Pandora is different from other Internet Radio stations in that you’re not locked into what the stream owners play (much like how FM radio runs), but you can actually rate which songs you like or don’t like.

You start out creating a station by selecting a specific song or artist you like, and Pandora branches out and tries to find music similar to that. Only, a lot of the time, it branches out too far and ends up playing music that you don’t really want to hear. It’s at this point that most people wander away with the idea that “Pandora sucks”.

It doesn’t. The general idea of Pandora is to use it to explore all kinds of music, but many times, you just want a specific kind of music. Here’s how to do that.

1. Basically, you have to actively give a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” rating on a good many songs before you start getting very consistent results. If you give no rating at all, Pandora will keep playing songs that branch further and further away to what you may have originally wanted.For example, I wanted to make a station with Irish rock music, with Flogging Molly being the seed artist. If I left it alone for a while, it would start getting into Johnny Cash and random Country music. Go figure. Once I started giving a “thumbs down” to that kind of music (even if it *was* good music), I got back on track to playing just Irish rock.
2. Be critical of your “I like/don’t like” ratings. If you want a particular sound for a station, give it a thumbs up or thumbs down according to what you want for that particular station–NOT if you like the song in general. If you like the song enough, create a new station with that song as the seed (click on the album art, and to the right of “New Station:” click either “From song” or “From artist.”).If you don’t stick to a theme, your station will become mishmash of different kinds of music. Personally, I like to keep lists of different kinds of music depending on my mood and what I want to listen to
3. Add additional seed songs or artists. That usually helps when trying to keep to a certain kind of music on a station. To do this, click the down arrow on the station name, and click “edit this station”. Hit the “Add” buttons under Artist or Song.
4. Once you click on the Pandora player to give it focus, you can use keyboard shortcuts ( http://blog.pandora.com/faq/#224 ) to control your station, so you don’t always have to fiddle with the interface while doing other things.

If you follow these tips, you will certainly find that you’re listening to more music that you like, and in the end, enjoy Pandora’s offerings a bit more. Happy listening!

This service allows you to either view PDFs that are linked somewhere on the web, or upload a PDF from your computer. While this service does fine with standard text and image PDFs, you may run into issues with highly interactive PDFs.

• Freeware games
• Open Source games

The only difference between the two lists is that open source games distribute the source code and allow modifications. Otherwise, if you are simply looking for a game to play, anything on those lists is up for grabs. Have fun!

One of the more popular system audit applications is Belarc Advisor.  After installing, you can run it, and it generates an HTML report listing installed hardware and software.  It’s very easy to use.

Another (albeit lesser-known) system audit application is SIW.  This one requires no installation, and offers excessive detail on installed hardware and software.  To build a report, simply go to the “File” menu > “Create Report” and click “HTML”.  This will create a report in an HTML file that will be fairly easy to navigate.  Just let me stress this is a highly detailed report.  If you click the “Options” button on the report generator window that pops up, it will allow you to select what areas of detail you want to see in the report.

Either one of these are handy tools to put on your USB flash drive.  Be sure to give each one a couple minutes or so to build the reports.

Basically, you select the game from the dropdown and hit the “can you run it” button.  This will work in either IE or Firefox (sorry Opera folks…it’s a no-go).  It then gives you a breakdown of which pieces of hardware are holding you back (CPU, RAM, video card, etc) according to the game’s minimum requirements and recommended requirements.

To open up Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer), simply hold the Windows key and press E.  No matter where you are, this will open Windows Explorer.

To navigate up and down, simply use the arrow keys.

To open and close subfolders use the * and – keys on the num pad.  Note that these shortcut keys open and close *all* subfolders on the selected folder, not just one level, so if you have a lot of files and subfolders, opening them may take a few moments.

To open only one level of subfolders, use the + key on the num pad.

Instead of forcing everyone in the US to buy new TVs that don’t already have digital signal capable equipment, a $40 coupon for a converter box is being offered here: http://dtv2009.com

Here is a list of converter boxes that can be purchased with the $40 coupon, but you may have to put an additional $10 or so towards it as well, since the estimate price was rumored to be somewhere around $40-$60.

On the website, it says the coupons should be on their way out in late February or sometime in March, and are only good for 90 days from the date of issue.

Either way, SelectORacle will help interpret CSS code into plain, understandable English. Simply input either your CSS text or provide a URL to a CSS sheet and click “Explain this!”. The results will appear in the translation section below and are much more descriptive than the “code” form.

1. Register for an account at DynDNS. This is a dynamic DNS service where you can get a free custom subdomain, or for a small fee, register your own domain name.
2. Once you sign up, login to your account, click on “My Services”. Under “Hostnames” click the link that says “Add New Hostname”.
3. Type in the subdomain you wish to use, and select a domain. Select “Host with IP address” and click “Use auto detected IP address”. Click “Create Host”.
4. Download and install the updater client (clients for Windows, OS X and *nix are available)
5. Assuming you’re on broadband, proceed through the wizard, select “Local Area Network”, hit next, hit “Detect My IP”, hit next, type in any sort of name, such as “mycomp”, and hit next.
6. Enter your dydns username and password and hit next.
7. Select “Yes” for the automatic download, and hit next. Verify the domain that appears is the one you put on the dydns website. If it is, tick the box next to it and hit the next button. The rest is fairly straight forward.
8. If all went well, you now should be able to reach your computer/network with the domain name, so you won’t have to remember the IP address.

• In Opera, go to Tools > Preferences and the “Advanced” tab. Select “Downloads” on the left site. On the list of MIME types, select “application/pdf” and hit edit. Select “Open with default application”. Hit OK, close the window, and you’re done.
• In Firefox, go to Tools > Options and click the “Content” button at the top. Click the “Manage…” button for File Types. Double click on PDF on the list. Select “Open them with the default application”. Hit OK, and close out of everything.
• For IE, you will need to open Adobe Reader. In Adobe Reader, go to Edit > Preferences. Click on “Internet” on the list on the left. Uncheck the “Display PDF in browser” option and hit OK. Adobe Reader will configure itself and may ask for a reboot.