The Pool Room

The Pool Room: where all the good stuff ends up

  • Video: How To Grow Figs From Cuttings (Milkwood)

    I’ve just discovered the [Milkwood](http://www.milkwood.net) site – “Two city kids quit their jobs, pull up stumps and journey to a remote, empty, block of land to start an ultra low impact lifestyle from scratch”. Now these are people I’d love to meet! Kirsten Bradley and Nick Ritar are documenting their trials and tribulations via both…

  • Video: Permaculture Trio

    This video is really three different views of permaculture gardens rolled into one. Notes below the video. ##Forest Gardening with Robert Hart [Robert Hart](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hart_%28forest_gardener%29) was born on 1 April 1913, and died on 7 March 2000. He was a vegan (eating around 90% raw food) who took up farming at Wenlock Edge, in Shropshire. –…

  • Video: The Permaculture Concept – Bill Mollison

    This is the first post in my new category, Permaculture. I’m going to link to and provide notes for videos, books and other resources as I read and learn more. And maybe I’ll document some of my own projects when I get some time. If you’re not sure what it is, Wikipedia has a good…

  • MacUpdate Promo – Great Mac Software, Dirt Cheap!

    Check out the current [MacUpdate Promo](http://www.mupromo.com/)! For 50 bucks, you get: – **ForkLift** – a nice-looking FTP client – **RapidWeaver** – web site publishing software – **SwiftPublisher** – for writing newsletters and creating gift cards (perfect for Xmas!) – **Marine Aquarium** – really cool fish tank screen saver – **Xslimmer** – reclaim disk space by…

  • Samsung SyncMaster 940UX 19″ LCD Supports Video Over USB

    Here’s an interesting development. A company called [DisplayLink](http://www.displaylink.com) has come up with a technique to send video over a USB link, rather than the conventional VGA or DVI. It doesn’t require an extra graphics card – it’s all done in the device driver. Samsung’s SyncMaster 940UX 19″ LCD is the first monitor to use the…

  • The Easy Way To Upgrade WordPress

    As much as I love WordPress as a blogging platform, the plugin, theme and upgrade mechanisms have always seemed a little kludgy to me. There’s too much diving into the filesystem, unzipping downloads, FTPing files and directories to specific locations, and in the case of upgrades, futzing around disabling and re-enabling plugins, backing up the…

  • Increase Productivity – Speed Up Your iPod Playback!

    I listen to a lot of podcasts and audio books on my iPod – while driving to work, jogging, doing repetitive jobs, etc. But I’m a bit of a packrat, and the audio has been piling up faster than I can listen to it all. Here’s a way to get through more audio: play it…

  • Downloading YouTube Videos

    Have you ever seen a video on YouTube.com and wished you could keep a copy to watch again later? Or perhaps you’ve wished you could transfer it to your phone or iPod to show others? [TubeTV](http://www.chimoosoft.com/products/tubetv/) by Chimoosoft is what you need! TubeTV is an app for Mac OS X that downloads the Flash .flv…

  • Taskbar Shuffle – Windows Software

    Is it overly geeky to want to rearrange the order of the applications in your Windows taskbar? I’ve installed [Taskbar Shuffle](http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm) to do this. You simply drag and drop to arrange their ordering. On my PC at work, I tend to have many windows open at the same time – email, todo list, multiple telnet…

  • Burning A DVD From A VIDEO_TS Folder On A Mac

    I have a damaged DVD that skips badly and is unwatchable when played on a normal DVD player. I ripped it on the Mac (using [Mac The Ripper](http://www.mactheripper.org/) – great program!), and the resulting VIDEO_TS folder seems to play back fine using DVD Player in OS X. However, I wanted to be able to play…