White Noise

I read the first 50 pages of Don DeLillo's White Noise online.

I bought the book at left this morning. I feel I am reading a different and better novel now.

The big difference is that I read more slowly in print, and so the book proceeds at a conversational pace, rather than a mad dash of witticisms.

Farmville

A strange sample of my facebook friends are playing Farmville, from my high school geometry teacher to a high school acquaintance who is now a (very glamorous) drag queen.

At first, I didn't really understand the appeal of Farmville. Players maintain a virtual farm on facebook. The only object of the game is to grow your farm the way you like, with crops, animals, buildings and decorations of your choice. You buy seeds for crops with fake money, and you make a fake money profit when the crops are harvested. None of it is very complicated.

As it turns out, the appeal is in the element of choice. Although there are "levels" you can climb within Farmville, "winning" is not defined. You define "winning" by raising a farm according to your own preferences. Much like how "winning" is defined in real life.

As a tutor, I have used Farmville to teach basic math and economics to middle school students. In addition, Farmville is fun--at the center of my farm, there is a very cute duck pond.

Open Office

Open Office is a free, open productivity suite. The download includes a word processor as well as software to create spreadsheets, presentations, and databases. The real boon for math-science sutdents and professionals is the software that can be used to write papers that involve lots of formulas.

Unlike Microsoft Word, Open Office is supremely compatible across different operating systems. It is also very easy to collaborate and share documents on Open Office. According to my father, Xingping Sun, the entire math department at Texas A&M is now using Open Office.

Google Profile

A Google Profile is an online calling card. A Profile links together your online presences of choice (ie. twitter, your blog) into one coherent web-identity. This can help you clean up your web-presence for college and job interviews, and it can help you start to take control of your own Google search results.

Although there are many online calling card services out there (ie. LinkedIn), Google Profile is the simplest and most viewer-friendly. I feel comfortable adding my Google Profile to the signature of my e-mails, even when addressed to friends and acquaintances, not just "networking contacts."

Plus, I prefer a life in which the line between friends and "networking contacts" can be blurry, anyway.

Laptop + Work Tote: Kenneth Cole Reaction

Junior year at my school is filled with interviews from the moment you step foot on campus.

Luckily, my little brother found me the perfect work tote.

Microfiber exterior with a convincing and durable faux-leather trim, the Kenneth Cole Laptop Tote is both practical and classy. It comes with a laptop sleeve that fits screens up to 15.4". The accents on the tote are silver in tone.

Plus, the tote was reasonably priced at my local Sam's Club. Check here for your local availability.

Sticky Note

The internet is my favorite mode of procrastination. The trouble with my work is that it often requires a computer. The trouble with the internet is that it never ends.

Enter Sticky Screen. When you need to get stuff done, you can type a simple note to yourself on the sticky note, set it as your homepage for the time being, and remind yourself to stay on the productive side of the internet, and to stay away from the dangerous abyss of facebook and lolcats.

The New New Economy - Wired Magazine

Now available online for free, Wired Magazine's June cover stories are the best analysis I have read on the economy as of late. Equal parts daredevil, well-researched, and hopeful, the writers at Wired lay out plans to rebuild Detroit, analyse the rise of "Socialism" in online collaborative work, and spill all of Google's secrets.

All the articles are good, and if you're curious about any of them, I can't recommend highly enough.

Avast Anti-Virus

Are you still paying for high-quality virus protection software? If so, why?

Avast is the best virus protection I have ever used, and I used to pay like a sucker, too. Avast is free for personal use--the company makes most of its money by selling contracts to protect business networks.

I recently downloaded Avast when a particularly nasty virus destroyed even my anti-virus software, Symantec. I quickly deleted the destroyed software from my laptop, and then Avast did a full system check, finding viruses and adware in the strangest nooks and crannies. My laptop now runs like it did two years ago.

Lijit

If you're a blogger, then Lijit is the diagnostic that you thought you needed an advertising budget to run.

Lijit is a widget that allows readers to search your blog content (mine is towards the bottom of the home page). You can see popular terms, as well as the geographic locations that your readers tune in from. Plus, you can link your Lijit to your other online presences (ie. twitter), synching them into one coherent online calling card.

Free Chocolate Fridays

Every Friday, Real Chocolate gives you an opportunity for free chocolate. Show up on the website on Friday, fill out the form, and you'll get a coupon in the mail for your choice of the following: Peanut M&Ms, Snickers, Twix, Dove, 3 Musketeers, or Milky Way.

This is legit. My coupon arrived quickly, my chocolate was delicious, and I don't receive spam (except for the occasional reminder that it's Friday, but even these can be turned off).

wesabe

Want to know where your money goes? wesabe is the best free money flow manager on the net. Upload info on your bank accounts, cards, and cash, and wesabe gives you an ongoing summary of your income and expenditures.

wesabe is a more expansive version of mint.com. The bank options at mint are limited to large banks, while wesabe carries even my local bank (Bank Midwest).

imgfave

imgfave is delicious.com for images. Bookmark the images you like and come back to them later. It's perfect for saving design and fashion inspiration, funny images, and anything else you enjoy. Like delicious, imgfave gives you your own webpage filled with the things you've saved, so that you can share them with friends.

WARNING: imgfave can sometimes (but not always) become a stockpile of softcore porn, depending on what other users decide to "fave." Don't visit imgfave at work or with your grandparents.

imgfave is a more accessible knockoff of ffffound, the latter of which is an elite image-bookmarking website popular among professional designers. Images on ffffound tend to be a great deal more lovely than those on imgfave, but ffffound is invite-only, while anyone can start an account on imgfave.

Here's a link to my imgfave.

Missouri: State Tax-free Weekend

Today is the last day of the annual Back to School MO State Tax-free Weekend.

Pay zero state tax on school supplies, clothes, computers, and computer software and accessories.

There are price limitations, so read the official details here.

Internet Time Monitor

Every summer, I develop the habit of spending way too much time online. This makes going back to school rough.

I've decided to internet detox early this year. I'm starting by simply becoming aware of how much time I spend online. Over the next few days, I'll be trying out some internet time monitors:

Toggl

Tick

yaTimer

If you try these or any other timer, let me know how it goes!

Homeless in The Sims 3

Alice and Kev is the story of a family of two homeless Sims. The blog follows their lives from the day they became homeless, and the story is still going.

What makes Alice and Kev a worthwhile read and not unvarnished digital cruelty is that the author of the blog and player of the game, Robin Burkinshaw, is telling a story, not just performing an experiment. He's created two compelling characters, and he doesn't control every aspect of their lives--in The Sims 3, created characters come with more "free will," so to speak.

Alice and Kev reminds me of one of my favorite plays, Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello. The idea in that play is that once created, characters each posess their own "plot drive," and basically tell the story on their own. Alice and Kev are two characters so interesting that they're just overflowing with plot drive.

Alice, a young girl, is kind-hearted, but clumsy and not very assertive.

Kev, the father of the family, is mean-spirited, inappropriate, and clinically insane. He hates children and has a nasty temper.

Although it may sound over-the-top, it works, and well.

Mind Maps

FreeMind excites me because it illustrates the flow of my thinking. FreeMind is open-source mind-mapping software, and the download is free.

It's going to change how I do everything--plan projects, outline papers, and study for my Game Theory class next semester.

You can open up a mind map to editing by by a team, and there are handy icons to help you prioritize items in your map.

There's even a smiley face icon to show when you're happy and you know it.

F.lux

F.lux is free software that changes the "temperature" of your computer screen according to the time of day. This means that at night, your computer can emit a warm glow instead of headache-inducing blue light.

F.lux makes for less eye-strain and better sleep. At night, it makes your computer screen look like a sunset.