For example, the NCHS of the CDC website can be accessed at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/Default.htm or at the much better looking URL http://www.cdc.gov/nchs.

Just some helpful advice. Please take these annoying little parts off of web addresses so that it looks cleaner. Thank you.

We’re approaching the two year anniversary of when Doug, Nathan, Joe, Kelsey, and I built a huge backyard screen for the showing of High School Musical 2 on August 17, 2007. Check out the movie below, see the article on Lifehacker, and get ready for another showing on the huge screen sometime this summer.

Lifehacker: Build Your Own Outdoor Movie Theater

If you have two monitors like I do, you may like to have full-screen flash videos playing in your second monitor. There is a problem, though, that as soon as you click in a different window, the Flash goes to non-full screen. In other words, you can’t browse and have full screen flash on your second monitor.

There is a fix for this “security feature,” though. (Disclaimer: Adobe claims that this feature of auto-minimizing is integral to computer security, so proceed with caution)

1. Make sure you have Flash player version 10.0.22.87 (you can see this version information here).
2. Open NPSWF32.dll (probably located at c:\Windows\system32\Macromed\flash\npswf32.dll) in a hex editor.
3. Go to address 0×136340 and change byte 74 to EB.

I have tried this, and it works great. Original source here.

One interesting thing about dealing with Lenovo, the Chinese company who purchased the PC division of IBM in 2005, was the shipping log. The laptop actually originated from China (Shenzhen to be exact). The shipment went from China to Alaska, was held up in customs, then to Kentucky, to Illinois, and finally to my house. Luckily Lenovo shipped the laptop via expedited shipping so it didn’t take as long as it could have.

So far I love the laptop. It is very solid, and the feel of the keyboard is amazing. One “small thing” that I have noticed, however, is the placement of the left Ctrl button. On my old Dell laptop and on most desktop keyboards the Ctrl button is the leftmost buton on the keyboard, making it easy to locate when I need to use it for a shortcut (Ctrl+c for copy, Ctrl+t for new tab, etc.). On this laptop, however, the button on the bottom left is the Fn button. How entirely weird! I have to re-train my hand for my keyboard shortcuts, which is a small thing, but still annoying. Sometimes the smallest things are the most noticeable.

Update: Lenovo has finally listened to the community and began a discussion on their Design Matters Blog about this issue.

My problem with Google Chrome, though, is that there are no add-ins (a.k.a extensions). I am a heavy user of Firefox add-ins. Without Adblock Plus, Googlepedia, Last Tab, Better Amazon, Download Statusbar, and Foxmarks, I would be totally lost!

They will come out with extensions eventually:

“We don’t have that in the beta today, but we definitely plan an extension API,” or application programming interface, Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president of product management, said at the Chrome launch event here Tuesday. “It is one of the things we will get to next.”

.. but until they do, I can’t stand to use it daily.

In other Chrome news, it’s interesting to see what browsers Chrome is actually hurting.

If you are anything like me, you probably sign in to Gmail from multiple computers. I, for example, occasionally sign into my Gmail account from a friend’s house when I need to check an important email. Usually I remember to sign out, but every once in a while I wonder if I really did. Now I no longer have to wonder.

Gmail Blog: Remote Sign Out

Google Monitoring ISP Throttling – Google will be creating a tool to help consumers detect if their ISP is throttling their internet traffic.

“We’re trying to develop tools, software tools…that allow people to detect what’s happening with their broadband connections, so they can let [ISPs] know that they’re not happy with what they’re getting — that they think certain services are being tampered with,” Google senior policy director Richard Whitt said this morning during a panel discussion at Santa Clara University, an hour south of San Francisco.

HotHardware: Google To Develop ISP Throttling Detector

I’m really impressed w/amazons selection of DRM free music. I’ll still use iTunes for my player, but amazon is my new store

Kevin Rose via Twitter

It’s great to see that people are slowly realizing how the iTunes Music store locks you in to iPods for the rest of your life. Amazon (and many of the up-and-coming alternatives like Napster) is cheaper, has non-DRM MP3s, and works with more players (including iPods). They have a special downloader program that will directly import the songs to your iPod, or (my preference) you can download the mp3 file directly. Why would you not switch?

A study by The University of Utah has concluded that two monitors can significantly increase efficiency. Further, monitors of size 24″ tend to be the most productive.

So if I’m interpreting this correctly, two 20″ or 24″ monitors will achieve the optimal efficiency for me.

Dr. James Anderson discussed his findings in his paper (begins on pg. 32) as well as on NPR. Very interesting.