|
|
This is mostly just information from the wonderful Gina Trapani and her article on How to Make Your Personal QR Code read it for a more thorough take on the entire subject and great comments. I am mostly just saving the links to the generators so I can find them in a hurry.
I see QR codes everywhere and I wanted one of my own. 
A QR (“quick response”) code is a square barcode that makes getting URLs, location coordinates, any text or contact information onto a phone quickly. With a barcode scanner app installed, you just point your phone’s camera at the code to read its contents.
To find a scanner application, Google “QR Reader” and the model of your phone. There is a short review of them for an iPhone, the model I own, here at splitbrain.
This QR code generator can embed a URL, text, a phone number, or an addressed and ready-to-send SMS message into a QR code.
If you Google “QR code generator” you’ll find others, but beware of generators that force a redirect through their site when someone scans the resulting code and gets a URL.
Drop on over to GetMiro.com and download the new Miro 3.0 which is billed as “Faster, louder, smoother, subtitles!” and upgrade. For those who don’t use Miro to organize and play all your video files as well as subscribe to Hulu, TED and an amazing amount of other feeds, well, why not?
What I am playing with in the shop right now is the new MiroVideoConverter which not only promises to be the easiest way to convert almost anything to an MP4, but also one of the few desktop applications to encode Ogg Theora videos.
I was researching database scraping and the deep web and I ran across this article from Consumerist.com and I haven’t looked up all the information, but it is an interesting list of places to look and see information about oneself.
Employment History Reports
The Work Number
ChoicePoint (866) 312-8075
Acxiom
Abso
Tenant History Reports
ChoicePoint (877) 448-5732
First Advantage SafeRent (888) 333-2413
Tenant Data Services
RentBureau
UD Registry (818) 785-3905
Auto & Home Insurance Claim Reports
ChoicePoint
Insurance Services Office (ISO) (800) 627-3487
Credit Bureaus Reports
Equifax
Experian
Transunion
Innovis
Payment Reporting Builds Credit (PRBC)
Full File Disclosure/Personal Information Reports
ChoicePoint
LexisNexis
Check Writing History Reports
ChexSystems (800) 428-9623
TeleCheck (800) 835-3243.
Shared Check Authorization Network (800) 262-7771 Fax: (800) 358-4506
Health History Reports
Medical Information Bureau (MIB) (866) 692-6901
Prescription Drug Purchase History Reports
Ingenix MedPoint
Milliman IntelliScript
Social Security Statement
Social Security Administration
Purchase Returns History Reports
Retail Equation
Gaming Patron’s Credit History and Transaction Data
Central Credit
Other Reports
TeleTrack
Utilities & Telecommunications Reports
National Consumer Telecom and Utilities Exchange, Inc (NCTUE) Call 1-888-201-5643 for reports
This tool, from Augmented Reality Software, allows you to do the following:
- Capture your Google Maps offline and store them as images on your hard drive
- Print out maps of entire cities at zoom levels that would take hours to put together with the current Google facility
Best of all, this tool is completely FREE!
If you have ever spent hours print screening your Google maps into Paint and stitching them together you NEED this program!
 Image via Wikipedia
This week in utilities I am trying and find to be useful I have Commands in Demand from Vasilios Freeware. This is available here on Download.com. While I notice the Quick Start key sequence is the same as AutoHotKey, resetting it to something useful is fairly easy. I am to lazy and Launchy finds it rapidly enough for me.
• A collection of commands that may be needed instantly for a purpose.
• Commands in Demand provides non-technical users with easy access to more than 100 Windows commands and features that can be hard to find or time consuming to get to. The program includes shortcuts to terminate non-responsive applications, restart Windows Explorer, view/clear the clipboard, open a command prompt in a selected folder, access system folders, view TCP/IP configuration settings, etc.
• It has a selections menu (sections) according to were its commands are related. If a command is related with more than one section and in order to be less confused, you may find the same command buttons more than one times.
XBMC was a bust for me to use. It simply had too many issues with configuring my graphics for very little payback. I continue to use my HPMediaVault with extra software.
This week I am installing Fedora 12 and Storytlr In The Shop.
From the Storytlr Site:
Storytlr is an open source lifestreaming and micro blogging platform. You can use it for a single user or it can act as a host for many people all from the same installation.
What we offer to user
What does Storytlr offer to its users?
Bring your content together:
* Import your web 2.0 life: Pick your sources and they will appear as a lifestream directly on your site. We currently support the following services: Delicious, Digg, Disqus, Flickr, Google Reader, Identi.ca / Laconi.ca, Last.fm favorites, Picasa, Qik, RSS Feeds, Seesmic, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Twitpic pictures in Twitter tweets, Twitter, Vimeo, Youtube Favorites
* Post anything you want: In just a few simple steps you can update your status, share a song you liked, give your opinion or link to an interesting site.
Mashup your data into stories
Tell your stories in a new way: Photo albums are old school! Pick your sources, start and end date and your story is good to go. If necessary you can tweak it for a better flow.
Reinvent your homepage
Choose your own style: Pick from a range of compelling templates that are easy to customize.
No prominent service branding: It is all about you, so you will not find big logos or fixed brand colors on storytlr.
Pick or use your own domain name: You are free to use any domain you want.
Quotes
What did others think of Storytlr:
“They’ve done a fantastic job with both concept and implementation.” – ReadWriteWeb
“Put it all together, and you?ve got a serious competitor to Tumblr and other lifestreaming applications.” – Mashable
“Storytlr remains a unique service among so much social media noise.” – Ars Technica
“This is a cool and different visual approach to lifestreams.” – TheNextWeb
Related articles
In the shop today:
Playing with XBMC to see if I like it to stream media from a variety of sources including an HP MediaVault. Check back in a couple of days and see how it is going.
From the XBMC website:
XBMC is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. XBMC is available for Linux, OSX, Windows, and the original Xbox. Created in 2003 by a group of like minded programmers, XBMC is a non-profit project run and developed by volunteers located around the world. More than 50 software developers have contributed to XBMC, and 100-plus translators have worked to expand its reach, making it available in more than 30 languages.
While XBMC functions very well as a standard media player application for your computer, it has been designed to be the perfect companion for your HTPC. Supporting an almost endless range of remote controls, and combined with its beautiful interface and powerful skinning engine, XBMC feels very natural to use from the couch and is the ideal solution for your home theater.
Currently XBMC can be used to play almost all popular audio and video formats around. It was designed for network playback, so you can stream your multimedia from anywhere in the house or directly from the internet using practically any protocol available. Use your media as-is: XBMC can play CDs and DVDs directly from the disk or image file, almost all popular archive formats from your hard drive, and even files inside ZIP and RAR archives. It will even scan all of your media and automatically create a personalized library complete with box covers, descriptions, and fanart. There are playlist and slideshow functions, a weather forecast feature and many audio visualizations. Once installed, your computer will become a fully functional multimedia jukebox.
It is difficult to put into words all that XBMC can do, head to the gallery to see some examples, or take the plunge and Try it Today.
|
|
