Cloud-Generating 1900-Ship Armada to Sink Climate Change

The Copenhagen Consensus Centre—a respected European think tank which used to be skeptic on climate change—is now advising that we should spend $9 billion in building 1900 cloud-generating ships like the one above. Why? To cool down Earth:

When you spray saltwater into the air, you create nuclei that cloud condenses around, creating bigger and whiter clouds, thus bouncing more sunlight back into space.

That's what David Young, a member of the panel that created the report, says. The fully automated vessels will cross the oceans absorbing water and spraying it into the skies. They say this will help the formation of big, whiter clouds, which will make the sun light bounce, lowering temperatures.
The idea seems neat, but the concept of anyone in planet Earth claiming to understand how climate works to this extend blows my mind. We are still trying to grasp how a complex system like the weather works, but someone wants to put an idea like this in motion, without knowing about the ultimate consequences? Like we say in my home country: Do you experiments with pop soda.

Home screen Expose Concept by iPhone

We get the strangest e-mails in the MobileCrunch tips line. Sometimes people will write in to tell us about their day, using us as an archaic, vacuum-esque livejournal. Other times (and quite often), internet newbies fail to realize this isn’t a store, and ask us when we’ll have such and such item in stock. Less often, we’ll get random little gems of self-created goodness that I’m never quite sure what to do with; they’re not news, per se, but they’re still rather interesting.
Such is the case with this concept video (after the jump) from Swedish design house Ocean Observations. It looks rather flashy and neat, but I’m left wondering: would anyone use it?

It’s like OS X’s Expose feature, tweaked for iPhone app screens. Tap the home button, and up to 9 pages of homescreen are shown in a grid. Tapping any of the displayed pages will jump you directly to that page, allowing you to skip from page 1 to page 8 without swiping 7 times. If Apple provided this as one of the home button behavior alternatives, would you use this? It seems to me like the primary use would be launching a specific app; if that’s the case, why not just use search – which can already be tied to the home button?

 ◘ Source ►TechCrunch

How-to design a Web Page

A good web page design requires forethought, planning and a willingness to alter the initial strategy. Before writing even the first bit of code or setting the first icon on screen, it is necessary to know why the web page needs to be created, and that will often guide how to build the site. Secondly, using the reason for the page's creation as a guide, the writer must construct the page logically and must be aware of certain things that can trip up even an experienced web page designer

Knowing the Why Often Reveals the How

1. When building a website, the first thing to determine is the primary reason for the website. This should be something that can be answered in one sentence. For example, "The primary purpose of my website is to tell people about my business." Or, "I want my website to show off the Role Playing Game I made that I can't get anyone else to publish." The "why" will often reveal a great deal about the "how." For example, a business site should be an even split between selling the company's services and informing the public about the company. A web page detailing how to build a desk might put pictures next to the text describing how to do things to help the viewer understand the process.
   
   To sum up, let the website's reason for being guide how the page or pages are laid out.

The Keys to a Successful Design

2. The purpose of a web page is to communicate to the intended audience. Or put more simply, it's designed to tell the visitor some information or insight. When in doubt, keep it simple. While having 20 videos, a dozen links and a bunch of animated pictures may look cool to the creator, it takes the risk of distracting the visitor from the reason they came there in the first place. So, when in doubt, simplify.
   
   Also, consider how long it takes for the page to load. While bandwidth is much less of a problem than it was even a decade ago, it is still a consideration. The longer it takes for a page to load and be viewable, the less likely the viewer is to stay and see the page. Consider using multiple pages to contain and manage the information in question. This also allows for better organization and a better chance of conveying the information. A picture or video that is useful, but not critical to the page might be better linked to the page, rather than on the page itself.
   
   One HTML trick for faster loading is to define the size of the pictures or objects to be loaded on the page. Most browsers will stick a "placeholder" in that spot while the picture loads and will load the rest of the site in the meantime. Also, avoid using background pictures unless they are fairly small and simple, as they can clutter a web page and slow down the loading time of the page, neither of which is beneficial.
   
   Next, if the web page is part of a website (and most are), be sure there is a clear, obvious and easy-to-use index of the pages in the site, which can allow visitors to navigate to other pages within the site. This is especially critical in business-oriented sites. Fortunately, most web page building software packages include this feature.
   
   By the way, be aware of an HTML tag called the "anchor" (A NAME="anchorname"). This allows visiters to maneuver within the page itself. It is an independent tag that functions with a variation on the standard hyperlink (the format is A HREF="pagename#anchorname"). This can be very handy for the written portion of the page, allowing you to expand on key points without disrupting the flow of the web page, but keeping all the information on one page, and it can be used to link from other web pages. I personally use this feature regularly on the site I manage to link to current seminars our company has planned which appear midway down the seminar page, but which we "tease" on our main page. The anchor tag allows the visitor to go directly to the seminar details on the seminar page.
   
   If you are using javascript or vbasicscript with the page, be aware that not all browers support this, either because of the browser's age or because the owner decided to turn it off and leave it off. Be sure to use the NOSCRIPT tag to cover these circumstances.
   
   One other little trick that can help tremendously with layout is to use tables. Most web page building software can create them, and if set to a border of zero, they are invisible on the page, but allow for a much more flexible presentation of the information.
   
   In summation, a good web page should be kept as simple as possible without losing information, have an easy-to-use index if it is part of a website, and be well organized and linked, if necessary, within the page.

Conclusion

3. Good web page design is as much art as it is a science. A good web page is built for a reason, and focuses on that reason with every aspect of its design. It is not overly complicated for the sake of being fancy, and has a logical, easy-to-follow organization.

RegCleaner-4.3 -Tutorial

RegCleaner 4.3 is designed to clean the Windows registry of old and unneeded entries. RegCleaner 4.3 is the last version of the program that is available to use for free. You can use RegCleaner to remove not only registry entries but also shared files and shortcut files. Version 4.3 of the program is still available for download.

Installation

You can install RegCleaner 4.3 by first downloading the setup file to your desktop (see Resources). When you double-click on the file, the Installer window will appear. If you do not want a new start page or shortcuts added to your desktop, uncheck the top two boxes. The program unpacks the needed files and copies them to your system when you click the "Next" button after accepting the license agreement. When the files have been copied, you will see a shortcut on your desktop for RegCleaner.

Tabs

When the program is opened, you will see a row of tabs across the top of the program window. "Software," "Startup List" and "Uninstall Menu" are the three tabs that you will use the most. The Software tab lists all of the software currently installed on the system. Startup List displays all of the programs that load when Windows starts. Uninstall Menu displays all programs that can be removed through the "Add/Remove Programs" option in Windows. Items in the list can be removed manually by placing a check in the item and then clicking the "Remove Selected" button.

Cleaning Options

Within the Registry Cleanup selection there are various options that you can use to clean entries from the Windows registry. There are four options to choose from: "OLE Cleaner," "Orphan File Reference Finder," "Automatic Registry Cleaner" and "Do Them All." The "OLE Cleaner" option will clean unused and invalid object linking and embedding entries. The "Orphan File Reference Finder" option will remove registry entries that point to a file that no longer exists. The "Automatic Registry Cleaner" option will clean all registry entries that are possible to remove automatically. You can also select "Do Them All" to have the program automatically run each option.

Cleaning the Registry

You can clean the registry on your system by running the Automatic Registry Cleaner. This option is found by going to the Tools drop-down menu and then selecting the option for "Registry Cleanup." Click on "Automatic Registry Cleaner" to have the program scan and display a list of entries that you can delete. You can select items one at a time or go to the "Select" drop-down menu and choose "All" to select all items. Click the "Remove Selected" button to remove all checked items from the Windows registry.

Kid Who Sued Amazon Wins, Kindle Now Safer Place for Your Books

The kid who sued Amazon for eating his homework just won in court, to the tune of $150,000.

Yep, remember the kid who had his notes from George Orwell's 1984 deleted along with Amazon's mass eradication of the work from all Kindles? That little mofo just won in court, splitting a $150,000 settlement with a co-plaintiff and the law firm, which will be donating its portion to charity.

As much as this sounds like a Disney live action film from the 1990s (you can just see Jeff Bezos portrayed caricature-like by Paul Giamatti, can't you?), the real outcome is that Amazon no longer can just do what it wants to content on Kindles, just because it owns that content.

☼ Source ►Gizmodo