Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Open Source Decade: 10 years after the Free Software Summit: Page 1

This is a great interview article with many pioneers of the Open Source movement. No, Stallman isn't there - for those of you that like his panache... Interesting views on what's working, what's not and where people think the movement is going.

Open Source Decade: 10 years after the Free Software Summit

-ZB

Monday, March 24, 2008

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Software Easter Eggs

In the spirit of Easter -- Top 10 Software Easter Eggs! Now these won't get you fat...

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Software Easter Eggs

-ZB

Feature: Jailbreak Any iPhone or iPod Touch in 45 Seconds

My iPod Touch is still on 1.1.3 but I'll probably upgrade to 1.1.4 at some point in the near future. I'll be trying this method:

Feature: Jailbreak Any iPhone or iPod Touch in 45 Seconds

-ZB

Finished Installing Windows Vista SP1 ? Now Remove All The Junk Files

As everyone knows -- Vista SP1 is out -- when you installed it, you do however have the option of uninstalling the behemoth of a service pack. If you are committed (or should be for using Vista) to staying with the SP1, then save yourself some disk space and run the Vista Service Pack 1 Cleaner (creatively called vsp1cln <-- run it from the command line).

Finished Installing Windows Vista SP1 ? Now Remove All The Junk Files

-ZB

Tracking Linux prereleases: OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, and Fedora: Page 1

So many distros -- so many release dates... how does one keep track? The more I use Linux, the more I enjoy the experience. I must admit that when I run into a problem -- it's usually a tricky fix so for that reason I don't know that it's ready for prime-time just yet. Anyhow -- Ars Technica has a good article that talks about the forthcoming releases of some of the major distributions and explains their individual roadmap process...

Tracking Linux prereleases: OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, and Fedora

-ZB

Thursday, March 20, 2008

"Canada's Next Great Prime Minister" to be found on P2P

Following Norway's lead (a progressive country), Canada's CBC will start making DRM-free copies of it's new series "Canada's Next Great Prime Minister" available for free over bittorrent! This is an experiment that I hope catches on...

"Canada's Next Great Prime Minister" to be found on P2P

-ZB

Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90 - washingtonpost.com

It's a sad day for science fiction fans... Sir Arthur C. Clarke has passed. It's always difficult when the world loses a visionary... RIP

Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90 - washingtonpost.com:
"Clarke was best known in popular culture as the author of the story that inspired Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film '2001: A Space Odyssey,' but his greatest contribution to technology is creating the conceptual framework for geostationary satellites -- machines that would remain in the same spot above the earth and act as relay stations for signals from the ground, covering a wide area. He published a paper about the concept in 1945, which was ultimately realized two decades later. The orbit into which geostationary satellites are placed is now known as the Clarke Orbit."

-ZB

Monday, March 17, 2008

Technology Review: Identifying Manipulated Images

Very cool technology out of MIT that allows someone to verify the authenticity of a digital picture (ie see if it wasn't doctored up with Photoshop).

Technology Review: Identifying Manipulated Images

-ZB

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Technology Review: 10 Emerging Technologies 2008

From Science Fiction to reality -- some innovations that may have a dramatic impact on our lives in the near future... One of these is Wireless Power -- I wonder if we would get a shock when it rains? :-)

Technology Review: 10 Emerging Technologies 2008

-ZB

Office 2007 interface prototypes - istartedsomething

A pretty cool picture-set of prototypes to Office 2007. I really like Office 2007... it took me some time to get used to the ribbon and I still to this day find myself wondering where some functionality now rests but the evolution of the interface is quite nice. Here is some insight on how Microsoft got there.

Office 2007 interface prototypes - istartedsomething

-ZB

Thursday, March 6, 2008

New IE8 beta 1 tantalizes, rough edges and all: Page 1

As you've undoubtedly heard -- IE8 Beta 1 is now available for download. It seems that a concerted effort has been made to adhere to internet standards. I'm still holding on to firefox :-)

New IE8 beta 1 tantalizes, rough edges and all

-ZB

Flash video not suitable for iPhone, Apple CEO says

Now this is a bummer -- I miss not having flash on my iPod Touch. Now, the article says that Adobe's Flash player is not suitable for the iPhone... so maybe there is another Flash player that is.

Today's SDK town hall at 1PM Eastern should be interesting... Part of me believes that Apple will release a firmware update that will stop all current jailbreaking techniques from working and the carrot will be some sort of Flash playback capability. This might be just enough to get people to jump onto the standard firmware bandwagon... This is purely speculation on my part... If I'm right, then I hope Apple can adopt many of the brilliant applications that are currently available to people that have jailbroken their devices.

Flash video not suitable for iPhone, Apple CEO says

-ZB

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit

Some details on the features of the upcoming IE8 -- so far I can do most if not all of this with Firefox today... *Yawn*. Maybe IE9 might have something of interest...

Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit

-ZB

D&D cocreator Gary Gygax now beyond scope of healing spells

RIP Gary Gygax. It is indeed a sad day for all gamers. Gary Gygax is the father of Dungeons & Dragons -- his work has both influenced and inspired the world of gaming as we know it. It is a sad day...

God's speed Dungeon Master...

D&D cocreator Gary Gygax now beyond scope of healing spells

-ZB

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Obituary: Sony Trinitron Timeline Shows Why It Will Live Forever In Our Hearts

RIP Trinitron -- This article has a really nice time-line representing the history of the Television... Muy cool!

Obituary: Sony Trinitron Timeline Shows Why It Will Live Forever In Our Hearts

-ZB

The Ray Gun In Action (CBS News)

Wow! The "heat gun" used on TV. Pretty amazing and frightening. No bullets -- just intense pain. I would hate for this to fall into the wrong hands.




-ZB

Daylight Saving Wastes Energy, Study Says - WSJ.com

Very interesting data points on whether or not Daylight savings time actually is a "green" thing to do. It seems that this change in time might actually be much more costly than the benefits of not having as many lights on.

Daylight Saving Wastes Energy, Study Says - WSJ.com

-ZB

Monday, March 3, 2008

BetaNews | Nearly 3% of America became iPod converts over the holiday

Interesting figures around iPod sales. I can tell you that I've owned many MP3 players in the last many years and nothing, nothing even comes close to the iPod Touch in terms of quality of the audio, video and extra features (Safari, Jailbroken apps {gotta love iPhysics}, etc) so I suppose I'm a convert. I've not jumped off and purchased an OSX box yet but I must admit that I'm VERY tempted considering the quality and ease of use of the iPod Touch.

BetaNews | Nearly 3% of America became iPod converts over the holiday

-ZB

Encrypting an USB Drive with True Crypt

A very good article on how to encrypt a partition using TrueCrypt. You can use Truecrypt in many different ways (password, keyfile, combo of both, encrypt a "container file" on your disk, a non-system partition, the system partition etc...). Lots of options, lots of security.

Encrypting an USB Drive with True Crypt

-ZB

Magneto Boy: Science Videos - Science News - ScienCentral

WOW -- This is like Jack Black's upcoming movie "Be kind, Rewind". This kid zaps PCs when he touches them. If he wears an anti-static band on his wrist, then all is well... I guess those things really do work and I should wear them once in a while...

I need to hire this kid to go play on the corporate email servers.... I get WAY too much mail! ;-)

Magneto Boy: Science Videos - Science News - ScienCentral

-ZB