White noise rip off. Don't pay for white noise get it free.

This has to be the closest thing I have ever seen to the sale of bottles of fresh air. As a recent first time Dad I know that a new parent is prepared to try anything to help their baby sleep. My wife and I did a bit of research and found that some people have found that white noise has helped babies go off to sleep.

Interesting thought I, might as well give that a go. To my astonishment I found that there are web sites out their selling CDs of white noise.

Here are a couple of examples (lots more out there).

http://www.purewhitenoise.com/whitenoisecd.html#whitenoise

http://www.pediasleep.com/sounds/white_noise_babies.html

Wow what a bargain 12hr mp3 of white noise for only $9.99! Well how about getting white noise for free, at any volume you want, for as long as you need?

If you want to try out white noise with your baby, or know friends who might be thinking about it then bear this in mind. To get white noise all you need is an FM radio, knock the tuner off station, and hey presto white noise. Please don't go giving these gits any money.

Using aniboom.com to make your own animated gif.

Update: Check out an excellent alternative to aniboom in a new Polybore post here: http://polybore.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-create-animated-gif-for-your-web.html

Just a bit of fun really. Above is an animated gif I made using the aniboom online tool which you can find here http://www.aniboom.com/MicroSmotion/?ref=/animachines/header/

You can embed the animation tool in your blog or social networking site. I tried this but it was adding to my already slow page load time.

Instructions: (these are slightly amended from those provided at the site but better)

1. Make sure your webcam is plugged in.
2. Select the background of your choice by clicking the arrows. Hearts, Cupids, halos etc. I used "none".
3. Create: click the red button or space bar to Capture (photograph) frames.

4. If you make a mistake select the frame by clicking on the green frame markers at the bottom of the widget then click the dustbin icon top left of widget.
5. Export your animated GIF to download, share and embed.

Also worth checking out is their online 2d animation tool. http://www.aniboom.com/ShapeshifterAnimachine.aspx

Have fun!