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April Fool: 13 Jokes and 2 Roundups

April Fools’ Day is getting to be a busy time on the Web! This morning while going through my feeds and e-mail alerts I came across lots and lots of foolin’. Here’s a brief list of thirteen April Fools’ Day pranks with two roundups (one liveblogged so you can keep up with the fun all day long!)

Google Changes Name to Topeka: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/different-kind-of-company-name.html — Topeka, you’re willing to rename yourself after a giant corporation? They’re also willing to rename themselves after you! No word if Larry and Sergey will be renaming themselves “Unborn child of a Raleigh City Councilman.”.

Problogger Acquired by Google: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2010/04/01/problogger-acquired-by-google/ — Pro blogger’s blogger Darren Rowse sells out to The Man.

Amazon Introduces QC2 – the Quantum Compute Cloud: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/04/introducing-qc2-the-quantum-compute-cloud.html — Amazon’s got a quantum computer! And it’s in the cloud, rearranging your qubits. I’m pretty sure this is what powers the Dis-Organizer. “Bingly bingly beep!”

Aviary Introduces Rare Bird Store: http://aviary.com/blog/posts/introducing-aviarys-bird-store — You may have been wondering about Aviary’s business model now that it’s made its services free. WONDER NO MORE!

Google Books in 3-D: http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2010/03/3d-books-google-books-now-offers.html — I have had to wear glasses to read books for a long time. Now it looks like I’m going to have to wear TWO pairs of glasses…

Google Annotations Gallery: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/03/google-annotations-gallery.html — “Do you find the standard Java annotations dry and lackluster? Have you ever resorted to leaving messages to fellow developers with the @Deprecated annotation? Wouldn’t you rather leave a @LOL or @Facepalm instead? If so, then this is gallery for you.”

Firebox New Products: http://www.firebox.com/product/2671/DIY-Carbon-Freezing-Kit — Firebox launches an exciting new set of products, including a DIY Carbon Freezing Kit, a Duck Separator, and my personal favorite, the Clever Peg.

ThinkGeek New Products: http://www.thinkgeek.com/ — An April Fools’ Day without ThinkGeek is like a day without sunshine. Decorate your cubicle with an array of new products including My First Bacon! The Monolith action figure! And just in case you’re hungry, Canned Unicorn Meat.

Introducing the Ubuntu Mars Loco: http://anthonyrhook.com/blog/2010/04/01/introducing-the-ubuntu-mars-loco/ — Ubuntu is attracting attention and enthusiastic users EVERYWHERE — even on Mars. And imagine, this is BEFORE the release of 10.04. Perhaps it’ll be Jupiter after that.

Upload and Store Anything in the Cloud: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/03/upload-and-store-anything-in-cloud-with.html — And dude, they mean ANYTHING. Your pets, your clothes, your wallet, your Bag of Holding — uh-oh, that’s a bit recursive — noooooooooo!

TEXTp saves YouTube bandwidth, money: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/03/textp-saves-youtube-bandwidth-money.html — It’s expensive to run YouTube, so the ‘Tubers are saving some scratch by offering videos in text-only mode. Try it with your favorite videos by adding &textp=fool to the end of a YouTube video URL. (Note: YouTube seems to be running somewhat slowly at the moment — maybe it’s not saving as much money as they thought!)

XKCD Command Line Interface: http://xkcd.com/ — Powerusers! XKCD now offers a command line for your comic-viewing pleasure. “man xkcd — Oh, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

And, on a more subtle note, the front page of Ask.com has the question “What year brought the most abundant Swiss spaghetti harvest?”

Want more? Mashable has a list of what it considers the funniest April Fool jokes. And TechCrunch is liveblogging the day.

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