This is a beautiful infographic of popular website emerging across the web. Click it to see a larger version.

I can’t say that I see much use for it, but it certainly is engrossing. After I first saw it, I spent quite a while searching it for site and people I equate with the internet. It’s better than a Where’s Waldo poster.

Source: formforce Flickr Account

Source: Found via Miss Geeky

With the Kindle 2 coming out, there’s a mass flurry over eBooks once again. The idea of carrying a digital library in ones pocket is absolutely thrilling to some (and sacrilege to others).

Who wants to spend hundreds of dollars on an ebook reader, though? Do you read enough books in a year to justify that cost? Assuming you spend a ‘mere’ $200 on an eReader, you could by 33 $5.99 paperbacks–or almost three books a month every month. Do you read that often?

If you’ve already got a smartphone of some sorts (or an audio player that is similar, a la iPod Touch), then you’ve already got the hardware to make your own eReader. With a few simple steps, you can have your own pocket library for less than $20.

Know your Player

The ebook format(s) you use will depend on your device. If you run Windows Mobile, you’ll have a lot of options available to you: Mobibooks, Adobe PDF, MS Reader, etc. If you’re using Palm, you options are slightly limited. Check out the main ebook programs and see if they’re supported on your system. Install the ones that are.

Convert your Books

Ebooks, like music, come locked into a DRM. You’ll need to convert them into something your player can use. There are numerous online ebook converters available, as well as software packages and even portable apps. This webpage offers a huge list of converters for all operating systems and ebook types.

Get a ‘Library Card’

Not the type you’d imagine, however. You’ll need a flash card to store your ebooks. Most new systems take a microSD card, but some take SD(HC), MMC, etc. A dedicated card will make it easy to store your books and transfer them between devices.

Enlarge the Text

Does reading text on a small screen make your head hurt, your eyes water? A digital magnifier is the solution, allowing you to magnify the text on the page to an easy-to-see level. There are many apps available, and they vary based on your device. Here is a good example for Windows Mobile; the Mobile Magnifier.

Over at PerlMonks, a user going by the handle Falkkin proposed to his girlfriend, Vortacist, who turns out to be a first-year robotics Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon. Yet another example of Geek Love.

Source: Perl Monks via Greg Laden

This physics engine from Umeå University is seriously entertaining. There’s no objective, but watching it’s effects at work is likely to eat up a good piece of your day.

The program was written in C++ as part of a Master of Science Thesis in Computer Science. Unfortunately, its source code hasn’t been released yet, but when it is, it’s certain to make the rounds of all the programming blogs, as its physics engine blows any Flash game I’ve ever played out of the water.

To download Phun or read more about Phun, visit the homepage of Emil Ernerfeldt.

Luckily there is a short list of simple steps you can take to significantly lengthen your computer’s practical lifespan.

01. Check what Programs are Running in Memory.
You can see a list of what processes are running on your system by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up the Close Program dialog box. If you check your processes while all the other programs are closed, the explorer, system tray, and your antivirus program are all that should be running. If anything else is running, such as an antivirus sheduler, RealPlayer, or WinAmp, move on to step two, pruning your startup processes. If you don’t recognize a process, check Google. For a more in-depth analysis of running processes, try TaskInfo. TaskInfo is a supped-up version of Window’s own task manager.

02. Prune your the Startup processes.
This can be accomplished using the built-in MSConfig utility. Press the Start button, select Run, and type “msconfig” into the dialog box. Once the System Configuration Utility pops up, go to the Startup tab and unselect superfluous processes. If you aren’t certain what processes are necessary and which and aren’t, just remember that Google is your friend. If you want to simplify this step, if you’re working with a large number of computer, or if you’re a real novice, I suggest you download StartupList. StartupList gives you a much deeper look into Window’s processes, which also makes it useful in finding and removing spyware and viruses.

03. Deactivated your Active Desktop.
Unless you have a vital reason for running an active desktop, such as needing a stock ticker, it’s just eating up memory. To disable the active desktop, right-click on the desktop, right click Properties, click the Desktop tab, click the Customize Desktop button, click the Web tab, and make sure all of the check boxes in the window are un-checked. If you’re running an active desktop just to display .gif or .jpg files, you might want to try Panorama 32, a very simple utility for displaying and rotating desktops.

04. Clean up your Desktop.
Every time you boot your computer, the computer checks the contents of every drive you’re created a shortcut to, whether it’s on your desktop or quick launch bar. Removing these short cuts will shave whole seconds off your boot time.

05. Increase the Priority of Important Programs.
If there is one particular program that you’re attempting to optimize your system for, such as a video game of particularly intense bit of processing, such as a password brute forcer, set that program’s priority to either High or Realtime in your Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del while the program is running, selecting the Processes tab, and right-clicking on the process associated with the desired program. Use this care, prioritizing too many programs will severely slow your system down.

06. Deactivate Sound Effects.
To do so, go to the Control Panel, select Sounds and Multimedia, select Schemes, and choose No Sounds. Doing so may help increase the response time between clicking an icon and its associated program’s launch.

07. Remove Window’s Backdoor Communications.
Use Xpy to disable Window’s native ability to covertly connect the internet through Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and Windows Messenger. It prevents background processes from cutting into your Internet connection and processing speed when you need them the most.

Steps one through seven are all one-shot fixes for speeding up you system’s performance. The following steps are all regular maintenance that should be performed on a regular basis. Depending on how heavily you use your system, consider doing the following on at least a monthly basis:

08. Regularly clear temporary files.
Ccleaner is a great utility for getting this job done.

09. Regularly compress infrequently used files.
Do this by running your Clean Manager, either by hitting the Start button, selecting Accessories, selecting “System Tools”, then selecting “Disk Cleanup”.

10. Regularly Defragment your Hard Drive.
Leave your hard drive to defragment over night on a regular basis. If your hard drive is nearly full, you may need to run the utility from the command line by hitting the Start button, selecting Run, and typing, “defrag C: /f “.

11. Regularly clean your Registry.
The older your computer is the more necessary this becomes. Frequently installing programs for short term use – even spyware, then uninstalling them, can take a serious toll on your system’s performance. Create a store point before working with the registry, and utilities such as Free Registry Defrag and Registry Fix.

12. Regularly clear your Browser’s Cache.
In Firefox, select Tools from the menu bar, select Options, select the Privacy tab, and click Clear Now. If you’re still using Internet Explorer (you poor sap), you’ll want to use Ccleaner to get rid of all of those temporary files.

No single step here is going to magically turn back the clock on your system, but when performed regularly, these twelve easy step can drastically prolong your computer’s life span. If you’re still looking for more ways to pep up your computer, especially following a sudden slow-down, you may also want to try scanning it for keyloggers, spyware, viruses, and worms. But that’s an entirely different post.

It’s irritating to have to clear your browser’s entire history. Over time, you come to rely on the address bar’s auto-complete feature, but eventually, everyone gets a mistyped address lodged in their history. It pops up every time you go to enter the correct address, and it can become a real pain.

Unfortunately, unlike Firefox, Internet Explorer doesn’t offer an easy way to remove just one entry from the address bar’s history. Luckily, there is a workaround.

1. Begin by closing all your open Windows and programs, including Internet Explorer.

2. Click the Start button and select Run.

3. Open the Registry by typing “regedit” and hitting enter.

4. In the Registry, navigate to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Typed URLs” by clicking on the small plus signs next to the appropriate files.

5. Simply select the URLx in the right pane of the registry that represents the address you want to remove, such as “URL1″, then hit the delete button on your keyboard or select delete from the Registry’s Edit drop down menu.

6. You’re done! Open Internet Explorer and check to see it if worked.

Remember that anytime you work inside the Windows registry, you’re taking your system’s life in your own hands. If you’re a novice, you may want avoid tampering with this particularly sensitive area of your operating system. If you’re an advanced user, you may want to make a back-up before beginning your editing.

Of course, all of this hassle could be avoided by simply using FireFox. With FireFox, all you need to do is pull down the address bar, highlight the entry you want to delete (being careful not to click it), and hitting the delete button on your keyboard.

Artigo has just recently released an ultra compact computer kit about the size of your external run-of-the-mill USB hard drive, based on the credit card sized Pico-ITX motherboard. It features a 1GHz processor, support for 1GB of memory, four USB ports, audio ports, a LAN port, and a VGA port. You provide your own hard drive, keyboard, mouse, and RAM, along with all assembly. The entire kit cost only US$300, meaning that it offers the prudent shopper the opportunity to assemble a fairly decent machine for well under US$500.

The machine is so small that PC World author Tom Mainelli notes it’s potential to fit in the 5.25-inch drive bay of traditional computers, which is, in itself, an exciting possibility. The ability to run one computer within another with the two linked via ethernet or USB is certain to lead a wide range of hacks.

Check the kit out for yourself at the Via website.