Technology
gregladen | November 26, 2007The green politically correct PC which is ironically on sale at WalMart (which is not a politically correct store unless you are ... oh never mind, if I have to tell you, you won't get it...) has been reviewed here.
From the manufacturer:
Hardware Specifications
1.5GHz, VIA C7®-D Processor, 512MB DDR2 533MHz, SDRAM, 80GB Hard Disk Drive, DVD-ROM/CD-RW Optical Drive, VIA UniChrome Pro IGP Graphics, Realtek 6-Channel Audio, (1) 10/100 Ethernet Port, (1) DB 15-Pin VGA Port, (6) USB 2.0 Ports, (1) RJ-11 Port, (1) Headphone/Line-Out Port, (2) Microphone/Line-In Ports, (1) Serial Port, (1)…
gregladen | November 26, 2007Somewhat funny look at what your email would be like if
Microsoft, not Google, had created Gmail? What would be the differences in that web mail client for users today? What if we apply some of the same design rules that brought us Hotmail, for instance?
Here...
gregladen | November 25, 2007A handful of cool tricks you can do with the Linux Terminal. If you have a Linux Terminal. If you don't, you should consider getting one.
Everything you always wanted to know about your hardware and for the most part did not even know you could know.
The command dmidecode is " is a tool for dumping a computer's DMI (some say SMBIOS) table contents in a human-readable format. This table contains a description of the system's hardware components, as well as other useful pieces of information such as serial numbers and BIOS revision." (from the "man").
You need to be the Super User to…
clock | November 24, 2007Call me traditional, but I love books. I have about 5000 of them. If I see a long blog post or a scientific paper or an article that is longer than a page or two, I print it out and read it in hardcopy. I see why an e-Book is a good idea, though, and one day I am sure to have one for particular purposes (e.g., for travel, or for copying and pasting short quotes into my blog-posts as needed, or for sharing books with others), but not until I am the master of exactly what is on it and what I want to do with it - and apparently that time is far off. It may be even going backwards. Just see…
clock | November 23, 2007...the computers and the Web:
If you are not clear about the difference between the Net (aka Internet), the Web (aka World Wide Web) and the Graph (aka Social Graph), then this post is a must read (via Ed). He explains much more clearly what I had in mind before, e.g., here.
In order to use the Net, the Web and the Graph, you do need some kind of a machine, perhaps a computer, and Greg Laden puts together a dream (or nighthmare) setup for you!
Speaking of dream computers, I could not resist... as you may have seen before, Professor Steve Steve and I got to play with the XO laptop back at…
gregladen | November 23, 2007Your are typing some text into your FIrefox 2.0 Browser, and you spell something terribly wrong. Like this:
I am so glad I upgreaded to Firefox 2.0, because it has a built in spell checker.
You see the error where you meant to type "upgraded." So you right click on it to pick the correct spelling, and accidentally hit the "Add to Dictionary" menu choice, which is annoyingly placed right next to the correctly spelled word.
From now on, you can never be sure if your text will be correct. Bummer.
There is a way to fix this.
In Linux, go to a terminal window.
Change the directory to where…
drorzel | November 23, 2007As mentioned a while back, I recently obtained a Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablet PC, which I've been playing around with a bunch. I like it quite a bit-- the handwriting recognition is a whole lot better than the older Toshiba model I used for a while last year, and the interface works a little more smoothly. Of course, it runs Vista, and the Office redesign is a world of pain, but you can't win 'em all.
There are a couple of things I'd like to be able to do with this that I suspect will require new software. In particular, I'd like to be able to use it to make occasional sketches, and put…
gregladen | November 22, 2007Hey, wanna know some cool stuff you can do in a Linux terminal?
First, three keyboard tricks you probably already know.
The up arrow is a "history" key. After you've entered some commands, you can retrieve them with the up arrow. Most terminals will store the last several hundred commands. You can, obviously, edit these (like if the first time you entered the command it did not work because you typed it wrong).
The TAB is an auto completion key.
Many terminals do NOT use ctrl-c for copy and ctrl-v for paste, for historical reasons. But if you go to Preferences --> Shortcuts or in some…
gregladen | November 22, 2007
[hat tip: Geekology]
I've actually done this. It was part of our shop class in Jr. High. We didn't make pencil holders, but rather, some kind of candle holder thingie.
My friend Karl and I supplied the bottles. Hedrick's quarts. (four for a dollar!)
gregladen | November 21, 2007Last night, before going to bed, I was reading the latest story on King Research's survey of IT professionals regarding their stand on Vista. Ninety percent of the 961 surveyed claim to have serious concerns about migration to Vista, and over half have no plans to make the migration at all. I started to think, as I dozed off, that we are observing the process of niche differentiation happing at an accelerated pace facilitated, in part, by cross-platform software.. But boy, was I sleepy. I had the strangest dream....
.... "The concerns about Vista specified by participants were…
clock | November 21, 2007It's been a while since I came back from Boston, but the big dinosaur story kept me busy all last week so I never managed to find time and energy to write my own recap of the Harvard Conference.
Anna Kushnir, Corie Lok, Evie Brown, Kaitlin Thaney (Part 2 and Part 3) andAlex Palazzo have written about it much better than I could recall from my own "hot seat". Elizabeth Cooney of Boston Globe has a write-up as well. Read them all.
So, here is my story, in brief....and pictorial, just like the first part (under the fold).
The Keynote
About an hour or so before the conference, we started…
gregladen | November 20, 2007My week ends in about five minutes when I pack for imminent departure to California. I'm being whisked out there (pun intended) to prepare the Thanksgiving gravy for an eccentric couple living in a cabin in a remote mountain area on Thanksgiving. And these people are a bit strange. They recently sent me a picture of the turkey they plan on putting to death and eating. (His name is John Smith.) This should be interesting.
But have no fear, the internet is everywhere. I shall continue to post more than enough for you to consume between courses of cranberry sauce and apple pie, leftovers,…
gregladen | November 20, 2007Well, OK, it's actually fake snake oil....
Wired Magazine (wired.com) gadgets section has its annual (I don't really know if it's annual, but it should be) issue of Snake Oil products.
Such as The Orbo:
When it comes to gadgets, perpetual motion machines are bullshit's bread and butter. Steorn, the Irish company behind Orbo, is only the latest in a long line of deluded, incompetent or fraudulent firms to claim the scalp of the laws of thermodynamics. File this one under deluded: enthusiastically setting up a public display, the inventors were humiliated when it failed to operate. But wait!…
pharyngula | November 20, 2007Look: you can buy me on Amazon now, for 99¢ cheap. It's all through this strange new device Amazon is selling, called a Kindle, which is a fancy new e-book reader with some nice display technology and an absolutely evil business model. Now instead of buying books that you can do with as you please, you can lease them and get digital copies all bound up in DRM hindrances. The hardware is a step forward, the software lock-up of all the content is a big leap backwards, one that is going to doom it all to failure.
Kottke seems unimpressed, Business Week likes it, John Gruber hopes it flops. I'm…
clock | November 19, 2007Position Description: Communications Assistant
Chicago-area communications firm seeks communications/journalism/PR undergrad or grad student for part-time position, 10-15 hours per week at $20/hour.
This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a team that is building a cutting-edge new-media communications platform for a New York health-care client. The work is varied, but includes helping maintain a website and blog, copy writing and editing, assistance with online video projects and support for special projects.
You will have a high level of autonomy and can work flexible hours online - no…
gregladen | November 18, 2007Its got a place to put your rings and everything. Again, an historical visual trope ... the pinkish, plasticy side of the 1960s.