Thoughts

Real world force field

Real World Force Field: Check out this video from Fox News. It depicts a force field which causes rockets and other attacking weapons to explode before they reach its target. It seems that it’s all done with computers. Something like a laser beam shoots onto the tip of an incoming projectile, causing it to explode.

It’s very interesting technology, but I think “force field” is a misnomer when used to describe it. There isn’t really any force field that is passively destroying incoming projectiles. This involves active technology which targets projectiles with laser beams.

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Thoughts

Creating a module for Google's home page

Just spent the entire afternoon getting acquainted with a fun little document called the Google API Developer Guide. I think it’s cool because Google will let me create a module that I can submit to them for inclusion in their directory of modules. These modules can then be added to a user’s personalized home page, sort of like MSN or Yahoo do it.

I say I spent the entire afternoon because it may be fairly easy to write a basic XML file, it’s hard to write it in such a way that it pulls data correctly from an existing feed. In my case, I wanted to pull the latest blog entries from this blog. There was some fancy codework involved, and the directions just weren’t very clear. They showed me how to pull the text from the feed, including the entry title and content, but I just couldn’t figure out how to make my module look like the others in the directory. I guess one either has to be a good JavaScript programmer (which I’m not) or have access to some secret directions that Google isn’t sharing with everyone… I don’t know…

RaoulAt any rate, FeedBurner once again saved me from coding hell. Because the only other alternative for me would have been to update a static XML file by hand every time I had a new blog entry, and I wasn’t going to do that! Well, FeedBurner has this nifty Headline Animator service, that will create a simple animated GIF which rolls through the latest blog entries very nicely. I used that to create the XML file, and bingo, I got my module done and submitted it. Now I’m curious to see if Google will accept it!

Oh, one more thing. I’d like to see if Google will expand the module directory categories. They’re fairly limited. I would like to see categories like Blogs, Personal, Culture, Travel, Photography, etc.

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Reviews

Wireless PC Lock

This USB Wireless PC Lock from Think Geek is pretty innovative. It’s made of two pieces, a USB dongle which attaches to your PC and a battery-powered keychain transmitter. As soon as the transmitter is more than 2 meters away from the PC, the PC is automatically locked. Once you get back within 2 meters, it’s unlocked. Available at Think Geek for $29.99.

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Thoughts

Lost Norman Rockwell painting

In a twist so good it can’t be made up, cartoonist Don Trachte, owner of “Breaking Home Ties”, stuck it to his ex-wife during a messy divorce by hiding the real painting behind wood paneling in his Arlington home. He made a copy of the painting, and fought for rights to keep it during the divorce, ready to give the fake up if needed, knowing the real one was safe at home. A year after his death, his sons uncovered the real painting in his home, and everyone finally realized why the painting hanging in the museum looked a little different than the tear sheets from the Saturday Evening Post, where it was originally published… Here is the link.

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Thoughts

Apple releases Boot Camp!

In a surprising move, Apple has released software that makes it super easy for people to install and run Windows on Apple machines. This is interesting on all levels. I can understand the benefits, but this is a huge risk as well. There are plenty of caveats to this. I wonder what’s going through Steve Jobs’ mind here. He’s clearly inviting a side-by-side comparison of operating systems by doing this, and hoping that hardware and looks alone will persuade people to buy a Mac. Now people will have a choice when purchasing hardware for Windows. Will they be willing to pay more for a Mac? We’ll see! I for one hope so. :-). Here is the link.

➡ Updated 2/17/08: We know what happened by now, don’t we? Apple’s become even more popular, and Boot Camp has been integrated into Leopard, the latest version of OS X.

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