Via Darren comes Transformers Universe a super-cool clip of the original transformers... hard to describe, but just go check it out!
Think your EEEPC is a bit light on addons like USB ports, bluetooth, or storage? Check out the Eee PC Internal Upgrades page that my buddy Brian sent over. Wow, some dedicated hardware hackers out there....
Ar'alani's photos and his favorites, suggested by Thomas Hawk.
Via the rails envy podcast I found Super-fast bulk data imports in Rails with ar-extensions. Basically a scaling issue is that importing a billion records into rails via ActiveRecord sucks, this lets you do bulk imports and makes them much faster.
Flow|State has a really good article on how he's Looking forward to seeing Facebook apps drop their pointless mystery. Lots of screenshots and a nice explanation of the crappy user interface that 99% of the facebook apps out there have.
Interview with Nitesh Dhanjani and Billy Rios, Spies in the Phishing Underground. Via BoingBoing and /.
Bah.... Shacknews says Spore Delay to Fall/Winter 2008 Likely, Says Analyst.
Unofficial apple weblog has a Complete guide to iPhone car integration now online.
Rogers, please move your butts and get me an iPhone up in Canada!
Anyone remember playing the cool-yet-creepy American McGee's Alice? I remember it, and can't wait for the movie starring Sarah Michelle Gellar!
Conjugal Harmony has to be the best site ever... they should send the guys from DatingIsHell over there. I love that they list the convictions there too..... bwahahahahaha
Found iVideosongs.com via an article on TechCrunch, free and pay video tutorials for learning to play the guitar, and what looks like a fairly "ok" library of songs to learn (only 2-10 songs per section it seems.... it is still beta though. Pretty cool stuff!
VentureCake has some OpenOffice 3.0 details that make it sound like a very sexy beast of a program. Well, hopefully not too much of a beast... OO.o is still a bit heavyweight for me sometimes :) Not scheduled till September though, so still lots of time to wait (and play with alphas and betas).
Link on reddit pointed to an article on the Space Shuttle Challenger and noted it was 22 years ago today that it exploded on takeoff. I remember this vividly too, just like everytime I hear the line in the song Nineteen Somethin' that goes:
Space Shuttle fell out of the sky
And the whole world cried...
Article on Qtrax from ZDNet. Qtrax is a new music download service... "free and legal" music downloads. Sounds like the real story isn't quite as rosy. Google for Qtrax news and I'm sure you'll find lots of other info on it. Doesn't sound like it'll replace my bittorrent music acquisition system any time soon....
iTransmogrify! allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to view flash video on their devices. Bookmark a javascript bookmarklet and it'll magically transmogrify the flash into a format playable on the non-flash apple devices (damn you Steve Jobs!).
Blast Off Fat (Way) Faster from Health.com. Standard type tips I think, nothing magic (not that there's anything magic about improving your fitness), still good to read through.
How simple is this... there is a 1.1.3 "JailBreak" in Installer. Basically ensure you have the right version of a couple of packages, and a couple of settings (autolock set to never!) and time to wait (about 20-40 minutes from the forums)... then click the '1.1.3 jailbreak (dev team)' icon. Doesn't get any easier than that does it?
A Rookie Guide to Digital SLR Cameras is a great article that is going around which gives you the ups and downs for new, or potentially new DSLR owners. A bit slanted towards Nikon it seems, but as a Pentax user I couldn't care less, and quite frankly, it really doesn't matter for 99% of the users out there. My philosophy has always been to tell people to go and handle the cameras and make sure you feel comfortable with the feel, controls, and weight, as if you're not comfortable you're going to tend towards not using your new $1000 toy and it'll be a moot point anyway!
That said, Pentax is the only way to go. That and VIM. And OS/X. Oh, and your favorite band sucks.
:)
Robert Capa - Lost Negatives is an interesting article over at the NYTimes about a cache of about 3500 photographs that were presumed lost, but resurfaced years later.
Youtube has a video introducing the Pentax K20D with some nice details in the 7 and a half minute presentation. For those who don't know, Pentax introduced the K20D and K200D DSLRs recently.
Classic video everyone should see..... Red Dwarf: Smeg Ups by BBC Worldwide Sci-Fi.
My buddy Robert sent me a video of this interview, which I admit, took me a bit to determine if it was from a sitcom or a legitimate news show. Honestly it's a bit more sane that some of the news interviews I've seen these days!
It's stories like Do not run this script, ever! from Daily WTF that makes me think that we as sysadmins, will never, ever win. Also that the stupid people in the world are getting smarter, without actually getting.... smarter.
I asked what he thought when the script printed "DO NOT EVER RUN THIS SCRIPT" and exited without doing anything. The newbie said he saw that, but really wanted to see what it did, so he commented out the "exit 1" and ran it again.
Ugh.
I'm pretty sure this singer didn't see it coming, but luckily the music (and impeccable lyrics) kept on going without a hitch. What skill!
Cracked.com has the list of 5 Douchebag Behaviors Explained by Science.
Aperture Science Rocks: The Top 12 'Still Alive' Cover Versions. That pretty much says it all.... some very bizarre renditions of JoCo's "Still Alive".
From the Totally Rad Show episode I found a trailer for Chocolate, which is similar to Ong Bak which I totally enjoyed (think old school (young) Jackie Chan, but from Thailand). This is about a girl who is autistic in that instead of counting toothpicks she kicks ass..... Looking forward to seeing this appear somewhere.
Wil Wheaton points to a fantastic version of "Still Alive" (the Portal song): Alive . . . in Joust. Yes, joust, as in that Joust. Pretty awesome!
A Day in the Life of Two Portal Turrets via ShackBlog. Hilarious, though you have to have played portal to really "get it" all.
The Internet Party: What Happens When Google's Parents Leave Town for the Weekend?
Moderately amusing video with the personalities of the various websites around. I found the "flickr" guy particularly funny for the 2 seconds he was shown :)
Sharp eyed Darren pointed me to a Star Trek Teaser Trailer Review & Video. The trailer is shown apparently before Cloverfield, which starts tonight, and what I'm looking forward to seeing.
10 Reasons Why Cloverfield Lives Up To The Hype has details (and very very minor spoilers) about the new movie Cloverfield and how it does in fact live up to the hype. Looking forward to seeing it this weekend!
Anyone interested in how SDD (Solid State Disk) compares to HDD (Hard Disk Drive) can check out this (albeit biased) comparision of Samsung SSD vs HDD. Although it's done by a company whose object is obviously trying to sell SDD technology, their comparison appears pretty simple... two computers which look exactly the same, two fingers click the power button and time the startup time, etc etc.
This of course relates to the announcment yesterday from MacWorld of the MacBook Air.
Darren sent me a link to just what I was looking for for my popcorn watching for MacWorld..... a page with all the MacWorld live blogs on it! Watch Macrumors, engaget, mac observer and gizmodo updates all at the same time!
Found a video of Mintys Comedian Of The Month May 2007 - Jim Jeffries and decided that Jim Jeffries is possibly the funniest person on the planet, regardless of his crudity. If you're sensitive to nasty words, keep on going, if not, this guy is hilarious, I was practically bent over and in pain from laughter for the entire ten minutes. More of his YouTube vids here.
Note for myself.... TestDisk appears to be a good winner for doing computer partition recovery.
Ars has a look at the KDE 4.0 release... ready, but rough they say. Looking forward to checking it out.
Great article by Andrew Chen on Does Facebook reflect your true friendships?
Ever wonder exactly what your geek and/or designer friends are talking about when they rant about some law by a guy named Fitts? Well Visualizing Fitts’s Law has a nice look at exactly what "infinite target area" and such terms are all about.
The Fox And The Penguin is a good post from a summer intern working on the Linux visuals part of Firefox 3... just cause I love visual integration on Linux :)
Here's a Wired article by security guru Bruce Schneier entitled Steal This Wi-Fi
I can count five open wireless networks in coffee shops within a mile of my house, and any potential spammer is far more likely to sit in a warm room with a cup of coffee and a scone than in a cold car outside my house. And yes, if someone did commit a crime using my network the police might visit, but what better defense is there than the fact that I have an open wireless network? If I enabled wireless security on my network and someone hacked it, I would have a far harder time proving my innocence.
My thoughts on this are twofold if I were to do this (and he has some good arguments on it): 1 - I'd want a 'no wireless' button so that anyone using my wireless is cut off when I'm playing games... nothing sucks like having a high ping for no reason all of a sudden and 2 - I'd probably want to DMZ the wireless so it is separated from the rest of my internal network. Having open wireless is very nice.... it annoys me if I'm wandering into some random building in downtown and want to check my email from my iPod and all the networks are encrypted and not using 'admin and password'. Of course, out in the boonies where I live I doubt there'd be a whole lot of "walk in" traffic as it were :)
One of my favorite Windows Blogs has a wonderfully cutting and delicious smackdown to the Windows Ultimate Extras team, around their inactivity of late. Just head over and read Hi Ultimate Extras, we noticed you’ve been inactive…
The latest Zero Punctuation on Silent Hill Origins is the funniest thing I've seen this year, I can pretty much assure you of that. And I've never played any Silent Hill game or watched any Silent Hill movie, so I'm sure it'll be even better for people who actually know what he's talking about!
Portal: First Slice is free for all NVIDIA Gamers. Wonder how it is... heading to download it myself now!
Update - looks like if you are already a portal owner you don't get anything :( Dang, thought it was new portal content!
Along with the previous note about NetNewswire being free, I see that the Windows RSS reader from NewsGator (though I knew it long before it was bought) is also a free download. Wonder what the NewsGator plan is? Right now syncing accounts with the NewsGator service is free... maybe they are seeing erosion by Google Reader and friends? NNW and FD do have the advantage of easy offline operation, which Google Reader does have with Google Gears, but (from my experience) this isn't as slick as a desktop app caching pages to the computer.
Oh, FeedDemon also has the "Panic Button" which is something I could use a lot (detects when you have lots of unread feeds).
Very cool to see NewsGator doing this though.
RSS Reader for Mac - NetNewsWire now no longer is a for pay version and a Lite version, but a completely free version. Version 3.1 is available for download here.
I've been a Google Reader fan since the new version came out a couple of years back... I'm definately going to give NNW a shot again as I did used to use it back in the old days when I had a PowerBook. Via 50 Leaves.
Shaved Bumblebee. Not much more to be said, other than a hilarious, disturbing, and fantastic 3d creation!
Macenstein has asked the question I've been pondering the last few days, remind me again why we want an ultra portable? The biggest rumor that I've seen of what's incoming at macworld in a week is that Apple will be releasing an ultra portable, touch based system that is whafer thin. From the Macenstein article:
For some reason I am just missing the allure of a wafer thin MacBook, and I would like someone out there to set me straight. What am I missing here?
Anyone remember Origami, the Microsoft UMPC? They had a great advertising campaign which seemed to peter out as soon as it was released. Has anyone heard anything about UMPC in the "real" media since then?
Anyway, the same goes, IMHO, for an apple device. Yes, the apple touchscreen from the iPhone and iPod Touch is fantastic and could be an improvement over the pen based interface, and the on-screen keyboard and predictive typing that those devices have could be useful on such a device. Isn't this a solution looking for a problem? Macenstein goes through what the current Apple offerings have, where the holes are and aren't, cost thoughts, etc.
I have to agree, it's a supremely cool idea, but I can't see it being hugely useful outside a couple of minor areas.
We'll see in a week I guess. I personally am prepared to be totally disappointed by this years MacWorld.
Why is Apple Launching New Gear a Week Before Macworld? is the question asked (and possibly answered) by the linked image over at Gizmodo. Some cool (though probably impractical) mockups of a potential Macbook Touch were sent over to me as well.
Thanks Darren!
Craigslist post on: Help me keep the shell people alive.
I am part of a dying breed of people known as "shell users." We are an old-fashioned bunch, preferring the warm glow of a green screen full of text over the cold blockiness of a graphical interface. We use ssh, scp, and even occassionally ftp. Back in the days before high-speed connections ("broadband"), we would dial up during off-hours to avoid being slammed with huge phone bills. The whole "Microsoft Windows" fad will fade away sooner or later, but in the interim, our kind is facing extinction.
WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier is a "BLOG" written from letters and notes from an English soldier in the trenches during WW1. Interesting concept and an interesting read. There was a similar project a few years ago recreating diary entries from..... something else that was really old... Anyone remember what that was?
I know it's not funny, but check out these World's Most Amazing Videos: Volume 1 over on youtube. Lots of smashes, crashes and explosions.
Inappropriate Children's Book Titles... hilarious.
Coding Horror has a good article on Understanding User and Kernel Mode, and what the difference is between the green and red lines in your task manager.
First Look: Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 over at Ars.
Yo! You SETI@Home users who turned off your client and forgot about it (like I did)... according to a slashdot story there's a 500-fold Increase in Data Flow from SETI Telescope, so re-install the clients, log in and start chugging through that data!
AVSIM Online has a review of Jon Patchs excellent Vancouver+ addon for Microsoft Flight Simulator/X. I was on the beta team for Vancouver+ and must say, it's a very cool thing to "fly" over your own hometown and have it not as a random generic set of random building textures, but what you're used to driving through every day.
The review has lots of screenshots to show what you're going to get, including some not 100% desirable effects.
Now the guys Winter Surfing in Toronto... they're hardcore!
Thanks to Robert for the link!
Blizzard posts a really good roundup of how Firefox 3 is rocking on Linux.
I have to say I agree with him. The performance improvements, memory leaks plugged, and great visual integration make it more and more of a joy to use on my linux development machine. Be sure to check out his visual comparisons of version 2 and 3.
I've always thought of myself as more a "Jedi" kinda guy, but with posters like these, or this, or this (full gallery with a few more here, I'd be happy to wear the stormtrooper white!
This picture of fireworks over Oslo is most impressive.
Rails Is A Ghetto is a potentially explosive rant from the Mongrel (a Ruby/Rails webserver) developer, slamming a lot of the rails people out there. Interesting to see what (if anything) this turns into.
Hey everyone, hope you're having a fun New Years Eve. From all of me here on the UFies.org team, hoping you have all the best in 2008! It's been fun posting random links all 2007, and I appreciate your support (the clicky clicky you know what wink-wink). I am looking forward to bringing all 3 of you random amusement in the coming year.
-- Arcterex
