Archive for category The Web
Cool Find of the Day — AfterTheDeadline
Posted by Matt Zagaja in Technology, The Web on January 10, 2012
Sometimes when I write blog posts they are not quite as polished as my regular writing. I tend to view it as a stream of consciousness and I’ll sometimes go back and edit it a day or two later. However I recently discovered a neat tool called After the Deadline that can help provide some extra polish to that first or final draft. Not only does it check spelling but it also provides other hints and grammatical advice for your writing. WordPress provides it as a plug-in and you can also get it as a plug-in for Word or Google Chrome. They even have a website you can paste text from a word document into or an OpenOffice plug-in. It’s worth the installation if you are a writer.
Cool Find of the Day — DuoLingo (and the story behind CAPTCHA)
Posted by Matt Zagaja in Technology, The Web on January 8, 2012
A friend of mine posted the following TED talk to facebook and I thought it was a great one to share:
At the end the speaker links to a cool new website that is going to launch soon and will help you learn a foreign language while translating content from the web: DuoLingo. It seems to be in private beta at the moment but I look forward to trying it once it comes out.
Op-ed fills void: The Courants op-ed page filled a void in 1976 and still does – Courant.com
Posted by Matt Zagaja in Politics, Social Media, The Web on October 23, 2011
I found this article by Colin McEnroe in the Courant today be be especially on point. Blogging regularly and making insightful commentary is a difficult exercise. While writing a post like this is rather simple, involving a quote and a few thoughts hastily thrown together, the truly insightful and interesting stuff requires more research and multiple drafts. I know it’s unlikely that people notice this blog considering the frequency of the posting is irregular, but I still consider it worth the writing practice.
I spend a lot of time out in the Digital Disneyworld, and I dont see much breadth or depth of opinion writing. Many blogs are spottily maintained, and few argue a point for more than 50 or 60 words. The Connecticut blogosphere often looks like chaos in Genesis 1:2 — formless and empty with darkness over the face of the deep.Theres a lot of “stuff,” but not much rises to the level of an opinion piece on an op-ed page. There are noteworthy exceptions such as Don Pesci, who publishes damn nearly daily on his conservative site “Red Notes From A Blue State.” Ezra Pound he is not, but Pescis posts usually go on for at least a few hundred words of essayish prose.I could name seven or eight Connecticut sites where somebody, on a regular basis, writes recognizable commentary, but no more than that.
via Op-ed fills void: The Courants op-ed page filled a void in 1976 and still does – Courant.com.
I Was Hacked!
Posted by Matt Zagaja in Technology, The Web on July 6, 2011
I still cannot figure out how it happened but somehow my twitter account was hacked and tweeted a single spam tweet. For this sin I lost about ten followers and was the target of the inevitable witticisms. Well just one:
The only recourse I had was to delete the tweet from my history, change my password, and review access by third-party apps. My theory is that one of these third-party sources was compromised and managed to push tweets out to my account. However to be safe I am changing all my accounts that used my twitter password. Thankfully I have a good password manager. If you are not using one already, I strongly recommend 1Password. It allows me to carry my passwords with me anywhere and generate randomized secure passwords for all my accounts.
Cool Find of the Day — CT State Library Databases
Posted by Matt Zagaja in The Web on June 9, 2011
I’ve been spending a lot of time at the Connecticut State Library recently. If you are a resident you can get a state library card for free and this entitles you to access their databases at no charge. Two databases that are especially neat are the Oxford English Dictionary online and Safari Bookshelf. OED Online normally costs $295 a year and is the most comprehensive source of information on the English language. Safari Bookshelf has a subset of about 78 titles from O’Reilly Media. If you were looking for some books on programming, blogging, or twittering its the place to go!
Cool Find of the Day — Khan Academy
Posted by Matt Zagaja in The Web on April 27, 2011
I listened the the TED talk on my iPod and thought this is amazing. Lessons and practice problems for a variety of subjects on one website. The format is better than many of the other open courseware sites I’ve been to online. The talk is embedded below. Enjoy!
Cool Find of the Day — ProPublica
Posted by Matt Zagaja in Technology, The Web on April 21, 2011
Today’s cool find is courtesy of my enjoyment of NPR and Planet Money. They had a partnership with an organization known as ProPublica. I decided to explore their website today and they have a fantastic section on data extraction and analysis. If you want to get started with data analysis they have some great techniques, especially for PDF extraction.
