Chris' shared items

The Google toolbar already provided a feature for this, but you can also do it right in the latest version of Firefox*: associate “mailto” links in web pages with Gmail, so that when you click on e.g. info@blogoscoped.com you’ll be instantly forwarded to create a new message in Google’s email client. Open Tools -> Options -> Applications, and look for the entry titled “mailto”. In the dropdown box, pick Gmail. Note this didn’t work here, but it worked for some of you.

[Thanks Adrian L.!]

*I’m not sure when this was added to Firefox and whether it’s completely new.

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Associate Email Links With Gmail in Firefox ( ... | Comments]

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Real men love cats. No, not the 80's Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but the actual animal. And I'm talking about straight, intelligent, and non-crazy men. I'd count myself as part of that group.

I'm no longer afraid to admit it. I love my cat. I'm proud of the love I have for my cat. My cat, Tulagi (pictured above), has been with me for over eight years, and she represents the single greatest relationship I've ever had with anything. (Emotional, not physical you perverts.) And according to this article in the New York Times, I'm not alone. Here are some quotes:

Only intelligent, aware, caring men love cats

...only pillars of virility and masculinity would dare to own one. [Cat lovers] are quick to point out other well-known macho cat owners: Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo and Marlon Brando, who reportedly found a stray cat on the set of "The Godfather" and incorporated it into a scene.

"[Men who own cats] make the best boyfriends because they're totally cool with staying home and watching a movie," said Elizabeth Daza, 28, a video producer in Manhattan, who dated a cat-owning man for eight years. "Straight men with cats seem to be really secure and stable. They don't need to be running around the park and proving their masculinity like the dog guys."

I told you I was the epitome of masculinity. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go pick up cat-puke off my rug.

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Neil Patrick Harris and my future husband Jason Segel totally making out? Yeah, that's going on my fantasy highlight reel. (It's an outtake from season three of How I Met Your Mother. Video here.) Hubba hubba!

From Serious Eats

The Huffington Post has Rachael Ray suggestively shucking corn in an amusing (and potentially NSFW) video titled "Rachael Ray Corn Porn." It's worse than you think.

This hot tub of Dutch design uses a coil around a fire to heat and circulate water from the wooden tub. No electrical hookup required!

After filling the tub with water, a fire can be started in the attached basket to kick start the heating process. The hot water starts to rise in the spiral, which automatically starts pouring in through the spiral, and begins circulating from the bottom to the top. The temperature is adjustable and to warm 700 liters of cold water the tub takes around two and a half hours.

DutchTub, designed by Floris Schoonderbeek, via Core77.

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Thanks to Duc for this hint, this ambient music exists actually on every XP installed system. The full path to the file is C:\Windows\system32\oobe\images\title.wma, try it out. @ haha.nu.

You may not know his name, but you know his voice. Don LaFontaine voiced more than 5,000 movie trailers and 300,000 television and radio commercials. He sadly passed away today at the age of 68. Cause of death has not yet been released.

LaFontaine immortalized the line "In a world where _______." I always like "In an world where nothing is as it seems."

While not a master of different characters like Mel Blanc or Paul Frees, Don LaFontaine had one of the most recognizable voices in show bidness history.


A short tribute.



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The Online Tech Tips site offers up a great tip for anyone reinstalling XP off something other than their original CD—such as a slipstreamed and automated installation—or lacking a net connection to run the activation. Before wiping your system clean, grab a file named WPA.DBL from the System32 directory and save it to a thumb drive or other external media. When you load up your new system, skip registration, enter "Safe Mode" from the boot menu, and drop it back into that System32 folder. Now you're re-activated and free of nagging. Hit the link below for detailed explanation of each step.

Many people are under the impression improved health and fitness requires a costly gym membership or home exercise equipment. The consummate minimalist in all endeavors including fitness, Leo of the blog Zen Habits has put together a list of exercises that are heavy on results but light on equipment.

It takes no equipment to get a great workout and get in shape, and with one or two pieces of simple equipment, you can turn that great workout into a fantastic one, you magnificent beast, you.

The majority of the exercises require nothing more than your body weight as resistance, with a very few requiring a pull-up bar and some form of weight resistance such as a rubber resistance band or kettle bell. If you're looking for a more unorthodox type of weight resistance check out the sledgehammer based ShovelGlove. He lists tons of exercises, many with accompanying demonstration videos and a sample workout routine. If you undertake a new workout routine, keep yourself motivated by tracking your fitness progress with free tools. If you've got a favorite minimalist fitness trick, share it with your fellow readers in the comments. Photo by Mike Baird.