31 March 2008
30 March 2008
26 March 2008
25 March 2008
24 March 2008
23 March 2008
100,000 customers tell Microsoft to save XP
100,000 customers tell Microsoft to save XP | InfoWorld | News | 2008-03-17 | By Galen Gruman: "Executive Editor Galen Gruman explains the real intent of InfoWorld's Save Windows XP campaign and the stakes involved for business and home users. Will Microsoft listen to 100,000 customers?"
22 March 2008
oak tree on Flickr
I very much like this picture, although I'd love to see it with some very saturated blues and greens.
Sold! Cornflake goes for $1,350
Two sisters from Virginia sold their Illinois-shaped cornflake on eBay Friday night for $1,350.
London's mile-high vertical village
London's proposed vertical village. Population 100,000! Wow. See the pictures in this link as well as http://www.popularchitecture.com/supertower/
ThinkGeek :: Mini Math Sculptures
Bathsheba Grossman is an artist exploring how math, science and sculpture interconnect. Her work is about life in three dimensions, symmetry and balance, and always finding beauty in geometry. These are three excellent examples of her work. The Gyroid is a triply periodic minimal surface and was discovered by Alan Schoen. The artist then used Mathematica and Kenneth Brakke's Surface Evolver to compute this section of it, adding her own perforations. The Quintrino is a dodecahedral shape with a large and hidden inner volume.
Abandoned technology
To celebrate, I am Legend, here is a chart of our favorite abandoned technology. Disused military equipment, famous aircraft bone yards, derelict lighthouses, fun fairs subway systems and railway locomotives.
Living Lights: A Glowing Compendium
Not long before Curious Expeditions came to Eastern Europe to search for the wondrous and macabre, we had the opportunity to travel through Puerto Rico. It was a magical trip filled with rain forests, the gigantic SETI radio telescope in Aricebo, and the landing port of Ponce de Leon. However, one experience shines above the rest. On the island of Vieques, in a dense mangrove swamp is one of the most magical places we has ever had the pleasure to visit.
LD: I'd love to see this in the Bellagio fountain!
LD: I'd love to see this in the Bellagio fountain!
2005 MicroGraph Winners
The fields of research covered by this conference have been at the forefront of the drive to develop technology to make smaller and smaller structures. We have ventured into size regimes where we are often dependent on microscopes and the skill of microscopists to see the results of our work (and often what went wrong). To highlight the importance of micrographs to the field, the conference holds a micrograph contest. The entries were judged both from the technological and artistic standpoint.
How Google Earth Ate Our Town - TIME
When they hear the telltale sirens of a fire truck bursting out of the station in Nanaimo, the locals don't need to look out of the window or tune in to newscasts to find out where the action is. Instead, they can simply log on to Google Maps or Google Earth and track the firefighters in real time as they tear down the streets of this Vancouver Island port community. The Google-enabling of Nanaimo's fire service, launched just weeks ago, is the latest venture in a British Columbia town that has been dubbed the capital of Google Earth.
Rainbow at Elam Bend (McFall, Missouri)
February 2, 2006 Rainbow at Elam Bend (McFall, Missouri) On this day a rare February Rainbow was seen here in Northern Missouri at sunset. This rainbow was visible over much of the area and was noticed by many people. It was seen as a partial bow in some areas and completely full and even double in others depending on where the rain was falling. The photos on this page were taken at the Elam Bend Conservation Area near McFall, Missouri.
Wellcome Image Awards 2008
From a fly on sugar to the internal structure of an HIV cell and the trachea from a silkworm, the Wellcome Image Awards 2008 spotlights some of the boldest pictures taken during groundbreaking scientific research.
EO Newsroom: New Images - Tenoumer Crater, Mauritania
Deep in the Sahara Desert lies a crater. Nearly a perfect circle, it is 1.9 kilometers (1.2 miles) wide, and sports a rim 100 meters (330 feet) high. The crater sits in a vast plain of rocks so ancient they were deposited hundreds of millions of years before the first dinosaurs walked the Earth. Modern geologists long debated what caused this crater, some of them favoring a volcano. But closer examination of the structure revealed that the crater’s hardened “lava” was actually rock that had melted from a meteorite impact.
Bloxes
Bloxes are building blocks made of interlocking pieces of corrugated cardboard, folded together. Their unique shape and structure make them exceptionally strong and lightweight — you could build yourself a platform to stand on, and then pick it up and move it wherever you need to.
Origamic Architecture: Stunning Sculptures Cut Out of Paper
In the Japanese paperfolding art of origami, cutting the paper is frowned upon. But in 1981, Masahiro Chatani, professor of Architecture at Tokyo Institute of Technology proved that papercutting could indeed produce stunning pieces of art.
Propellant Bonfire on Flickr
Burning some “extra” propellant...for little warmth and light. The colors were amazing....just don’t inhale
Valley residents wonder why gas costs a dime more per gallon
Enlarge the picture on this article...
Photo by Curtis Mueller
Curtis Mueller's border collie, Lutzi, pulls hard for a can of dog food in this photo Mueller titled "How Alaskans cope with gasoline prices." Mueller, who lives in Palmer, says high gas prices in the Mat-Su area-- at least 10 cents a gallon higher than in Anchorage -- have forced him to drive less.
Photo by Curtis Mueller
Curtis Mueller's border collie, Lutzi, pulls hard for a can of dog food in this photo Mueller titled "How Alaskans cope with gasoline prices." Mueller, who lives in Palmer, says high gas prices in the Mat-Su area-- at least 10 cents a gallon higher than in Anchorage -- have forced him to drive less.
Beating Heart in a Box Amuses, Horrifies Manhattan Elite
Billy Chasen, the artist who encased a still-working, exploded iPod in resin, put a new piece up at the American Heart Association's 2008 Heart of New York Gala at the classy Waldorf Astoria hotel in NYC. Watch as a heart sprays blood all over the inside of a glass cube!
63-year-old solves riddle from 1970
A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard.
Even your dog has a blog
Even your dog has a blog - CNN.com: "It goes without saying that Max, a 3-year-old golden retriever can't talk. But that doesn't stop him from chronicling his dog's life -- as told to his owner Aubrey Jones -- on the blog Max the Golden Retriever."
Nature's Night Light
From the photographer: "One of those rare crystal clear nights with the perfect big puffy clouds above my city San Francisco. When I was driving home from work in the wee hours of the morning, i was mesmerized by the clouds and how bright it was.
Sneak peek at OpenOffice.org 3.0
OpenOffice.org 2.4 may be just around the corner. But if you laugh at stable releases and always want to have your hands on the latest beta software, you can download an early beta version of OpenOffice.org 3.0 today
OpenOffice 3.0 Promises to Bash Office
Microsoft's Office suite could have plausible challenger on the desktop for the first time since Lotus gave up trying to take on Redmond a decade ago.
With developers struggling to get OpenOffice 2.4 out the door, details are emerging of the features users have to look forward to in the upcoming bullet point release, version 3.0.
LD: OpenOffice v2.3 is already on my list of puppy approved software!
With developers struggling to get OpenOffice 2.4 out the door, details are emerging of the features users have to look forward to in the upcoming bullet point release, version 3.0.
LD: OpenOffice v2.3 is already on my list of puppy approved software!
21 March 2008
3D ABCs
From the lenticular cover that changes with the angle of your hands, all the way to the Z, ABC3D is as much a work of art as it is a pop-up book. Each of the 26 dimensional letters that move and change before your eyes is a treat. C turns into D with a snap. M stands at attention. X becomes Y with a flick of the wrist. And then there’s U… Boldly conceived and brilliantly executed with a striking black, red, and white palette, this is a book that readers and art lovers of all ages will treasure for years to come.
Star explodes halfway across universe
The explosion of a star halfway across the universe was so huge it set a record for the most distant object that could be seen on Earth by the naked eye.
LD: There goes the neighbourhood!
LD: There goes the neighbourhood!
Eye-Fi SD card cracked, splayed
I know it's tempting to have a look inside all the gadgets and gizmos that help and hinder our daily lives, but this often comes at a cost - the danger of breaking something you've paid good money for. So, ever-helpful (and somewhat reckless) as we are, we've disassembled the Eye-Fi wireless SD card for you.
NASA - Beauty in the Night
As space shuttle Endeavour raced into space to begin the STS-123 mission, an amateur photographer captured this view from the waterfront in Titusville, Florida
Sexy toilets spice up shopping
Customers at a Portuguese shopping center are surprised by a sexy welcome in the mall's toilets.
The World’s Weirdest Engineering Disaster (cached at Google)
Didn’t anyone ever tell you that salt mines, shallow lakes and deep-earth drills shouldn’t mix? What started as a seemingly minor miscalculation resulted in a billion-gallon flood, unbelievable property damage and the upheaval of an entire ecosystem. Amazingly, this catastrophe cost no lives though it remains one of history’s most devastating engineering disasters.
The best business card ever
I found this business card in an old book that I bought at a book sale. So I never met the person who made the card, and the mystery behind the business card remains intact. How many uncreative (boring) business cards have you seen in your life? This business card illustrates that a little bit of creativity can go a long way towards sticking in someone’s mind.
Mars is 'covered in table salt'
LD: Mars Department of Tourism notes that visits from hypertensives and pepper lovers have sunk to zero.
Mobile calls on Emirates flights
NEWS FLASH Cell phones used on a flight. Plane doesn't crash!
LD: Its nice to see airlines moving away from banning cell phones, a decision probably based in large part on trying to tap new revenue streams from Air Phones. 'Tis about time. Hospitals should be next!
LD: Its nice to see airlines moving away from banning cell phones, a decision probably based in large part on trying to tap new revenue streams from Air Phones. 'Tis about time. Hospitals should be next!
File Dropper - The Simplest File Hosting Website Ever.
This free service allows you to easily share files up to 5GB in size.
19 March 2008
Rainbow iceberg in the Antarctic - Telegraph
Resembling a strange creature from the deep, this rare marbled iceberg was spotted in the waters of the Antarctic by a Norwegian sailor.
P-51 Crazy Horse approach and landing
Approach and landing of a P-51 Mustang Crazy Horse, complete with CFI walking you through the landing procedure.
Astrophysicist Addresses Airline Boarding
Boarding an aircraft could be seven times more efficient, saving airlines and passengers time and so potentially improving the income potential and quality of life for both, according to astrophysicist Jason Steffen of the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics in Illinois.
LD: Bet the average biped couldn't figure it out though.
LD: Bet the average biped couldn't figure it out though.
Canada losing ground in space
As Canada's space agency celebrates the installation of Dextre the robot on the International Space Station, the country's space program is in serious trouble: funding is lagging, leadership is unstable and the astronaut corps is shrinking.
LD: Yet another example of how Canada is losing vision, purpose, and status in the international community. Looking at US Media about Dextre is very interesting in that almost all references to Canada are missing. We should have taken a lesson from Microsoft marketing and called it Canadarm for Space Station Workgroups v3!
LD: Yet another example of how Canada is losing vision, purpose, and status in the international community. Looking at US Media about Dextre is very interesting in that almost all references to Canada are missing. We should have taken a lesson from Microsoft marketing and called it Canadarm for Space Station Workgroups v3!
Coming Soon: Nothing Between You and Your Machine - New York Times
PicLens plugin for firefox breaks down old barriers, makes new walls. And is a sign of interfaces to come?
18 March 2008
Dine.TO Restaurant Amex Gift Certificates, Discounted Restaurant Gift Certificates
Something for mom maybe... 20% off selected Toronto restaurants
Large lobster finds safe harbour at Montreal Biodome
After recent discussion about the architecture of the Montreal Biodome, references to it have been peaking my ears lately.
Costco - ATP Photo Finder Geotagging Data GPS Picture Tracker Built in Reader: SD/SDHC, MS/MSPD
A possible solution to my geotagging woes. If you see it at Costco Gunny, let me know what you think please. Some information on this unit:
Manufacturer's Web Site
User Manual
cNet News: My geotagging trials, travails and triumphs
Sciuridae.co.uk Review
I like what I see.
Manufacturer's Web Site
User Manual
cNet News: My geotagging trials, travails and triumphs
Sciuridae.co.uk Review
I like what I see.
16 of the Most Extreme & Modern Beds You’ll Ever See
Ever wanted to have a super bedroom, to amaze your friends, or your boyfriends ? If you need a little inspirational help for this task here is a collection of 16 of the most extreme & modern beds you’ll ever see.
globeandmail.com: Arthur C. Clarke, 90
Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, an aide said. He was 90.
Religious music for our time
Review: The Seven Last Words at St. Anne's Anglican Church in Toronto
LD: Sounds like something I'd love to hear.
LD: Sounds like something I'd love to hear.
A380 to make UK commercial debut
The Airbus A380 "super-jumbo" is due to make its European commercial debut when a flight from Singapore lands at London's Heathrow airport.
New York City at night (HDR)
Wikipedia ranks this as one of their best photos. It's HDR on Photomatix. Made using 3 exposures, 2 stops each.
17 March 2008
Objects between analogue and digital
What is the difference between analogue and digital, physical and virtual? what connects and bridges these apparently different worlds?
This is the area we wanted to explore with our universal connections experiment and project. It is a question that each member of dialog05 addresses on a daily basis as an industrial designer creating consumer products.
Leatherdog: note the USB syringe and the USB padlock.
This is the area we wanted to explore with our universal connections experiment and project. It is a question that each member of dialog05 addresses on a daily basis as an industrial designer creating consumer products.
Leatherdog: note the USB syringe and the USB padlock.
...to boldly go where no iPod has gone before...
An overhead view of the exterior of Space Shuttle Endeavour's crew cabin, part of its payload bay doors and docking system was provided by Expedition 16 crewmembers on the International Space Station (ISS). Before docking with the station, astronaut Dominic Gorie, STS-123 commander, flew the shuttle through a roll pitch maneuver or basically a backflip to allow the space station crew a good view of Endeavour's heat shield. Using digital still cameras equipped with both 400 and 800 millimeter lenses, the ISS crewmembers took a number of photos of the shuttle's thermal protection system and sent them down to teams on the ground for analysis. A 400 millimeter lens was used for this image.
APOD: 2008 March 16 - Endeavour to Orbit
The exhaust column pictured is from the Space Shuttle Endeavour after last week's night launch to visit the International Space Station.
16 March 2008
Zamar: Free Online File Conversion
As the expression goes, "the wonderful thing about standards is that there is so many of them." But when you need to convert from one to another to support your machine, you can be in a real pickle. Zamara converts documents, images, music, video and compressed files to more standards than I certainly need!
BitTorrents
With BitTorrents all the rage I took my time trying out a few BitTorrent Clients. For the longest while I used BT++ but I've recently switched. My main computer has µTorrent installed. Wow, is it small and efficient... 220KB?! Why can't all code be this nice!
For other computers where my torrent use is not as frequent, BitLet makes the cryptic BitTorrent process appear like a normal file download. P2P doesn't get any easier! Great at work for getting around firewalls too.
For other computers where my torrent use is not as frequent, BitLet makes the cryptic BitTorrent process appear like a normal file download. P2P doesn't get any easier! Great at work for getting around firewalls too.
Windows Virtual PC 2007
"Use Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer. Switch between virtual machines with the click of a button. Use virtual machines to run legacy applications, provide support, train users, and enhance quality assurance." I love how virtual machines allow me to try software to see if I like it before allowing it into my physical machine. Well suited for Windows OSs and it is free.
scanR
A trend I've noticed is from programs installed on my computer making way to utility's run over the internet. Like software utilities there are duds and gems. Here's a huge gem... scanR turns your underpowered grainy cell phone camera (or any camera for that matter) into a portable photocopier. You can snap pictures of documents, white boards or business cards and they will enhance, straighten and clean up the document and deliver it to you as a PDF file or a vCard for business cards.
James Bonds spy camera never worked as well!
James Bonds spy camera never worked as well!
Firefox Browser
Mozilla's Firefox is my internet browser of choice. It has some wonderful extensions that add the functionality that you want. And its stable and can access 99.9% of the sites I visit. Growls to Citibank for only supporting Microsoft's Internet Explorer for their online account access.Mozilla makes a wide range of products including the email client Thunderbird which I also recommend quite highly. However, it is no longer my email client. It's definitely an excellent program though.
Some honourable mentions from Mozilla: Songbird and Sunbird. Songbird is a desktop multimedia player and manager, not unlike iTunes, but its open source. Like Thunderbird it is an excellent program. Sunbird is the calendar program in Mozilla's line up. It has great promise. I keep wanting more for from the program though. So while I can't make a full hearted recommendation for Sunbird, it is something to keep our eye on.
Version three of Firefox and Thunderbird should be available soon!
Text Editors
Scintila Text Editor is a powerful text editor that I especially love for creating HTML files by hand. However, its great for any kind of source code editing or plain text file creating. A new text editor thats growing on me fast is Notepad++. Despite its name I couldn't even begin to compare this to Microsoft's Windows notepad; both programs are far superior to the notepad you know.
Foobar 2000
Foobar2000 is a simple fast unobtrusive audio player. It handles just about anything. Its controls are standard and can be controlled by multimedia keyboards and mice easily. Its not graphical, but it seems to have low memory overhead and remains fast and responsive. Perhaps because it is not as graphical. I use it for listening to MP3s, voice mail from Vonage, dictation files from work.
Star Alliance Screensaver
View scheduled Star Alliance member airline flights in real time or accelerated mode to view movements over a 24 hour period. It defaults to accelerated for the impatient viewer, but I find the real time more fascinating.Global map projection can be either Cylindrical or Mercator. Installing the Star Alliance Screensaver will also install the Star Alliance FlightLookup Auto Update Conduit. This can (and in my opinion should) be deselected on installation. The screensaver works fine without it installed.
Flight over Sea Screensaver
My screen saver is a nice relaxing diversion called Flight over Sea. It's simple, but almost photorealistic and certainly nice for me to watch since I love flying. In addition blue is my favorite colour; that helps too. This screen saver is a teaser for their other commercial products that look nicer, but this one is free and contains no advertising asides from their company name in one corner periodically, also in blue.
PrintKey 2000
Have a PrintKey button on the keyboard that's woefully underused? Solve that problem with PrintKey 2000. A resource friendly program that activates when you hit PrtSc. You can save the screen, a window, or any area you select with a mouse. Print and save files that web designers make it hard to save for instance. I cannot locate a web page for the program, but it can be downloaded here.
WinPatrol
WinPatrol is one of the few programs in this list that isn't free. However, it is inexpensive and provides lifetime registration. There is a trial version that is free, but it doesn't really show the strengths of this program in my humble opinion. It monitors for things that add themselves to your start up programs, IE toolbars, start pages, and other hijacking techniques. In addition it lets you see every application and process that's running (even hidden ones) and will tell you more about it, if you need it, and how to disable it if you want. It lets the system speed up nicely with some tweaking. And when it finds something it barks at you... how much better can it get?!
Atomic Clock Synchronization
Calendars
Two programs that I love for marking printed calendars are One Page Calendar, which can be downloaded here and YACUP, which can be downloaded here. Both print out calendars in various forms and styles. Holidays can be customized. Great for jotting down notes upon or working out holiday schedules and managing life in general. These programs are of course free and their strengths are their printouts.
For the best online calendar program visit Yahoo! for yet another job well done. (Google Calendar why can't you do 15 minute appointments?! Growls) Finally if you want to have a nice on screen calendar (and want to pay for this shareware program) Screen Calendar is a very very professional program. It is complex in places, but when its working it turn your screen into one very cool calendar and can read and write your Outlook files!
For the best online calendar program visit Yahoo! for yet another job well done. (Google Calendar why can't you do 15 minute appointments?! Growls) Finally if you want to have a nice on screen calendar (and want to pay for this shareware program) Screen Calendar is a very very professional program. It is complex in places, but when its working it turn your screen into one very cool calendar and can read and write your Outlook files!
TClockEX
One more software program for those that like tweaking with their machine in an attempt to make it cease functioning altogether: TClockEX replaces the clock on in the task bar of Windows machines. Its adds functionality like full date, time and faster access to a better calendar for looking up dates. A freeware gem in my opinion. TClockEX can be downloaded here. Don't be put off my the ugly screen shot, the default colours match the classic windows task bar seamlessly.
Puppy Approved Software
TinyApps.org is a great little site for finding little gems of software, many of which are even free. All the packages here have one thing in common... they are small and efficient pieces of code. From email clients and web browsers to Windows and networking utilities they all fit on a floppy. Install them on a USB drive and you can bring these useful programs anywhere. Keep an eye out for the little green sprout: these programs don't even play with the windows registry! Happy downloading.
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