Pandora totally Rocks...
I’ve been tinkering with Pandora the last couple of days, and I am hooked. For the uninitiated, Pandora is an online streaming music service that suggests additional music based off your initial suggestions and your opinion of what it plays. The operators of the service have catalogued tens of thousands of songs based off distinguishable criteria. The result is effective: in the first hour of use, I discovered several new bands I love based off one song of input.
Further, while a song is playing, you can either tell Pandora that you like the song, don't like the song, or you can add it to your favorites. It keeps track of songs you mark as favorites. With all of this information, your Pandora radio station evolves to your tastes. If you like more than one genre of music, you can add multiple radio channels for each genre. It's just a fun, cool, very likable tool (omigosh, I rhymed again—what's with me today?). Check it out and see what music Pandora helps you discover!
Konfabulator, now Yahoo! Widgets
Yahoo! widgets have completely changed the way I use my computer on a daily basis. For those of you who don't already know what a widget is, they are "little files that can do pretty much whatever you want them to. Widgets can be alarm clocks, calculators, can tell you your WiFi signal strength, will fetch the latest stock quotes for your preferred symbols, and even give your current local weather." The great thing about Yahoo widgets is that you can run as many as you want, but they don't slow down your computer; and of course the best thing is that they are completely free.
For instance, I’ve got a MiniPlayer, a compact and tiny audio player, on my desktop right now that plays music from my PC or the radio whenever I click it. I have a Day Planner that tells me what I need to do today and a Zonal Clock to know the time in different time zones around the world.
Soduku: My latest Addiction
I confess I am addicted to Soduku these days. I do them while travelling to work. I do them at home when I'm watching TV. I do them when I should be sleeping. I can't stop. It's a fixation. I've become obsessive-compulsive about them.
I just discovered Web Sudoku, where there are, seriously, billions of puzzles. In four difficulty settings. All fully printable. I do, maybe, six of these a day at work, when I have actual work I should be doing. On days when I'm bored, don't even get me started. Now I understand why this Japanese brainteaser has taken the world by storm. The only way to get over this game is probably to start the next one, Kakuro, which is supposedly more difficult than Soduku.
Another time pass has been my Rubik's cube....I have re-discovered the joy of playing with it after almost 2 decades, and trying to understand the mathematics behind solving it.
I’ve been tinkering with Pandora the last couple of days, and I am hooked. For the uninitiated, Pandora is an online streaming music service that suggests additional music based off your initial suggestions and your opinion of what it plays. The operators of the service have catalogued tens of thousands of songs based off distinguishable criteria. The result is effective: in the first hour of use, I discovered several new bands I love based off one song of input.
Further, while a song is playing, you can either tell Pandora that you like the song, don't like the song, or you can add it to your favorites. It keeps track of songs you mark as favorites. With all of this information, your Pandora radio station evolves to your tastes. If you like more than one genre of music, you can add multiple radio channels for each genre. It's just a fun, cool, very likable tool (omigosh, I rhymed again—what's with me today?). Check it out and see what music Pandora helps you discover!
Konfabulator, now Yahoo! Widgets
Yahoo! widgets have completely changed the way I use my computer on a daily basis. For those of you who don't already know what a widget is, they are "little files that can do pretty much whatever you want them to. Widgets can be alarm clocks, calculators, can tell you your WiFi signal strength, will fetch the latest stock quotes for your preferred symbols, and even give your current local weather." The great thing about Yahoo widgets is that you can run as many as you want, but they don't slow down your computer; and of course the best thing is that they are completely free.
For instance, I’ve got a MiniPlayer, a compact and tiny audio player, on my desktop right now that plays music from my PC or the radio whenever I click it. I have a Day Planner that tells me what I need to do today and a Zonal Clock to know the time in different time zones around the world.
Soduku: My latest Addiction
I confess I am addicted to Soduku these days. I do them while travelling to work. I do them at home when I'm watching TV. I do them when I should be sleeping. I can't stop. It's a fixation. I've become obsessive-compulsive about them.
I just discovered Web Sudoku, where there are, seriously, billions of puzzles. In four difficulty settings. All fully printable. I do, maybe, six of these a day at work, when I have actual work I should be doing. On days when I'm bored, don't even get me started. Now I understand why this Japanese brainteaser has taken the world by storm. The only way to get over this game is probably to start the next one, Kakuro, which is supposedly more difficult than Soduku.
Another time pass has been my Rubik's cube....I have re-discovered the joy of playing with it after almost 2 decades, and trying to understand the mathematics behind solving it.
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