Four tips on getting the most out of your scroll wheel

Most of you who have a computer mouse probably use the scroll wheel to go up and down long web pages such as this one. It’s a godsend to the world of technology, but even so, it is oft neglected. You can show your scroll wheel how much you appreciate it in three easy ways:

1. Use it to open a new tab

The obvious way to open a new tab would be to click that + sign, but did you know you can open a new tab simply by middle-clicking on the empty space to the right of the “+”? It’s amazing, try it out! And yes, it works on browsers other than Firefox.

2. Use it to close a tab

Similarly to #1, middle-clicking on a tab will close it. No more mousing over a tab and trying to find the X.

3. Open links in a new tab

Mouse over a link, and middle-click on it. It will open in a new tab. No more right click -> Open in new tab!

And last but not least…

4. Open a new window

(For Windows users only)

Normally, you would open a new application window by left-clicking or doing right-click -> Open New Window. The middle mouse button replaces the latter. Middle-click on an application icon, and it will open a new window.

Taking time to appreciate the scroll wheel will increase your happiness and decrease your stress. Now that you know what it can do for you, use it to its full potential!

Making the most of your USB: Autorun.inf

Does that window look familiar? Ever wish you could customize it with options such as:

• opening a file,
• opening a website, or
• running a program?

Guess what?

You can. And here’s how!

Why technology scares me

Here I am, sitting in my car as a passenger, heading home from a friend’s concert. I’m using this iPhone to post to my blog, I have google maps loaded, and it’s tracking this car’ down to the meter via gps. Meanwhile, on another tab, safari is loaded on twitter and gmail, and every time I pull down the page it refreshes with my latest tweets and emails.

And this is all on an iPhone.

Sometimes, it’s scary to think about how far technology has come these days. The world of technology is growing at an exponential rate, and there seems to be no sign of slowing down. Will we be become completely reliant on cellphones, tablets, and laptops?

Here are some other aspects of technology that I look forward to, but at he same time, have a slight fear of:

-sapient robots that have human emotions and can learn like a human being.
-computer chips embedded with in us instead of credit cards
-adding a hard drive to the brain to record every waking moment from birth to death
-security cameras and sensors everywhere that know where you are, what you’re doing, and who you’re with

1984 may be closer than we think.

Interactive Project: The Hello Wall

This is another example of a great project that uses social networking crowd-sourcing. I re-discovered this while looking through my Twitter following list. Check it out:

The project gathers @replies and mentions from Twitter, and displays an animation on a giant screen mounted on a building based on users’ tweets. (When it first came out, it was mounted in London, but now, it’s looking for a place to stay.)

Random keyboard shortcuts

I don’t know about you, but I’m more of a keyboard user than a mouse user. I can navigate a computer much faster with a keyboard. This is why I’m really big on keyboard shortcuts. For example, I really despise people who don’t know Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V (or Cmd, for Mac users) and instead use the mouse. Copy and paste is something that everyone knows, but here’s a few that you probably don’t.

Windows 7

• Alt + Ctrl + Tab: Similar to Alt + Tab, but when you let go of Tab, your “window selector” remains there
• WinKey + Space: Makes all active windows transparent letting you see the desktop.
• WinKey + D: Minimizes all active windows, showing the desktop
• WinKey + [number]: Will launch a program from the start bar. Pressing number “x” will launch the x^th program from the left.

Firefox 3.6 +

• Ctrl + Tab: Fast way of switching tabs, will give tab previews like Alt + Tab
• Ctrl + [number]: Switches to the x^th
  tab from the left, x being the number
• Ctrl + J: Shows the Downloads window

If there’s any more keyboard shortcuts that I missed, leave a comment.

San Francisco, Day 2

Day 2 wasn’t such a big day. We didn’t go anywhere, except to a theatre. After that it was a gigantic pizza party and then I did some homework.

Since nothing much really happened, I’ll show you some of the businesses around our hotel in Silicon Valley.

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Not pictured: NASA, DataDomain, Apple, and Google

Why I really hate Wikipedia administrators

Wikipedia administrators have turned Wikipedia into an online totalitarian regime, and no one is doing a darn thing about it.