Category: Miscellany

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Facebook Saves Datacenter Costs with Frigid Arctic Wind

Here’s an article on how our Facebook Overlords have build their newest datacenter in Lulea, Sweden. This is largely due to their having an average temperature of less than 30F degrees, which allows Facebook to utilize outside air for cooling, which can save a bundle of money. Apparently many companies have been locating datacenters in Lulea for this reason.

I’m not an Environmentalist — I try to do my part, but am more of a lazy recycler — but the first thing I thought of was: How is this likely to impact the environment around Lulea. A few years ago, I read an article if a study on how large cities like Phoenix and Dallas are slowly humidifying the surrounding desert by the number of lawns and other plants that their citizens water daily (not to mention pools!), increasing humidity via evaporation and affecting the variety of plants and animals as far out as 50 miles from these cities.

So I wonder if the extra heat being released from datacenters into or around Lulea will ultimately have a similar effect on their local climate?

slashdot.org/topic/datacenter/facebook-saves-datacenter-costs-with-frigid-arctic-wind/
via facebook.com/AlienSpilcer/

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Researchers Claim Wi-Fi Threat Is A Serious Danger To iPhone Users

Although I prefer Android phones, I know that iPhones have their place in the smart-phone ecosystem. This iPhone vulnerability is unfortunate in that it it should be rather easy for Apple to fix. The good news is, if you’ve never modified your iPhone’s wifi configuration, you’re likely safe. But it’s still good to be aware of the risk.

www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/researchers-claim-wi-fi-threat-is-a-serious-danger-to-iphone-users-118967
via facebook.com/AlienSpilcer/

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How to get Facebook Events on your Android or Google Calendar

How to get Facebook Events on your Android or Google Calendar. I admit it, I basically live and die by the calendar on my Android phone. Appointments, meetings, scheduled conference calls, events … if they don’t get entered onto the calendar, there is definitely a chance that I’ll miss them. It’s the same with invites I accept to Facebook Events, such as Janni Simner’s and Bill Konigsberg’s recent book launches, I manually transfered the Events to my calendar to ensure I wouldn’t miss them.

There had to be a better way.

So after a bit of research, I found out how to have these events added automatically when I accept them.

First, from your Facebook New Feed, click on the Events link listed under Favorites on the left-hand column. Then, on Upcoming Events page, click the settings gear on the [Today] button in the upper-right corner of the page and select Export.

You should get a small pop-up window. This window has two links in the text. Using your mouse’s right-button, right-click on the “upcoming events” link and, depending on your browser, select either “Copy Link Location,” “Copy Link Address,” or “Copy shortcut” to copy the address the link points to into your cut/paste buffer.

Now, go log onto Google Calendar and near the bottom of the left-hand column, click on the small down-arrow next to Other calendars and select Add by URL. Then paste the address from the cut/paste buffer into the URL field and click the [Add Calendar] button.

Your Facebook Events calendar should now be listed under Other calendars.

Keep in mind that Facebook/Google apparently only update once a day, so your Facebook events many not immediately appear on your Google/Android calendar. Be patient, they’ll eventually get there. Also, I noticed that past events tend to disappear, but since this is just to ensure I get there on time, that’s not been much of a problem.

In case the above was somewhat confusing, I’ve created a quick demo video of what I’m talking about. You can find that here: youtu.be/T8BSV2J-lFc

Let me know if you found this helpful.
via facebook.com/AlienSplicer/

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This is a test post

This is a test post. Testing my Content Timeline Auto-Title plugin for WordPress. If everything goes right, when this posting is copied to WP via IFTTT, the WP posting should be the first sentence of this status update.
via facebook.com/AlienSplicer/