Aida32 Discontinued
On a slightly sad note, I received an email from Tamas Miklos, developer of Aida32, the best freeware PC diagnosis and auditing tools and perhaps the best tool of its kind, period. Tamas is discontinuing any further development of this truly outstanding product.
The first time I ran it, I was flabbergasted at the level of detail of information it returned about my system--it even reported the serial numbers of the installed RAM modules! It runs on every version of Windows from Windows 95 through Windows 2003 Server and returns reports in a myriad of formats. The discontinuing of the product comes only two days after Aida32 was featured in a very nice NetworkWorldFusion article. Make sure you grab a copy of the final version while it is still posted. I wish Tamas the very best of luck in whatever he moves on to and thank him for having put in so much work on such a great tool.

Saturday Ramblings...
Yes, once again it's Saturday and my day to ramble (as if I ever demonstrate a laser-like focus here!).

First, if you're reading my blog and have never visited my particular “stupid sites” you should now. Start with PondScumAndLawyers.com (a name suggested by my Mom at dinner in New York a couple of years ago--I got up early the next morning, left the hotel, went to the local Kinkos, got online and registered it.) There's a new lawyer joke every time you visit (with in the bounds of reasonable randomness, that is). There's also a Wacky Sentence Generator and a large set of snappy quotes, humorous poems, one-liners and sigs. My other “stupid site” is NobodyExpectsTheSpanishInquisition.com which I had to have just because the domain name was (unbelievably) not taken!

Other Saturday links: Kiltmen.com: Bravehearts in Kilts ; yes, I wear a kilt now and then, and I need a new one. Lots here about wearing kilts and similar garments.

ColorMatch Remix: Another Color Scheme Designer
Here's yet another color scheme designer: ColorMatch Remix. I think these are valuable resources, especially for beginning designers who have not developed a strong color sense yet, but I still think I like Pixy's Color Schemes a little bit better. I think using thse tools will give a real boost to those who are primarily IT folks who have inherited (or were awarded by default) the task of creating/updating/redesigning their departmental or organizational Web site. For novice designers, they really can help in developing their color sense while offloading the technical aspect of figuring out just what the funky hexdecimal codes actually need to be.

Articles About Writing Web Content
Rachel McAlpine, who live and works in Wellington, New Zealand, runs workshops on electronic writing - mainly Web and Intranet content; she also writes web content, and does usability testing and Web site reviews. Her articles about writing Web content are breif, concise, and a lot more approachable than, oh, say...Jakob Nielson, for example.

Track a Flight With Google!
“Google is an aviation buff. Type in a flight number like “United 22” for a link to a map of that flight's progress in the air. Or type in the tail number you see on an airplane for the full registration form for that plane.

Google is the Department of Motor Vehicles. Type in a VIN (vehicle identification number, which is etched onto a plate, usually on the door frame, of every car), like “JH4NA1157MT001832”, to find out the car's year, make and model.”
Read More... (requires free registration to view)
[via David Pouge's New York Times Circuits newsletter (requires free registration to view)]

2004 Design Salary Survey
Aquent and the AIGA are in the process of posting the results of their most recent design salary survey at http://www.designsalaries.com/; this includes Web designer, developer and programmer salarys. There is a salary calculator up and running, and a promise that the actual survey results will be “...downloadable soon”

The Annals of Improbable Research Blog
The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), the lineal successor to the Journal of Irreproducible Results and home of the Ig Noble Awards for dubious achievements in science, medicine, and technology, both have websites that are...well, to be quite frank about it, HORRIBLE. But the Annals of Improbable Research now has a blog, which has a daily dose of the stuff that makes the the Annals themselves so much fun: http://improbable.typepad.com/. It's much more readable than the AIR pages. Check it out!

The Rasturbator
“The rasterbator is a web service which creates huge rasterized pictures out of relatively small image files. The pictures can be assembled into extremely cool looking posters!”
[via Chris Pirillo]

“Bohemian Rhapsody” performed by the cast of Megaman
This one is for my eldest son: “Bohemian Rhapsody” performed by the cast of Megaman
[via Whatdoiknow.org]

Bunny Exorcist
The Exorcist in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies: http://www.angryalien.com/0204/exorcistbunnies.html.
[Via the Internet Scout Weblog]