I put together a very simple widget using Springwidgets yesterday. You can the result of my efforts here.

I like the product - it was easy to use and I am sure that the SDK would let the more technically-minded accomplish more polished results. Further, the results look great.

I recently downloaded Irfanview 4.0 after reading this review on CNET.

I was struggling to take screen shots of other websites to use on this site using the standard Microsoft Office installation. Paint, Picture Manager and the other random accessories all have their shortcomings. Paint does not handle compression or picture quality very well in my inexperienced hands while I never managed to figure out how to paste screen shots into Picture Manager.

I returned the DS Lite Opera Browser today after only a couple days of use. I was generally underwhelmed with the experience. Here are some specifics:

• I thought the scrolling across two screens in different modes was cleverly executed but the screens where simply too small for me to enjoy the surfing experience. Frankly, it gave me headache.

So, I decided to try the ds lite browser despite my misgivenings. Navigating with the split screen and the stylus is a whole new set of skills - like learning to text message for the first time. The whole thing is a bit like surfing the internet in 1996.

In the small print under the heading "Important Notes on compatibility", the Opera Browser for the DS Lite will not support the following:

• Flash, animations, sound, video, PDFs, or any other files or programs that require a separate plug in, such as Java.
• All types of video playback, such as QuickTime (.avi) and Windows Media Video (.wmv)

Another screenshot of Google embedding advertisements inside of a map:

I like the way Google seems to let advertisers select a custom icon to appear on the map as well as the contents of the bubble.

On a related note, I was unhappy with the image quality of the screenshots on the previous posts. I downloaded IrfanView to edit the image in this post. I am pleased with the initial results.

Google has started integrated advertisements into the their map searches.

Here is the screenshot:

I like Heidi Swanson's blog, 101 Cookbooks.

We are fellow travelers in the sense that I own several cookbooks in common with her. I subscribe to her feed and often find intriguing recipes to try in her posts. I also love the quality of the food photos on her site - making food actually look appetizing is not easy.

Books about the Internet from Amazon!

Just trying the Amazon Associates program out.

They make it quite easy to get an embed links.

One other observations: I can embed text links while leaving the system set to filtered HTML but image links require unfiltered HTML.