Nerd-Gasm: The Tiny Music Box
Problems falling asleep? Or do you just need a moment to relax? Have I got the thing for you! The Tiny Music Box
Twist the tiny crank and your favorite tune will play. Many different types of tiny music boxes are available, all with a very known tunes. Mine, for instance, plays the Pink Panther ‘s theme song.
Greenshot: for all your screenshot needs
Presenting a fantastic screen capturing tool today. Greenshot is an open source tool, free to download needless to say.
It allows you to quickly make a snapshot of a part of your screen. But not only that, it has a build in interface to send the captured images to a destination, for instance your computer, paint, word, imgur and even Jira (the IT guys will know what I mean).
This is in my opinion already great! But wait! There is more! It has it’s own build in image editing tool. This makes it very easy and very fast to edit your screenshot on the fly. It also enables you to obfuscate parts of your screenshot. For those emergency “OMG-there-is-a-nipple-showing” sessions.
Really handy at work, I can assure you! Go for it, you’ll love it. Downloading greenshot can be done by clicking here.
Ninite: first world problems solved!
Have I got something for you today.
The one thing that I waste a huge amount of time on, when installing a new computer, is downloading essential tools. Like crap cleaner, firefox, etc. You know what I’m talking about. It takes you longer to find and download everything you need then it took to actually put the computer together.
That’s why I present you Ninite. This is a website that allows you to install or update all the programs you need at once! It contains links to the top used tools. All you have to do is select the tools you want and hit the get installer button.
Off you go, all tools are downloaded to your computer at once..
One more thing, the link. You can find Ninite here.
Nerd-Gasm: The Jaw Harp
This is not a gadget but an instrument, I’m not kidding. This is by far the cheapest and easiest to play instrument even made. Everyone can play this thing in no time!
The Jaw Harp…
The idea is to put the thinnest part of the instrument between your teeth and then pull the lid on the side. It will make a sounds like “poing”. I’ll add a video below, you’ll know the sound when you hear it.
This is also considered to be the oldest instrument, there is a drawing of the 4th century BC, where a chinese man is showing playing the jaw harp. Although is has a very common english name it is actually native to Asia and used in all tribes of Turkish people in Asia.
It sounds like this:
Relaxing, isn’t it?
Retro Gaming – Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-man
As some of you know, I have a weakness for 80′s movies, games and toys. One of my favorite things of the 80s are the masters of the universe. I’m sure you have heard of them…
He-man, the most powerful man in the universe, fights Skeletor in the distant world of Eternia. 
He has the help of a few dozen other masters of the universe, each with his or her specific powers. Although it may not seem very much right now, it was very popular in the 80s.
You could find He-man action figures, stickers, alarm clocks, clothing and of course games. 
Therefor allow me to introduce you to a fine Atari game called Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-man. This game allows you to become the strongest man in the universe.
The goal of the game is to, shockingly, defeat Skeletor! With the help of your power sword and the wind raider, you face dozens of Skeletor’s traps and minions.
Keep in mind that this is an Atari 2600 game, this is literally all there is to is. As far as I know there was no real story to the game. But if I’m wrong, by all means let me know. For those of you that owned (or maybe still own) an atari 2600 you probably know what to expect from this game. It’s basically the same as any other Atari game. You see a few blocks, shooting some other blocks. Most of the time, the color of the ‘other’ blocks indicate the difficulty.
It’s funny when you hear ‘today’s youth’ complain about the quality of graphics of current games. They don’t have the slightest clue were we went through. And yet, we had tons of fun, didn’t we?
As usual I’ve added a video for your convenience. Do enjoy! And if you ever get the chance, play this game!
Flipping the Switch
Daily hundreds of people, probably including you, switch on their computer. You’ve heard me talk a lot about Operating Systems and hardware and how they work together. But I never explained what happens when you push the start button of your computer.
First of all you press the start button on your laptop or your computer. This issues the power supply to send a certain amount of voltage to the computer components (CPU, RAM, keyboard , etc). At this moment, your computer is still useless. The RAM memory is empty and no OS has been loaded. To begin booting, the CPU looks at the ROM, the read only memory, it will find the basic input output system, the BIOS. The BIOS will explain where to find an operating system, or at least, where the CPU could possibly find an OS. Like a hard drive, DVD drive, flash drive.
But this is the second step of the booting process, first something else happens. The POST test is issued, the Power On Self Test. This test will check the system clock & hardware information, compares the system settings to hardware, tests RAM, Disk Drivers, Optical Drives, Hardware Drives. When this has run successfully the BIOS will look for the OS. It does this by following a certain boot sequence, typically this is Floppy Drive, CD/DVD Drive, Hard Drive.
The best case scenario is that an OS is found (which is true in most cases). The next step is to load the OS. And frankly, an OS is like a giant script that is executed, a big program that has to run. Once it is initialized it copies certain files to the memory (RAM) to be able to access them. Following to this, the OS will take note of the available system memory.
Now the next step is to make sure that the OS can communicate with the hardware properly. Drivers will be loaded for the printer, scanner, optical drives, graphics card, etc. Once this is done, the final step will be executed, and this hasn’t got much to do with actually booting the OS. It’s booting the programs that are started along with the OS. Most of these things we have set up ourselves, like an antivirus.
This is an overview of what happens when you flip the switch, the detailed description is somewhat more complex. But knowing this will get you a long way.
It’s alive!
Nerd-Gasm: The USB Fridge
No fridge at the office? Dying for some ice cold soda? Your prayers have been answered, because here it is, the USB fridge.
Just plug it into any USB port, put 1 soda can in the fridge and wait until it’s cold.
Aaaah! Refreshing!
the F-key
I’m very sure you are pretty familiar with your keyboard, but have you ever stopped to notice the twelve F-keys on top? It is often wondered why they are there since they are rarely, for some people even, never used.
Sadly the answer is less impressive as you may have hoped. The F keys are actually function keys. They have a variety of different tasks (I hear you saying “D’uh”), depending on the context you are using them in. It may very well be possible that they have no use for you at all. Depending on which software you are using or which operating system you are using, the function of the keys differ. 
Software programmers tend to streamline everything, so they usually give each F key a typical function. Let me show you the list of most commonly used functions:
F1: Is almost in every program the button to bring forth the help screen
F2: Makes the name of a file editable or a cell in excel for example. By pressing the F2 key you avoid of having to right click a file and selecting the rename option. You don’t want to wear your mouse out ;-).
F3: Opens up the search window most of the time.
F4: Opens the address bar in most browsers. Pressing alt combined with F4 will close the current window.
F5: The most famous of the F keys. When this key is pressed in an internet browser the current page is refreshed.
F6: Allows you to instant edit the address bar in a web browser.
F7: Doesn’t really have a default OS function. For as far as I know at least. But in MS word for example this does a spell check
F8: Also no real OS function here, but you can open the windows boot menu when starting up your computer
F9: Same here, no common use. For mac users this opens all windows (oh sweet irony)
F10: Shift + F10 is the same as right clicking a file. Opens the menu bar or an open application (in most applications)
F11: In most browsers, this enables full screen.
F12: No real OS function here. Opens the save as window in word. Or if you are using firefox, it opens firebug.
On modern day computers these are the 12 F keys available. In the past, IBM computers had 24 of these keys. But they haven’t been used in a while. As you may have noticed, because you keyboard also only has 12 F keys ;-).
