This article actually looks at how newspapers screwed up even before the web. The rogues gallery of failed efforts includes ViewTron, New Century Networks, Real Cities and abuzz.

BoingBoing has a hack from OppressedPrinterUser on how to get your printer to quit giving you the "almost out" message way before it's necessary: "This guy had also suspected that his Brother was lying to him, and he'd discovered a way to force it to fess up. Brother's toner cartridges have a sensor built into them; OppressedPrinterUser found that covering the sensor with a small piece of dark electrical tape tricked the printer into thinking he'd installed a new cartridge. I followed his instructions, and my printer began to work. At least eight months have passed. I've printed hundreds of pages since, and the text still hasn't begun to fade. On FixYourOwnPrinter.com, many Brother owners have written in to thank OppressedPrinterUser for his hack. One guy says that after covering the sensor, he printed 1,800 more pages before his toner finally ran out."

Not a normal part of my reading list, but this essay on education is thought provoking. He has a great quote from Frederick Hess and Chester Finn re. No Child Left Behind: "No Child Left Behind's dogmatic aspirations and fractured design are producing a compliance-driven regimen that recreates the very pathologies it was intended to solve. It is time to relearn the lessons of the Great Society, when ambitious programs designed to promote justice and opportunity were undone by utopian formulations, unworkable implementation structures, and the stubborn unwillingness of supporters to acknowledge the limitations of federal action in the American system."

Old Man"s War series may be good for J. Need to check it out.

What seems like an easy hack to get free Wi-Fi in airports. From the article it sounds like the hack exploits networks that allow redirects of images. Apparently this trick is a couple of years old so maybe the networks have been fixed, but hey, give it a try.

Easy way to convert audio or video files from one format to another. This is a Windows version.

Rex Hammock writes about a Nashville company that will transport items from the Ikea store in Atlanta and also assemble the items for a fee. As someone who nearly killed himself assembling a piece of Ikea furniture I especially appreciate that second part. We don't have Ikea here in Winston-Salem, but the store in Charlotte isn't too far away so I don't know that we need the delivery service. Still…

The tape that's been on a bunch of athletes, including Kerri Walsh at the olympics. First saw it on a tennis player (can't remember which one) and apparently the tape keeps muscles from over-flexing.

Open architecture for creating a hosted "web 3.0" site. More than just CMS it offers calendars, drag and drop form builder, databound dropdown lists, searchable lists, etc. Free for up to five biz users or any nonprofit.

A look at why you should think carefully before you donate.