Studio711

Four and a half years ago, I wrote a blog post about a great bookmarking website called del.icio.us. Websites and tools come and go, but this one has stood the test of time for me. I still use the site very heavily.

What is it? del.icio.us (or now it’s also delicious.com) stores your bookmarks for you. When you save a bookmark you add tag words to the bookmark to help you remember it. Maybe you found a great condo in Hawaii to stay at some time. You might tag it with hawaii, condo, vacation, and lodging. You can come back later and easily search for a tag or two to help you filter down your list and find those related bookmarks again. You’ll always have your bookmarks handy from any computer.

Aside from not having your bookmarks on the right computer, one of the biggest problems is that many of the bookmarks you save never get used again and they clog up your list. With delicious, that isn’t a problem because you do a quick search for the tag that you’re interested in and it filters your list way down. I have over 1400 bookmarks right now and I can quickly find the one I want in just a few seconds. There are browser plugins so that you can save the current page with the click of a button.

The site is built around social networking, but I don’t use that feature at all. In theory, you can search around and find what other people have been bookmarking. The only social aspect I use is that whenever I see something that would be good for a gift list for me, I tag it with “gift.” That means that whenever a birthday or Christmas come around, I have an easy answer to “what do you want for ____?” I just tell them to go to delicious.com/bwmartens/gift. Problem solved.

If you’re curious and want to know more, head over to the Getting Started page on delicious.com or feel free to peruse my bookmarks at delicious.com/bwmartens.

About six months ago, I wrote about how you can tether your Windows Mobile phone to your laptop so you can have internet wherever you have a cell phone signal. It was handy, but it required you to have a USB cable hanging around and quite a few button clicks to get it all going.

Enter WMWifiRouter. You’ll find it in Windows Mobile Marketplace or at their website. You can get a free trial to make sure it works with your setup and the full program is $22. Once you try it, I think you’ll be convinced that is an absolute steal. The program has a number of modes but the one you’ll probably use the most is turning your phone into a wifi hotspot. Click ONE BUTTON and soon you’ll have a wireless network that you can connect to from your laptop and surf the web through your cell phone’s data connection.

Now all those wireless devices can have internet access anywhere. Laptops are obvious but what about your Zune or iPod? What about your wifi Kindle? They all should work just fine. Imagine driving down the road on your road trip and all of your passengers can be browsing the web on their laptops.

Note that if you have Android I think this is a built in feature on many phones. If you have an iPhone you’re out of luck. Also note that this may violate your contract. Also, beware of the 5GB/month data limit your cell phone company probably imposes on your “unlimited data” plan. This app has a very nice set of statistics to show you how much data you’ve used.

Here are some bandwidth speed test results from when it’s all set up:

It has always bugged me that the photo and video galleries have a significantly different design than this main page, but obviously it hasn’t bugged me enough to invest time in redesigning them. The main complaint/feedback I get is that it’s hard to get back to the main page once you’re in the photo or video gallery. A little while back, I made some changes which will hopefully simplify your browsing a bit.

1. When you’re on pages that look like this one (looking at specific posts, search results, etc), you can always click on the big “Studio711” in the top left to get back to this home page. You can also click the Home tab but you could do that before too.
2. More importantly, when you are in the photo or video gallery, a lot of links that led you to confusing places have been removed. Now if you want to get back to this main page, just click the huge “Studio711” text at the top of the page.
3. And I think I’ve mentioned this, but it bears repeating: if you want to go directly to photos, videos, or moblog photos, you can type photos.studio711.com, videos.studio711.com and moblog.studio711.com.

As always, let me know if you have trouble navigating the site or have suggestions for improvements. In general, my desire to make changes to the current design is much lower than the pain of changing the layout so it will probably stay the same for a while (with little tweaks like this.)

I’ve blogged before about Ken Block’s incredible rally car drive through a snowboard terrain park. If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it. There’s also another good video about the pretty serious crash he had making that first video.

Ken has been at it again. This time he took his Subaru rally car and put four individual tracks on it to replace the wheels. Can I please have this for Christmas? Watch the video at YouTube or embedded below.

And if you want some more snow-related action, check out the video from Mike Douglas and Cody Townsend trying to use snow skis to surf big waves on episode 11 of season 3 of Salomon Freeski TV.

My main backpack for hiking is a Camelbak Snoblast. It’s a good size for day hikes. It holds all of my first aid gear, an extra piece of clothing and the three liter water bladder. It gets a bit small though in the early and late season when I have more bulky clothing or if I need to carry something for other people. It was time to upgrade so I headed to the store that has been claiming a lot of our paychecks lately: REI.

I ended up with the REI Flash 50 backpack. It’s big enough that I could easily do an overnight trip if I ever decide to go that far, but it’s in their “ultra lightweight” category. It doesn’t come with a water bladder but it has a holding system inside along with a hole over each shoulder for the drinking tube to come out.

A couple weeks ago, I also picked up their entry level REI Traverse Trekking Poles. I had been a bit skeptical, but as I start to hike more difficult terrain, I can see the need. I’ve used them on two hikes up the cable line trail and have been very happy with them.

I won’t use either of these new pieces of gear for the easier hikes, but I’m happy to have them in my arsenal when we tackle Camp Muir in a few days (at about 10,000’ on Mt. Rainier.)

Part 1: A few years ago, I worked in building 42 and we had a little problem in the men’s room. Nearly every day, someone would attempt to flush paper towels down the urinal. It would clog up the urinal and water would flow all over the ground.

Part 2: Some of the funniest posts on this blog (at least in my mind) have been bad poetry. Examples: 1, 2, and 3.

Part 3: Some hilarious, handsome, anonymous person posted some poetry in the bathroom of building 42 and also posted the poems at http://anonguy42.spaces.live.com

Part 4: I want to make sure these works of art outlive spaces.live.com.

So without further ado, here is the first of the two poems:

Paper Towel Flusher
Your dreams may be crushed
But I cannot remain hushed
No matter how hard you try
This just won’t fly
A paper towel cannot be flushed

Your logic I can’t diagnose
No attempt even comes close
It’s a nasty little habit
Someone has to reach in and grab it
It’s really quite gross

Why you do this I can’t guess
No one wants to clean up your mess
So please secure your paper
We’ve had enough of this caper
This can’t be allowed to progress

Maybe you're just sadistic
But let's be realistic
We're not in third grade
My point has been made
Of an adult this is uncharacteristic

That first poem caused a ruckus and it actually solved the problem for a while, but eventually the paper towels returned. The janitor left a handwritten note next to the poem begging the flusher to stop. At that point, another set of verses appeared:

A handwritten for the paper towel flusher asking very nicely for him to stop. I decided it was time to cut loose with verses 5, 6 and 7…

A handwritten plea
Don't you see?
Others feel the same
Have you no shame?
It's not just me

Who knows, maybe you're in a rush
And while it might make me blush
I offer my help
Just give a small yelp
If you need me to help you flush

Or what if you just like these rhymes?
I promise to still write sometimes
Even after you clean up your ways
I'll still utter a clever phrase
It will be just like old times

The Pacific Northwest has some very interesting weather. The Olympics to the west split the airflow which then combines over Seattle, mountains to the east produce lift and down drafts, the Pacific Ocean provides vast amounts of moisture, and the Puget Sound provides consistent temperature. That’s jut the beginning. If you’re a weather geek, there is plenty to keep you interested.

But what if you just want a good forecast? Forget the TV. Here are the best websites I’ve found to predict the weather around here:

• http://www.wunderground.com/ – This site works all over the United States. It began at the University of Michigan and is the site I visit most often. The Wundermap is an excellent view of what’s happening now. With just a few clicks, you can delve into the forecast models and make your own predictions. They even have a Windows sidebar gadget so you can skip the unreliable forecasts provided by the default weather gadget.
• http://www.probcast.com/ – This is a research project from UW that gives very specific probabilities for precipitation, temperature and much more. I contacted them a few days ago and suggested that they have a page that shows how accurate their predictions ended up being. It turns out this is a feature that is being rolled out soon. However, even without that feature, in my experience this has been a great way to know if that 50% chance of rain is going to affect me or another part of the Seattle area.
• http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/ This UW professor offers great weather commentary and has written a book that sits on my shelf.
• http://www.nwac.us/forecast/weather/current/ – In the winter time, this is the absolute best source of mountain weather predictions. During ski season, I read this forecast every morning.

Remember that forecasting is an inexact science, but by learning how to use these websites, you can have a pretty good idea of what the upcoming weather will be like. Forecasts for today and tomorrow are generally reliable. Looking 3-5 days ahead gets more sketchy and beyond that it’s a complete guess.