PasswordSafe keeps all your passwords well... safe

I would like to recommend Password Safe. It is stored over there at SourceForge. There is even a Russian version of this for my Russian friends and those who are my friends who are living in Russia.

It is a free download and will automatically store the url to the website for which you need to remember a password. With one click of the mouse it will bring up your page. Next you can then have it automatically type in your username and password. How cool is that? Also, if you're brain is dead on coming up with a new password it can create one for you!

The Motocrosses!

Here's a couple of clips you need to see of my bro taking it up the big hill on his new dirt bike! I was there with him on another bike as camera man.
Right now they can be found by searching for Cross Culture Inc. on Google Video. Which I've already done for you. Just follow the link and the first four are ours. If someone else decides to post videos under that name then they may be more difficult to find but scroll around if they aren't the first four.

Also, there is an organization named Cross Culture Inc. but it isn't us. These videos are all we got online so far!

Thanks for viewing!
Motocrosses

You need to Download and Install RSS Bandit

I have found RSS Bandit to be the most user friendly out of the free news aggregators for Windows! Now before you go disagreeing with me, I haven't tried them all. In fact I've only tried just a few but here are some of my favorite features:

1. Auto-discovery of feeds when you point it to a web page.
2. Pop-ups (just like Outlook 2003 but not quite as fancy) when your news feeds have been updated!
3. Organize your feeds into categories (most aggregators do this!)
4. You have control over how the feeds are displayed to you! It is controlled by the stylesheet you choose to use or make/modify yourself.
5. It runs in the system tray so you don't have to worry about accidentally closing the app and not getting notified about updates.
6. It's open source!
   

I know I'm forgetting more but those are some of the basics. Oh one more thing it is written in C#. It is the best language I have found in a long time to get Web Forms or Windows forms applications developed and deployed in short order. Please comment if you have anything else I should add to this post.

Russian Crouching Spider Man in My Dreams!!!

And I thought my previous post got my adrenaline pumping! This stuff is my daily warm up routine... only in my dreams! This is a combination of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon meets Spiderman! If only I could do some of this! Yaayah! Check out Russian Climbing!

M5 vs. RS4 Pole Position

If you want to rev your engines check out this sweet vid!

Adobe Acquiring Macromedia

I don't know about you but the wars between the two computer multimedia software companies is a good thing! But apparently Adobe was the biggest giant in the industry and we will no longer have healthy competition between the two. I've used Macromedia Dreamweaver for years now and like it's platform independence and visually appealing GUI. But as a student when I bought Dreamweaver 2 it was around $100. I could barely afford that. Later I convinced my boss to purchase Dreamweaver MX (6.0) for around $350. I don't even want to know what it'll cost after the two companies merge.

RSS/News Feeds New???

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and news feeds are hardly new. Do a search on Google for "RSS" or "news feeds" and you will find articles telling of its history that goes back to the pre-millennial days in the late '90s. You may also find results that point you to where you can get help understanding this phenomenon that is a little hard to grasp at first. Finding web sites where you can download "news aggregators" or "readers" of which there are a plethora will be a breeze.

Here is the best summary I can give you based on my current understanding of the concept:

• Is it E-mail? No. Not really. Although some news readers present news feeds as such.
• Is it a mailing list? No again. This question is somewhat related to the previous question. If it's not e-mail then it can't be a mailing list per se... but it can replace one of the reasons mailing lists are used in the first place. Mailing lists have been used to notify users of web sites that content has changed or the way you browse that web site has been updated. (At the company where I work, I'm currently trying to convince colleagues to jump on this bandwagon for that very reason. I really don't want to manage a list of e-mail addresses and then e-mail messages to notify users that we have changed something one of our internal web sites)
• Is it a subscription service? Not quite. Although with a news reader you do subscribe to news feeds.
• Well what is it then? It is a very low tech way of publishing content that requires the "subscriber" via a news reader to regularly check a particular file on a web site for changes. This specially formatted file (or files depending on the intended audience) contains the same types of information that is necessary to describe an e-mail message. (i.e. Author, Title, Date Published, Body translates to From, Subject, Date, Body of message)

Pros

1. With a news reader that looks and feels much like an E-mail application (whether desktop or web based), you, as the subscriber, have complete control over the feeds to which you subscribe. Whereas with E-mail if you are on some mailing list and it becomes spam to you or was spam from the get-go, trying to unsubscribe may not always work. Alternatively, attempting to unsubscribe may notify the sender that your E-mail address does exist and you may end up receiving more junk than you did before.
   
2. This means a little more accountability for the content provider. For example, if the content provider decides to begin putting advertisements and marketing in their feed(s) they may risk losing you as a subscriber. All it takes is deleting that feed in your browser if you are not satisfied. No worrying about confirming your E-mail address to spammers or hoping you'll be unsubscribed from this annoying mailing list.
3. Changing your e-mail address and then notifying all of the web sites to which you have created accounts is a thing of the past. Subscribing to feeds doesn't require keeping your E-mail address updated. In fact feeds don't use E-mail at all.
   

Cons

1. You must have a reader to subscribe to the feeds. They are not yet commonplace. But I anticipate that they will be soon.
2. Subscribing to a feed is not as simple as clicking on a link. In fact if you click on the little orange XML image on a web page you will most likely see cryptic tags describing the feed contents that only a reader can display properly to you. Often you have to copy the address of the feed into your news reader to subscribe. There are several ways to do this but it is not straightforward to a beginner. However some news readers add plug-ins into your browser and scan each page for possible feeds as you browse the web. If you come across a page that may contain a link to feeds you can click on the readers button to see a list of feeds and then subscribe right from your browser window. Online news aggregation services exist that offer free aggregation of feeds you choose.

I'm sure I've left out a few more important points but I highly recommend downloading a news reader and trying out news feeds on some of your favorite web sites or blogs like this one.