The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
How many times have you been on a website that asks you for an email address so that the company can send you a registration password you will never use again? I can make up an email address as quick as the next guy, but I actually need the password they want to send me. What I don't need is all of the spam that usually goes along with it. A solution has now arrived. Mailinator.com is a website that creates disposable email addresses. You can make up an email address on the fly ([email protected] for example) and they turn into real addresses. How the service works is very simple. The servers at mailinator simply accept any and all email that have mailinator in the address. After you give someone an address, you go to the mailinator website, login, and collect the email. Mailinator addresses can be used only one time for the receipt of email; you cannot send anything from a mailinator address. The advantage to this is the complete lack of spam that often accompanies registration processes such as these. When anyone attempts to use this address in the future, all email are simply deleted. Not good if you gave the address out at a party to more then one person, but great to keep out unwanted email. A few weeks ago I wrote about podcasting. Basically, podcasts are amateur radio shows, MP3 files that are automatically downloaded to a computer and then pushed into an MP3 player such as an iPod. In the time since then, this phenomena has absolutely exploded. Sites such as podcast alley, podcast.com, and ipodder.com are growing hugely in popularity. When I wrote a few weeks ago about this new idea, the grand majority of the podcasts were about computers, but this is already starting to change. Just as written blogs took off to the point where now there are millions of them, podcasts, which are audio blogs, are beginning to expand. A great place to check out podcasts is the website http://audio.weblogs.com. This site lists the latest 100 podcasts uploaded onto the internet. What I love about them is the completely automatic way they work. When I turn my laptop on in the mornings, the ipodder software automatically checks the feeds I subscribe to, looking for new broadcasts. When I sync my iPod with my laptop, the shows move to there. Now I have new broadcasts to listen to as I walk home from work, or when I am cooking supper at night. Three of my favourites are still about computers, although many others are available. The Daily Source Code with Adam Curry, previously of MTV fame focuses on his life, podcasting, and indie music. Evil Genius Chronicles focuses on computer topics and thoughts regarding anything in the industry. Finally, IT Conversations provides an interesting round-up of presentations made almost anywhere in the world to do with computers. A bit academic at times, it provides interesting listening to cutting-edge research and presentations by major players in the computer industry. Need an address or some new entertainment? Hopefully two pieces of information you can use. ([email protected])
