just an asterisk

I’m going to make a few assumptions – I assume that you are no longer using VHS tapes.  I’ll assume that your children don’t play an Atari console with fake wood paneling.  Moreover, I’m going to take it for granted that you’ve probably purchased one of these “cellular” phones.  Come on, you’ve evolved.  Admit it.    Now it’s time to take the next step – online video is waiting for you and it’s very, very good. Read more »

This is a direct response to a question I received recently from Catherine (THANKS CATHERINE!). Anyone can post questions to posts@justanasterisk.com and I’ll do my darnedest to get a response out.
There are two parts to every file on your computer. There’s the stuff you put there (for example, your treatise on the application of gossip girl’s lessons in the middle eastern conflict) and the stuff the computer put there (a bunch of code). This division even exists in the titles, the name of the file is divided (by a little period) between your title and a little extension (EXE, DOC, JPG, GIF, AZK etc). Read more »

It turns out that the most popular post I’ve written was my last one “for  the ladies”, so I figured I throw in a late follow up…  proving how little I actually know about women…

A bit of voyeuristic fun – I bet you didn’t know about this part of Craig’s List. This one is fun too…

And another bit of the same gossipy sites as last time -gossip girls - knocked up celebs – LA Pretty

And you probably know about Apartment Therapy… but Real Simple has a great site (check out the check lists)

How about this strange lady?

And finally at political lady if, for some reason you were hoping for serious content…

Not nearly as punchy as the first group, but I think that they’ll do..

~ab

What are these things and why are they in every device I have???

Actually, they are not in everything.  Plenty of your stuff has a good old-fashioned harddrive in it.  However, your MP3 player (not ipods), your digital camera, and even your cell phone might be remembering for you on flash memory.  So why not learn a snippet or two about flash memory and SD cards?   Read more »

Recently, I traded my brother for an old Dell laptop. For a while, I had dreamed of converting a laptop into a photoframe. I’d seen others do it, various blog posts on techniques, etc. However, my hope was to just “figure it out” rather than starting with the experience of someone else. Below is a picture of the result…
Why would you want to do this? Plenty of reasons! Read more »

Published from London – yay jetlag…
Your documents are trapped. Contained within your computer or on a thumb-drive, the copies of your work quickly multiply, especially if you try to share a document or if you work in several locations. Want an example? Let’s say you write a word document on your PC (copy 1). A friend asks you to share it, so you put in a thumb drive (copy 2) and your friend copies onto their computer (copy 3). Not convinced? How about when your friend gives you back the edit (copy 4) in an email (copy 5) which you download to your computer (copy 6)? You’ve now created 6 copies of a document when there were only 2 real transactions – you asked for feedback and you received it. If you were using paper, you’d just pass the paper over and receive the feedback on the same page. Why is it so different and complicated when performed digitally?

Google (as always) feels our pain. Google Docs provides an alternative to the madness of the above scenario. This is software that you don’t have to install (if you were really paying attention it’s a thin client) and if you have a Gmail account, you’re already signed up and ready to go. Your documents are available online; everywhere you have an internet connection. There are three services available in the Docs family and each has good features worth knowing about. Read more »

Drop.io (which I pronounce drop eee oh but I’m honestly not sure…) is a site for sharing files. The limit of your “drop” is 100MB (To put it into context, my masters thesis was a word document with a few hundred pictures and it was 30MB). You upload a file, click share and a link is provided. This is what drop.io does best and it’s the core of their service.
However, in one board meeting, someone must have asked if they could add a feature or two, or five or ten… What they added makes Drop.io a fantastic service for oooooh so many reasons. Here’s a rundown of what it does: Read more »

I received a Kindle 2 for Christmas – or rather 2 and ½ months later, when Amazon announced its second reading device, updated my order and shipped. If you’ve never heard of the kindle, check out this quick video introduction.

There has been a flurry of articles recently by new kindle owners, desperate to reinforce the permanence of paper and to cynically point out that the new Kindle still isn’t perfect. The Just an Asterisk perspective? Well the first thing I downloaded to read was Malcolm Gladwell’s new book “Outliers”, in which he describes an outlaw that was “just dumb enough to be fearless, just bright enough to be dangerous and a dead shot”. I think we can describe the Kindle with the same terms. Read more »

How many bank accounts, credit card accounts and other financial services do you consult online? Two years ago, my personal answer was probably more than 3. I had a bank account and at least two credit cards, each with separate websites and I would open a few windows at once to try to get a picture of my finances. I found it incredibly frustrating to flip between services when I wanted to pay bills. I even considered switching my cards/accounts to one company, just so that I wouldn’t feel so scattered… I was so desperate for a consolidated view of my money, that when I heard about Mint.com, I signed up on the first day. Read more »