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Steve Bass's Weekly Newsletter
TechBite's columnist Steve Bass writes weekly commentary on the technology products he loves, the strategies for getting the most out of them, and the gotchas that can cause computing misery.
Five Cool Web Services You Have to Try
In This Issue
Readability: Read Web Pages Without Clutter
Reminder Me to Remind You
Tool of the Week: Bounce Bully
Tech Tip of the Week: Stop Start Menu's Drag and Drop
Time Wasters
Another Reminder? Of Course
Readability: Read Web Pages Without Clutter
Junk and clutter: It's the blaring banner ads and annoying boxes that slide across the screen that are ruining the Web. I avoid it all with a smart ad blocker -- Ad Muncher, a miraculous tool.
But there's still a problem.
Web pages aren't designed for reading, and that's one of my pleasures: Reading product and movie reviews, for instance, or devouring John McPhee's lengthy pieces in The New Yorker, or James Fallows (read his old, but still valuable What Was I Thinking? in The Atlantic).
Up until now, I'd click the Print button if the site offered one. Then I discovered Readability, a site that reformats any page of text to conform to your reading style. Set up Readability by choosing a style, font size, and margin width, and then drag the Readability bookmarklet to your browser's toolbar. The next time you're on a Web page you want to read, click the Readability link and the transformation happens immediately. (You can get a better idea by watching the video.)
Arc90 calls Readability an experiment. I say it's a keeper. Get more details at the Readability blog.
Atlantic article before using Readability.
Atlantic article after using Readability.
Reminder Me to Remind You [top]
In a recent newsletter, I wrote about a Web site that calls you with a reminder. Elliot Soloway wrote and said, "Rminder is good, but I don't want a voice reminder -- I want a text message reminder. Anything for me?"
There must be hundreds of text reminding services. They all send text to your cell phone by way of SMS.
Hey, wait. If you're over 25, you're probably wondering, WTF is SMS? You can impress everyone at your next barbecue by explaining that "SMS" stands for Short Message Service. You can also simply astound anyone under 25 by sending an SMS message using shorthand. "PMFI JW - U AAK? WYGAM CM" (Pardon me for interrupting. Just wondering, you alive and kicking? When you get a minute, call me.)
Now back to our regularly scheduled newsletter.
Here are some of the reminder services I like. The first three are no-brainers; the last one, ReQall, is a fancier, ersatz secretarial service and demands your cerebral wherewithal.
TextMemos is quick and easy, but isn't fancy. Stick in your text reminder, the cell provider, date and time, and away you go.
BitBomb is similar to TextMemos, but has neater features, such as a calendar to choose the date and time to send a message and a way to set up group messages.
Call Dial2Do and ask it to send a text message or an e-mail, or post a tweet. Read for FAQ or watch the video for more.
Get ReQall on the horn to add a To-Do to Outlook or Google's calendar, get reminders by e-mail or text, or share a reminder with a friend. There are lots more things you can do.
Tool of the Week: Bounce Bully [top]
You say you're still getting spam? (LOL -- dopey question, I know.)
The truth is that bouncing spam back to the creeps who sent it just isn't worth the trouble. Too often the spammer's address is bogus--and my guess is they wouldn't take the time to remove you from their list. ("Oh, my, Steve Bass's address isn't working any more. I'll just spend my time removing it for the dear boy.")
But what if you have a bozo or two constantly sending you dumber-than-dirt jokes? You know, the kind you didn't find funny even when you were in the fifth grade.
You could politely ask to be removed from their list. I usually say I use my computer primarily for work; my boss (hey, that's me!) snoops in my e-mail, and I don't want to get into trouble.
More fun, though, is to use a program that bounces e-mail back to the putz, showing that your e-mail address no longer exists. And guess what: You can do it with BounceBully. It's a freebie that takes the e-mail you receive and fires it back with all the right language -- saying, essentially, that your e-mail address is no more.
Try it out by sending yourself a test e-mail -- copy and paste the mail into BounceBully, hit Send , and see what happens. [Thanks to Brian D.]
Paste the entire message in BounceBully and send it back.
The e-mail the spammer receives.
Tech Tip of the Week: Stop Start Menu's Drag and Drop [top]
When I travel, I usually bring a mouse so I can avoid the touchpad on my notebook. That's because when I access the Start menu using the touchpad, I always seems to hold onto an item and end up dragging and dropping it into another menu.
Here's the fix: In XP and Vista, right-click the Start Menu tab, click Properties, choose the Start Menu tab and select Customize, and then go to the Advanced tab. In the "Start menu items" window, scroll to "Enable dragging and dropping" and remove its check mark.
How to disable drag and drop in the Start Menu.
Time Wasters [top]
The right way to sneeze, a very smart crow, movie quotes, and a plate of Potachos (thick potato chips covered with cheddar cheese, bacon, tomatoes, onions, ketchup, chives, and sour cream, served with a do-it-yourself stent insertion kit).
Here's a great site called "This is why you're fat." Designed by a cardiologist (just kidding), the site features bacon cinnamon rolls, a hot dog wrapped in American cheese and an eggroll wrapper, and then deep fried, and my favorite, French fries topped with carne asada, guacamole, sour cream, and melted cheese. [Thanks, PhylisSophical.]
Two games to annoy you. Double Wires: Swing like Spiderman. I promise, you won't go far. Not annoying enough? Try Line Rider. It' simple -- just draw a line for your cyclist to ride on.
Double Wires (left)
and Line Rider (right) are sure to drive you nuts.
This guy spent, I dunno, months creating this a cappella tribute to the music of John Williams -- Jaws, ET, Star Wars. Watch as four Corey Vidals sing at once (you know, a cappella), and pay attention to the timing of each one -- and how they look and wait for each other. Way cool.
How smart is a crow? They're brilliant, unbelievably so. (In fact, I've met plenty of people who aren't this sharp...) Watch this crow not only use a tool, but modify the tool. This is really a stunning example of intelligence. Learn more about the crow's behavior in National Geographic's Crow Makes Wire Hook to Get Food.
This is a neat way to kill about 10 minutes -- 100 movie quotes (from 100 different movies) that have the numbers 1 to 100 in them, arranged in order to count backwards. [Thanks, Ken Cox.]
Worried about the swine flu? Me, too, and after watching this Sneezing in Ultra Slow Motion video, I want to hand everyone a box of tissues. Okay, I know this is silly, but my wife (she's a scientist and works in a hospital) passed along a video explaining the proper way to cough and sneeze. It's produced by infectious disease experts and while a little, shall I say extreme, it seems to make sense.
Another Reminder? Of Course [top]
You think we're done? Nope, sorry, there's one more thing I need for you to do. Grab your mouse, point your cursor to the Forward button, and send this newsletter to the cutie at the reception desk and your boss (if you think he'll really understand this), or to your Uncle Marvin. Then ask them all to sign up to get their own copy of my newsletter at
there usual spot: http://www.techbite.com
Steve Bass is the publisher and self-appointed Chief Content Officer at TechBite; he continues to experience the cool feeling of having his own newsletter. Send him your feedback at TechBite.
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Steve's also the author of "PC Annoyances, 2nd Edition: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Personal Computer," available on Amazon. Time to buy a copy. No, I'm serious. Do it now. Don't wait, supplies are limited...
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