Scour - The Social Search Engine... Better than Google?

So I've never really liked Microsoft but they do have good software products. Also I've never really like Google either but they make the best search engine around. So here I am sitting in my little hypocritical world and always trying to find a way to switch to something that's not owned by a major corporation but still get the best performance and options that I prefer. I had used Firefox for years but tested the new IE8 Beta to make sure all the sites I work will still look okay when it comes around. Then I fell in love with it. We had little IE8 babies and live in our Windows Vista64 home with a white picket fence.

Then one day I stumbled onto Scour. It said, "Get paid to search" and I thought to myself, "Yeah, I've heard that one before..." and almost moved on, but just before I was about to move on I noticed it also said Social Search Engine. Hmm..... Just what we need another search engine. Just below that it said it queries Google, MS Live Search and Yahoo for results. So I was interested to see what they do different than say Dogpile.

I noticed right away there's a "Sort by" option right at the top of the search results. So if you perfer to give a higher preference than the others. You can also vote sites up or down depending if the content of the site is actually relevant or not to your search and you can add comments to the search results. So say if a site is good but loads really really slow or has a ton of popups you can let everyone know about it.

They've also added a section in your profile that you can set the weight of each search engine in case you prefer one over the other. Thus being able to still get the same results you'd get say from Google but with the extra social aspect of it to ensure the best quality out of the results. Sure you also gain points from searching, leaving comments and voting. But it would take so long to actually earn money that I do not suggest singing up for that reason and instead sign up to start searching better.

Another thing is that you will gain points if you refer people and they search on Scour also. So to help yourself and help Bauer-Power sign up from this link and at least try it for one week. Like with anything new it will be hard getting used to it at first but I'm sure you'll grow to like it as much as I do. If we do ever make any money off of Scour all proceeds will go to Bauer-Power and making this site better for all of our readers.

By Sundance of MakeMeASammich Games

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Google Offering Free Gmail Stickers

Similar to my free "Powered By Ubuntu" sticker offer, Google is answering the call for free stickers by offering free Gmail stickers in a variety of assortments so you can show off your Gmail pride!

I am pretty excited about this. I have been an avid Gmail user for a while, and I love everything about it. That, and I'm always down for some free stickers to put on my laptop.

From the Official Gmail Blog:

There's the standard Gmail m-velope -- dressed up in glitter. One of three bookplate style stickers you can stick on anything from the inside of a favorite book to your laptop or your skateboard. (Trading with friends is encouraged -- we realize the unicorn isn't for everyone.) And there's a sheet of keyboard shortcut stickers intended as a tool to help people learn Gmail's shortcuts. The adhesive is a bit more removable than standard stickiness, so you can take them off once you've trained your fingers.

To get the stickers, all you have to do is send a self addresses stamped envelope to:


Send me some Gmail stickers already
P.O. Box 391420
Mountain View, CA 94039-1420

As I have found out through my own sticker offer, some of you don't know what "self addressed stamped envelope" means. For those who don't it means you stuff an envelope with another envelope that is addressed back to you with with some friggin' postage on it so they can mail the stickers back to you.

For more information about the sticker offer visit the Official Gmail Blog.

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Converting Tivo to Mpeg

If you are like me, you love your Tivo. If you are also like me, you decided to get the cheapest Tivo out there. I would have gone for the lowest end model they had, but that one was out of stock so I paid for the next one up. I just got tivo-fied recently. Two Christmas's ago, I finally wore my wife down, and she let me get one. It has literally made my life worth living again.

If you are a Tivo owner, you may or may not know that Tivo gives you free desktop software to install on your computer so that you can transfer shows over to you desktop to save for later. You can also share your music, pictures or certain video formats from your computer to your Tivo. Not bad at all for a free little program. What if you want to burn your show to a DVD though? You either have to buy the more expensive Tivo with the built in DVD burner, or you have to buy their upgrade software to convert the .tivo files to .mpeg. Once you convert them to mpeg, you can burn them to DVD with Nero or some other DVD Authoring program (sorry I haven't found a free one yet).

Not any more though. I once found a little command line program that would convert .tivo to .mpeg on Sourceforge. I couldn't find it today though when I went to write this. So, I decided to upload my copy and the little script I wrote to MediaFire so you can download it. I took all the work out of it for you too! All you need is your Tivo Media access Key to decode and your done. You can download the utility here for 30 days.

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Bauer-Power Episode 4

Go ahead and pinch yourself, because you are not dreaming! Yes I have completed another video episode of Bauer-Power! This time, I did it on my own. Sundance couldn't make it in for the shooting yesterday, so I ended up doing everything solo for this one.

I decided to change things up a bit this time and not do it "diggnation style" for one main reason. I LEARNED HOW TO DO CHROMA KEYING! (aka Green Screening).

In this episode I talk about the top ten most common new years resolutions, and the top ten techy things to help you keep those resolutions! Check it out!



I am so sorry for the audio quality, and I realize that some of the transitions weren't so smooth, but I was working under a time constraint, as I had to get everything done while the wife and kid were out of the house yesterday.

Besides that though, what do you think about the new format? Like? Dislike? Bring back diggnation style? Let me know in the comments.

If you haven't seen one of the other episodes, you can view them all on my Veoh Channel here: (Bauer-Power Veoh Channel)

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Ubuntu Certificate of Authenticity

I decided to bring this one to the top today. You see, I just got a Powered by Ubuntu sticker request in the mail today, and with it the guy asked if there was a sticker to replace the Microsoft Windows License sticker on his computer. That request reminding me of this post I put up a while back. So without further ado, here it is again:

I found the below picture in my internet Stumbles and thought I would repost it. The image is apparently created by some guy on the Ubuntu Forums with the handle of MenZa, who released it with a GPL license, so feel free to re-post, re-distribute or whatever! This should make the transition to Ubuntu for Windows users a little more smooth.

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Time To Get Funky

How many of you use a service like MySpace, Facebook or Twitter? How many of you participate in online forums? What do all of these have in common? If you said avatars, then you just read my mind!

I found a pretty cool website the other day that allows you to take your favorite pictures, and transform them into really kick-ass avatars for free!.

This website is called BeFunky, and it can manipulate your pictures in two ways (From their website):

1. Cartoonizer:
   
   
   
   If you’re a fan of funky-looking cartoons and comics, you're going to be all over this.
   
   
   
2. Uvatar:
   
   
   
   Avatars are boring and generic. Take your online persona further with Uvatar

If you like those, then coming soon you will love their Video Cartoonizer they are comming out with. According to their site, Video Cartoonizer allows you to, "put yourself in the director’s chair and turn your home movie into an animated feature film."



Pretty cool right? Here is one I did of myself:



If you use this tool, I want to see your handy work! Post a link to your image in the comments!

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Happy New Year!

Another year has come and gone! For the most part 2008 was a pretty good year (Blogging wise). Thank you all for sticking around to read my articles. Though I do this as a hobby for myself, the only reason I keep doing it is for you guys who drop by each day to see what I have to say!

I hope you all have a wonderful and prosperous 2009! Please keep coming back, as I don't plan on going anywhere any time soon.

We finally broke 200 subscribers this year. Please do me a solid and tell your techy friends about Bauer-Power. I am hoping to break 300 this year (or more if possible!). Your friends can subscribe by clicking here: (Subscribe to Bauer-Power's RSS Feed)

Once again, Happy New Year!

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