Wired Indiana

For those with a good sense of humor but no artistic ability, Strip Generator offers a free and easy way to create your own comic strips using clip art. The site isn’t the only comic strip generator on the web, but it is one of the easier to use and more popular sites out there. Users can even create their own Strip Blog, which combines the art of creating comic strips with blogging.

Apr. 17 - Long predicted to replace traditional book or newspaper pulp, e-paper is not yet printing money, but tech firms hope its popularity may eventually mimic the real thing.

Japanese companies already use electrophoretic display, or EPD, for everything from watches and mobile phones to e-readers, with limited color, lower power use and freedom from traditional paper the attractions.

For the last 7 years now, comic book shops around the country have been celebrating an annual event called Free Comic Book Day. If you go to a participating comic book store on that day, you’ll receive at least one (but probably several) free comic books. This year (2008) the event falls on Saturday, May 3, so if you want to grab some free comics for yourself or the kids, head on out to your nearest comic book shop. Don’t know where to find a comic store? There’s a store locator on the official Free Comic Book Day website.

Even though I think Wii Fit is a cool idea and look forward to trying it out, I still appreciate the humor in this parody video from Sarcastic Gamer.

I’m looking forward to Wii Fit, although it’s something I’m more likely to use in the winter rather than the summer, when the weather is nice enough that I can actually get some exercise outdoors. I lost 25-30 pounds last year on another physical video game, Dance Dance Revolution, but eventually got bored with it and gained most of that weight back. Hopefully, if enough physical video games come out that make exercising fun, lazy gamers like myself will be able to lose a few pounds while still supporting our gaming addiction.

The Wii is even spawning websites like Wii Healthy, which are focused solely on the physical fitness applications of the gaming system. If you’re interested in learning more about the upcoming Wii Fit, check out Game Pro.

I collect movie posters, lithographs, and art prints related to comic books and popular science fiction shows.  The most expensive part of this hobby isn’t the posters and prints themselves but the custom frames needed for the odd sizes of many of these posters.  If you go to a framing shop and ask for a 27×40.5 aluminum frame with UV coated plexiglass and acid-free backing, you’ll probably be quoted something in the neighborhood of $200.  Like many such expenses, however, there are cheaper alternatives to be found on the web.

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Like tens of thousands of other blogs on the web, this site is run on the Wordpress blogging platform. Today I upgraded to Wordpress 2.5, which seemed to work great, as I use Firefox. It turns out, however, that others who I installed Wordpress for are having issues with uploading images using Internet Explorer 7. I Googled this issue and found that it’s not an isolated problem. Hopefully, it’s an issue that will be fixed in the next few days, as we seem to get Wordpress security updates on a regular basis and they can roll it into one of those. Here’s a link to a fix for this issue until then. The best fix, however, would be to simply switch to using Firefox instead of IE. At the very least, you should have both browsers installed on your machine.

Here’s a video that gives a quick overview of the new features in Wordpress 2.5 for those who are interested:

Another minor problem I’ve encountered so far is that it’s easy to accidentally post a page instead of a blog post. For some reason when I clicked on “Write” to create this post, it defaulted to creating a new page instead.

Have you ever wanted to create your own time-wasting flash game like the ones you see plastered all over the web? Well, now, even if you don’t have any programming skills, you can upload a few photos and create your own mini-game in minutes. Then you can e-mail that game to friends or embed it on your Myspace page or other website. Here’s a sample game I created when I tested out the site:

From the minds behind I Can Haz Cheezburger? comes I Has a Hot Dog, a site dedicated to silly picture of dogs. This is a time wasting site if ever there was one. Subscribe to their daily photo e-mail list if you need a morning pick-me-up every day like I do.

Mar. 20 - Ford unveils a taxi cab concept that’s short but tall, offering lots of storage space.

The cab is 30 percent more fuel efficient than current cabs.

Fred Katayama reports from the New York International Auto Show.