Music by Moods…

 

Moodagent, a cross-platform and mobile application, creates music playlists based on your mood. Tell it how you’re feeling and it picks songs that mirror your emotional state.

Feel like you need a computer to pick your music based on the mood you tell it you’re in, sure why not.

Happy? Sad? blah blah blah, adjust how sensual, tender or angry you want your music and pick the tempo too. It all seems very complicated for picking a song but it’s not. And hey you can seed in your own songs and it can use them to create a playlist to match your mood; quick grab you’re favourite Smiths record.

All in all its fairly smart, I just can’t imagine myself using it often if at all, but hey give it a go, maybe you might find the DJ of your dreams in this lil system.

Available on just about well anything, Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Symbian… Moodagent

Sign Me Out (iOS)…

 

Sign me out is simply a lovely little iPhone app that lets you check if your Gmail and Facebook are signed in anywhere you don’t want them to be.

Don’t pretend you’ve never walked away from a computer leaving yourself vulnerable to the odd “frape” here and there, well it could be worse that if someone more malicious comes across your open account. Or in my case, hacks it.

If you find yourself logged in from other locations, one click of the big red button and that potentially unauthorized user is disconnected.

Any account you add to Sign Me Out will give you a count of the accounts activity and on clicking into that account you can gain even more details, remotely logging that account out even.

yes you can do this from your browser with Gmail anyway, but the point of this app is that you can do it anywhere.

If you buy the $1 full version of the app, you can add as many accounts as you want. If you just want to give it a try or only need to use one account, the free lite version will work just fine for you.

Check it Here : Sign Me Out / Lite ($1 / Free)

Editing Facebook Comments…

 

Again something else I should have posted as soon as I’d come across it, but anyway…

Facebook has rolled out a new comment style system with real time updates and better sharing. Apart from all those however you can also edit any comment you make on Facebook without having to remove your original comment.

If you hit the little X in the corner of the comment within the first minute of posting the comment you can find yourself saving yourself from some very silly typos, errors or in many cases, plans that were never really thought out.

But I suggest trying to avoid the internet fuelled rants you do well that you know you’ll be deleting or planning later.

HTTPS on Twitter…

 

So I should have updated this on the day it happened.

But Twitter now uses HTTPS, why should you set this up? Well security is always a plus in my books.

Anyway: It's easy to do:

1. Go to your Twitter settings page.
2. Tick the Always use HTTPS checkbox.
3. Click Save and re-enter your password when prompted.

Going forward, Twitter will always send data back and forth using the considerably more secure HTTPS protocol, and you can open up Twitter in any coffee shop without worrying.

You may question this added security measure but I assure you it’s worth having, particularly if you don’t want anyone accessing your Direct Messages

Firefox 4 Fixes…

 

Well Firefox 4 has finally launched, and it’s definitely taken a big jump in the name of progress. In my opinion anyway. I might even consider going back to it full time from Chrome, I don’t know if it’s that good yet however.

But as pretty as the new layout and set up are, there are still a few things that some of you may not like, I know I certainly didn’t.

Tabs on Top

I simply like my Tabs on the bottom on Firefox, I don’t know why but it was just a preference when using that browser… This fix is simple, Options > Tabs on Top – uncheck that box.

Move the Reload Button

This one confused me at first, but if you like your reload button at home beside the home key or snuggled in-between the back and forward buttons you should know you can just move it like a regular Toolbar button.

Options > Toolbar Layout, move it away from the address bar and it will act like a normal button again.

Blurry Fonts?

Sick of the fonts in Firefox 4 being blurry? I am.

Install the Anti-Aliasing Tuner add-on. From there, you should just be able to turn on ClearType rendering for all fonts and fix the problem

Want your Firefox Tab in the toolbar?

If you require your Firefox Button somewhere else, get the Movable Firefox Button add-on.

Install > Options > Toolbar layout, and then drag around as you wish. Could make it like Chromes Wrench Icon .

Useless Google Bar?

Maybe like me you’ve come to understand that the little googlebox is no longer useful but merely pointless following the introduction of the search URL bar or awesomebar.

As above, Options > Toolbar Layout… Just drag it into the customize window and you get a nice long URL bar. Pretty.

These are just a few suggestions that I’ve tried out in Firefox 4, I like them, you may not but if you require any help at all don’t hesitate to get in contact.

Facebook Scams…

 

Is Facebook a scammer’s Paradise?

Every day you come into contact with a new scam, survey or fake application on Facebook with bum links from scammers hoping to profit from your itchy clicking finger and it’s getting worse. So are the scammers just getting smarter or is Facebook getting lazy?

According to Sophos Threat Report 2011, the top three scams on Facebook are:

Likejacking Worms: Scammers set up a page with an intriguing title that draws the user in such as “Look what happens when this girl’s boss see’s her latest Facebook post!” Requiring you to like the page where there’s merely an empty space helps scammers profit from the sheer volume of traffic.

Survey Scams: Similar to the worms, you’re promised a juicy story or photo in return for you completing a quick survey. Guess what? You just added to another scammer’s commission. And on top of that, you’ve just spread this scam around to all your friends.

Fake Applications: this is one that’s taking hold quite a bit lately, applications with Promises of options like seeing who viewed your profile. This Can’t Happen! Welcome to another scammers paradise that you get to share with all your friends, again. Yay!

Sophos is one of the world’s leading internet security providers, providing information on how to secure your Facebook from potential threats.

Whilst the volume of scams seems to be increasing constantly, Facebook claims that their effort and effectiveness to combat this have increased proportionately, successfully suing some scammers in the process.

But Scammers are getting smarter and you can see a new scam sweeping yours or your friends Facebook or your friends every day making Facebook eerily reminiscent of the my time on MySpace; when you had everyone under the sun tell you they were lonely and wont you click their page to meet them?

Will Facebook ever be able to completely remove this trend of scams or will scammers continue to draw the crowds? Here’s an idea, think before you “like” and continue to add to these peoples growing revenue.

The full report can be read free online at http://www.sophos.com/sophos/docs/eng/papers/sophos-security-threat-report-2011-wpna.pdf

Split The Rent Evenly…

 

I was thinking about this a lot in the past few days, what's the best way to  split the rent evenly and fairly that won’t lead to the destruction of friendships. In particular this became a point of importance as I plan on spending my summer in San Francisco with some friends. Fourteen to be exact. Now the easiest thing would be just split the rent 14 ways were we all to live together, but clearly this isn’t going to be fair or even. Also there is NO CHANCE I’m sharing one place with fourteen people.

So what is the fairest way to split the rooms and split the rent. Well I came across this blog.

http://splittherent.blogspot.com/

This whole thing was created by Jonathan Bittner (No, I’ve  never seen is spelt that way either), and astrophysics graduate student from Harvard.

The basics of how it works are this. Split the rent gives you the “market” value of how the rent should/could be fairly split between all parties involved.

What is handles best? Well according to the site, unequally sized rooms, couples sharing, up to 8 bedrooms and the extras of the rooms such as windows, closets, toilets, etc... (It takes note of every factorial it can think of)

Now this calculator clearly isn’t for everyone, if you find yourself in the worst of rooms, but are willing to pay more rent, something needs to be negotiated there. It all comes down to, negotiation over rooms with your friends once you use the calculator. But give it a go now, see if it satisfies your needs.

Go to Jon’s site here: Split the Rent Calculator