Ctrl-Backspace
I was just informed by MikeD (about 2 minutes ago) that much like Ctrl-arrow which you can use to jump around typed text, you can also use Ctrl-Backspace to delete whole words at a time. I suppose this is not too different than using Ctrl-Shift-arrow to select text and then hitting Delete or Backspace, but it is more key efficient.
I wonder what other neat keyboard shortcuts are lurking out there...
Pandora
A few friends had mentioned Pandora to me a long time ago, but I had never followed up with a visit to the site until a few months ago. Pandora is a cross between an internet radio station and a music recommendation service. You enter an artist or song that you like, and it plays similar music for you. You can then rate (thumbs up or down) songs as they play to refine the music it plays for you. Different sets of music can be created by separating your preferences into different 'stations.' The flash-based interface works in most browsers and is very easy to use. The service is ad-supported, but you can pay a fee to have the ads removed.
I listen to mostly American rock music from the past 50 years, and Pandora has a pretty solid selection of tracks to choose from in that regard. It has a tendency to replay tracks or artists over a long period of time, but you can skip several songs an hour to work around that. You can also block specific songs and artists from being played for a month which can eliminate that problem all together. Overall I've found the site a nice change of pace compared to my normal listening habits, since it takes effort to make a decent playlist. Parker and others pointed out that the Genius feature of the newest version of ITunes does a similar thing using your own music.
So if you are tired of queuing up your own music, have trouble picking what you want to listen to like I do, and get tired of the radio, try Pandora. Just go to the site and type in one artist or song and it'll start playing music.
Soundcard Oscilloscope
I found an Oscilloscope for soundcards yesterday while searching for a way to analyze the output of a tone generator I was helping to make. The software is simple and straightforward, its features resemble what you would expect of an oscilloscope, and it doesn't require any special hardware or drivers. Just a soundcard and your input into the mic or line in. The frequency analysis function (like a realtime fourier transform) was really useful in debugging the tone generator.
The software written in National Instruments LabVIEW isn't freeware, but it's free for non-commercial use. It also has a function generator and a sound recorder built in. Works great for low voltage signals in the 0-20kHz range. You have to make sure that you don't blow out your soundcard by connecting too high a voltage to it.
The picture happens to be me saying "aaaaaa."
Automatic Update Prompts
If the box that pops up asking if you want to "Restart Now" after Windows XP installs an update annoys you, there's a quick way to get rid of it without changing any permanent settings. Go to the Services section under Computer Managment (right-click on My Computer and pick Manage) and open the properties for Automatic Updates. Stop the service and the reminder goes away. The service will restart the next time Windows starts, so you won't miss any updates, and it will still finish installing the updates when do restart.
So yes, I haven't made a post in a while. Motivation is low. Maybe I'll find some more soon.
