The Woopid Blog

Adblock Plus: An Essential Firefox Add-On

Team Woopid — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:15:15 +0000

Let’s face it, there is nothing more irritating in the online world than ads. Big flashing banners scream, “Lose 100 pounds in 30 days!” or “You Won $1000 (now just give us your credit card number to claim your winnings)!” Often they hog the screen and distract you from the content you’re actually trying to see. Thankfully there is a helpful browser add-on for Firefox called AdBlock Plus. Adblock allows you to pick and choose what ads you want to block on a given website. It gives you a filter to block images, flash, and even provides a list of removable objects. It’s a great extension to customize your web browsing experience and I use it all the time.

Visit here for installation and more information.

Frozen iPod?

Team Woopid — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:14:57 +0000

Yesterday, I was all ready to go get motivated with some music and hit the gym. Instead of motivation, I got disappointment and a playlist frozen on repeats of Miles Davis. Much respect to his music, but it was not situationally appropriate and thus, an issue. If this were my cell phone, I might just disconnect the battery to power it down, but since the battery for an iPod is located inside, I can’t remove it and put it back in. At first I figured I either had a lost cause on my hands, would have to reset it old-school style with a paperclip, or just wait for the battery to die. I figured out that having a frozen iPod is actually a pretty common problem, especially in the larger capacity iPods, because these have hard drives like a frozen computer might, instead of the flash-only (like a USB jumpdrive) and more stable memory on smaller ones. I also figured out that since Apple knows this might happen to people every once in awhile, they’ve included a pretty neat and easy solution to it. All you have to do is:

First, make sure your HOLD button isn’t on (there is no orange showing)
Hold the SELECT button in the middle and the MENU button on top for a few seconds
Wait for the screen to go white
Release the buttons. Wait for the Apple logo to reappears and your iPod boots up again

And the problem is solved! I can pick some better music, and the snag in my day was avoided. I do, however, think that it might drain a little of your battery each time you reset. I guess this makes sense, since it takes way more power to start up a machine than just keep it running. It’s certainly a better option than staring at your frozen screen until the battery dies.

Want to watch a video on it?

Intro to CouchDB

Woopid — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:29:35 +0000

Sam Bisbee, Woopid’s CTO, recently spoke at the Microsoft NERD Center about one of his most beloved topics: CouchDB. To you and me, CouchDB is an open source database platform, which also means it’s an alternative to SQL, to him, it’s a whole lot more. Of course, for anyone who would be interested in the following presentation, you probably already knew that. Watch the presentation below for an Introduction to CouchDB. You may also want to follow Sam on Twitter, where he frequently musing on CouchDB.

Intro to CouchDB

View more presentations from sbisbee.

Passcode Protect Your iPhone

Team Woopid — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:14:13 +0000

As a mom of an unusually tech-savvy two year old, I recently had to passcode protect my iPhone. There was a period of time that I recieved a few phone calls from friends who said they were calling me back when I didn’t think I called them in the first place. Weird. I then noticed that my Echofon app had disappeared and as a result, I was off of Twitter for a good two weeks (gasp!) until I downloaded the app again.

Perhaps I’m on it too much around my kid, or it’s my own fault for downloading Dora the Explorer app for her to play with, but one day, I saw my daughter grab my phone, swipe her little finger to unlock it, scroll through a page or two of apps to find her Dora game and finally, start poking at the screen to play it. So I watched her for a little while, and she made her way to my list of favorites to dial, held it to her ear and said, “Hello?”. I found the culprit, sorry sweetie, mommy’s locking her phone!

It’s really simple to do and if you haven’t figured it out yet, here’s the video on how to do it. You can put a secret 4-digit code to prevent unwanted users from deleting apps or calling people. Or, perhaps you have a nosy boyfriend or girlfriend and don’t want them checking your email, facebook or recent calls. Woopid saves the day again!

Woopid 2.0 + iPad Sweepstakes!

Woopid — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:09:04 +0000

Today, we’re happy to give everyone a sneak peak at Woopid 2.0, and launch our exciting Apple iPad sweepstakes!

You can explore Woopid 2.0 at the Sneak Peak page, and enter to win the iPad as well. Click here to check it out.

Some of our favorite features:

New, Exciting Content All the great content you’re looking for, including the latest versions of all your favorite software.

Revamped Design & Interface Using Woopid 2.0 will be better than ever thanks to a stunning new design and a completely revamped user interface.

Interactive Community Share your own high-quality videos with the Woopid community, with some really cool ways for you to make money.

Employees can answer their own IT questions With Woopid 2.0, you or your employees can fire up your company’s customized Woopid portal and get answers to computer- and gadget-related questions.

See the rest here!

MakeUseOf Woopid

Woopid — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:02:09 +0000

From “MakeUseOf.com”, one of the Internet’s best resource blogs “that feature cool websites, computer tips, and downloads that make you more productive”, recently featured Woopid as the first stop destination for tech related video tutorials. Check it out here.

EveryJoe on Woopid

Woopid — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:22:49 +0000

To quote the source, “EveryJoe is for men who don’t have time to surf the endless reaches of the web. You know what you like to read regularly but you like having tastes of other areas readily available at the click of a button. You work hard and you play hard, and EveryJoe helps you do that.”

Today, EveryJoe decided it wanted to share Woopid Woopid with its readership. Check out a nice piece they call “Woopid Keeps You From Being Tech Stupid“.

Jason Bean, the article’s author, says: “Do a little bit to improve and expand your knowledge in 2010. You can make a good start with uncovering some new skills using Woopid today”.

We agree!

A Smarter Place to Learn: Woopid.com

Woopid — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:21:08 +0000

An interview conducted by TechSmith (makers of Camtasia Studio) was posted today on their website and in their newsletter!

Excerpt:
“To the average geek, being peppered with “how do I” questions from family and friends is a minor annoyance. To Brandon Kane, it was a business opportunity.”

Click here to read the rest.

Do you need to update?

Woopid — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:18:22 +0000

There has never been an easy way to check if your Internet browser, Flash and Java versions are all up to date on your computer…until now. Do I Need to Update.com is an easy to way to check, and then upgrade to the latest versions of these softwares.

Worried about Conficker? Detect and Protect.

Woopid — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:01:16 +0000

April 1st came and went without much happening in terms of the infamous Conficker virus, but that doesn’t mean the threat is over. It’s easy to see if you’re infected, as well as protect yourself. Go ahead and watch this video to view the simple process.