Speed up slow Firefox

Firefox was getting sluggish doing just the simplest of things and that’s just unneccessarily annoying. So I found these instructions on Hack A Day:

1.Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0”.  This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

You should be happier now!

Guido Mocafico

These pictures from Guido Mocafico’s Movement series are just what I needed today.

via but does it float

Flying in Style

Just read a New York Times article about Vice President Joe Biden and thought it was so cool that he travels to Iraq in an Airstream trailer (yes, like the ones you tow behind your car) that is bolted into the hold of a C-17 cargo plane. I think this might be a hand-me-down from Cheney’s days (so I can’t give credit to VPOTUS) but it is pretty cool. Doing a few minuetes of research showed that Barbara Bush used similar arrangements on a 2008 trip to Afghanistan.

Sketchbook Mobile App

I don’t actually have an iphone but I do use an Ipod Touch all the time (combined with my Verizon Mifi wireless internet, it’s a killer combo). And I don’t draw that much on the iphone but yesterday I saw a link to an app developed by Autodesk (maker of the PC software Autocad) called Sketchbook Express. It’s a great app with good pen control, a bunch of features (layers, zooming, touch sensitivity, etc) and of course you can export to an image file. There’s a full version for $3 that gives you 10 layers to work with and more….

Chiharu Shiota

FLARToolKit augmented reality with Flash

While researching for a project, I’ve been searching the web lately for references to optical glyph tracking. I first learned of it while watching an episode of Prototype This. The project was to build robot boxers for a real-time match based on movements of two people who were “fake” boxing. They used glyph tracking in their system to convert their movements into robotic motions. Very cool.

Recently I found a link to a Saatchi & Saatchi website that lets you print out a special graphic so you can play with glyph tracking using your computer’s webcam. It uses a flash tool-kit called FLARToolKit which I haven’t looked into yet, but looks very promising as a starting point for playing around with the tech.

eneloop LED lamp

It’s early on monday morning – time to wake up to Sony’s new eneloop rechargable LED lamp.
Put it on a table, it’s a glowing table lamp. Hold it in your hand and it becomes a flashlight.

via designboom

Wood Induction Charger

Tech + Natural Materials = great.

So I like Jason Valalik’s hack to retrofit a Powermat induction charger into wood.

via notcot

Laura Boffi’s Air Conditioning with Felt

Wow. Air Conditioning that is low-tech, and crafty all at the same time.

Made by Laura Boffi, a recent graduate from the design academy eindhoven, it uses wool felt from native Sardinian sheep. The wool curtain is to be kept in front of open windows or doors and kept wet via a system of cermaic tanks and a foot pump.

As an added bonus the wet felt can be used to grow plants, a vertical garden.

via designboom

pencil crayon jewelry

Maria Christina Bellucci’s colored pencil jewelry is awesome!

from designboom