full episodes) are available to watch for free on the Network’s website. Fox is the only network that doesn’t participate. They only have American Idol anyway. Which is started to suck anyway.

Here is a list of my top favorite shows in order of what I won’t miss, to what I might miss if I have to.

1. Heroes. An epic drama that chronicles the lives of ordinary people who discover they possess extraordinary abilities.
   ★I had to give this one a star!NBC
2. Monk. An obsessive compulsive detective solves impossible crimes. USA
3. How I Met Your Mother. A comedy similar to Friends narrated by the main character to his kids. But it’s not about how he met their mother. CBS
4. Desperate Housewives. A nighttime soap opera. ABC
5. Ugly Betty. A comedy about an ugly girl who works at a fashion magazine. ABC
6. Psych. A comdedy/drama about a guy with a photographic memory who pretends to be physic to solve crimes. USA
7. 30 Rock (with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin). A workplace comedy where the workplace exists behind-the-scenes of a live variety show. NBC
8. The New Aventures of Old Cristine. (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) A comedy about a single mother and owner of a “30-minute workout gym” who is the portrait of the new American mom. CBS
9. The Black Donnellys. A crime drama series about four Irish brothers’ sudden involvement in organized crime, focusing on how they go from boys to mobsters. NBC
10. Rules of Engagement. (With David Spade) A comedy about the married life, a new couple and the one single guy. CBS
11. Two and a Half Men. A comedy about a single man who lets his brother and nephew move in with him. CBS

Here is a list of mentionables, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch them. But I enjoy watching them when they’re on. They’re in no particular order.

• The King of Queens. CBS
• The Class. CBS
• Saturday Night Live. NBC
• Scrubs. ABC
• My Name is Earl. NBC
• According to Jim. ABC
• Ellen. ABC
• American Idol. Fox
• Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? Fox

Two of my favorite shows are Monk and Psych from USA Network (owned by NBC). Full “webisodes” are free if you have an Intel® Viiv™ technology based-PC or an Intel® Centrino® mobile technology based-notebook. Which I don’t have. I do have an intel duo processor in my Mac. But I lack IE, Windows and those two processors.

I can download them from iTunes for $1.99 each episode. Which equates to $16 a month if a new one airs each week.

I have 256 fonts installed on my computer. And the number keeps growing. Even if you’re not a designer and you want to print a flyer or bulletin for work, the right font will set the tone. You don’t want to use a comical font on a serious warning right?

But which font do you choose? Jeese louise. Go through each font one at a time and it might take you an hour to choose the best font! But what if there was a program that lets you type in your sentence then styles that sentence in each of the fonts in one window. Fantastic right?

Well check out FontDoc. It’s awesome (and free)! It requires Mac OSX (sorry Windows users, better luck next time).

Also, if you’re looking for cool free fonts, get them at Urban Fonts or Font Freak. They have lots of free (shareware) fonts. Some of them require an email to the creator if you commercially use the font. But they’re still free.

I’ve downloaded lots of freeware, shareware stuff from the internet. There are a few things that I just love and would be willing to purchase at an outrageous price - but lucky for me, they’re free. Well, the developer lives off donations. Which he probably doesn’t get.

There is one photoshop plugin (ICO) that allows me to create favicons just by choosing the file type when saving in photoshop. Love it. Love it, love it, love it.

I haven’t made a new favicon since I switched computers because I bought Fireworks instead. But I don’t like it. I switched back to Photoshop last week. And I downloaded this wonderful plugin again. But this time I donated some cash.

Maybe I’ll do that more often. It’s only five bucks. I should donate to FireFTP.