Wisdom Springs is a Web site which logs real information about localities written by the people that actually live there. It’s quite a neat idea, although it would be a tad more useful if the info included mandatory reports on things like local food places, and facilities. Still worth a bookmark for the traveller or insanely interested. [via Metafilter]

Aaargh! Just in case you had forgotten, here’s what the very first version of Windows looked like. Shudder!

The 3Q company intends to place PhotoMe type booths – dubbed Q-Clone Generators – in lots of locations to take 3D photos of us all, so that we can use the results as 3D likenesses of ourselves online and in computer games. The booths will contain a CD recorder to burn the images onto disk which you will take with you to upload to your PC at home. Fascinating concept, although there’s no word on price!

Driver Detective is a software program which identifies the drivers on your machine – including version, manufacturer and location – and tells you exactly where you can download newer versions. Costs $14.95.

Computer Stupidities is a sort of Yahoo! portal type site containing a collection of all the ‘dumb’ user stories that geeks just love to recount to one another over a warm beer and cold pizza. Customer: “I received the software update you sent, but I am still getting the same error message.” Tech Support: “Did you install the update?” Customer: “No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get it to work?” Oh how you’ll laugh!

Why do we yawn and why is it contagious? This Scientific American piece should tell us, but doesn’t really. Still at least they’re brave enough to admit they don’t know, and the article does provide some interesting information.

Hannibal: ‘I�m like a whiff of garlic, I linger’. The A-Team Quote Place contains a complete listing of quotes taken from the TV show plus a heap of factoids. Whew, there sure are some seriously obsessive folks out there, but I love it! [Ta Ben]

So there’s this guy named George Vlosich III, and he has been creating Etch-a-Sketch art ever since he was 10 years old (he’s now 22). Here is an amazing online gallery of his stuff which shows off the incredibly detailed work that he creates. It takes up to 60 hours for each one and luckily for his wallet the Etch-a-Sketch company now give him free units to work with. As someone who can barely draw a straight line on one…

Sandi’s Site is a great help site specialising in issues relating to Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. It has been compiled over a fair few years apparently by one Sandra Hardmeier, a Microsoft MVP, and it’s clearly a labour of love. Well worth a bookmark.

So Janis Ian has done a short follow up article to her original piece on the music industry and file downloading. In it she offers some solutions to the problem, including one where the labels set up a site offering all their back catalogue for download at a cheap (read reasonable) price. Unfortunately her piece ignores one huge problem, namely that of removing all the international legal red tape that the record industry has been installing across the world over…

The Moni-me (no I don’t know what it means either) is billed as the world’s smallest digital camera with integrated LCD. It’s $149.00, connects to the PC via USB and stores 30 high quality (or 60 lower quality) VGA sized photos in memory.

The Escrow.com service promises to protect buyers and sellers from online fraud by offering a safe third party transaction point. Buyer and seller agree terms, buyer pays escrow.com, seller ships merchandise, buyer examines and accepts, escrow.com pays. Simple eh? The company takes 6% commission on credit card sales (min $18.00).

The Escrow.com service promises to protect buyers and sellers from online fraud by offering a safe third party transaction point. Buyer and seller agree terms, buyer pays escrow.com, seller ships merchandise, buyer examines and accepts, escrow.com pays. Simple eh? The company takes 6% commission on credit card sales (min $18.00).

So why should getting back to nature be hard and uncomfortable? Surely camping can be ‘rugged’ without necessarily being ‘rough’? Of course it can if you invest in the new Zodi Combo X. This really, truly, gosh darned nifty product gives you a hot shower, tent heater, cooking stove, lantern and BBQ all in one tiny portable format. Sorry folks deluxe television/DVD model not on sale yet. Priced from $199.95.