Frank Nostrame - The Dude Abides

Hourly Paycheck Calculator | ADP

2011-12-01T13:52:00.001-05:00

Hourly Paycheck Calculator | ADP

Bookmarklet Combiner

2011-11-30T22:26:00.000-05:00

Bookmarklet Combiner

How To Integrate Google Music Into Ubuntu [Linux]

2011-11-30T20:40:00.000-05:00

How To Integrate Google Music Into Ubuntu [Linux]:

Use Google Music in Ubuntu without keeping a browser tab open. Google Music Frame lets you run your favorite web-based music software in the background, showing notifications when a new song plays and allowing you to change tracks the way you’re used to.

Google Music puts all of your music in the cloud, so you can listen to it on any computer. This is great, but leaving a browser tab open for your music isn’t without its problems. You might accidentally close your browser, shutting down your music with it. It’s also a pain to switch browser tabs to change the track, particularly if you’re used to using keyboard shortcuts for that.

Using Google Music Frame

Google Music Frame is, at first site, and aptly named program–it doesn’t look like much more than a frame for Google Music.

The nice thing, though, is you can start playing music and close the window. Your music will keep playing! Hit the “volume” button in Ubuntu, though, and you will see both the album art and buttons to quickly changing the track:

That’s right: you can change the track in two clicks, from anywhere. This makes Google Music feel that much more like a native Ubuntu application. Another nice perk: when the track changes, you’ll see a popup:

Again: this is how native Ubuntu music players behave, and is a very nice touch if you regularly make use of shuffle mode.

Need another way to change tracks? Well, you can do so from Google Music Frame’s dock icon, if you like:

I won’t be using this much myself, but many people see to love using the dock to accomplish things. This empowers them.

Finally, and this may be the ultimate perk: your multimedia keys will work with Google Music Frame. This means that, if you set up system-wide keyboard shortcuts for music playback, you can use these to control Google Music. Beautiful!

Want to see this all in action? Check out this video.

Note: I did not make this video, so it does not necessarily represent the musical tastes of me of myself, MakeUseOf.com or any of its affiliates.

Setup Google Music Frame

Ready to see up Google Music Frame on your system? You’ll need to add the Ubuntu Music Frame PPA, then: janousek.jiri/google-music-frame-releases. The easiest way to accomplish this is to open the terminal and run these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:janousek.jiri/google-music-frame-releases sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install google-music-frame

That should install Music Frame for you.

Not sure what a PPA is? Read this article explaining what a PPA is and why you’d want to add one.

Are you not using Ubuntu? Check out Google Music Frame’s website, but don’t expect miracles. This software was designed for Ubuntu’s Unity, and as such works best with Ubuntu.

Conclusion

Google Music gives me access to my entire music collection from my netbook, so I love it. Google Music Frame means I can enjoy that music on my netbook but still use a music player well-integrated with my operating system. The only thing it can’t do, it seems, is download podcasts and send them to my MP3 player!

How do you like Google Music Frame? Let us know in the comments below; I’ll be joining the conversation.

Video // Current TV

2011-11-30T20:11:00.001-05:00

Video // Current TV

How To Set Up An Apache Web Server In 3 Easy Steps

2011-11-29T08:37:00.000-05:00

How To Set Up An Apache Web Server In 3 Easy Steps:

Integrating Google Reader with IBM Connections Bookmarks

2011-11-29T08:35:00.000-05:00

Integrating Google Reader with IBM Connections Bookmarks:
One of IBM Connections features is Bookmarks, where you can save and share bookmarks, in addition to simply sharing a bookmark you can share it with a Community, add it to an Activity, or create a blog post out of it, all from the same bookmarklet.

Nice functionality, but I find a lot of content to share while in Google Reader, so I thought it would be nice to be able to share directly from Google Reader in to IBM Connections. Google Reader allows you to create your own Send To Actions so you can share beyond the services they already set up for you. You can find and customize the Send To actions in Google Reader Preferences

at the bottom of the page you will find instructions for creating your own Send To actions

I added a Sent To action for IBM Connections in the Lotus Greenhouse, to configure for your own site just replace ‘greenhouse.lotus.com’ with the URL of your own Connections installation. There are three fields required to create a Send To action

Name: This is how it will appear in your menu (IBM Connections in my example)

URL: this is the URL to the bookmarklet along with the keywords for URL, Title, etc. Mine looks like this

http://greenhouse.lotus.com/dogear/bookmarklet/post?url=http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Curiousmitch/~3/E8kGpbyuc4U/&title=Integrating Google Reader with IBM Connections Bookmarks&perma=false&ver= again replace the ‘greenhouse.lotus.com’ with your URL for your Connections environment.

Icon URL: if you want an image to appear next to the Name you can point to an image here, I pointed to the Bookmark Image from greenhouse.

Save your Sent To action and you can now share directly from Google Reader in to IBM Connections

If you use Google Reader on multiple machines the Send To action will appear on any machine you log in to with the same Google ID you created it under. If you IBM Connections environment is behind a firewall, the Send To action will only work when you have access to Connections.

Minus: Extremely Simple File Sharing With 10GB of Free Online Storage

2011-11-19T22:39:00.000-05:00

Seems very cool after installing and taking a quit look. Shortly after checking out Minus, I ended up mounting my box.net account, where I got 50GBs (for free!), on my Ubuntu machine. So, don't really need this Minus account, but might check it out eventually.

Minus: Extremely Simple File Sharing With 10GB of Free Online Storage

UNIX / Linux Performance Tuning and Kernel Tuning with graphs and analysis

2011-11-19T22:32:00.000-05:00

UNIX / Linux Performance Tuning and Kernel Tuning with graphs and analysis

Grandma and Andrew reading

2011-11-10T07:10:00.001-05:00

2011-06-23T06:50:00.001-04:00

Bleacher Report Team Stream Story

Angry Birds Peace Treaty

2010-12-08T08:51:00.000-05:00

For all you Angry Bird fans...

America's Game - 2007 New York Giants

2010-07-28T22:25:00.001-04:00

Relive the Glory!!!

Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex | Video on TED.com

2010-07-26T11:36:00.000-04:00

Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex | Video on TED.com

Our boys Blog

2010-03-27T11:05:00.002-04:00

In case you haven't checked it out yet, or subscribed yet, here's a link to our boys blog.

Nathaniel and Andrew: A blog for our sons

Hi Everyone!

2010-03-27T10:59:00.001-04:00

It’s me, Nathaniel.

Just wrapped up week 2 1/2 of my paternity leave

2010-01-29T23:17:00.002-05:00

Taking care our newborn sons has been awesome!! I can’t believe how quickly my paternal instincts have kicked in. It’s quite a chore to care for these kids sometimes, but in the words of Brian Kurzman, this is the toughest job that we’ll ever love. And we truly do love it. … despite all of the noises that babies can make, which can make you feel like going mad at times. ;-D

New dad to my new baby boys, Nathaniel and Andrew!!!!

2009-12-20T23:14:00.002-05:00

Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Mind dumping with email + Smart Add

2009-09-17T15:49:00.000-04:00

Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Mind dumping with email + Smart Add: "

Too many tasks cluttering up your brain? Try out this very useful tip from RTM user ovanrijswijk:

Those of you who are using RTM as a GTD-system might also be using 'Mind Dumps'. A mind dump is simply a way for you to get everything out of your head and into writing (paper or digital).

Our brains aren’t made to remember things forever, but written down text is; with an empty brain, we’re able to either focus on new things or deal with the task at hand, instead of constantly dwelling on past things taking up valuable bandwidth. This writing resulting from a mind dump is an important part of collecting stuff. Once written down, the stuff is to be processed an organized into your RTM-system.

Now here comes my Tip: use an e-mail to write down your mind dump to add it fast-and-easy to RTM. Send it to your RTM Import Email Address.

Once a week – i.e. during your Weekly Review – open a new e-mail and start writing. One item per line. After this mind dump send the e-mail to your RTM Import Email Address.

The result: all the items in your "mind dump e-mail" are converted to tasks in your RTM Inbox. That's where you can start to process and organize. Add data one task-item at a time – make it a project or a next action; add tags, location, notes and/or other metadata. And put the task on the right list.

…. and the stuff is off your mind and into your RTM-system.

As ovanrijswijk later notes, you can also use the import a list via email feature to include tasks with Smart Add syntax for a 'Smart' mind dump. Your email might then look something like this:


Subject: Inbox
To: [Your Remember The Milk import email address]

Buy birthday present for Mike today
Pay the phone bill tomorrow
Make dentist appointment on Tuesday #errand
Pick up the milk tomorrow @Supermarket

Thanks for sharing this tip, ovanrijswijk! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week. :)

Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum and add a new thread and let us know how you use RTM. Each week we’ll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.

Four hours of sleep aint cuttin it. Good practice 4 when babies come tho. Off to dentist, the one I swore I'd never see again :-(

2009-09-14T16:57:00.001-04:00

IBM Throws Out Microsoft Office

2009-09-13T22:03:00.000-04:00

IBM Throws Out Microsoft Office: "360.000 IBM workers have been told to stop using Microsoft Office and switch to the Open Office-based software Symphony."

Excited about the boys coming in Jan. I think they're deserving of a momento from london.

2009-09-07T08:22:00.001-04:00

1/2 way thru london trip... Could definitely live here... or work and live on someone elses dime. Missing my special lady bad tho.

2009-07-19T13:57:00.000-04:00

Hiking near sand beach at acadia. Absolutely amazing. Very much feels like being at the east coast version of the pacific coast highway

2009-07-10T15:32:00.001-04:00

fantastic afternoon and evening in portland, maine.... destination bar harbor

2009-07-06T22:23:00.001-04:00

Photos of New England Summer Vacation

2009-07-06T21:29:00.004-04:00

We're just about half way through our summer vacation. Instead of heading off to Europe like we've been doing lately, we decided to stay local and enjoy what New England has to offer. To start the journey, we went down to Newport, RI for our friend Molly and Sagiv's wedding celebration. What an amazing weekend in Newport! We went sailing, watched tennis at the International Tennis Hall of Fame, ate fried seafood at Flo's and, of course, took part in an amazing wedding on the beach!

The weekend also included a walk on Easton Beach and the Cliff Walk, as well as a nap on a very windy, and therefore chilly, hill at Brenton Point State Park. Not surprisingly, the park is well known for kite flying.

As I write this first draft of the blog entry, we're in Portland, ME. We have an incredible view of the bay from our hotel room, which is directly across from the ferry terminal. We had a delicious dinner at Fore Street! I had the sea bass and Christine had the cod. I got really hyper during and after the meal, which (I think) is a sign that I really, really enjoyed it. Makes sense. Oh, only had one glass of one. ;-D

After dinner we took the ferry over to Peak's Island. I feel like I've been told SO much about Peak's by Christine, but we needed to head over on the short ferry ride so I could see it all (or some) for myself. In fact, there isn't too much to see at all once you're over there, but the views on the way over are unbeatable! Same goes for the views of the sunset once you're on the island. As for island life itself... it's all about relaxation and enjoying island living in New England. Fishing, biking, eating lots of seafood.... relaxing... then do it all over again. Here are some pics.

Next stop - Bar Harbor, ME.

To be continued...