// Internet Duct Tape

RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. I post them on Twitter as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.

Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).

• [LIFEHACK] 10 virtually instant ways to improve your life
  (lifehack.org, 701 saves, 100 inbound links, 2390 diggs)
  • Can all be summarized by “we make our own problems — stop doing that”. Easier said than done.
  • (happiness, lifehacks)
• [CODE] Laws of Software Development
  (globalnerdy.com, 490 saves, 95 inbound links, 10 diggs)
  • Good list of all of the “laws” with links to further reading.
  • (programming, software, laws, humor, geek)
• [RSS] An introduction to Yahoo Pipes
  (simplehelp.net, 341 saves, 31 inbound links, 522 diggs)
  • I still think Yahoo Pipes is only for people with programming experience, but SimpleHelp has a guide.
  • (simplehelp, yahoo, pipes, rss)
• [EMACS] Emacs Hack for Regular Expression and Text Replacement
  (steve-yegge.blogspot.com, 208 saves, 44 inbound links)
  • Lots of tutorials for making the most out of regexps in emacs. I need to memorize this.
  • (emacs, regex, tutorial)
• [HUMOR] Hide-a-Pod iPod protection
  (hideapod.com, 200 saves, 100 inbound links, 4060 diggs)
  • Worried about your iPod getting stolen? Hide it inside a Microsoft Zune.
  • (ipod, zune, humor)
• [FACEBOOK] Google Reader + Facebook Application = Digg killer?
  (scobleizer.com, 98 saves, 70 inbound links, 818 diggs)
  • The Google Reader app on Facebook lets you see the top shared items.
  • (facebook, digg, googlereader)
• [ANTI-COMMENTS] Learning from Dave Winer
  (joelonsoftware.com, 93 saves, 100 inbound links, 1 diggs)
  • From the article: ” You don’t have a right to post your thoughts at the bottom of someone else’s thoughts. That’s not freedom of expression, that’s an infringement on their freedom of expression. Get your own space.”
  • (blogging, comments, communication)
• [BLOG] 10 Ways to Eliminate the Echo Chamber
  (chris.pirillo.com, 84 saves, 83 inbound links, 3 diggs)
  • Avoid parroting everything other people say and have original ideas.
  • (blogging, tips, creativity)
• [NSFW] The Top 10 Weirdest and Funniest Japanese Condoms
  (inventorspot.com, 78 saves, 95 inbound links, 1319 diggs)
  • Ah, Japanese packaging. So strange, so enticing.
  • (sex, japanese, condoms, funny)
• [HUMOR] When not to hyphenate your name
  (linuxnotes.blogspot.com, 68 saves, 50 inbound links, 2777 diggs)
  • Like the Jay Leno skit.
  • (funny, humor, names)
• [TSHIRTS] Anti-DRM T-Shirt Designs
  (torrentfreak.com, 64 saves, 78 inbound links, 1624 diggs)
  • List of tshirt designs with anti-DRM messages.
  • (drm, design, tshirt)
• [FIREFOX] Copy Link Text extension
  (borngeek.com, 51 saves, 100 inbound links)
  • From the article: ” CoLT (short for “Copy Link Text”) is a tiny extension for Firefox which makes it easier than ever to copy a hyperlink’s associated text. If I were to use this extension to copy this link to my blog, the copied text would quite literally be this link”
  • (firefox, extension, productivity)
• [LINUX] How to configure Synergy in six steps
  (mattcutts.com, 40 saves, 13 inbound links, 5 diggs)
  • Syngergy is an application that seemlessly lets you share mouse, keyboard and CLIPBOARD across two completely different computers running different operating systems.
  • (synergy, linux, howto, windows)
• [GMAIL,TSHIRTS] Loves Threadless Competitions and Promotions
  (threadless.com, 26 saves, 58 inbound links, 1 diggs)
  • Design a Threadless t-shirt loosely related to Gmail and win prizes.
  • (contest, design, gmail, tshirt, threadless)
• [SOCIAL MEDIA] Fads of the moment: 10 things we can learn from Facebook
  (susanmernit.blogspot.com, 24 saves, 13 inbound links)
  • The third place may be on the screen, not at Starbucks.
  • (community, facebook, socialnetworking, web2.0)
• [DOOCED] Nearly Ten Percent of Companies Have Fired Bloggers, Survey Claims
  (blog.wired.com, 10 saves, 21 inbound links, 14 diggs)
  • From the article: ” Nearly ten percent of companies have fired an employee for violating corporate blogging or message board policies, and 19 percent have disciplined an employee for the same infractions”
  • (blogging)
• [HUMOR] Ten answers to the un-answerable question: –what is Web 2.0?–
  (jonathandeamer.com, 8 saves, 9 inbound links, 1 diggs)
  • What is web2.0?
  • (web2.0, humor, geek)
• [LIFEHACKS] Top 5 Useful Items You Never Knew You Could Print Out
  (friedbeef.com, 7 saves, 2 inbound links, 36 diggs)
  • EXCELLENT list of hacks for printing a pocket PDA, nametags, graph paper, soduku tables, business cards and a lens hood.
  • (lifehacks, printing)
• [COPYRIGHT] Canadian Copyright Board Gives Go Ahead to iPod Levy
  (michaelgeist.ca, 7 saves, 37 inbound links, 5 diggs)
  • Canadians will get taxed on their new ipods.
  • (copyright, tax, canada)
• [WEB2.0] Web Services As TV Shows
  (avc.blogs.com, 4 saves, 2 inbound links, 11 diggs)
  • From the article: ” And I don’t know enough about the economics of the TV business to be intelligent about this comparison, but it just seems like VC is the wrong economic model if web sites are in fact TV shows.”
  • (socialmedia, socialnetworks, socialnetworking, web2.0)
• [DESIGN] Simple Ways To Help Your Design Suck Less
  (jimwhimpey.com, 3 saves, 45 inbound links, 40 diggs)
  • *very* good CSS tips! I’m going to have to try them out.
  • (css, design)
• [WINDOWS] Sick Of Being Nagged to Restart, Every 10 Minutes After An Update?
  (secretgeek.net, 3 saves, 5 inbound links)
  • Leon chimes in with a solution to the stupid windows feature of always being asked to reboot your computer every 10 minutes after an update.
  • (windows, update, disable)
• [CSS] Sandbox (CSS) Design Competition Tutorial
  (headsetoptions.org, 2 saves, )
  • Tutorial for getting started with designing for Sandbox.
  • (sandbox, wordpress, css)
• [LIFEHACKS] Falling Asleep Games
  (brightgreyspot.blogspot.com, 2 saves, )
  • 3 tricks for dealing with insomnia.
  • (insomnia, lifehacks, sleep)
• [LIFEHACKS] Skip the search, figure it out on your own
  (sanderssays.typepad.com, 2 saves, 5 inbound links, 4 diggs)
  • From the article: ” If our brains can rely on technology to produce stored memories, then they will eventually adapt to remember less and less over time. In the future, we will be idiots without a broadband connection.”
  • (lifehacks, memory)
• [FACEBOOK] Your Boss Is Not Your Friend
  (bruceclay.com, 2 saves, 6 inbound links)
  • From the article: ” When you least expect it, you will innocently log into your favorite social network and there will be a friend request waiting for you. From your boss. Asking to be your social network friend. What are you going to do?”
  • (facebook, privacy)
• [BLOG] 6 Ways To Make Your Archives Sing
  (cleancutblog.com, , 22 diggs)
  • Rory chimes in with tips on how to spruce up the archives.
  • (archives, blogging)
• [FACEBOOK] For Facebook, I Can Already See the Epilogue
  (louisgray.com, )
  • From the article: ” Today’s Facebook is tomorrow’s Friendster, or in five years, GeoCities. Teens are the most fickle of them all, and I’m not exactly sure they’re going to be ecstatic that their moms and dads can now jump in and participate.”
  • (facebook, prediction)
• [BOOKS] Win A Signed Copy of The 4-Hour Workweek
  (johnchow.com, 22 inbound links, 2 diggs)
  • Contest.
  • (contest, timferris)
• [GROUP-WRITING] - What Is Your FIRST Rule Of Writing?
  (cleancutblog.com, )
  • Another blog gwp.
  • (blogging, groupwritingproject)
• [BLOG] When blogging gets you fired
  (sciencebase.com, , 9 diggs)
  • Well written piece on how blogging can be detrimental to your career.
  • (blogging, career, fired)
• [BLOG] Why Guest Blogging is a Powerful Way to Gain Exposure for Your Blog
  (northxeast.com, 10 inbound links)
  • Why guest blogging is the secret to success.
  • (zenhabits, blogging)
• [BROWSERS] 9 things Firefox should steal from Safari
  (destraynor.com, 33 inbound links)
  • Des notices how Safari is better than Firefox.
  • (firefox, safari)
• [GAMERS] Top 10 Things Female Gamers Hear on XBox Live
  (hawtymcbloggy.wordpress.com, 11 inbound links, 17 diggs)
  • From the article: ” Shouldn’t you be playing Barbie Horse Adventures?”
  • (games, humor, geek, xbox360)
• [TECHBLOG] Life-cycle of cool and is a tech blogger shake-out coming?
  (winextra.com, )
  • From the article: ” However I think there is also a much larger tech world where bloggers don’t need to invest their time in repetitive data entry of user information or playing with the newest gadgets that most real people can’t afford.”
  • (tech, essay)
• [BLOG] Explaining My Weekly Digest Post
  (lorelle.wordpress.com, 4 inbound links)
  • In depth explanation of why and how you should do weekly digest posts.
  • (blogging, digest)
• [ONLINE IDENTITY] Find Your Arch Enemies - and Destroy Them
  (brightgreyspot.blogspot.com, )
  • From the article: ” “You fool,” I told him. “You’ve got to find these people who share your name and destroy them.”"
  • (humor, geek, identity, privacy)
• [GAMERS] The How-To Guide to Scoring with Your (Gamer) Significant Other
  (hawtymcbloggy.wordpress.com, )
  • Unlock achievements in the boudoir.
  • (games, humor, geek)
• [RSS] Click an Orange, Feed the World
  (sciencetext.com, , 3 diggs)
  • Sept 9th is promote RSS day.
  • (rss)
• [LIFEHACKS] 75 Simple Pleasures to Brighten Your Day
  (zenhabits.net, 13 inbound links, 43 diggs)
  • Long list, but it would be so much more useful to realign your life to try to appreciate things like this than trying to make more money, buy more stuff, or generally “do” more.
  • (lifehacks, simple)
• [BLOG] The 4 Pillars of Writing Exceptional Blogs
  (problogger.net, 10 inbound links, 3 diggs)
  • If anyone know what they’re talking about it is Leo.
  • (zenhabits, blogging)

Legend

• saves - number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
• inbound links - number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
• diggs - number of people who dugg on http://digg.com

This Week at Internet Duct Tape

• Climbing Out of Category Hell

  WordPress doesn’t (yet) let you easily differentiate between tags and categories without using extra plugins, which means those of us who are cohabiting in a WordPress Multi-user ghetto like WordPress.com are stuck with the plain vanilla categories and the ugly mess that most tag clouds turn…

• Presenting: Black and Blue and Read All Over

  CSS design is a bitch.

• FeedBurner Tip: Create a private area for your RSS subscribers only

  When it comes to blogging the most important people are the ones who take the time to read your RSS feed . They’re your long term readers who are in it for the long haul, much more so than the people who stop by your blog because they found it through a search engine or a social bookmarking…

• Best of Feeds - 37 links - google, blogging, facebook, wordpress, tips

  Tags: blogging, blogs, essay, facebook, feedburner, future, google, ipod, lifehacks, privacy, rss, seo, socialnetworking, spam, tech, tips, tools, web2.0, wordpress

IDT Labs

• [THEME] Sandboxed sample zip updated

  – Please link to this post instead — I’ve taken the sample blog and example CSS template provided by Scott Wallick and made a very easy to use downloadable archive. It contains nothing but the HTML files, image files and CSS from the sample blog. It can get you redesigning Sandbox in less than…

• [FLICKR] Always search for CC licenses photos

  I’ve updated my script that forces the Flickr search box to remember that you’re searching for Creative Commons licensed photos. It fixes a problem with the advanced search box. IDT Labs is a blog for news announcements about software, tools or blog themes created by InternetDuctTape.com .…

• List of Software

  I’ve put together a list of all the software I’ve created at http://internetducttape.com/tools/ I’ve oh-so-intelligently organized it by the websites they interface with. Check it out if you haven’t already. And thank you for being an early adopter to my software update news blog.…

Tags: blogging, contest, css, design, facebook, firefox, funny, games, geek, humor, lifehacks, privacy, rss, socialnetworking, tshirt, web2.0, windows, zenhabits