Consumed Consumer . org

How my twitter account was banned for no reason

2009-07-05T20:45:00.001-04:00

I was a happy camper this afternoon, on a lazy sunny Sunday, trying to decide between a bicycle ride and wasting time on the 'net. I fought the ‘net, I fought the ‘net, I really did, but the ‘Net won. I checked out this particular website and felt that it was not loading as fast as I would have liked. I decided to remove the twitter feed from the sidebar, as it is not terribly

How to fix a non-working CD or DVD drive in Windows XP

2009-07-03T18:38:00.009-04:00

I have recently unearthed a computer I haven't touched in a while and together with it the problems that frustrated me initially. Not only that the problems did not go away, but now the computer seems to suffer abandonment issues. This is a multiboot machine and it seems that the CD-ROM / DVD burner is identified by all OSs but it is unusable in only one of them. I'm showing you how to fix this

Canadian economy: the tide is slolwly turning

2009-06-27T22:47:00.002-04:00

As most consumers can no longer ignore economic news, we are taking a long, hard and detailed look at the data spewed by the financial press. OECD cheers, central banks retreat In its latest report, the organization states that its 30 members prospects are the best in the past two years and that the "worst scenario was averted". The economies will grow 0.7% next year, with Canada

Best of winter recipes: lentil soup

2009-01-20T23:32:00.001-05:00

One of my favourite winter things to do is cooking good food. After all, you’re stuck inside for longer than usual, you get those carb cravings, and what better way to fight that then with good, wholesome, homemade food? We looked at 4 recipes so that you can choose. The photos belong to 1001: There is no particular reason why we looked especially for Red Lentils other than

Preventing Windows Update from rebooting your computer

2009-01-14T07:51:00.001-05:00

One of the features designed to help beginners that ends up annoying the hell out of anyone else is the Windows Update "Restart your computer now?" nag. We look at a few ways to stop it. For the absolute beginner, Windows Update provides a very important function: the need to keep your OS updated as a way to prevent disaster. While other OSs (such as Ubuntu) take a friendlier to

10 Christmas and New Year Lists of Lists

2008-12-28T00:18:00.000-05:00

This is Winter Wonderland season and while some can’t wait for it to end, others would like to keep it going for the rest of the year. For them and all those who just can’t get enough of its magical power, here is a list of Christmasy things you might enjoy. We have not forgotten our Jewish friends, who celebrated Hanukkah. This is why we included a clip in the list below at the

Name that Web 2.0 Logo Quiz!

2008-12-27T22:57:00.001-05:00

If you pay attention to the Web 2.0 phenomenon, you might have noticed the creative use of misspelling and icons in logos. You might know them even better if you voted in the Open Web Awards. Brace yourself for a quiz that aims to test that very knowledge! The logo quiz is offered by quizible.com. There are 33 logos to identify and some of them are really tricky. If you get

2008 Open Web Awards Winners - People's Choice

2008-12-16T13:54:00.001-05:00

Mashable has just announced the winners to the 2nd edition of Open Web Awards. Today we learned the names of the People’s Choice Awards, while a week ago we were told the names the Blogger’s Choice Awards winners. These technologies are exciting not so much because they just won, but also (and maybe especially) because they represent the creme of this past year’s web 2.0 crop and in

Buy Nothing Day and Black Friday Shopping Deaths

2008-11-29T19:25:00.000-05:00

In the midst of a so-called recession, when people are expected to be afraid and postpone shopping, crazy shoppers trample a Walmart employee to death. We take another look at adbusters and their Buy Nothing Day campaign. The following playlist shows clips related to the Black Friday shopping death as well as adbusters Buy Nothing Day. Black Friday is traditionally the day

15 Steps To A More Promising Morning

2008-11-27T16:23:00.001-05:00

We’ve found an excellent step-by-step recipe for better mornings and thought we should definitely share it with you Improvements to your morning routine will be felt throughout the day. So follow these simple ideas and be happier and more productive! Leave your blinds or curtains half-open. You will wake up naturally, with the sun. Be careful to get your 7h of sleep, so go to

Koodo, Virgin & iPhone best in 2008 Canadian Wireless Rankings

2008-11-20T19:46:00.001-05:00

As expected, smaller, nimbler operators were in the spotlight in the J.D. Power’s Satisfaction Study. More specifically, Koodo and Virgin Mobile left far behind giants like Rogers and Bell. In the postpaid segment, Koodo Mobile ranked first, followed closely by Virgin Mobile and SaskTel, a regional operator. In prepaid, Virgin Mobile ranked again highest, followed by PC Mobile and

Improving on Blogger’s Commenting System I

2008-11-18T15:09:00.001-05:00

BcS is the target of numerous demands and criticism. As no major overhaul is in the books, numerous hacks have mushroomed to respond to its users’ desires. We’ll be looking at: A. Embedding the comment form, B. Numbering comments, C. Show Author Photo in Comments, D. Highlight owner’s comments, E. Recent comments, F. Top commentators, G. Add Reactions Checkpoint appears to be following the lead of Codeweavers extremely successful giveaway. The package normally

Use Smileys or Emoticons in Blogger Blogspot or any other site

2008-11-17T16:03:00.001-05:00

The Internet is made of computers and porn. But wherever humans with emotions get involved, emoticons and smileys abound. Which is why we’ll be looking at adding emoticons where no smiley has gone before. There was a time, long ago, before the great content / presentation layer schism, when pages consisted solely of HTML. And even then, in those apocryphal times, people still felt

Improve your website with social bookmarking and better code presentation

2008-11-16T12:08:00.001-05:00

If you’re a webmaster or blogger, there are a few little things you can do to improve your reader’s experience and make your website more functional. You can, for instance, add small widgets to help your visitors pass on your page or a display your code more professionally. We'll be looking at 3 widgets: AddThis&TellAFriend, FeedFlare and SyntaxHighlighter. A. AddThis &

5 Websites to create Web 2.0 Logos with mirror effects

2008-10-29T01:04:00.000-04:00

The ideas of Web 2.0 and mirror effects are clearly intertwined. It was only a matter of time until the appearance of simple tools to bring such effects to the masses. We take a quick look at 5 such sites. The first two sites take an image as an input, the next two take text and finally, the last one lets you order everything mostly on paper. reflectionmaker.com/ Reflection Maker is

Codeweavers is giving away its amazing software!

2008-10-28T21:23:00.001-04:00

We’ve recently learned about Codeweavers’ amazing giveaway. The make a program that allows you to use 99% of all Windows applications without installing Windows. That includes Microsoft Office applications, but also games. And they’ve combined the giveaway with a political message :) As their website is experiencing heavy loads, we’re mirroring it here: They are doing this only on October

Undelete Windows files in Ubuntu Linux

2008-09-22T08:49:00.000-04:00

There are many ways to recover mistakenly deleted files. Most OSs provide some kind of trash function or "Recycle Bin", which allows you to very easily undelete files. There are, however, situations when that is not possible.When is that, Indelible Bonobo, you may ask? Here are the reasons why the Recycle Bin might not work:You disabled it to save disk space and because you thought you would

Musical tastes and personality linked in study

2008-09-05T15:40:00.001-04:00

Technorati Tags: music,personality,psychology,classical,jazz,punk,alternative,study,research A recent large scale study has established a link between musical tastes and personality. The researchers are now attempting to scale up the study. 1. There have been in the past attempt to make smaller connections, such as that between the kind of music you listen to and your propensity to step on the

Breasts, men, Bundy and Christina Applegate

2008-08-21T11:32:00.007-04:00

Technorati Tags: breast,breasts,cancer,Bundy,Applegate,mastectomy,sex,sexy,desireWe recently learned that Christina Applegate, best known from playing Kelly Bundy in Married... with Children, is slightly different. In other words, she lost her breasts to a preventive double mastectomy in fighting breast cancer.She rose to fame years ago with her role in Married... with Children and more recently,

Chinese Olympics, pole aerobics and fish pedicurists

2008-08-12T16:45:00.003-04:00

del.icio.us Tags: China,Chinese,fish pedicure,Olympics The Beijing Olympics are in the center of the world's attention, exemplifying what the Chinese leadership has deemed the "peaceful rise". We take a quick look at smaller consumerist happenings in and from China. There is no question that the "peaceful rise" doctrine is mostly a PR exercise. But although there are significant nationalist

DefCON's DNS, OpenDNS and DotCON's Nisemono

2008-08-07T09:07:00.000-04:00

[tags]defcon, dotcon, opendns, blackhat, black hat, dns, kaminsky, security, flaw, vulnerability, attack, disclosure[/tags] A larger than life, but little known and little understood Internet security flaw gets coverage (again!). We keep wondering about OpenDNS and mention the Nisemono contest, since DefCON and DotCON sound soooo similar :) It is hard to believe that certain vulnerabilities so

Watch the Olympics online or tap a phoneline

2008-08-06T09:04:00.000-04:00

[tags]wired, olympics, online TV, wiki[/tags]Not long ago, during World Cup, many tried watching it online live, but few succeeded. This time around, Wired helps you with a wiki (1) which you can modify yourself, but hopefully won't unless you have something worthwhile to add.In the US you have NBC Olympics, UK has BBC Sports, Canada has CBC and Australia has Yahoo7. YouTube will also add 3 hours

Free Toronto Movie Screenings

2008-07-08T17:06:00.003-04:00

[tags]movie, free, fido[/tags]Fido, Y&D Square are trying to rock summer Tuesday evenings with free movies at the Harbourfront. The first one starts today.In Toronto, a number of venues show free movies. During the school year, the Cinema Students Union (1) at University of Toronto (College & St. George, Innis College) show their Free Friday Movies. They have also numerous promotions - screenings

Get the Economist at 83% off!

2008-06-29T23:07:00.001-04:00

Technorati Tags: economist, discount, coupon, deal, sale, promotionMany people love the Economist, the "serious" British publication. Reading it is a "guilty" intellectual pleasure that comes with a high price tag. At almost $8 at newsstands and bookstores, the yearly subscription is more than what most people can afford to spend.And here's the promotion that might change all that - 12 issues for