Watch Youtube Faster and Increase Comprehension

If you've ever wished you could speed up a video in Youtube, here's how to do it in Chrome.

 

This is ideally suited to spoken content and I've been listening to audiobooks and podcasts like this for years.

 

It has been shown that the brain works more efficiently if the information rate through the ears is approximately the "average" reading rate, which is about 200-300 words per minute, yet the average rate of speech is 100-150 words per minute.

 

It can take a little getting used to but you will get used to it. In the mean time you can always start at 1.5x speed.

 

Consume content at twice the speed AND increase comprehension, sounds like a good deal to me.

 

Evernote Acquires Skitch!

We love Skitch so much that we decided to buy the company. Skitch is an amazing Mac application that’s changed the way people capture, annotate and share images. Chief Skitchers, Cris Pearson and Keith Lang are moving from Australia and joining Evernote to lead a significantly expanded Skitch team focused on supercharging the product.

Read more...

Some hard facts on China today

I received this by email today and thought it was worth sharing.

China has 19% of the world’s population, but consumes
... 53% of the world's cement
... 48% of the world's iron ore
... 47% of the world's coal
... and the majority of just about every major commodity.
In 2010, China produced 11 times more steel than the United States.

New World Record: China made and sold 18 million vehicles in 2010.

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There are more pigs in China than in the next 43 pork producing nations combined.

 

 China currently has the world’s fastest train and the world’s largest high-speed rail network.

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China is currently the number one producer in the world of wind and solar power.

  


China currently controls more than 90% of the total global supply of rare earth elements.

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In the past 15 years, China has moved from 14th place to 2nd place in the world in published scientific research articles.

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  China now possesses the fastest supercomputer on the entire globe.

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 At the end of March 2011, China accumulated US$3.04 trillion in foreign currency reserves
- the largest stockpile on the entire globe.

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 Chinese consume 50,000 cigarettes every second …
Not an enviable record though …

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Also a lot smarter than us, while they manufacture 80% of the worlds solar panels, they install less than 5%. They build a new coal fired power station every week and in 1 year turn on more new coal powered electricity than Australia's total output.

Already the largest carbon dioxide emitter, output will rise 70% by 2020.

Glad we're saving the planet?

Online Backup: Someone save me since Carbonite and OS X Lion won't play nicely

Since I can't use Carbonite to back up my OS Lion systems, I needed an alternative. A quick Google search revealed the two main contenders with unlimited plans were Backblaze and CrashplanMozy does not offer an unlimited plan otherwise I'd still be using them.

I've previously mentioned that my Mozy subscription was up for renewal but when I went to pay the fee, there was no more unlimited option. Carbonite seemed like the logical answer and so I signed up with them only to discover, after upgrading to OS X Lion, their service would no longer work :(

Carbonite is still working on a solution for OS X Lion and were kind enough to offer me a refund.

I found this review at Gigaom quite informative.

All the services mentioned offer a free trial so give them a go. I'm trying Crashplan because they offer a cost effective multi computer option which also allows backing up between machines.

Boxee app now available for iPad, Lion Samba shares no longer a problem

I was very disappointed after upgrading my iMac to Lion as i discovered my Samba shares were no longer accessible from my jailbroken Apple TV. This meant all my movies were invisible to my Apple TV and not viewable on my big screen TV.

Apple, in their wisdom, have changed the way Samba works on Lion which means many devices will not be able to connect to these shared resources now.

This morning I noticed there is a free Boxee app now available for the iPad. This is great news because you can now use Boxee Media Manager on your Mac or PC to share and stream videos without conversion to your iPad. The beauty of all this is you can then display those videos on your big screen TV through your Apple TV also.

My daughter will be very happy she can now watch Sponge Bob on the big screen or iPad instead of sitting at the iMac.

Carbonite and OS X Lion fail!

I received another email from Carbonite today telling me to uninstall then reinstall their software. As per their instructions, I made sure Carbointe was not paused or disabled first. Thinking they may have updated it to work with OS X Lion, I followed their instructions only to find now I have no off site back up software at all!

Here is what I was presented with when trying to reinstall Carbonite…

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And here is the email they sent me….

Please ensure that your files are protected.

Dear Paul,

We've noticed that in the past three days, the files you have been backing up on your computer iMac do not match our records. In order to keep your backup up-to-date, please follow the steps below.

These steps will only take a few minutes and you won't need to restart your computer.

1. Is Carbonite paused or disabled?

Click on the Carbonite lock icon. If the Carbonite status is paused or disabled, please un-pause or enable Carbonite. For more details, please visit our Knowledge BaseIf Carbonite is not disabled or paused, follow the instructions below.

2. Uninstall Carbonite

To uninstall Carbonite on a Mac, click the Apple symbol in the menu bar and select System Preferences. Click the Carbonite icon to open theCarbonite Preference Pane. Next to “Backup is:” select Disabled

You will be asked to type in your computer login information. Once you’ve entered your login information, an Uninstall button will be displayed. Click Uninstall. Re-enter your login information and click OK. Carbonite will be uninstalled.

Macuninstall
For instructions on uninstalling Carbonite from a Mac computer, please visit our Knowledge Base

3. Reinstall Carbonite

To reinstall Carbonite, simply click on the button below and log in to your account.

Please be aware that until your backup is completely refreshed, we may not have an accurate copy of every one of your files. In the meantime, if you’re concerned about particular files, please make a temporary copy of them on a flash drive or external drive.

After you’ve reinstalled Carbonite, you’ll know that your backup is up-to-date when the backup progress indicator on the Carbonite InfoCenter reads 100%. (To open the InfoCenter, just click on the Carbonite lock icon in your system tray.)

If you have any questions, please contact customer support

Sincerely,
The Carbonite Team