Who is this Guy?
We have a couple of new mac's at work, and I was playing around with photo booth, that not only takes warped photos, but makes warped videos.
I know, its lame, but still cool.
March 28, 2008
September 30, 2007
My New Toy
We've had it for a while, but haven't had a chance to blog about it. Its my new Wii.
At the moment I'm in the middle of Zelda and Paper Mario. Really waiting for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
Really want Nintendo to get their internet access and channels developed for the Wii.
March 22, 2007
Twitter n Me
I'm now on twitter, sign up let me know what you twitter.
January 10, 2007
Welcome iPhone, to the cluttered iTunes world.
With this daily posting thing I have been stretched a couple of times to find a name for the article, but todays is straight forward. With Steve Jobs’ keynote at Macworld going nearly 2hrs I had little else I could fit in todays post.
For those that are living under a rock, Apple Inc (their new name) released their first public viewing and demo of the new iPhone. Now being an Aussie sucks as we don’t look like seeing it until way after 2008, but we can watch and dream.
Jobs is really the master of the long product launch, he has a passion for his products and although sometimes he’s a bit corny his demos always inspire a WOW. I guess he does have the advantage of showing off some of the best products with some of the most innovative thought and design put into them.
So the iPhone… It will probably cost way too much, probably have sucky battery life, the touch screen will probably fail or not be as good as we all expect.. But do I want one.. Of course!
Hopefully by the time they get approval in Australia, we will have rev2 out, or at least I will have had the chance to read reviews from actual owners who have lived with it.
I did think that they got a lot right, the dragging sort of scrolling while seems obvious now will be the kicker. The click wheel was the iPods innovation, and with all the talk of the different features of the iPod I think the best bit is the drag scrolling.
I’m not sure if it was deliberate, but it seems that what they did was turn the click wheel around 45 degrees, and so instead of playing on the wheel, you start to scroll on the surface or Tire.. Very nice.
I expect the press to jump up and down and cover the iPhone to death, but the other cool thing is the iTV (sorry Apple TV). I’m looking for a way to extend my home pc to my home theater and while I don’t think its for me it does look like another thing that will help the convergence of computer and lounge room.
Ok so thats a lot of Apple love.. But a bit too much for this article, so let me balance it up. Of all the things apple does well, I think their biggest hole is iTunes. Now with the iPhone and AppleTV syncing through iTunes its becoming a much more core application.
On the surface it works well, click, push and your there, but it really limits the power users ability to configure it. I want to be able to have a podcast listed in my directory, say IT Conversations, now they publish heaps of podcasts that I don’t want so I’d like to see the items and then mark them manually for download. For other podcasts, like Twit or the JavaPossie, I want them as soon as possible, so just download them when they appear in the feed.
This is just a simple example of how apple pushes its design on its customers, and in most cases its wrong, but sometimes the fits not right, and so I’m reluctant to jump whole heartily into the Apple camp and invest my hard earned as it won’t exactly fit.
I’d like to see a more Open software stance, given that they give most of their software away free couldn’t they take a Firefox kind of approach and have a highly configurable add in system that allows us developers to build and change their products as we see fit. Now I know that only power users will understand and install addons, but thats the point. It also fosters development and eventually, like in Firefox, the popular features may be absorbed by iTunes itself for the world to enjoy.
Just my thoughts, but I’d love to get an airport connected to my outdoor speakers, an Apple TV to the home theater and keep my contacts and photos synced to my iPhone, but the jam in the sandwich is a little bit off for my liking. Once iTunes opens up and we can customise it our way, add in our own sections and sync it with other data sources I’ll just have to admire from a far.
Also, any note of Java on the iPhone? Hope so.. Fingers crossed, full JRE.. No J2ME.
night.
September 22, 2006
TMX Elmo
Saw on the TV the other morning the launch of the new Tickle me Elmo doll, the new version is the TMX.. (Tickle Me eXtreme??)
any who, it is as funny as.. I knew there would be some video up, and yep there is.. Check it out on Google Video.
June 17, 2006
Video: Bird Calls
I know, this site is being reduced to a set of video links, but due to the fact that I can’t access it from the outside world at the moment it makes it hard to expend the effort writing much in detail, so here’s another google video link that I stumbled across from digg.
Its from the Richard Attenborough series Life of Birds and is a 3 min section on the bird calls of the lyrebird. The best impersonator of them all.
June 7, 2006
In honour of the world cup
A cool google video of some “Mad” soccer skills.
June 6, 2006
Funky Flash
Animation vs Animator
Secret: New Holden Photos
While out and about on the weekend we were driving along and saw a car with some coverings that I guess is the new Holden Commodore.
So for your viewing pleasure, here are the sneak peak photos.
February 17, 2006
Music in my ears
Well actually Podcasts to my car stereo. Introducing the new toy, My Griffin iTrip for iPod nano
So my initial thoughts raise a couple of issues, the first and by far the biggest issue is the length of the headphone jack plug. It seems like its a few millimetres short, coz it only takes a small amount of movement for the iPod to come undocked from the jack thus stopping all sound. I’d have expected that you would be able to push the iPod right on, and it have some sort of lock (on the dock connector) like the standard nano cable does.
So if the iTrip/nano slide around when driving there is a good chance that the iPod will shift in the holdings and disconnect from the jack.
I did find that the stickie thing on the top helped a big (u can see from the images that I hadn’t removed the sticky cover yet) but it still only takes a mill or 2 movement to disconnect the sound.
The ability to configure the frequency on the screen rocks!! Simple jog type dial on the right of the unit access a menu on the iTrip that displays its info on the nano’s screen.. Nice.
My other small issue is in relation to power.. They state that you should only have the iPod at about 75% power so as to not distort the sound. If I do that I have to have the stereo turned up SOOOOO loud that if the iPod was to go off, I'd blow the speakers in the car with the static.
In all it works well, and I can’t expect to much power from a unit so small, otherwise i assume we’d get 5 mins of battery life.
Oh, actually there is another thing.. The iTrip is designed to become part of the nano, so I think a couple of changes to the design would work. Put back the nano connector on the bottom, so that syncing and powering can be done with the iTrip connected, and another minor addon would be to have a headphone jack in it so that you could keep it attached and still have headphone use.
Basically if a headphone was plugged in, the FM transmitter would shut down and act as a pass through for the audio.
Only had it a day or so, but so far so good.. If there are any changes to my thoughts I'll post an update.
August 17, 2005
PodShow Receives $8.85M
PodShow Receives $8.85M from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital and Sherpalo Ventures
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. August 16, 2005 – PodShow, Inc., today announced $8.85M in strategic investments from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital and Sherpalo Ventures. PodShow is the breakthrough business that is at the epicenter of the podcasting revolution, providing directories, community, technology and content programming that have helped to make podcasting the most explosive media innovation since the introduction of the web browser.
Wow, it seems that all of this podcasting became a little bit more real today with the announcement from podshow. It looks like Adam Curry really wants to be a power player in this industry and now has some financial backing to ensure that Apple doesn’t capture all of the cookies and keep them for itself.
I’ll be interested in seeing the develpoment of podcasting now. So it really must be time for me to get the first beta of FeedListener into the wide world.. Hmmmm just when to find the time.
July 29, 2005
Pekka Sandborg - Ragdoll
I have stared at this for waaaay too long now.. Remember that you can drag her around the screen too.
This ragdoll-physics experiment is based on Jacobsen article. This is easier to do than it looks.
July 26, 2005
Video of completing Mario 64 in < 20 mins.
Just found this site with an awesome video of a guy finishing Mario 64 in under 20 mins.
http://www.spikedhumor.com/Article.aspx?id=238
(via Digg.com http://digg.com/gaming/The_20_minute_Mario_Bros_64)
Also on the digg site is links to finishing Mario on the NES in < 11 mins.
Now playing: Adam Curry - Daily Source Code for July 25th 2005 #213
July 25, 2005
Keyboard with OLED keys
How cool is this keyboard!!! Each of the keys is an individual OLED display that is configurable to show different images based on different configurations. Check out the site for more images.
http://artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/
Now playing: digg.com - Episode #003 Audio
News: Yahoo! acquires Konfabulator
The Konfabulator widgets are something that I’ve played with a while ago, and really looked at building a couple, but got caught with having to pay for the runtime to run them. Now Yahoo! is looking at releasing it for free, it may be a more attractive platform.
Macworld: News: Yahoo! acquires Konfabulator
Yahoo! Inc. on Monday will announce the acquisition of Konfabulator, a Macintosh and Windows application that allows users to run mini files known as Widgets on their desktop -- the same model used by Apple for its Dashboard application. Yahoo! company executives said they would also be giving Konfabulator away for free, completely doing away with the US$19.95 currently charged for the product.
Tags: Yahoo Javascript
July 18, 2005
Tom Riddles Diary (via AJAX)
A very cool page I just stumbled upon (via the AJAXIAN blog) is a site that simulates Tom Riddles Diary.
For those who aren't Harry Potter fans, Tom Riddles Diary contained a copy of Tom Riddle and would talk to people via them writing in the diary. This website works in much the same way, you enter text onto the page and Tom answers the questions. It works all in realtime using ajax technologies.
Pretty cool.
Check it out at:
http://pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=c96f911b3e35f9e1
I asked it questions about how it works, and what it is. It answers the questions well. Even things like what it the capital city of …. seems to work. But I did stump it with the Atomic Weight of Gold… I guess not everything can know everything.
Play and feel free to comment here on any interesting questions to ask.
Now playing: steve@gillmor.com - Gillmor Gang Goes East
Tags: HarryPotter ajax
iTunes 4.9 and Podcasting
I’d assume that everyone who's been listening to podcasts has now heard of the changes in iTunes to support Podcasting. It will also be no surprise to anyone to know some of the limitations that iTunes has in its current implementation.
I’ve read (and heard) some of the criticisms on behalf of the actual podcaster, and as I don’t run one I’ll leave that discussion to them, but what I want to talk about is iTunes 4.9 and the experience as a listener.
Let me get a few things out to start with. I’m a Windows laptop user, who doesn’t own an iPod (but would love one) so I use iTunes not only to manage and download the episodes, but also to listen.
Before iTunes podcasting support, I couldn’t find a podcatcher that suited my needs, I wanted one that did the following:
- Allow simple addition of new podcasts
- Allow me to browse a central repository of podcasts
- Download new casts as they come available
- Automatically remove old casts
- Allow me to play the cast directly
- Manage the number of times played
- Keep a track of if I had completely played a cast
- Allow me to resume listening to a cast from the last place I stopped it
- Allow different podcasts to have different rules for downloading
- Allow me to mark an episode as great so it can be kept
- Allow me to share an episode with other uses of the same product
There are probably a few more, but thats the main thing. Manage the subscriptions and the major bit was to allow me to play the item from within the application. It could then manage what/when I played stuff and not delete items that were not played, or take other actions (like not download new episodes until the last one was listened to).
So what does this have to do with iTunes 4.9? Well it seems that Apple have read my mind and implemented a lot of the features. They already had iTunes, that supported MP3 playback, and with the addition of the podcasting client you can now manage subscriptions and download episodes.
But that seems to be the end of it. There is no way to use the inbuilt sharing in iTunes to share your podcasts. How much better would it be if I could see what others on my network listen to, subscribe from their system and take their copy of the episodes. I’m sure the podcasters would love it.. New subscribers, but not having to spend the bandwidth sending me the file.
The other thing I don’t like, is that when I play one show, it stops at the end of it. I know I can probably add it to my party shuffle, but why can’t it just continue playing like it does in the library??
I assume that they just got it working and out the door, so I’ll hold of ranting much more about this, as apple have been innovative in this field before, but if I can ask for one thing, thats Please don’t forget the people without iPods.. Make iTunes capable of doing all the same stuff that the iPod can so I can use my laptop as my psudo-iPod.
Tags: itunes podcasting podcast podcatcher audio
July 14, 2005
Searching for a good Parma?
Chicken Parma ratings online
http://www.superparma.com/
say no more….
supplied by Nick
Now playing: Adam Curry - Daily Source Code for July 13th 2005 #207
Online newspaper reader (AJAX)
We all know that most newspapers have an online presence, but its limited to what they decide to publish and its not like the real thing.
But now due to the wonders of the internet you can read the paper in its original format, scanned and digitised for your viewing pleasure.
http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx
What's more, is that its a funky site using heaps of AJAX technology and showing us that someone else than Google can really use this technology to make some cool stuff.
Now playing: Green Day - Homecoming
June 19, 2005
Catch up
Been a while since the last post, things are hectic at work as we are pushing towards getting the new stuff out the door so this post aims at recapping all the stuff thats been happening.
Went for a ride with Sharkey yesterday, did our big eltham circut, which head from my place up to the eastern freeway, along that east till we get to springvale rd then up along springvale rd till it ends. There is then a trail (the yarra creek trail I think) that winds its way west underneath eltham and all the way up to burke rd. The trail then turns south and links back up with our normal trail along the eastern which we then take back east to my place. Its about a 45km trip, which we did in just under 3 hours. We did stop a couple of times to watch some local footy and hockey so would probably be 2.5 hrs if we hadn’t stopped.
It was a much more serious ride than we have been doing recently, but the type of thing that we should be doing all the time. Once we got over the initial 10k mark the body had warmed up and it got easier from there. Only the last 5k which is up and down was a bit hard, but I'd hope that it was after 40k or we should be riding further.
So what else is going on.. Crickscore is back. I had an issue with the database corrupting and had to get help from the guy that built the database software to fix the errors. So a big thanks to Toby and his Mckoi database.
Given that Cooltools is on a break this season it wasn’t super important to get Crickscore back, but now it is it must be time to do some serious interface work. We’ll see how time goes over the next few weeks.
Downloaded KnoppMyth to try it out. Was ok, couldn’t get the Australian channels to load but the install was pretty painless.. Good to see development making this sort of technology more like an appliance. Now all I need is a machine capable of running MythTV happily and I'll be happy.
After playing with KnoppMyth, by torrent download of Fedora Core 4 (FC4) was complete, so decided to install that on my test machine. Yeah its nice. Got the latest firefox pre-installed and Gnome looks really cool.. I’ve been a kde guy for a long time, but on this install left Gnome as the default. I really like the menu bar and task bar separation. And the UI-themeing looks really clean.
The only problem with FC4 is that is so new that the apt-get repository's haven't been updated yet, to even a point that the apt-get rpm from freshrpms.net hasn’t even been build. But I can wait.
I’m planning on updating my main server, the one u got this from, from an older Redhat 9 release to the latest FC4. Just need to plan a backup first, just in case.
So what else has been going on??? Went and saw the Bahrs last night. Good to catch up with them again, its been a while since we have. Jessica (the latest to the clan) is so small and cute and Rach looked right at home with a new baby in her arms…
Not much else, and I think thats probably enough for now. I’ll try and get back soon with more details.
Oh, one last thing is that I'm working on a new whitesquare software development site. Thinking of using a blog engine to distribute news about all of the whitesquare products.. The current trial is over at dev.whitesquaresoft.com and I hope to get some content and the current beta downloads up in the next few days.
C ya!
May 29, 2005
New entertainment unit
Today we move one step closer to finishing off our A/V system with the purchase of a new entertainment unit. Its a low line unit with enough space to fit in the center speaker, dvd player, HD set top box and A/V receiver.
There are 4 speakers still missing from the final solution, but this was one of the hardest pieces to find. I wanted somthing low and flat to highlight the widescreen tv while still having enough storage space for all the equipment. I’m looking at getting free standing floor speaker boxes for the fronts leaving all of the units space open for other stuff. Then run some cables around the other end of the room to some wall mounted rear speakers.
With the new speakers in place the entire system will be complete, but it’s still a few weeks away until we have the spare cash to afford to grab them. I was going to head to JB today to price the 4 speakers, cables and mounts but ran out of time waiting for this to get delivered then getting all the stuff in it.
We’re very happy with it, and also the fact that the colour matches nearly exactly the other box type thing that was already in the loungroom.
Thanks to Sharkey for the help cutting out the extra holes needed to run all the cabling. If I get a chance I’ll pull the unit out and show off all the cabling and such thats hanging around behind it.
May 24, 2005
No pesticide weed killing
You’d never belive it, but this guy is actually gardening… This is his way to kill weeds… and I thought I was slack!
May 21, 2005
Harddrives, MythTV and Weirdness
Albert has been playing up a fair bit, so much so that he keeps freezing for no reason and he forced me to move all the important information off him over the last week or so.
Sometimes while booting the primary HDD would not detect, or it would then make clunking noises and freeze during the first 10 minuites of use.
So the plan was to boot up, copy some stuff let it freeze then repeat the process the next day. The HDD was so temperamental that it seemed to only successully boot up once a day… go figure?
So eventually had most of what I considered the important stuff off and decided to check out the HDD and see if there was any visible issues. But when I took it out you could hear the platters squeeking, and so I shook the drive and the squeeking got worse.. Dead drive…
Or so I thought……
Being interested in seeing if the disk would still work after that squeeky noise, I returned the HDD to Albert and booted it up.. And you’ll never guess what, no clicking, detected straight up and booted.. So I waited for it to freeze, 5 mins… 10 mins… 15 mins.. still good…
So to test the drive I decided to copy off all of the other semi-important data, 1 hr later it was all off and Albert was still running fine.. Return of the Harddrive.
At this point I have a now fully functional computer, but with no real purpose or content.. So whats a guy to do with a spare machine but to build a new Linux Box and configure it as a MythTV box.. And so the hunt for my TV Tuner card began.. and is still continuing as I still havn’t found it.
But back to Myth… decided to install it even tho I don’t have my card, just wanted to see the process and configuration. Installing was a breeze, followed the instructions on the MythTV site and its all running fine.
I now have a rebuilt machine with HDD that has been playing at being dead for the last few weeks, which is now a MythTV computer without a Tuner card.. Somehow that all makes sense.
May 13, 2005
Myth TV.... I want one.
Garth has just finished building a MythTV box for a pilot program at work, and I have gotta say that I want one…
Given that we are in Australia, and things like TIVO are not available here we need to find our own alternatives.. I’ve been toying with the idea of making my own DVR for a while now, but hardware costs were high and finding good software was hard.
Insert MythTV.
Not only is it a pretty funky application to use as a tuner for your tv, but it has all the cool features that you want from a DVR. Plus all the things you want from a computer. The number of Myth plugins seems never ending, music library, RSS reader, weather, tv guide, email client, movie manager, and the list goes on.
If I do go ahead with this, I think i’ll be looking at 2 digital TV tuners along with 2–3 200Gb disks so that I can watch and record all the shows that I currently miss.
Any suggestions on hardware?