Essential sites for tips and how-to’s
Mashable lists 10 sites you’ll want to visit for tips and how-tos for just about anything.
Includes instructables — the world’s biggest show and tell; About.com — which covers a wide variety of topics; eHow “How to do just about everything”; and more.
Best free software programs
Here’s another 10 essentials you’ll want to know about. The best free software is explored at Tech News World. [via iLibrarian]
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The list includes:
The latter explains how contained the various fires are, how many acres are involved, and gives information about the properties threatened.
From the Google map you can select named fires in the right-hand column and a pop-up appears on the map with detailed information, including the date and time of the last update. Another advantage of this map is that it shows highways, and therefore is particularly useful if you are traveling in the northern part of the state where most of the fire danger exists.
If you must travel by air, it’s good to know about airfare pricing rules and about services such as Farecast that help you know when to buy.
Some of the basic rules are fairly well-known, such as Europe is expensive in summer, and traveling mid-week is usually cheaper than on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
But did you know that a fare found on Saturday night may be cheaper on Tuesday? And unless you are traveling during a holiday season (when you need to buy as far ahead as possible), the cheapest time to buy your ticket is likely to be 2 to 8 weeks in advance.
As airlines continue to cut capacity, it will be interesting to see whether any of these rules change, or whether it will just be that all tickets are more costly.
Check out these tips by Farecast founder Oren Etzioni in this Wired Mazazinearticle.
A bill supporting legal amnesty to telecoms that aided the government’s warrantless wiretapping program was passed in the House of Representatives last Friday. The question arises, who do they “represent?”
Wired Network Blog reports that of the 220 Democratic members of the House who voted against telecom amnesty in March, 94 switched their vote last Friday, “supporting a bill ironed out by the House leadership that expands the government’s ability to conduct blanket wiretaps inside American telecom facilities and freeing those companies from the 40 or so lawsuits pending in Federal court.”
MAPLight.org analyzed the contributions from telecom political action groups to Congress and found that 88 percent of the Democrats who changed to supporting immunity (83 Dems of the 94) received PAC contributions from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint during the last three years (Jan. 2005-Mar. 2008). Those who switched their votes received, on average, 40 percent more money in campaign contributions over the last three years from Sprint, Verizon and AT&T’s political action committees.
For instance, those who changed their votes collected $8,359 dollars from those PACs from January 2005 through March 2008, while those who did not change their opposition collected $4,987.
For all House members, including Republicans, those supporting immunity collected nearly twice as much money from those PACs than those who did not: $9,659 to $4,810.
MAPlight.org did not say that any member’s vote was purchased, but says the correlation raises questions. MAPLight.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks all campaign contributions given to members of Congress, and how every member of Congress votes on every bill, “revealing connections between money and politics never before possible to see,” they say. Photo by Mysterious Mimir. Creative Commons license.
California fires map
Google Lat Long Blog has a map of the many fires currently plaguing California. More thunderstorms (with potential lightning strikes) are in the forecast. Find the danger zones here.
Web2book for offline viewing of web pages, RSS feeds
Free Windows-only Web2book helps you read web pages, Wikipedia articles and RSS feeds offline. You can download and convert RSS feeds, Web sites, Project Gutenberg books, Wikipedia entries, Crossword Compiler crossword, Microsoft Reader .Lit files, and other sources into other formats such as HTML, RTF, LRF or PDF files. [via Digital Inspiration]
30+ updated Firefox 3 extensions
Mashable lists the most useful updated Firefox 3 extensions for you. Covers social bookmarking and many more.
At a hearing yesterday, advocacy groups and legal experts told Congress that it was unreasonable for federal officials to search the laptops of United States citizens when they re-enter the country from traveling abroad, reports the New York Times.
The federal government says the searches are necessary for national security. In April, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Customs and Border Protection agency could conduct searches without reasonable suspicion.
“If you asked most Americans whether the government has the right to look through their luggage for contraband when they are returning from an overseas trip, they would tell you ‘yes, the government has that right,’ ” Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said at the hearing of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.
“But,” Mr. Feingold continued, “if you asked them whether the government has a right to open their laptops, read their documents and e-mails, look at their photographs and examine the Web sites they have visited, all without any suspicion of wrongdoing, I think those same Americans would say that the government absolutely has no right to do that.”
There is particular concern among civil rights advocates that believe certain ethnic groups are being targeted, especially Muslims, but there is also concern among companies with employees who regularly travel abroad.
“In today’s wired, networked and borderless world, one’s office no longer sits within four walls or a cubicle; rather, one’s office consists of a collection of mobile electronic devices such as a laptop, a BlackBerry, PDA, and a cellphone,” said Susan K. Gurley, executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. She said the seizures and searches meant that “you may find yourself effectively locked out of your office indefinitely.”
Read more at the Center for American Progress site. Photo by lonelysandwich. Creative Commons license.
Five states, plus the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, ban talking on a cell phone while driving (or will as of July 1), unless you use a hands-free headset. Most of those states, plus 14 others, ban all cell phone use for novice drivers.
Text messaging, on the other hand, is only banned in Alaska, Washington state, Minnesota and New Jersey. Maybe other states think drivers have enough common sense not to try texting while driving. One wonders whether you can count on that.
California and Washington are among the states implementing the ban on holding a cell phone to your ear while driving as of July 1. There is always the question about whether your brain is fully engaged in driving, even if your hands are, but I guess talking on the phone is just one more potential distraction among many that drivers face.
In the meantime, purveyors of hands-free devices, notably bluetooth headsets, are stepping up advertising, and a number of Internet sites are reviewing options for those of us who might now be in the market.
Wired describes four bluetooth headsets here, listing pros and cons and price range.
PC Magazine recently reviewed bargain-priced bluetooth headsets.
Of course you can find more reviews using a search engine. Just be sure to check out the date of the review (as well as the source) so you get good up-to-date information.
Do you remember when Flickr teamed with Moo to introduce mini calling cards with your selected photo on one side and your contact info on the other? Now Moo is getting ready to bring you regulation size business cards to relieve the boredom of the ordinary.
You can sign up for the newsletter and receive 20% off your first order when the cards are launched. See what it is all about in the clever video “Introducing Moo Business Cards” below. [via Web Worker Daily]
Creative Commons (CC) licenses provide for a variety of means through which creators can share their work while retaining some control over it. The case study database is a way to learn from the experiences of others about how well this type of licensing works.
Creative Commons Business and Community Development Manager Jon Phillips says that the database has been in the works for months and was contributed to by quite a few CC community members.
“The breadth of examples already available is very commendable and many of them are quite well developed. The one thing we wish was included in each profile is some discussion of the distribution metrics of each project and any information available about the CC license’s impact on those metrics,” notes RWW. “We expect that this database will prove very useful for people all around the world and for the Creative Commons Foundation.”
If you haven’t downloaded Firefox 3 yet, this may be the time to do it. Mashable has found the newest compatible themes so that you can customize your browser to suit yourself.
Themes are created by an open source community, so not very many have been updated yet to comply with Firefox 3 which was launched on June 17. These links include:
Essential sites for tips and how-to’s
Fires continue to flare in California as dry lightning threatens parched country. More storms are expected.
If you must travel by air, it’s good to know about airfare pricing rules and about services such as 
A bill supporting legal amnesty to telecoms that aided the government’s warrantless wiretapping program was passed in the House of Representatives last Friday. The question arises, who do they “represent?”
California fires map
At a hearing yesterday, advocacy groups and legal experts told Congress that it was unreasonable for federal officials to search the laptops of United States citizens when they re-enter the country from traveling abroad, 
Five states, plus the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, 
Do you remember when Flickr teamed with Moo to introduce mini calling cards with your selected photo on one side and your contact info on the other? Now 
The 
If you haven’t