New Health Food Trend: Dirt Pills

July 6, 2009 in Uncategorized | by tenpoundhammer | Leave a comment

s-DIRT-large

My sister married a guy who has a PHD.  in Oceanography , but most actively works in geology.  He ’s a rock doctor.  Anyhow, he went to the a health food store to get something for exema and they offered him some dirt capsules, high quality bacteria filled dirt that is.  The logic behind this new trend is that your body needs good bacteria and where better to find bacteria than soil.  The real story here.  is that a geologist is eating dirt.  I will let you know if he leaves his wife for a boulder or something.

The following is a Product Description of Primal Defense  ie dirt in a capsule.

dirtpill

“Primal Defense Ultra capsules contain 5 billion CFU of high potency probiotics per capsule compared to regular Primal Defense which contains 2 billion CFU of probiotics per caplet. So you can take 1/2 the pills and achieve the same results! The ultimate high potency, broad-spectrum probiotic formula, providing a 15 billion live cell count of 13 species of beneficial cultures including soil-based probiotics called Homeostatic Soil Organisms that support normal intestinal comfort and function, and promotes healthy intestinal elimination regularity and consistency, helps maintain a healthy, balanced immune system which is beneficial to overall health, and contains Bacillus subtilis to support healthy lactic acid bacteria (Bifidobacterium and/or Lactobacillus) count and healthy pH levels in the gut.”

Best of the blogs for the week of June 29

July 6, 2009 in Best of the Blogs | by tenpoundhammer | Leave a comment

Engadget: 3 Wheeled Car

overheating Iphone 3g s

New Boxee version

Windows 7 Family pack ?

Shopping kaart go kart

OS 3.0 Update: It’s Here

June 29, 2009 in Tech news | Tags: , , , , , , , , | by iamswitz | Leave a comment

There are two ways to learn about the new 3.0 Update follow this link Click Me and get the non-opinionated, fast, non-detailed version or read more and get the in-depth version (with my priceless opinion on whether the update lives up to the hype)

Read the rest of this entry »

Best of The Blogs for the week of 6/26/09

June 26, 2009 in Best of the Blogs | by tenpoundhammer | Leave a comment

We read other peoples blog so we can get more hits on ours!

Lifehacker: Boxee Alpha Lands on Windows

National Geographic: Oldest Instruement in the World, Bone Flute Sounds kinda dirty, but seriously cool

National Geographic: Meet a Real Sea Monster Platecarpus

RockPaperShotgun: Trine Demo

Scientific American: Voyage to Oceans Garbage Patch

Gizmodo: The Life of Steve Jobs So far

Dvorak.org/blog: Awesome Webcomic about Celebrity Deaths

The Programs we Love and Use

June 24, 2009 in other | by tenpoundhammer | 1 comment

Songbird
-Songbird is a free open source application for listening and organizing your music collection.  It is compatible with most if not all ipods and other mp3 players.  Songbird is a total replacement for itunes and takes up about a 4th of the space Itunes requires.  It is built on firefox and can traverse any website, if that site hosts any music files Songbird will create an easy to use playlist and allow you to download them if possible.  Go check it out you won’t be Sorry. http://getsongbird.com/
Pidgin
-  A free opensource chat client, it supports all major chat procols and some minor ones as well.  It has everything you would expect a chat application to have and a little more.  The client is sleek fast and unobtrusive.  If you don’t have all chats in one client get it now! http://www.pidgin.im/
Aptana
- Is an eclipse based ide for web development.  It’s actually better by a long shot than the eclipse for java or any other version of eclipse I have used.  It allows you easily organize and create html, css, xhtml and many more file types.  Web languages have so many attributes it can make your head spin Aptana provides them as pop-ups so you don’t have to keep all that info in your melon.  http://www.aptana.com/
Twhirl
-If you don’t know what twhirl is I am surprised your reading this.  Thwirl is an application built for the adobe air platform that allows you to post messages to twitter from your desktop.  However, it also support for many other twitter like websites which are mostly based off laconica.  It doesn’t have as many features as tweet deck, but if  you are a member of a laconica community twhirl is right for you.  http://twhirl.org/
Evernote
-It’s the note taking powerhouse of the century, for work, school, or any other reason Evernote is your best notetaking friend.  It allows you to write and organize notes. The best feature is obviously the organization abilities which are outstanding.  It’s helpful thats its available as a desktop client or online so you can reach your notes from anywhere.  http://evernote.com/
Launchy
- A free opensource application launching utility.  You will never to hit the start button again.  It’s saves tons of time and in addition to launching apps has; math functions, can traverse your file structure, and perform google searches. www.launchy.net
VIM
- Vim is an opensource text editor with tons of features built in.  It comes standard on linux but can be installed on windows or mac.  It’s amazing how much faster you can acheive most programming tasks from Vim and all of the functions you can perform with Vim.  www.vim.org/
Picasa3
- Picasa is the end to be all of photo organization and storage, I can’t live with out.  It comes with a host of features from minor photo editing and enhancement to back up assistance. It’s very well polished and offered by google for free. http://picasa.google.com/
Super Duper ( Mac Only )
Probably the Mac App I use most often. SuperDuper allows you to create A full bootable back-up of your internal HD to a FW or USB external HD for an emergency.
And that’s just the free version. When you buy the paid version it lets you create what is called a Smart Update. A Smart Update compares the two HD’s in real time,
and copies only whats necessary to make both HD’s Identical to eachother, much like Raid Mirroring, but a lot safer. In fact I’m the one that told Leo Laporte about it,
and now he uses it too. SuperDuper can be found at this Web Site : http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Songbird

-Songbird is a free open source application for listening and organizing your music collection.  It is compatible with most if not all ipods and other mp3 players.  Songbird is a total replacement for itunes and takes up about a 4th of the space Itunes requires.  It is built on firefox and can traverse any website, if that site hosts any music files Songbird will create an easy to use playlist and allow you to download them if possible.  Go check it out you won’t be Sorry. http://getsongbird.com/

Pidgin

-  A free opensource chat client, it supports all major chat procols and some minor ones as well.  It has everything you would expect a chat application to have and a little more.  The client is sleek fast and unobtrusive.  If you don’t have all chats in one client get it now! http://www.pidgin.im/

Aptana

- Is an eclipse based ide for web development.  It’s actually better by a long shot than the eclipse for java or any other version of eclipse I have used.  It allows you easily organize and create html, css, xhtml and many more file types.  Web languages have so many attributes it can make your head spin Aptana provides them as pop-ups so you don’t have to keep all that info in your melon. http://www.aptana.com/

Twhirl

-If you don’t know what twhirl is I am surprised your reading this.  Thwirl is an application built for the adobe air platform that allows you to post messages to twitter from your desktop.  However, it also support for many other twitter like websites which are mostly based off laconica.  It doesn’t have as many features as tweet deck, but if  you are a member of a laconica community twhirl is right for you.  http://twhirl.org/

Evernote

-It’s the note taking powerhouse of the century, for work, school, or any other reason Evernote is your best notetaking friend.  It allows you to write and organize notes. The best feature is obviously the organization abilities which are outstanding.  It’s helpful thats its available as a desktop client or online so you can reach your notes from anywhere. http://evernote.com/

Launchy

- A free opensource application launching utility.  You will never to hit the start button again.  It’s saves tons of time and in addition to launching apps has; math functions, can traverse your file structure, and perform google searches. www.launchy.net

VIM

- Vim is an opensource text editor with tons of features built in.  It comes standard on linux but can be installed on windows or mac.  It’s amazing how much faster you can acheive most programming tasks from Vim and all of the functions you can perform with Vim.  www.vim.org/

Picasa3

- Picasa is the end to be all of photo organization and storage, I can’t live with out.  It comes with a host of features from minor photo editing and enhancement to back up assistance. It’s very well polished and offered by google for free. http://picasa.google.com/

Super Duper ( Mac Only )

Probably the Mac App I use most often. SuperDuper allows you to create A full bootable back-up of your internal HD to a FW or USB external HD for an emergency. And that’s just the free version. When you buy the paid version it lets you create what is called a Smart Update. A Smart Update compares the two HD’s in real time, and copies only whats necessary to make both HD’s Identical to eachother, much like Raid Mirroring, but a lot safer. In fact I’m the one that told Leo Laporte about it, and now he uses it too. SuperDuper can be found at this Web Site : http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

HD Products That Makes No Sense

June 22, 2009 in Uncategorized | by tenpoundhammer | 2 comments

In the world of marketing  the term HD and High Definition have become very popular.  So popular in fact that it is constantly being used where it does not apply.  With this in mind I created a quick round up of the most ridiculous HD thingies, gadgets, and whatsamahoosers.
HD Sunglass

-For those of you that find real life to be fuzzy, over pixelated, or just have unexplainable underwhelming clarity, HD sunglasses will take  the terrible standard Definition most people use to see things and take your vision into the 4th dimension.  Were things look even more real than reality itself.’

hd-glasses

HD Makeup

- From the insanely clever blog tong-in-chic  , get it? Iit’s a play on words.  Lol, I almost fell over.   Anyway, is your face still in 720P ? Do your friends laugh and point at your low quality face.  You may need some high definition makeup.

highdefmakeup

HD Hair

- Obvisouly, if your looking at yourself with high definition sun glasses why wouldn’t you upgrade to HD hair.   Standard Def hair looses up to 30% of the data that’s actually there do to compression techniques used to fit all the exciting action of hair on to one standard head.  Hd hair uses zero compression and even provides better sound.

hd_hair_550x570

Jack Black High Definition Hair Pomade

- Do I really need to say anything

jack-black-high-definition-hair-pomade

Best of the Blogs for the week of June 19

June 19, 2009 in Best of the Blogs | by jbs2808 | Leave a comment

The best of the blogs for this week is hitting hard with with game publishers loosing their marbles, 120,000 year old microbes getting revived ( ie mutant dinosaurs viruses will kill us all ) , iphone news and more.  So if your wife kicked you out and you had to sleep in the park, or if you were just too busy to see everything, checkout  the best of the blogs for the week of June 19, 2009.

Engadget: How to tether you Iphone with the 3.0 software

LifeHacker: Songbird 1.2 Integrates into iTunes and ipod

Gizmodo: The biggest game publisher threatens to ditch psp and ps3

Gizmodo: $100 Blu-Ray Player for Fathers day

RockPaperShotgun: What’s going with the Ghost Busters Game

Scientific American: Virus hits Genzyme plant halting production of orphan drugs

National Geographic: 120,000 year old Microbes Revived

Su.pr Beta

June 18, 2009 in Tech news, websites | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | by iamswitz | Leave a comment

Su.pr is a new comer to the group of link shortening websites.   Su.pr is a Stumbleupon service and integrates with Stumbleupon, Twitter, and Facebook

su.pr

Su.pr has a clean interface and in my opinion looks much nicer than bit.ly.  It automatically tracks your link’s stats, and whether it has gotten any thumbs up from Stumbleupon users. Su.pr’s link tracking feature also shows you when the best time  to post your link is,  to get the most exposure, and if your link has been retweeted on twitter.   Also a time saving feature of su.pr is its quick post function.   On the Su.pr website,  there is a link that you can put in your browser. When that link is clicked it brings up a window right on the website you are viewing  that automatically shortens the link of the website you are viewing, and lets you post the website to twitter or Facebook.
quick post funtionality
The Quick post Box

Right now the biggest features Su.pr has over the rest of the link shortening services is that it creates very small links, has an awesome interface,  can be used easily right in your browser without opening up a new tab and has one of the best stat tracking services I’ve seen.   As of now Su.pr is in beta, and should be ready to go in a couple of months.

Vark.com Beta Review

June 12, 2009 in Tech news, websites | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | by iamswitz | 4 comments

Vark.com answers your questions.  Aardvark is a service that connects people with questions, to people with the answers.  This service  is for asking specific questions a normal Google or Yahoo search couldn’t answer.  You can send your question by instant message  using a screen name linked to your Aardvark account or through the website.  When you ask a question you assign it a category of your choosing and it is automatically sent to a person that declared themselves knowledgeable in that category via their profile.  You can then wait for someone to reply, or sign off from the website/IM and be emailed by Vark with your answers.

AaRdvark website

As you can see Aardvark has a very minimalistic interface.  The UI doesn’t really hurt the service as it gets the job done.   And the clean user interface of the website is easy to navigate and does not hide the important parts of the website under a cluttered UI.   You most likely wont even see the website much as Aardvark is meant to be  used through a chat application like

  • Gmail Chat
  • Google Talk
  • AIM and AIM.com
  • MSN Messenger
  • Windows Live
  • Hotmail
  • Any website or app you use to send email
  • iPhone coming soon!

Of all the questions I have asked so far I have gotten all correct and thoughtful answers.  For example I instant messaged the Vark IM account with the question “Who was the tenth president of the United States?”.  Within five minutes I had four correct replies (John Tyler was the correct answer if you were wondering).  I think Vark is an original website with a very useful purpose. Vark gets the job done and I expect this service to become very popular after it is released from beta.

I have invites for the Vark.com beta all you have to do is comment on this post or reply via twitter to @tenpoundhammer and I will send you a link for the beta.

Introduction

June 4, 2009 in FYI, about the authors | Tags: | by iamswitz | Leave a comment

Hi, I am Brendan/Switz (my screen name).  I will be contributing to this blog fairly regularly and managing the Ten Pound Hammer twitter account ( @tenpoundhammer ). My steam id is baschuetze, and if I’m on steam I will probably be playing TF2, Counterstrike 1.6, or Garry’s mod.  I’m a “tech enthusiast”  and I’m always reading either the Wired blog or Tech Crunch. I will be blogging about a myriad of things located in the tech world such as new services, video games, and maybe some programming thrown in there too .

You can contact in the comments or email me at baschuetze@yahoo.com with any questions