Friday Fun, plus some interesting and useful links.

Before you dive into this weeks Friday Fun, take a look at the links below. Hopefully you will find them as interesting and useful as I did.

• CNET - Utility AEP plans backyard energy storage: Discusses how large power storage systems can be integrated into the power grid to help with power companies deal with outages, and adapt to the variable output of solar and wind power which are becoming more prevalent.
• MaximumPC - The 32 Totally Essential (and Free) Apps for Every New PC: A nice list of applications for your PC. Check out the comments for possible alternatives to the applications listed in the article.
• techradar.com - 10 really useful free Windows system tools: Even more tweaks and toys for both your PC, and your inner geek.
• Lifehacker.com - Ten Must-Have Gmail Filters Available for Download: Check out this link if you have GMail and you are in to hacking with it. Even if you don't like the filters that the article provides you can take what you learn from the article and create your own.
• LifeHacker.com - OpenWith.org Tells Your Mom How to Open That File (For Free): Another great article from LifeHakcer! This one is about OpenWith.org which is a site that helps you find free programs to open virtually any file extension.
• Two alternatives to TinyURL - TinyURL is a great tool for creating shortened aliases of long URLs, but there are two other sites that are also great for providing shortened aliases of long URLs. The firest is bit.ly, and the second is Tinyarro.ws which not only creates shortened URLs, but also allows you to customized the shortened URL.

And now it's time for some office humor, geek horror, and dancing hamsters!

When emails go bad! (Yes! It's safe for work)



An admin's worst nightmare!



Damn cute danc'in hamsters!



Why the dancing hamsters? Why not? Have a great weekend! Cheers ~ Jim