Links of Interest (March 5th 2009 through August 13th 2009)

Audible.com to sell 2 DRM-FREE titles
It appears Audible.com is going to try releasing Cory Doctorow's next two audiobooks without DRM (a first for Audible.com as far as I know).

Skulpt
"Skulpt is an entirely in-browser implementation of Python."

Modernizr
Modernizr is a Javascript library that allows client side detection of CSS3 and HTML5 browser features. It allows you to write CSS with conditionals through one of my personal favorite bits of CSS magic: classes on the body tag. It also gives you the ability to do the same in our Javascript.

epub-tools
A collection of open source (BSD) tools for generating and managing ePub documents. Adobe's Java based EPUBGen was just added. Tools now exist for conversion to ePub from Word, RTF, DocBook, TEI, and FictionBook.

Doozers Get "Fraggle Rock" Spin-Off
It's animated, and aimed at ages four to seven, but I'll probably check it out with the kids.

The Zelazny Project
"We plan to print a complete collection of Roger Zelazny's short fiction and poetry, in (most likely) six hardcover volumes. We expect to include all published fiction and poetry we can find, however obscurely published, and a number of unpublished works retrieved from Zelazny's archived papers. We also expect to include the shorter early versions of several novels, several novel excerpts that were published independently as short works and a few of Zelazny's articles on topics of interest to him."

Links of Interest (August 24th 2007 through August 31st 2007)

Science Fiction Writers of America abuses the DMCA – Boing Boing
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America invoked the DMCA to request works be removed from Scribd even though in a number of cases they had no right to do so, including Creative Commons licensed work.
Consumer Reports says ‘keep that car’
Driving one car for 15 years is cheaper than buying a new one ever 5 years. Nice to see I’ve been doing the right thing all this time.
YUI Theater ? Joseph Smarr: ?High-Performance JavaScript: Why Everything You?ve Been Taught is Wrong?
Video of Joseph Smarr’s talk on High-Performance JavaScript.
30+ Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers & Designers
Nice collection of Firefox extensions useful for web developers and/or designers.
Redirection – Manage 301 redirections without modifying Apache
Wordrpess 2.1+ plugin to handle redirects. Looks very full featured.
eTextbook seller fails logic test
Evo points out what I assume is a hilarious misuse of survey data. CafeScribe is supplying a “book” scented scratch and sniff sticker to customers because people like the way books smell.

Links of Interest (July 2nd 2007 through July 11th 2007)

LOLTrek
Star Trek + LOLcats. You has want laugh? This be super funny.
How To Write The Great American Novel
Informative instructional film (no, not really, but it’s funny).
uncluttr
Derek Gaw’s wonderful search front end to Amazon.com (currently in alpha).
New Books, late June 2007
Locus Online’s listing of new SF/F/H books for late June 2007
Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars
This may be the best page on all of Wikipedia.
Open standards for social networking
Interesting commentary Marc Canter. from I know I wish all these things out there talked to each other better and/or supported OpenID.
jQuery 1.1.3: 800%+ Faster, still 20KB
The newest version of jQuery is available with 80+ bugfixes, increased performance, expanded selectors, and more.

Links of Interest (June 5th 2007 through June 7th 2007)

Video: RSS in Plain English
Brilliant explanation of what RSS is all about. Afraid to use those little orange icons you see everywhere? You won’t be.
Hire someone to run your errands
Hiring a personal assistant to got to free up your time for other things. Hmmmm.
The Power of Nuts
CBS renewed “Jherico” for seven more episodes due to fan protest involving sending nuts to the network (apparently 21,000+ lbs of them).
Global Variables and the WordPress Loop
Very detailed description of the WordPress Loop, and the globals available within.
Lecture: Joe Haldeman on “The Craft of Science Fiction”
SFFAudio points out a number of Science Fiction/Fantasy related lectures available at iTunes U (along with non-iTunes sources).
Icron offers USB 2.0 over power line solution
USB over powerlines. It sounds good. Why do I have the feeling that even if it does work, it won’t work for me?
GNU Emacs 22 finally released
Whoo hoo! I’m a fairly devout Emacs user, even on windows.

Links of Interest (May 24th 2007 through May 31st 2007)

Feed Your Television
Google Reader has added support for the Nintendo Wii (yeah, I’m bit behind on noticing this one).
Potter buffs may soon be able to visit Hogwarts
J.K. Rowling OKs a Harry Potter theme park in Orlando, FL. That could be fun. Unfortunately most of the article is about the upcoming book 7, but it sounds like it would be part of Universal.
Sci-fi writers join war on terror
Homeland Security calls on Sigma, a group of Science Fiction writers (including Jerry Pournelle, Arlan Andrews, Greg Bear, Larry Niven and Sage Walker) put together to advise government officials.
squirrels with lightsabers
as adviertized
Programming: How to build a Firefox extension
Occasionally I go looking for an extension to do something, fail to find it and start thinking I should write it myself. Maybe next time I will.
How To: Maintain threaded view in Thunderbird
I’ve been looking for this for years and I didn’t even know it.
Interface elements for jQuery
“Interface is a collection of rich interface components which utilizes the lightweight JavaScript library jQuery. With this components you can build rich client web applications and interfaces with the same simplicity as writing JavaScript with jQuery.”

Links of Interest

The World in the Satin Bag: Stuffs For Us Writers (Part One)
Software and gadgets for writers
Nostalgy Thunderbird Extension
This is probably the most useful, time saving Thundrebird extension I’ve ever used. Try it out.
Jason Penney@ iStalkr: Social Feed Aggregator
My iStalkr page
Now Reading 4.3.6
New version of “Now Reading” wordpress plugin
Twitter Tools README
README for Alex King’s Twitter Tools wordpress plugin.
Seven JavaScript Techniques You Should Be Using Today
Some JavaScript best practices.