Blaine Allen Brown

I can't say enough good things about the music streaming service Audiogalaxy. While Amazon, Google, and Apple get their act together to create a music streaming service, Audiogalaxy offers everything you need, without a subscription. "It feels so good." -Blaine Brown Audiogalaxy works by making music on your computer available on the internet. This does require you to keep a computer on at home running the app. This works well for me since I recently built my family a home media server. Android and iPhone apps are available and given a reasonable data connection, it works flawlessly. I got my sister to get the app, and soon I will get my parents to do so as well. This way, we can all have our music on one computer (with the huge hard drives) and listen to what we each prefer. Audiogalaxy also has a "genie" mode, which is similar to Pandora. You seed the playlist with one or a few songs that you like and it keeps the playlist running with related mu...

Short answer: you probably can't. I recently purchased a new keyboard and mouse combo from Logitech: the K520. The one I chose was the one that looked the most standard (I would've rather gotten a mac keyboard, but those wireless ones don't have numpads). I failed to notice the Fn key that takes the place of both the Context Menu key and the Right Windows key. I spent most of last night scouring the internet looking for a way to remap this key to a Windows key (who uses the context menu key anyway?). I already knew that the function key, by itself, does not send a signal to the computer. I had hoped, however, that Logitech provided some sort of key combo feature that I could at least tell it to pretend Fn + Left Arrow was Win + Left Arrow. But the Fn functionality seems to be hardware based, and the only configuration I could tell it was to ignore the signal of the preprogrammed functions or not. Anyway, give up all hope. I really need to find a standard wireless ke...

What's your pseudiac sign?

Problem: I don't want to carry around keys! They either poke me if they're in my pocket or they jangle when clipped to my hip. This is my genius idea to get rid of them forever! Required materials: Prepaid cell phone with ability to assign specific ringtones to contacts. Motor to turn deadbolt Some wire Procedure: So the idea is, you'd set your personal cell phone number to a personalized ringtone that would be "vibrate," and be sure to set everyone else to "not vibrate." Disconnect the vibration motor and hook it to turn the deadbolt motor on. So when you called the "home number" from your phone, it would turn the deadbolt and let you in! If anyone else called it would not. Uses: You don't have to carry keys around anymore, you can just call to gain entrance. Need someone to watch your cat while you're on vacation? You don't need to give them the key, just give add them to the address book. If you want to leave ...

I spend a lot of my time thinking about minimalism. First it was just as a design principle, but soon it became a way to approach living. For years I've read mnmlist and tried to adapt Leo Babauta's ideas into my own life. I just did an exercise I made up in which I list major possessions and get rid of anything I don't want. Possessions of note: PS2 and accessories and games Wii and accessories and games PSP and accessories and games Nintendo DS and accessories and games HP PC with Windows 7 Bamboo Pen + Touch Tablet Microsoft HD Life Webcam Cheap-o Microphone (looking to upgrade for podcast setup) 32 inch Olevia LCD TV HP Printer Scanner Copier Logitech Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Combo (one dongle!) Canon Rebel XS DSLR T-Mobile MyTouch 4G (with unlimited data) One backup phone (for when I drop this one) One Full Size Bed Four Armchairs (uncomfortable) Two Ottomans One Refrigerator One Space Heater Some Clothes Some Tools One Yoga Mat As you ...

 didn't participate in Earth Hour yesterday (because it's stupid), but it did get me thinking (which is probably the point). I am already somewhat energy conscious. For example I have things I use infrequently on separate power strips so that I can turn them off when they're not in use. This includes my PS2, Wii, and chargers for my DS and PSP. I feel like this is just common power management. Anyway, I wasn't home for Earth Hour and I thought about all that was running at home with no one there: 4 computers. I believe this is a remnant of the early Windows XP era, in which you always disabled the "Sleep" option on every computer you used. Anything could happen when a computer returned from sleep! The wireless card could have stopped working, all your programs probably crashed, and it was slow from some incorrectly stored memory from running programs. You might as well have turned the thing off, but starting a Windows machine still takes too long for me sinc...

Justin and I skyped all night and I drew while he managed. It's pretty amazing. -Blaine