Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The Yak for Java

I found this today (Actually, I found a magazine page I had ripped out of a magazine ages ago that mentioned this, so I looked it up.

The Yak Java applet - free kit that allows you to create buttons and animations. It supports sound and up to 100 images per animation. It's supposed to be pretty simple, fast and light-weight. I haven't tried it out, but it sounds like it might just come in handy. (And I'm linking to it here so I can find it again - and I tossed the magazine page out)

Have any of you used the Yak? What do you think?

Saturday, October 24, 2009

TV on Your Computer

A lot of people watch TV on their computers nowadays. It's really handy. If you miss a show and forgot to set the DVR, you can usually go online and watch it the next day. My son does it a lot. Today I found a site that looks like it will make it easy to keep up with all kinds of shows. You can find them all in one place instead of searching all over the Internet for them - viewing some shows on the network websites, some on Hulu, etc. This site pulls them all together.

It's called First on Mars. Why is it called that? I don't know, but it calls itself 'Your personal guide to network tv on the web' and there are a lot of shows available here. From the About Us page:
First on Mars' mission is to help you find, organize and share network TV shows available for free streaming across the web. You tell us what you feel like watching by selecting networks, shows or TV moods (dark, sexy, intense). We use that info to build you a personalized guide to your favorites which you can filter and change to make your own. You can always add networks, shows and moods using the drop down menus, heart icons or browse feature. We also offer a choice of six looks for the site which you can select using the skins button. Enjoy and let us know what you think!
You can browse through shows alphabetically or search by mood or by network. When you find shows you like, you can add them to your favorites so they're easy to find in the future. It looks like there are only a certain number of episodes available, probably whatever the network makes available, so you can't wait months to watch them, and it's not a good place to get caught up on a series you've never watched before, but to keep current with shows you like it looks great. First on Mars also lets you share shows with your friends and comment on the shows you watch.

I keep telling my husband that we don't need the satellite TV anymore - we could cancel that, watch everything online, and save a lot of money. So far he hasn't taken me up on that, but sites like this make it entirely feasible. And did I mention that First on Mars is FREE?

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Free Fonts

An assortment of bitmap fonts from the first v...Image via Wikipedia

My son Cory and his friend Travis had a great idea for a t-shirt, so Cory has been working on designing it. This afternoon he mentioned that he needed a fun font for it because he didn't like any of the fonts on his computer. (for the shirt, that is) Just yesterday I found a site full of fun free fonts, but then I closed my browser last night without saving it or sharing it. I hate when that happens! I really should know better.

Anyway, since I lost the site from yesterday, I just did a search for 'fun free fonts' and found this one - Font Freak. There are over 5000 free fonts, and you can either download them all at once or browse through and download the ones you like individually. I haven't actually gotten past the first page of the A's, but I've already found some I really like. A lot of them are available in both PC and Mac versions, which is really nice. Also, when you find a font you like, you can click on the author's name to see all the fonts by that author.

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