Category: Tech
June 24, 2008
Neat Weather Underground Feature
I've been using Weather Underground alongside weather.com for a while now as it gives an alternate view on things, even if not particularly more accurate. Just today, though, I followed a link that generated a great Google Maps view with lots of overlays that can be turned on and off. It's quite wonderful -- they call it the WunderMap. Also neat is that you can create links to it -- the one I got this screen shot off of is right here.
One great feature is the ability to turn animation on and off as well as the "storm track" feature -- you can see it in the shot as the long white arrows. These seem most accurate for figuring out of a particular piece of weather will cross your area or not.
Additionally, at their iPhone site (simply i.wund.com), they have a nice summary page for zip codes that can even animate the radar image. The whole page is nice, quick, and designed well for the iPhone. Their "tab bar" is pretty well done, too, even if it isn't a "real" one.
The iPhone site works great in Firefox but draws more accurately in Safari, of course.
Anyway, I just found these to be interesting, even if well known to others.
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(0)June 5, 2008
A Great Library Feature
So, I went in to get my library card today. We had a look around at the library. It's quite nice and modern inside, with a separate computer lab for kids and for adults. There were lots of well organized books, too, of course (something about that in the definition of the word library).
In any case, on the counter, I saw a sign about downloading audio books. Naturally, I was intrigued. So, I grabbed the card and took it home so I could remember the simple site for it: http://nh.lib.overdrive.com.
So, I go there and find that there are, indeed, plenty of books for free download. Well, let's call it checking them out, actually. More on that later. On the front page was a link I had to click: "iPod and Mac users, click here". Being an iPod user, I clicked and got this:
Read the rest of "A Great Library Feature"May 30, 2008
New MovableType AntiSpam Service Supports WordPress?
I just got this from the folks over at SixApart:
We’re thrilled to let the entire Movable Type community know about TypePad AntiSpam. It’s our new, totally free comment spam blocking service for your Movable Type blog, available as a beta test version right now, that you can enable by installing a simple, free plugin.
Powered by Movable Type’s sister service TypePad, this new AntiSpam power works for all Movable Type blogs version 3.3 or later, as well as WordPress, and connects directly to the smart Junk Folder system built in to MT. By learning and adapting over time, TypePad AntiSpam just keeps getting smarter. And because TypePad AntiSpam is Open Source, just like Movable Type itself, expert users can even run their own antispam services and tweak to their heart’s content.
I'm quite glad it supports MT 3.3. It's quite curious, though, that it works with WordPress. One could see that as yet another move on their part to grab WordPress folks by seeing how good their stuff is. But the better way to look at it is that the better spam blocking gets across all blogs the more likely we are to see a reduction in spam attempts because the cost of entry will continue to rise. That's a Good Thing. I'll be installing this. Why, you might ask?
Read the rest of "New MovableType AntiSpam Service Supports WordPress?"May 29, 2008
MetroFi Shutdown Notice
Well, we knew this was coming, but it's really too bad. Having WiFi around is nice like this. I suspect that folks just didn't know it was there or didn't know you could get it for free. Additionally, it wouldn't work with mobile devices. And, of course, plenty of coffee shops and bookstores have WiFi and, if you have a choice, you'll choose the closer signal.
My experience with it was mixed. The issue was that the signal was coming from the road. So, the easiest place to use them from was in a parking lot near the road near the "tower device."
Anyway, here's the letter I got:
Read the rest of "MetroFi Shutdown Notice"May 18, 2008
Going Social
I'm trying to be more social. Not in the classic sense, of course. After all, I'm a geek which, by definition, means I fit many anti-social behavior patterns. Now, I seem to recall people calling me anti-social when I spent all my time hiding in my room and communicating with dozens of others doing the same thing on a MUD. I still have a hard time seeing that as being anti-social, considering most of the time I'd be socializing since I scripted my MUD client (tintin++) to handle most basic actions.
Anyway, I'm rambling on (that was a tag-line on my blog at one point). My point here is that I've started to use and/or join with a variety of the social networks. I've been on Flickr since early 2005 but never really used it much, for instance.
Why the change?
Read the rest of "Going Social"Blog Comments, Spam, and Disqus
So, as most know, I was very busy at work until just about two weeks ago. What happened two weeks ago? I left where I worked. The point? Before two weeks ago I didn't have any time at all to deal with comment spam. Nor have I had time to deal with the fact that my blog needs to be upgraded to MT4, which I'm sure will help some. That doesn't help the fact that yesterday I sorted through over 22,000 comments and 99.96% were spam. As an aside, if you've done a real comment in the last 6 months and it's not posted it never will be now.
However, I don't think upgrading to MT4 will help 100% considering the motivation of the spammers. Even sorting through a few hundred isn't something I really want to do. So, I've been evaluating Disqus for the comments. Using Disqus will provide a number of benefits. However, it also comes with a couple of negatives. First, the negatives (that's just the way I am).
As a blog owner, I want control over the comments. Using Disqus, I have full control over the comments but they aren't in my database. According, the a FAQ, though, with the MovableType plugin, the contents will be rendered via the API from the server side, so I don't have to worry about search results or anything like that.
If Disqus goes away, or even just goes down, so would my comments. For my blog, that's not critical but it would be quite annoying. They've recently had such an outage and have responded to it quite well, in my opinion. Still, It's a risk.
Disqus also requires a form of login. Well, even if it doesn't require a login, I want to require a login, so this negative would apply regardless of using Disqus or not. In any case, this will raise the bar for people commenting. I've definitely gotten a reasonable share of real anonymous comments. Do I really want those? Maybe not, but they have added to the conversations. Requiring, however, is the key to spam reductions and the key to increase the value of the comments. Disqus supports many systems so I'm confident that folks will have some place they can log in to, assuming they'll trust Disqus.
The positives for me, however, outweigh the negatives.
Read the rest of "Blog Comments, Spam, and Disqus"April 30, 2008
Nokia N95 GPS Tip on AT&T
Do you have a Nokia N95? Do you want to use GPS? Does the GPS seem very slow? If so, check out these couple of tips to see if you can speed it up. Mine is fast now, and works indoors.
First, check what your current settings are for positioning. These are found pretty deep down in the menus at: "Menu->Tools->Settings->General->Positioning->Positioning Methods". Is GPS on? Is assisted GPS on? What about Network Based?
Network based will work much like the iPhone currently works. It'll get you the general area, and might be close by accident. GPS is the true GPS. Assisted GPS, however, is what didn't work for me. Until I added Nokia's positioning server. This setting is under Positioning->Positioning Server->Server address. I made mine "supl.nokia.com" and now I can get a very accurate position indoors.
If your phone didn't need this or already had a setting, let us know what it is. Mine, which I just got from Amazon a week ago, didn't have any of this set up at all.
Also, if you want to tag images in a lighter way than ShoZu, try out Nokia's beta application, Location Tagger. The site implies this will eventually be in the firmware, but for now it's a beta application that runs in the background.
April 29, 2008
Why I Now Own a Nokia N95
Yeah, you read right. I have a Nokia N95. Technically, it's a Nokia N95-3. That's the US 3G version that has a measly 160MB of internal storage and microSDHC card slot for expansion (it came with a 1GB card in it, too). The N95-4 with 8GB of internal storage and a large screen is nice, but it has no memory card slot which is substantially less useful.
Don't I have an Apple iPhone? Why yes, I do! It's a very sad iPhone now, too, but it's not nearly as lonely -- I'm carrying both around.
But isn't the iPhone the best phone out there? Yes, it absolutely is. There's no doubt about that. It's not a perfect phone, but it really is the best. And by best, I mean the easiest and most intuitive to use. Even the on-screen keyboard is typically easier to use than most physical keyboards (how many of those do you see with a ".com" button or single click access to just about every symbol?).
So, why is it that you now have a Nokia N95? First let me tell you about SIM cards...
Read the rest of "Why I Now Own a Nokia N95"April 18, 2008
TV for Web Video
Why don't more people use their TVs for web video? Netflix, Hulu, Joost, Adobe Media Player, and the direct network sites such as abc.com, nbc.com, thecw.com, and so on all have streaming videos of many of their shows available for the low cost of only a few ads (compared to nearly 20 minutes of ads during broadcast for an hour long show) or none, in the case of Hulu. Some even provide movies (Netflix, of course, and Hulu). Some also do HD streaming. On ABC, this translates to 720p video at about 2 Mbps. The result is video that looks better than a DVD.
I'm constantly seeing how even relatively savvy people watch these services on their laptop but state that because it's still a so-called lean-forward experience that they don't use them much. Why is this? Both of our TVs have VGA input, with a standard DB25 connector. They're just LCD monitors that have a physical resolution of 1920x1080, which may even be lower than your laptops display (many 15+ inch displays have 1920x1200 displays). I tend to leave a VGA cable hanging out so all I have to do is plug it in to the machine. In Windows XP, you'll probably have to tell it a monitor is plugged in but in Vista it just figures it out and goes. Then you I just play the video full screen on the TV display. Simple.
Yet, very few people seem to do this. It can't get much easier than that short of a dedicate HTPC or set top box that can handle the video. So, why don't more people do it?
Even if their TVs don't have VGA input, DVI and HDMI are relatively common on TVs and are also starting to become common place on computers and even laptops (I've got a three year old laptop here that has DVI).
To me, doing this seems like the perfect way to not have to pay for cable or DVR service. Add Netflix to the mix, and you've got all the HD titles you can rent available to you in a day or two (arguably faster than some download services).
What's stopping you? Is it that you browse while watching TV? I can still do that -- the show is on the second screen and doesn't use all the power of even my 2 Ghz Core 2 to play. (My iPhone also works brilliantly for browsing in front of the TV.)
November 30, 2007
The Big Switch
So, as some may know, I've had an Apple iPhone for quite a while. I got it on one of the prepay plans because I wasn't sure if the coverage would be good enough for my needs and I didn't want to be stuck with two years at $70 per month. In addition, I've still be carrying my Verizon LG VX9800 ("The V") and the Sprint LG Musiq.
Well, two days ago (from the start of this writing) I ported my Verizon number over to the iPhone. Nothing is as simple as it sounds, though.
Read the rest of "The Big Switch"