So you can break a glass with pure sound.

Watch it and be amazed. It actually resonates.

A second site in the works

As of today, I’m planning the launch of another website. It will be entirely different from this one. It’ll be devoted exclusively to a new page-by-page comic that I just started writing for the heck of it, and have not been able to stop.

Notice: Site will be for ages 13+, maybe not for kids, also strange and have a few in-jokes. Proceed at own risk. URL will be available here once I start the site. Go to http://AntiTrap.wordpress.com to see.

(Graphing) Calculators for the PC

Recently, I decided to search for a better calculator than the one that ships standard with Windows. That’s when I discovered two wonderful programs; each is a little different from the other, but they complement each other quite well.

•  Calcute: This program is basically a tape calculator for computers. Type in an equation. Go back and edit it if you want; it’s not a problem because everything you typed is on the screen for you to fix in case you made a mistake. When you’re done, press enter and voila! the answer appears.
  
  Do you need to go back and fix what you calculated? Not a problem, and you can even save your old answer. Need more space? Calcute can fill the whole screen if you so desire. Calcute also makes adding long lists of numbers a snap. This is a must-have for anyone with an accounting class; of course, it’s free.
• Graphcalc: For the more experienced user, there is a calculator that  is even more powerful, if not a little more difficult to use.
  
  As you can see here, Graphcal not only can add, subtract, etc, but it can also create on-screen graphs, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional. These graphs render instantly, especially compared to calculators, and handle roughly the same mathematical manipulations as graphs made by TI brand calculators.
  I’m not a big fan of the 3d graph yet, except (of course) enjoying that it renders in multiple colors and can be twisted around like a new toy.

Bibliography Help

Do you need to turn in a bibliography (list of Sources Cited) soon, and you don’t know how to make bibliographies? Well, friend, don’t worry, because a website has solved your problem for you.

That website is easybib.com, and they make it easy to create bibliographies. All you do is fill in the blanks and they provide you with the formatted output. Once you create entries, you can also edit or delete them at your leisure.

Its only downside is not being able to save your bibliographies once created. They’re still working on that. The big brother to the free edition is MyBib Pro: it’s cheap at $7.99 a year, but even that price isn’t worth it for a quick fix of citations.

Derka

Excellent Graphing Calculator

For those of us who don’t want to simply use the G3 modification to the regular TI graphing calculator, or don’t have the cash for a TI-89 (or 92?), I found the solution here. I guess the program is kinda big, but it does a lot — it even manages programs like the TI 8x!

Friend to Japan?

Speaking of Japanese culture, I have a friend going to Japan for a few hours en route to another destination… I requested that if she saw any 300-yen ($3) manga, that she purchase a few and bring them back… for study purposes, of course.

Japanese for the Masses

At least for now, typing Japanese still isn’t easy for most people. Language packs can be nasty, especially if you’re using a kiosk system most of the time. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Download lolifox (lolifox.com) — it comes with Japanese pre-installed, thank goodness, and is smaller than big brother Firefox.
2. Use JWPCE, the Japanese word processor. I renamed mine JWord for short. To type hiragana, just type; to do kanji, just capitalize the first letter of the word; to write in katakana, hold down the Shift key for the entire thing (or just put Caps Lock on). I forget where you can find it.
3. To convert, use Babelfish or Google translate (I like Google more, but right now my kiosks see it as a security threat.)

Good luck and happy transliterating!