Slashdot

Researchers in the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University have used a straightforward, water based extraction method to make pure, ultra-transparent silk films. These films can be patterned with photonic devices, like diffraction gratings and infused with proteins and enzymes allowing biochemically active, cheap, printable optics to be fabricated. Applications to implantable optical sensors are almost limitless. (Disclaimer: I am part of this research group.)

Just a note about an application (Windows only though) I've started using: GreenPrint http://www.printgreener.com/. This marks possibly the first time I've ever sent a software recommendation to my friends and family. If its good enough for them, it might be good enough for some of you!

GreenPrint adds a step between hitting the "Print" button and actually sending the task to the printer. This step allows you to weed out the wasted space before printing and/or saving. It is very easy to use.

How often do people waste paper when printing prototypes, brochures, etc? You can easily prevent 20% of your total printing. Save closer to 50% when printing "1-page" web pages that so often have that one nearly blank page at the end. Save over 50% when printing things with lots of "hidden" text. Ever seen a spreadsheet print 4 blank pages for 1 "real" page (or more)?

There is a free version (GreenPrint World) that is supported by unobtrusive ads, but is not free for commercial use (ie, in the office). C|Net's download.com reports it as verified free of spyware/malware. Home Premium is corporate licensable. Volume licensing is available for the Enterprise version; I don't have a clue what their terms are. Home Premium and Enterprise have additional features. All run on Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

NOTE: I have no interest in the program other than it being a smart way to save trees, time, and money. This isn't spam it is a real review. If you want to see a demo before installing, go here: http://printgreener.com/tutorial.html

• Do you ever:
• need to print only SPECIFIC pages, not everything?
• want to define rules for things like "don't print blank pages!"?
• want to remove images from your document?
• prefer to save a PDF file instead of printing?

• GreenPrint will allow you to:
• remove entire pages (easily, graphically)
• print only text (whole document or selected pages)
• print only images (whole document or selected pages)

NOTE: Don't just use the right-click menu for these, use the "Tools" menu for more control

• Once done you can:
• Print to any of your configured printers
• Save to a PDF (replacing tools like CutePDF)
• Email immediately as a PDF (I didn't get this working but you can email saved PDF files)

• GreenPrint will also:
• Automatically remove blank and "header/footer only" pages
• Automatically remove pages via configurable criteria (ex: less than X lines, etc)
• Alert you before removing pages automatically
• Track the amount of money saved (and define costs on a per-printer basis)
• Track how many pages you have saved
• Handle printer configuration (like you have now)
• Collate pages
• PS. As with any 1.00.00 software there are bugs. I reported two today to their support address. I got replies back in under an hour.

How many messaging accounts do YOU have? If you're like me you've got enough that you either a) don't check them all as often as you might like or b) check them enough and feel your e-life slipping away. Especially once you factor in MySpace and Facebook (or if you're like some of us, factoring those in multiple times).

Fuser.com is a web 2.0+ service from Confluence Commons aiming to be the answer. And they've just opened their doors to you (they had been in a semi-closed testing period for awhile, which is how I got in to play around). Sign up up and view all of your email from a single spot. When I mean "a single spot" I mean that you can see all of your messages in a single folder sorted by time. Someone sent you an email 5 minutes ago and someone else sent you a MySpace message 4 minutes ago? They all appear in the same message listing. And when I say "all of your email" I mean that it will let you set up accounts for the following services:

Standard email (IMAP, IMAPS, POP3, POP3S), AIM, AOL, Comcast, Gmail, Hotmail (MSN, Windows Live), Netscape.net, Outlook Web Access (Exchange 2000, 2003, 2007), Yahoo! Mail, SquirrelMail as well as MySpace and Facebook inboxes.

And you can send messages as if they are coming from any of those services as well.

In addition they have some other integration with MySpace and Facebook to show you who contacts you the most with a Leader Board. They're looking for user feedback on their service and features and actively soliciting feedback and additional services to be supported (for instance, I requested LinkedIn as another service and was told its being developed).

Its not a final product, there is plenty of room for your suggestions and UI improvements. People with just a couple of accounts, especially ones that can notify a central email account of new messages, probably won't see as much benefit from it. But for those of us with a ton of legacy accounts out there it can be a very handy tool.

They're funded by Jared Polis, the entrepreneur (and now democratic candidate for the U.S. house of representatives) who previously sold Blue Mountain Arts and ProFlowers.com

PS. I'm not affiliated with either Mr. Polis nor Confluence Commons. I live in the area and have met a couple of the Fuser folks after doing some testing and feedback for them and am excited to see the product go live so everyone out there can help improve it.

wisebabo writes "I'm sure it's been submitted already but just in case it hasn't, the twinkee may be near extinction. The object of derision and countless jokes (the only food that could survive a nuclear holocaust etc.) it is possibly also one of a slashdotter's major food groups (if they'll admit to consuming it). Anyway, take a bite! http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=3618936"
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=3618936

oblique303 writes "Orchestr8 launched its new social web mashup platform AlchemyPoint, also reviewed on Mashable. The new AlchemyPoint system turns web-pages into easily editable documents with "copy, cut'n paste" features that allows one to perform simple mashups of web-pages between one another. It also allows one to perform tasks such as creating RSS feeds, extracting semantic data whenever and wherever it is available (XML, url, search queries), translating snippets or the whole text of the page etc, etc ... From a review: "AlchemyPoint turns the web-browser into a web-processor, seamlessly. Web pages can finally be edited without any programming or any knowledge of html. It's so far, and by far, the ultimate client-sided mashup platform. Still, I only had little time to fiddle around with it. Anyway, I can't possibly imagine the implications of such a tool in the hand of creative people. When will a killer app arise from this tool?""
http://webtopmania.blogspot.com/2007/09/alchemypoint-unleashed-mashup-monster.html

KNicolson writes "We all know that :-) turned 25 today, but what about the Japanese equivalents (?_?) Who first came up with them and how long ago? Following some research of of the Japanese side of the internet, I found the answers to my question of who invented Japanese emoticons and when. The earliest documented use is about 20 years ago, by a non-Japanese, it seems!"
http://whatjapanthinks.com/