gigapan: GigaPan allows users to upload, share, and explore brilliant gigapixel+ panoramas from around the globe.

Ever wish you could do more with your digital camera? Here’s a site that should fire up your imagination. Contribute your images and create a gigapixel panorama. You can also view panoramas on Google Earth. This is truly awesome technology.

This is perhaps the most fantastic, beautiful and envy-worthy case mod I’ve ever come across. About all I know about it is that is was built in Europe, it’s a water-cooled PC in the steampunk style. I’m in desperate geek-love with this machine. If anyone can read the source forum entry and can add any more info on this work of tech art, please do.

Despite the article’s title, not all the listed applications are free, nor are they all absolutely necessary. But PC Advisor does list 20 add-ons for Vista that might make your system better able to meet your needs.

The list of utilities includes;
Systerac Tools for Vista
Mz Vista Force
Vista Manager
TweakVista
Vista Boot Logo Generator
LogonStudio Vista
EasyBCD
VistaBootPro
TweakUAC
Start++
Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover
Amnesty Generator
vLite
Windows Help Program for Windows Vista
ISO Recorder
Windows Mail Attachment Extractor for Vista
Window Clippings
Feeds Plus
Vista Battery Saver

I thought I’d post a couple of shots from the somewhat more organized cottage. Speaking of images, check out http://play.blogger.com/. You can watch real-time as images are uploaded to Blogger accounts. It’s rather fascinating.

New haircut but need a shave:

A few of the jazz CDs I’ve unpacked:

A novel way to store the classical CDs:

Fat cat by herself:

Digital Inspiration, a great source for computer tips and tricks, has posted an easy way to find out which applications and programs on your computer are connected to the internet.

If you are worried that some programs on your PC are secretly making connections to websites in the background, here’s a quick tip that uses a simple DOS command to detect and prevent such suspicious activity:

1. Type cmd in your Windows Run box.

2. Type “netstat -b 5 > activity.txt” and press enter. After say 2 minutes, press Ctrl+C.

3. Type “activity.txt” on the command line to open the log file in notepad (or your default text editor)

The file activity.txt will have a log of all process that made a connection to the Internet in the last two minutes. It will also show which process connected to which website in this time. And not just the web browsers (like iexplore.exe or opera.exe), the log will also show your IM clients, download managers, email programs or any software that requires a net connection.

Scroll though the activity.txt file and look for any process names or website addresses that you are not aware of. If you track one , go to the task manager (or Process Explorer) to find the location of the executable on your computer and eliminate it.

By Christopher Null, PC World, and featured on MSN’s Tech & Gadgets, this article is well worth reading.

She wanted me to hear this one;

and I wanted her to hear this one;

To round out this Incubus moment, here’s one we both understand;