Monday, January 30, 2006

New Google Toolbar Beta version 4

New Version 4 Google Toolbar Beta

New! Enhanced Search Box
As you type a search query into the new Toolbar's search box, you'll see a list of useful suggestions based on popular Google searches, spelling corrections and your own Toolbar search history and bookmarks. You can also click the 'G' icon in the search box to search different Google sites, the current site, or sites for which you’ve installed custom search buttons.

New! Custom Buttons
You can add buttons to your Toolbar that will let you visit and search your favorite websites and keep up with interesting feeds. Our Button Gallery offers a selection of ready-made buttons for popular sites, and you can make your own buttons in seconds by right-clicking within the search box on any site and selecting "Generate Custom Search…" Start making your own buttons.

New! Bookmarks
Want to create and label bookmarks that you can access from any computer? Simply click the Toolbar’s star icon, or right-click the star to add and label a bookmark. You'll be able to access your Bookmarks menu on any computer with the new Google Toolbar installed.

New! Send To
You can use your Google Toolbar to share web pages via email, text message (SMS), or blog. To share an entire page, select from the Toolbar’s “Send To” menu; to share an excerpt, simply select the section of the page you want to share before clicking "Send To."

New! Google Account Sign-in
Your Google Account is your access point for Google services like Personalized Homepage, Google Groups and Gmail – and now you can sign in and out right from your Toolbar. Simply click on the Settings button on the right end of the Toolbar and select “Sign In” (you’ll know you’re signed in when the Toolbar shows you a green light). Sign up for a Google Account.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Date set for Blackberry ban hearing | The Register

Date set for Blackberry ban hearing | The Register:

Research in Motion (RIM) will appear in court on Friday, 24 February to hear if it must close its Blackberry push email service to US customers or, at the very least, make them implement an upgrade.

Judge James Spencer yesterday named the date at which he will hear arguments from RIM and patent holding company NTP over whether he should ban Blackberry for violating NTP's intellectual property, a verdict already reached at both District Court and Court of Appeals level.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Fear of Girls - Google Video

Fear of Girls - Google Video

True Love is but a +2 Broadsword away.

Slashdot | MS Security VP Mike Nash Replies

Slashdot | MS Security VP Mike Nash Replies:
You posted a lot of great questions for Mike Nash last week, and he put a lot of time into answering them. As promised, his answers were not laundered by PR people, which is all too common with 'executive' interviews with people from any company. Still, he boosts Microsoft, as you'd expect, since he's a VP there. And obviously, going along with that, he says he likes Microsoft products better than he likes competing ones. But this is still a great look into the way Microsoft views security problems with their products, and what the company is trying to do about them.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Blogger adds word verification

Plutohome - all in one house control

Plutohome.com:

img_what_is_pluto

Pluto is the only all-in-one solution for your home that seamlessly combines media & entertainment, home automation, security, telecom and computing.

You can control your whole house with a mobile phone, a touch-screen tablet or a web-interface. A Pluto system is like an appliance - not a computer. It is self-configuring, maintaining and updating. No technical skills are required to use or install Pluto.

Pluto is above all simple. The devices are all plug and play. Pluto is also an open platform, offering unlimited expansion potential, and requiring no special cabling.

This is Pluto: a complete, comfortable and secure solution for your home.

Building an Open-Source House | Linux Journal

Building an Open-Source House | Linux Journal:

Our Senior Editor puts years of home-renovating experience to work in planning computing, networking, RF, audio and video in his family's \'ultimate\' house.

We're building our last house. I hope.

By sometime in January or February of next year, we will have lived in seven different places, two on the Peninsula in the Bay Area and five in Santa Barbara. Our last is the first house we've built from the ground up. All the others were remodels or rentals we occupied while we were buying or remodeling our next home.

The purpose has been strategic. Buying, improving and reselling has been a way to improve our current abode, as well as a way to make money in a market that has only gone up.

This next place, however, should be our last. Enough moving, already.

It is, as you might expect, our Dream Home.

My fantasy here has been, from the start, to make it as Linux-y as possible. That is, open in architecture and welcoming to modifications and additions--especially in the technology department.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Top Gear - Playstation vs Real Life in a Honda/Acura NSX - Google Video

Top Gear - Gran Turismo vs Real Life in a Honda/Acura NSX - Google Video

He does the corkscrew really well, I've spent many hours trying to master that corner.

Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson tries to beat his Gran Turismo lap time on the real life track in the same car.

DailyTech - Australian Viewers Gets Plasma TV Burn In by Their Local TV Stations

DailyTech - Australian Viewers Get "Burned" by Their Local TV Stations

Boy, would I be pissed if this happened. But they should have know better to watch anything on a plasma. What were they thinking, plasmas are just for looks.

260_large_pioneer

An Australian man is fuming mad over two local TV stations deciding to use solid-color logos for their sports programming. As a result, Wayne Spiers is now left with a $3,000 plasma screen TV which features 'burned in' Channel 7 and Channel 9 logos.

The Channel 9 logo appeared as a result of boxing coverage that his family watched for five days. The Channel 7 'Sport' logo became permanent after a days worth of tennis coverage.

Television stations typically use transparent logos which are not as prone to leaving a 'burned image' on screens. Seeing as how it isn't really feasible to have a screensaver on a television screen, solid-color logos are bad news for plasma owners.

Legal action is being threatened by customers against both stations.

Song Search by Tapping - Search for music by tapping the rhythm of the song's melody.

Song Search by Tapping - Search for music by tapping the rhythm of the song's melody.:

Song Search and Retrieval by Tapping

This site lets you search for a song, by tapping the rhythm of its words (lyrics).

Friday, January 20, 2006

Crazy Honda commercial using a human orchestra for sound effect

Crazy Honda commercial using a human orchestra for all the sound effect.

After the flash loads click on "Watch the Film" it's a little slow but it's kinda fun to watch.

del.icio.us: tag bundles (organize your 10^99 tags)

del.icio.us

Del.icio.us has added a way to organize your bazillions of tags. Tags can now be organized into bundles which work the same way as labels in gmail. This means you can have the same tag catagorized into multiple bundles.

You can access this feature by going into "setting" and then clicking "tag bundles" on the right hand site under experimental.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Refactor!™ Pro for Visual Studio® .NET - Developer Express - Improving the Developer Experience(tm)

Refactor!™ Pro for Visual Studio® .NET - Developer Express - Improving the Developer Experience(tm):

Refactoring is the process of making small changes to working code, to improve the internal structure without altering the external behavior of that code. As an analogy, consider the math statement 2*4*5*3, you can convert this to 1*2*3*4*5 without changing its meaning and from there into 5!. They all mean the same thing but are increasingly easier to read.

Refactor! does the same thing but with working source code.

Refactor! is an add-in to Visual Studio .NET that parses your Source code as you move through it and delivers context specific refactorings that automate the process of reorganizing and shaping your source to make it easier to read and cheaper to maintain.

The A373 iPod nano from ever-e includes Bluetooth and FM - Engadget

The A373 iPod nano from ever-e includes Bluetooth and FM - Engadget:

A373

Why just settle for any old iPod nano case when you could get ever-e's A373 case that, along with protecting your precious nano, brings along A2DP Bluetooth transmission and an FM radio tuner? It even sports an old school microcassette recorder look, along with its own 5 hour battery, so what's not to love?

Tripod perform "Make you Happy Tonight" at Comedy Festival

Tripod perform "Make you Happy Tonight" at Comedy Festival - Google Video

One hell of a funny song sent to me courtesy of the button man, I think he can really feel the song.

Aussie comedy group Tripod performing their song 'Make You Happy Tonight' at a Comedy Festival

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Wonder Vase: custom mold a vase

What on Earth - A Collection Of Fun Wear & Delightful Diversions

HB1062

Fill with warm water, hand-form to any shape you want, empty and refill with coldwater, and you've got a sturdy, watertight vase like no other... because you designed it yourself. Between uses, rinse in warm water and smooth flat for storage. The secret? Thermal-sensitive polymer. Sold as a set of two, 11' high. Specify Crystal Blue or Crystal Clear. Buy 2 or more for $12.95 each.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Mess Dudes! - Create your own Avatars & Dollz, MSN Display Pictures,

Mess Dudes! - FREE Avatars & Dollz, MSN Display Pictures, Buddy Icons - AOL Messenger (AIM), Yahoo! Instant Messenger, Windows Live Messenger 8.0, Mobile Cellphone Desktop Wallpapers, MSN Messenger, Blog Forum Bulletin Board Avatar

Create your own cartoony avatars.

dude

D-Link: SecureSpot Internet Security Device in the CES 2006 People's voice Award from CNet

D-Link Vote for the SecureSpot Internet Security Device in the CES 2006 People's voice Award from CNet

securespot_product

Revolutionize the way you protect your home or small business network and computer systems from viruses, network attacks, and hackers. Stop spending time researching and installing confusing and expensive stand-alone security products, only to have them fail to function as promised, or cause your systems to grind to a crawl with bulky features and gimmicks.

D-Link SecureSpot™ is an all-in-one, plug and play desktop Internet Security Device (ISD) for network security firewall, intrusion detection, pop-up killer, spyware killer, content filtering, and anti-virus software. This easy to use security solution saves you time and money while providing you enterprise level threat protection.

D-Link SecureSpot is the first all-in-one desktop Internet security device designed for protecting the home and family. The home broadband user now has access to a comprehensive, effective, and easy-to-use desktop security device that eliminates the need for multiple (and frequently incompatible) complex and expensive software solutions.

SecureSpot effectively and concurrently combats a variety of threats-viruses, network attacks, malicious code, hacker exploits, and hybrid threats such as SQL Slammer, Code Red, and MS Blaster—utilizing a proprietary technological breakthrough. SecureSpot is designed to perform multiple security functions with a single device and a web-hosted control center, putting an end to the need for consumers to purchase and use stand-alone firewalls, pop-up killers, reporting applications, content filters, spam filters, and antivirus protection.

D-Link SecureSpot All-in-One Internet security appliance provides triple protection

CNET: CES 2006: The D-Link SecureSpot device is a hardware/software solution that guards your home network with three layers of protection.

The small box sits on your network between your modem and router (and is router-agnostic), and you'll have to install a thin client on each of your PCs. The first layer is a back-end network server that constantly tracks known spam sites, viruses, and spyware sites. The second layer is the built-in firewall that protects your entire network, and the final layer protects individual clients within your network. A browser-based control panel lets users administer one or multiple computers, and protections and permissions can be set for an individual PC or an individual user profile. You can block particular applications or Web sites, and the software blocks pop-ups and spam and includes antivirus protection. The beauty of this device is that you don't have to install antivirus software on each machine on your network individually, nor do you have to monitor each PC individually.

The D-Link SecureSpot is a plug-and-play device that automatically detects devices on the local network. It works with both Windows and Mac OS X. Pricing starts at US$99.99 for the box and four licenses. Each additional license is US$19.99, and the annual subscription renewal is US$79.99.

Hasselblad Launches World's First 39 Megapixel DSLR Camera & Camera Backs | Digital Camera Review

Hasselblad Launches World's First 39 Megapixel DSLR Camera & Camera Backs | Digital Camera Review

I have pixel envy, it has 13 times more pixels than my camera!!!

hasselblad_39mp

Hasselblad launches the world’s first 39 megapixel DSLR camera and comprehensive line of 39 megapixel camera backs

New products offer professional photographers unprecedented image quality

Hasselblad is creating a new standard of digital image quality for professional photographers with the announcement of a new camera and three camera backs based on the combination of Hasselblad’s new, true 39 megapixel CCD sensor and its unique Digital APO Correction (DAC) technology. This new line of products features the new Hasselblad Natural Color Solution, which takes digital photographic color reproduction to an entirely new level. The new products also deliver images of unsurpassed sharpness and resolution and at the same time reduce any moiré effect to a minimum – a first in the history of digital photography.

Based on the Hasselblad H2 camera with its range of high performance, digital central shutter-based lenses, and featuring extended features, such as DAC lens optimization and Instant Approval Architecture, the Hasselblad H2D-39 is the world’s first high-end, 39 megapixel, digital auto-focus camera. Compatible with the entire range of Hasselblad H System lenses, the world finest digital lenses, as well as the Hasselblad V camera lens system, the H2D-39 brings the highest level of integration and flexibility to the professional photographer.

The new Hasselblad 39 megapixel digital back products include the Hasselblad CFH-39, CF-39 and CF-39MS, and have been built to meet the needs of professionals who require the best, for both mobile and studio shooting. The 39 megapixel digital back products match the design and functionality of the Hasselblad H2 camera and the Hasselblad CFH-39 digital back fits onto view cameras using the H-system interface plate for mechanical attachment and flash sync connection to trigger digital capture. The CFH-39 also fully integrates with the power system of the Hasselblad H2, so that both camera and digital back can be powered by the H2’s Li-ion battery.

The Hasselblad CF-39 line of digital backs offers 39 megapixel digital capture with Hasselblad’s interchangeable camera interface, the i-Adapter, and the option of true color multi-shot capture. In a studio environment, the color resolution of captures can be increased by means of a unique multiple-exposure technique controlled by the optional Multi Shot Module (patent pending). The result is unique color resolution and absolutely moiré free images.

Christian Poulsen, CEO of Hasselblad comments: “We are constantly striving to create the optimum photographic tools that will enable our customers to take the best possible pictures. With the new, 39 megapixel-based Hasselblad products, we are confident that the outstanding image quality of the captured files and the subsequent and substantially reduced need for post-processing work will be of significant benefit to our customers. In over 15 years of working with the most advanced digital camera solutions, the combination of the 39 megapixel CCD sensor and the Digital APO Correction delivers a first for me - images files in which any moiré effect is reduced to a minimum, combined with superb sharpness and resolution on a single shot camera.

Friday, January 06, 2006

100 Cups of Coffee in 48 Hours

Mike Rowehl » Blog Archive » 100 Cups of Coffee
I started using 43Things finally, and one of my goals is to drink 100 cups of coffee. This is in homage to the Futurama episode where Fry drinks 100 cups of coffee and reaches some kind of enlightenment. Sure, it’s a cartoon and all, but it still looked like fun. And I think it’s important to have goals, no matter how inane they might be. Most people say something like “you know it is possible to overdose on caffeine?” or “that would probably kill you”. Generally discouraging remarks. But thanks to Wikipedia I think I might be looking at a plausible goal. Check out the caffeine entry:

TiVo Lovers - TiVo shows Series3 HDTV Cable Card unit at CES

TiVo Lovers - TiVo shows Series3 HDTV Cable Card unit at CES

TiVo shows Series3 HDTV Cable Card unit at CES

The unit has two CableCARD slots on the back and it will support Multi-Stream (CableCARD 2.0) or Single-Stream (CableCARD 1.0) cards. If you have multi-stream then you only need one card, but as long as only single stream cards are available you can use two of them. Yes, the unit is dual-tuner - actually, like the HD DirecTiVo it can use any two of the tuners it has, and it has six. 2 cable tuners, 2 ATSC tuners, and 2 NTSC tuners. Yes, it supports digital and analog cable, digital ATSC OTA, and analog NTSC OTA.

The only inputs the unit has are a coax cable in and a coax antenna in. There are no RCA or S-Video inputs on this unit. For output it has HDMI, Component Video, S-Video, and Composite Video. It has optical digital audio out, as well as RCA stereo out. Like the Series2 units it has 2 USB ports, and it also has a 10/100baseT Ethernet jack built-in. The unit also still has the modem, which seems increasingly archaic. :-) Oh, yeah, I almost forgot - it also has an external SATA port. ;-)

TiVo Lovers - TiVo shows Series3 HDTV Cable Card unit at CES

TiVo Lovers - TiVo shows Series3 HDTV Cable Card unit at CES TiVo shows Series3 HDTV Cable Card unit at CES

The unit has two CableCARD slots on the back and it will support Multi-Stream (CableCARD 2.0) or Single-Stream (CableCARD 1.0) cards. If you have multi-stream then you only need one card, but as long as only single stream cards are available you can use two of them. Yes, the unit is dual-tuner - actually, like the HD DirecTiVo it can use any two of the tuners it has, and it has six. 2 cable tuners, 2 ATSC tuners, and 2 NTSC tuners. Yes, it supports digital and analog cable, digital ATSC OTA, and analog NTSC OTA.

The only inputs the unit has are a coax cable in and a coax antenna in. There are no RCA or S-Video inputs on this unit. For output it has HDMI, Component Video, S-Video, and Composite Video. It has optical digital audio out, as well as RCA stereo out. Like the Series2 units it has 2 USB ports, and it also has a 10/100baseT Ethernet jack built-in. The unit also still has the modem, which seems increasingly archaic. :-) Oh, yeah, I almost forgot - it also has an external SATA port. ;-)

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Funny Hub: Indecent Proposal

Indecent Proposal - Funny Videos Hub

direct link

After a night out on the town, this guy ends his date with a shockingly frank request.

Gates unveils his 'Urge'

In challenge to iTunes, Microsoft unveils music service and other entertainment plans.

LAS VEGAS (CNNMoney.com) - Bill Gates aims to take over your living room and late Wednesday he unveiled a new music service and new software to do it.

Using an appearance with Justin Timberlake, the Microsoft chairman debuted a new music service, Urge, to directly compete with the iTunes music store and interface. Urge launches with over 2 million tracks for purchase or as part of an all-you-can eat subscription, an option the iTunes music store doesn't have. The offering will include exclusive material from MTV, though it will not be compatible with iPods, which are currently the most popular MP3 player.

Parrot introduces three Bluetooth car kits at CES


Parrot introduces three Bluetooth car kits at CES (phoneArena)
Parrot has announced its three new Bluetooth car kits at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas – the Rhythm N’ Blue, the 3400 LS-GPS and the 3200 LS-COLOR

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Kalyx: Full synchronisation between pocket pc and vcs/ics

Kyuran's World: Zoom on Kalyx

Kalyx: Full synchronisation between pocket pc and vcs/ics

Bi directionnel synchronisation between pocket pc and webdav (that could be password enabled)

Sunbird and Pocket PC

Sunbird and Pocket PC - www.devco.net

I have not been using my pocket pc for a long time now, since I started using Sunbird because no way exist to sync the two.

Over the weekend I thought I'd have another troll through the net and came across two good things.

The first is a repository of free Pocket PC software, well worth a look.

The 2nd is a promising one way syncing system for ics files - Pocket Outlook. It is called KCal and can take ics files and replace all your existing calendar entries with what is in the ics file.

So this is good if you do all your entering of events in Sunbird and just need a mobile copy of it, no syncing back to Sunbird. This is a good start and probably pretty much exactly what I need.

I did some testing, it works ok for non recurring events but it has a problem with recurring events. I sent the author some feedback on this and he already responded that he will fix this in the next release. I also asked if it were possible to support loading more than one ics file at sync time.

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