The view from the afternoon 2
Published Tuesday, October 28, 2008 Creative 0 CommentsTags: 3 o'clock, Autumn, Hillel Stoler
Rapidshare Hack: How to skip the 40 seconds download delay
Published Saturday, September 20, 2008 Creative , Efficiency , Rapidshare 4 CommentsTags: Design flaw, Hillel Stoler, Rapidshare premium, Tabs, Valuable seconds
Rapidshare had recently (and kindly) removed many of it’s free user limitations (the 1 file/day/IP policy & the infamous Cats CAPTCHA comes to mind). However, there are still some disadvantages for being a free user. One of which is the 40 seconds delay (countdown) that appears before you can start your download.
I have come up with a way to save some time and skip this delay when downloading multiple files from Rapidshare. You don’t need any special tools or software to accomplish this, and the method is very easy to master.
The idea is simple: we’ll let the countdown for one file run on one tab (or window) and at the same time we’ll download a different file in another tab. We can’t download two files at a time, but we can make rapidshare send a file and do the countdown simultaneously!
This is how to do it:
1) Open each of your Rapidshare download links in a new tab (you should see screen A with two speed gauges - don’t click the ‘Free user’ button yet!)
2) Now, (only) on the first and second tabs, click the ‘Free user’ button.
3) Wait 40 seconds (screen B). You should now have two tabs with files ready to download (screen C). All the other tabs should still be in the gauges window (screen A).
4) Start the first download (and close the first tab)
5) When this download is complete, don’t start the next download right away. Instead, go to the next tab (the first one that still shows Window A with the gauges) and click the ‘Free user’ button (to start a new countdown). Don’t wait, proceed to step 6 immediately.
6) Go back to the previous tab (which is ready for download - window C) and start your download.
7) Every time a download is complete, repeat stges 5-7 as needed.
The point is to always have the next file ready for download by the time the current download is finished. If you download n files you can save up to (n-1)*40 seconds using this method, so if you download 50 files from Rapidshare for example, you’ll save almost 33 minutes!
Kick ass presentation (also: final project has ended!)
Published Monday, September 8, 2008 Afeka ACE , Creative , Engineering , Fab@Home , Rapid Prototyping 2 CommentsTags: Hillel Stoler, Afeka Academic College of Engineering, 8 questions about rapid prototyping @ Afeka, Laser etching, Final project presentation, AFEKA PROJECT ME
Earlier today I gave a short presentation about my final project in Mechanical and Systems Engineering in front of an evaluation committee at Afeka ACE.
This presentation marks the completion of my academic obligations towards this project and thus concludes it. It’s titled “8 questions about rapid prototyping @ Afeka” and you can watch it here. You should, it looks really great! (if I may say so myself)
UPDATE (September 16, 2008): From Wikipedia: In the 1998 United States v. Microsoft case, Bill Gates gave deposition testimony that several journalists characterized as evasive. He argued with examiner David Boies over the contextual meaning of words like “compete”, “concerned”, and “we”. Gates later said that he had simply resisted attempts by Boies to mischaracterize his words and actions. As to his demeanor during the deposition, he said, “Did I fence with Boies? … I plead guilty. Whatever that penalty is should be levied against me: rudeness to Boies in the first degree.”
Talkinator - Chat widget for WordPress.com
Published Monday, August 18, 2008 Software , Wordpress.com 3 CommentsTags: (and other cool stuff), Chat, Hillel Stoler, Talkinator, WORDPRESS COM
I’ll begin by reminding everyone that this website is generally about my own work. However there is that “and other cool stuff” thingy, right below the Hillel Stoler title, so from time to time I reserve the right to write about cool (or just useful) stuff other people are doing :)
Talkinator is an anonymous chat widget that will work on wordpress.com blogs, thus eliminating the meebo.com monopoly. It was made by the same people that created Mailinator - a single serving mailbox service. The idea behind Talkinator is that people could chat on your blog or website without the need to create a user or download any software.
You can setup a unique chat room of you choice, or (to my understanding) use an existing chat room - in which case people visiting your blog will be able to chat with people on other websites where this room is also available. I’ve created a chat room called “WORDPRESS COM”, you can add it to your blog by copying the following code:
<iframe width="250" height="350" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src='http://t8ra.info/$r?s=0&t=h&w=250&h=350&c=8b0000&b=WordPress%20Com'></iframe>
Talkinator looks pretty much low-tech (but not in a good way), and lacks on functionality. However, it is very easy to implement, and the code survives the wordpress.com filters. Another downside is the minimum widget size (which is 250px). This limitation will make it harder to put this widget on your wordpress.com blog’s sidebar (which is probably thinner than that). Also, the script generator could be improved (to say the least) but do check it out!
TIP: When you use this chat, a random username is automatically generated for you. You can change your name by writing “/nick NEWNAME” where NEWNAME is of course a name of your choice.
Nick “Grinderman” Cave @ Barcelona
Published Wednesday, July 23, 2008 Entertainment , Music , Travel 1 CommentTags: Grinderman, Hillel Stoler, Nick Cave, No new crap!, SUMMERCASE 2008
Recursive nostalgia
Published Sunday, July 13, 2008 C:\DOS> , Creative , Old School , Software Development 0 CommentsTags: 20th Century, 3D, 90's, DILG Software, Hillel Stoler, Mode $13, Plasma, Turbo Pascal
When I was about fifteen years old I began using Borland Turbo Pascal 7.0 (Great software!). I wrote massive amounts of code between the years 1996-2000, resulting in an impressive array of unreleased DOS programs. My specialization was special effects, especially on 80×25 text mode. I recall frequently using statistical analysis to compare different variations of a routine in order to find the fastest version. Those were the days!
This is a screenshot of one of my very first attempts to program 3D (note that there is no shading), This is from 1997, when I was about seventeen. The effect in the background is palette cycle plasma (which is inferior to real time plasma). You can download the compiled executable here (43 KB), it’s a DOS program but it should run okay on most systems. Keep NumLock on, and don’t run this under DosBox because it might get very slow.
Instructions:
Also, I found a 3,400 words long development log embedded in the source file of one of my (very old) flag projects (DILGraph - a kick ass graphics unit for mode $13 (320×200x8bit), it also had a VESA plug-in but that’s another story). I used to mix some personal stuff along with the tech stuff back then (It was both a development log and the diary I’ve never had - something like an offline blog). After reading almost all the way to the end I’ve stumbled upon the following entry:
…by the way the Arc and Line based Heart is the last procedure to be added to DILGraph in the 20th century. This is also the last entry for this millennium. 30/12/99 Logging out.
Check out what I’ve been up to 10 years ago, download HILLEL 3D R5T.
GetSocial 1.01
Published Monday, June 2, 2008 Creative , Donationware , GetSocial , Social Bookmarking , Software , Software Development , Technology , Wordpress.com 20 CommentsTags: AddThis.com, Blinklist, Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Free Software, Furl, future-old-release, GetSocial, Hillel Stoler, Ma.gnolia, Newsvine, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Technorati, Update
GetSocial v1.01 (huh?) is now available! It’s exactly the same as good old version 1.00 except that the image border/padding issue that occurs in some WordPress.com themes is now resolved. Download GetSocial v1.01 now!
If for some reason you really need the first release (version 1.00), or any other future-old-release(tm) you can always get every version of GetSocial here.
UPDATE (June 23, 2008): GetSocial v1.02 is now available. Go get it!
GetSocial - Social Bookmarking for WordPress.com
Published Sunday, May 18, 2008 Creative , Donationware , GetSocial , Social Bookmarking , Software , Software Development , Technology , Wordpress.com 64 CommentsTags: 5$, Add To.., AddThis, AddThis.com, Blinklist, Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Free Software, Furl, GetSocial, Hillel Stoler, Ma.gnolia, Newsvine, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Technorati, Wizard Interface
GetSocial is made especially for WordPress.com bloggers. It automatically generates a (specially designed) social bookmarking toolbar for each one of your posts. This is a 100% scriptless way to create social bookmarking links, which makes it a perfect solution for wordpress.com users. It is also based on a 3 step wizard interface which is very friendly and easy to use. Oh, and it’s 100% free!
Download GetSocial now:
Great, but what is a Social Bookmarking toolbar anyway?
Well, here are some fine examples (made with GetSocial v1.00) - Try it!
Screenshot of GetSocial v1.00
How does it work?
After you download GetSocial (which is 100% Virus/Adware/Whatever free!), Extract and run GetSocial.exe (No Installation is needed, but you will need to have Microsoft .net framework 2.0 installed: nothing a quick visit to Windows Update won’t solve).
You can then select between adding Social Bookmarks to a post or an AddThis.com button to your blog (more on that later). You will need to enter a permalink to your post (which is the web address of your post) and the title of your post.
Click next and select your preferred type of Social Networking toolbar design (there are four of them!), after you get your code, paste it to your post (while in HTML Edit mode) and that’s it! Sounds difficult? Try it, and see for yourself just how easy it is! :)
UPDATE (August 24, 2008): Lee Aase, from Social Media University Global (SMUG), made a YouTube movie about using GetSocial - watch it!
UPDATE (July 23, 2008): Teck, from the Teck~Line blog, wrote a post about how to use GetSocial here.
Free software?
GetSocial is a donationware, which means you can use (and share) it for free for as long as you like (you can’t sell it or tell people you’ve made it yourself though). It is neither limited nor crippled in any way. If you use/like it, consider donating 5.00 USD (you can do it!) to the author of the software (that’s me!) Thanks :)
What did you say about AddThis.com earlier?
GetSocial lets you create an AddThis.com button for your blog as a whole. It is a little known fact, but when you put an AddThis.com button in your blog’s sidebar (even if you selected ‘WordPress’ when you generated the code on their website) your button will not link to your blog, instead it will link to the AddThis.com website! This is due to scripting limitations on wordpress.com that removes important parts of the script. I have found this error on every single AddThis.com button I’ve seen on wordpress.com so far!
UPDATE (May 19, 2008): Netty Gritty wrote a good article about the AddThis.com problem here.
How to check if my AddThis.com button links to my blog?
It’s very simple really: click it, and on the the Bookmark & Share page click on ‘Favorites’ (See photo). This will add a website to your browsers favorites - if it’s your blog then everything is okay, but if it adds AddThis.com then everyone who ever used it promoted AddThis.com, and not your blog!
The good news: GetSocial can fix this for you in no time :)
What else?
Enjoy GetSocial!
Oh, and one more thing, GetSocial is not affiliated in any way with WordPress.com, AddThis.com or any of the Social Bookmarking providers.
Download GetSocial.zip (302KB) here.
UPDATE (June 02, 2008): I’ve received some requests regarding a spacing/border issue in some WordPress.com themes. A new version, GetSocial 1.01, resolves these issues. Every download link in this post has been set to point to the most recent version of GetSocial. Scope this.
Default
Published Saturday, May 10, 2008 Entertainment , Search Engines , Tagline , Wordpress.com 1 CommentTags: (not), Default, Hillel Stoler, How to change your blog's tagline
WordPress.com currently hosts 3,084,466 blogs. I’d really like to know: Is it really possible that so many of them share the same tagline?
I mean, c’mon, “Just another WordPress.com weblog” is good, but it’s not that great! (btw, the slightly more original: “not just another wordpress.com weblog” returns 14,700 results)
My guess is that if wordpress.com displayed “Right now in categories” instead of “right now in tags” on the main page, we would see that the most popular post category is “Uncategorized”.
How to change your blog’s tagline:
(Login to wordpress.com and select your blog) On the right side of the dashboard there is a “Settings” link - click it, edit or delete the “Tagline” field, scroll down and click on the “Save Changes” button.
Donations via PayPal - How much is just right?
Published Tuesday, May 6, 2008 Business , Donationware , Money , PayPal 2 CommentsTags: Analysis, Commission, Curve, Donations, Hillel Stoler, The House Always Wins
When creating donationware (Free and fully functional product that does not require payment, but instead requests a donation) your success depends on many factors, ranging from the quality and spread of your product to the current state of the economy. A key issue in getting donations is to know the right amount to ask for.
You can always leave it to the potential donor to decide how much money he wants to donate, but doing so will lead to an additional step in the process of making the donation, which will require the donor to make another decision (how much to donate). This might be a chance for the donor to revert his original decision of making a donation in the first place! He or she might think: I’m not sure how much I want to donate, this is too much money/not enough money/not exactly what I wanted - “I’ll think about it and come back later”. We seldom do that, don’t we?
If you decide to request a fixed amount and using PayPal to collect your donations, you should consider how much of your donation money will actually get to you after PayPal takes all its commissions.
I’ve prepared this graph (ranging from donations of 1.00 to 100.00 USD), which illustrates the amount of money in percents PayPal will take for each donation amount. Naturally, when you ask for more money you will get to keep a higher percentage of each donation, however it will become harder to raise them in the first place!
This graph is based on data from PayPal for a premiere account (where transactions from people using PayPal and credit cards have the same commission rates). You pay PayPal a fixed 0.30 USD for each donation, plus an additional 3.4% (for a monthly transaction volume smaller than 3,000 USD).
You can observe a rapid drop in the fraction eaten by PayPal for each additional dollar up until around 5.00 USD (this is our 10% commission mark), after that we get a nice curve up until about 20.00 USD where the comission rate is reduced in half to about 5%, and from there it’s a linear decline with a very small slope (which means that from this point, asking for more money will have almost no effect on the commision).
I have concluded that our preferred work area should be the curve, with donation requests ranging from 5.00 to 20.00 USD.
Last But Not Least